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The Design Mechanism and the Future of RuneQuest


lawrence.whitaker

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Simple enough to add back in. In any event, even with styles, your using a class of weapon. You can't really use a Zweihander effectively with a shield other than perhaps a buckler strapped to your wrist. And, honestly, they would be easy to integrate back in without effecting the fighting styles much if at all.

SDLeary

Actually, BRP weapon skills are a sub-set of Combat Styles :D

Technically, there is no difference between a character with "1H Sword" and "Shield and bare hand" styles and a BRP character with the equivalent skills.

As for myself, there's something that is not well handled by either method : the fact that a swordmaster grabbing an axe fights as if he never learned to move in melee.

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I guess at the moment that no one knows what direction Loz and Pete will go. Combat styles are, in my understanding, a more general mechanic than weapon categories. For example you could say that 1H slashing weapons is a form of combat style or 1H slashing weapons plus shield is another combat style. You could dial them all the way up to what Open Quest does and have just two combat styles (melee & missile) or all the way down to just one weapon or combination per style.

Like several things in RQII, the mechanic was under-explained and what was explained wasn't given a good editorial polish so there are legacy mechanics left in the text.

On the CA front, I'm one who doesn't like skill-based breakpoints for extra CAs. It seems simple on paper but in practice you get all sorts of CA inflation and other issues. E.g. if someone is 95% at sword & shield but is prone and getting -20% do they lose a CA? What about someone with Bladesharp or coordination who gets to the breakpoint? I can see a bonus CA for a heroic ability. As Rosen states, higher skill makes CA more effective anyway and with the over 100% skill rule in RQII someone with 3 CAs and 120% vs someone with 3 CAs and 80% will usually end up with the 120er having a free CA at some point.

In addition, the more I've run RQII the less I've liked the bonus CA for dual wielding. It's a superb way of making shields brilliant but it opens up all sorts of "but why..." type of discussions.

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Actually, BRP weapon skills are a sub-set of Combat Styles :D

Technically, there is no difference between a character with "1H Sword" and "Shield and bare hand" styles and a BRP character with the equivalent skills.

As for myself, there's something that is not well handled by either method : the fact that a swordmaster grabbing an axe fights as if he never learned to move in melee.

For something like this, I would impose penalties. Something along the lines of 1/2 skill or 1/4 skill for the base chance with the unfamiliar weapon. This would account for the change in striking surface and center of gravity, but still leave the knowledge of tactical movement in place. If the penalty reduced the chance below that of the normal weapon base, then the weapon base would be the baseline (HA!).

SDLeary

SDLeary

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In addition, the more I've run RQII the less I've liked the bonus CA for dual wielding. It's a superb way of making shields brilliant but it opens up all sorts of "but why..." type of discussions.

You could go the opposite direction with it and give a base 2 CA's (1 for each hand) and then a loss of 1 CA when wielding a weapon that requires the use of both hands.

As far as Combat Styles go, the way I use them is that only weapons useable at one time can be considered part of a style. So a certain type of warrior might typically know how to use Sword, Shield and Shortbow, but since you can't use all 3 weapons at once its broken into separate styles. Sword & Shield being one style and Shortbow being the other. This ensures that no style is likely to ever include more than 2 weapons so it keeps them relatively balanced. I'm sure it could be argued that some degree of synergy exists between similar weapons, but without re-grouping weapons (e.g. 1-H slashing, 2-H slashing, 1-H crushing, etc.) that level of granularity is difficult to achieve and for most of the games I've run it hasn't been necessary. 99.9% of the time most of the characters in my games have a single primary melee weapon or weapon style and a back-up of some sort; usually a ranged weapon. Very rarely does a situation arise where a character might need or want to pick up a different but similar weapon. Too rarely to worry about it, but YMMV.

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On the CA front, I'm one who doesn't like skill-based breakpoints for extra CAs. It seems simple on paper but in practice you get all sorts of CA inflation and other issues. E.g. if someone is 95% at sword & shield but is prone and getting -20% do they lose a CA? What about someone with Bladesharp or coordination who gets to the breakpoint.

No, the extra CA is gained when the character's skill hits a certain predefined level to reflect his expertise. The prone penalty does not take teh CA away since it is a penalty against his current chance to succeed while he is prone, not a permanent reduction in his mastery of the weapon. Same with Bladesharp and Coordination as they are temporary boosts in the current chance to succeed, and not permanent enhancements. The additional CA represents skill mastery through training and experience, not magical augmentation nor situation modifiers.

Ian

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You could go the opposite direction with it and give a base 2 CA's (1 for each hand) and then a loss of 1 CA when wielding a weapon that requires the use of both hands.

