womble

And I'm wondering if this (Detect vs Countermagic) oughtn't get its own thread...

If Countermagic only works on Detect Enemies when the Detect would 'ping', then having the Countermagic cancel the spell (on that target) and return a 'your Detect was blocked' result to the caster would be pretty pointless, since the fact of the Detect having been cancelled would identify them as an Enemy. If we're saying a powerful-enough CM will prevent the Detect effect propagating any further, it would at least limit the Detection to 'only the first enemy', but that also doesn't seem a likely design intent.

Removing the caster's focus inhibits their Spirit Magic casting (requiring an additional round of casting); this might involve surgical (or not-so-surgical) removal of tattoos in some cases. Separating an Initiate from their Rune Magic is harder, but without Worship ceremonies, they're only going to get to cast each Rune Spell once, and you'd expect they'd've fired off most of those to avoid having been enslaved in the first place. Sorcery takes a lot of MP for 'really dangerous' stuff; separating them from their MP enchantments (more tattoo removal, in some cases) might suffice to ensure they can't do much with their Sorcery (and also reduce what they can do with Spirit magic) beyond give (possibly painful but probably not decisive) notice of their uppitiness. Guarding potentially-magical slaves wouldn't be as easy as keeping 'mundane' slaves in line.

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Yes, that's right, why do you think Shield 1 should not do that?

 

We mostly never had enough free INT to be bothering much with Detect spells when I was playing regularly. Nor enough MP to be casting them will-ye nil-ye 'on spec'. It just hadn't crossed my mind that protective magics might protect against something as intuitively indirect as a Detect. But it's evidently the case that it's meant to be this way.

25 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Ah I see. I think it's still a 3 point spell for each target, but additional MPs spent to boost the spell past defensive magic would apply to all of them. I wouldn't have a problem if it were considered an 11 point spell though.

I think I'm looking at it and reckoning that both an extra 'multispelled' casting of a 3 point Rune Magic and the building up to the effective rendering of the entire volley as unblockable is probably too much for the expenditure of  single points. I'd probably even want the extra MP committed for penetration to be assigned to specific and unique targets (if you whack in an additional 10MP, tell me where each of those points is going: is it to add 5 to two different targets or a couple of points to each of 5 of your 9?).

25 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Of course the easy way to take down Countermagic on a large group of targets is to cast Detect Enemies with a bunch of MPs boosting it. EMP!

Wouldn't work with Shield though... And conversely, if this works, a simple Shield 1 spell will render you undetectable to unboosted Detect Enemies. Not sure whether that's a designer's intent.

2 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

You mean, for instance, casting Truesword with a couple of extra Rune Points that do nothing other than to make it a 3 point divine spell and harder to dismiss? I think I'd allow that. You'd probably be better off casting a couple of points of Shield on your sword though, if you have access to it. Although I suppose the enemy could just target the Truesword for dismissal and bypass the Shield.

No I mean the "Thunderbolting 9 targets" example. Spend 3 points on a 1-target Thunderbolt and another 8 on 8 more targets. How much Shield does each target need to counter it? Is it effectively each target getting hit with a 3 point spell, or do all of them get hit by an 11 point effective penetration?

5 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Of course it protects against Rune magic. It provides 2 points of Countermagic per point, and Countermagic defends against Rune. The only ambiguity is whether the Countermagic goes down if a Rune spell breaches it.

Indeed. Still, it's a potential loophole that the spell description explicitly mentions Spirit and Sorcery magics having to defeat Shield, and doesn't mention Rune magic having to do so. Rules lawyers out there would potentially seek to widen that crack.

What do you think of the other point about the 'Rune Points used to widen effect increasing the effective strength for resisting the spell'. Does that fit in with Sorcery manipulations where range and duration increase the Intensity? Does CM/Shield oppose the Intensity or the Strength? Or the sheer number of Magic Points expended (which could mean you've got a better chance of breaking a defense with a Sorcery where you have unmastered Rune/Technique)?

And if those Hoplites are veteran Yanafal Tarnils Initiates, they could have Shield 8 running all day... and it wouldn't help because the extra 8 points to 'spread the love' count as part of the strength of the spell, so the attack would beat the defense...

Not that Shield protects against Rune magic (it specifically mentions that Sorcery and Spirit magic have to beat it, but not Rune; I'd assume that's an oversight in the text and you'd have to read the description in conjunction with the Countermagic description) in one possible reading of the core rule as written.

Or perhaps it was the death that made them significant to you. My first character-gen rollthrough had the 'significant parent' die on the first year of rolling for them, "killed in a magical ceremony". So for the sake of seeing what the parent's life threw up, I decided the other parent would get to roll instead. And they, too, died in 1608, in a magical ceremony... So the significant parent event was that the character was orphaned at a very early age.

But, like Traveller's character generation system, there's plenty of room for fudging in the interest of interest.

I don't think it's a surprise at all. Early RPGs (and RQ was a pioneer), derive straight from miniatures wargaming, and the detailed, quasi-blow-by-blow of RQ combat has always been more encouraging of detailed representation. The erm, broader brushes of the early 21st Century versions probably less so, but with the renaissance of v2 and the wholesale import of v2 and v3 concepts into RQG, the demographic is going to be harking back to those Chainmail-successor games.

