🔪 Backstabbing Questions 🔪 (i need even more help! 🆘)

[Rodney Dangerduck]

5 hours ago, Kloster said:

This is Jeff's argument to go to 1 single skill. This is right, nobody learns to attack and not to parry (or to parry and not to attack),

Except, in RQG you do learn to attack with a sword separately from how to defend with shield.  The new rule is inconsistent.  And makes spells like Bladesharp and Sword Trance a confusing mess.

[icebrand]

Just now, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Except, in RQG you do learn to attack with a sword separately from how to defend with shield.  The new rule is inconsistent.  And makes spells like Bladesharp and Sword Trance a confusing mess.

RQG skill is per weapon, but easily hackable into fighting style if that's your cup of tea.

Btw i just kinda let everyone roll "half your best combat skill" with any other weapon. If you have 150% 1h sword... Sorry there's no way you fight at 30% with shortsword or mace. 

[Kloster]

1 hour ago, icebrand said:

That sounds completely bizarre to me? Maybe is a language barrier? Like, if he didn't manage to hit you, it means you parried. I seriously doubt he would have hit air if you didn't actively defend?

I agree that English is not my primary language (I am french), but it does not seems to me it is a language problem. In that case, BRP/RQ seems correct to me: A 'no hit' is either a missed attack or a successful parry (in fencing, there is no idea of HP: either you hit or not). In my championship affair, all my attacks were successfully parried, and I just didn't manage to parry all his attacks because he was better at parrying than myself, that's it (I am not complaining: he was better than I was and went to next step. I didn't). I am just explaining that, from my experience with sword fighting (fencing), you learn to attack and defend at the same time, but that does not mean you are proficient at the same level (=different experience rolls in BRP terms).

[icebrand]

Just now, Kloster said:

I agree that English is not my primary language (I am french), but it does not seems to me it is a language problem. In that case, BRP/RQ seems correct to me: A 'no hit' is either a missed attack or a successful parry (in fencing, there is no idea of HP: either you hit or not). In my championship affair, all my attacks were successfully parried, and I just didn't manage to parry all his attacks because he was better at parrying than myself, that's it (I am not complaining: he was better than I was and went to next step. I didn't). I am just explaining that, from my experience with sword fighting (fencing), you learn to attack and defend at the same time, but that does not mean you are proficient at the same level (=different experience rolls in BRP terms).

But that's just granularity...

We could also say every single sword technique is a different (but related) skill, you just train them all at once (different XP rolls)

 

 

[Kloster]

1 hour ago, icebrand said:

I seriously doubt he would have hit air if you didn't actively defend?

In fencing, you always actively defend, but with foil, the valid hit area is quite small: Only the torso is valid, and quite a number of attacks are hitting a non valid area (arms or legs, you almost never hit the head, and never voluntarily). All non torso/abdomen hits are not counted. Other weapons have different rules.

[Kloster]

1 minute ago, icebrand said:

We could also say every single sword technique is a different (but related) skill, you just train them all at once (different XP rolls)

Right.

[icebrand]

Just now, Kloster said:

In fencing, you always actively defend, but with foil, the valid hit area is quite small: Only the torso is valid, and quite a number of attacks are hitting a non valid area (arms or legs, you almost never hit the head, and never voluntarily). All non torso/abdomen hits are not counted. Other weapons have different rules.

What happens if you use your arm to parry then?

[Kloster]

5 minutes ago, icebrand said:

What happens if you use your arm to parry then?

In fencing, you are not allowed to use your non weapon arm, so it is a fault that can make you disqualified (I never saw this rule applied because you use your 2nd arm in your back as a way to keep your equilibrium). If you are hit with the foil in your (weapon) arm, it is not a hit, but the fight stops. With sabre or epee, it is a hit, so you never try to parry with your arm.

