New to RuneQuest Classic and I have questions!

[AJ The Ronin]

I'm new to RuneQuest Classic and I have questions and or commentary regarding the rules. 

 

Question 1: Page 28 says that weapons takes damage when are used to parry a successful attack. This rule applies to successfull parry only, right?  (In a failed parry the defender takes all damage)

Queation 2: If you successfully parry a successful attack done with a short stabbing or Long-hafted weapon how you calculate how much damage is transferred to the defender? (Those type of weapons do not damage other weapons)

Question 3: a critical with an impale weapon is both a critical and an impale? 

[TrippyHippy]

Based on my reading:

Q1 - This is my understanding, although they don't take damage on a critical. Shields also absorb damage, but they don't break - extra damage transfers to the defender.

Q2 -  I'm not sure that you can parry with a short stabbing or long-hafted weapon.

Q3 - Not every weapon can impale, but otherwise yes. You do extra damage and ignore armour. Ouch!

 

[Zit]

My understanding : 

Q1 yes, a successful parry of a successful attack

Q2 damage is fully absorbed by the parrying weapon

Q3 I always played the other way : if you critic, you don't impale. 

[TrippyHippy]

Q2 - On checking again, yes Zit is right! Daggers and Spears (etc) can't inflict damage on another weapon when parrying, but they do absorb it into their HP.

Q3 - Can't find any reason why a Critical cancels an Impale anywhere yet in the text (still reading!)

[soltakss]

13 hours ago, ajtheronin said:

Question 1: Page 28 says that weapons takes damage when are used to parry a successful attack. This rule applies to successfull parry only, right?  (In a failed parry the defender takes all damage)

Yes, only successful parries, an unsuccessful parry means the parrying weapon has failed to block the attacking weapon.

We played that a critical parry absorbed all damage, but I cannot remember if this was a house rule.

 

13 hours ago, ajtheronin said:

Queation 2: If you successfully parry a successful attack done with a short stabbing or Long-hafted weapon how you calculate how much damage is transferred to the defender? (Those type of weapons do not damage other weapons)

 

Long-hafted weapons don't damage the parrying weapon.

However, we played that axes and spears would damage a Shield, as a shield is put in the way of the blade, whereas other weapons block the shaft. That is almost certainly a house rule.

 

13 hours ago, ajtheronin said:

Question 3: a critical with an impale weapon is both a critical and an impale? 

Not in RQ2.

We houseruled that scoring 1/100th of the skill is a Critical Impale, doing impaling damage ignoring armour, but this only applied to skills over 100.

In RQ3, a critical also did impaling damage, a rule that I never really liked.

 

[AJ The Ronin]

Thanks for all the replies. 

Basically, with a character parry and shield skills been equal he is better off parrying if attacked by a short stabbing or Long-hafted weapon and using the shield otherwise. 

[Noita]

I'd say you are always better off parrying with a shield.

[Zit]

Let's make this thread a special "questions about the rules". I have one:

The basic role playing booklet delivered together with RQ2 in the boxed set said that 2h spears were a exception to the rule that you can only parry OR attack with a weapon in a single round. 2H spears allowed both. I haven't found any mention of this in RQ2, although I always considered the BRP booklet as a kind of basic RQ rules. I don't see any reason why the rule shall not be valid for both rules. Any advice on this ?

[TrippyHippy]

In the RQ2 book, I can't see any mention of this. It indicates that you can attack in a round, but the parry seems to have no stipulation. Does this mean you can parry against any incoming attack?

[SDLeary]

5 hours ago, Zit said:

Let's make this thread a special "questions about the rules". I have one:

The basic role playing booklet delivered together with RQ2 in the boxed set said that 2h spears were a exception to the rule that you can only parry OR attack with a weapon in a single round. 2H spears allowed both. I haven't found any mention of this in RQ2, although I always considered the BRP booklet as a kind of basic RQ rules. I don't see any reason why the rule shall not be valid for both rules. Any advice on this ?

IIRC, this is something that was resolved in the RQ Companion. And I don't think it was restricted to spears, but for all 2h weapons. I believe you could attack and parry in the same round, but not on the same strike rank, so if actions were simultaneous, and both connected, both were screwed. Alas I am not sure as I don't have anything to hand.

SDLeary 

[Charles VA]

On 1/17/2016 at 7:44 PM, SDLeary said:

IIRC, this is something that was resolved in the RQ Companion. And I don't think it was restricted to spears, but for all 2h weapons. I believe you could attack and parry in the same round, but not on the same strike rank, so if actions were simultaneous, and both connected, both were screwed. Alas I am not sure as I don't have anything to hand.

SDLeary 

That's my understanding of the rules as well. If we're wrong here, I've been using the wrong rule for over 30 years. I do hope we're not wrong. :-)

[Mugen]

On 15/1/2016 at 2:24 PM, soltakss said:

We houseruled that scoring 1/100th of the skill is a Critical Impale, doing impaling damage ignoring armour, but this only applied to skills over 100.

In RQ3, a critical also did impaling damage, a rule that I never really liked.

I houseruled that the impale damage was not maximized.

That is, you dealt maximum normal damage, and rolled damage afterwards.

[Charles VA]

I used the variant of 1/2 armor for specials and bypass armor for criticals. True (weapon) becomes much more valuable as do many hero abilities that allow further exploitation of the armor issue.

