Parry blocks All v Parry blocks AP

[frogspawner]

The only real problem with high level skills was the "parry blocks AP in damage" rule, which required that you actually failed your parry to break through, if you had a minimally decent parrying weapon. This problem is no longer there now, and in a fight between two 100% opponents, a blow lands on target once in three rounds on average.

I'd love to hear, either thru PM or another thread, why you found the "Parry blocks AP in damage" rule an issue. Seems a bit more accurate in the way shields work than the current "Parry blocks all" method.

Seconds out! Round One - Ding-ding!

[SDLeary]

Seconds out! Round One - Ding-ding!

ROFLOL

Man, not looking for a Cage Match here! Just interested in his view.

SDLeary

[frogspawner]

Man, not looking for a Cage Match here! Just interested in his view.

Absolutely. Same here!

[RMS]

Nightshade mentioned it over in the other thread. I've always house-ruled that a Special or Critical attack in RQ did full damage to the parrying weapon. So a shield that parries a Special attack is almost always splintered and useless thereafter. In addition, in the RQ rules, such a hit almost always resulted in a knock back, frequently leaving the parrying person prone and very susceptible to a followup attack. I actually prefer this to the current method myself. I never found high skill RQ combat to drag very long. If it did, it was due to two very high skilled people in a duel, which usually was worth dragging out. Normal combats are still one by whoever has the tactical edge and the best long range weapons!

[SDLeary]

Nightshade mentioned it over in the other thread. I've always house-ruled that a Special or Critical attack in RQ did full damage to the parrying weapon. So a shield that parries a Special attack is almost always splintered and useless thereafter. In addition, in the RQ rules, such a hit almost always resulted in a knock back, frequently leaving the parrying person prone and very susceptible to a followup attack. I actually prefer this to the current method myself. I never found high skill RQ combat to drag very long. If it did, it was due to two very high skilled people in a duel, which usually was worth dragging out. Normal combats are still one by whoever has the tactical edge and the best long range weapons!

Your experience matches mine. Right now, RAW, a skilled person with a shield and no armor can potentially last a long time, and can't really be nickeled and dimed down.

SDLeary

Edited November 17, 2009 by SDLeary

[RosenMcStern]

I've always house-ruled that a Special or Critical attack in RQ did full damage to the parrying weapon.

Please avoid quoting how you house-ruled things. The thread is about whether it worked well in the RuneQuest rules as written. If you houserule classes away, even D&D becomes a great game.

First of all, using the same value to represent how hard is an object to break and how good it is at deflecting damage is unrealistic. How effectively you can deflect damage is more related to

a) your skill at deflecting the blow

your strength

The toughness of the object has a marginal role in this. The AP values of weapons in RQ3 were adjusted to reflect their ability to deflect damage, beyond their hardness. But this led to some weird situations (splitting a wooden spear in half was as easy as breaking a broadsword). I would like to hear Pete's opinion about this, too.

The second point is not realism but gameability. Someone said that a high-skill duel in RQ3 was a "wait for a critical" business. I must object. A decent skill is not penetrated even by a critical. PCs do not go around with target shields, they use ur-metal kite shields (24 points) and either invoke Humakt's blessing on them or use Armoring Enchantment. The result, in all RuneQuest campaigns I ran was an average of 25-30 armor points per shield once the character was rune level or so. Critical from a great troll wielding Troll Maul is 16+2d6 damage - average 23, maximum 28. Hardly a problem. Sure, you can fall to the ground because of knockback, but this only means you are -20% to attacks until you stand up.

This means that a real high level combat in RQ3 tends to drag because parry APs usually exceed potential damage, even in case of a critical. Moreover, a 100% skill warrior with a good weapon is at an advantage over a 300% one with an average weapon.

On the other hand, combat in BRP no longer drags this way. A 100% fighter specials one times in five. With two rolls per round, the chance that no one has rolled a special after three rounds are around 25%. Which means that most duels end in three-four rounds or so. Weapon quality in this case influences only your ability to take your opponent down in one blow, not your ability to stop his attacks.

Other considerations could come into play, but I think the above is enough to prefer the "level of success" method.

[Thalaba]

Now I think I can understand more where many of your objections are coming from. You were playing a much more gonzo version of RQ than I ever did. Many of your objections to the system don't seem to apply at the level we were/are playing at. I find the difference interesting. In any case, it is certainly not true in our games that parrying APs exceeded weapon damage.

There are so many factors involved in defence that it would be difficult to model them all. True, if someone tried to block an axe blow with a spear haft, it would be easier to snap than the blade of a bronze sword. But on the other hand, most early bronze thrusting swords had the blades rivetted to the hilt and so it was that connection that might very well have broken, not the blade. Damage caused to a weapon in BRP makes no assumptions about which part of the weapon is damaged - only functionality is affected. I'm also sure there would be a big difference depending on whether you chose to block a blow outright or deflect a blow. Might be an interesting excecise to model this...hmmm.

IIR a critical parry is needed in RQ3 to deflect a critical attack, is it not? Or am I remembering my house rules. I don't have the manual with me. In any case, your model is ignoring the effect of multiple attacks, which are the norm in my game. Even with a massive AP shield, you could still only deflect one incoming blow with it per round at 99%. Not much help when fighting three great trolls. Furthermore, a 300% skilled fighter is at a great advantage over a 100% skilled fighter - he can attack three foes in one round at 100%, whereas the other guy can only attack one foe. He can also hit a specific location on his target much easier.

I remain unsold on the argument to date (but not necessarily unwilling to buy if the sales pitch is right).

Thalaba

[Pete Nash]

The toughness of the object has a marginal role in this. The AP values of weapons in RQ3 were adjusted to reflect their ability to deflect damage, beyond their hardness. But this led to some weird situations (splitting a wooden spear in half was as easy as breaking a broadsword). I would like to hear Pete's opinion about this, too.

I'll answer concerning how easy it is to break a weapon in combat, rather than pick holes in AP values which are really just abstractions of length and mass in order to help deflect damage.

After a heated discussion several years back about how difficult it was to cleave the shaft of a wooden hafted weapon, I did perform an experiment trying to actively damage a range of weapons. Although most of my original premises were correct, it did reveal some very strange trends - primarily that in direct combat metal weapons actually more susceptible to damage than wooden ones, and the larger the metal weapon the more vulnerable it became.

The biggest problem when trying to deliberately break a wooden hafted weapon isn't whether the edge of a sword or axe can cut the wood, but rather that the target moves when you strike it, transforming the energy normally used to penetrate the material into accelerating the target away instead. The best result I could get using a greatsword or axe against an ash hafted spear for example was some minor scratching of the wood. Ironically, the edge of the greatsword suffered worse.

Now if you are in a situation where the spear or polearm is wedged so that it doesn't recoil from the blow, it becomes a different matter. Even so, its no easy feat to snap an ash shaft an inch and a half in diameter, and depends on the length of the shaft presented between the two rigidly held points - the longer the length, the more the shaft flexes. In the press of combat, cleaving them is almost impossible.

As for snapping swords, I've never actually managed that. But I use modern steel. Early Greek accounts of bronze swords record them as breaking frequently in close combat. This wasn't so much down to the weakness of the metal, but rather the design of sword itself. The failures occurred where the overly narrow tang entered the hilt, or the rivets holding the blade to the hilt ripped free, or the thrusting tip of the blade where it narrows snapped off (presumably from striking against/into a solid object). Early iron swords had the problem of being softer, so they frequently bent, and those blades could snap mid-way more easily because of the impurities introduced when forging the metal. By the late middle ages once smiths could reliably produce inclusion-free steel, swords (generally) stopped critically breaking.

So how do you break a weapon during combat? Generally you don't during normal hack and slash.

I have once managed to break a spear in full combat as a side effect of disarming my opponent. Driving the point of his weapon into the ground with my center-grip shield, I stepped in deep with my left leg and then deliberately kneeled down on the shaft. I was attempting to use the weight of my kneeling body to pull the spear from his hands. Instead I snapped it cleanly. However, it took my full weight plus armour to do it.

The same trick can be used against swords if you can ward your opponent's to ground level, except you step on the mid-part of the blade. Not to be done unless you are willing to permanently deform someone's sword.

My most recent weapon breakage was only three weeks ago when I was giving a lesson in 2H German Longsword fighting. As part of a faux attack I bound my opponent's blade whilst simultaneously stepping in close, then releasing my left hand from my hilt I grasped his blade, stepped and twisted it in an attempt to disarm him. Unfortunately he failed to release his grip, and although I summarily won the fight with a pommel strike to his face (don't worry he was wearing armour), the opposing twists managed to put a rather nasty bend in the blade. Despite the sword being full combat approved, guaranteed not to sheer, the steel was still vulnerable to severe deformations. I was rather surprised since my left hand is crippled and has half the strength of my right, but with correct technique, leverage and my body mass behind it, the longsword lost. That is why bigger blades are more vulnerable. I couldn't have done the same thing to a gladius for example.

Thus based on my personal experience, weapons rarely break during combat. It can be done as a deliberate act (rather than bad luck, poor maintenance or flawed manufacture), but it requires a great deal of skill and hardly ever uses your own weapon to do it.

In terms of game mechanics the way I view it is when a weapon 'soaks' a certain amount of damage, the excess doesn't damage the weapon itself. Rather the weapon is moved and the blow continues onwards. If its a shield, then the force of the blow smashes the shield rim into my face/body, or the shield torques my arm or shoulder. The weapon itself shouldn't suffer harm.

Does that help? :confused:

[RosenMcStern]

I'm also sure there would be a big difference depending on whether you chose to block a blow outright or deflect a blow. Might be an interesting excecise to model this...hmmm.

I did it as houserules in MRQ. It is realistic but complex.

IIR a critical parry is needed in RQ3 to deflect a critical attack, is it not?

Nope. The rules say that a critical parry completely blocks a critical attack. You need a crit parry to nullify it, but a normal one still subtracts its AP. A critical impale with a dagger is blocked by a common shield if you have no DB, and a large shield if you have a DB. Most slashing criticals are stopped by a normal parry. Basically you assume that the crit roll involves a very efficient, strong blow against the shield.

The new rules assume you circumvented your opponent's defense and scored a special hit past the shield. More similar to what would happen in a real combat.

In any case, your model is ignoring the effect of multiple attacks, which are the norm in my game. Even with a massive AP shield, you could still only deflect one incoming blow with it per round at 99%. Not much help when fighting three great trolls. Furthermore, a 300% skilled fighter is at a great advantage over a 100% skilled fighter - he can attack three foes in one round at 100%, whereas the other guy can only attack one foe. He can also hit a specific location on his target much easier.

All these advantages are totally irrelevant to the situation where two 100%+ fighters duel. You cannot split against a single opponent. Even if you aim at the weak spot, your blow will still be parried.

Nobody said that being 300% is not intriguing. You can aim. You can fight in the dark. You can engage multiple opponents. It is just that in the old rules, a one-on-one fight between skilled opponents drags sluggishly.

[deleriad]

Without having RQ3 in front of me, a parry blocked any kind of attack, even a critical. You might be thinking of Dodge.

In general I tend to agree with Rosen. I ran "non-gonzo" RQ3 with exceptionally good characters being maybe 120% and generally ran games where magic was not commonly available. Even then, for all intents and purposes, a decent shield plus armour stopped all damage pretty much all of the time. Fights were generally settled by the first person to fail a parry.

On the other hand, I tend to like numbers in BRP games. I would rather a parry a stopped X amount of damage based on the parry than being all, nothing or half. MRQ tried to do this by reducing parry APs but then screwed up the implementation. E.g. If you look at what MRQ tried to do:

An average weapon stops 3 or 4 points of damage. Average 1H weapon does 3-4 damage. On average a 1H weapon parry blocks most of the damage from a 1H attack, maybe leaving you with a minor wound. An average shield blocks all of the damage from an average 1h weapon most of the time, and blocks most of the damage from a 2H weapon most of the time.

Realistically, the hardness of a weapon doesn't really model its effectiveness as a parrying device but most of the time it's not a problem in play. I personally wouldn't go back to RQ3, despite running it for most of my gaming life because in retrospect I find its sweet spot for combat is pretty narrow.

[SDLeary]

Please avoid quoting how you house-ruled things. The thread is about whether it worked well in the RuneQuest rules as written. If you houserule classes away, even D&D becomes a great game.

First of all, using the same value to represent how hard is an object to break and how good it is at deflecting damage is unrealistic. How effectively you can deflect damage is more related to

a) your skill at deflecting the blow

your strength

The toughness of the object has a marginal role in this. The AP values of weapons in RQ3 were adjusted to reflect their ability to deflect damage, beyond their hardness. But this led to some weird situations (splitting a wooden spear in half was as easy as breaking a broadsword). I would like to hear Pete's opinion about this, too.

The second point is not realism but gameability. Someone said that a high-skill duel in RQ3 was a "wait for a critical" business. I must object. A decent skill is not penetrated even by a critical. PCs do not go around with target shields, they use ur-metal kite shields (24 points) and either invoke Humakt's blessing on them or use Armoring Enchantment. The result, in all RuneQuest campaigns I ran was an average of 25-30 armor points per shield once the character was rune level or so. Critical from a great troll wielding Troll Maul is 16+2d6 damage - average 23, maximum 28. Hardly a problem. Sure, you can fall to the ground because of knockback, but this only means you are -20% to attacks until you stand up.

This means that a real high level combat in RQ3 tends to drag because parry APs usually exceed potential damage, even in case of a critical. Moreover, a 100% skill warrior with a good weapon is at an advantage over a 300% one with an average weapon.

On the other hand, combat in BRP no longer drags this way. A 100% fighter specials one times in five. With two rolls per round, the chance that no one has rolled a special after three rounds are around 25%. Which means that most duels end in three-four rounds or so. Weapon quality in this case influences only your ability to take your opponent down in one blow, not your ability to stop his attacks.

Other considerations could come into play, but I think the above is enough to prefer the "level of success" method.

From what I read here, its not the system that is the issue. Its the amount of magic and artifacts being used.

Remove the artifacts and take away the magic, the special shields, etc. and rerun combats (I understand its a long time ago) at that level and I think you'll come out with a very different result.

SDLeary

Edited November 17, 2009 by SDLeary

[SDLeary]

<snip> combat experiences

Does that help? :confused:

Pete,

In your combats, how often do you only achieve a partial parry; that is the blade of the sword, head of an axe or mace, etc., come in at an angle that you don't fully parry (using shield or weapon), so that you are still impacted by the business portion of the weapon with noteable but not full force?

SDLeary

[RMS]

Please avoid quoting how you house-ruled things. The thread is about whether it worked well in the RuneQuest rules as written. If you houserule classes away, even D&D becomes a great game.

The point was that it wasn't a problem in RAW. I did note what I did to make it even better. Sorry if that offends you. I thought someone might find it helpful.

Sure, you can fall to the ground because of knockback, but this only means you are -20% to attacks until you stand up.

That's only if they stand back while you're on the ground. Any troll worth his salt would have been on top of you matching his superior STR against yours (or SIZ) and taking the boosted weapons completely out of the equation. Also, in RQ, while you were parrying that troll with your boosted shield, his five trollkin got free shots at you with no chance to parry. In BRP, you get to parry every one of them at only a slightly reduced skill. Not to mention the general tendency for everyone to run away once the Humakit "powers up" and then re-engages 15 minutes later with your own magic up and the Humakti's down. One of the beauties of RQ was that it rewarded good tactical thinking over plowing straight into the other side.

This means that a real high level combat in RQ3 tends to drag because parry APs usually exceed potential damage, even in case of a critical.

Not in my experience. If you're boosting things with spells, it's much easier for most combat cults to provide damage boosting spells than armor boosting spells and since we're only talking about RAW none of those armor boosting spells count against a critical (which ignores all armor, including magic).

