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Dodge or Die? Facing overpowered opponents


Joerg

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I mentioned this before when writing about my failed experiment to run The Rattling Wind as written. Pegasus Plateau has another possible encounter which has too great a chance of character demise as a wayside encounter in The Grey Crane, admittedly only if the player characters act unreasonable. But then what are the chances for all players to have their characters act reasonably?

In my experiences, the chances that player characters don't act unreasonable are less than avoiding incapacitation being hit by a parried 14D6 attack in enchanted Iron plate wielding a great shield or an iron greatsword protected by 4 points of Shield and 4 points of Protection on top. 14D6 do an average of 49 points of damage. The gear I listed reduces 36 points of damage or so. 13 points going through, plus-minus the random fluctuations of the damage roll.

With the attacker's 80% chance to trample successfully, there is no likelihood of receiving a glancing blow tossing the character painfully to the side.

And that's a design flaw if you want to play something resembling gritty realism and yet heroic gameplay, and should be addressed by the designers.

 

Do the math, please. The chance of escaping an attack by such a trampling attacker is a flat 20% per melee round that your character is attacked, unless you use Dodge, or a parry skill above 100%, which reduces the attacker's chance to hit a bit.  A Sword of Humakt with Greatsword 140% wearing the protection I outlined above has a 60% chance of remaining active after being attacked by that 80% trample. A very competent fighter with a dodge of 80% has 20% (the attack fails) plus 64% (the dodge works) equals 84% chance to survive the first attack. A merely competent dodger with 60% Dodge has a 68% chance of escaping a melee round unscathed.

Now add nighttime conditions. The defenders get their abilities reduced by 20% because of darkness, possibly an additional 20% for slippery ground which doesn't apply to the heavy attacker.

Do the math, or just roll the dice for three melee rounds. Or just one if the character does the reasonable "disengage" action, then have a chase sequence, which is going to catch up with the character again.

 

 

RQG really needs a rule for receiving glancing blows from oversized opponents. 80% chance to be hit somehow by the triceratops? Fine with me. 80% chance of being incapacitated by it if you're lucky with your hit location roll, dead if you're unlucky? Unplayable unless your characters have mastered Dodge.

And unplayable for the GM in the sense of "they become untouchable" if they have mastered Dodge. You can heap on negative modifiers, surprise, etc. to keep the situation dangerous for your player rune lord characters.

 

The RQG mechanism gives you the illusion that each roll matters, that the risks taken by your character can be calculated. They can. The results of the calculations are ugly when facing a huge opponent, unless you get into the territory of Weapon Trance reducing the chance to be hit to 5%.

 

 

 

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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I think this is where some form of HeroQuest Ability, Strengthening Enchantment, or other form of Leveling-Up, so to speak, is going to come in with the GM Guide. 

37 minutes ago, Joerg said:

In my experiences, the chances that player characters don't act unreasonable are less than avoiding incapacitation being hit by a parried 14D6 attack in enchanted Iron plate wielding a great shield or an iron greatsword protected by 4 points of Shield and 4 points of Protection on top. 14D6 do an average of 49 points of damage. The gear I listed reduces 36 points of damage or so. 13 points going through, plus-minus the random fluctuations of the damage roll.

I could see the above being much more reasonable if the guys on the path to Rune-Lord have picked up an extra couple d6 Total HP, or maybe they make POW add straight to HP like CON, or some other way of increasing the survivability of PCs and NPCs. Either with Enchantments mixing into the POW economy or with Blessings/Spirit Pacts/Some Wizard Term for getting more Heroic/God-like durability from the Otherworld.

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This used to be a major thing in my Viking/Griffin Island campaign.  Eventually the viking heroes were face to face not just with draugr or trolls, but with their giant adversaries, and in the lower magic setting, it was impossible to parry and survive.  They dug deep, found some old King Arthur references where he took off his armor to face a giant, and copied his example.   Since the Giants had roughly a 50% chance to hit, an 80% dodge meant that they were surviving the vast majority of the time, all while trying to hack through that wall of hit points.  One giant they got sleeping, and that was a quick one.

