Iron weapon hit points

[Mordante]

Been reading some supplements recently and one of them raised a question regarding iron weapon hit points/parrying.

It stated that iron weapons had the improved hit points of 50% extra but could only block the weapons original amount of damage for example iron broadsword when parrying blocks 12 damage.

Is this the way blocking is meant to work in vanilla RQ?

 

 

[Shiningbrow]

3 hours ago, Mordante said:

It stated that iron weapons had the improved hit points of 50% extra but could only block the weapons original amount of damage for example iron broadsword when parrying blocks 12 damage.

???

It is stated where? Which supplement? (and page?)

I'm just reading the write-up in Adventurer's Book, under the Metals chapter... I don't see anything written there about that.

Thus, I'd take 18HP as blocking 18HP. And, I can't see any logic for it being less.

[Mordante]

I can't for the life of me remember where I read it but it does make sense as an item being iron doesn't increase its size just its robustness.

[Shiningbrow]

5 minutes ago, Mordante said:

I can't for the life of me remember where I read it but it does make sense as an item being iron doesn't increase its size just its robustness.

Robustness would, to my mind, equal HP... Size is not relevant to HP (except for a living thing, and for that, it's really the mass that can take more punishment).

Compare a glass container to a similar one made of, say, wood or metal.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

24 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Compare a glass container to a similar one made of, say, wood or metal.

Poor example IMO.

Compare a wooden baseball bat to a metal one.  A well made metal one has more hit points and is harder to shatter.  But, when relatively undamaged, they are basically the same for blocking enemy damage.  Well, I've never actually tested this, but it seems like they should be equal!  🙂

That said, I believe that RAW gives the iron sword 18HP in blocking damage.  One of many RQG design changes that make shields less effective than in RQ2.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Rodney Dangerduck

[Shiningbrow]

19 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Compare a wooden baseball bat to a metal one.  A well made metal one has more hit points and is harder to shatter.  But, when relatively undamaged, they are basically the same for blocking enemy damage.  Well, I've never actually tested this, but it seems like they should be equal!  🙂

Which is going to survive longer being hit with a sword? (and remember, (AFAIK) your 'metal' baseball bat isn't one solid lump of metal, but is hollow. Wood, OTOH, is one solid piece of wood. So, while I can appreciate the lack of goodness of the example (slightly!), at least it's still apples to apples, not apples to oranges.

 

[Scotty]

6 hours ago, Mordante said:

Been reading some supplements recently and one of them raised a question regarding iron weapon hit points/parrying.

It stated that iron weapons had the improved hit points of 50% extra but could only block the weapons original amount of damage for example iron broadsword when parrying blocks 12 damage.

Is this the way blocking is meant to work in vanilla RQ?

Enchanted or unenchanted Iron weapons & armor have more hit points, that's it:

Quote

They have half again the hit points of bronze. For example, a bronze broadsword has 12 hit points, but a tempered iron broadsword 18 hit points.

W&E 14

RQG 327, says effectively the same.

[Akhôrahil]

11 hours ago, Mordante said:

Been reading some supplements recently and one of them raised a question regarding iron weapon hit points/parrying.

It stated that iron weapons had the improved hit points of 50% extra but could only block the weapons original amount of damage for example iron broadsword when parrying blocks 12 damage.

Enchanted Iron Weapons have +50% HP straight up.

You're probably mixing it up with Enchanted Copper weapons, which have +100% HP for purposes of not breaking but no bonus to damage absorbed. Which is pretty damned good for keeping the weapon in shape, less so for its user. 

Edited November 9, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[Mordante]

That's where I read it!

[SDLeary]

Mispost

Edited November 9, 2023 by SDLeary
Need to read better 🤣

[Rodney Dangerduck]

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

You're probably mixing it up with Enchanted Copper weapons, which have +100% HP for purposes of not breaking but no bonus to damage absorbed.

I think this would work best for all enchanted weapons.  A iron sword doesn't change the laws of physics regarding mass and leverage.  And before you parrot "Glorantha has no physics", look at the pages and pages of charts regarding the Strength one needs to wield various weapons.

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

I think this would work best for all enchanted weapons.  A iron sword doesn't change the laws of physics regarding mass and leverage.  And before you parrot "Glorantha has no physics", look at the pages and pages of charts regarding the Strength one needs to wield various weapons.

That might not be unreasonable - it's non-obvious what an iron weapon does apart from not breaking that makes it absorb more damage. We're not talking Captain America's shield here (that's simulated through Earth Shield instead).

(And honestly, the whole "absorb damage" thing probably isn't the ideal design - most defense is about deflecting or not opening up in the first place, and "opposing weapon slams down with full force on yours" is less common. On the other hand, RQ has to be able to handle a giant slamming you with a 10d6 tree.)