As far as Combat Styles go, the way I use them is that only weapons useable at one time can be considered part of a style. So a certain type of warrior might typically know how to use Sword, Shield and Shortbow, but since you can't use all 3 weapons at once its broken into separate styles. Sword & Shield being one style and Shortbow being the other. This ensures that no style is likely to ever include more than 2 weapons so it keeps them relatively balanced. I'm sure it could be argued that some degree of synergy exists between similar weapons, but without re-grouping weapons (e.g. 1-H slashing, 2-H slashing, 1-H crushing, etc.) that level of granularity is difficult to achieve and for most of the games I've run it hasn't been necessary. 99.9% of the time most of the characters in my games have a single primary melee weapon or weapon style and a back-up of some sort; usually a ranged weapon. Very rarely does a situation arise where a character might need or want to pick up a different but similar weapon. Too rarely to worry about it, but YMMV.

Problem is characters with a certain skill will never ever use another weapon...

I think D20 does it better.

"It seems I'm destined not to move ahead in time faster than my usual rate of one second per second"

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No, the extra CA is gained when the character's skill hits a certain predefined level to reflect his expertise. The prone penalty does not take teh CA away since it is a penalty against his current chance to succeed while he is prone, not a permanent reduction in his mastery of the weapon. Same with Bladesharp and Coordination as they are temporary boosts in the current chance to succeed, and not permanent enhancements. The additional CA represents skill mastery through training and experience, not magical augmentation nor situation modifiers.

Ian

Agreed - thats how I see - I use +1 CA for one or more combat Skills over 90%. Its no more difficult than the +1 CA for dual wielding and when it kicks in and when its lost - ie when you pick up or drop weapons.

Combat Styles was a complete mess and brought up all sort s of oddities about what a character was or was not skilled in - it also made a nonsense of the argument that a well trained warrior could use varied weapons with equal proffiency as it meant the compelte opposite was true - that either RAW in the rulebook a Combat Style was two weapons or in the soruce book ranged from 2 to 10 different weapons. Lots of questions and debate ensued between players and GMs and on the forum.......

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Combat Actions

I'd suggest basing them on the 'power level' of the game. Normal = 2, Heroic = 3, etc.

Combat Styles

I have a love/hate relationship with these. I love the idea that a warrior would have a decent level of proficiency with a lot of different weapons. I hate the idea that a character who always fought with a sword could pick up an axe and do equally well.

Flashing Blades handles this conundrum pretty well. Every character has a base proficiency in a style of dueling and then specializes in a particular weapon in that style.

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I hate the idea that a character who always fought with a sword could pick up an axe and do equally well.

This is exactly what Combat Styles handles well. Your skill includes the techniques you have been trained in. If you have never fought with an axe, then it is NOT part of your combat style and you have a basic chance to use it.

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This is exactly what Combat Styles handles well. Your skill includes the techniques you have been trained in. If you have never fought with an axe, then it is NOT part of your combat style and you have a basic chance to use it.

And that is wrong.

A master swordsman can "WTFPWN" someone who never meleed with preety much any weapon(s).

The "technique" part of melee is not the most important; timing, reflexes, conditioning, how to move, etc are *way* more decisive, and all those are shared between every combat style on earth!

"It seems I'm destined not to move ahead in time faster than my usual rate of one second per second"

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The "technique" part of melee is not the most important; timing, reflexes, conditioning, how to move, etc are *way* more decisive, and all those are shared between every combat style on earth!

Still, give someone trained to use a heft balanced weapon, e.g. a shortsword,

an unfamiliar head balanced weapon, e.g. a handaxe, and for several minutes

he will fight far, far below his usual level of skill. He will still fight much better

than someone who never had any combat training, but for quite a while he will

turn from a master into an apprentice. And don't ask what happens if you force

an excellent swordsman to try his hand at a halberd ...

Edited by rust

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

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Rust has more eloquently put what I am getting at. The Pan Tang Warrior style in Elric had Axe, Sword and Spear as weapons. If my character used sword from day one and gained +30% experience I'd figure to be a little worse with the Axe just because I never used it.

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Combat styles required greater explanation in the core rules. That much is clear. Pete remedied this with his excellent Signs and Portent article which discussed what combat styles are, how they work, why they work in the way they do, and so forth.

RQ6 will continue with them, but with much clearer explanation and examples of how they are composed and used.

One thing to bear in mind is the versatility of styles. In previous editions of the game, characters who used a sword and shield (the classic combination) has to invest two skill choices to gain these essential, paired, style-based skills. Improving them required separate skill checks and improvement rolls. Yet, in reality, any self-respecting warrior would be practicing, training and using both in combination: Combat Styles overcome this discrepancy.