Edited September 16, 2021 by Kloster
typing mistake

[Martin Dick]

One of the things a combat system could model is the difference in skill level between a character's ability to hit with a weapon versus the character's ability to parry an attack with that weapon. That seems to reflect a real possibility in the world and RQ1/2/3 decided to implement that. Whether to implement it is really a game design decision, does it add something that is better than the additional complexity that it adds to the system. It's horses for courses, but my experience was that attack and parry were usually pretty close so not splitting it seems like a way of simplifying the system without losing very much at all. And for people who don't feel that, reverting to separate attack and parry skills seems very easy to me

[Kloster]

1 hour ago, Martin Dick said:

One of the things a combat system could model is the difference in skill level between a character's ability to hit with a weapon versus the character's ability to parry an attack with that weapon. That seems to reflect a real possibility in the world and RQ1/2/3 decided to implement that. Whether to implement it is really a game design decision, does it add something that is better than the additional complexity that it adds to the system. It's horses for courses, but my experience was that attack and parry were usually pretty close so not splitting it seems like a way of simplifying the system without losing very much at all. And for people who don't feel that, reverting to separate attack and parry skills seems very easy to me

Completely agree.

[Akhôrahil]

14 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Except, in RQG you do learn to attack with a sword separately from how to defend with shield.  The new rule is inconsistent.  And makes spells like Bladesharp and Sword Trance a confusing mess.

Weapon Styles was a nice system, IMO.

[David Scott]

14 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Except, in RQG you do learn to attack with a sword separately from how to defend with shield.  The new rule is inconsistent.  And makes spells like Bladesharp and Sword Trance a confusing mess.

How? I can honestly say I've never been confused by those two spells.

Why is the rule inconsistent?

How does effect play?

Edited September 17, 2021 by David Scott

[Akhôrahil]

22 minutes ago, David Scott said:

How? I can honestly say I've never been confused by those two spells.

Sword Trance does have some unexpected outcomes - since your Sword skill is pushed through the roof (and RQG has the opponent skill reduction), it means that once the Sword Trance goes off, your shield becomes meaningless except as something that might catch arrows passively. Greatswords are amazing already - for Humakti, they’re a no-brainer because of how negligible shields can become for them.

[Kloster]

35 minutes ago, David Scott said:

How? I can honestly say I've never been confused by those two spells.

Why is the rule inconsistent?

How does effect play?

Bladesharp is not inconsistent, but can be confusing as it affect only attacks. When attack and parry are 2 different skills, there is no ambiguity, but when the skill is the same, the spell affects some use of the skill but not others.

For sword trance, I fully agree with @Akhôrahil and this does affect the game because somebody affected by sword trance can not be hit anymore, in addition to what he told.

[David Scott]

15 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Sword Trance does have some unexpected outcomes - since your Sword skill is pushed through the roof (and RQG has the opponent skill reduction), it means that once the Sword Trance goes off, your shield becomes meaningless except as something that might catch arrows passively.

Not sure how that's unexpected, they cast the spell to get that effect. The spell description says:

Quote

This spell merges the caster’s consciousness with their sword.

[...]

or indeed do anything except focus on their sword and their enemies. When they cease focusing on using their sword in battle, the spell ends.

My players have their adventurers throw their shields down or sling it across their back if they can, relying on their sword parry. It's not about their shield (as is clear from the description).

6 minutes ago, Kloster said:

Bladesharp is not inconsistent, but can be confusing as it affect only attacks. When attack and parry are 2 different skills, there is no ambiguity, but when the skill is the same, the spell affects some use of the skill but not others.

This has never confused any of my players. All so far have been able to track the bonus on their attack and the -20 per parry, on the same weapon. Most do it in their head, some use a piece of paper or on screen notepad.

11 minutes ago, Kloster said:

this does affect the game because somebody affected by sword trance can not be hit anymore

Isn't this what you want your Humakti to do? If it's unbalancing you game bump the cost / cap the mps / max skill, or disallow the cult for players.

I have two Humakti in my campaign, both use Sword Trace (stacked with Bladesharp and usually a Death rune augment). I can honestly say they have never had any issue with the confusion and inconsistency you are talking about. I am however interested in hearing about any issues your players are having with these spells.