[Malin]

The way I view Iron weapons is that you are able to perform more desperate/risky parries that might break a normal weapon. Thus it blocks more HP, because the wielder dares to use it at angles they wouldn't have dared to use a bronze sword. Or something like that. It's a vague rule.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Malin

[Rodney Dangerduck]

42 minutes ago, Malin said:

The way I view Iron weapons is that you are able to perform more desperate/risky parries that might break a normal weapon.

I have considered that.  However, you have years of training with your bronze sword including "don't do that parry, your sword will beeak".  Very hard to untrain. 

I still react slowly when an opponent's volleyball serve hits the net, and that rule changed decades ago.  🙂

[Steve]

15 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

I think this would work best for all enchanted weapons.  A iron sword doesn't change the laws of physics regarding mass and leverage.  And before you parrot "Glorantha has no physics", look at the pages and pages of charts regarding the Strength one needs to wield various weapons.

Glorantha does have physics, just that those physics are based on fundamentals that are totally different from our own, being based on runes and myth rather than atoms and quarks.

In many cases the Gloranthan physics produces very similar effects to in our own world, just for different reasons -e.g.objects being attracted towards the ground, the strength in an arm for holding up and swinging about a metal object.

But it seems entirely reasonable to me that damaging an iron weapon doesn't work in the same way as it would in our own world. An enchanted iron sword is a magical weapon, and magic has effects in Glorantha that simply don't exist in our own world. Making it stronger doesn't feel like a stretch to me, but of course YGWV.

[Akhôrahil]

4 hours ago, Steve said:

But it seems entirely reasonable to me that damaging an iron weapon doesn't work in the same way as it would in our own world. An enchanted iron sword is a magical weapon, and magic has effects in Glorantha that simply don't exist in our own world. Making it stronger doesn't feel like a stretch to me, but of course YGWV.

I think we're all on board with enchanted iron weapons (essentially steel) not breaking as easily. This is more about why it can parry more damage as well, separately from being damaged itself.

[General Confusion]

'Parrying' in RQ combat is, mechanically, not what practitioners of HEMA or kendo might think of as 'parrying'; it's blocking. There's no deflection mechanic except rolling a special or critical, and there's no distinction between blocking with a shield or with a weapon. You're just putting a solid object between your vulnerable flesh and an incoming weapon. So given that, I feel like it makes perfect sense for weapon HP to directly correlate with increased blocking ability; a sturdier, more resilient object absorbs more force. 

Divorcing damage absorption from weapon HP IMO just adds more complexity for little actual benefit; now there's another number they had to be tracked, that's all.

[Steve]

On 11/10/2023 at 12:35 PM, Akhôrahil said:

This is more about why it can parry more damage as well, separately from being damaged itself.

Why not? It's an enchantment after all, e.g. enchanted iron could easily have an effect of absorbing and/or deflecting blows to a certain extent, to explain why it can parry better and why iron armour works better.

[Shiningbrow]

7 hours ago, General Confusion said:

Divorcing damage absorption from weapon HP IMO just adds more complexity for little actual benefit; now there's another number they had to be tracked, that's all.

Weapons used to have AP & HP, with the AP not changing during the life of the weapon as the HP went down. For some reason, this has changed. I suppose it makes sense - the more you bust something up, the easier it is to further bust up.

[French Desperate WindChild]

On 11/10/2023 at 1:35 PM, Akhôrahil said:

This is more about why it can parry more damage as well, separately from being damaged itself.

the one who carries the death metal weapon provides more death that anyone who has not (except if this guy is a thief of course).

So enchanting death metal is just telling the death that the bringer needs more protection from death to generate even more death than (s)he used to.

Enchanting death metal is like worshipping death *, and Humakt the Death god provides parry spell. So it is fine for me 🙂

 

* (if you are not a sorcerer of course) as it is an enchantment, with sacrifice, I see it (any enchantment by the way) not like just a mechanical process, but as an activity with a religious par,t maybe the main part. You prey the gods/spirits/entities to send a part of the power of their runes/abilities/xxx into the weapon.

note that it works with the actual rule or with "same effect for any metal" (Earth goddess metal might have offered protection/life for both weapon and wielder) so that is just a question of choice.

 

On 11/9/2023 at 5:41 PM, Rodney Dangerduck said:

And before you parrot "Glorantha has no physics"

I tried to dodge it, did I succeed Rodney ? 😜

 

[Shiningbrow]

23 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Enchanting death metal is like worshipping death * 

* (if you are not a sorcerer of course)

I suppose you've covered it in the qualification, but I'd very loudly point out that it's the Mostali that really gave us Iron and it's manipulation. So, I don't think it's really that much of a 'death metal' in that way.

[Akhôrahil]

4 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I suppose you've covered it in the qualification, but I'd very loudly point out that it's the Mostali that really gave us Iron and it's manipulation. So, I don't think it's really that much of a 'death metal' in that way.

If it's death, it's only for elves and trolls.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

If Iron were truly a "death metal", then it should do more damage, not block more damage.  As written, it's more of a Life Metal, unless, as @Akhôrahil notes, you are a troll or elf.