Strike Ranks Queries

[KingSkin]

I've been re-reading the SR rules of my shiny BRP hardback as I was planning on using them for my game but I keep running up against some odd portions of them which don't seem to make sense.

For instance, the fact that small weapons are slower sort of makes sense because of the added range a sword has over a dagger. But the weapon length rules seem to cover that so it feels like small weapons are getting penalised twice for the same thing. If you're within range to stab with a knife it's a hell of a lot quicker than doing it with a sword. I'm thinking I may change around the weapon speeds (so a dagger is 1 SR and a sword is 3) and enforce the length rules. That should balance it out a bit more. It seems a bit of a cumbersome way of having to do it though.

The other problem comes when you look at missile weapons. The x/SR system doesn't make a lot of sense and unfortunately isn't explained too well. Page 200 states that missile weapons have a default SR of 0 but then in the equipment section (page 257) it says that 1/SR (the most common SR for missile weapons) means you fire your first shot on your Dex rank then add your Dex rank +3 to this to find out when you can fire next.

This brings up a couple of problems, firstly which one is correct (possibly it's both but if so it's really badly explained), secondly, if 1/SR actually means Dex rank + 3 then what does 2/SR mean? I can't find that explained anywhere. I think it means you can fire twice on the same SR but I can't see why, for instance, an SMG would have 2/SR and an assault rifle only 1/SR. Does that mean you just ignore the Attacks listing for weapons when you use the SR system?

Also, according to the stats in the book it takes just as long to shoot a bow twice as it does to fire a pistol twice. Which is plainly bollocks. I've fired both and drawing and nocking an arrow takes longer than recovering from the minimal recoil of a pistol. Firing both barrels of a shotgun takes less time than two arrows.

I like the idea of using the SR system because I like the added granularity to actions but there doesn't seem much point if most weapons have been kludged together into a single listing.

So, what have others done to sort this mess out? I don't want to use the plain Dex ranks system but I don't really want to have to make too many changes to the SR system. Any nice, easy tweaks people have come up with would be much appreciated.

If worst comes to worst I can port over my own AP system but I was hoping to be able to avoid that much work.

The most annoying part of this for me is that I love every other aspect of the system and really like the fact that it doesn't need much in the way of house-ruling, just turning options on or off works excellently. This is the only real sticking point I've found.

[Mankcam]

For melee combat, I think the Strike Rank idea is based primarily around weapon reach. An attacker with a broadsword has a better chance of striking first based on that principle, if attacking an opponent with a smaller weapon, such as a dagger. If the opponent with a dagger has a higher DEX than the attacker, then that will provide the opponent with a lower DEX SRM, which can even the odds out. It works okay for me, given that the authors are supposedly familar with melee combat principles.

Swapping the SR around will work okay for a more idealistic game though, perhaps wuxia genre where everything is about speed, I'm not sure. You'll be double dipping though, and if you give a advantage for a weapon being lighter than its probably ignoring the weapon reach. Strike Ranks could be tweaked more to incorperate weapon weight as well as weapon reach, but I'm not sure its actually worth it.

Your principles are sound, but it will get complex trying to work it out. For example, if you give a dagger a SR1 then you acknowledge weapon weight, but not weapon reach, so simply swapping the SR doesn't fix anything, it just bases the SR on weight instead of reach. This is not to say that a system can't be derived to accomodate both reach and weight, but you can't portray both of these by swapping the SR. I had similar thoughts on it initially, but then realized it was pointless unless I came up with a more elaborate system.

I'ld also be interested to see if anybody already has done work on this.

[Greville]

I think it's because weapon reach is key until you are in close combat. The strike rank rules assume that the combatants are not in close combat. Once in close combat the rules state that the person with the higher DEX rank will go first and that any parry attempts by people with long weapons are difficult.

I'm not too worried about the person with the most reach going first. I guess the combat scenarios would look like this:

• Mark and John have weapon skills of 70%
  
• Mark draws his sword and rushes at John, who has a dagger.
  
• Mark swings and John has 70% chance to parry. He succeeds and steps close.
  
• John stabs at Mark and he only has a 35%.
  
