Parrying a scorpion man’s tail...

[Trotsky]

Hi everyone, sorry if this has been asked before but I can’t find an answer. I am teaching myself RQG, before running it for others, and am using the old Scorpion Hall solo adventure to do so.

In a fight with a scorpion man his tail missed but I successfully parried it with my shield. The question is how to determine if the creatures tail is damaged?

I rolled 4 damage (I assume you do not add damage bonuses to a parry). Now 4 damage is more than the armour of the tail but less than it hit points. So what should I do?

If I have missed a rule somewhere can you please point it out.Thanks in advance 

[jajagappa]

37 minutes ago, Trotsky said:

I rolled 4 damage (I assume you do not add damage bonuses to a parry). Now 4 damage is more than the armour of the tail but less than it hit points. So what should I do?

This is just the standard application of damage to a location.  See Results of Damage starting on p.146.

1) Damage rolled minus armor of the tail -> damage to the hit location.  (In theory, you could also reduce the armor value on the tail by -1)

2) Hit points of location (i.e. tail) minus damage to the location -> remaining hit points in the location (i.e. you reduce the location's hit points)

3) Also total hit points minus damage -> remaining general hit points  (i.e. you reduce your foe's overall hit points)

 

[Trotsky]

Thank you , that is how I played it so all good. Now all I need is to get a jump on them otherwise it is not going well...

[Akhôrahil]

I tend to sum up armor and HP and treat it the way you would a weapon’s HPs. This is basically the same thing, except that it makes it a lot more likely that you can do 1 point of damage.

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, Trotsky said:

Now all I need is to get a jump on them otherwise it is not going well...

Scorpionmen are nasty with that 2nd attack (even if they've got low chances to hit).

[Akhôrahil]

And the Carapace spell is quite simply the best bang for the buck you can get for pure armor. Combine it with natural armor and worn armor, and it becomes a lot, very quickly.

[jajagappa]

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

And the Carapace spell is quite simply the best bang for the buck you can get for pure armor.

That, or the +x armor Chaotic Feature.  Hope for a critical hit if you find your scorpion foe has either of those!

[Akhôrahil]

3 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

That, or the +x armor Chaotic Feature.  Hope for a critical hit if you find your scorpion foe has either of those!

I will tell you what’s nasty - chaos gift for extra Con. As the poison is Con-based.

I played the Scorpionman Raid in Dorastor with my players, well aware that any penetrating hit from that Con 50 Scorpionman would be an auto-kill...

[Frp]

7 hours ago, Trotsky said:

Thank you , that is how I played it so all good. Now all I need is to get a jump on them otherwise it is not going well.

Usually parried broos and scorpion men twice, and skipped attacking, in RQ3. There was a good chance you could lop off a stinger or decapitate a broo real quick. They'd get wise after round one though. 

[Dissolv]

Scorpion men used to be worse -- you had to choose what you were going to parry.  In this edition you can parry both attacks, although the second will be at -20%.

[HreshtIronBorne]

2 minutes ago, Fred said:

Do you guys allow creatures like Scorpion Men or Bears to parry with natural attacks? And thus do damage to weapons or take damage to body parts. Someone suggested you could parry with your fists, thus a creature should be able to parry with natural attacks if that was true.

Obviously, this could become a bit too much. A bear parrying with its bite chance could result in a very bad effect 

In our Glorantha only Intelligent animals, like those with spirits or awakened intelligence can use their natural weapons to parry. Lots of Chaos Monsters happen to be at least as intelligent as average people so they tend to be able to parry as well. A regular Bear wouldn't parry but, if you are fighting an Allied Spirit or on a HeroQuest that Bear could be WAY more than you bargained for. 

[Akhôrahil]

31 minutes ago, Fred said:

Do you guys allow creatures like Scorpion Men or Bears to parry with natural attacks? And thus do damage to weapons or take damage to body parts. Someone suggested you could parry with your fists, thus a creature should be able to parry with natural attacks if that was true.

Obviously, this could become a bit too much. A bear parrying with its bite chance could result in a very bad effect 

Scorpion Men often have weapons. Parrying with natural weapons is allowed, but there’s very rarely a point to it when you could dodge instead.

Edited July 19, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

Something like that. Everything should have something in dodge.

[Trotsky]

7 hours ago, Dissolv said:

Scorpion men used to be worse -- you had to choose what you were going to parry.  In this edition you can parry both attacks, although the second will be at -20%.

Unless you have a shield as well right? It is only the second parry with a weapon (which presumably includes a shield) that gets the -20%. So my trusty Orlanthi warrior gets a full parry with his broadsword and with his shield before suffering penalties?

[Akhôrahil]

24 minutes ago, Trotsky said:

Unless you have a shield as well right? It is only the second parry with a weapon (which presumably includes a shield) that gets the -20%. So my trusty Orlanthi warrior gets a full parry with his broadsword and with his shield before suffering penalties?

This is written in a very unclear way in the rules, but rules QA has clarified that it’s -20% for each parry or dodge attempt in a round.

[soltakss]

43 minutes ago, Trotsky said:

Unless you have a shield as well right? It is only the second parry with a weapon (which presumably includes a shield) that gets the -20%. So my trusty Orlanthi warrior gets a full parry with his broadsword and with his shield before suffering penalties?

That's how I would do it, but it has been clarified as the other way.

