Fireblade - Specials and Criticals

[Mechashef]

Hopefully this has already been answered and someone can easily point me in the correct direction.

 

Do Fireblade, Fire Arrow and similar weapon igniting spells do special damage & critical damage?

The RuneQuest Core Rules Questions (page 11) thread has Jason stating no:

Quote

 

Posted May 16

On ‎4‎/‎9‎/‎2020 at 11:16 PM, gochie said:

Does Fireblade or Firearrow deal any additional special/critical damage?

No. Such is the unpredictability of magic. 

On a pragmatic sense, for a critical, rolling 3D6 (plus damage bonus) and ignoring armor is more-than-likely to disable whatever hit location it strikes. 

The gamemaster is wholly within their rights to decide that these results do in fact do special damage (impaling or slashing) but may soon discover that these spells become dominant tactics. 

 

 

But official answer   https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/publishers/chaosium/runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-players-book-print/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-qa-by-chapter/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-chapter-12-spirit-magic/  

states:

Quote

 

Does a Fireblade weapon slashing damage and double damage on a special success?

Yes. 

 

Which is it?

Thanks

 

[Akhôrahil]

20 minutes ago, Mechashef said:

Which is it?

I say it does for Fireblade - there is absolutely nothing in the actual rules which indicates that it shouldn't. Unlike Multimissile and Firearrow, which are clear on the point ("A Firearrow cannot impale"). 

Of course, the intention might be that it shouldn't (this even seems likely, given Firearrow), but in that case, errata is required.

Edited October 12, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[soltakss]

The Fireblade spell says:

Quote

This replaces the normal damage done by the weapon. This damage cannot be magically resisted because it is real physical damage from the heat of the fire. The wielder of the weapon still applies their damage bonus when they strike.

The section in the errata referred to says:

Quote

Does a Fireblade weapon slashing damage and double damage on a special success?

Yes. 

If someone has Fireblade on an iron sword, do they deal 2x the fireblade damage to a troll or elf? 

No. It is now magically a magical blade of fire, not iron. Roll for the Fireblade damage instead. 

That would imply that slashing and impaling damage is done using the Fireblade damage, not the normal weapon damage. Had it been the normal weapon damage, an iron weapon would have hurt trolls and elves.

The section on Impaling and Slashing damage in the rulebook says:

Quote

Impaling
Impaling weapons do double normal damage, so a broad sword normally doing 1D8+1 does 2D8+2 damage. Any damage bonus or magical modifiers to damage are applied normally.
The impaling weapon is also stuck in the body of the target and may need to be freed to use further. 
See below for more information.

Slashing
Slashing weapons do double normal damage, so a short sword normally doing 1D6+1 does 2D6+2 damage. Any damage bonus or magical modifiers to damage are applied normally.
If the hit points in the location are exceeded, the target may be incapacitated, and must roll (CON minus damage)×5 or less to remain conscious. 
See page 204 for more information.

So, both a Slash and Impale do double damage. 

Assuming this is not the weapon damage, but the Fireblade damage, for the reasons suggested above, the damage is 6D6 on a slash/impale.

Firearrow says:

Quote

This spell creates a missile of fire which does 3D6
damage if it hits, replacing the missile’s normal damage
rating. The damage bonus still applies, halved for missile
weapons as normal.

So, that is pretty much the same as Fireblade.

 

[Akhôrahil]

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

Firearrow says:

So, that is pretty much the same as Fireblade.

Except that it explicitly doesn’t impale.

[d(sqrt(-1))]

And non-thrown missiles don't get a damage bonus...

[Scotty]

5 hours ago, Mechashef said:

Do Fireblade, Fire Arrow and similar weapon igniting spells do special damage & critical damage?

Fireblade - yes:

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/publishers/chaosium/runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-players-book-print/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-qa-by-chapter/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-chapter-12-spirit-magic/ 

Fire arrow - No

Page 263. "A Firearrow cannot impale".

Note that there is no critical damage. There is only special damage, and on a critical, it's maximum special damage. So a Firearrow won't impale, but on a critical will possibly ignore armour as per the result table.

52 minutes ago, d(sqrt(-1)) said:

And non-thrown missiles don't get a damage bonus...

Firearrow (page 261)

Replace

The damage bonus still applies, halved for missile weapons as normal.

with

The damage bonus still applies, halved for thrown weapons as normal.

[d(sqrt(-1))]

I always read that bit about "cannot impale" to mean that a rolled impale was a normal hit, but a critical still did extra damage and ignored armour.

Don't think I would ever have arrived at that interpretation TBH.

[PhilHibbs]

1 hour ago, d(sqrt(-1)) said:

I always read that bit about "cannot impale" to mean that a rolled impale was a normal hit, but a critical still did extra damage and ignored armour.

Don't think I would ever have arrived at that interpretation TBH.

Oh absolutely, impale and crit are entirely independent things.

[HreshtIronBorne]

We have always played the Fireblade can impale and crit, it specifically states it replaces the regular blade damage with fire damage instead, so we treated just like a regular bladed weapon except now it was doing 3d6 base damage. This is one of the main reasons our campaign had a very healthy respect for Humakti Durulz dual wielding short swords or even daggers. It doesn't really matter if the Duck has no damage bonus or even -1d4 when they are swinging for 3d6, impaling or slashing for 6d6, and critical striking for 36!

[Mechashef]

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

Fireblade - yes:

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/publishers/chaosium/runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-players-book-print/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-qa-by-chapter/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-chapter-12-spirit-magic/ 

Thanks

So the answer in that link is correct. 

It would be nice if the answer given by Jason D in the "RuneQuest Core Rules Questions" thread could be amended to reflect the official view but I understand that people are very busy.

 

[Akhôrahil]

8 hours ago, Scotty said:

Firearrow (page 261)

Replace

The damage bonus still applies, halved for missile weapons as normal.

with

The damage bonus still applies, halved for thrown weapons as normal.

One surprising thing here - the Firearrow missile can’t impale, but it can (by omission) still Crush, if you throw a rock (or if as Jason suggested on Facebook, Sling will get an errata to get receive half DB, which makes little sense to me).

Edited October 13, 2020 by Akhôrahil