Just musing about Specials...

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, SDLeary said:

I would suggest Less Lethal Damage. A skill crit with fists, feet, or a truncheon (or other less lethal weapons) can still take someone out permanently. 

Yeah. RQ3 had a attack to knock out that worked too, as well as attacking for knockback. I even came up with a house rule for RQ3 where non-lethal damage came off of fatigue points. THat might be useful to the OP considering he wants to use Fatigue Points. 

But the thing is that the game was designed around lethal damage and the other stuff is an afterthought.

2 hours ago, SDLeary said:

As for normal LL Damage, you could match the inflicted damage against the Location HP by opposed roll or Resistance Table:

• If the roll overcomes the location, a stun effect
• If the roll criticals the the location then a KO (an actual KO, someone keeling over in pain, joint lock...)
• Or other effects that you might come up with

SDLeary

I'd probably have a special be a KO and a critical do real lethal damage. People do die from punches and kicks, it just doesn't happen that often, unless someone keeps beating on someone after they are down. 

[Barak Shathur]

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

. I even came up with a house rule for RQ3 where non-lethal damage came off of fatigue points.

Hey, that’s a brilliant idea!

[Lloyd Dupont]

16 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I strongly suggest that you either limit those spells or better yet beg, borrow or steal one of the other , better balanced, magic systems. For instance use the magic rules but replace the Magic system spells with the Sorcery systems spells. (maybe without the summoning spells because summoned creatures like demons and elementals is traditionally where sorcery got OP.) and you get spells that aren't as overpowered.

lol, that's the problem.. love the fantasy of elementalist, as seen in somewhat D&D... (badly , all Wizard really being generalist in D&D)

Anyway, I found some nice damage scaling issue in Classic Fantasy - Mythras Edition!

[Barak Shathur]

On 7/13/2023 at 5:23 AM, Atgxtg said:

Probably, It got brought up in the Pendragon forums awhile back too, because it would have a significant effect on Pendragon combat. It was mostly dismissed not because people didn't believe the spear had an advantage, but because they believed that it did, and that just didn't fit the knightly paradigm. Pendragon being a knight-centric RPG. Much the same reason why commoners aren't even counted in the troop strengths of some battles. 

 

In fact, I I just discovered the spreadsheet I did for Pendragon at that (2019) time with Reflexive Modifiers for Pendragon based on the results of the Lindybeige video. Speaking of which here is the full Lindybeige video  with all 65 match results at the end.

 

Results and Pendragon Reflexive Modifiers were: 

Match	Results	Modifier
1 H Weapons vs. Spears	3 vs. 9	-5/+5
Swd & Buckler vs. Spears	2 vs. 4	-3/+3
Longswords vs. Spears	2 vs. 4	-3/+3
Greatswords vs. Spears	0 vs 4	-10/+10
Half-Swords vs. Spears	3 vs. 3	0/0
Swd & Shield vs. Spears	6 vs 7	-1/+1
Swd & Shield vs. Spears & Shld	6 vs 0	+10/-10

I'm re-watching the video, but based on the comments by Lindy and Matt, this was with people who were all experienced with swords (HEMA) but who had little to no experience with spears. Apparently most weren't all that experienced with shields either.

 

 

Really going out on a limb here because I haven’t watched the whole video (think I saw some of it a while back), but looking at those stats from the perspective of my prior assumptions and SCA experience, one interpretation could be that they in addition to showing the relative efficacy of different matchups display a learning curve, in that the sword and shields gradually catch up to the spears. If neither of the combatants were used to spears it would seem to me that the reach advantage of a spear would be immediately apparent to the wielder, while the sword guy has to learn just how close he has to step in to crowd his opponent and nullify that advantage. From my own experience it’s very counter intuitive and takes some practice. What I see in many of these spear vs sword videos (the above and others) is that the sword guy seldom gets close enough and then the spear guy is able to back off and decide the distance (to his advantage). 
 

Added: I think of games I know, BRP does the best job of simulating this dynamic with the closing/close combat rule.  

Edited July 14, 2023 by Barak Shathur

[Old Man Henerson]

Being a topic about specials, I also have a question.

The campaign that I want to run is very star wars themed and I am going to have players be able to use the energy sword from the BGB with the very impressive 2D10 damage. I am not sure about the special though as it is listed as Impaling. While Impaling is certainly possible, I am not sure it is the appropriate sort of special damage for something like a lightsaber. In fact, I am not sure that bleeding, knockback or any of the other special damages fit with this weapon so I am not sure what to do with it other than saying something like "You completely bisect the stormtrooper". Any thoughts?

