hit parry tedium

[StephenMcG]

Many folk criticised RQ2 because early stage characters missed so much.  25% chance to hit is going to miss a lot.  I didn't mind that, what I hated much more was when attack rolls were in that 70-90% space.  You were almost always hitting but almost always getting parried, simply waiting for the lucky impale or critical.

I was wondering whether there is a place for advantage in RQ combat.  If you hit and get parried, one of you will have rolled higher than the other.  (or, early on, if you both miss, one of you will have rolled lower) That person gains advantage in the next round.

The question would be what advantage meant and what you could do with it.

My thoughts are, if you gain advantage, the GM passes you a token.  You can use that next round to, for example, improve skill by 10%, add 2 damage to a successful attack, alter the hit location dice roll by 2, move your opponent 2m, including a 90 degree change of dancing.  Not quite sure if they are all equivalents. 🙂

You can accumulate advantage, using as many tokens as you have to affect the combat.  The problem is, that if you do not use it, and your opponent gains advantage in a combat round, they can, instead of taking an advantage token, make you discard all your advantage.

You can only gain one advantage in a round, either through hitting or parrying.

I don't want to add too much bureaucracy but I thought this might provide some strategic element when many rounds simply go through a hit parry,  hit parry, hit parry stalemate  and emulate, to a degree the ebb and flow of a swordfight.

Thoughts?

Stephen

[Kloster]

7 minutes ago, StephenMcG said:

I didn't mind that, what I hated much more was when attack rolls were in that 70-90% space.  You were almost always hitting but almost always getting parried, simply waiting for the lucky impale or critical.

I never had this problem because we always used all options we could find to 'play dirty': Hitting the weapon or the shield to destroy it, playing on range and SR, trying to disarm or push, using knockback, ganging on one (when you could parry only once) to remove quickly one opponent. Of course, the GM were using the same tricks and the combats were quite often very short. This was (and in some case still are) the way we think tactically.

[jajagappa]

24 minutes ago, StephenMcG said:

I don't want to add too much bureaucracy but I thought this might provide some strategic element when many rounds simply go through a hit parry,  hit parry, hit parry stalemate  and emulate, to a degree the ebb and flow of a swordfight.

Thoughts?

I find that the greater availability of Rune Magic and the use of Rune/Passion Inspirations provide most of the boosting needed to get past these stalemates.  I used to see long-drawn out battles in RQ3 days.  The only time I've hit a combat lasting more than 4-5 rounds in RQG was a case where the combatants explicitly agreed not to use any magic.

[StephenMcG]

Yeah,have not really moved over to RQG yet, magic is always a wild card in this stuff. 🙂

[d(sqrt(-1))]

Advantage in RQ2 usually came about as a result of ganging up on people - most people only got 1 Attack and 1 Parry unless they had two weapons, so if two of you attacked an opponent they could usually only parry one of you. RQG changed this with the -20%(?) per parry/dodge, but you can still run people down if there's enough of you...

 

[Beoferret]

9 hours ago, Kloster said:

I never had this problem because we always used all options we could find to 'play dirty': Hitting the weapon or the shield to destroy it, playing on range and SR, trying to disarm or push, using knockback, ganging on one (when you could parry only once) to remove quickly one opponent. Of course, the GM were using the same tricks and the combats were quite often very short. This was (and in some case still are) the way we think tactically.

This is some good advice. Doing any of this could also give players a more visceral and dynamic sense of what combat can be like. I'd also add grappling or throws. Another idea might be to adopt the two-weapon fighting rules to incorporate a kick (to knock an opponent off balance or away) followed by a weapon strike (or running away). The risk to the last being that your kick might get parried with a sword! 

[Dissolv]

I definitely experienced hit parry tedium back in the day -- early RQ3 time period, and either low-magic (non-Gloranthan obviously) worlds or else the typical high-initiate but not quite Rune Priest where you can't expect Rune Magic to be used to break things open. 

