Kloster

That might have been workable in RQ2, but by the time of 3, they had _way_ too many armor points for that to be useful unless you just had a monstrous damage bonus and they were heavily armored in the first place. You could easily take twice the time to break most weapons than it took to kill the wielder.

...

Don't forget that if you strike deliberately the weapon, you don't substract 1AP but the difference between AP and damage rolled.

A broadsword has 10 AP. If you do 12, it goes down to 8, not 9.

And the main advantage of hitting the weapon is that it is not protected by the shield. When your opponent has a hoplite shield (18 AP) or even a round (12 AP), that makes a BIG difference.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

I don't recall why anymore, but in RQ3 we almost never saw layered armor; I seem to recall there was some mechanical disadvantage that no one wanted to deal with.

...

According to RQIII, you can carry 2 layers armor if:

1 - the innermost is soft armor

2 - the innermost has fewer AP than the outermost.

The consequence is that you add the AP and the inner ENC is doubled.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Hey, Kloster, sounds familiar. My ancient history professor in college AVOIDED military aspects like the plague. What I know I had to dig up on my own...I might as well have saved my money for the bookstore, instead of wasting it on tuition, to some extent.:ohwell:

I didn't had the monetary problem, because here in France, schooling is mostly free, but, although I had 2 fantastic history teachers, the others were oscillating from awful to very bad.

The worst one tried to explain 1st world war through official comunications.

I showed her "Paths of Glory" from Kubrick, as another point of view (even If I know it is a romance), and got a 0 (on 20) when I gave her the number of airplanes engaged in France (over 5000 for France, as much for Germany, several thousands for US and England) as she told us that some planes were used for spying and observations. The names of Guynemer, Rickenbacker or Von Richthoffen were unknown to her. That episode teached me the lesson to never, ever, contradict a teacher.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Hello Jason,

Is the chaotic feature table that can be seen in your preview pictures the one from RQ III?

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

It's the one from RuneQuest III.

Thanks.

Kloster

...

Maces were a staple of starting adventurers as well. I usually always had a backup weapon or two. I think every character I had carried a dagger just in case things got desperate.

Idem for us.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Hello,

Another nasty trick is Haste.

It increase the MOV of your adversary, but as long as he is engaged, he can't use his extra speed, but he loses 1 extra FP per round per intensity.

I recomend not using more than intensity 1 or 2, just in case he can disengage.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Hello Jason,

Is the (optional, IIRC) strike rank system the one from RQII (12 SR per MR), the one from RQIII (10 SR per MR) or the one from Ringworld (rolling continuously 10 by 10)?

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

deleted.Wrong topic.

Kloster

History is written by the victors, and they don't often agree with each other.

I think the story you get depends on which historian you are reading, as well as which translation of his account.

...

I completely agree here.

..

When I was in High School, I was sick and missed ssome classes (I was sick a lot). When I got back, I had to catch up, and needed to cover the material in my history class. Fortunately for me, my study peroid was goverened by the head of the histroy department who was more than happy to bring me up to speed, as inqusitive stundents interested in the subject matter were rare. Then I went to my class and got the worst grade ever in that class.

My history teach held to a different intpretation of the events covered. When I asked why I did so bad, it ended up turning into a argument between the two teachers over which interpretation was correct.

Good news was that the teacher upped my grade as I had impressed him with my effort to make up the work, he just didn't care for my source (:eek:), but agreed that my reasoning for using it was sound.

So, unless you were there, it all depends on what version you are reading.

...

You're lucky to have learned that from school, even if the conditions were not so lucky. I had to learn that the hard way, by myself, and against most of my history teachers.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

I think they might not have if the pilums had not begun the process of breaking up the phalanx pretty good. I wonder how the battle would have turned out if Alexander or his father had been in command, as I have read somewhere that Philip V did not have nearly as good a grasp of tactics and strategy, although his army was very similar in structure and organization to the army Alexander led into Persia...

If I remember (Again Polybius), the gladius hispaniensis was a new weapon introduced during the 2nd punic war to replace the greek sword (kopi or hoplite sword?) and the pilum has not yet been introduced, although it was used at Pydna.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Found it:

"Philip's men had been accustomed to fighting with Greeks and Illyrians and had only seen wounds inflicted by javelins and arrows and in rare instances by lances. But when they saw bodies dismembered with the Spanish sword [gladius hispaniensis], arms cut off from the shoulder, heads struck off from the trunk, bowels exposed and other horrible wounds, they recognised the style of weapon and the kind of man against whom they had to fight, and a shudder of horror ran through the ranks." [Livy 31.34].

