Jason D

The Defense characteristic is not used in RQG.

Dodge and Jump are both primarily built on muscle reaction and exertion, hence the base chance being based primarily on the raw characteristic. Orate and Persuade are skills one learns through social interaction. You can have a naturally high CHA and have no idea about public speaking, such as creating a convincing argument and keeping an audience rapt, or figuring out how to sway someone in the short-term that helping you is in their best interests. There are many, many real-world examples of people that are attractive and charming, and yet come across as complete idiots when speaking publicly... but I am hard-pressed to fink of examples of highly-agile people who are not good at jumping and feats of body-eye coordination (like dodging).

Ah, the pen-and-paper version of the leafy branch from MMO fame (forgot which one), where due to an absurdly high attack speed a low-damage novelty item for druids (the leafy branch) became one of the most deadly weapons in the game before being patched. I should start a thread in the Stormbringer forum about best exploits for that game.

Cousin Monkey bravely volunteers to stay back and watch cow!

To keep things simple, we've avoided a lot of carryover effects from one round to another. Long, bitter experience at the gaming table has indicated that players inevitably end up with one of two situations: Player: "I forgot I had a bonus from last round! Crap!" GM: "Are you still adding that bonus? That expired last round." Player: "Crap. Sorry!"

We'd rather limit combat actions using the splitting attacks rule we've got in place. Combat is already deadly and crunchy enough without giving high % characters the chance to do multiple attacks per round even when they've got little chance of success, "just because". Use of Mobility would make that even more of an abuse.

Whoops... got my replies out of order. 1) Different damage types do different specials. For the quickstart we streamlined it to one type. For impales and slashes, damage modifier is not doubled. For a crush, damage is rolled normally and the maximum damage modifier is applied plus rolled damage modifier. 2. Yes, a crit does whatever the special damage type is AND ignores the armor. 3. A critical hit ignores worn armor and any other protection. It's the most powerful result. 3 (you have two 3s... sneaky!) and 4. Yes, a fumbled Dodge means that the attacker automatically hits (a normal success) unless the attacker also rolls a fumble, at which point everyone should just call it quits and go home before they embarrass themselves further. No Dodge fumble table. It's bad enough that the defender has stepped clumsily into the path of an attack that would have missed. 5. Yes, we're trying to keep things simple, and RQG does not use the "shifting success" of BGB BRP. 6. Normal damage, not special/crit damage. 7. Yes, we wanted to make critical vs. critical be a dramatic exception. Rolling a critical parry vs. a critical attack shouldn't yield in a disappointment when your weapon shatters. 8. As noted prior, the quickstart uses an earlier iteration of the rules at the time the quickstart was developed. The above excerpt is the current state of the rules. 9. Even when.

Ultimately, combat in any RPG is an abstraction, and we're aiming for a sort of mid-crunch that gives a bit of flavor, but doesn't attempt to mimic each footstep, feint, and angle of every blow. Breaking down individual weapons into ratings of "more/less likely to damage attacker's weapon when parrying" is, I feel, an unmanageable amount of detail. I've personally broken a wood-axe while chopping wood... but not many would claim that a piece of stationary firewood is a danger to an axe. In combat, a well-utilized shield incorporates the edge as well as the point. Parrying a blow could mean hitting that edge hard against the blade of a sword, bending it and making it more brittle when it's bent back. Or it ruins the edge. Ancient world and iron age combat is full of examples of weapons bending. A reputed Viking tactic was to use a shield to trap a sword used against it by letting it sink into the edge by a few inches, and then maneuvering the shield forcefully to either disarm the attacker or even bend/break their weapon. A weapon is more than the striking head, as well. A shield might guide the weapon to striking the wall/ground/etc. to damage it. A well-parried blow might cause a sword-blade to become loose in the hilt, or knock part of the crosspiece off. It might cause damage to a hafted weapon by making the socket loose. Similarly, a hafted weapon doesn't need to be parrying directly with the haft directly, like a quarterstaff. That's a great way to damage the haft. You parry with a hafted weapon by guiding a blow away from yourself, such as into the ground or air. A parry can also be a defensive attack, using a spear-head as a chopping weapon to hack at the haft of another weapon (but this is less common) while it's in the midst of an attempted strike. Statistically, also, shields are much less likely to damage weapons than weapons will damage shields. Damage for small/medium/large shields is relatively low (1d3/1d4/1d6) which puts a small or medium shield's damage range at lower than a dagger, and a large shield at roughly the same as a light club.

In answer to your questions: 1. Yes, the penalty for multiple parries is cumulative vs. all opponents. You don't start the modifier fresh with each new attacker. 2. Yes, you dodge separately per attack. 3. You can dodge and parry in the same round, but (I should clarify that) the penalty applies to either/both... so if you Dodge once and parry once, your second action is at -20%, your third at -40%, etc. i. You can parry or dodge vs. the same opponent, with the caveats above. ii. Yes.

