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Parry, Dodge, Block


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The default BRP rule where parry just deflect all the damage, as I think of it, become increasingly inadequate.... For example it's fine to use parry with your bare hands against sword, or even the club of a giant...
So, even if it's more crunchy, I might have to use some other system parry rule that I read somewhere sometimes, which is roughly parry reduce damage by weapons AP...

Now fine, but it makes Dodge the all powerful defense method. So I need to give it some weakness as well...
I am thinking (tentatively) that dodging when being under the range of a longer weapon than equipped is hard (skill% / 2), any other idea? That would make fighting a giant very difficult though, hard to both parry and dodge... though perhaps it is fair..

And block.. mmm.. I guess shield get destroyed hey!?

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1 hour ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

The default BRP rule where parry just deflect all the damage, as I think of it, become increasingly inadequate.... For example it's fine to use parry with your bare hands against sword, or even the club of a giant...

.....

In Runequest -  you can't parry with your hand: p.197 of RQG says "If the adventurer is armed with a weapon or a shield" .

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

In Runequest -  you can't parry with your hand: p.197 of RQG says "If the adventurer is armed with a weapon or a shield" .  and if you go on to read that section you will see that the parry may very well NOT deflect all the damage.  It can damasge the weapon, the arm, and excess damage will get through to the body.  So if you want more crunch, go on from generic BRP to the  specific Runequest rules

 

 

 

 

Edited by Squaredeal Sten
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1 hour ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

In Runequest -  you can't parry with your hand: p.197 of RQG says "If the adventurer is armed with a weapon or a shield" .

In Runequest 3, you can parry with your hands. The armor points of the parrying weapons are the AP of the arm, and the damage is not substracted from AP, but from the arm hit points. A successful Martial Arts roll adds 6 points to the arm HP. As far as I have understood, RQG is same.

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Common sense should apply.

If a character is wearing metal vambraces, they might be able to parry [that is, deflect] a sword blow. Blocking it is something that should only be included in the most cinematic of campaigns.

This is where RQ and BRP sort of go their separate ways... RQ very clear that any damage in excess of the armor points is applied to the hit location. BRP doesn't always use hit location rules [they're optional] and they allow for more cinematic 'Keanu-fu' type stunts in some campaigns [Pulp, for example].

So my suggestion is to apply common sense at the table and ensure that your rulings on the matter are consistent.

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7 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

The default BRP rule where parry just deflect all the damage, as I think of it, become increasingly inadequate.... For example it's fine to use parry with your bare hands against sword, or even the club of a giant...
So, even if it's more crunchy, I might have to use some other system parry rule that I read somewhere sometimes, which is roughly parry reduce damage by weapons AP...

Now fine, but it makes Dodge the all powerful defense method. So I need to give it some weakness as well...

In RQ3 Dodge had a couple of weaknesses:

  • First off,  the success level of the dodge had to equal to exceed that of the attack. That tended to mean that those who relied on dodging would eventually take a nasty hit when the inevitable special or critical hit popped up.
  • Secondly, a fumbled dodge lead to the character taking at least a normal hit. In practice that meant that every so often a dodging character would zig when they should have zagged,  and jump right into an attack that would have otherwise missed.
7 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

I am thinking (tentatively) that dodging when being under the range of a longer weapon than equipped is hard (skill% / 2),

Why? I don't see how your charring a dagger instead of a sword makes it any harder for you to dodge the opponent's spear/arrow.

 

7 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

any other idea? That would make fighting a giant very difficult though, hard to both parry and dodge... though perhaps it is fair..

Perhaps not. I would think it just comes down to if the opponent can reach you or not. The dodge doesn't just back pedal but could jump, duck, sidestep, or just about any other move that avoids the opponent's weapon.  

BTW, RQ3 did have a couple of special attacks such as a sweep that a giant might use. Basically the sweep attacked an arc rather than a specific character, and the attack hit each character in the arc, in succession until/unless the attack failed to knock a character down. A big powerful creature could send characters flying like bowling pins.  

7 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

And block.. mmm.. I guess shield get destroyed hey!?