• In the next round Mark can give up his attacks to try and move back. John can also dodge or parry to move close and attack normally.
  

Unless he wants to be toast, Mark has the option of disengaging, knocking John back, taking a spear, or just hoping that John's dagger breaks after parrying a few decent attacks. Of course he can also learn shield and block at his normal chance. This seems to be one of the most overlooked advantages of carrying a shield, that and the weapon breakage rules punish constant parrying.

[KingSkin]

Yeah, I understand why long weapons have a lower SR than short ones but that is also covered by the weapon lengths system so it seems as though the speed of smaller weapon is not taken into account at all whereas the extra reach gets accounted for twice.

I can live with the SR system for melee as it is though, the major problems are with missile weapons. The listed SRs don't really make sense and aren't explained well and it doesn't seem to make much of a difference what sort of weapon you're using.

Any ideas?

[filbanto]

KingSkin -

I don't think the weapon ranges/length rules play well with strike ranks. I ditched strike ranks long ago precisely for the trouble you're having.

Currently I am using weapon length and Dex ranks. I've come up with some tweaks to Dex rank for slower weapons. Example: a Dane axe is a Long weapon, but I imagine it'd be slow so users have -2 Dex rank when using it. Note that Dex rank is only for determining when characters strike in combat. If they want to do something else they'd use basic Dex.

If you want a copy of my working notes feel free to shoot me a private message with your e-mail address. I can send you the excel file.

Mike

[Chaot]

I don't think the weapon ranges/length rules play well with strike ranks. I ditched strike ranks long ago precisely for the trouble you're having.

This I think. I'd have to check, but it seems to me that the weapon lengths rule were designed with DEX ranks in mind and that the advantage that longer weapons have is a function of the shorter weaponed fighter continually having to position themselves to get a shot in in the flow of combat. I'm guessing your proposed tweak, KingSkin, of keeping closing rules and inverting SR will prove some interesting play. I need to pull out the book to really give it a turn around in my head, but it could be a nice little advantage to those who want to play a nimble fighter.

[SDLeary]

This I think. I'd have to check, but it seems to me that the weapon lengths rule were designed with DEX ranks in mind and that the advantage that longer weapons have is a function of the shorter weaponed fighter continually having to position themselves to get a shot in in the flow of combat. I'm guessing your proposed tweak, KingSkin, of keeping closing rules and inverting SR will prove some interesting play. I need to pull out the book to really give it a turn around in my head, but it could be a nice little advantage to those who want to play a nimble fighter.

This is my understanding. SR rules have the built in mechanism (from RQ3), and Weapon Length (from Elric/Stormbringer) is used with DEX ranks. It certainly could be cleaned up a bit.

Jason! Sam! Hows that next revision coming?!

SDLeary

[Mankcam]

If you want to tweak the Strike Rank model, perhaps you give weapons two SR values, one for reach (leave as currently described), and one for weight. Just add the values together for total Weapon SR and add that to your Melee SRM as per usual Strike Rank rules.

Of course the Combat Round will need to be more than 10 rounds now, perhaps 15 or 20 rounds instead? While you're at it you might want to incorperate the MRQ2 armour rules which impact upon Strike Ranks, making a heavily armoured warrior act much later in the Combat Round. Having an Armour SR coupled with a Weapon SR that incorperates weight as well as reach will certainly open up avenues for the whole nimble knife-fighter type vs the heavily armoured tank type combatant.

I'm just throwing ideas around here, I haven't looked at all angles on it - it's certainly something that should be developed for another BRP or RQ edition...

Edited July 26, 2011 by Mankcam

[Chaot]

If you want to tweak the Strike Rank model, perhaps you give weapons two SR values, one for reach (leave as currently described), and one for weight. Just add the values together for total Weapon SR and add that to your Melee SRM as per usual Strike Rank rules.

Weapon weight or speed?

It's all problematic because, unless there's some trick to it that I'm not seeing, you're actually either narrowing the difference gap of what would otherwise be very divergent weapons or greatly increasing the gap between weapons. I'm making up numbers here, but lets look at a dagger and a battle axe for extremes. Say the dagger's Reach 1 (it's small) and Speed 3 (it's light weight and maneuverable). Next you've got your battle axe with Reach 3 (long haft and wide swing) and Speed 1 (big slow hefty thing). These two very different weapons average out to a SR of 4. At this point you might as well be using DEX rankings.

