PhilHibbs

That gives a very different progression over 100%. Instead of your special chance going up by 1% for each 5% of skill increase, it goes up 1 for 1.

GURPS Glorantha? Broo & Burrows?

Also the "parallel d20" doesn't work for skills over 100%.

So the Quick-Start Edition rules are different to the BGB? That's odd.

I got the impression from pansophy that it was "round to nearest", i.e. halves round up. That was the usual principle in AHRQ3. *Edit* Just found a scanned image of the AHRQ3 Game Aids, and that appears to be "halves round up", so BRP is different to AHRQ3.

It's 20% rounded down, where as BRP (Quick-Start Edition) has 1/5 of skill rounded up. No reason why that is bad, so long as you're aware of it. So on a crit vs failure, do you award 3 CMs instead of two? Or do you not use CMs?

According to BRP Quick-Start Edition, you round up. Is the BGB different? I have the Quick-Start PDF with me, my physical BGB is at home.

Yes it will, the systems are balanced differently in this respect. BRP has a 1/5 chance special success for an impale, which does extra damage, and a 1/20 chance crit that does maximum damage and ignores all armour. MRQ2 has a 1/10 chance crit that, if the opposition doesn't parry, gets you two manoeuvres, from which you can choose Maximize Damage and Ignore Armour, or Choose Location and Max Damage, or Impale and Ignore Armour, or any of a variety of other combinations. But the "double maximum ignoring armour" can't happen in MRQ2, and "ignore armour" is much less common in BRP. So, if you want to adopt part of one system and part of another, you will have to consider the balancing factors. Also, armour levels are slightly lower in MRQ2, weapon damage... not sure if that is different, MRQ2 has higher locational hit points but no general hit points, all these factors affect game balance, and (in theory) are designed to be balanced relative to each other.

Those mechanisms were my main concern about MRQ2, they are a radical departure from the way things always used to be - no more dividing the round into Strike Ranks, no more "aimed shots" or split attacks over 100%. I'm really happy with the way it has worked out, though. If anyone's curious as to how a fight might go in MRQ2, here's a writeup of my last session. http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=47291

Some people won't be happy until they can roll 1d100 to decide which rules variant to use this session. Personally, one of the reasons I'm not keen on BRP is that there is too much choosing to do. I demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty.

I stumbled a little doubling 7.7 quickly, I came up with 15.5 which I then rounded up, and the answer 16 even made sense to me since 77 is closer to 80 than 70. Even so, compare your impressive result to MRQ2's (or, should I say, your) divide-by-ten-and-round-up, and the time becomes too short to measure. I see that as an advantage.

So, you're happy calculating the special success chances for 33%, 77% and 123%? No cheating. Let me know how many seconds it took you to calculate them.

No it isn't. It might be easy to do in your head, but not in everybody else's head. Most of my group can't - or don't want to - do it. In all the years that I played RQ3, no-one I ever played with worked it out in their head, we always used tables, most people wrote their special and critical chances for combat skills on their character sheets. MRQ2 is the first incarnation of RuneQuest or BRP for which we have all done crit chance calculations in our heads (although I can't remember the COC rule, maybe that was simple enough, I never played it often enough to remember).

OK, I think it's the best roleplaying rules system that I've played. Of course, I'm aware that such things are subjective. Maybe if my group were willing to give HeroQuest a try, I might change my mind. *Update* But, of course, this whole "best" thing is a bit of a pointless sideshow.

I agree with him as well. Pete and Loz's system is excellent.

Just a quick history lesson - older editions of RuneQuest always had "special" and "critical", it is a Mongoose simplification to have just one level of "improved" success. It's a change that I like, though.

It seems that the RuneQuest name and and Glorantha line are a package deal. They couldn't afford to keep losing money on the Gloranthan products, so they had to drop both that and the RuneQuest name. At least, I've heard that speculation, I don't know it for a fact.

Indeed. I have no idea if RuneQuest and the Second Age setting are a package deal or not, or whether Greg might licence it to someone who wanted to do a First Age setting.

Personally I think that is unlikely. I think they'll keep the RQ name and Second Age setting (or any other Gloranthan period that does not overlap with HeroQuest) available in case another interested party thinks they can make a go of them, individually or combined. The space for RuneQuest in the market is now very crowded, though, with BRP, Wayfarer, and OpenQuest.

That wasn't actually meant to be a jibe at Mongoose! Just a joke...

I would suggest moving away from a literal interpretation that a parry has to be physically blocking an incoming swing. I think that if someone is coming at you with fists, and you hold up a knife in the way and they think "hang on, this is going to hurt", that could be considered a successful "psychological parry". I don't know if this is a BRP rule but there's an AHRQ rule that says that a failed attacking weapon takes damage from a successful parry. More than one Scorpion Man has lost its stinger to my character's dual-wield broadswords under that rule.

Is there any chance of Chapter 8 arriving at some time? I've only just discovered this thread and have flicked quickly through Creatures, looks absolutely fantastic, thanks!

Were they given any specific directions on choosing locations, and is it possible that they might have landed more blows had they not been going for locations? Clutching at straws here to maintain my slender grip on the position I have assumed...

Damn good point. This hasn't come up in my game yet as I haven't thrown heavily armoured enemies at them. Armour has a high penalty in MRQ as well so that discourages running around in full plate, and when I did throw a big baddie with Shield up, the sorceror's first spell was Neutralise Magic.

Had to stop watching that half way through. Anyone who doesn't like animal cruelty should not watch it, there's no way they would be allowed to treat horses like that in a civilized film studio.