Well, if you go with weapons having AP, then shields should have AP too. So a tree hit from a giant that does 50 points of damage, is going to damage a a shield somewhat, although that would probably be of only academic interest to the character holding the shield, as most of that 50 points has probably gotten through to them. That was a big reason why shields were of limited value against giants, dragons, and other huge nasties in RQ3. A large shield might stop 16 or even 18 points, but that hardly matters when the opponent is doing two to three times that in damage.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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9 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

And block.. mmm.. I guess shield get destroyed hey!?

Shields are rather like spear shafts... temporary. There isn't a shield ever made that would take an edge on rim strike from a poleaxe and not buckle under the damage.

But BRP doesn't use the same combat rules and conditions as RQ, the latter being specialized in it.

 

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8 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

In Runequest -  you can't parry with your hand: p.197 of RQG says "If the adventurer is armed with a weapon or a shield" .

 

 

Of course, you are in the BRP section, not the RQ section.

 

6 hours ago, Kloster said:

In Runequest 3, you can parry with your hands. The armor points of the parrying weapons are the AP of the arm, and the damage is not substracted from AP, but from the arm hit points. A successful Martial Arts roll adds 6 points to the arm HP. As far as I have understood, RQG is same.

Yes, and I prefer this rule!

But I know that @Lloyd Dupontuses BRP not RQ

 

Edited by Bill the barbarian

... remember, with a TARDIS, one is never late for breakfast!

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1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

In RQ3 Dodge had a couple of weaknesses:

  • First off,  the success level of the dodge had to equal to exceed that of the attack. That tended to mean that those who relied on dodging would eventually take a nasty hit when the inevitable special or critical hit popped up.
  • Secondly, a fumbled dodge lead to the character taking at least a normal hit. In practice that meant that every so often a dodging character would zig when they should have zagged,  and jump right into an attack that would have otherwise missed.

in BRP, look at the resolution table, parry or dodge work exactly the same, even though they have 2 columns on the resolution table! 😮
ie. special attack vs normal defence means normal hit (and damage to parry weapon in case of parry)
this work differently, right.. i.e parry always parry, but just the AP of the weapon. so.. does a special attack help against a normal parry?

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Why? I don't see how your charring a dagger instead of a sword makes it any harder for you to dodge the opponent's spear/arrow.

I realise this idea doesn't work so well with spear, so maybe not so good as a general combat rule. But it's hard to dodge a sweeping sword strike when you up close to dagger strike range. Parry is pretty much the only sensible option there...

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Well, if you go with weapons having AP, then shields should have AP too. So a tree hit from a giant that does 50 points of damage, is going to damage a a shield somewhat, although that would probably be of only academic interest to the character holding the shield, as most of that 50 points has probably gotten through to them. That was a big reason why shields were of limited value against giants, dragons, and other huge nasties in RQ3. A large shield might stop 16 or even 18 points, but that hardly matters when the opponent is doing two to three times that in damage.

exactly I read a fight against a giant undead yesterday... it's when I realised I couldn't let people got away with a simple shield parry against that... and was one more incentive to tweak the combat rules further

2 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:
6 hours ago, Kloster said:

In Runequest 3, you can parry with your hands. The armor points of the parrying weapons are the AP of the arm, and the damage is not substracted from AP, but from the arm hit points. A successful Martial Arts roll adds 6 points to the arm HP. As far as I have understood, RQG is same.

Yes, and I prefer this rule!

But I know that @Lloyd Dupontuses BRP not RQ

I do use custom combat rules! 😄
And that was the rule I was thinking to adopt.. Even though I bought the hardcover version of RQ6 (or RQ Glorantha? The last one!)! no less! I haven't even read it, just bought it being a Chaosium fan boy! 😄
Mmm.. maybe I should.. for educational purpose, hahah...
At any rate, in 1995 I did play by the RQ3 rules a bit, so that might be that! 😛 

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2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

BTW, RQ3 did have a couple of special attacks such as a sweep that a giant might use. Basically the sweep attacked an arc rather than a specific character, and the attack hit each character in the arc, in succession until/unless the attack failed to knock a character down. A big powerful creature could send characters flying like bowling pins.  

......

The giant's sweep is retained in RQG.  It's in Glorantha Bestiary, p.46, the small print under the giant's weapons.