Same thing, but looking and Weight. Dagger Reach 1, Weight 1 versus Battle Axe Reach 3, Weight 3.

[Mankcam]

Yes, this was how I initially worked out weapon weight SR years ago (just the reverse of the current weapon SR), and yes, things evened out unrealistically, exactly how you described. So it was the same stumbling block as in game mechanics it evened out and thus offered no advantage over the current weapon SR rules which are based on weapon reach.

I think the concept is sound (taking into consideration both weapon reach and weight), but tweaking the current mechanics was quite flawed. If anyone has come up with a mechanic to address it then I'ld be interested, but I think to do so would mean deviating quite alot from the Strike Rank system, perhaps too much.

Which is why I ditched the idea a few years ago. I was rather hoping someone may have gotten further with it...

[Smoking Frog]

I think this again relates to an the idea I've been kicking around for a bit: Initiative -- who gets to initiate and who has to react -- should be divorced from size, reach, and so forth. The nimble guy with a short fast weapon, because of his speed, should be able to start an action forcing the slower guy with the big, slow weapon to react. Exactly WHAT the nimble guy gets to do, however, depends on things like weapon reach and size. He can't just storm forward and run himself onto the other guy's sword. (Well, he could, but that would be really, really dumb.)

But a system where you have initiative and issues like reach and size separate adds complexity that has to be worked out in the middle of combat; the SR system rolls these up into a single abstract number (for the most part, of course; there are situational variations). But divorcing speed and reach avoids the problem of an axe and dagger being indistinguishable: Instead of Speed 1 + Reach 3 = SR 4 versus Speed 3 + Reach 1 = SR 4, you'd have Speed 1 versus Speed 3, and then what you can do with your initiative depends on how you are able, if you are, to get inside the swing of the axe.

[For what it's worth, so far, I like the MRQII system of making initiative depend on DEX and INT. I'm eagerly awaiting RQ6 because I'm assuming they will tweak all the systems in the "better" direction.]

If something like "realism" is a goal, I think the only test you can apply is whether combat worked out historically the way the game system you are using would have it. The example of the long axe and dagger is a good one: Were Anglo-Saxon house-carls mowed down by men armed with long knives? Obviously not, but that may be mostly to do with armor: The knife would not likely get past the house-carl's armor, so he can just move back a bit and smash his unwise opponent. But take off the house-carl's armor, and I would give the knife man a good chance to prevail. If he could get in close and use the short length and speed of his knife to his advantage, the house-carl might not be able to get an effective blow in.

Edited July 27, 2011 by Smoking Frog

[Chaot]

Which is why I ditched the idea a few years ago. I was rather hoping someone may have gotten further with it...

There's definitely something there though worth developing.

I think this again relates to an the idea I've been kicking around for a bit: Initiative -- who gets to initiate and who has to react -- should be divorced from size, reach, and so forth.

All great stuff. Your bit about system goals really hits though. For a while I was entertaining the idea of writing a Combat Options monograph. It would include a wide range of options ranging from quick and dirty variations on combat to more intricate rules. A few different approaches to weapons and armor, including some that were a bit radical to how BRP stood then. Drop in some mass combat rules and some combat oriented spot rules. etc.

The great thing about BRP is, not only can you do all that but little changes can make a big difference in how gameplay feels. What makes sense on paper sometimes doesn't translate well to the table. Making time to play the system out to see if it accomplishes it's goal is the tricky part.

[Greville]

I think there are several different approaches you can take. As others have said you can use Dex and weapon length OR strike ranks.

One system has you starting to act on your dex and the weapon length modifying when the blow lands. The strike rank system, basically counts down with fastest people acting first, you can portray this as everyone starting at the same time and slower people take longer to perform an action, or actions taking a set time and the slower people start later.

One system that might work would be similar to the action point system in Chivalry and Sorcery 3: Everyone rolls initiative and adds it to the number of action points they have, then spend them until you've run out.