On 9/2/2018 at 7:59 PM, creativehum said:

I think this is the nub of the issue... and definitely one of the stitches I dropped a couple of times as I've read and re-read the rules.

My guess is, at this time, if you you are engage in melee combat you can only get one spell off.

If you are at ranged (that is, not engage in melee combat, as if you were firing arrows), you can get off as many spells as you can within the 12 SRs.

The issue is one you are engaged in melee combat your focus and actions are much more limited as you do the do-see-do of bobbing, weaving and striking. Staying out of melee allows you more flexibility with actions.

Actually, I think I miswrote myself last time up; I think I disagree with you. If  you eschew attacking with your melee weapon, you can cast as many offensive spells as you're SRs will permit. The engaged/disengaged status only limits you to either magic or physical. If you're disengaged you could shoot your bow, then cast a Disruption. If you're in melee you pick one mode or the other.

54 minutes ago, trystero said:

Can't speak for soltakss, but for my group, it's simple numbers; if you're fighting an opponent one-on-one, they're going to be able to face you, but two-on-one means one of the two attackers gets a flank (side) attack bonus and three-on-one means one attacker gets a flank-attack bonus and one a rear-attack bonus.

I use this house rule in any game that doesn't include facing and have been happy with it. (And we do ignore it for cases where the defender is in a narrow tunnel or opening, preventing the attackers from spreading out all around them.)

From many years of experience of being outnumbered, that's a bit of a tough use case, IMO. It's generally possible, I would say, for a  group that's trying to fight together to keep their fronts (or at least 'effective-fronts') to about twice their number. They may have to give some ground, but will be as hard to hit. The -20 to parry for the second one probably represents enough impairment.

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Use of a skill to get the attacker into the blind side of the attackee. Harder to do if the attackee is warned by friends (who have to make a perception roll to notice that specific danger in the middle of their own battle), but still at a disadvantage.

What skills do you use? I'd suggest that Battle is probably a good one to consider using sometimes. The "Art of Having Eyes in the Back of your Head" is a big factor in surviving battles (and Battle is the roll you make for that when you're abstracting out survival of the individual from the general meat grinder). Straight 'stealth v perception' is I imagine going to be the default.

I think you've got it basically right with the physical attacks. I think two weapon use is a special case that lets you have 2 attacks (at the expense of your parry).

As far as magic goes, yes, I think you're just limited by the SR, MP and 'getting another spell ready', if you're not currently engaged. p195 limits you to either attacking magically or physically in a given round if you're engaged in melee. But it seems to me you could cast multiple Disruptions per round, if you don't have hostiles waving pointy sticks in your face. Note that on p194 it says you have to allow a 5SR gap between casting and starting the next spell, even if it's the same spell. So to get 2 full Disruptions off in a round (and be ready to start casting another at the start of the next round), you'd need DSR 2 or less. Still, that's twice as many as you'd've been allowed without Multispell, under v2 or v3, IIRC.

The distinction is based on your situation rather than the type of spell, seems to me.

23 minutes ago, soltakss said:

For our group, facing is pretty irrelavant, as we assume that everyone moves around in combat and can rutn without being penalised.

Attacking from behind or from the side is advantageous, so that is important...

I am curious how those two statements combine. How do you know whether an attack is from behind or the side if you don't track facing?

We don't use miniatures very often, but we do use maps and facing is relevant in many cirumstances.

7 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Not ignoring it, just addressing the fact that some missile weapons have an advantage because they are exempt from it. A high DEX character with a low melee SR gets his attack off early in the round, but a high DEX archer not only acts earlier, but might even be able to get off a second attack in the same round.  And how that would work out if someone used shorter MRs. 30 sword swings in a minute is certainly possible, but 30 arrow shots is superhuman.

I get what you're saying, but the shorter Melee round suggestions are made because people fall into the trap of thinking that every roll of the dice is a cut or a thrust: ignoring the abstraction inherent in the system. Leaving the round at 12s, you've got pretty much a hard maximum of 2 shots per round (10 per minute), and I've seen 18 shots in a minute, myself, with my own eyes, by a re-enactor who's not even a professional archer. The abstraction in melee means that, while you may get off many  attacks in the same round (I'd reckon a dominant fighter could probably put in at least 8 potentially-telling blows in 12s), only one of those actually matters: the one that does significant damage. Better skill is far more important than simple coordination in determining how often you hit in melee. The combination of DEX SR and skill rolls means that, over the minute, your weapon skill Master might fell several foes. Archery and other missile fire is very much more directly represented, though you'll not get extra attacks because of over-100 skill very much, if your DEX is good enough to get 2 shots a round (the delay between split attacks would probably push your second shot into the next round).

I'm not saying it's perfect. Far from it. I've been trying (on a more off than on basis) for 30 years to think of a way of having 'continuous time' for everyone, melee, caster and missile included, and haven't yet found a way of parsing it so that it retains the themes and feel of combat as well as RQ.

