RQ 2 classic HP calculation

[peterb]

Hi,

The RQ3 rules had a table with percentile values per hit location per creature type. Has anyone done something similar for RQ2? I have a vague memory of such a discussion (maybe on the old mailing list ;))

/Peter

 

 

 

[soltakss]

I would just use the RQ3 values - They are nice and easy to calculate.

 

The RQ2 values are a bit fiddly, as General Hit Points are not easy to calculate. Hit Points per location are very close together, so you get hulking giants with two points different between arm and chest.

[Atgxtg]

It was pretty much the same thing in RQ2. The percentages were supposed to match up with the tabular values. 

The only difference between the two is that in RQ2 Hit Points were based off of CON with a slight modifier for SIZ (roughly 1/4 SIZ-3). score. In RQ# Hit Points are (CON+SIZ)/2. Since RQ2 gave most creatures a 3D6 CON, and RQ3 increases CON with SIZ, the HP totals for large creatures is higher in RQ3, and so the spread between locations increased. 

Edited February 23, 2016 by Atgxtg

[Guest Vile Traveller]

19 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

It was pretty much the same thing in RQ2. The percentages were supposed to match up with the tabular values. 

The only difference between the two is that in RQ2 Hit Points were based off of CON with a slight modifier for SIZ (roughly 1/4 SIZ-3). score. In RQ# Hit Points are (CON+SIZ)/2. Since RQ2 gave most creatures a 3D6 CON, and RQ3 increases CON with SIZ, the HP totals for large creatures is higher in RQ3, and so the spread between locations increased. 

Actually there was no calculation for location HP in RQ2. The table gives values which are superficially similar to RQ3 in the mid-range for humans, but after that you just add 1 HP to each location for every 3 total HP. As Simon says, that means you could get a 60 HP giant with an 18/ 18/ 19/ 17/ 18 (legs/ abdomen/ chest/ arms/ head) location HP distribution - i.e. the location HP end up almost the same fore every location.

The RQ3 method, which uses the proportional calculation, doesn't have this problem. However, as you say, with HP being based on the average of SIZ and CON, and with CON no longer limited to variations of 3-18 (as it was for just about all creatures in RQ2) you could get much higher total and location HP numbers. That brought its own problems.

Edited February 24, 2016 by Vile

[Atgxtg]

Except getting a 60HP giant was a lot tougher in RQ2, due to the different Hit Point formula. 

[Guest Vile Traveller]

Right, that was an extreme example to illustrate the difference. On the whole I found the RQ2 approach better, it didn't result in rapidly escalating toughness differences. Ideally, though, I prefer a hybrid approach - HP based on CON adjusted by SIZ, but with CON higher than the 3-18 range in some few appropriate cases (and lower in others), and a formula like RQ3 for calculating location hit points.

[Atgxtg]

Back when I was working on the dinosaur/animal project. I and my parter worked out some rules of thumb based on real world physics and the square-cube law( it turned out to be the same approach paleontologists used to estimate values for dinosaurs, but I didn't find that out until after I did it). Anyway, in RQ3 terms, and without going into the math, it seems that CON and STR increase at 2/3rds the rate that SIZ does.

So if an average man was 6' tall,  SIZ 13, CON 10, then proportionally scaled up, 19' tall giant at SIZ 53, should have a CON of about 37. 

 

If I were redoing RQ from the ground up, I'd probably lower CON, since there is very little evidence that elephants or whales are all that healthier than smaller animals, but I'd use hit points instead of CON for things like poison resistance, since mass is so important in resisting the effects of toxins.

 

 

[SDLeary]

10 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Back when I was working on the dinosaur/animal project. I and my parter worked out some rules of thumb based on real world physics and the square-cube law( it turned out to be the same approach paleontologists used to estimate values for dinosaurs, but I didn't find that out until after I did it). Anyway, in RQ3 terms, and without going into the math, it seems that CON and STR increase at 2/3rds the rate that SIZ does.

So if an average man was 6' tall,  SIZ 13, CON 10, then proportionally scaled up, 19' tall giant at SIZ 53, should have a CON of about 37. 

I'd actually go with a modified RQ2 formula. General HP is equal to SIZ. +1 point for STR between 13 and 16, +2 for 17 to 20, etc. I would only use POW if running a heroic game (and then we should probably be using PenDragon Pass rather than RQ anyway).

This means that your Giant should have about 61 hit points depending on exact STR. About right I think; Giants and large beasties should be hard to kill.

10 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

If I were redoing RQ from the ground up, I'd probably lower CON, since there is very little evidence that elephants or whales are all that healthier than smaller animals, but I'd use hit points instead of CON for things like poison resistance, since mass is so important in resisting the effects of toxins.

I would still use CON for resistance to potency, but I would require perhaps a dosage based on... SIZ, mass, HP?? Purchasing or manufacturing that much extra could be prohibitive. 