I agree 100% about strike ranks and dex order not working for missile weapons. If I run a sci-fi game I'll either use action points or a modified version of the 'actions' system in Nephilim.

[vagabond]

Weapon weight or speed?

It's all problematic because, unless there's some trick to it that I'm not seeing, you're actually either narrowing the difference gap of what would otherwise be very divergent weapons or greatly increasing the gap between weapons. I'm making up numbers here, but lets look at a dagger and a battle axe for extremes. Say the dagger's Reach 1 (it's small) and Speed 3 (it's light weight and maneuverable). Next you've got your battle axe with Reach 3 (long haft and wide swing) and Speed 1 (big slow hefty thing). These two very different weapons average out to a SR of 4. At this point you might as well be using DEX rankings.

Same thing, but looking and Weight. Dagger Reach 1, Weight 1 versus Battle Axe Reach 3, Weight 3.

I think you can work with this to some degree. You just have to weight things (no pun intended) differently, and apply speed (both wielder and weapon) and reach (again, both wielder and weapon) somewhat separately.

Just stream of conscious thought right now, I haven't even begun working out any details, but ... if we break things into phases ...

Let's say we go back to DEX ranks as the the basic mechanic - speed determines who can "act" first. So, using speed, we find out the order of action.

Next we examine actions - missile fire, spell casting, melee weapon use, and movement. Movement has a "0" modifier since that is still based upon speed, but we can examine the basics of the rest and decide things like spell casting has a "0" modifier unless there is significant casting times associated - i.e. incantation, semantics, ritual, etc. which would add "segments". Weapons would eval next, and this is where weapon speed comes into play.

Then, let's look at reach - again, both wielder and weapon. Since we have established an order of actions based upon raw character speed (DEX) and action speed (weapon speed, casting time, movement), we can then see how reach impacts the actions. Modifiers can be applied based upon SIZ and weapon size/reach, such that characters with distinct reach advantages can negate some some of the faster character advantages without overshadowing it completely.

For example, a small fast character with a dagger can choose to close with the larger, slower character with the battleaxe, and would get the initial jump, but depending on the difference in DEX rank with all modifiers in play, if the gap is small enough, the small fast guy may discover that he wan't fast enough, and the axe wielder is able to react quickly enough to strike.

Again, I need to think about this some more to see how best to work things out.

Ian

[Thalaba]

Regarding Melee Weapons and Strike Ranks, the strike ranks are determined by how fast the person is (Dex SR) and how long the person's arm is (SIZ SR) and the length of the weapon (WEAPON SR). I've always assumed that the ease of use (speed) of the weapon was somehow factored into the calculation of weapon SR, but I don't know enough about melee fighting to question this. If you feel that the speediness of the weapon needs to be factored into the equiation, too, then the simplest thing is to create a speed factor for the weapon, which would basically be a DEX modifier for the purposes of caculating DEX SR. You might then say that a dagger has a speed factor of +3, which means that for the purposes of calculating DEX SR, the character's dex is effectively 3 dex higher. Similarly, a flail might be given a speed factor of -1, and so forth. I would say that figuring out the speed factor for each weapon would benefit from some actual fighting experience, but it seems like an easy way to factor in weapon speed.

Regarding missile weapons, the normal calculation (in RQ3) was that the weapon fired on the DEX strike rank (which was basically considered the reaction time of the person), and again after 3+SR. This meant that most people could shoot twice, on 3 and 9 or on 2 and 7, depending on their dex. Missile weapons don't have their own WEAPON SR, so in effect WEAPON SR is zero, and the rate of fire 1/SR doesn't really mean "1 per strike rank", but more like "1 shot per DEX SR, not including reload".

Weapons rated 1/MR are shot once per melee round. This included things like light crossbows that took longer to load.

2/SR? I would guess this means 2 bullets per SR. I can't really comment on the firearms rules because I haven't played them enough. I remember that there are bursts available. I thought you could basically unload the whole clip on one 'fire' if you wanted to.

If you work from the assumption that SR in missile weapons refers to DEX SR, and realoading costs a standard 3, does that work out according to your experience? That would allow you to fire on 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 or 3, 6, 9, depending on your dex.