[Trotsky]

Thanks Akhôrahil and soltakss, I thought the rules were clear, 'Subsequent Parries - An adventurer may make a subsequent parry with a weapon they have already parried with. Any subsequent parry is at a cumulative –20% penalty for each additional parry. However if that rule has changed/modified I will go along with that

[simonh]

Yep, with Scorpionmen parry twice, and parry the tail with your sword. Lop that sucker off, and then you're on a much more even footing.

[Akhôrahil]

33 minutes ago, Trotsky said:

Thanks Akhôrahil and soltakss, I thought the rules were clear, 'Subsequent Parries - An adventurer may make a subsequent parry with a weapon they have already parried with. Any subsequent parry is at a cumulative –20% penalty for each additional parry. However if that rule has changed/modified I will go along with that

I leaned towards your interpretation as well, before clarification. Many of the RQG rules could have been better written (note how the ”clarification” on two-weapon fighting is actually a 180-degree reversal of what the rule explicitly says).

[Dissolv]

6 hours ago, Trotsky said:

Unless you have a shield as well right? It is only the second parry with a weapon (which presumably includes a shield) that gets the -20%. So my trusty Orlanthi warrior gets a full parry with his broadsword and with his shield before suffering penalties?

Well again, this edition is EXTREMELY generous to the PC's.  When I started RQ your weapon parry was a wholly difference percentage than your attack, and many characters weren't nearly as good with their weapon parry compared to their shield parry -- because they got lots of experience with parrying with their shield, and it took time and Lunars to train backup skills that were really a bit of a luxury.  And of course Rune magic was for Priests only, for the most part.

This really is a case where Scorpion men literally were much more difficult opponents "back in the day".

[Akhôrahil]

2 hours ago, Dissolv said:

This really is a case where Scorpion men literally were much more difficult opponents "back in the day".

On the other hand, you can safely assume that the scorpionmen themselves have 2-4 Rune Points each, and sure as heck spend them for the fight. That will up the difficulty again.

[Dissolv]

9 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

On the other hand, you can safely assume that the scorpionmen themselves have 2-4 Rune Points each, and sure as heck spend them for the fight. That will up the difficulty again.

You know what?  I'm still in that old paradigm where Rune Magic is rare.  Scorpion men, and most chaotic creatures, I can very much see not having enough of a social structure to really be common in the "lower ranks".  A point or two sure, but not PC levels. 

On the other hand, why the heck not?  Adding a single Rune point to the soldier types could indicate a particular nasty spawn, and would stress the players a ton more than a basic "50% attack/parry skill, 3 points of armor everywhere" scorpion man.  Time to bring back the terror!

[Akhôrahil]

21 minutes ago, Dissolv said:

You know what?  I'm still in that old paradigm where Rune Magic is rare.  Scorpion men, and most chaotic creatures, I can very much see not having enough of a social structure to really be common in the "lower ranks".  A point or two sure, but not PC levels. 

On the other hand, why the heck not?  Adding a single Rune point to the soldier types could indicate a particular nasty spawn, and would stress the players a ton more than a basic "50% attack/parry skill, 3 points of armor everywhere" scorpion man.  Time to bring back the terror!

You will have to balance things according to your decision here, but note that 3 RP seems to be the default for average dudes in Dragon Pass if we go with published sources. And for good reason - once you're initiated, you have very little reason not to dump a couple additional points of POW into it. (Especially if you're a Scorpion Man and you have a killer 3-point spell.)

Edited July 20, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Dissolv]

mmm. I recall a thread where Jeff mentioned that the PC's have 3.  Average types have 1.  I could be mis-remembering, but that's how I have based my current campaign.

Sartar farmer: 1 RP,  1-2 useful spirit magic spells and 70% weapon skills.  War clans have 80% skills, half CHA spirit magic, generally in larger variable spells like Bladesharp 4, Protection 4, etc., but still 1 RP unless their clan is magically powerful, or they are special individuals. 

Generic Lunar solider: roughly the same, possibly only 60% skills.  Normally has better armor than the Orlanthi, but in my current go around, just being a Lunar Solider doesn't make you a Roman legionnaire.  The rough and tumble hillmen are a match for them, one on one.

"Named unit" Lunar (like Granite Phalanx) 1-3 RP's, possibly full CHA spirit magic,  70-80% skill minimum.  May possibly be a specialist, like the "heal 6 guy", or "dispel magic 6" guy.

 

Chaos filth varies greatly, but that means that the bottom feeders are truly pathetic creatures.  0 RP,  possibly A spirit magic spell, but normally nothing, 50% skills.  The crummy Scorpion men the players have encountered so far are a result of facing only the scrubs, and they just aren't the threat that they once were.  Of course they have already lost a matrix'ed Broadsword to acid blood, and been caught by an exploding Broo.  The Chaotic features can sometimes really even things up.

Next time though -- I'll beef up the Scorpion men options some. 

[jajagappa]

5 hours ago, Dissolv said:

and been caught by an exploding Broo.  The Chaotic features can sometimes really even things up.

Exploding chaos creatures are always fun! 😈 

5 hours ago, Dissolv said:

but that means that the bottom feeders are truly pathetic creatures.  0 RP,  possibly A spirit magic spell, but normally nothing, 50% skills.

That's largely what I ran (plus one chaos feature per foe) when my PC's encountered and had to fight off a horde of scorpionmen .  Pathetic?  No, not really.  Vanquishable?  Yes, but a tough fight nonetheless - poisoned stingers are nasty.