It all worked.  Dodge or die isn't unreasonable, or unplayable.  RQG characters have the options of earth shield (available to Orlanth Adventurous, btw), and Humakt and Babeester Gor have the ()trance spells.  There is also lightning and sever spirit.  My viking campaign players had none of those things, and still made it work.  For Thor! For Odin!  I have little sympathy for a Glorantha player who can't work something out for those sorts of situations.  Options exist!

 

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16 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

I could see the above being much more reasonable if the guys on the path to Rune-Lord have picked up an extra couple d6 Total HP, or maybe they make POW add straight to HP like CON, or some other way of increasing the survivability of PCs and NPCs. Either with Enchantments mixing into the POW economy or with Blessings/Spirit Pacts/Some Wizard Term for getting more Heroic/God-like durability from the Otherworld.

Something like that could make them unkillable even by a crit to the head from a trollkin with a spear. Not my desired outcome either.

 

1 minute ago, Dissolv said:

It all worked.  Dodge or die isn't unreasonable, or unplayable.  RQG characters have the options of earth shield (available to Orlanth Adventurous, btw), and Humakt and Babeester Gor have the ()trance spells.  There is also lightning and sever spirit.  My viking campaign players had none of those things, and still made it work.  For Thor! For Odin!  I have little sympathy for a Glorantha player who can't work something out for those sorts of situations.  Options exist!

Against a 50% lethal attack, I don't object. Those are risks I am willing to give the characters a choice to face.

An 80% attack with almost guaranteed lethal effect aimed at beginning characters is an invitation to Paranoia-style character replacement.

All of your work-arounds fail when the encounter is a surprise, and other negative modifiers that may selectively affect the party will turn a harmless distraction into a half-partty kill because of a single unconsidered (or geased) decision, possibly by a survivor. Simply not my idea of MGF as a GM. You set out crearing a network of relationships between the player characters and a set of NPCs, up comes a nosy big thing, and half a day of creativity has gone to the bin. As a somewhat experience RQ GM, I can houserule my way around this. Last time I ran The Rattling Wind, I decided to test the rules as written, and the experience sucked.

A newbie RQ GM will be faced with this destructive potential. She may learn from such a situation, or she may give up on the system and miss out the considerable fun running the system can provide.

 

What I dislike is the "you go scot free when you dodge" just as much. Even a successful Dodge or Critical Parry should still toss the affected character across the battle-map and give a well-earned set of bruises.

Maybe these trample/Tree Trunk etc. attacks should have two levels of success - one for high damage, one for survivable damage. Using something like the Martial Arts skill rules, for instance. A failed attack by Cwim or your unfriendly neighborhood dino may still cause knock-back or a similar effect, shaking up your Sword Tranced Humakti.

 

And woe to the GM who springs a nosy dinosaur on one of my characters. In the White Bear and Red Moon/Dragon Pass boardgame, dinosaurs (especially triceratopses) can be tamed by any lame militia unit and make extremely fearsome force multipliers.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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15 minutes ago, Joerg said:

An 80% attack with almost guaranteed lethal effect aimed at beginning characters is an invitation to Paranoia-style character replacement.

Very fair.  Anything that powerful needs a scenario hook.  Like the pepper of sneezing that drops the chance to hit down to 30% or something.  A lot of classic glorantha supplments were VERY casual with attack and parry skills over 100%.  Everything works much better if things are either toned down to start -- allowing the players to work within the current game mechanics.  If not, you have to have a scenario maguffin for the players to get to counter the super powered 150% attack 14d6 monster.  Pendragon is excellent for this type of adventure.

Glorantha on the other hand, has teasers of mechanisms where to players can combat such insanely powerful foes, but not so much in practice.  It's either all or nothing, too many times.