That is indeed what the Quickstart said. I have qualified that prior with the statement that the QS represents a compressed version of the rules that both tried to hit the "normal" level of crunchiness for the system, but also was playable in a short session with new players. It also represents the state of the rules in (IIRC) early February when it was written. At that time, we were tweaking some existing rules. The feedback then was very pro- weapon/shield damage. People liked the inevitable wear and tear on weapons and their gear, and the playtests were very enthusiastic about things like shields being cloven, etc. Here's the text from the current iteration of the rules dealing with just these issues: Summary of Combat Actions Attack A regular success does normal rolled damage plus damage modifier. A special success does special damage (impaling, slashing, crushing) plus damage modifier. A critical success ignores armor and does special damage plus damage modifier. Dodge A successful Dodge roll avoids any damage. A special success with a Dodge roll is required to avoid a special success attack, and a critical success Dodge roll is required to avoid a critical success attack. Parry A successful parry always blocks an attack, whether the attack is a regular, special, or critical success. In each case, the attacker rolls damage. If the damage is below the parrying weapon/shield’s hit points, no damage is done. If damage exceeds parrying weapon/shield’s hit points, excess damage always goes to an adjacent hit location on the defender (see page @@) and the parrying weapon/shield loses 1 hit point. When parrying an attack that rolled a special success, the excess damage above the parrying weapon/shield goes to an adjacent hit location on the defender (see page @@) and the parrying weapon/shield loses the same amount of hit points. A parry vs. an impaling attack might mean the attacker’s weapon is stuck into the shield (see page @@). When parrying a critical success, rolled damage is applied directly to the parrying weapon/shield’s hit points. If it exceeds the hit points, the parrying weapon/shield is destroyed. Any excess damage goes to an adjacent location on the defender, and armor is not subtracted. A special parry vs. a normal attack allows the defender to roll the parrying weapon/shield’s damage and compare it to the attacking weapon’s hit points. If the damage done from the parry exceeds the attacking weapon’s hit points, it takes 1 hit point of damage. A critical parry versus a normal or special attack will apply the parrying weapon/shield’s damage directly to the attacker’s weapon. A critical parry vs. a critical attack avoids all damage altogether. Each subsequent parry after the first is reduced by –20%, cumulatively. A weapon or shield cannot be used to attack and/or parry in the same strike rank, nor can one be used to attack and/or parry more than once in the same strike rank.

I'm not a moderator and can't make any changes.

Glad to hear it went well! On a side note, I ended up running this adventure around 7 times in the two weeks leading up to FRPGD, and every time I had Idrima make a different offer to the adventurers, ranging from half to 1 in 10 of the cattle. It's interesting how often they came away with completely different deals, all the while thinking that it was a good result.

We are indeed paying close attention to feedback!

Yes. It does make missile weapons faster to use than melee, but this is offset by the fact that firing into melee is extremely risky, and firing while engaged in melee is extremely difficult.

You can attack twice in a round if your skill is 100% or over (before modifiers or augments), and both attacks have to be at 50% or higher. The second attack happens at the SR of the first plus the second.

In order: If you flee and are able to get out of range, you're no longer engaged or immediately threatened by any antagonists. You are assumed to be nothing but moving, so you get your full MOV in meters. For someone to continue to attack you, they need to either switch to a melee weapon or give up their own attacks and parries and pursue. If you are disengaging, you are at half your MOV in meters, and are able to defend. Your opponents, however, can just as easily follow you without giving up any of their attacks and/or parries. Yes, it's Varanik.

They do affect the overall hit points of the character suffering the damage. Limbs aren't simple modular components for living beings: they're still full of vital tissue and are still very much "alive", despite being unusable. After a limb's taken twice its hit points, it is unusuable, but further/subsequent blows are considered to strike other parts of that limb, causing additional bleeding, wound shock, and trauma, all of which affect the body as a whole.

The word "relevant" is key here. You might find yourself in a situation where you'd like to augment but a passion isn't applicable, so a Rune is the way to go. Or vice versa. The gamemaster can, and should, veto any attempt at an augment that doesn't make any sense, such as using a Beast Rune for tactical combat, or a Loyalty to something that isn't being threatened.

Yes, she's three meters tall (SIZ 25) so her hit locations are adjusted for combat vs. a human-sized opponent.

Anything not covered in the rules explicitly is generally recommended as 5 SRs. That would be a "as quick as I can" dismount, versus a leisurely dismount out of combat. I wouldn't require a skilled cavalry soldier to make a Ride check to dismount, any more than I'd have a soldier have to roll to switch weapons.

Welcome to the most hotly-debated aspect of the Basic Roleplaying system... the opposed role resolution! It's been mostly answered below, but if you've got non-matching outcomes (normal success vs. a special success, special success vs. a critical) the better result (not the roll) wins. If you have matching results (normal vs. normal, special vs. special, crit vs. crit) then you compare the highest of the actual number. This gives the higher skilled character the advantage. It's the easiest (if non-intuitive) means of handling it, because otherwise you're dealing with subtracting or some other complicated resolution.

We're happy for any/all feedback. Even stuff we don't act on is useful to hear.

I've passed the info on, but the uploads/etc. are out of my ability to control.

Gotcha. In this case, "move" means non-combat movement. You can take half your movement rate during combat as part of that combat, but you're still technically "engaged" in combat. 1 MOV equals 1 meter when in combat (so you can move up to 4 meters in combat for free,8 meters doing nothing but moving) versus out-of-combat movement, when you can move up to 24 meters.

It's part of the GM Pack, and should be released simultaneously with the core rulebook and the bestiary. Yes, it's hard to find time away from the convention, and wifi is not awesome there. That said, it's a castle on a hill overlooking the Rhine, so if there's a time to put the glowing screen down... it's then. Copies weren't floating around. I haven't seen a print copy yet, and they're due to arrive in Europe sometime later this week. Prospective GMs have been given preview copies of the .pdf as part of the Cult of Chaos program.