PhilHibbs

That's... extreme, maybe impossible. You can hit on SR1 if you are huge and have a greatsword but SR4 is more common. Second attack (kick or headbutt, as he has a greatsword in his hands) 3SR later, then 3+DEXSR+points to prepare and cast Disruption, the mountain with the great sword could get his first spell off on SR9 but no more, and that's with huge SIZ and DEX.

With 3 players, it could take 5 hits or more all to the same location, that's way worse than RQ3 which would only be 2 hits if it parries one.

I can see the problem that at the moment in MRQ2 when you outnumber an enemy, everyone gets 3 attacks and just about anything short of a giant or large dragon goes down in the first round.

I'll resist the temptation to join in the "I know how to make the rules better!" clamour, but I will say that I think the rules for HeroQuesting are very poorly detailed. How do I determine how successful a quest has been, what do you gain or lose by completing or cocking up a station, and how do I work out what level of reward should be gained based on the level of success? I ran a HeroQuest today and dished out Hero Points as the reward for successfully playing the various roles in the myth, now they have a stack of points to spend so I need to figure the Hero Points costs of the rewards that they want, e.g. magic items, characteristic increases, skills, rune-touched, etc. Writeup: http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=47970

There is no better introduction to Glorantha than a Griselda story, so including one of those would be good.

I didn't know there was a BRP wiki. I've become chief bottle washer on the MRQ Wiki hosted by Sceaptune Games, I don't know if Tim @ Sceaptune would want it to expand it's scope to cover RQ6, or if TDF/Moondesign would want their own wiki, but that would make three. If BRPCentral were to host a wiki, that could become a place to unify everything in one place - Basic Roleplaying, MRQ/Legend, and RQ6, would that be an option?

Until someone grabs the blade...

If the hammer hits the middle of the shield where the arm is, then the arm could get hurt. A successful parry probably catches the blow away from the centre of the shield, lessening the impact on the arm, and the hammer glances off. So, how does BRP or MRQ handle a shield arm getting broken? If the hammer attack hits, the defender fails to parry, and Left Arm is rolled as location, that is probably a blow square on the centre of the shield where the arm is, possibly breaking the arm. Or, a critical hit ignoring shield armour would be an arm-breaker.

Both blades were wobbling and bending. Search for videos of "cold steel greatsword" for a comparison.

It wobbles around like a jelly, it's not rigid at all. I don't think you can learn much about killing from watching people sparring with lightweight fencing weapons.

Found it! It's in the zip file of his current web site, although I can't find it linked on the site itself: http://www.nikkeffingham.com/runequest/website.zip And here it is on my web site: http://www.hibbs.me.uk/snarks/chargen.htm http://www.hibbs.me.uk/snarks/chargen2.htm And here's my Excel spreadsheet: http://www.hibbs.me.uk/snarks/points.zip

I'm afraid I can't find a copy at the moment - Nikk hasn't uploaded it onto his new web page, and archive.org doesn't have a copy. I'll see if I can get in touch with him.

It's just a name that stuck, like where does "ahol" come from in "workaholic", there's no such thing as "workahol". And there was no gate involved in "Irangate".

Are you familiar with Nikk Effingham's points system?

I'm not aware of any elven races that are sickly or unhealthy. Usually they have very high resilience and resistance to diseases and poisons. No, elves are just better than humans at nearly everything (except breeding and abusing the natural environment), so trying to "balance" them is futile. They are unbalanced. Live with it. Tolkien never worried about his races being balanced, why should a roleplaying game?

Which is fine, as medical science is probably not as advanced in most RuneQuest settings, and I don't recall seeing "oxygen mask" anywhere on the equipment lists.

CON in rounds is nice and simple. Any "Casualty" fans recall how long it is before brain damage starts?

I can now calculate special chances in my head almost instantly. It was quite a revelation when it clicked. Maybe everyone could do it, if they spent long enough figuring out how they can do it - not everyone does maths in the same way, different methods work for different people. Here's roughly how my brain does it: Find the nearest 5%. Did it end in a 3 or an 8? Then go up rather than down. Other rounding directions are then obvious to me, and 3 and 8 look similar. For results of 50 or below, I can divide by 5 straight away. For results above 50, if the result is a multiple of 10, either double it and divide by 10 (for odd multiples of 10) or divide by 10 and then double (for even multiples of 10). e.g. 60 => 6 => 12. Otherwise, round to the nearest even multiple of 10, divide by 10 and double, then add or subtract 1. e.g. 75 => 80 => 16 => 15, or 45 => 40 => 8 => 9. Sometimes I don't go to the nearest even multiple, if I've recently done the calculation for the odd multiple. That may sound complex, but I can do in under 2 seconds, I don't have to think about every decision, they just happen that way automatically. The important thing to me was to round the number first before dividing or multiplying. I now accept that "it is easy for me", but I still contend that it is not easy for everyone. I have always had that knack.

Balancing is very different for superpowers as against spells. Also, many superpowers are "always on", such as strength, speed, flight, invulnerability, etc., and superpower strength should be much, much more potent than a strength spell, whereas a lightning bolt spell and a lightning bolt power should be fairly similar.

I've never come across the latter two in a published BRP-based rule set, and the first one is only used for POW in RQ3.

* edit * ok I misread you, didn't notice "below", I read that as "10 or below" in case you saw my original reply questioning your calc.

Another datum, in the interest of fairness, I just asked one of my players what the special chance is with a 78% skill, and a minus 15% penalty, and he answered instantly "13", which is correct. I had to think for about 10 seconds to decide that I agreed.

So if I roll a 17, then I have scored a special if my skill is 85 or more? No, I only need 83 for 17 to be a special.

No, you only need 28 entries for 1-100. On your table, given that special and crit have a minimum chance of 1, the first 7 entries are all the same. This is the Avalon Hill table: It isn't ideal having to use a table, but it's better than doing the maths in your head. If you are going to have crits and specials on 1/20 and 1/5, then I think the new BRP table is better, and the rules need to be errata'd to say "round up" to match the table.

Which I do. Every time he rolls his dice and gets a low number, I figure out the 10%-rounded-up for him, which I can do almost instantaneously. 83%? That's 9%. Having to do the RQ3 crit and special calculations for that gives me the heebies, let alone him. And writing down the crit chances is no use as the chances keep changing with modifiers.