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2 hours ago, Joerg said:

With the attacker's 80% chance to trample successfully, there is no likelihood of receiving a glancing blow tossing the character painfully to the side.

AFAICT, the stats in The Gray Crane are merely based on the stats from the RQG Bestiary, so if anything, your problem is with the Bestiary, not this particular adventure. And the adventure merely suggests a dinosaur encounter being possible given the location -- it doesn't have to happen.

But yes, I've already said we're missing good rules for combat against big/giant foes. I also miss having official tactical options like getting Dodge/Parry bonuses if you give up ground and/or roll on the ground, vs standing your ground against an opponent. This would definitely help in desperately dodging a dinosaur slam.

One thing to consider is that this very deadly attack only happens if the PCs are close to the creature. I assume that being 5 meters away from an angry tiger wouldn't give me more than 20% chance of surviving either. Even if I don't act "reasonably" (trying to befriend the animal, keeping my distance, etc), I would still probably act "unreasonably" while considering the situation -- which means attacking the deadly creature from a distance, trying to trap it, etc. Some people like to wrestle crocodile and bears, but most people just shoot them from a distance, or setup traps 2 days prior.

Edited by lordabdul

Ludovic aka Lordabdul -- read and listen to  The God Learners , the Gloranthan podcast, newsletter, & blog !

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I think there are different strategies :

you wear big armor because you focus on close combat against weaker or equals or a little bit stronger opponent. you don't care missile weapons or large battle (your armor manages it) and go directly to your opponents. Your weakness is that you are ridiculous versus too stronger opponents that you cannot dodge (armor penalty).

you wear little  or no armor because you focus on close combat against weaker or equals or a little bit stronger opponent. You have a better chance against giants or other "big dammage dealers" but very weak against missile weapons or in large battle.

 

 

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40 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

AFAICT, the stats in The Gray Crane are merely based on the stats from the RQG Bestiary, so if anything, your problem is with the Bestiary, not this particular adventure.

Probably true.

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And the adventure merely suggests a dinosaur encounter being possible given the location -- it doesn't have to happen.

And it doesn't have to result in combat.

But I stick to my observation that this requires all players to decide and then all characters to act resonably. And if your players come from a rpg system with less lethal combat (i.e. most outside of BRP), they may learn this the very hard way.

We have a thread about making this forum newbie-friendly, but I am concerned with making the game and its official supplements newbie-friendly.

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One thing to consider is that this very deadly attack only happens if the PCs are close to the creature. I assume that being 5 meters away from an angry tiger wouldn't give me more than 20% chance of surviving either.

Given a sufficiently long sharp or pointed object to keep between me and a carnivore that depends on remaining unhurt to get its next meal after my (right now not so meagre) self, I might feel safer threatening that carnivore with said implement than moving away from it. Projecting killing intent does work in real life, even if your opponent has the same kind of rubber sword as yourself.

 

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Even if I don't act "reasonably" (trying to befriend the animal, keeping my distance, etc), I would still probably act "unreasonably" while considering the situation -- which means attacking the deadly creature from a distance, trying to trap it, etc. Some people like to wrestle crocodile and bears, but most people just shoot them from a distance, or setup traps 2 days prior.

A lone tiger preparing to attack a defender facing it either is waiting for its mate to ambush said defender, or desperate for prey. Bribing it with some easier food should normally give some respite. Sacrificing some pack beast or non-descript mount may be an easy choice.

 

15 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I think there are different strategies :

you wear little  or no armor because you focus on close combat against weaker or equals or a little bit stronger opponent. You have a better chance against giants or other "big dammage dealers" but very weak against missile weapons or in large battle.

Combining a great shield with light armor, Dodge and magical protection (ideally cast by a bound or allied spirit) gives you your umbrella against missiles as long as you hold onto the shield. "Come back with your shield, or on it" applies only to shield wall situations where dodging isn't an option anyway. ("300" appears to make it fair use to "flee forward" to try and kill that charging rhino before impacting the shield wall.) You're disadvantaged against multiple opponents with this lighter armor unless you can outmaneuver them, but in a shield wall this sort of equipment (possibly backed up with a linothorax) is quite sensible.