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One useful concept for this from OpenQuest and Mythras (at least the Lyonesse version) is weapon sizes. Weapons and shields are categorised as Light, Medium, Heavy, Huge (Lyonesse uses: Small, Medium, Large, Huge and adds Enormous for giant clubs etc.) Parrying with a weapon or shield of the same size or greater deflects all of the damage, parrying with one size less deflects half the damage; and if you parry with something 2 or more sizes smaller it deflects nothing. That's when dodging becomes suddenly useful! Also shields punch above their weight, so that even a buckler is counted as 'Medium' size for what it can parry against.

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14 minutes ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

I kind of have a blindspot against that Mythras rule (it's in Mytras 2E as well, not just Lyonesse)... though I cant quite express why, should think about it again...

 

It's easy to implement because any weapon size is easy to guess.

It's not BRP but in my Tirikélu thread there was the idea that even on a successful parry the defender takes (the attacker's damage bonus) - (the defender's damage bonus); which further emphasises that it's better to dodge the attacks of huge creatures than try to parry them. Also possibly better to dodge if you're unarmoured vs. a strong opponent. In Tirikélu the damage bonus is just a number but in BRP it would be more fiddly because would mean extra dice rolling per attack.

 

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I am thinking to do parry: reduce damage by weapon AP or something... but I am not sure I want to let magical weapon with high AP parry everything safely...
And maybe always block damage, even against crit/special, so better than dodge in that regard. but wonder if it's too good then, although crit/special inflict damage to parrying weapon (in BRP at least) so that might be it...

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4 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

I realise this idea doesn't work so well with spear, so maybe not so good as a general combat rule. But it's hard to dodge a sweeping sword strike when you up close to dagger strike range. Parry is pretty much the only sensible option there...

If you are in Dagger strike range, then you are inside the ability of the swordsman to effectively use their weapon. In RQ terms (and I think these appear in the BGB too) you have closed. They must find a way to extend the distance.

SDLeary

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3 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

If you are in Dagger strike range, then you are inside the ability of the swordsman to effectively use their weapon. In RQ terms (and I think these appear in the BGB too) you have closed. They must find a way to extend the distance.

yes, yes, they cannot use their damage bonus (I mention BRP rule here).. they still can attack though... and you still can dodge.., which you shouldn't really

Edited by Lloyd Dupont
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4 minutes ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

yes, yes, they cannot use their damage bonus (I mention BRP rule here).. they still can attack though... and you still can dodge.., which you shouldn't really

Quote

BGB p.219 Close Combat:

At the gamemaster’s discretion, if a short weapon-user is in close combat with a long weapon-user, any parry attempts made by the long weapon-user are considered Difficult.

and...

Quote

BGB p.219 Closing:

In melee combat, once an attacker closes with a target using a longer weapon (such as a spear-user attacking a sword-user), he or she will always get first strike (or action), regardless of DEX rank. 

...

To close with a long weapon- user, a character must be closing on the target during the next combat round or next available action, and may be required to make a successful Dodge roll if being kept at bay (see “Close Combat”, above). Though a character with the longer weapon may parry, attack, or dodge, he or she may perform only one of these actions in that DEX rank. Normally a character may do two of those three actions in the same combat round, but in this case, the length of the weapon makes it less wieldy against the short weapon-user once the combat becomes close.

In addition, I would probably add Difficult for attack as well, for the long weapon user.

Not seeing anything specifically on damage bonus. And why shouldn't you be able to dodge when being attacked by someone who has closed on you? This is still a combat situation, not an assassin sneaking up on you from behind to deliver a killing blow. 

SDLeary

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12 hours ago, Questbird said:

One useful concept for this from OpenQuest and Mythras (at least the Lyonesse version) is weapon sizes. Weapons and shields are categorised as Light, Medium, Heavy, Huge (Lyonesse uses: Small, Medium, Large, Huge and adds Enormous for giant clubs etc.) Parrying with a weapon or shield of the same size or greater deflects all of the damage, parrying with one size less deflects half the damage; and if you parry with something 2 or more sizes smaller it deflects nothing. That's when dodging becomes suddenly useful! Also shields punch above their weight, so that even a buckler is counted as 'Medium' size for what it can parry against.