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

lol, that's the problem.. love the fantasy of elementalist, as seen in somewhat D&D... (badly , all Wizard really being generalist in D&D)

Yeah. RQ/BRP wasn't really designed to emulate the typical High Fantasy genre. Worlds of WOnder was something of a "proof of concept". It showed that BRP could be adapted to handle different genres, and that a universal game system could work, but the theme books were limited by their size.   

4 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Anyway, I found some nice damage scaling issue in Classic Fantasy - Mythras Edition!

Yeah, I think ClassiC Fantasy is probably your best soltuion. If you could find the first edtion, which was written for BRP you'd probably be set. 

[Lloyd Dupont]

35 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

The campaign that I want to run is very star wars themed and I am going to have players be able to use the energy sword from the BGB with the very impressive 2D10 damage. I am not sure about the special though as it is listed as Impaling. While Impaling is certainly possible, I am not sure it is the appropriate sort of special damage for something like a lightsaber. In fact, I am not sure that bleeding, knockback or any of the other special damages fit with this weapon so I am not sure what to do with it other than saying something like "You completely bisect the stormtrooper". Any thoughts?

Mythras Star Wars + Firearm, which has a lot of weapon and combatr effect, a good source of inspiration, would have Lightsaber having the cauterining trait (alway s active, this weapon CAN NOT cause bleeding) and Sunder effect (destroy a number of armor AP)

[Atgxtg]

5 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

Hey, that’s a brilliant idea!

LOL! It was one of those spur of the moment, off the top of my head ideas that I came up with to handle an unexpected complication during a game (tavern brawl), and not only did it work out, but it looked even better that the other stuff I spent time working on to replace it. 

[Lloyd Dupont]

9 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, I think ClassiC Fantasy is probably your best soltuion. If you could find the first edtion, which was written for BRP you'd probably be set. 

I have CF-BRP edition! Has mostly the same spell, with the same cost and damage (as BRP, i.e. no change I like for damage/cost/balance)! 😉 

I am making magic branches... one of them being elementalism! 🙂 (3 sub-branch! Fire, Frostfire, Lightning)

Anyway.. me think to fudge the damage in some fashion.. that might make Elementalism almost the only magic branch that depends on the caster rank in the branch... but.. mm.. not sure how to make a nice progression otherwise...
(Rank being the rank of highest rank spell known in the branch, there are 5 ranks)

Edited July 14, 2023 by Lloyd Dupont

[Old Man Henerson]

3 minutes ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Mythras Star Wars + Firearm, which has a lot of weapon and combatr effect, a good source of inspiration, would have Lightsaber having the cauterining trait (alway s active, this weapon CAN NOT cause bleeding) and Sunder effect (destroy a number of armor AP)

I have the Rune Quest Star Wars conversion pdf, and I think it does mention Sundering, but there was no other information on how it worked. I will definitely look into the Mythras Firearm thing since it is free.

[Atgxtg]

39 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Being a topic about specials, I also have a question.

The campaign that I want to run is very star wars themed and I am going to have players be able to use the energy sword from the BGB with the very impressive 2D10 damage. I am not sure about the special though as it is listed as Impaling. While Impaling is certainly possible, I am not sure it is the appropriate sort of special damage for something like a lightsaber. In fact, I am not sure that bleeding, knockback or any of the other special damages fit with this weapon so I am not sure what to do with it other than saying something like "You completely bisect the stormtrooper". Any thoughts?

Well lightsabers are very good at cutting through things so how about they ignore  armor on a special, including any parry armor (So either they can't be parried or the parrying weapon takes damage to hit points equal to the lightsaber damage roll). They can be parried by energy weapons (lightsabers, electro -staves, Gungan energy reienced shields, etc.)

 

Lightsaber also tend to cauterize wounds though so no bleeding.

P.S> Altnetately you could just have the lightsaber's damage cut through armor and parrying objected taking points off equal to the damage rolled. So if a Lightsaber got a special success and  did 10 points to a "Drone Trooper" in 8 point armor, it would cut through the armor and do 2 points to the trooper, but destroy the armor (on that location).

 

[Old Man Henerson]

6 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Well lightsabers are very good at cutting through things so how about they ignore  armor on a special, including any parry armor (So either they can't be parried or the parrying weapon takes damage to hit points equal to the lightsaber damage roll). They can be parried by energy weapons (lightsabers, electro -staves, Gungan energy reienced shields, etc.)