SDLeary

[Atgxtg]

In the real world they use mass (SIZ) as the baseline to resist toxin. 

What we did in our critter/dinosaur project, was to base a toxin's POT rating on the LD50 rating of the toxin.

FYI the LD50 rating is the amount of an ingested substance that kills 50 percent of a test sample. The LD50 is not only fairly easy to obtain a POT rating for a variety of substances (even water! It takes about 6.93 litres of water to get POT 12 ), but also the methodology matches up with the way the RQ  resistance table works.. 

 

Since attributes and the resistance table work on a +8 points per doubling formula, it made it very easy scale the POT rating of a toxin based on the dosage. , and also to adjust for SIZ, simply by using hit points for resistance.For example a POT 12 toxin that had a 50% chance of killing an average man (SIZ 13, CON 11, 12hp), would need a dosage about 32 times as large to have the same lethality against a SIZ 53 giant. Or half that, if we factor in for CON (because the giant's doesn't increase as much as SIZ). 

[peterb]

Thanks for the all comments. When looking closer I realized that the formula is quite simple. It's the result of (((hp- 6) / 3) rounded) added to the starting value for each hit location. That's easy to implement. The reason I asked in the first place is that i'm modifying a couple of spreadsheets, that I created way back when I was playing RQ3 a lot, to RQ2.

[simonh]

The RQ2 method of calculating HP per location did beak down for higher HP values, but a quick fix instead of reverting to formulae is to use the table iteratively for 'blocks' of 20 HP, plus any remainder.

If your creature has say 35 HP, add together the table values per location for 20 HP and 15 HP. This gives 10 HP on the arms, 14 HP on the chest, etc.

[styopa]

Formulae work better because they're not only better-scaling, but then it ALSO works for non-humaniform creatures.

RQ3 had a comprehensive list of body types, hit location (melee and missile to-hits) AND HP VALUES by location also conforming to the formulas generally.

Main body structures - chest, forequarters, etc - were 0.4

Secondary body or strong appendage - abdomen, legs - 0.33 (Head was here also; you might argue it's more like a secondary appendage size/durability wise, but it's also usually somewhat armored like in people.  I'd also suspect there was some game-balance reasons for this, because head-damage was of SUCH lethal consequence)

Secondary appendage - arms - 0.25

Trivial appendage - legs on a spider - 0.1 and didn't count against body hp.

[PorkLip]

My biggest worry with the new RQ is that it's hit location HP calculation rules might be based on the old RQ2 table! The RQ2 table just doesn't work for larger creatures where all the hit locations basically will have the same amount of HP. The multiplier system used in RQ3 was imho an elegant and simple method that worked for all creatures of all sizes. I really really hope that new RQ will use a system for hit location HP that at least scales as the RQ3 rules did!

/PorkLip

[trystero]

I prefer the RQ3 method as well; it's much easier to remember the 0.4/0.33/0.25/0.1 fractions.

[styopa]

I'm pretty sure the goal of RQ4 isn't just to re-issue RQ2 wholesale; it's to use the core concepts of RQ2, try to capture the feel of RQ2, but Jeff has also said that they will be adopting/implementing good ideas from the breadth of the RQ canon.  

There are a lot of things in RQ2 that weren't perfect (it was what 1980?  RPGs were still figuring out the fundamentals) and will certainly need to be 'updated' to a 2016 standard.  I'd say the HP table is clearly one of them for all the reasons mentioned above.

[g33k]

1 hour ago, styopa said:

I'm pretty sure the goal of RQ4 isn't just to re-issue RQ2 wholesale; it's to use the core concepts of RQ2, try to capture the feel of RQ2, but Jeff has also said that they will be adopting/implementing good ideas from the breadth of the RQ canon.  

There are a lot of things in RQ2 that weren't perfect (it was what 1980?  RPGs were still figuring out the fundamentals) and will certainly need to be 'updated' to a 2016 standard.  I'd say the HP table is clearly one of them for all the reasons mentioned above.

The "RQ Classic" kickstarter was the "reissue RQ2 wholesale" engine.  The smashing success of that KS was largely responsible for choosing RQ2 as the base from which to elaborate the "RQ Next" (which will be called... Lord only knows what, at this point!  Personally, I'm rooting for "Runequest Glorantha.").

Edited March 17, 2016 by g33k
Corrected typo

[styopa]

Well there's Debian RQ for power gamers, Ubuntu RQ for newbs, Red Hat RQ is a very nicely polished commercial version, etc.

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, styopa said:

Well there's Debian RQ for power gamers, Ubuntu RQ for newbs, Red Hat RQ is a very nicely polished commercial version, etc.

Well,  isn't that just Mint.

[g33k]

ummm... when is Apple going to issue iRQ, then?