Note that in Mythras, weapon size can be modified by Special Effects.

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On 6/24/2021 at 3:56 PM, Squaredeal Sten said:

In Runequest -  you can't parry with your hand: p.197 of RQG says "If the adventurer is armed with a weapon or a shield" .

Well, you could play that.

However, I have seen enough Martial Arts films to have it in my mind that you definitely can parry with your hand, so I'd allow it without even thinking about it.

For me, an outright "No, you can't do that" needs a very strong reason and "The rules say so" just isn't anywhere near a strong enough reason for me.

 

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On 6/24/2021 at 7:35 PM, Bill the barbarian said:

Of course, you are in the BRP section, not the RQ section.

Considering that RQ forums havew been entirely taken over by RQG, the BRP section makes as much sense as anyplace else. 

Besides, BRP is more of an umbrella term for the various Chasoium RPGs. CoC, Stormbringer, Worlds of Wonder, are all BRP.

On 6/24/2021 at 7:35 PM, Bill the barbarian said:

But I know that @Lloyd Dupontuses BRP not RQ

Actually he is using a homebrewed variant.

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On 6/24/2021 at 9:10 PM, Questbird said:

One useful concept for this from OpenQuest and Mythras (at least the Lyonesse version) is weapon sizes. Weapons and shields are categorised as Light, Medium, Heavy, Huge (Lyonesse uses: Small, Medium, Large, Huge and adds Enormous for giant clubs etc.) Parrying with a weapon or shield of the same size or greater deflects all of the damage, parrying with one size less deflects half the damage; and if you parry with something 2 or more sizes smaller it deflects nothing. That's when dodging becomes suddenly useful! Also shields punch above their weight, so that even a buckler is counted as 'Medium' size for what it can parry against.

I don't believe it is all that useful. In real life you can parry heavy weapons with light ones. Otherwise the rapier and small sword never would have replaced the heavier arming sword. It's just a lot harder to block with a lighter weapon. THe thing about parrying is that you don't try to stop the attack directly (that's a block), by instead redirect the attack so that it doesn't land on target. 

 

Even when blocking shorter weapons tend to be tougher. The same lever effect that makes larger weapons hit harder also means then tend to take more damage from doing so. That's one of the main reasons why swords started off short. It was difficult to make one long without the tip bending of breaking in combat, especially out of bronze.

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1 minute ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Of BRP, pedantic are we this morn... 

Since the BRP Gold book takes rules from multiple Chasoium RPGs, including RuneQuest, and mixes in some new stuff to boot, I don't see why RQ3 rules  would be off limits to someone setting up their BRP game.  There is so much cross-pollenation with BRP games already. People are mentioning rules from Mythas and LEgend and techincally those aren't even BRP, so why should RuneQuest, the parent system of BRP, be excluded?

 

Heck, considing that Lloyd is working on a Sci-Fi setting, we might even bring up stuff from Futureworld or even Ringworld. 

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On 6/25/2021 at 2:45 AM, Lloyd Dupont said:

I kind of have a blindspot against that Mythras rule (it's in Mytras 2E as well, not just Lyonesse)... though I cant quite express why, should think about it again...

Weapon sizes and parrying in Mythras are largely just an abstraction of RQ3 Armour Points for weapons, it is a faster way of resolving attack and parry clashes. There is less book-keeping doing things the Mythras way.

There is no Mythras 2E btw.

Edited by Bilharzia
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3 hours ago, Bilharzia said:

Weapon sizes and parrying in Mythras are largely just an abstraction of RQ3 Armour Points for weapons,

But RQ3 armor points weren't  size based. A long wooden spear didn't have more AP than a shortsword.

3 hours ago, Bilharzia said:

it is a faster way of resolving attack and parry clashes. There is less book-keeping doing things the Mythras way.

And the orginal Stormbringer way was even faster with less bookkeeping. . But faster and less bookkeeping isn't always better. Most of this comes down to personal preferences and emphasis. I think Lloyd want's weapons/shields slowly losing armor/hit points from attacks and will take the bookkeeping that goes with it, as it better emulates the style of Master of Orion that he is trying to capture for his campaign -especially for high tech personal shields. 

 

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