Barak Shathur

Well you had better go on that trip, dig the books out and find the exact text you're referring to, because it sounds like a different game to the one I'm reading. Neither I nor anyone else in this thread have been able to identify anything close to the clarity of RQ3 regarding knockback (or really, knockdown) you describe. In fact, "all out" attack and defence are concepts that I've come across in RQ: Adventures in Glorantha, not in RQ3. Maybe that's the game you're remembering? I'm currently playing in a RQ:G campaign, and I agree it's great. I do have some quibbles with the way Passions are used though, and it's a shame they didn't fix the out of whack levels of weapon damage visavi body part HP. But on the whole it's been one of the best RP experiences I've had. I am going to GM a campaign using RQ3 on Roll20, and the character sheet has a function for fatigue which makes it a cinch.

What gives me pause is the wording on p. 47 in the Player's Book under Melee Activities: "If, while in hand-to-hand combat, an adventurer attempts to perform some major non-fighting action (stand up, climb a nearby wall, jump down a slope, mount a horse, etc.) then he cannot attack, parry, dodge, or cast a spell during the strike ranks needed to perform the action." This comes after the paragraph stating the 3 SR rule for changing intent. So standing up is grouped with non-fighting actions such as getting on a horse or climbing a wall, and contrasted with the 3 SR rule. Why would they need to specify not being able to attack or parry while standing up, if you can get up before anything like that would likely occur? It becomes a meaningless statement. Sorry, I just can't let this go. Can someone ask Steve Perrin?

Ok, let's say a character is knocked down at SR 7 or 8. With the 3 SR penalty for changing intent, it's too late to get up this round. End of round. Next round he/she has the option to get up or keep fighting from the ground. Say getting up takes 3 SR + DEX SRM, so that would be SR 4-6. Most normal opponents won't get a swing in until SR 7 or 8, so the character gets up before being attacked as a prone target. It's too late for that character to attack this round, so the only impact of the knockdown was thus that the victim missed out on attacking one round. A disadvantage, sure, but hardly game changing. Now in RQ3, knockdown is the only effect of a special success for slashing and smashing weapons, so if it is largely ineffectual it makes those weapons very weak compared to thrusting weapons with their deadly impale special success. It seems to me that for knockback to be more than a minor irritant, the victim should have to remain fighting from the ground (at the -20 to hit and +20 to being hit for being prone), or risk an attack without being able to defend him/herself while trying to get up. Now that's a serious game changer and it makes weapons other than spears at least worth considering.

I am running RQ3 for the first time and I can't find anywhere in the rules that specifies exactly how long it takes to stand up if you've been knocked down. The closest thing is under "Melee activities" where it says you can't attack, parry, dodge or cast spells during the strike ranks needed to perform a major non-fighting action (standing up in this case). But how many strike ranks does it take to stand up? My instinct would be to say that it takes one entire round to stand up, but I can't find anything in the rules that says this is so. Am I missing something here?

Ok, but in this case they weren't consistent, I wonder what a SIZ 2 dwarf or halfling would look like (SIZ 2D6 and 2D3, respectively). They should have one of their SIZ dies replaced by the max roll too, shouldn't they? This change, and nerfing the db, might just fix my issue with this game that I love so much. EDIT: I realise I have started talking about RQ3 in terms of the dwarf or halfling SIZ, don't remember what it is in BRP)

No, this is not my problem at all. I like that it is possible to die on a single sword stroke. But it should be from a maximally hard sword stroke if it is a onehanded sword wielded by a normal human, i.e. one that rolls the highest damage possible on the die, in this case 8 on a D8. With a damage bonus which increases the power of the sword with up to 50%, all it takes is a median roll on the D8, i.e. 4-5, to critically damage a 4 point limb such as the arm (4-5 on 1D8 plus 1 for a broadsword= 5 or 6 hp, plus 2 or 3 on 1D4 = 7 or 8 hp damage, about twice the hp of the arm which will lop it off). This means that about 50% of "normal" broadsword strokes will sever limbs and this seems unbalanced to me , and the argument that one could always wear armour put forth above is not satisfactory. Now if the 1D4 db was limited to very strong characters or monsters, then yes, it would make sense that a blow of but average force could sever the arm of a regular guy. This is my problem, the frequency of severed limbs (which is a common critique of RQ).