[styopa]

On 1/17/2016 at 7:44 PM, SDLeary said:

IIRC, this is something that was resolved in the RQ Companion. And I don't think it was restricted to spears, but for all 2h weapons. I believe you could attack and parry in the same round, but not on the same strike rank, so if actions were simultaneous, and both connected, both were screwed. Alas I am not sure as I don't have anything to hand.

SDLeary 

Curiously, no, I just skimmed the RQ2 rulebook pretty closely, and didn't see ANYTHING explicitly mentioning the 1h thing=attack or parry, 2h thing=attack AND parry rule.  Been using that one myself for 30 years, maybe it was clarified in RQ3?  Don't have those books handy.

[trystero]

7 hours ago, styopa said:

Curiously, no, I just skimmed the RQ2 rulebook pretty closely, and didn't see ANYTHING explicitly mentioning the 1h thing=attack or parry, 2h thing=attack AND parry rule.  Been using that one myself for 30 years, maybe it was clarified in RQ3?  Don't have those books handy.

It's called out very explicitly in RQ3's Player Book, p. 48, "How to Parry" section:

Quote

If a weapon can be used to parry (see weapons lists), it can parry one attack. If the adventurer has two parrying weapons, and is being attacked more than once in the melee round, he can parry one attack with each weapon. In either case he may not attack with a weapon with which he parries. Two-handed weapons, however, can be used to attack once and parry once.

 

[Al.]

On 15 January 2016 at 0:06 AM, ajtheronin said:

Question 3: a critical with an impale weapon is both a critical and an impale? 

I grew up with Stormbringer III where crits were double damage and ignored armour so just assumed that Crits in RQ were also Impales (or Slashes or Crushes!)

Assuming that a similar sounding rule is the same in each variant of d100 game is something I do a lot

[AJ The Ronin]

I have read the classic rules a few times and I'm still not clear how many times a character may parry. Only once if he does not attack? 

If a character attack, he can not parry with the same weapon?  

The two weapon fighting rules seem to indicate so. 

 

The starting percentage for shields apply if used on the right or left arm? 

[Yelm's Light]

I always played that a crit ignores armor and an impale does not.

[Zit]

10 hours ago, ajtheronin said:

I have read the classic rules a few times and I'm still not clear how many times a character may parry. Only once if he does not attack? 

If a character attack, he can not parry with the same weapon? 

It is not clear in the rule indeed. It was clear in the Basic Role Playing booklet from the boxed set (attack or parry except for 2H spear - which you can easily extend to all 2H weapons I guess), so I've played this way. This unfortunately hasn't been cleared again in the RQ2 rules book.

Later on, I house-ruled that if you have only one weapon, either 1H or 2H, you can attack and parry once each, but this was my own rule.

10 hours ago, ajtheronin said:

The two weapon fighting rules seem to indicate so.

I agree. This indicates also that Rurik's examples are wrong (but correct again with my house-rule )

10 hours ago, ajtheronin said:

The starting percentage for shields apply if used on the right or left arm? 

I always assumed with the parrying arm (which is the left arm for most humans and the right arm for the left-handed Dragonewts), or it wouldn't make so much sense: this is the arm you trained with. I actually never really thought about it.

[Noita]

I think your starting shield skill would be better if you changed arms to your better hand. 

Edited November 29, 2016 by Iskallor

[styopa]

8 hours ago, Zit said:

Later on, I house-ruled that if you have only one weapon, either 1H or 2H, you can attack and parry once each, but this was my own rule.

 

I always assumed with the parrying arm (which is the left arm for most humans and the right arm for the left-handed Dragonewts), or it wouldn't make so much sense: this is the arm you trained with. I actually never really thought about it.

IIRC that became RAW for RQ3?  Or we house-ruled it so long it became canon in my brain:

- 2h weapon you can attack AND parry with each round

- 1h weapon/shield you can attack OR parry with in around, but not both.

I too would assume that shield skill was defined as your "off" arm in all usual contexts, which does indeed lead to some unclear logical results.  

Normally IIRC, offhand weapon use is at HALF skill.  So would this then mean that the 'base' for a shield (5/10/20% for small/med/large - not actually in RQ2, but in the errata) is already halved because it's your offhand?  If you were to grab a large shield in your good hand, would you be at base 40%?  Or is the arm you're usually using it with considered in this odd case to be your primary, and your normally-main hand would be the 'off' hand so halved?

[Zit]

Do we really need a rule for that ? Let's take the same base for both arms.

[styopa]

2 hours ago, Zit said:

Do we really need a rule for that ? Let's take the same base for both arms.

Personally, I like to have a combat system that's both i) faintly realistic and ii) logically consistent...

But hey, YGMV.

[Yelm's Light]

Hmmm...there's a point of far too rare for there even to be a special case, and this is beyond it.  I've never (in any RPG I've played, not just RQ2) had a player want to wield a shield in main hand and weapon in off hand, nor even had the case where somehow both were dropped in combat and the PC picked up the shield and used that as their main.  Since all their training went into using the shield in offhand, I certainly wouldn't double their skill with it just because they used it in their stronger hand.

As Morpheus said, "There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path."  Muscle memory and all that.

[AJ The Ronin]

Thanks for all the answers. 

That said this is how I plan to play it:

Every character gets 1 attack and 1 parry (if using 1 weapon or 1 weapon and a shield) to keep it consistent with the examples. 

If using two weapons characters have 2 attack and may parry twice. 

All shield training and costs are considered that the character is using his off hand. 

Once again, thanks for reading and your time. 

 

 

 

Edited November 29, 2016 by ajtheronin