Dodging and Parrying

[Akhôrahil]

RPGs are far too lenient with greatswords in the first place - there's a reason the longsword is the size of weapon people actually went for for two-handed sword use. Zweihänders were a super-specialized weapon used for fouling pike formations with limited other uses. 

[g33k]

14 hours ago, davecake said:

...Even normal Humakti rank and file troops are normally sword and board, use shield walls, and don’t stick to swords obsessively but will use ranged weapons like javelins... 

"YGWV"

I don't usually see Humakti as shieldwall types.  Sometimes sword&board, though.

And while the Initiates may not stick "obsessively" to sword, I'd expect them to be among the last to sheath their swords for other weapons, and among the first to go back to swords when the melee approaches.

It's a religious thing for them, after all; and they aren't as death-averse as most soldiers!

[g33k]

11 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

...

Babs Gor is a great fighting cult, but, IMO, not a playable PC cult unless the GM is willing to "go along".  How many campaigns involve sacriledge against the Earth?

There's also oath-breakers.

But the big role for BG to go on many "typical" adventures is "defender of the Earth," not just vengeance post-facto.

 

[Akhôrahil]

9 minutes ago, g33k said:

"YGWV"

I don't usually see Humakti as shieldwall types.  Sometimes sword&board, though.

If you fight with a sword on the battlefield in any kind of formation, you're going to want to have a shield. Once you have a shield, forming a shield-wall is a no-brainer. This doesn't apply to champions and some weaponthanes that are out doing solo stuff, but surely the bulk of any Humakti regiment fight in (probably very impressively disciplined) formations?

[Lordabdul]

14 hours ago, davecake said:

And in general I find the reasoning that says shields are weak defensively to be implicitly ignoring ranged, especially thrown weapons, and I think that seriously underrates how dangerous javelins are in particular. A javelin, often at 1d10 +3+ 1d4 or more (that’s with a Speedart, but could be a Firearrow, or an extra 1d6 for an atl-atl), is a serious threat. I also find the reasoning that ignores shield walls etc to be misleading - it’s not exactly wrong, but only because PCs are weird, for the majority of soldiers formation fighting is a very important factor (and why Yelmalio, which appears a very weak warrior cult based on their magic, actually deserve their reputation as the best soldiers around - phalangites tactics work very well both irl and in RQG).

While you make a lot of good points, I'm going to only reply where I disagree, in traditional internet fashion

I find shields weak defensively because, unless I'm missing something, they only passively protect a couple hit locations... so how well a shield protects you against missile weapons is entirely up to luck (and more precisely bad luck on the GM's part while rolling hit locations). The player has no agency or choice in the matter, which contributes to thinking shields are not as useful.

In my game, it quickly happened that someone spotted some archers and wanted to sacrifice some of their actions and movements to "hide behind their shield", in order to be better protected for a round (crouch, walk sideways to cover your other arm, etc). This was probably a consequence of them being GURPS players ("All Out Defense" is a thing there), but I think such a trade-off is reasonable. As is often the case, a spot ruling later became a house rule (half MOV, no action that would obviously uncover body parts, like attacking, but you get double the protected hit locations).

(on a personal note, I don't think I've ever had any other game lead to so many house rules and spot rulings than RQ... it's wild)

About shield walls: they have never been featured in my games. They require 6 characters at least, so it won't happen unless my players start gathering sidekicks and mercenaries. At this point, if you count the couple characters who don't have shields, and add the number of enemies, you get near large enough combats that I don't even know if we would use the combat rules anymore (Jeff recently hand-waved a combat against a dozen-or-so skeletons in the White Bull Campaign stream).

12 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Babs Gor is a great fighting cult, but, IMO, not a playable PC cult unless the GM is willing to "go along".  How many campaigns involve sacriledge against the Earth?