In MRQII the improvement process isn't based on skill checks against skills used but uses improvement rolls. This reflects the kind of practice a dedicated professional will put into improving his style. Its far more of a benefit than a drawback for characters and allows for some very creative weapon combinations. Da Boss mentioned the number of weapons included in the Pan Tang Gladiator style and seemed perturbed by it. Why? This is very clearly a niche profession where men are being trained to fight for their lives and forced into using a diverse range of weapons to do so. I designed it that way so that a Pan Tangian gladiator who's managed to somehow survive the fighting pits of Hwamgaarl would be a truly competent warrior reflecting both the time invested by his trainers and the necessity of fighting with trident and net one day, and a spear and buckler the next. Most other combat style examples found throughout MRQII supplements are far more restrained but still reflect cultural norms.

But, as I've said on the DM forums (and this is the best place to keep abreast of how we'll be approaching RQ6 changes) everything from MRQII is being reviewed and refined.

The Design Mechanism: Publishers of Mythras

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...a truly competent warrior reflecting both the time invested by his trainers and the necessity of fighting with trident and net one day, and a spear and buckler the next.

Yes, Combat styles do seem to need greater - or, rather, clearer - explanation. Because that sounds like it's perfectly well modelled by the good old 'skill checks against skills used' mechanism. It seems that Gladiator should have several weapon skills and consequently not have had time to develop some other skills, that's all...

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Yes, Combat styles do seem to need greater - or, rather, clearer - explanation. Because that sounds like it's perfectly well modelled by the good old 'skill checks against skills used' mechanism. It seems that Gladiator should have several weapon skills and consequently not have had time to develop some other skills, that's all...

So you are basically saying that a character with 200% sword is as good as i am with a mace? Seems pretty weak!

"It seems I'm destined not to move ahead in time faster than my usual rate of one second per second"

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So you are basically saying that a character with 200% sword is as good as i am with a mace? Seems pretty weak!

Give that character with 200% sword a ball-on-a-chain flail, and you can

lean back and watch his attempts to decapitate himself ... >:>

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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Give that character with 200% sword a ball-on-a-chain flail, and you can

lean back and watch his attempts to decapitate himself ... >:>

As far as i read, ball and chains are more novelty-type weapons than real war stuffs.

Still, the character with 200% sword should be able to perform better with that that someone that does not know how to fight at all.

"It seems I'm destined not to move ahead in time faster than my usual rate of one second per second"

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Still, the character with 200% sword should be able to perform better with that that someone that does not know how to fight at all.

It depends. Once weapons are significantly different, the movements "automated" during the

training with another type of weapon can become death traps, so one has to suppress those

"automated" trained movements and actually think about each weapon maneuver, which slows

one down pretty badly and leads to rather clumsy moves until one has understood the weapon

and found out the right way to handle it. While most of the defensive body moves remain most-

ly unchanged, parries and attacks can be so different from weapon type to weapon type that

an unfamiliar weapon can really turn a master into a beginner.

As for the ball-on-a-chain flails, they were used during the Middle Ages as a mounted fighter's

weapon with enough impact to injure someone wearing heavy armour, but they are so difficult

to use that they were probably not a common weapon.

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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Complementary skill rules are enough to handle this. A 200% melee weapon user has +40% to his base skill if the GM allows it, so assuming he is using an easy (say one with 20% base chance) he is at 60%. Which is rather high.

If you want to see how to handle the Melee skill and the different specialties, check my OGL ruleset in the playtest forum. But the base BRP does not handle this, nor does RuneQuest. And please stop the off topic.

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Actually BRP BGB RAW has this covered.

Admittedly I think that it was clearer in the playtest draft than the published rules. Lookup skill specialities (don't have book to hand) and the line reads something similar to:

Character with Missile (Archery) 200% can use a Crossbow at 100% since this is half of a related skill speciality.

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Combat styles required greater explanation in the core rules. That much is clear. Pete remedied this with his excellent Signs and Portent article which discussed what combat styles are, how they work, why they work in the way they do, and so forth.

RQ6 will continue with them, but with much clearer explanation and examples of how they are composed and used.

Yet, in reality, any self-respecting warrior would be practicing, training and using both in combination: Combat Styles overcome this discrepancy.

In MRQII the improvement process isn't based on skill checks against skills used but uses improvement rolls. This reflects the kind of practice a dedicated professional will put into improving his style. Its far more of a benefit than a drawback for characters and allows for some very creative weapon combinations. Da Boss mentioned the number of weapons included in the Pan Tang Gladiator style and seemed perturbed by it. Why? This is very clearly a niche profession where men are being trained to fight for their lives and forced into using a diverse range of weapons to do so. I designed it that way so that a Pan Tangian gladiator who's managed to somehow survive the fighting pits of Hwamgaarl would be a truly competent warrior reflecting both the time invested by his trainers and the necessity of fighting with trident and net one day, and a spear and buckler the next. Most other combat style examples found throughout MRQII supplements are far more restrained but still reflect cultural norms.

