Strike Ranks in RQ2 and RQ3

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

27 minutes ago, RosenMcStern said:

No. And this question kept us occupied for one summer, before starting to actually play the game, so I can understand why you are asking it

Yep, RQ3 strike ranks section suffers from adding extra complication, and not being clearly demonstrated in the examples ( or more specifically that example I quoted above).  I picked up RQ3 about the same time as you, but its been such a long time since I've played it, I'm trying to look at the rules with fresh eyes. Its reassuring its not just myself that has struggled a little with the interpretation  I remember it being a bit of a "study" back in the day. 

So - Looking over the rule "Attacking on the run" again, I see that it does indeed act as an exception to the first rule "Movement within the Melee Melee", its not an additional rule, as I first thought. So thanks, I see that example is indeed correct, apart from the movement rate you pointed out. Its just horrendously under explained, and placed slightly out of context with the rulings that apply to it in the chapter.

Thanks for giving my brain a sense of peace  

 

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

Movement and SR

Turning the spot light onto movement and SR in RQ2 and RQ3. RQ3 adds another level of complexity to the rules.

• movement within engaged combat in RQ3 is reduced to 0.5M per SR, from the standard 3m per SR. In RQ2 the ruling seems to  simply be to half the max movement allowance in the melee round, still at the same unchanged rate of 3m per SR.

The breaking down of movement in RQ3 is more variable and therefore more complex to remember then RQ2, which keeps movement constant at the standard 3m per SR. I find RQ2 much easier to keep track of - At a glance you can see your maximum movement allowance for the melee round, and you know the standard 3m per SR remains constant.

Edit: To put in context RQ2 movement remains constant at 3m per SR. RQ3 varies from 3m per SR, to 0.5 per SR, to minus 1 per SR 

DEX SR and RQ3

RQ3 seems to push DEX SR into all SR calculations to do with movement. So manoeuvres that were relatively simple in RQ2 now have the added calculation of a DEX SR to consider/remember. Which feels like too many calculations to keep track of comfortably. Modifiers are good but too many start to make the game feel like Algebra. I guess its in keeping with the Avalon Hill RQ3 rulebook looking like a school exercise book. 

Edited July 7, 2017 by Paid a bod yn dwp
to more clearly show the variation of movement between RQ2 and RQ3

[styopa]

5 hours ago, RosenMcStern said:

Now, the part that often confuses newbies is that indeed, when you fire missiles or cast spells Strike Rank actually represents "how long it takes" and you can and should handle more than one chain of events, some of which need the re-application of DEX.

...there are some who complain that everything should be handled consistently...just sayin'.

[Psullie]

Strike Rank has always been about who goes first, not who goes when. I think the mistake with RQ3 was that it tried to make a board game out of combat by implying that SR was a 'when' matrix, I even what as far as using it as a skirmish miniatures game, 

RQ2 was all about the order of events only in so far as does it happen before, during or after another event that might impact on the result. The clearest example is melee, where a dexterous individual can dispatch his opponent first, but he's still spending the round fighting as per the statement of intent. It is not meant to be read literally that in the 12 second long combat attacking as SR 2 being the 2nd second and our nimble fighter just hangs out for 10 more seconds.

With regard to other actions, spells, movement etc. the 5SR penalty with DEX SR is just a mechanism for saying that somethings are quick and if you are nimble enough you might get to do extra stuff so long as your not engaged in melee. But again it's about the order of things, snap off Disruption before the troll whacks the fighter and again afterwards.

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

1 hour ago, Psullie said:

With regard to other actions, spells, movement etc. the 5SR penalty with DEX SR is just a mechanism for saying that somethings are quick and if you are nimble enough you might get to do extra stuff so long as your not engaged in melee.

If I read it correctly in RQ3 the penalty/deciding factor  to any form of movement is the characters DEX SR modifier plus the movement modifier. In contrast with RQ2 I believe you just applied the movement modifier at 1 SR per 3meters travelled, not the DEX SR as well. 

Adding the DEX SR mod as well as the movement SR mod seems a little over adjudicated. One calculation too many. You can always look at DEX if things are close in melee, no need in IMO to make it a permanent extra calculation 

Edited July 7, 2017 by Paid a bod yn dwp

[styopa]

2 minutes ago, Psullie said:

...you might get to do extra stuff so long as your not engaged in melee. ...

...Which is precisely the conditional caveat I take issue with.  It's a hand-wavy rationalization that a.) presupposes circumstances (and a mindset of the combatant) that are not always present, and b.) have - in my view - more to do with justifying rule-inertia than a reasonably objective approach.

I think RQ3 tried hard to bolt handwavy bits to the floor of certainty; it's a wargame company.  (ASL is what, something over 400+ pages of rules, *most* of which are dealing with boundary-cases or odd situations that never come up in 90% of games?)   And yes, I started as a wargamer first, and a rpg-gamer second.  I despise rules that rely on players following the 'intent' without precision...one might as well just be telling ghost stories under a blanket.  I respect people that push the rules to their utter absurd limit as players who take their character's lives seriously.  If I were going into a fight IRL, I would cheerfully chase every single 1% advantage I could.

I think it's inevitable that SR (which, as I agree is as Psullie explained above, actually represents order not timing) would be mistaken for timing PARTICULARLY when the round is taken to be the relatively arbitrary 12 SR *and* stated to be a likewise arbitrary (but apparently coincidental?) 12 seconds...If the intent was to avoid people misperceiving 1 SR as equivalent to 1 second, that was just dumb (Sorry Steve, I know read some of these forums, but that was a bad choice.)