Do you also have trouble with Issaries characters because not every adventure features things to sell? Or with Lhankor Mhy because not every adventure features learning about stuff? You might even consider that a Storm Bully doesn't have anything to do in an adventure where there's no Chaos connection at the beginning, because they have other Chaos-related things to do in that case... so... don't think about it too much.

Btw, the most typical way to involve a Babs Gorite is to have her be the bodyguard of the Ernalda priestess in the party.

Edited November 11, 2020 by lordabdul

[Rodney Dangerduck]

22 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Do you also have trouble with Issaries characters because not every adventure features things to sell? Or with Lhankor Mhy because not every adventure features learning about stuff?

Issaries can always travel and communicate (and keep an eye out for future sales opportunities).  LM can always learn something.  Even if it is mainly to chronicle heroic events and deeds of others.  (As Sorala is portrayed in RQG).

Edited November 11, 2020 by Rodney Dangerduck

[Akhôrahil]

5 hours ago, lordabdul said:

About shield walls: they have never been featured in my games. They require 6 characters at least, so it won't happen unless my players start gathering sidekicks and mercenaries.

Shield walls are great if you have a bunch of amateurs that you need to put to some kind of decent use, like the inhabitants of the village when the ghouls come or something. They pay off much better for incompetent combatants, but experienced fighters have no business being in one except perhaps for leading the rest.

Also note that one corner (front right) is an absolute death-trap, where you don't get any defence and also can't defend. Put someone you don't value there.

Edited November 11, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Baron Wulfraed]

1 hour ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

A bow with a full or even half damage bonus would likely break game balance.  Something you can shoot twice a round from relative safety that can't be parried.

A bow with a +1 would be reasonable.

 

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

I think this is a much better design, agree. For one thing, the bow is only interested in whether you can pull it, so the size aspect of DB seems less relevant (unless it's a really big longbow and you need arms long enough).

Arm length probably doesn't matter that much... A longbow, when drawn, flexes less than the shorter composite bows. The limit is "can you draw the bow far enough to anchor the arrow (to the cheek, or whatever point the archer is most comfortable using)" and is that draw maximizing the pull but not risking breakage (since the longbow stacks the further it is drawn).

The unstrung longbow is basically a straight shaft. Not so for composite recurve bows -- many of which are so nasty one doesn't "unstring" them if possible; A bow that looks like } when strung might look like C when unstrung, the open tips of the C have to be pulled past the vertical. Recurve/composite bows partly use the recurve to accelerate the string in release (while the longbow max acceleration is at full draw)

I'll agree that bows should not roll damage bonus. The damage is inherent in the bow itself, if the bow is too strong, the user just can't draw it. So a series of bows with differing pull weights => differing damage is a feasible modification, with the usable pull weights dependent upon STR. Maybe four ranges? STR 9, 12, 15, 18 yielding damage of 1D6, 1D6+1, +2, +3 (and similar for elf bow, composite use STR 13, 16, 19, 21).

Also take into account that the spine of the arrows will have to match the pull weight of the bow. A soft spine may work well with a lighter pull, but fly badly with a really heavy bow. I have witnessed such: back in the late 70s I took the college Archery "recreation" course. We used provided target arrows, and some used provided bows (I recall one girl kept picking the wimpiest bow in the stack -- so wimpy that she was practically anchoring the string behind her ear -- and watching her she was /throwing/ the arrow at the target). About half (including me) used hunting grade bows in the 45-70lb pull range. I ended up with an arrow that, when released, visibly curved two or three targets to the left of my position (this is angular measure, not linear) before curving back toward my target. My measly 45lb setting was strong enough that the nock was moving before the point moved, the arrow turned into ), covered half the range to target before flexing into ( ...

 

[Akhôrahil]

1 minute ago, Baron Wulfraed said:

Arm length probably doesn't matter that much... A longbow, when drawn, flexes less than the shorter composite bows. The limit is "can you draw the bow far enough to anchor the arrow (to the cheek, or whatever point the archer is most comfortable using)" and is that draw maximizing the pull but not risking breakage (since the longbow stacks the further it is drawn).

There are some Japanese bows that are drawn well behind the ear - at this point, you actually may have to have sufficiently long arms. Also, no human-sized longbows for ducks for Siz reasons. But I agree, my point was that Siz probably shouldn't matter for bows.

[Baron Wulfraed]

1 minute ago, Akhôrahil said:

There are some Japanese bows that are drawn well behind the ear - at this point, you actually may have to have sufficiently long arms. Also, no human-sized longbows for ducks for Siz reasons. But I agree, my point was that Siz probably shouldn't matter for bows.

Some of those oriental bows are also "unbalanced" in that that hand grip is not equi-distant from the tips. Makes for even more confusing design considerations. 🙄

[Kloster]

2 hours ago, lordabdul said:

As is often the case, a spot ruling later became a house rule (half MOV, no action that would obviously uncover body parts, like attacking, but you get double the protected hit locations).

Consider that stolen.

[Kloster]

1 hour ago, Baron Wulfraed said:

Some of those oriental bows are also "unbalanced" in that that hand grip is not equi-distant from the tips. Makes for even more confusing design considerations. 🙄

IIRC, this was to be able to go from one side to the other on horse.

[coffeemancer]

14 hours ago, Kloster said:

Consider that stolen.

ditto.

as for shieldwalls and twohanded swords I got a lot to say. But since I am the gym I will be short (well I allready am, but I will be short with my words).

Interlocking shields is pretty good for the push but when you are spearline against spearline you generally want to be a tad bit looser. You want to be able to bring your shield up and down quickly, after all.

This is specially true for swordsmen and in a line battle their role will most likely be as part of a group meant to smash through the enemy line and cause disarray.

 

as for the "greatsword" one wonders what the rules mean by that? Is it closer to a 15th century longsword or a 16th century zweihander (which is used more like a sharp staff or short spear with a healthy helping of cleave)?

the latter is often mentioned as an anti pike weapon, but aside from woodcuts showing them used against pikemen we dont have, to my knowledge, any sources on this claim. I seem to recall that we do have sources mentioning that they were used by protectors of the company banner and by budyguards. Naturally, you can controll a large zone with the weapon and it is scary to boot.

 

The 15th century longsword is a highly agile and versitile weapon which becomes popular among knights once their armour has reached a level of quality that makes their shields a bit obsulete. A warrior decked out in full gloranthan bronze plate would qualify, I would say, and since Glorantha bronze is similar but not the same as ours I am sure you could make both a longswprd and a zweihander out of it.

 

source: dude, trust me

[Akhôrahil]

2 hours ago, coffeemancer said:

as for the "greatsword" one wonders what the rules mean by that? Is it closer to a 15th century longsword or a 16th century zweihander (which is used more like a sharp staff or short spear with a healthy helping of cleave)?

Greatsword/Zweihänder - older rules had a Longsword which is now removed. It's clearly just one of those D&D weapons that "should" be in an old fantasy game. Everything about it, from size to damage dice, tells you this. It's also described as 150 cm in length and having SR1 and being impossible to use one-handed. 

A longsword is a fine personal weapon once you pack a lot of armor, but not period for RuneQuest.

 

Edited November 12, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Trotsky]

I have found this discussion very interesting. I am coming back to RPG’s after a 30+ year break so my experiences of RPGs is from a long time ago... Most of my adult life I have been a board wargamer and are used to rules in those games being very tight with no interpretation required (such as Advanced Squad Leader, Star Fleet Battles etc). 

I don’t have those expectations in a RPG. When people here talk of house rules or spot rules – I always thought that what RPGing was all about. Discussing with players, devising what makes sense, living and dying by the roll of a die… This is not a criticism of anything anyone has posted but a genuine interest in how we all play the game differently.

I also find the discussion on real historical weaponry interesting – I am learning a lot – not sure how relevant any of it is to Glorantha though, real world physics do not really apply there.

[coffeemancer]

3 minutes ago, Trotsky said:

not sure how relevant any of it is to Glorantha though,

Oh, extremely unrelated. I will be doing it for 9 hours straight if I get the chance, though.

[Akhôrahil]

14 minutes ago, Trotsky said:

I also find the discussion on real historical weaponry interesting – I am learning a lot – not sure how relevant any of it is to Glorantha though, real world physics do not really apply there.

There tends to be a "mainline" physics that looks a lot like our world, though. Sure, someone with Leaping magic can make amazing leaps, but a regular person without magic leaps the way we would expect a real-world human to leap. Similarly, having a spear (or more rarely, sword or axe) and a shield and keeping close ranks is what I would expect to work in a formation for the majority of formation soldiers (just as in history) - the exception can be there, but it has to have a reason in that case. 

With dual-wielding Greatswords, even the realism problems fade compared to how ridiculous it looks, and the mockery it makes of any game balance. 🙂 For me, at least.

Edited November 12, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Trotsky]

Yes I get that and I am not really disagreeing with anyone. I suppose because one of my early experiences of Glorantha was with the board game Dragon Pass and the mass combat there was so different than regular Bronze Age warfare that I really want to try and preserve that uniqueness. But it is all just a game –  a game in which you don’t have winners and losers - so as long as we are all having fun it doesn’t really matter.

[Baron Wulfraed]

5 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Greatsword/Zweihänder - older rules had a Longsword which is now removed. It's clearly just one of those D&D weapons that "should" be in an old fantasy game. Everything about it, from size to damage dice, tells you this. It's also described as 150 cm in length and having SR1 and being impossible to use one-handed. 

A longsword is a fine personal weapon once you pack a lot of armor, but not period for RuneQuest.

 

Greatsword worked well in (A)D&D traditional dungeons (at least, when I played in the 80s, the dungeons we encountered had 10ft wide by 10ft high corridors). Since the greatsword usage is mostly held in front of the body, hands about waist high, the tip would clear the ceiling, and (high) parries just required leaning it to correct side (low parries might be either dropping to one's knee or rotating to a point down pose). Two adventurers in the front row basically covered the width of the corridor without endangering each other or the party behind them (and there is a fairly good gap between them for bowmen in back).

In contrast, shorter one-handed swords and axe-men often entailed swings that would risk injuring someone on the same line across. A party trained in shield-wall tactics using just thrusts between shields, or vertical chops over the top of the shields might be effective -- but what (A)D&D party ever had 3-4 fighters with such training (four fighters with ~2ft wide shields would be needed to get a good corridor coverage). {One might be able to stick a cleric into the line, but with the artificial restriction to "blunt weapons" [which was in (A)D&D at the time I played] they'd be limited to overhand chopping.}

Since Glorantha does not appear to be littered with such uniform underground constructions, the greatsword is likely not as useful. Caves and mines might succumb better to a flexible shield-wall and shortsword approach -- where the number of people in the front line can be adjusted to fit the varying widths of the passages (and since everyone -- well, maybe not that Chalana Arroy field medic in the back -- can essay pretty much any type of weapon, there shouldn't be a shortage of candidates to fill the front line).

Edited November 12, 2020 by Baron Wulfraed

[DreadDomain]

On 11/12/2020 at 3:58 AM, lordabdul said:

As is often the case, a spot ruling later became a house rule (half MOV, no action that would obviously uncover body parts, like attacking, but you get double the protected hit locations).

Good one. Will add to my list of house rules.

On 11/12/2020 at 3:58 AM, lordabdul said:

(on a personal note, I don't think I've ever had any other game lead to so many house rules and spot rulings than RQ... it's wild)

This is also my experience. For many, many years I have played games (GURPS, HERO) where we didn't need to house rule much (if at all). Not that we didn't try, this and that but in the end, the rules as is were geling well and were covering all the bases one way or another so the need to bolt on stuff was minimal.

RQG is a different beast. It seems like it brings the rules to an awkward level of crunch. They are crunchy enough to feel very detailed but It feels like there is half a step missing in the development of the rules. The house rule you suggest is a good example. Shield rules are generally good but they make some people go "hmmm. surely I could do this with a shield..." or "surely a larger shield will be heavier and sturdier but will make blocking easier compared to a smaller shield..." or "surely a wooden shield should be sturdier than a hide shield". There are also obvious blind spots. Weapon reach is an important aspect of combat and longer weapons have an advantage over shorter weapons. Yet, RQG offers no mechanism for slipping inside the reach of another weapon. Would it be a difficult rule to add (house rule of official)? Clearly not, such rules exist in various BRP and RQ games.

This half step not taken makes tinkerers want to add it back in. Especially if they have a lot of GURPS under their belt . Conversally, I suspect some people will want to make that half a step back by ignoring some of the crunch 

 

On 11/12/2020 at 3:58 AM, lordabdul said:

Btw, the most typical way to involve a Babs Gorite is to have her be the bodyguard of the Ernalda priestess in the party.

Yes, this.

[Lordabdul]

13 minutes ago, DreadDomain said:

RQG is a different beast. It seems like it brings the rules to an awkward level of crunch. They are crunchy enough to feel very detailed but It feels like there is half a step missing in the development of the rules.

Yeah I've come to the conclusion that it has to do with the lack of homogeneity in the crunch. Some parts are crunchy, while some are not (probably a byproduct of upgrading a 40 years old system in one go, which is quite an undertaking). So we end up semi-unconsciously "smoothing it out": simplifying some things in some areas, adding crunch in others.

[DreadDomain]

On 11/12/2020 at 3:58 AM, lordabdul said:

Jeff recently hand-waved a combat against a dozen-or-so skeletons in the White Bull Campaign stream).

(Sorry... missed that quote in my previous post and couldn't add it) ahh man, I am disappointed. I stopped right before that fight because I didn't have time to watch it in one go. I was really looking forward to see a large fight in action.

Some of the most epic fights we had were against a large number of beast men and another against a large number of undead and both times we used a map to play it out (generally we don't use a grid). Both fights were full of tactical decisions (good and bad), spectacular dice rolls (good and bad) and the one against beast men was specifically dramatic where at some point all seemed lost but the group snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.

I was hoping to see something similar. 

[DreadDomain]

1 hour ago, lordabdul said:

probably a byproduct of upgrading a 40 years old system in one go, which is quite an undertaking

It's probably a byproduct of the main designers having the rules so internalised that it is sometimes difficult to see blindspots that others my have or even recognising that a sentence might not convey the message you want to convey because you know what it means. In the last few years we saw a few "How does this works?", "it works like this", "wait, it is not what this sentence says", "this sentence is perfectly clear to us".

Anyway, digressing now...

[coffeemancer]

8 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

(Sorry... missed that quote in my previous post and couldn't add it) ahh man, I am disappointed. I stopped right before that fight because I didn't have time to watch it in one go. I was really looking forward to see a large fight in action.

Some of the most epic fights we had were against a large number of beast men and another against a large number of undead and both times we used a map to play it out (generally we don't use a grid). Both fights were full of tactical decisions (good and bad), spectacular dice rolls (good and bad) and the one against beast men was specifically dramatic where at some point all seemed lost but the group snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.

I was hoping to see something similar. 

Id love to have time for that. but massed combat simply takes too much time to be viable for my group if we were to play it by RAW.

[Mugen]

9 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Yeah I've come to the conclusion that it has to do with the lack of homogeneity in the crunch. Some parts are crunchy, while some are not (probably a byproduct of upgrading a 40 years old system in one go, which is quite an undertaking). So we end up semi-unconsciously "smoothing it out": simplifying some things in some areas, adding crunch in others.

The skill opposition rules are a perfect example : if a protagonist has a better success level, he wins. Otherwise, well... It's up to the GM...