Luckily, RQ:G has the huge boost to Rune magic that seemed to break this up naturally.  If an opponent was too tough -- Lightning his arse.   Similarly, some spirit magic goes a very long way towards hammering down mooks.  Bladesharp is the king of this.  Most players can get a combat character up to 90% or so very quickly.  Bladesharp then lets you subtract from his parry, as well as add the damage needed to get through common armor.   Sometimes players can even be 90% skill on roll up (another big change in RQ:G).  Every percent you knock off your opponent's parry, is a vastly greater chance you do real damage to him. 

I also keep armor rare.  Helms are typically 4 points.  Body armor varies greatly, but a common Orlanthi call up should not have more than 4 point body armor, and 3 point limb armor.  That's the BEST non-thane, non-notable personage.  A high percentage should show up like Saxons, with 2 points of leather.  Pentians should definately be armor deficient as well, and even Lunar soliders will commonly have little armor on the arms and legs, and not great shakes on the body or head necessarily either.  Obviously some units are vastly better equipped than this, but this comes at the cost of fatigue.  Since my players are mainly Orlanthi, they can just out climb and out swim and out jog a group of such foot knights.  Full bronze plate armor is freaking heavy!  I kept armor so rare that my players didn't get more than 3 points for the first game full game year.  This really, really, really made combat tense.  And you knew when you went up against someone with Heavy Scale that you were in a for a time of it.   And when the players managed to get their preferred level of armor -- that was a happy day for them and a big turning point in the campaign. 

The combat "main character" in my Eleven Lights campaign liked to use the "Hercules gambit".  He managed to get a 1d6 natural strength bonus, which he would augment by preference with the Strength spell.  That's +2d6, and a hefty bonus to hit as well.   If the opponent wasn't going down, he (or his allied spirit) would cast Fireblade, and he would just beat the thing down with 5d6 of magical damage.  This was murder against his common Telmori foes, and generally worked on everything short of Bigclub the Giant. 

He was counseled by the Two Pine Humakit that he might do better switching to Bladesharp + Strength, after he had gotten his skill over 100%, in order to maximize the amount of parry he can remove from his foe.  But the threat of high armor enemies ultimately kept him with that combination throughout the entire campaign.  Not bad for a sword and board type!  Normally I see Storm Bull types with two handed Axes try this, or Humakti with two handed swords.   But frankly any player that has a means to muster a LOT of damage with melee has a means to win.  Parrying weapons break, and criticals and even specials become deadly even through a parry.  So you can out-skill the parry, or you can overpower it.  True heroes are doing both.

 

When I ran a low-magic Runequest campaign in Questworld (the original boxed set Questworld), I developed the "Advanced Runequest Combat" rules, which beside some tweaks (lower SR as your skill increases, etc.) it featured a series of special combat maneuvers that could be learned from various fighting societies or master trainers.  There was a strict cap on these based on intelligence, with the most astute warriors being able to learn three.  These were specifically there to break up the hit parry tedium, and the system was very popular with my players. 

Currently, I don't think RQ:G as written needs that, although there would no reason not to have secret special combat techniques anyway, if it sounds fun.  The main thing is to stop attempting to melee things all the time, every time.  Even Romans threw javelins before every battle -- and multiples of them.  Conan struck from the shadows when he could, and the Greek heroes used every artifact and wiles they had for an advantage.  If the players don't used three dimensional combat and just draw broadsword and charge, that's no problem.  The NPC's should be using lots of missile and spell combat, getting allies, sneaking up on the witless players, befriending and betraying them, wearing them down with elementals (and trollkin), all kinds of things other then the last desperate melee.   After all, it's their skin, and just having a parry between it and death is pretty much the last desperate cast of the dice.

[ChrisJ]

My PCs answer to Hit/Parry Tedium is a lightning bolt or Thunderwave!

[StephenMcG]

So the window has shifted from hit parry tedium to one side pulling out the big guns first?  It was too easy to die in RQ before, does this not make it even more likely?

I also presume everyone has a repair matrix to buff their weapons etc?  And the first cult to discover the Sword Protection battle magic spell is going to find themselves with a lot of adherents...