I knew I had it. I focused on Polybius, and it was Livy. For me, clearly, it is wounds caused by slashing, and not thrusting strikes.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

I agree that the english text shown is different from the french one I've found.

I've also found an article about Livy describing the shock of the macedonians seeing the mutilated corpses of their comrades, but as I can't find the original article, it does not count (yet).

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

The passage doesn't mean that the gladius was necessarily used as a cutting weapon in the battle though, just that it was spaced out far apart so it could be. The open space formation was typical against the phalanx because of it's superior mobility. It was easy for the Legion to wrap around a flank. The Phalanx's big weakness was it's inability to maneuver quickly.

Yes, true, but in this case, why does Polybius states that those 3 feet are needed to maneuver the shield and the sword.

And the maniples were used even where the phalanx was organized and on flat terrain. This was a choice.

But I nevertheless agree, it does not NECESSARILY means it was used as a cutting weapon.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

...

I wonder though if this was the case during the initial engagement, or after the charge and wall has broken apart.

Here is the link ( I couldn't find my own copy ):

Ancient History Sourcebook: Polybius: The Roman Maniple vs. The Macedonian Phalanx

SDLeary

As this is a group of chapter that compares the different merits of the phalanx and the maniple, and that the phalanx is clearly described as having a better push and a stronger organization, each legionnaire having to face 10 sarissa, and although that the roman organization proved better, I presume this is about the main battle. This is an educated guess, of course, furthered by the fact that the roman commanders deliberately choosed to oppose maniples to the phalanx led by Philippe.

I can't imagine the roman tacticians choosing voluntarily an organization that has a clear disadvantage but allows something without using it.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

My French ended at high-school level and I can barely remember a hundred words, and I didn't have access to the Oriflam materials.

I don't have your problems, but as I don't have the original one, I can't compare and tell you the differences.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

It's really not hard to cook up one's own character sheet in Excel or Word or similar programs (in my case, FileMaker Pro).

The 1st ones I made up (20 years) ago were real cut and paste, but now any spreadsheet or word processing makes the work for us.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Books:

Jules Vernes

Conan Doyle (Holmes and Pr Carpenter)

HG Wells

REH (Especially Solomon Kane and Conan)

Moorcock

Jack Vance

Poul Anderson

John Brunner

Roger Zelazny

Philip K. Dick

Tolkien

Doc Savage

Lot of Alan Moore comics

Some classical SF authors (Van Vogt, EE Doc Smith, Asimov, Heinlein)

Movies:

Apocalypse Now

Excalibur

Jason and the Argonauts

Soylent Green

The 1st 3 movies by Ridley Scott

Almost everything by John Carpenter

Monty Python

Games:

Hero

RQ

Shadowrun

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

The mutations are a revision of those from the initial boxed Hawkmoon set.

By "revised edition" do you mean the French edition, or the Mongoose one?

The french revised by Oriflam, that was intended to bring the rules in line with SB.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

...

A spare weapon was a good idea, but I don't think I ever saw anyone need more than one extra, and even one wasn't typically critical for someone who didn't parry with a weapon but used a shield. The only time you were particularly likely to lose a non-parrying weapon was on certain fumbles, and even then it was usually retrievable.

...

Have you ever had your shield rendered unusable.

I had and this is another reason to have a parrying weapon available (once because a dark troll destroyed it concienciously with his maul, and several others a bit too unwieldy because of impaled weapons stuck in it. I was happy to have something to parry with).

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Hello Jason,

Is the Mutation part coming form Hawkmoon V1, or from the revised edition?

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Hello Jason,

On the combat part, are attack and parry subsumed in a single competence (ala SB) or are they separate competences (like RQ)?

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

OK - thanks, Kloster and Badcat, I see the trouble now. Is this what's coming for BRP? And I can see how SB variable armour could exacerbate the problem.

In my homebrew I use a similar, but finer-grained system, with 4 different grades of wounds, the special effects being none/disable/break/sever respectively. That way worse results are reserved for worse hits (which would often have been fatal anyway). The idea being to explain the damage, rather than adding to it.

I had hoped the new BRP would have found a similarly refined method.

And I presume we will revert (almost) to RQ on that point with Fixed armor and Hit locations. This is purely a matter of personal preferences and I'm sure lot of people have very good reason to choose otherwise.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

...

RuneLords had a ton of creative tactics and uses of magic. Many of those would slaughter people who didn't have their battle magic down.

Yes, some are scary.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

...

One thing that helps is the declaration phase. If you know what the other guys are doing you can declare accordingly.

...

This is exactly what I meant when speaking of a higher DEX.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster