Everything that's wrong with BRP:s historic medieval weapons and shields

[Mugen]

16 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Possibly. I still wish daggers did 1d6 like  they did originally, rather than 1d4+2. I find it odd that a dagger can penetrate some armor all the time that a greatsword can't.

Was it ?

IMHO, the weapon damage values are one of those few bits that are reminders of RuneQuest's original ties to OD&D.

I wouldn't be surprised to read that the choice made by Mongoose to remove the adds was to use damage values that are closer to D&D 3.X values. I was in the playtest group, but I don't remember if we discussed the reason for those new values. But the first draft had so many problems that maybe no-one really cared...

16 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Personally, I think I favor the idea of just upping the weapon's damage die. So rather than 1D8+1+1D4 it would look something like:

• 1D8+1 changed to 1D10 (to get rid of the add but keep the same average damage)
• 1D4 changed to a bump up to the damage die, to 2d6

 

But then I run a lot of Pendragon, and gotten used to the idea of the damage stat being based on the character, not the weapon.

I agree.

My own preference would be to a system where damage is in part based on the tens of the attack roll, though.

Perhaps Damage Die+tens of the roll, or the highest result between those two.

I'd give traits to weapons, too, and give a bonus to "Heavy" ones.

[Kloster]

1 hour ago, Bilharzia said:

It is typically these moments which prove decisive, not hacking everything up into pieces like most other combat systems, including BRP and RQ3.

If this is the way you play combat with RQ3, I think you have missed the possibilities they offer. With beginning characters, I agree with you, but as soon as they reach a correct level (around 50% to 60%), the various maneuvers and options began to be the main factor in deciding the victory, forcing both players and GM to think tactically. I am not saying RQ3's combat rules are perfect, but they are, in my opinion, the best combat rules BRP has produced, and one of the best I have played.

[Kloster]

17 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I find it odd that a dagger can penetrate some armor all the time that a greatsword can't.

A dagger is a quite thin weapon, used with thrusting. It pierce quite easily most leather armor, and even non contiguous metal armor, sliding between the parts. Except with a downed opponent, it is ineffective versus plate, because unable to pierce, and you have to use it through the small openings (armpits, groin, eyes).

[Kloster]

18 hours ago, David Scott said:

RQ3 introduced a level of complexity that most of the writers involved now think was unnecessary, even counter-productive. 

I find ironic this has been written by the authors that wrote the most overly complex rule of the whole BRP history: RQG's sorcery. It is one of the most interesting though.

[Bilharzia]

1 hour ago, Kloster said:

I am not saying RQ3's combat rules are perfect, but they are, in my opinion, the best combat rules BRP has produced, and one of the best I have played.

::cough:: splutter, really...I don't miss fatigue, layering armour, armouring enchantments, the escalating damage/magic war, ye gods no thanks. RQ6/Mythras isn't perfect but it's a huge step up from RQ3's many unfortunate mis-steps.

[Kloster]

48 minutes ago, Bilharzia said:

::cough:: splutter, really...I don't miss fatigue, layering armour, armouring enchantments, the escalating damage/magic war, ye gods no thanks. RQ6/Mythras isn't perfect but it's a huge step up from RQ3's many unfortunate mis-steps.

I don't miss fatigue, but we never had problem with layering armor, nor armoring enchants. For the escalation, magic (in RQ) has always the upper hand.

[David Scott]

5 hours ago, Kloster said:

I find ironic this has been written by the authors that wrote the most overly complex rule of the whole BRP history: RQG's sorcery. It is one of the most interesting though.

I'm not sure which of the three authors of the magic book wrote the sorcery rules, but my money would have been on Charlie. He had already been involved in writing The Brithini book, mentioned in WF#8, which is likely to have become WIZARDS- sorcery rules for RuneOuest; by Charlie Krank in WF#10.

[Atgxtg]

7 hours ago, Kloster said:

A dagger is a quite thin weapon, used with thrusting. It pierce quite easily most leather armor,

Most real leather armor is stiff and hard for a dagger to pierce. Daggers are ususally better at finding gaps. 

7 hours ago, Kloster said:

and even non contiguous metal armor, sliding between the parts.

Which is why daggers were used against downed foes in armor5.

7 hours ago, Kloster said:

 

Except with a downed opponent, it is ineffective versus plate, because unable to pierce, and you have to use it through the small openings (armpits, groin, eyes).

It's probably as effective at finding the gaps in plate than with any other armor.

 

I think you miss my pointt though. Namely that with 1D4+2 a dagger will always puncture leather in RQ/BRP. That's what I dislike about the adds.

[Atgxtg]

9 hours ago, Mugen said:

Was it ?

Yes in RQ1 a dagger did 1d6.

Quote

IMHO, the weapon damage values are one of those few bits that are reminders of RuneQuest's original ties to OD&D.

Except it's not. I don't think there is a single weapon in RQ that has the same exact damage as OD&D. Yes, there are similarities, but that is probably more due to the dice available than anything else. Just look at Savage Worlds, same basic die spread (d4, d6,d8,d10, d12) so weapon damage look similar. They all try to fit the weapon damages to the scale available. 

 

Quote

I wouldn't be surprised to read that the choice made by Mongoose to remove the adds was to use damage values that are closer to D&D 3.X values. I was in the playtest group, but I don't remember if we discussed the reason for those new values. But the first draft had so many problems that maybe no-one really cared...

Mongoose is a another can of worms. 

Quote

I agree.

 

My own preference would be to a system where damage is in part based on the tens of the attack roll, though.

LOL! I was working on something along those lines,.Basically the damage was the tens die with modifiers for damage modifier weapon type, and success level (doubles were critical and you got to add both dice). 

The big hurdles I had trouble with were:

• Getting opposed skill rolls to work with the limited success chance inherent in most BRP games. With an opposed roll you can assume that the higher roll won the exchange, but with the "blackjack" method we would up with a lot of cases where nether combatant succeeded. 
• Modifying success levels sot hat they were no longer tied to low rolls (so we could have the tens die be the damage)
• Trying to work parrying in a similar fashion. For example a 80 hit vs. a 45 parry would mean 4 points slip through. G
• How to handle skills over 100%. Out best stab at it was to give such skill a +1 to damage per 20% over 100.

 

Quote

Perhaps Damage Die+tens of the roll, or the highest result between those two.

I was leaning to the sum of the % rolls to try an open up the spread a bit.

Quote

I'd give traits to weapons, too, and give a bonus to "Heavy" ones.

Yeah. One of the things I liked about Sanguine's Usagi RPG was that weapons had a choice of crticals, which gave the wielder options under certain circumstances. The wielder might even had a extra crtical type or two available depending on what abilities he knew.  I guess Mythras does something similar. 

Edited May 20, 2021 by Atgxtg

[Kloster]

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Most real leather armor is stiff and hard for a dagger to pierce.

As I have already pierced the (very hard) skin of a wild boar with a dagger, I can ensure you it can go through hard leather.

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Daggers are ususally better at finding gaps. 

Completely true.

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

It's probably as effective at finding the gaps in plate than with any other armor.

Yes, but there is less gaps to find. This is why the dagger is ineffective, except by luck or on downed foes vs plate.

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I think you miss my pointt though. Namely that with 1D4+2 a dagger will always puncture leather in RQ/BRP. That's what I dislike about the adds.

I didn't missed it, and I am not trying to make you change your mind, I am just saying that a real (steel because modern) dagger that connect correctly (meaning a successful attack roll) on even hard leather will puncture it quite easily, so the result does not bother me. The same result can be obtained by a smaller damage, but an armor piercing effect (like ignoring x points of armor, or dividing armor by 2).

[Barak Shathur]

13 hours ago, Bilharzia said:

As I said, easy to houserule, and in fact Mythras Imperative fixes action points at 2, which means for example one attack and one parry. Not difficult to track. Personally I got rid of Cycles in my own game as well. Getting hung up on that means you are missing out on a lot. I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense to opine the lack of BRP innovation while at the same time not even trying a game that has done precisely that, and has been successfully publishing a growing range of supplements for nearly 10 years now. I think it's £6 (?) on Drivethrurpg at the moment.

The point I was trying to make is that they innovated a little too well, what I want is more like a tweaked RQ3 or BRP. Some of the changes in Mythras break the game for me (as far as I can tell from just reading the rules). But I'll give Imperative another look, thanks for the tip.

[Lloyd Dupont]

Hey while we are at it...

While I am ok with the way HP and armor works in a medieval setting... Against modern (or scifi) firearms I'd like it to work more like Borderlands 3. With up to 3HP stack (HP, Armor, Force Shield) and each of them being mow down in order... And I have been toying with various ideas without being satisfied.... Wonder if anyone can help me brainstorm?

I got an idea this morning while driving!
Armor could come with both its AP, but a "Internal Armor Point" (which is the durability of the armor itself, could be higher or lower than the AP). If damage is > IAP then damage above is also applied to the armor!
Same for shield.... So in case of armor and shield, have to take shield down first so can take armor... But I fear it's all too complicated though...
 

Edited May 20, 2021 by Lloyd Dupont

[Questbird]

24 minutes ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Hey while we are at it...

While I am ok with the way HP and armor works in a medieval setting... Against modern (or scifi) firearms I'd like it to work more like Borderlands 3. With up to 3HP stack (HP, Armor, Force Shield) and each of them being mow down in order... And I have been toying with various ideas without being satisfied.... Wonder if anyone can help me brainstorm?

I got an idea this morning while driving!
Armor could come with both its AP, but a "Internal Armor Point" (which is the durability of the armor itself, could be higher or lower than the AP). If damage is > IAP then damage above is also applied to the armor!
Same for shield.... So in case of armor and shield, have to take shield down first so can take armor... But I fear it's all too complicated though...
 

 

Swords of Cydoria is a science fantasy which mixes old and new armours and weapons. They have a rule that 'primitive' armours are worth half value vs 'advanced' weapons. You could apply the same rule for any major difference in tech level between armour and weapon. Easier than layering, internal armour points etc.

[Lloyd Dupont]

My concern are many...

 

For example, one is when you have a modern battle armor (that goes up to 16 IIRC, from the BRP rulebook, though I am making my own), plus some armor addons (which increase the armor further) (I have 21 tech level, so lot of tweaks..) and a forceshield... Then you can just walk in without fear or concern... And also, one marine can't harm an other one!

Ok, perhaps it's fine, but thinking back to youtube video on whether modern ceramic armor is good against firearm.. I remember that yes, they are good, but after a few rounds, there isn't much of the armor left... Which bring me back to give HP to armor... or introduce a degrading mechanic...
(what I am planning at the moment, depending on the weapon, is if damage is more than AP, or AP/2, AP goes down by a number, 1 or 2 or 3 so far...)

 

Also... I am going to use Master of Orion spaceship combat rule.. and they have shield, armor and structure, and they all simply go down.. they do have a tiny bit of damage reduction, but their main effect is mostly an additional HP layer, for the spaceship. And also forceshield regenerate. It's not very compatible on how PC are handled.. and while it could be argued that PC and spaceship don't need to be handled with the same mechanic.. what about tank or, better, flying tank?

 

Edited May 21, 2021 by Lloyd Dupont

[SDLeary]

4 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Hey while we are at it...

While I am ok with the way HP and armor works in a medieval setting... Against modern (or scifi) firearms I'd like it to work more like Borderlands 3. With up to 3HP stack (HP, Armor, Force Shield) and each of them being mow down in order... And I have been toying with various ideas without being satisfied.... Wonder if anyone can help me brainstorm?

I got an idea this morning while driving!
Armor could come with both its AP, but a "Internal Armor Point" (which is the durability of the armor itself, could be higher or lower than the AP). If damage is > IAP then damage above is also applied to the armor!
Same for shield.... So in case of armor and shield, have to take shield down first so can take armor... But I fear it's all too complicated though...
 

Something a bit easier for you. 

Force Shield, use the rules for Damage Resistance from the Sorcery rules in RQ3.

Armor vs modern weapons, think shields in RQ3; has an AP value, when that AP value is exceeded, excess damage makes it through to the wearer. This is ablative, so when exceeded, the next hit will only absorb AP –1 (or whatever your chosen number is).

HP, and Major Wounds, as per BGB. If you prefer Hit Locations, use the "location HP" as Major Wound values for said location. Handling locations this way also makes the ablative armor less of an issue for the character during moderate periods away from someone who can repair it.

SDLeary

[Lloyd Dupont]

So... you suggest that forcefield be an all or nothing damage stopper with a resistance roll?.. I never considered such an idea, interesting...

And for armor you you seem to quite like the ablating value... I need to review those rule soon (booklet almost finish but need a second pass) maybe that's good enough hey! It's a popular fix! ^_^

For HP, I decided to use no hit location, except perhaps, for major wound. But you bring a good point on how, once again, even with modern or advanced firearms, location increase durability (when you got armor that can take a hit, that is...)

[Mugen]

13 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

LOL! I was working on something along those lines,.Basically the damage was the tens die with modifiers for damage modifier weapon type, and success level (doubles were critical and you got to add both dice). 

The big hurdles I had trouble with were:

• Getting opposed skill rolls to work with the limited success chance inherent in most BRP games. With an opposed roll you can assume that the higher roll won the exchange, but with the "blackjack" method we would up with a lot of cases where nether combatant succeeded. 
• Modifying success levels sot hat they were no longer tied to low rolls (so we could have the tens die be the damage)
• Trying to work parrying in a similar fashion. For example a 80 hit vs. a 45 parry would mean 4 points slip through. G
• How to handle skills over 100%. Out best stab at it was to give such skill a +1 to damage per 20% over 100.

 

I have similar ideas for BRP, but never actually used them. I did, however, design a homebrew roll-under blackjack d20 system, partly based on Pendragon, and also old french game Légendes Celtiques (which was itself heavily inpired by old FGU games). I didn't use BRP-style success levels : the roll was the Degree of Success. If your d20 was equal to your chances of success, you re-rolled it and added the new result to the first one.

I also had the same problem with chances of success. As it was an attribute+aptitude system, most average characters ended up with combat scores between 8 and 12, and fights were boring. In the end, i added 3 points to all stats and put a "specialties" system which boosted everyone's abilities. It resulted in a much more fun experience.

Nowadays, i think I'd consider that in a failure versus failure case, the highest roll wins.

13 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I was leaning to the sum of the % rolls to try an open up the spread a bit.

 

I've got a problem with the unit die : even though it may look like a random d10, in reality its possible results are very different depending on the units of your skill. If you have 30%, your chances to get every posible result between 1 and 10 will be 10%. If you have 43%, your chances to roll results between 0 and 3 are bigger than your chances to roll any result between 4 and 9.

[RosenMcStern]

On 5/20/2021 at 12:05 AM, Barak Shathur said:

In RQ3, blunt weapons halve the AP of flexible armour (like chainmail), so they can be quite effective.

This is a nice rule if exploited well, and I used it a lot, especially in my all-troll games, but it was not in the core RQ3 books. It was in the errata (and in the gdw edition). As you can see from the reply below yours, most people still regard it as a sort of houserule.

The truth is that while RQ2 and RQG provide different mechanics for damage enhancement to slashing, piercing and crushing weapons, RQ3 and the BGB only have damage increases for impaling wepons. This sometimes leads to unrealistic combat techniques.