Going the full Mycenean platewalker tank route may be an option against human opponents. Standing sentry in one of these sounds like a bad choice.

 

When I ran the pre-publication of

The Rattling Wind last year, I was hampered by the inability to use any Seven Mothers rune magic stronger than a single rune point on Clayday, otherwise I could have started the exchange with a casting of Madness or even more appropriate, Panic before impacting my unsuspecting arrivals with the chariot.

I had the chariot cast a one-point "FInd Enemies" upon arriving on the scene, leading it to its nearest foe. IMO a sensible approach.

The night was rainy and very dark, the ground slippery. That added up to -40% on all rolls for the characters, but no penalties or only half the penalty to the chariot.

The survival chance of the characters outside of the inn wasn't the best... 50% casualties.

Edited by Joerg

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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As a GM telling a story, if the dinosaur wasnt acting with killing intent and was simply angry/attempting to scare the characters away, I'd likely run it as a character that didnt get away would suffer enough damage to leave them hampered but I wouldnt necessarily strictly follow the actual dice roll damage. 

As a story teller it is in your power to have things work in a way that ensures the story and situation is interesting. 

Getting gored by a triceratops and left in a really bad way might be better for the overall narrative and everyone's enjoyment. It's a wild animal and is more than capable of killing, but doesnt mean it's going out of it's way to do so. 

Equally, as a means of showing how dangerous the world can be? Might be better to have someone die.

 

But parrying a dinosaur seems dumb anyway, realistically dodging is the right option.

Perhaps house rule allowing a dodge that leaves the character prone as they simply dive out of the way is an option. 

Again, control the narrative and situation, make the rules work with what you need/want to convey to the players that ensures "maximum fun".

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25 minutes ago, Joerg said:

But I stick to my observation that this requires all players to decide and then all characters to act resonably. And if your players come from a rpg system with less lethal combat (i.e. most outside of BRP), they may learn this the very hard way.

I agree that most players (at least most of my players!) would indeed do something stupid. The adventure's text could be simply revised with a warning to GMs that such an encounter is potentially deadly if things go bad.

25 minutes ago, Joerg said:

A lone tiger preparing to attack a defender facing it either is waiting for its mate to ambush said defender, or desperate for prey. Bribing it with some easier food should normally give some respite. Sacrificing some pack beast or non-descript mount may be an easy choice.

So do you think players would do that? If things go bad, they could indeed throw some food to the dinosaur to de-escalate things, or any variety of things, before the first trampling attack occurs. In my experience, my players have issues with sacrificing things or retreating, so there's a chance it doesn't happen and someone gets hurt badly. But they have learned to live with those consequences :)The dinosaur might run away after maiming one or two PCs, leaving the others to scramble for healing spells, or asking around for the nearest Chalana Arroy temple. I might make for a good "we can laugh at this now" story later although some other kind of player might get annoyed at being hurt or killed by a side encounter.

Edited by lordabdul
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Ludovic aka Lordabdul -- read and listen to  The God Learners , the Gloranthan podcast, newsletter, & blog !

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3 hours ago, Joerg said:

Something like that could make them unkillable even by a crit to the head from a trollkin with a spear.

Doubling hit points would still leave most going unconscious to even a troll kin armed with light weapons that crits - and likely dying from still from an opponent powerful enough to get through their armour normally. I honestly think allowing strengthening enchantments up to double HP would help the game, making high level play much less brittle. 

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1 hour ago, Runeblogger said:

Even in my RQ3 games, with HP-enchantments and all, we ended up houseruling the experience system so you could exchange 5 experience rolls for a reroll. IMO, this worked to avoid unwanted, random PC deaths, without making them ignore dangers.

Thats a pretty nice house rule - thanks!