You could also allow one shot per strike rank at the same target, so then someone with a DEX SR of 3 could start firing their revolver on 3, the fire the next 6 bullets on 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Then take a round to reload, I guess.

I think the best thing for you to do is figure out what makes realistic sense for the rate of fire in a 12 second round (or is it 10 seconds, now), and then figure out how to achieve that rate of fire with 10 strike ranks available. Once you do, you'll have a rule you'll be happy with.

[Nightshade]

The simplest answer, as someone said, is that these two rules were really not designed to work together; they came from different BRP games originally, and they aren't particularly compatible. In general, if you have an optional rule (which SR are in BRP), its not too well integrated in various parts of the system. I've observed some problems here with hit locations on occasion, too, and there's at least one problematic are with category modifiers (Mental assumes another optional rule--Education--is in use).

[Smoking Frog]

Your bit about system goals really hits though. For a while I was entertaining the idea of writing a Combat Options monograph. It would include a wide range of options ranging from quick and dirty variations on combat to more intricate rules. A few different approaches to weapons and armor, including some that were a bit radical to how BRP stood then. Drop in some mass combat rules and some combat oriented spot rules. etc.

The great thing about BRP is, not only can you do all that but little changes can make a big difference in how gameplay feels. What makes sense on paper sometimes doesn't translate well to the table. Making time to play the system out to see if it accomplishes it's goal is the tricky part.

Hmm. I'm now entertaining the idea of stealing your idea for a combat monograph. I was kicking around a somewhat similar idea. I thought it would be helpful to have a set of rules that combined various options and spot rules to give a flavor of particular historical periods. So you'd have a group of rules that tried to simulate ancient Roman combat, "dark ages" combat, High Middle Ages, Late Middle Ages, Renaissance/Early Modern . . . etc. etc. One could take your idea for mass combat rules into this as well: perhaps tweaking mass combat to reflect the flavor of various time periods.

But you've really identified the rub with any work like this: you need to have it play tested to death (pun intended). Each combination of rules would play differently and there's no way to guess at all the crazy things various players might come up with to derail your intentions.

[Chaot]

Hmm. I'm now entertaining the idea of stealing your idea for a combat monograph.

Do it. I'll drop you some material. In addition to the goal of simulating different time frames, I think it would be valuable to add rules to simulate different genres. Dragon Lines did this brilliantly with it's kung fu/wushu guidelines.

Just noticed your location tag. I wonder how many of us are in the tri state area. bardic design and I are in Staten Island.

[Smoking Frog]

Do it. I'll drop you some material. In addition to the goal of simulating different time frames, I think it would be valuable to add rules to simulate different genres. Dragon Lines did this brilliantly with it's kung fu/wushu guidelines.

Just noticed your location tag. I wonder how many of us are in the tri state area. bardic design and I are in Staten Island.

Excellent. I've got some scattered notes I'll pull together and do some more noodling.

Always nice to meet a neighbor. I'm on Roosevelt Island, a little bit of suburbia in the middle of the East River.

[Chaot]

Roosevelt Islands great! I mean, how can you beat commute by air tram?

If you're interested in putting something together I'll tray to hammer some ideas into reasonable shape.

While you're at it you might want to incorperate the MRQ2 armour rules which impact upon Strike Ranks, making a heavily armoured warrior act much later in the Combat Round.

I overlooked this first time round. I need to pull out my MRQ2 and look at this again...

[KingSkin]

OK, so I've been a bit ill and haven't actually been on here much so I missed a lot of the discussion (or had a banging headache and couldn't be bothered to reply!)

I've looked at what people have been saying and agree that the reach and SR systems aren't supposed to work together. I should have read into things more carefully before assuming that. Anyway, I could live with the SR melee system as it stands.

Unfortunately that still doesn't sort out my biggest issue with the SR system which is that missile combat is needlessly confusing and almost all projectile weapons take the same amount of time to use. There's no way a bow should be as quick as a pistol but under the current rules it is.

I'll admit that I upon re-reading the SR rules I may be expecting them to do something they were never intended for but as it stands I can't see what their purpose is really. They move toward a more detailed system than DEX ranks but don't seem to go far enough and sort of end up as a half-way house.