 

Lightsaber also tend to cauterize wounds though so no bleeding.

P.S> Altnetately you could just have the lightsaber's damage cut through armor and parrying objected taking points off equal to the damage rolled. So if a Lightsaber got a special success and  did 10 points to a "Drone Trooper" in 8 point armor, it would cut through the armor and do 2 points to the trooper, but destroy the armor (on that location).

 

These are all good ideas. Thanks for the suggestions. I think the first suggestion would work for specials and criticals while the second option could work great for all normal hits.

[Atgxtg]

17 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

Really going out on a limb here because I haven’t watched the whole video (think I saw some of it a while back), but looking at those stats from the perspective of my prior assumptions and SCA experience, one interpretation could be that they in addition to showing the relative efficacy of different matchups display a learning curve, in that the sword and shields gradually catch up to the spears. If neither of the combatants were used to spears it would seem to me that the reach advantage of a spear would be immediately apparent to the wielder, while the sword guy has to learn just how close he has to step in to crowd his opponent and nullify that advantage. From my own experience it’s very counter intuitive and takes some practice. What I see in many of these spear vs sword videos (the above and others) is that the sword guy seldom gets close enough and then the spear guy is able to back off and decide the distance (to his advantage). 

I Have seen the entire video, and I think quite a few of your suppositions here hold merit. Liny and Matt themselves often mention that people are inexperienced at what they are doing, the spearmen pretty much never held a spear before, the swordmen were not experienced with shields or with fighting against spearmen, and often people are doing  doing things "wrong".

Basically it really seems to show the advantage of having a extra yard of reach over your opponent, although that can be offset by tactics, which in turn can be offset by other tactics and so on. 

 

17 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

Added: I think of games I know, BRP does the best job of simulating this dynamic with the closing/close combat rule.  

I think the best I Know is probably the Sanguine edition of Usagi. It has reach rules and the swordman would actually have to close in on the spearman to get within the striking range of his weapon. The game has a lot of "Gifts" (similar to D&D feats) that let people do special things, and fighting shools based on collections of related gifts. 

Close combat can get very interesting deepening on the fighting styles (and gifts) of the two combatants. There are gifts that can let the swordsman dash in close before the spearman can react, gifts that let the spearman counter that, the ability to retreat to wins ties. etc. etc. 

I could see some of this being ported over to BRP. 

Edited July 15, 2023 by Atgxtg

[Lloyd Dupont]

21 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

I have the Rune Quest Star Wars conversion pdf, and I think it does mention Sundering, but there was no other information on how it worked. I will definitely look into the Mythras Firearm thing since it is free.

Actually,.... Sunder is described in Mythras rulebook, combat special effect section.

One must actively chose it... Damage in excess of AP, is used to reduced (damage) armor permanently, -1AP per damage.

In my case I would instead apply a flat 2 AP reduction if armor is overcome and pass the damage to the target as usual.
 

 

Edited July 14, 2023 by Lloyd Dupont

[Atgxtg]

4 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

These are all good ideas. Thanks for the suggestions. I think the first suggestion would work for specials and criticals while the second option could work great for all normal hits.

Yeah, it all depends on how powerful you want the lightsaber to be. In WEG's orginal Star Wars RPG you couldn't parry lighsabers with normal weapons becuase they would just cut through those weapons. They did the same when parrying other weapons too. So if a Wampa Ice creature too a swing at you and you parried with your lightsaber it probably lose a claw.

[Old Man Henerson]

7 minutes ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Actually,.... Sunder is described in Mythras rulebook, combat special effect section.

Might that be in the free Mythrass Imperative book?

7 minutes ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Basically every point of damage after reduction from magic protection, is taken point for point from AP. If anything is left it damage the target.
So basically it is very good at destroying the armor.

Yeah, that sounds pretty accurate for a lightsaber. Thanks for the info.

[Old Man Henerson]

6 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, it all depends on how powerful you want the lightsaber to be. In WEG's orginal Star Wars RPG you couldn't parry lighsabers with normal weapons becuase they would just cut through those weapons. They did the same when parrying other weapons too. So if a Wampa Ice creature too a swing at you and you parried with your lightsaber it probably lose a claw.

