Paid a bod yn dwp

How does the lunar sultan fit into this? Is it still used? 

Always enjoy the gritty RuneQuest Gloranthan combat experience, which for me helps ground the higher fantasy aspects of the game. Breaking weapons/shields and loosing limbs is big part of that. 

In RQG there have been a few tweaks to the way weapons and shields receive damage, as well as a slight change to the point at which limbs are severed. Instead of directly copying RQ2 or RQ3 you have found another all be it similar expression of this in the rules. What was the reasoning for this? 

Iirc the main conceptual difference in strike ranks between RQ2/RQG and RQ3, is that with RQ2/RQG movement is something that is figured in before engaging in combat, it’s purely there to establish the initiative order. In RQ3 it stretches the concept of movement to continue on to when the characters are engaged in combat as well. So in RQ3 it becomes more of a literal measure of time in the melee round by default as it’s not not just an abstract measure of movement before engagement (as in RQ2/RQG) to determine who goes first, but also through the whole combat engagement itself - RQ3 tries to measure/model  tactical advantages of movement whilst engaged in melee combat. 

Thanks all for your replies - that’s confirmed my understanding of the attack/parry chart results 

1 hour ago, kirinyaga said:

Even at 0hp it isn't pointless to parry : if you do a better parry than the attack, the parrying weapon hp doesn't matter. If you have nothing else to try ...

 

Ah that’s a good point - thanks 

I think that answers the final question - Why parry with a weapon with negative hp’s?
 

@Bill the barbarian The quest is now complete, we have now reached RQG combat enlightenment!...I can feel myself ascending to the hallowed halls of Humakt! 

7 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

And we are so close and yet so far, Paid a bod yn dwp, we all want to interview you for the podcast and should you agree I am thinking it will have to be for combat clarification!

We’re nearly there Bill! If it wasn’t for weapons going into negative hps this would be all over by now 🤪

4 hours ago, Kloster said:

7 hours ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

 

What I understand is that the weapon can act as a limb, ie. take (and absorb) damage that goes beyond 0.

Reading through RQG p200 it says that the weapon is considered “unusable” when it reaches 0 hit points. But it then contradicts by going on to say that you can continue to use the weapon at 1/2 skill. 
My interpretation would be that a weapon only blocks up to its positive hp’s when parrying. If it goes into negative hp you can try and attack with it at 1/2 skill but it will be ineffective at parrying any damage. 
 

But you’re right the text is not 100% clear on this, and that’s purely my interpretation there.  
 

Edit: The example on p 204 shows that a shield only blocks damage up to it’s HP’s of 16. It doesn’t block damage below 0 or negative hit points.
 

Edit: As a house rule I might be inclined to let a weapon with 0 or less hp’s make an attack at 1/2 skill, but that the damage it deals is also applied to itself.

1 hour ago, kirinyaga said:

 

it seems wrong as you take less damage by parying normally a crit attack than a special attack. I agree it should stop absorbing damage at 0.

Also note the special does the sam

 

I think you have misinterpreted. You don’t take less damage to a characters hit points parrying a crit vs a special. A weapon always deflects damage up to its HP no matter whether a special or crit.

What changes with a crit is the amount of damage the weapon takes. On Crits all the damage is applied directly to weapon HP, on a special only the damage above the weapon HP reduces the HP.

3 hours ago, Kloster said:

No (for me): If the weapon goes to -6 (I agree with you on that point), nothing goes to the arm. Damage i done to the limb (without armor, I agree with Soltakss) only if the weapon goes to -12. Then it is broken and can not be repaired.

I think at 0 hp the weapon becomes useless, so damage after that gets through. The minus is just to track when the weapon is completely destroyed/ irreparable. 

Nice review, had to skip the adventure side of it as I may be playing in the future. 
 

I agree i think Chaosium have done such a marvellous job in visualising the Orlanthi culture in these new RQG supplements. The art and maps are superb, and really express the original RQ2 feel of the ancient Bronze Age culture, but gives much more again. 

35 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Change from RQ2/RQ3 days! 😀

Ah of course! 

3 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Can they? I wasn't aware of that change. Sure, your example works better, then.

Don’t think that’s a change as far as I know. Second printing has it on p200

Good to know I’m not alone in interpreting it that way.

35 minutes ago, soltakss said:

If I do 18 points of damage on a critical hit  and am parried by a weapon with 12 Hit Points, the weapon takes 12 Hit Points of damage and the remaining 6 points goes through as damage, doing 6 points ignoring armour.

 

My interpretation is the same as yours except for your first example.

I would have said on a crit  of 18 dam vs Normal parry,  that the weapon would be at - 6 hps, ( taking the full rolled damage directly) and 6 hit points would go through as damage ignoring armour. 
 

edit: minus 6 because weapons can go into negative up to the same value as their hp’s

How do people interpret the chart result on Critical Attack vs Normal parry on the attack and parry results chart p199 of the RQG core rules?

Quote

parrying weapon HP reduced by the damage rolled. Any excess damage goes to adjacent hit location, with no armor protection.

It seems to me its saying that ALL damage goes directly to the weapon HP's, rather than (as in the case of Special vs Normal Parry) only the damage above the weapons HP.

The differentiation of wording for Special vs Normal Parry seems to imply this difference 

Quote

parrying weapon takes damage over its HP, with same amount of damage going to adjacent hit location.

Bold text is my emphasis.

Is this how others interpret the critical vs normal parry result?

11 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Personally, I think it’s silly. Someone slams a big honking poleaxe into your shield, that has every chance of doing damage, and certainly way more than a shortsword!

I believe it’s just meant for when you’re parrying with a long hafted weapon. I guess it assumes that your parrying with the long pole bit of the weapon, and not the relatively small metal head of the weapon, which would be trickier to deflect with.

Still easy to ignore that ruling on a case by case basis if it seems at odds to what’s happening in the game. 

1 hour ago, Nicochan said:

However, a weapon that parries a critical hit takes twice the damage it would take normally

As confirmed by Jason Durall somewhere on the forum, this is just a clumsy way of saying it takes the full critical damage to its AP as per the attack/parry chart 

16 minutes ago, Nicochan said:

If the attacking weapon is a long-hafted weapon or an impaling weapon, the parrying weapon takes no damage. 

Guess this is just a common sense ruling when pitting weapon against weapon 

Edit: I’d say they never damage the weapon. You’re blocking with the wooden haft of the pole, which is not going to create sufficient impact to cause damage.
Perhaps If there’s a spear point or something hard you could rule that a freak impact causes damage?

Regarding parries and shield parries, the attack vs parry chart is the safe (correct) reference for checking attack & parry results.

edit : yes best to  ignore that text (it’s quite wonky) and rely on the attack vs parry chart which is correct.

Agree it’s not an area that’s 100% clear in the core book. But thankfully we have official clarification now.

All crits ignore armour (though not magical protection) and do:

38 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

new rules may vary but for the moment the "double max" rule is just an answer in the forum and may be more explained / worked (and could be more consistent) Chaosium team makes a great job to answer so many questions, sometimes complex, sometimes so obvious. I m not sure the "double max" is exactly what they mean, but a quick answer to manage the flow of rules questions

 

Looks like It’s official having been through two Chaosium sources, with Jason’s final ruling. 

1 hour ago, tnli said:

OK, but how does the special and critical crush work when you have a negative damage bonus?

You roll great, and get less damage?

I think the wording says you loose the crush if you don’t have a damage modifier. Scott followed that up by saying:

“If a critical crush is rolled it does the maximum crushing damage, which is twice the maximum damage bonus plus the maximum weapon damage.

This also means that if the crusher has no damage bonus, the effect of the crush is lost and on a critical, weapon damage is maximum, but ignores armor.”

8 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

By other rulings, your "normal" damage bonus is not part of Special Damage - that's why you don't get maximized damage bonus on a slashing crit. By symmetry, only one instance of (maximized) damage bonus is part of the Crushing damage that gets maximized, and the second must be rolled as usual. It would be super weird if your regular damage bonus was maximized on a crushing crit but not on the slashing crit - where's that in the rules?

We now know what the ruling is for critical crush : Max rolled damage + Max dam Mod twice. Quite happy with that

I have sympathy for your reading of the rules though. Despite what @Scotty said in the core Q&A, there is a strong inference that there is a general rule for all crits on p200 in the boxed Summary Of Combat Results which really should be altered in any future printing of RQG:

Quote

Attack

* A normal Attack does normal rolled damage plus damage bonus

*A special success does special damage (impale, slashing, crushing) plus damage bonus

*A critical success ignores armour and does maximum special damage plus damage bonus

It infers that all dam bonus's are added normally after the special dam for any crit. Thanks to the Q&A we now know this is not correct for Crush. The same boxed text is repeated in the GM screen.

For future printings it would be helpful if they  gave an example of a critical crush in the rules.

1 minute ago, Akhôrahil said:

They have pretty clearly ruled that you don't max your DB on Slashing or Impaling, so it makes zero sense that you would on Crushing. I can't imagine that's the ruling.

The double dam bonus along with the rolled weapon damage is the *special damage* that gets maximised in the case of crush. 
 

9 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

This thing was finally sorted out!

(Max weapon damage) + (Max damage bonus) + (Rolled damage bonus)

This makes sense, is in accordance with what the rules actually say, and everything.

 

 

Yes except its:

Max rolled weapon damage + Max DB + Max DB