Yelm's Light

I wish I'd've seen the Convulsion event. I'll bet it was interesting and occasionally inventive.

The [Unknown] looks like Moon to me.

Ohhh...kay... Wouldn't that be Ralzakark 'goatfully carried on?'

Given that there's very likely a much higher percentage of RQ grognards who would pay $50 for a draft copy of the rules, I'd be willing to bet it's somewhat more than 4. Yes, I'm a pie-in-the-sky optimist, but grounded in reality.

Hmm...you could say the same thing about shields vs. missile attacks. I never used that table so I won't miss it.

As a not-entirely-tangential aside, and because I didn't want to bump the Hsunchen topic so far out of order, I've been doing a bit of research on the Telmori, and found mention of the Wolf Mark in the Dorastor (AH) book. Does anyone know if there are any images of the Mark itself? I've tried googling around a bit and found nothing. (I thought a mix of parts of the Man and Beast runes would be interesting, but I doubt that's what the actual Mark looks like.)

How about Wyrm's Footprints 2, with content from those authors who do agree? I doubt there'd be all that much time lost, let alone wasted, in attempting to contact them.* * - especially considering that half of them seem to work or have worked for or with Chaosium...

Eh, the Grandmothers' control is somewhat less subtle than the Voice.

It reminds me a lot of the competition between Houses in Brust's Jhereg series.

Huh...I missed the sentence in the QS under successful parry where the attacking weapon takes full damage on a failed attack. I'd immediately HR that to 1 point, as with every other case of damage to an involved weapon/shield, as I'd assumed it was already.

As usual, these are my interpretations, based primarily on a RQ2 view: #1 - I prefer the first rule (treat crit vs. crit as normal attack/parry). #2 - The distinction is that of failed attack vs. successful attack. In all three cases, you're still talking about only 1 point of damage done to the weapon, so I don't think it's excessive. In RQ2, weapons could take up to 4 points of damage per parried attack. I'd expect that breakage isn't as much of an issue in the new rules. #3 - I tend to go with the latter suggestion (-20% from parry). #4 - I HR'ed the 'special shield attack' (bash) to include a chance of knockback a la grappling. The attack is still treated as a separate skill, but gives a possible advantage to using the shield in melee. As far as the question of skill, I'm not sure how to reconcile that from the point of view of realism. Parrying with a weapon is generally more likely to damage the attacking weapon than parrying with a shield because blows tend to glance off of the shield. (Shield spikes are a possible issue, but I've never run into a circumstance in-game where the player thought to have one installed or integrated into the shield.) #5 - I HR this as you've suggested, treating SR 0 as SR 1, and in the special case of a SR 0 attack against an opponent who would normally attack at SR 1, the SR 0 attack goes first. In case of SR 0 vs. SR 0 attacks, as with any opposing attacks happening in the same SR, I go with higher DEX attacking first, or a dice-off if both DEXs are equal. Either way, both attacks are still technically treated as occurring in SR 1 for the purposes of ancillary melee events. #6 - My reading of adjacent is based on the body parts involved, not simply one location up or down on the hit location chart (i.e., head, chest, abdomen, left arm, and left leg would be adjacent to a left-handed parry). While it's possible to deflect an attack to a further location, it's not very likely, and I don't see how it would weaken the attack very much. I like their interpretation as a general rule that avoids the complexities of unlikely occurrences.

I really like the Morokanth...not so much with the troll. It looks more like a trollkin, short and squat.

Just watch out for the PFJ's crack suicide squad... (Or was that the JPF?)

Attacking it from another angle, it makes little sense not to allow parry(ies) in the same round, because MR's then devolve into a guessing game as to whether your opponent will choose to attack or parry that round. So both combatants decide to parry, and nothing happens for that round? Or both attack, leaving themselves defenseless for the entire round? Definitely not the way it works in reality, and I've done my fair share of melee combat. (Actual combat is quite a bit more complicated than that, but I don't want to derail this into a discussion of battle tactics.) 1- That's a balance thing. What it does is give the dual weapon user a wider range of tactics without making dual wield so overpowered when compared to single-weapon use that every power gamer dual wields instead of letting the RP determine their weapon configuration. At least in my game, the single-weapon wielder only has the last option you mention (barring splitting attacks, a different complication). 2- The closest I came to playing BRP were the various flavors of Stormbringer, Ringworld, CoC, etc., and I always assumed that the system was the same as RQ2, which I'd been used to playing long before I played those other games. (Barring the use of more modern weapons, of course. Big Ringworld fan here, btw...I wish I still had it, though I had quite a bit of trouble getting many others interested in it). 3- While I liked the campaign/scenario packs of RQ3, I was never a fan of the system itself. RQ2 worked just fine for me, so I simply converted the scenarios. 4- See Paid a bod yn dwp's comment.

The limitation is one I imposed because I find it hard to believe, for instance, that someone using a long spear is going to be able to pull off a beat-and-thrust. (You also can't riposte if you've already attacked in the round in my game.) Special or not, the mechanics are the same; only the timing is different. I don't require some form of riposte skill. So, I interpret from the first paragraph that a 1H/shield wielder would still be able to parry with the shield in addition to attacking with the weapon?

p. 19 For context: immediately before that is the section on Attack. Thus, the "also" above refers to the attack. Have you really been playing all this time with just a single attack or parry per round for single weapon users?

Any number of maneuverable weapons can riposte, including all of the fencing weapons, long- and shortswords, some axes (depending on how the parry actually occurred), maces and clubs.

That would be an accurate appraisal, since it is realistic...and also explicitly allowed under RQ2 rules. ETA: Melee weapon, that is.

Don't look at me.

The Lightbringer myth explains why Yelm has the Death rune (his time in the Underworld), It's more clearly representative than Stasis, if you ask me. Yeah, I know, you didn't.

I have one word for you. Riposte.

I found the ISBN (0-8359-6870-7) and did a search; its publication date is December 1980. Less than $30 used from Amazon, be prepared to quintuple that for a new copy, assuming it's available.

It's been around since at least 1984, when I bought it to replace my well-thumbed first softbound copy. The copyright dates in it end at 1980, so there's at most a four-year window for its release. I still have it, as a matter of fact. I believe the dust jacket was the same cover as the softbound version with the Luise art, but mine fell by the wayside years ago.

I can't say that I'm particularly satisfied with any of the logos. The original ones look too fanzine-ish, and the AH ones are generic and bland. I'm not even sure where the Ghost Rider flame-logo comes from, but no, just no. I keep wanting to read the QS logo as 'RuneyQuest.' I don't think the logo needs to include runes, either. Of all of them, if forced to choose with no other option, I'd go with the Mongoose 'Runequest II' font, without runes. Runner-up is the new one.

Ah, the old Frazetta fascination. After all, what's a hero without a scantily-clad woman kneeling at his feet?