[Akhôrahil]

39 minutes ago, Kloster said:

Bladesharp is not inconsistent, but can be confusing as it affect only attacks. When attack and parry are 2 different skills, there is no ambiguity, but when the skill is the same, the spell affects some use of the skill but not others.

For sword trance, I fully agree with @Akhôrahil and this does affect the game because somebody affected by sword trance can not be hit anymore, in addition to what he told.

There's no Humakti in my group, but if there were, I'd be inclined to turn it more into something like Arrow Trance, where your skill actually matters. One of the weird outcomes of Sword Trance is how it makes your access to Magic Points vastly more important than your actual Sword skill when you have prep time (just a few rounds will do). Who cares if your opponent has 200% in his Sword when you have 100%, if you have 20 more MPs to spend? Going by the rules, any Humakti duel is likely to be decided by who can scrounge up the most MPs beforehand to get the overwhelming Sword Trance. This is kinda unexciting.

(Yes, Dispel/Dismiss, but that just means you need even more MPs for your defensive boosting of your Sword Trance.)

Edited September 17, 2021 by Akhôrahil

[icebrand]

21 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

There's no Humakti in my group, but if there were, I'd be inclined to turn it more into something like Arrow Trance, where your skill actually matters. One of the weird outcomes of Sword Trance is how it makes your access to Magic Points vastly more important than your actual Sword skill when you have prep time (just a few rounds will do). Who cares if your opponent has 200% in his Sword when you have 100%, if you have 20 more MPs to spend? Going by the rules, any Humakti duel is likely to be decided by who can scrounge up the most MPs beforehand to get the overwhelming Sword Trance. This is kinda unexciting.

(Yes, Dispel/Dismiss, but that just means you need even more MPs for your defensive boosting of your Sword Trance.)

My humakti player, playing CE with capped truesword damage, probably:

Wait, you guys getting sword trance?

[Kloster]

56 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Isn't this what you want your Humakti to do? If it's unbalancing you game bump the cost / cap the mps / max skill, or disallow the cult for players.

As I have replaced the whole RQG combat chapter by it's RQ3 equivalent (with a few adds from RQG), I don't have the problem: Sword trance affects only attack, you have only 1 parry (except if you split) and the opponent's skill is not reduced by your score over 100%. An Humakti is still a killing machine, but not an invulnerable one.

59 minutes ago, David Scott said:

I have two Humakti in my campaign, both use Sword Trace (stacked with Bladesharp and usually a Death rune augment).

I have only one, and he is using the same tactics.

59 minutes ago, David Scott said:

I can honestly say they have never had any issue with the confusion and inconsistency you are talking about.

I am not the one that spoke of inconsistencies (I have even written that Bladesharp is not inconsistent). I have just answered to your question about game effects.

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

I am however interested in hearing about any issues your players are having with these spells.

Because of our house rule, I have no trouble. If we were not using them, the main trouble is that somebody casting Sword trance with only 10MP becomes almost impossible to hit.

50 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

There's no Humakti in my group, but if there were, I'd be inclined to turn it more into something like Arrow Trance, where your skill actually matters. One of the weird outcomes of Sword Trance is how it makes your access to Magic Points vastly more important than your actual Sword skill when you have prep time (just a few rounds will do). Who cares if your opponent has 200% in his Sword when you have 100%, if you have 20 more MPs to spend? Going by the rules, any Humakti duel is likely to be decided by who can scrounge up the most MPs beforehand to get the overwhelming Sword Trance. This is kinda unexciting.

(Yes, Dispel/Dismiss, but that just means you need even more MPs for your defensive boosting of your Sword Trance.)

Completely agree.

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

All so far have been able to track the bonus on their attack and the -20 per parry, on the same weapon.

Why -20 per parry? Because of the skill above 100%?

[Akhôrahil]

12 minutes ago, Kloster said:

Why -20 per parry? Because of the skill above 100%?

I assume this is multiple parry penalties?