12 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

The point I was trying to make is that they innovated a little too well, what I want is more like a tweaked RQ3 or BRP. Some of the changes in Mythras break the game for me (as far as I can tell from just reading the rules). But I'll give Imperative another look, thanks for the tip.

Why don't you just try the game at the table instead of just reading it? A lot of people have tried that combat system, and now prefer it over the classic BRP implementation. Others do not, but most of them can now motivate their dislike with experience rather than feeling. As D. Vincent Baker said, "You cannot really know how a game plays out until you have tried it in practice".

 

[Kloster]

2 hours ago, RosenMcStern said:

The truth is that while RQ2 and RQG provide different mechanics for damage enhancement to slashing, piercing and crushing weapons, RQ3 and the BGB only have damage increases for impaling wepons. This sometimes leads to unrealistic combat techniques.

Completely true.

[Baron Wulfraed]

20 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Mongoose is a another can of worms. 

Shouldn't that be a basket of cobras? 😱

[Atgxtg]

19 hours ago, Kloster said:

As I have already pierced the (very hard) skin of a wild boar with a dagger, I can ensure you it can go through hard leather.

And I can assure you, it's not the same thing. Living skin on an animal is a lot less resilient that hardened leather. Double so in a fight against someone who is moving.

 

19 hours ago, Kloster said:

Yes, but there is less gaps to find. This is why the dagger is ineffective, except by luck or on downed foes vs plate.

More like there are more gaps to find with plate. One of the reasons why non-rigid armors worked so well was because they could cover and area and still allow for freedom of movement. Plate doesn't allow that- especially not the plate we see in a typical RQ/BRP campaign. 

19 hours ago, Kloster said:

I didn't missed it, and I am not trying to make you change your mind,

Nothing wrong with trying to get someone to change thier mind.

19 hours ago, Kloster said:

I am just saying that a real (steel because modern) dagger that connect correctly (meaning a successful attack roll) on even hard leather will puncture it quite easily,

And I'd have to see that to believe it, as I've seen just how good thich leather is at stopping an attack. 

 

[Atgxtg]

16 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Hey while we are at it...

While I am ok with the way HP and armor works in a medieval setting... Against modern (or scifi) firearms I'd like it to work more like Borderlands 3. With up to 3HP stack (HP, Armor, Force Shield) and each of them being mow down in order... And I have been toying with various ideas without being satisfied.... Wonder if anyone can help me brainstorm?

I'll bite. You probably should start a different thread for it, though.

16 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

I got an idea this morning while driving!
Armor could come with both its AP, but a "Internal Armor Point" (which is the durability of the armor itself, could be higher or lower than the AP). If damage is > IAP then damage above is also applied to the armor!

The easy way would be to adapt the RQ3 weapon damage rules. Basically anytime the armor's AP are exceeded it's protection drops 1 point. You could do spilt values, but frankly i wouldn't. If you wanted less durable armor you could drop he AP by more than 1 point each time it is exceeded. Something like ablative armor might drop even if it isn't exceeded.

16 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Same for shield.... So in case of armor and shield, have to take shield down first so can take armor... But I fear it's all too complicated though...
 

I dunno. It's not much different that a low tech melee fight with shield and armor protecting wearer. You could just say that whenever a shield is penetrated it gets blown, or if it gets beaten by X amount it gets blown.

[Atgxtg]

8 hours ago, Mugen said:

I have similar ideas for BRP, but never actually used them. I did, however, design a homebrew roll-under blackjack d20 system, partly based on Pendragon, and also old french game Légendes Celtiques (which was itself heavily inpired by old FGU games). I didn't use BRP-style success levels : the roll was the Degree of Success. If your d20 was equal to your chances of success, you re-rolled it and added the new result to the first one.

I also had the same problem with chances of success. As it was an attribute+aptitude system, most average characters ended up with combat scores between 8 and 12, and fights were boring. In the end, i added 3 points to all stats and put a "specialties" system which boosted everyone's abilities. It resulted in a much more fun experience.

Nowadays, i think I'd consider that in a failure versus failure case, the highest roll wins.

