RosenMcStern

It goes ka-boom for me, even after insstalling DotNet.

No, not usually. Most of the competent fighters are roughly accurate to within 10-15cm, and usually blows are striking on the deflecting surfaces of the armour. The thing is they are not deliberately aiming for soft spots or gaps, so for them it is more incidental than anything else.

The highest skilled fighters are very surgical in their accuracy, and can use gaps and openings of down to about 5cm or so.

...

The more evenly matched you are with your foe, the more difficult it is to access those weaker points.

Great! This really helped me for the game I am designing now. Thank you Pete!

I think the debate is over, then. We have played with the "Halve your chance when you aim" rule for 30 years, and it can still "feel right" for many, but the "choose location when you hit well" model seems to be more realistic.

However, I would still consider it appropriate to make "Choose Location" a crit-only manoeuver for ranged weapons, at least when you are not at point blank.

One very important question about armour, Pete: do combatants succeed at hitting the weak spots in armour, too, when they strike the intended location?

The classic RQ3 magic systems have been converted for Fantasy Grounds. You can now use Spirit Magic, Divine Magic, RQ3 Sorcery and Ritual Magic in your online games.

http://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13760

a)

I have never used THAT rule even in MRQ2, and it always worked fine for me.

Use the BRP rules. One blow in five, among weaponmasters, cannot be parried.

I think the only situation where "Choose Location" is not very appropriate for non-critical attacks is with ranged weapons. If there is one weak spot in MRQ2 combat, it is that it uses the same manoeuvres for both melee and missile combat. But in hand-to-hand combat, I think most have agreed that it is random location choosing that seems weird.

Logically it just seems wrong to determine that you aimed for a location after you have already landed the blow. As stated before a sequence issue. I can understand if others have no issues with this. Its just something that stands out for me.

This is actually a design technique (you roll in the middle of the procedure). It stresses tactical choices more than tactical chances, because you apply tactical decisions only to exchanges you have actually won. When you lose, what you were attempting is not important: you just lost. Although it sounds weird if you are used to the classic approach (you roll at the end of the procedure), it is actually considered a better design choice.

For me at least, its not the intent to strike at a specific location. Its the mechanic that allows the choice of this after a successful attack. Aiming at a specific part of the body or item is a conscious task that takes place before any action is taken... after all you are "aiming" or "targeting", which you do before committing to the action.

The mechanics of "Apply modifiers for tactics before rolling" has been around for at least three decades. But this does not mean that it is the correct representation of making tactical choices.

I repeat my question: why should going for the best possible location increas my chance of fumbling?

Part of the reason for restricting Choose Location is that my players pick it every time

This was reported during playtest, and it was found both Fun and Realistic by the Weaponmaster.

Hello Steve,

Glad to see you appear here once in a while. It was great to meet you in person in Lucca! Unfortunately, Massimo did not allow me to run a demo in that mess, so we could not show you how it actually works, but MRQ2 is a great deal different from old BRP mechanics. It incorporated some bits of HeroQuest (not much) and the new Combat Rules are now firmly based on the concept of Degree of Success. As I remember how your suggestion got rejected by Mongoose during the RQ playtest in 2005, I was surprised how Loz and Pete could finally manage to incorporate DoS in RuneQuest II. A good move.

If you need some translation, I will be glad to provide help. But Google Translate is fine too

Paolo

Modifying the skill roll according to the chosen tactics means that for 12 seconds a master swordsman will only commit to hitting the head, not considering other options - disarm, trip, etc. - even if the foe leaves an opening for them. No real weaponmaster would make such a stupid mistake. I have played with "tactics gives modifier to skill roll" mechanics for 20+ years, but now that Loz and Pete introduced this variant, I see it is a better simulation, not just a quicker resolution method.

Moreover, the whole thing about modifiers is not necessary if the attack roll is contested. Why apply modifiers due to what your foe might be doing, if the real groundbreaker is the fact that he is rolling for defense?

I still fail to see why going for an aimed blow should increase my chance of fumbling, for instance....

I mean, if hits can typically opt to strike the location with weakest armour, then armour is devalued.

Armor prevents your opponent from using Impale or Bleed manoeuvers, so wearing it is always an advantage. I would rather say that it is given its right value, i.e. keeping you alive but not preventing you from being defeated. Whereas in some BRP incarnations armour can win a fight.

And here I meant, does it [deflections etc striking unintended locations] happen in Real World combat (frequently)? Because if so, then the random location roll simulates that, without need for a more complex mechanic.

It is not more complex. Try it, you need only a single sheet of paper with the manouevers on the table.

And striking unintended locations happens IRL when it happens in MRQII: when your blow is deflected or you strike wildly for max effect. With a wide open, you usually choose where to strike. The only difference is that in MRQ2 you first determine that there IS a wide open, and then you decide whether you are going for the best possible spot to hit or swinging wildly to do more damage.