[David Scott]

3 hours ago, Kloster said:

Why -20 per parry? Because of the skill above 100%?

You can parry as many times as you like, RQG, page 200:

Quote

Subsequent Parries

An adventurer may make a subsequent parry with a weapon they have already parried with. Any subsequent parry is at a cumulative –20% penalty for each additional parry. If the chance is reduced to 0% or below, the chance of success becomes the default 5% minimum chance of success.

 

[David Scott]

4 hours ago, icebrand said:

My humakti player, playing CE with capped truesword damage, probably:

Wait, you guys getting sword trance?

In RQG, adventurers (who are by default initiates) choose three rune spells to be able to access (in addition to the 12 common ones) and three rune points to cast them with. A humakti adventurer could start with any three of: Bind Ghost, Detect Truth, Morale, Oath, Sever Spirit, Shield, Sword Trance, Truesword, and Turn Undead

[icebrand]

1 minute ago, David Scott said:

In RQG, adventurers (who are by default initiates) choose three rune spells to be able to access (in addition to the 12 common ones) and three rune points to cast them with. A humakti adventurer could start with any three of: Bind Ghost, Detect Truth, Morale, Oath, Sever Spirit, Shield, Sword Trance, Truesword, and Turn Undead

I know, i have RQG (and my PCs start as initiates with CE precious XP + 3 RP + INTx10 Skil pt +CHA/2 battle magic -these magic points replace the previous xp ones) but i use the CE spells and gods from cult compendium.

I also use -30 (as in classic BRP games) instead of -20 for extra parries.

 

[Shiningbrow]

On 9/17/2021 at 3:15 AM, Kloster said:

In fencing, you always actively defend, but with foil, the valid hit area is quite small: Only the torso is valid, and quite a number of attacks are hitting a non valid area (arms or legs, you almost never hit the head, and never voluntarily). All non torso/abdomen hits are not counted. Other weapons have different rules.

And don't forget the priority rules... Which I imagine would have had a significant impact, since your opponent was successfully parrying. Riposte for the win!!!

[Shiningbrow]

18 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Weapon Styles was a nice system, IMO.

Yea and no.

What do you do when you have to replace one of them with something else? Surely your shield use doesn't suddenly completely suck if you have to change put your spear for a sword.

 

I think split weapon skills makes the most amount of sense, although slightly less practical. 

Although some might think the attack & parry should really be about the same level, shield use certainly isn't, and I'd expect a number of other weapons to be different as well, especially if one has extensively used a shield for defense, e.g. with axes, spears and maces.

[Susimetsa]

On 9/16/2021 at 10:15 PM, Kloster said:

In fencing, you always actively defend, but with foil, the valid hit area is quite small: Only the torso is valid, and quite a number of attacks are hitting a non valid area (arms or legs, you almost never hit the head, and never voluntarily). All non torso/abdomen hits are not counted. Other weapons have different rules.

Historically, you actively defend with pretty much every sword type - only a fool would not do so. Longsword techniques have guards where combatants hold their swords in positions where they block most lines of attack and can quickly move to protect another when needed (when your opponent switches to another guard - changing their sword position and opening themselves a new set of attack lines - you change your guard to match to block as many of those new lines of attack as you can). Thus, you need feints to make your opponent move their sword away from the area you want to attack.

This is perhaps even more pronounced with the rapier (and rapier + another weapon) styles, where the guard of the rapier became a shield in its own right - when you hold a sword with a complex hilt (swept hilt, shell guard, bell guard, ring guard) at arm's length towards your opponent, both the angle of the blade and the hilt block a decent number of lines of attack. The tiny shield used with the rapier (a buckler) was also held at an arm's length towards the enemy - which effectively protects from as many lines of attack as a larger shield held closer to the body would. Because of these considerations of lines and angles, many fencing masters stressed that one must learn one’s letters before attempting to learn fencing, as one needed to understand and take advantage of circles, lines and angles.

 

Edited September 18, 2021 by Susimetsa