Lightsabers should probably be the most powerful melee weapon that cuts through most things with few exceptions as that is how they were portrayed in the films. Though I can always include a few items and or armors that are resistant to light sabers just to mix things up with the players. (These would be rare though since, like the lightsabers, they would have to be relics of Old Terra or powerful alien technology in the setting) 

[Atgxtg]

2 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Lightsabers should probably be the most powerful melee weapon that cuts through most things with few exceptions as that is how they were portrayed in the films.

Sure but it comes down to some game balance issues. Forinstacne in WEG 1st edtion they couldn't be defended against other than by another lightsaber. So if someone make thier attack roll there was nothing you could do about it. The game had lightsabers are being difficulty to use (because if you overdo you back swing you might take some of your own body parts off) and you would hit yourself if you failed the roll by a large amount.

2nd edtion mostly got rid of the defensivie penalty and just assumed the defender sidestepped or ducked or some such. In BRP terms a Dodge roll.

2 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

 

Though I can always include a few items and or armors that are resistant to light sabers just to mix things up with the players. (These would be rare though since, like the lightsabers, they would have to be relics of Old Terra or powerful alien technology in the setting) 

"You and your Phrik-en Armor!"

I think the stats for Phik was that it worked light normal armor, but caused the ligthsaber to shut off. Mandorlian iron was treated as resistant, although all that sort of tuff came later on when WotC had the license.  

[Mugen]

8 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

Added: I think of games I know, BRP does the best job of simulating this dynamic with the closing/close combat rule.  

I don't remember how it works in BRP, but I like the fact it can be done with a Special Effect in Mythras 

[Atgxtg]

The plot thickens... Shad over at Shadiversity just released a video about what weapon is most effective against chainmail on youtube. Maybe he reads these forums?

Anyway more useful data.

 

 

[Barak Shathur]

On 7/14/2023 at 8:29 PM, Mugen said:

I don't remember how it works in BRP, but I like the fact it can be done with a Special Effect in Mythras 

It's a bit confusing, since there are three separate sections which party overlap, partly contradict each other. But my reading of it is basically this: Long weapons go before other weapons regardless of DEX rank, unless a short or medium weapon user enters close combat by succeeding with a dodge or parry roll instead of attacking, in which case the long  weapon user can only attack or parry, not both, and parrying is difficult, while the shorter weapon's attacks are easy. 

The long weapon user on the other hand can choose to keep shorter weapon users at bay instead of attacking by succeeding with a weapon skill roll. When kept at bay, shorter weapon users have to succeed with dodge or parry roll to get close enough to be able to attack. It's a little unclear to me whether this results in close combat or just that the shorter weapon user can attack normally.

If it were me, I would simplify and extend the system like this: 

1. At normal melee range, longer weapons go before shorter weapons (long before medium and short, medium before short), but everyone gets to attack.

2. A combatant can alter the distance by succeeding with an opposed roll. The longer weapon uses weapon skill while the shorter weapon uses either dodge or parry.

3. A shorter weapon user can thus enter close combat with a longer weapon user, which functions as above, while a longer weapon user can keep a shorter one at bay. But this all applies to medium vs short weapons as well, which would add some dynamism to short weapons IMO.

 

Edited July 15, 2023 by Barak Shathur

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Barak Shathur said:

It's a bit confusing, since there are three separate sections which party overlap, partly contradict each other.

Yeah, that is a common thing with the BGB. A lot of the stuff was cobbled from different sources and then the new authors tried to put their own spin on things, and they didn't always agree with each other, all while mixing and matching stuff that wasn't designed to work together in the first place., and allow for effects of so- called optional rules. 

 

[Barak Shathur]

21 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

The plot thickens... Shad over at Shadiversity just released a video about what weapon is most effective against chainmail on youtube. Maybe he reads these forums?

Anyway more useful data.

 

 

I only watched the part with riveted mail, but damn it was quite impressive. Mail wearers mostly had to worry about blunt trauma and really pointy things. Kind of what I thought. 

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Barak Shathur said:

I only watched the part with riveted mail, but damn it was quite impressive. Mail wearers mostly had to worry about blunt trauma and really pointy things. Kind of what I thought. 

In this video is was mostly the pointy things. It was an interesting vid, but it was only concerned with penetrating the mail, not blunt trauma, so it only covers various edged and pointed weapons. Still beware the tine. 

[sladethesniper]

On 7/7/2023 at 10:46 AM, Atgxtg said:

only double the damage after armor, the idea being that it's not exactly easy to skewer someone in plate armor. 

 

Isn't that how it is supposed to be done? Have I been doing it wrong?

-STS