I am afraid I still have several issues - one things it that Pete and others say that bascially learing the basics of combat can be applied to most weapons and martiala rtist friends support this - but then Combat Styles does not. It says you are skilled in this weapon and this weapon and nothing else.... and you are no better than anyone else when you pick up a weapon. This is something I have moved away from in my version of the Elric rules to the weapon grouping with defaults from the primary skill.

The Pan Tangian Gladiator does not work for me as whilst I completely agree that he or she may indeed be taught a number of weapons to please the crowds would they not specalise in the same way as historical gladiators? The Elric example says no they are equally skilled in all the weapons they use - not one or two that they specalise in - that they have been found to have an talent for one of more. Surely it would have been that a Gladiator would have a series of Combat Styles and given that most warriors get 2 or 3 as part of their background this could have worked....

The S+P article was interesting but then had the Samurai style which said that every Samurai was equally skilled in all the weapons he used, no potential for choosing to increasing say his bow skill within the Style - which I find a weakness in the whole Combat Style system. You increase everything or nothing...............

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The Pan Tangian Gladiator does not work for me as whilst I completely agree that he or she may indeed be taught a number of weapons to please the crowds would they not specalise in the same way as historical gladiators? The Elric example says no they are equally skilled in all the weapons they use - not one or two that they specalise in - that they have been found to have an talent for one of more. Surely it would have been that a Gladiator would have a series of Combat Styles and given that most warriors get 2 or 3 as part of their background this could have worked....

It could have been done in any number of different ways, sure. I chose this way and if it doesn't work for you, then by all means split the style into two or three that cover linked weapons, such as net and trident and spear and sword. Personally I didn't envisage Pan Tangian gladiators as training in the same way as Roman gladiators at all. I wanted to deliberately move away from direct historical analogs because I was writing the Elric book and not a historical sourcebook.

What you're suggesting is that, within a style, a character can choose a specialisation with a particular weapon that attracts a bonus. That's fair enough, but it layers-in all kinds of other complexities. Does that bonus then get carried through to a different style where the same weapon is used but perhaps in a different way? What if I use a broadsword instead of a longsword - does the bonus apply still? How about a buckler instead of a kite shield? How do you earn that bonus? Do you apply IRs to a specific weapon? What if you want to specialise in two weapons? Pretty soon you've broken down the idea of the Combat Style and effectively reverted to a 1 skill per Weapon model which means slower advancement for the character and is exactly what we were trying to get away from. Either that or you end-up with combat styles within combat styles which I think is overly complex.

You can make weapon usage rules as granular and complex as you wish. There's any number of ways of doing this, from individual weapons, to groups of them, to combat styles to specializations within combat styles. Each introduces complexities and idiosyncracies. We think Combat Styles strike the best balance between realism, skill balancing and playability. Is it perfect? No, but then no set of game mechanics really can be because there will always be GMs and Players that find, or want, a different emphasis or usage that suits their style of play. Fortunately, Combat Styles are flexible enough to allow you to build in specialisations if you feel they're necessary and warranted (and you do, which is fine, because I'm sure you can, and do, make them work for your campaign). But from a design perspective, we, as the designers, have to strike the balance between playability and complexity. Otherwise we'd get into Aftermath-like levels of combat skill rules. And for a game like RQ we want to avoid that.

What we tried to do in MRQII and will continue to do in RQ6 is provide frameworks that permit flexibility plus a solid, workable style of play, and encourage GMs and players to find and use ways that work according to their specific needs.

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Another way of looking at it is, is a person who is a brilliant baseball player a brilliant cricket player? What about an American Footballer and a rugby player and so on? Or chess and back-gammon. Or is a fencer any good with mace and shield in a suit of armour.

There is clearly the fact that people who are superb physical specimens will be better at all sports partly because the training to get good at one sport probably increases characteristics.

Personally I find any kind of half-ability with related weapons to be a bad idea because then you get the issues of what happens if you try to train in it, do you suddenly become worse.

I don't think there's any sort of play-friendly way of capturing the nuances of relationships between skills, and between skills and characteristics. Personally I think you have to remember that BRP paints in broad brush strokes. You can go for a heroic, pulpy game where skills are very broad or a 'gritty' (and I detest that term) game where skills are narrow and don't provide much in the way of cross-benefits. Those are matters of emulation and preference rather than any measure of accurate simulation if you ask me.

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Another way of looking at it is, is a person who is a brilliant baseball player a brilliant cricket player? What about an American Footballer and a rugby player and so on? Or chess and back-gammon. Or is a fencer any good with mace and shield in a suit of armour.

I would expect that a professional baseball player would kick my arse at cricket. And a long jumper would easily beat a shot putter at a 100m sprint. I like the idea of "complementary skill" bonuses, but it could get complicated if a player has two developed skills and wants to use one to get a bonus in the other all the time.

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