The part about small animals makes sense, but they could have achieved it without bumping the SIZ stat. Maybe by setting 8 as a lowest minimum, with values under that rerolled or set at 8. Or they could have used e.g. 6D3. But I guess either of those would have gone too far beyond contemporary stating conventions. Interesting point about the cube-square thing! Still, in terms of "man as the measure of all things" and 11 as the measure of all men, having two stats jump out like that feels somehow arbitrary, a clumsy solution to a (maybe unecessary) problem. Thanks for your input, that's definitely food for thought!

Yes, under those conditions everyone is forced to wear armour or get truncated. It’s that level of damage inflation I have a problem with. But you don’t, and that’s fine. Of course we all prefer for our characters to have db, I just don’t think it should be so commonplace. I like it better in RQ 1 and 2 where human SIZ was 3D6 and it was just a little harder to get. Actually, I think this is the core of the problem. The 2D6+6 SIZ also creates that weird discrepancy between STR and SIZ, where a regular human is weak relative to size. I’m guessing they introduced this change to avoid unrealistically small characters, but I think they broke the system a little bit and it could have been done better. I wonder if that was the reasoning or if it was something else.

Well that’s kind of my point, giants, trolls and dragons are huge creatures who should do much more damage than humans. But 1D4 adds up to 50% more damage to most one handed melee weapons, so that an average blow from a broadsword (4,5+1+2,5=8 hp) will sever a 4 hp arm. That doesn’t sound right to me.

I agree. I would start it at 1D2 instead of 1D4, then D6, D8, D10 etc.

Hi, is it just me or is damage bonus a tad high in the BRP family? Given that the average STR and SIZ for humans is just 1 point away from db it means almost everyone has it and it makes it a bit meaningless IMO. It also makes every fight exceedingly deadly. I think it became a problem when human SIZ went from 3D6 to 2D6+6. Any thoughts on this?

No problem

Are we talking about the same game here? This is about Runequest 3, and I can't find that rule anywhere. Please point me to it if I have missed something.

Ever heard of dwarves? The idea I came up with is to houserule what jajagappa said, namely that anything other than soft leather counts as hard (stiff leather counts as hard). I will also ignore the errata and instead use the original rules in the Player's Book, according to which overlapping anything other than soft armour triples the ENC of the lesser armour. The errata also says that the outer armour has to have higher AP than the inner, but I don't see why you shouldn't be able to put e.g. a cuirbouillie vambrace over maille. The original rules don't have this restriction, so in this case the cuirbouillie (being lighter) would have its ENC tripled, which I think works well. Thus it's not too ENC-costly to combine non-soft armour types on small locations such as the head (maille coif under helm) or arms (vambrace over maille), while bigger pieces of extra armour (cuirass over byrnie, greaves over trews) become quite cumbersome. This seems to accord well with reality. And seeing as pretty much anything bigger than a halfling will have damage bonus, adventurers will want to bump their AP:s as much as possible if they want to keep their limbs

Hello all, first post. I'm playing RQ3 for the first time, and I have a question about layering armour. According to the official errata "it is possible to wear soft armor under another armor to provide added protection. Hard armor may not be worn under any other type of armor. In any case, the outer layer of armor must be heavier than the inner (i.e., have more armor points). The interior soft armor adds its normal AP to the total armor at TWICE normal ENC cost". Following this it seems to me that it is better to use Ringmail over Bezainted (9 AP, 20 ENC, cost 1300 for full suit for a small person) than e.g. chainmail over Soft leather (8 AP, 22 ENC, cost 3900 for full suit for a small person) or Plate over Soft leather (9 AP, 26 ENC, cost 5460 for full suit for a small person). Chain over bezainted might be the next step up at 11 AP, 28 ENC, cost 4260, but at that point the ENC gets a little extreme. Anyway, doesn't this seem weird? Or did I miss something? Thanks, Nick