Other considerations could come into play, but I think the above is enough to prefer the "level of success" method.

Your experience is completely contrary to my experience in RQ. Mine was that high powered characters almost always had the ability to deal damage to each other. The big problem was that usually a critical killed whoever received it outright, so battles tended to become a series of attacks vs. parries, and then a critical results in a mortal wound regardless of whether the defender parried or not.

[RosenMcStern]

From what I read here, its not the system that is the issue. Its the amount of magic and artifacts being used.

Remove the artifacts and take away the magic, the special shields, etc. and rerun combats (I understand its a long time ago) at that level and I think you'll come out with a very different result.

Magic weapons are part of the fun. If you do not use them, half of the monsters in the book are unbeatable.

Besides, I can certainly do as you suggest. But things will not change. A mundane medium shield still stops 12 points of critical damage in RuneQuest 3, and your average broadsword with a damage bonus does 9+1d4 damage on a critical (average 11.5 damage). So the average critical with the average weapon is stopped by the average shield on a regullar parry. A mere kite shield makes you invulnerable to 1H non-impaling weapons even in case of a critical hit that also scores maximum damage bonus (11 pt. critical with Bastard Sword plus maximum on 1d4 is 4, total 15, and kite is 16 AP).

Only halberds and impaling weapons can realistically bypass parry armor in RQ2/3. Special weapons only make this more evident (an Enchanted Iron Hoplite can parry a Dragon).

Like many things in RQ3, the parry AP system works very well in the average sistuation. Once things ramp up the power scale, it becomes less effective.

[RMS]

From what I read here, its not the system that is the issue. Its the amount of magic and artifacts being used.

Remove the artifacts and take away the magic, the special shields, etc. and rerun combats (I understand its a long time ago) at that level and I think you'll come out with a very different result.

SDLeary

I always saw this problem much more with low-magic campaigns than higher magic campaigns. While playing in Glorantha, magic got quite high and it tended to shorten, not lengthen, fights in comparison to playing a low magic world with adequate armor and weapons available...which did tend to devolved into "waiting for the critical" if you ignored the fatigue system. The fatigue system did a very good job in those cases. It was just way to fiddly for me or my group to ever bother with.

[SDLeary]

I always saw this problem much more with low-magic campaigns than higher magic campaigns. While playing in Glorantha, magic got quite high and it tended to shorten, not lengthen, fights in comparison to playing a low magic world with adequate armor and weapons available...which did tend to devolved into "waiting for the critical" if you ignored the fatigue system. The fatigue system did a very good job in those cases. It was just way to fiddly for me or my group to ever bother with.

We did have some magic in ours, but none of us were rune-level, so armor was not always possible beyond leathers and shields.

Some combats later in the campaign were long, and would have been longer were it not for the magic, but I would hate to see what those would have been like if a parry blocked all, rather than X amount of damage. It was the fact that damage did get past the shield that would nickel-and-dime us to death, even before the fatigue began to effect us.

SDLeary

[RosenMcStern]

Sorry if that offends you.

Awww, don't take it too seriously. This has been discussed so many times that it has become a comedy.

That's.. side.

This is true, but it is not relevant to our debate. We are talking about what is better, the "Parry blocks AP points, always" or the "Parry blocks all but must match level of success of attack".

If you're boosting things with spells, it's much easier for most combat cults to provide damage boosting spells than armor boosting spells

All cults have Armoring Enchantment. And it is always on, unlike Bladesharp, that must be cast beforehand. Even a matrix on your sword must be activated. Armoring Enchantment must not.

The big problem was that usually a critical killed whoever received it outright, so battles tended to become a series of attacks vs. parries, and then a critical results in a mortal wound regardless of whether the defender parried or not.

If weapons are made of steel, this is hardly the case. A decent steel sword parries 15-18 damage, even without an enchantment. If your critical does 25 damage (a huge amount of damage) then only 10 points pass through, ignoring armor. Enough to criple, but not to kill.

All the above comments are only true if you are very liberal with spells but heavily restrict enchantments. But Rune Lords are supposed to have Enchantments. So they can survive a critical hit from an enemy, even if he is using a spell on his weapon.