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1 hour ago, Runeblogger said:

Even in my RQ3 games, with HP-enchantments and all, we ended up houseruling the experience system so you could exchange 5 experience rolls for a reroll. IMO, this worked to avoid unwanted, random PC deaths, without making them ignore dangers.

In another thread about the possible addition of the Luck and Fate Runes to the game, some people were musing about a Rune-based mechanic for rerolls and other meta-game stuff. It has the advantage of gaining a Gloranthan flavour.

1 hour ago, davecake said:

Relying on Dodge is a horribly unreliable and dangerous option in RQ. If your opponent specials, you need to special Dodge. Which is when the dodger is usually down. PCs relying on dodge tend not to survive.

The thread title is about "overpowered opponents", but the OP is really about fighting big-ass creatures like dinosaurs. As per RAW you're supposed to be able to parry a charging dinosaur with your sword, but I find this ridiculous. It's these kind of situations where using Dodge should be beneficial somehow (ideally with slightly different rules that make it so), as it makes the scene more believable to me. If the PC is facing another humanoid in melee combat, however, I agree that Dodge would rarely be used, except for special situations (like dropping your sword/shield, having it destroyed, or somehow being disarmed or unarmed).

Edited by lordabdul

Ludovic aka Lordabdul -- read and listen to  The God Learners , the Gloranthan podcast, newsletter, & blog !

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17 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

The thread title is about "overpowered opponents", but the OP is really about fighting big-ass creatures like dinosaurs. As per RAW you're supposed to be able to parry a charging dinosaur with your sword, but I find this ridiculous. It's these kind of situations where using Dodge should be beneficial somehow (ideally with slightly different rules that make it so), as it makes the scene more believable to me. If the PC is facing another humanoid in melee combat, however, I agree that Dodge would rarely be used, except for special situations (like dropping your sword/shield, having it destroyed, or somehow being disarmed or unarmed).

totally agree

3 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

But parrying a dinosaur seems dumb anyway, realistically dodging is the right option.

Perhaps house rule allowing a dodge that leaves the character prone as they simply dive out of the way is an option.

I'd have something like that - make a dodge, perhaps with a flat bonus (25%?), moves the character out of the creatures reach and leaves them prone.

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11 minutes ago, Blindhamster said:

I'd have something like that - make a dodge, perhaps with a flat bonus (25%?), moves the character out of the creatures reach and leaves them prone.

Most people here often go "what would RQ3 do?", but I'm more of a "what would GURPS do?" kind of guy, so, I would do something like:

  • +20% to defense (parry/dodge) if you step back by some distance (say, 1 meter).
  • +30% to dodge if you dive to the ground, ending in you being prone until you can get back up next turn.

(I haven't thought about this much or tested it at all so take it with a whole basket of salt)

I also mused in the past about rules where SIZ differences between opponents modify attack/parry/damage rolls,, although I'm not happy yet about their balance of crunch vs. play fluidity. A "Build" secondary stat like in CoC might help tremendously here, removing annoying SIZ-score comparisons.

Edited by lordabdul
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Ludovic aka Lordabdul -- read and listen to  The God Learners , the Gloranthan podcast, newsletter, & blog !

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Parrying oncoming dinosaurs or large creatures. 

You mean like with a great sword (good Parry backed by blade sharp or true sword or both) or a set spear will kill the beast quite often and has a better Sr so will hit first. 

 

Your problem? 

 

Also historically how to deal with charging horses, boar etc 

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5 minutes ago, Thaz said:

Parrying oncoming dinosaurs or large creatures. 

You mean like with a great sword (good Parry backed by blade sharp or true sword or both) or a set spear will kill the beast quite often and has a better Sr so will hit first. 

 

Your problem? 

 

Also historically how to deal with charging horses, boar etc

I tend to agree.

It also depends on how you see your Glorantha. In our Glorantha people are regularly superhuman. I tend to think of movie, comic, or anime fight scenes when narrating combat for the party. 