🙂

Stephen

 

[RandomNumber]

Back in the day I moved my RQ3 campaign to PenDragon Pass and we found that worked very well. If I was playing RQG face-to-face I'd probably tinker with an opposed roll approach again. As I'm using Roll20 I'm effectively constrained by the character sheet macros (given I don't want to re-code a bunch of stuff in Roll20) so we're sticking with Rules As Written. We haven't played that much RQG yet so I'm heartened to read in this thread that greater use of Rune magic helps breaks the deadlock more quickly.

[StephenMcG]

I took the plunge with Roll20 as there are things I wanted to change.  You can get a lot done with very little knowledge, what you lose is some clever functionality and almost all the polish!  The character sheets make everything look good...

[Kloster]

Yes, RQG sees far more use of Rune magic than all previous versions, thanks to the Rune Points, but be careful that the return to the RQ2 duration of 2mn can cause a far more conservative use of Spirit Magic, because players want to be sure they have their buff active 'til the end of the combat

[soltakss]

I rarely experienced the hit-parry in RQ2, because of anti-parry, but did in RQ3.

In RQG you can boost your skill to over 100%, which reduces the opponent's parry chance.

So, you take a chance and go Fanatical to reduce their parry chance, much better if you hit first, of course. Combat can be about taking risks.

Passions can augment your skill, as can Runes, so you can get a couple of boosts, in addition to spells such as Bladesharp. So, you could go from 80% attack to 140% attack relatively easily, which reduces parry chance by 40.

 

[Rodney Dangerduck]

Casting Fanaticism on either yourself or the opponent will quickly end any hit/parry tedium.

[Squaredeal Sten]

Sometimes the "hit-parry tedium" is very appropriate and realistic.  

For example:

A couple of months ago a character of mine (Praxian Impala tribe nomad) got into a fight and with his relatively low shortsword skill (Impala tribe breeds archers, not swordsmen) he did a lot of fencing and landed few blows. When the enemy cast Dullblade this got worse. 

This fencing did not strike me as an anomaly:  I knew from the start of the fight that he was at a disadvantage, both on foot and not using his bow.   It was pride and friendship that kept him moving forward.   He was keeping an enemy busy, who thus did not double-team the real killer swordsmen / swordswomen in the party.  At no time did I say to my self "Gee, this isn't working like it should."  Instead I cast a rune spell (shield)  and said "I hope I get a skill increase out of this."

[Kloster]

16 hours ago, soltakss said:

Passions can augment your skill, as can Runes, so you can get a couple of boosts, in addition to spells such as Bladesharp. So, you could go from 80% attack to 140% attack relatively easily, which reduces parry chance by 40.

Opponents can also be over 100% and reduce your chances. In that case, Runes, augments, passions and spells just put you at starting point.

[Shiningbrow]

I'm a bit confused... 

Two combatants of roughly equal ability should take a while to finally get a clear winning hit, especially when it's life or death.

What *might* be a better thought may be that for every hit point lost, there's a negative modifier applied.. Rather than a simple 0 = 0 (incapacitated).  Especially so for certain areas hit (e.g., double penalty for vital areas). So, each 1pt of damage may be -5% to skills.

Alternatively (or additionally), wounds bleed more than RAW.

(Although I'm sure not many would like the extra bookkeeping.. ).

[Stephen L]

Though it's been ages since I've played RQiii, I do remember that, as people got good, combats took forever.  Armour points for shields and weapons significantly outclass even good armour.  So even specials could be blocked by a parry and fair armour.

The big difference I've noticed in RQ in G, is that weapons/shields are breaking far more often than I remember from RQiii (or being reduced so they don't block so much), and I think it's that that's keeping combats shorter.  Though the rules for damaging weapons can only be very slightly different, it's all in the subtle detail of the hit/parry table, but that seems to be making all the difference for us.

It's also kept things a *bit* less deadly.  A special tends to destroy weapons or shields, leaving the foe open to be whittled down, so they fall or surrender from a number of smaller wounds.  However, there have been the odd head or limb lopped off quite spectacularly.  The Yelmailan with heal body has proven very useful...