I certainly won't try to defend the way RQ3 approached SR.  I'd be a hypocrite, since my group abandoned RQ3's SR pretty long ago.  

I'm merely hoping that what RQG ends up with is enough of a skeleton of usefulness that we can continue to use our house system without having to convert too much.

[RosenMcStern]

1 hour ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

If I read it correctly in RQ3 the penalty/deciding factor  to any form of movement is the characters DEX SR modifier plus the movement modifier. In contrast with RQ2 I believe you just applied the movement modifier at 1 SR per 3meters travelled, not the DEX SR as well. 

Adding the DEX SR mod as well as the movement SR mod seems a little over adjudicated. One calculation too many. You can always look at DEX if things are close in melee, no need in IMO to make it a permanent extra calculation 

No, you are not correct. It works exactly like in RQ2. You add your movement SR, You do not count your DEX SR again.

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

53 minutes ago, RosenMcStern said:

No, you are not correct. It works exactly like in RQ2. You add your movement SR, You do not count your DEX SR again.

Reading the rule "movement Within the melee round" p48 of the softbond Avalon hill reprint, it says:

"An adventurer moving within the melee round must start on the strike rank equal to his or her DEX strike rank.

During each subsequent strike rank, an adventurer may move up to 3 meters, unless he is performing some activity, such as fighting, spell-casting, etc. During the next melee round he can move  at 3m. per strike rank, beginning again on his DEX strike rank."

From the text it seems pretty straight forward a matter of adding DEX SR to movement SR (1 SR per 3 meters ). Not sure how else I could interpret that? 

 

Edit: Perhaps you thought I was still talking about the previous subject of "attacking on the move" where I was confused with and incorrectly surmised that DEX SR was added twice? In this case I'm just talking about general movement and Strike ranks, which does appear to differ from RQ2.

Edited July 7, 2017 by Paid a bod yn dwp
Clarification to make sure we're on the same page

[trystero]

2 hours ago, styopa said:

I think RQ3 tried hard to bolt handwavy bits to the floor of certainty; it's a wargame company.

As much fun as it is to blame Avalon Hill (sorry, The Avalon Hill Game Company) for perceived shortcomings in RQ3, it's my understanding that they didn't have anything to do with the design or writing of the game; that was all Chaosium. AH were essentially just the publishers, at least back when that edition first came out.

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

4 hours ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

Reading the rule "movement Within the melee round" p48 of the softbond Avalon hill reprint, it says:

"An adventurer moving within the melee round must start on the strike rank equal to his or her DEX strike rank.

During each subsequent strike rank, an adventurer may move up to 3 meters, unless he is performing some activity, such as fighting, spell-casting, etc. During the next melee round he can move  at 3m. per strike rank, beginning again on his DEX strike rank."

Further,this rule in RQ3 seems very significant change from RQ2. By suggesting that you can't begin movement until your DEX SR implies a "when" aspect that Psullie mentioned earlier...

 

7 hours ago, Psullie said:

Strike Rank has always been about who goes first, not who goes when. I think the mistake with RQ3 was that it tried to make a board game out of combat by implying that SR was a 'when' matrix,

The rule implies that any movement in a melee round must start on the DEX SR, but gets even more complicated when you move to attack, where presumably the rule "attacking on the move" supersedes it? It all seems unnecessarily complicated 

Edited July 7, 2017 by Paid a bod yn dwp

[SDLeary]

6 hours ago, styopa said:

I think RQ3 tried hard to bolt handwavy bits to the floor of certainty; it's a wargame company.  (ASL is what, something over 400+ pages of rules, *most* of which are dealing with boundary-cases or odd situations that never come up in 90% of games?) 

Chaosium was responsible for the rules, and SR here is an evolution of RQ2.

 To the best of my knowledge, there were NO rule modifications due to requests from AH.

SDLeary

Edited July 8, 2017 by SDLeary
Ninja'd!

[styopa]

2 hours ago, SDLeary said:

Chaosium was responsible for the rules, and SR here is an evolution of RQ2.

 To the best of my knowledge, there were NO rule modifications due to requests from AH.

SDLeary

Which is what makes it so interesting that RQG is fundamentally RQ2 again, with some pretty small bits of RQ3 left in.

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

To conclude my revisit to RQ3 and RQ2 strike ranks - I found RQ 3 puts more granularity into SR's. Coming from RQ2 the rule to start movement on DEX SR takes most getting used to, and the greater granularity to rates of movement are perhaps unnecessary from my POV ( though I like the idea of some variety in rates of movement between different humonoid species/characters).  The rules on movement and combat, which discount advantage/disadvantage of SIZ SR from attacks gives the players an extra variation to remember, but personally I'm not sure whether this extra granularity really adds much more fun to the game? 

Having said that, and to answer Jeffs original question, the thing that bugs me most about RQ3 Strikes Ranks is not the greater granularity, but the poor layout of the RQ3 strike rank chapter, which made the rules much more difficult to comprehend. Once I wrote out a simple summary similar to the RQ 2 strike rank modifier table, it became much clearer.  I can't think why they didn't originally make a simple Strike Rank modifier table for RQ3?  

The other 2 issues were the badly explained Cormac example of play, and the fact that other related Strike Rank rules were placed further away, and therefore slightly out of context of the main discussion of SR's. 

My feeling is that RQ2  strike ranks had a better balance through its simplicity. I can see why RQ3 followed the logic it did, but I'm not sure if the fun payback was worth it?

Thankfully we have a new edition on the way in RQG.