[RMS]

Awww, don't take it too seriously. This has been discussed so many times that it has become a comedy.

I wasn't taking it seriously btw. It was said tongue-in-cheek. It's just that you aren't reading my facial expressions through the internet.

This is true, but it is not relevant to our debate. We are talking about what is better, the "Parry blocks AP points, always" or the "Parry blocks all but must match level of success of attack".

It's important if you're looking at RQ combat vs. BRP combat and how the subsystems fit into the overall whole. One of the things that shortened RQ combats was that you ganged up on someone: one person *takes* his defense away and the next couple hit him with no defensive role. It builds directly into this discussion.

All cults have Armoring Enchantment. And it is always on, unlike Bladesharp, that must be cast beforehand. Even a matrix on your sword must be activated. Armoring Enchantment must not.

If weapons are made of steel, this is hardly the case. A decent steel sword parries 15-18 damage, even without an enchantment. If your critical does 25 damage (a huge amount of damage) then only 10 points pass through, ignoring armor. Enough to criple, but not to kill.

Any Sword of Humakti, Death Lord, etc. that isn't averaging well above 25 points in RQ-Glorantha wasn't even trying.

All the above comments are only true if you are very liberal with spells but heavily restrict enchantments. But Rune Lords are supposed to have Enchantments. So they can survive a critical hit from an enemy, even if he is using a spell on his weapon.

This is a different issue and one of the broken things in RQ3 magic. Enchantments RAW have no limits and with the assumed power gains in a typical game they can quickly get out of hand. If you don't cap it at all, enchantments can get out of hand. (Granted, you need the right spells and must also make an Enchantment role AFTER spending the POW, but still once the skill is up there it's pretty easy to pile them on.) However, I wouldn't actually call these house-rules (just so you can't object!) so much as just standard at-the-table rulings. Either way, I can see how this could have been abused and would have ruined everything else.

[Pete Nash]

Pete, In your combats, how often do you only achieve a partial parry; that is the blade of the sword, head of an axe or mace, etc., come in at an angle that you don't fully parry (using shield or weapon), so that you are still impacted by the business portion of the weapon with noteable but not full force?

That's a tough one to answer. It depends on a combination of weapon form, whether I'm armoured, and most importantly the skill of my opponent.

As I've improved over the years, the more minimal my defensive movements have become. This allows me to parry and recover (or progress into a subsequent attack) quicker, and prevents me from being over extended if I've read my opponent's intentions wrong. However, it does mean that an unexpectedly powerful blow, or a fighter of superior technique can partially whelm my parry.

If armoured this doesn't bother me in the slightest. I rarely ever suffer a bruise nowadays, even if full sparing with steel (not like my early days where I'd be literally black with contusions). If unarmoured, I consciously extend (commit) my parries out further to take into account increased risk; or change technique if facing a great weapon because there will be different types of attack and additional force. However it doesn't take much to turn a potential bone breaking blow into a mere sting.

Since my defence is primarily based on skill and movement, I rarely partially parry unless I meet someone as good as me. Then any bypassing impacts start to become notable.

I suppose the golden rule amongst highly skilled martial artists is "only commit your parry to what is required, nothing more" - I.e. prevent incapacitation, but don't waste time or effort to stop/ward/evade the entire attack. A lot of the time you want that slight 'contact' from a fully extended blow to enable you to step in, or bind their weapon, or do a dozen other nasty techniques whilst they remain open.

[SDLeary]

That's a tough one to answer. It depends on a combination of weapon form, whether I'm armoured, and most importantly the skill of my opponent.

As I've improved over the years, the more minimal my defensive movements have become. This allows me to parry and recover (or progress into a subsequent attack) quicker, and prevents me from being over extended if I've read my opponent's intentions wrong. However, it does mean that an unexpectedly powerful blow, or a fighter of superior technique can partially whelm my parry.