Anyway, rather than whine on about it I've simplified the Action Point rules from my homebrew game and rewritten them for BRP. I've uploaded the first draft (here) although they haven't been playtested in their current form in any way so any feedback would help. If anyone finds them useful let me know.

There are lots of options in there and you can play about with the costs of actions if you don't like how they're currently set up. There's also a brief 'Mook AP' section to make it easier to deal with lots of low-level NPCs, if that's something that comes up in your games.

Oh, and a quick note about the MRQ2 armour rules: I haven't read them but I don't like any rules which make armour actually slow you down in combat. If it's slowing your physical actions down it's going to get you killed. Even full medieval plate didn't do that. Watch this to see it explained fully. If you want to model that properly then armour should cost fatigue points to fight in but not reduce your actions.

If I get a chance today I'll bash up the AP tracker quickly and upload that. It's fairly basic though and any simply numbered track with space for a marker will do the job well enough.

[Smoking Frog]

Unfortunately that still doesn't sort out my biggest issue with the SR system which is that missile combat is needlessly confusing and almost all projectile weapons take the same amount of time to use. There's no way a bow should be as quick as a pistol but under the current rules it is.

I'll admit that I upon re-reading the SR rules I may be expecting them to do something they were never intended for but as it stands I can't see what their purpose is really. They move toward a more detailed system than DEX ranks but don't seem to go far enough and sort of end up as a half-way house.

Oh, and a quick note about the MRQ2 armour rules: I haven't read them but I don't like any rules which make armour actually slow you down in combat. If it's slowing your physical actions down it's going to get you killed. Even full medieval plate didn't do that. Watch this to see it explained fully. If you want to model that properly then armour should cost fatigue points to fight in but not reduce your actions.

I'll try to peruse your home brew rules and see if I can come up with anything constructive.

The article on the armor test was very interesting. It's very thoughtful of them to find that it takes exactly double the oxygen; it's pretty easy to require a 2x fatigue rule. That, of course, only applies to armor that weighs in the 30 to 60 kg range that they tested. This seems to indicate that the extremely heavy armor was best used when mounted. Unless you're French, of course. If you're French, dismounting and walking toward long bowmen is the best idea; otherwise some of you might survive.

[Pete Nash]

Oh, and a quick note about the MRQ2 armour rules: I haven't read them but I don't like any rules which make armour actually slow you down in combat. If it's slowing your physical actions down it's going to get you killed. Even full medieval plate didn't do that. Watch this to see it explained fully. If you want to model that properly then armour should cost fatigue points to fight in but not reduce your actions.

It doesn't reduce your number of physical actions, just slows down when you act during the round.

[MrJealousy]

As far as I see the difference between firearms and bows is in the preparation of the second and any following shots. Looking at 'Preparing a Weapon' on page 201 might suggest that the second shot from a bow costs 3 extra Strike Ranks.

'...means that the item in hand is dropped and another is withdrawn from a readily accessible location like a sheath or holster.' That sentence sounds to me like pulling an arrow from a quiver is an extra action.

Where a standard pistol has 6 bullets already lined up pre-prepared and doesn't require the extra action to reload the weapon.

[KingSkin]

@Froggy: Cheers buddy, glad you liked the vid and I'd welcome any feedback on the AP system. I'm finally getting my game together so we'll be starting on Monday and I'm expecting combat to come up during character gen (because I'm trying something a bit odd). That should give me a brief chance to test it.

@Pete: Slowing your actions rather than losing them sounds better but I still think that's a good way to get killed. From my days of running and playing CoC I've always said that going first in BRP is critical (that and good tactics) and anything that reduces your chances to act first means you're going to suffer more attacks. When a single hit can effectively take someone out then you want to being going first so you can eliminate the opposition before they retaliate. I haven't used RQII's combat system but it wouldn't surprise me if armour that slows you down is more likely to get you killed than weaker armour that lets you move at your full speed.

@Green-Eyed Monster: That would make more sense (although possibly be a little too harsh) but if that is the case then it's pretty well-hidden. As I said before, I may well have made some drastically wrong assumptions as to what the SR system is meant to do. So it could be that some of the issues I had with it are because I was expecting a washing machine to give a blowjob.