 

It may not be everyone's flavor but, I FREAKING LOVE parrying a Dinosaur with a greatsword or whatever. Hopefully they roll a lucky crit parry and limb him to boot! I mean Humakt fights EVERYTHING. 

 

Hopefully as we move forward we can get solid rules that can guide PCs toward tangling with the awesome stuff Glorantha has on the table, like Dinosaurs that do 14d6, which would be known as Stormbringer level damage at our table, as the GM scooped a handful of dice. 

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Setting a pole arm is indeed a valid and historical way of stopping cavalry. It isnt a parry though, it's not about knocking anything aside or deflecting a blow. it's about using the oncoming creatures momentum against it to cause additional force with your set weapon.

Two handed swords were used similarly but less effectively.

But either way,  neither of those were parries, they were attacking first - exactly what the lower weapon strike ranks are there to represent. 

So yeah, I'd still say that logically you're attacking first and hoping you blunt its momentum or even kill the creature. If it comes coming you move out the say. 

Hunters wouldnt stand directly in the path of a rhino or elephant that was moving to trample them, they simply dont have the physical strength to have enough of an impact to avoid being squashed.

 

However it's a fair point that the potentially superhuman abilities of heroes would make parrying a more logical option eventually.

 

Edited by Blindhamster
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I disagree. 

I belive entirely that setting a spear or using a great sword is a Parry vs charge. 

Your certainly not attacking with a, set spear are you? Your fending off a trample. 

 

I've had the dubious pleasure of having to set spear vs charge for real once.... Luckily the horses turned 

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For visual references of parrying gigantic creature with weapons (admittedly oversized ones) I can only recommend checking videos of any Monster Hunter game (especially MHW). But that is if you lean more towards a more heroic representation. And obviously I would also recommend checking Baahubali (1 and 2 on Netflix) because it has so much Glorantha and Heroquest in it...

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10 minutes ago, Thaz said:

I disagree. 

I belive entirely that setting a spear or using a great sword is a Parry vs charge. 

Your certainly not attacking with a, set spear are you? Your fending off a trample. 

 

I've had the dubious pleasure of having to set spear vs charge for real once.... Luckily the horses turned 

The intent is to impaled the creature. A parry wont achieve that.

I understand the general abstraction though, in a system that is as relatively simple as RQG, the real point is: you're using your weapon to stop the creature hitting you.

I think if I were running that, I'd probably handle it with the character setting their weapon getting a bonus on their damage, and the charging beast suffering a penalty to its defense, assuming it's an impaling weapon I'd say it gets stuck pretty much automatically and therefore the creature is likely out of reach to attack at all. But obviously with something as massively strong as a dinosaur, I'd then ask if the player intended to hold onto the weapon when the dinosaur thrashes about to break free lol.

 

P.s. the greatsword example I would go for a more traditional parry attempt.

Edited by Blindhamster
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Problem seems to be the players. My group came from playing lots of D+D. The first fight in Apple Lane changed their mind-set on combat. 

Any combat is deadly. Standing upto an Earthshaker or similar is probably going to get you killed 

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10 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

The intent is to impaled the creature. A parry wont achieve that.

I understand the general abstraction though, in a system that is as relatively simple as RQG, the real point is: you're using your weapon to stop the creature hitting you.

I think if I were running that, I'd probably handle it with the character setting their weapon getting a bonus on their damage, and the charging beast suffering a penalty to its defense, assuming it's an impaling weapon I'd say it gets stuck pretty much automatically and therefore the creature is likely out of reach to attack at all. But obviously with something as massively strong as a dinosaur, I'd then ask if the player intended to hold onto the weapon when the dinosaur thrashes about to break free lol.

Absolutly. From my perspective, if you cannot doge, your only goal is to try to stop the monster before it "touched" you/your group. The only possibility is to kill it. If you don't succeed you're dead (or very lucky)

And I think that players learn quickly. If they face death after what seems a simple contest, they will do thing in an other way next time

 

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