If armoured this doesn't bother me in the slightest. I rarely ever suffer a bruise nowadays, even if full sparing with steel (not like my early days where I'd be literally black with contusions). If unarmoured, I consciously extend (commit) my parries out further to take into account increased risk; or change technique if facing a great weapon because there will be different types of attack and additional force. However it doesn't take much to turn a potential bone breaking blow into a mere sting.

Since my defence is primarily based on skill and movement, I rarely partially parry unless I meet someone as good as me. Then any bypassing impacts start to become notable.

I suppose the golden rule amongst highly skilled martial artists is "only commit your parry to what is required, nothing more" - I.e. prevent incapacitation, but don't waste time or effort to stop/ward/evade the entire attack. A lot of the time you want that slight 'contact' from a fully extended blow to enable you to step in, or bind their weapon, or do a dozen other nasty techniques whilst they remain open.

Thanks Pete! Thats exactly the type of experience that I was looking for!

Off hand, when a partial parry does occur, do you recall if it happens more often with a shield or with a weapon?

SDLeary

[rust]

By the way, rapiers do have a tendency to break when a powerful straight

thrust hits armour but does not penetrate - perhaps one reason why rapiers

were common civilian weapons (e.g. for duels), but rarely used in battle,

where many people did still have some armour (e.g. breast plates).

[Nightshade]

The second point is not realism but gameability. Someone said that a high-skill duel in RQ3 was a "wait for a critical" business. I must object. A decent skill is not penetrated even by a critical. PCs do not go around with target shields, they use ur-metal kite shields (24 points) and either invoke Humakt's blessing on them or use Armoring Enchantment. The result, in all

That was me, and I have to note two things:

1. I was talking about non-Gloranthan RQ3, since that was I ran most. Gloranthan rune metals added a whole 'nother layer of problems to all kinds of things here, but that wasn't directly a consequence of the system.

2. When we did see enchanted shields in RQ3, the likelyhood was that the enchantment on the attack at high levels equaled or exceeded it, through Bladesharp, its divine equivelent, or a combination of the two.

So I have to claim that my statement about RQ per se is correct, but for subsets of the game when using Glorantha I'll cheerfully acknowledge it may have even been worse.

Edit: I also have to note an interpetational thing: since shields AP was both its hit points and armor points, our reading of the rule always was that a crit would still be stopped by the shield but would bypass the armor portion and damage it fully. So a longsword critting for 1d8+1+1D6 (or an average of 9 points) wouldn't finish the fight by itself but it'd knock the shield or parrying weapon's hits down low enough that successive hits would soon finish it.

Edited November 18, 2009 by Nightshade

[Nightshade]

Your experience matches mine. Right now, RAW, a skilled person with a shield and no armor can potentially last a long time, and can't really be nickeled and dimed down.

SDLeary

Variance in a big linear die roll like a D100 suggests this is unlikely to happen for long unless the character is also relatively heavily armored (i.e. where those gusts getting by the defense are also fairly likely to bounce).

Also, note my comment was specifically about highly skilled characters; frankly, it doesn't matter that both characters are highly skilled, I really didn't think it was a virtue that fights at that level were usually resolved either by magical intrusion or by someone being multiteamed.

[Pete Nash]

Thanks Pete! Thats exactly the type of experience that I was looking for! Off hand, when a partial parry does occur, do you recall if it happens more often with a shield or with a weapon?

Far more with a single handed weapon or a strapped shield. The former because you are usually only supporting one end of the weapon, so leverage comes into play (you need to parry using the blade nearest the hilt). The latter because strapped shields have very limited manoeuvrability and can be angled past easier (center-grip shields are better for foot combat).

[SDLeary]

Edit: I also have to note an interpetational thing: since shields AP was both its hit points and armor points, our reading of the rule always was that a crit would still be stopped by the shield but would bypass the armor portion and damage it fully. So a longsword critting for 1d8+1+1D6 (or an average of 9 points) wouldn't finish the fight by itself but it'd knock the shield or parrying weapon's hits down low enough that successive hits would soon finish it.

Broadsword was an impaling weapon, so in theory you could do 2d8+2+DB, so you could potentially have a much nastier crit. Bastard Sword on the other had could not impale, RAW.

SDLeary