17 minutes ago, DreadDomain said:

I have no problem with elastic durations. Pendragon does state a specific duration but based on movement it's most likely a 2 or 3 seconds duration. So even a knight in Pendragon, who doesn't claim to be blow by blow and visceral, attacks 4 to 6 times faster than a competent fighter in RQG. There is a disconnect here.

Given that Pendragon posits about a round's gap between lance charges, there is no way it's 2 or 3 seconds per round. But none of these (L5R, RQ[whatever], Pendragon) are actual simulations. They're broad-brush. And RQ is the narrowest of the brushes. L5R, to my recollection (the books for 1ed are in storage) doesn't even have hit locations, and I know Pendragon doesn't.

Get away from thinking that a round in RQ between two sword-and-board fighters consists of two swings of sword and two attempts to interpose the shield, and you'll be happier; there's a lot more going on, below the abstraction layer.

Says the chap who's trying to figure out how to introduce a melee range system and get away from rounds completely in his house rules.

[applause]

Edit: I have tears of laughter and appreciation. Bravo.

Of course, all this discussion is ignoring the fact that the '12s round' with 'one' melee attack in it is an abstraction of a 12s round with a pair of combatants throwing combos at each other and the 'successful'  attack roll representing the sequence that actually 'came to something', rather than being neutralised by the opponent's movement and parrying, and the 'successful' parry roll meaning the target managed to follow the combo enough to stymie even the 'best' the attacker could come up with in that 12s. There are probably a number of 'glancing' contacts in there that are insignificant because of armour or half-blocks.

Of course, any abstraction will break down when the parameters are stretched. My example of line fighting, earlier, probably included actual swings at me from 3 or 4 people. Some swings missed, others hit my shield (without me needing to actively parry). One guy probably stabbed at me 4 or more times, but hadn't enough variety of angle to need a different shield parry; just rinse and repeat. Some attacks needed active intervention. Some of those were the only attack that participant threw my way at all, others (like the stabby spearman) would have been 'combos', full-fledged attacks.

Resolving every swing, riposte, counter, stop hit and timed/broken sequence would require a much, much more detailed treatment of skills and weapon ranges (the main reason I was on 'full defense' in my line fighting example was that I was being held at range by a polearm block - fighting distance is a crucial element in a fight, and a system that doesn't address range in the same detail as speed or damage inflicted (and I've not seen any system yet that would sit at a Role Playing game table which achieves that balance) will generate results that feel 'off'.

RQ is gritty. It deals with specific damage, allowing for limb-lopping and one-shot kills. It's visceral: if you don't think too hard about the timescale, there is enough detail with attack-parry-location-armour-hitpoints that it feels like a blow-by-blow without making some weapon whose shortcomings aren't addressed in the simulation's elements feel like some superweapon. If Phoenix Command is the hyperrealistic school of combat depiction, RuneQuest is the Impressionist, with DnD being the Cubist version.

I am not a Mod, but I suspect discussion of real world belief systems probably oughtn't go the way this has headed...

19 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

As written, there is no such bonus. No reason not to houserule it though. I quite like the "full attack" and "full defend" rules in L5R, for instance. Maybe if you don't attack, you get an extra parry at full chance. So with 80% skill, you get 80, 80, 60, 40 etc.

Aye. Didn't think I could've missed it.

I actually quite like the idea of having the parries for separate weapons decrease separately, but I think your first parry should have more chance of succeeding if your're not attacking than when you are...

Thanks Phil.

2 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I think this has been clarified to apply to all subsequent parries or dodges regardless of weapon. So your first parry is at full chance, if you dodge then that is at -20, then you parry with another weapon at -40.

Fair enough, so long as there's some sort of bonus for electing to sacrifice your attack for defense. I would averr that (while you're never going to win on your own) you can defend a lot better if you're not even attempting to attack. The bonus for 'all out defense' should (IMO/E) greatly exceed any bonus for 'all out attack'.

Preview? Where preview?

[drools a little]

9 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

Are you implying you have ar least 100% in parry 😊. Just kidding, in any case, I quite like the parry rule in RQG. Of course one could wonder why your penalties resets every 12 seconds but it is a good enough representation of how parry should work. The number of parries one can make in 12 seconds is credible. What is not credible is that a professional soldier (or gladiator) can only attack once in 12 seconds. It really does not deliver a visceral, blow by blow experience as it claims to do. But that is another story.

As I would be fighting defensively, making no attempt to attack, I'd have an 'extra' parry with my sword; I can't see any listed modifiers for fighting defensively, but as I read the subesequent parries rule, it applies per weapon:

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 An adventurer may make a subsequent parry with a weapon they have already parried with. Any subsequent parry is at a cumulative –20% penalty for each additional parry...

so I wouldn't need the whole hundred to get meaningful parry chances on the second and third parries.  Or maybe I just lucked out and rolled >6 on the later ones

As kindof an aside, though, the rules about what you can do wrt attacks and parries seem to require a chunk of assumption. While two weapon fighting is specifically dealt with, the basic attack and parry sections don't specifically address how/whether you get to parry with a weapon while fighting with a shield, and it doesn't, as previous editions did, limit a 1-handed weapon to attack or parry only. Maybe there will be clarifications in the GM's guide.