Interesting. If so, this undermines the Armour Points mechanism too. But surely there are times, in actual combat, when partial dodges, deflections, etc result in strikes to locations other than intended?

Why undermines?

And yes, there are times when it does happen. Exactly in the cases you specified: I attack with greatsword, you parry with broadsword, half damage goes through, but since I do not get a manoeuver I do not choose the location. Exactly the "Partial Deflection" effect you advocated.

Combat manoeuvers and parry by weapon size are way more elegant a mechanics than one might initially think

On the contrary, I see all suggestions except Frogspawner's one (the End of the World is near!) as ultimately less viable. It is your game so you are the ultimate judge about the rules applied, but there are two important points you should understand:

a) Manoeuvers are designed to happen with every single combat exchange, not just "in some cases" like it happens in BRP. In this sense, you should not apply the BRP impale when you score a special with CM, but the MRQ version. Moreover, the MRQ system fixes a flaw that has existed in BRP, GURPS and WHFRP II for years: actually, you do not hit a random location in melee, but usually choose the weakest one and go for it as soon as an opening appears. Combat Manoeuvers achieve this result: when you hit and you are not parried, you usually choose where you hit, as it happens in real life. But if you need a special vs. failure, this realism does not happen.

The best advantage of combat manoeuvers is that they are a "Fortune in the Middle" feature: you roll, and then you decide what happens. This eliminates the painstaking process of determining the best tactics to apply by cross-indexing the difference between the reduced chance and the increased damage, and then rolling 90. Manoeuvers, contrarily to what you may think at first glance, actually speed up combat, as they make munchkin-style pre-rolling planning pointless. If you nerf them back to options that are applied before rolling, you lose this enormous advantage.

It takes some time to get accustomed to these two facts, but once you apply them in play they make damn good sense!

How about 1 CM per Level of Success difference, but regard Fumble just as Failure for the calculation?

I think this would be the best option.

Are you referring to Chaosium products or are you including 3rd party publishers ?

Chaosium has the BGB, Devil's Gultch and Trollslayer as full products ( not including Superworld or Nephilism )

Chronicles of the Future Earth is coming, and it is a full book. And Classic Fantasy will become a full product, too.

Of course, if you mention and include Alephtar products in the list, I will not complain

BRP Mecha is Hard Sci-Fi? Interesting.... Does it come with a setting? Near Future or Far?

No, just a lot of gadgets for ships and robots. It is a tool, not a complete setting.

Hmmm, you will get a totally different beast this way. In MRQ2, all unparried successful attacks get a CM. With your rule, all unparried special attacks get a CM. It will be much rarer to get a CM. I do not think that a total of 3 or 4 CM in a single attack will make all this difference. Just keep the Crit-only manoeuvers limited to RQ3 criticals, and you should be fine.

Unfortunately, I cannot release BRP Mecha yet. It would be a great promotion to have something hard sci-fi to go with BRP alongside the usual fantasy and historical. But playtest is only 25% complete, and some rules need further elaboration.

I was referring to the ratio of mono vs. full products that are being published now. THAT has changed.

So much for those who stated that Chaosium did not want to invest in BRP.

Is it my impression or the ratio of Monograph versus full products has changed a lot, lately.

We will manage to put something in about elephants, but more in the form of "Have your troops stand still while Hannibals' elephants are charging them" than Legolas-style combat between player characters and elephants.

Even if it means less BRP stuff available in the future , we are all happy to hear about your promotion, Jason.

The Celestial Empire (formerly known as Tian Xia) will go to the printer on monday. You should be able to place your greedy fingers on it for Christmas, at least if you pre-order it from Cubicle Seven.

Here is the table of contents:

Introduction

The Setting

Character Generation

Chinese Martial Arts

Chinese Magic

Sects and Organizations

Equipment

Creatures

Appendix

We should be able to provide some goodies that did not fit into the book for time/space contraints as free downloads at the start of December, along with the classic "preview".

Alephtar Games is pleased to announce a follow-up to its award-winning game Rome: Life and Death of the Republic, a historical setting for Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying Game. This new supplement, titled Generals and Senators, will be published in late 2011, and contains a grand, elaborate Roman campaign that will span the entire timeline of the Punic Wars as well as additional rules to enhance the gaming experience of role-playing in Republican Rome.

The main developer for this sourcebook will be Kenneth Spencer, historian, educator, columnist for rpg.net and a freelance author who has worked for Steve Jackson Games, Chaosium, Frog God Games, and contributed to the Rome: Life and Death of the Republic adventure pack Veni, Vidi, Vici.

Ask Dario if he has some unused color artwork. Probably he does. Also, I would find Simon Bray's original cover for OpenQuest rather appropriate for Glyphmaster. As OpenQuest has a new cover made by Jon Hodgson, you could ask Simon if you can use that one.