What I started to tinker with was the idea of starting off weapon skills at DEXx10% or so. Realistically, hitting someone with a melee weapon isn't all that difficult. Most people will hit most of the time, unless the opponent does something about it. That worked out okay for melee, but wasn't so great for skills.

But basically the 1-100 scale for rating skills doesn't match up to well with using them. That meant either coming up with some other modifiers to match the skill to the difficulty, or alterting the dice rolled. One thing I was looking at was the way FASA did it in the old Star Trek RPG. In that game, things that required a basic proficiency, would be rolled on 1D10 instead of 1D100. So someone who was a qualifited shuttle pilot would only need a skill of 10 to drive it around safely on a routine basis. 

A professional pilot would need a skill over 40, and would roll against the difference. 

 

I was thinking that using differernt die sizes could work here. Someone who is a novice swordsman might roll 1d4 or 1D6 while a skilled warrior could roll 1d10, and so on.

 

 

8 hours ago, Mugen said:

I've got a problem with the unit die : even though it may look like a random d10, in reality its possible results are very different depending on the units of your skill. If you have 30%, your chances to get every posible result between 1 and 10 will be 10%. If you have 43%, your chances to roll results between 0 and 3 are bigger than your chances to roll any result between 4 and 9.

Exactly. That was a problem I noticed as well. In theory we thought it would be 1D10-1D10 (parry) with modifiers. In reality, it's much worse than that, as you normally couldn't roll higher than 1/10th your skill. 

[Lloyd Dupont]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

The easy way would be to adapt the RQ3 weapon damage rules. Basically anytime the armor's AP are exceeded it's protection drops 1 point. You could do spilt values, but frankly i wouldn't. If you wanted less durable armor you could drop he AP by more than 1 point each time it is exceeded. Something like ablative armor might drop even if it isn't exceeded

I know this rule from Mythras Firearms! ^_^ and call it ablation. I mentionned it as well with some number tuning... Everybody loves it, gonna stick with it...

I guess I was annoyed with shield... I guess my main concern was to be both BRP friendly and similar to how spaceship shield work in Master of Orion... But then it struck me.. I could just use MoO rules, it's no biggie and not too alien, just a tad different! 🙂

FYI in MoO shield have a small damage reduction value (i.e. AP) but mostly count as what could be best described as an HP layer, which regenerate (for a spaceship). So if I throw some random number out.. the current top of the line shield tech they have could add +5AP, and +20HP. Once the HP i gone shield is off... and perhaps shield can be regenerated with spare power cell.

Edited May 21, 2021 by Lloyd Dupont

[Atgxtg]

42 minutes ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

I know this rule from Mythras Firearms! ^_^ and call it ablation. I mentionned it as well with some number tuning... Everybody loves it, gonna stick with it...

Well the original drop a point when exceeded came from RQ3. It was a marked improvement for weapons, which used to break after two or three of parries in RQ2. The main "bug", IMO, is that it makes shields a bit too tough, as they have high AP scores. IMO, shield should probably have lower AP scores, but should be easy to parry with.   

42 minutes ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

I guess I was annoyed with shield... I guess my main concern was to be both BRP friendly and similar to how spaceship shield work in Master of Orion... But then it struck me.. I could just use MoO rules, it's no biggie and not too alien, just a tad different! 🙂

Yeah, you can off off with all sorts of interesting ideas, especially with SciFi, as that's not as well defined in BRP, as pre-industrial weaponry.

42 minutes ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

FYI in MoO shield have a small damage reduction value (i.e. AP) but mostly count as what could be best described as an HP layer, which regenerate (for a spaceship). So if I throw some random number out.. the current top of the line shield tech they have could add +5AP, and +20HP. Once the HP i gone shield is off... and perhaps shield can be regenerated with spare power cell.

Does damage come off the hit point shields before damaging the ship or both at the same time? If you ship above got hit for 25 points would that do 20 points to the shield, 20 points to the ship, or both?