Chaosium's new RQ

[g33k]

9 hours ago, Mugen said:

Ok ! Your question makes more sense now

I think the following might work:

-Experience checks are given to specialties.

-Aptitudes get experience checks only if an experience check for a specialty was succesfull, but can't get more than one per session.

As for the exact chances to improve aptitude and specialties, I think something along those lines would work:

-For specialities, a d100 roll > (current value x3) or 95

-For aptitudes, a d100 roll > (current value+25) or 95

Yes, a 1-level root/branch system.

And one which starts at a rather broad definition level, and allows for some combination with other branches.

That looks like a pretty decent mechanic for realism; by implication, I understand it to be a simplified version of Ringworld's Root/Branch, and also rather like Rev100 and HQ in some ways ... ?

It differs in outlook from my own suggestion in a couple of key ways... The biggest one, to me, is the inherent relation-of-weapons (and associated relation-of-skill) that my "Weapon/Graph" method uses; yours appears to allow arbitrary "specialties" no matter how related or un-related they are; this makes it (IMHO) a less-general method (e.g. surely you wouldn't allow a "Speak Any Language" skill at the base of several "Speak Language <X>" skills; would you see one or more "Speak Language-Family <Y>" as Base Skills?  That way leads to a multi-level Root/Branch, and more complexity... ) .

Also, it accumulates Base+Specialty for a Total Skill, where mine reduces by degree-of-relation from the RQ2 Skill (as such, it appears to need a new Experience mechanic (as noted above) ) .  If I were implementing the system above as a version of the RQ2 mechanics, I'd probably roll skill-improvement vs. the Total Skill used, on success giving maybe 7 "points" to spend -- 1:1 to improve 1% of the specialty/"branch" skill, and/or 2:1 spend to improve 1% of the base/"root" skill.  Because of the odd-number, the Specialty would always get AT LEAST one point, but the player can get up to 3 points on the Base skill if they want.

As a sidebar/options, one could suggest a fixed "2Base+3Specialty" rule, or any other desired ratio; and/or or roll 1d4-1 = 0-3 to let the Fates decide the number of Base vs. Specialty points; and/or dice for the total-points to spend (2d6 seems good); and/or ... well, any other variations desired!

It's an added layer of crunch & complexity, IMHO, but I might be willing to deal with it.  I'd CERTAINLY be happy to play in a few game-sessions if one of my group wanted to run a game based on this mechanic...

 

Edited September 21, 2016 by g33k
removed a lingering extra-word from a rephrase

[g33k]

15 hours ago, Yelm's Light said:

It's also unbalancing; you're effectively adding more to all weapon skills.

You've misunderstood me... my bad!  I had concentrated all my examples on the "weapons table" and my proposed "weapons graph."  I'm proposing at a general "related skills" mechanism.  Each "type" of skill would have a degree-of-relation graph...

For "Languages," e.g. Sartarite would be a hop or two away from Esrolian.

Stonecutter/masons, sculptors in stone, and gemcutters, would all be on a skill-graph; wood-carvers would be near stone-sculptors, but further from gemcutters; carpenters would be close to sculptors of wood, further from sculptors of stone, and VERY distant from gemcutters!

Running and jumping would be next to each other on an "Athletics" skill graph, with "Dodge" being near Jumping, but not as close to Running; swimming would be much further away...

Etc.

Yes, there are some problems that would need to be worked out... some skills would appear as "loners" or as part of VERY small graphs... sometimes a "hop" on the graph might need to be directional, or weighted more than other single-hops... etc.

I continue to believe that -- with some time & effort -- this method could be made both "realistic" and very user-friendly/playable.

 

[Pentallion]

Glorantha: Crucible of the Hero Wars states that you get either half or 20% of your Theyalan language skill to every other dialect of Theyalan.  I forget the %.  So if you spoke Sartarite, you probably spoke Esrolian at half that and Yggite at 20% of that.  I forget the exact rules.  They had something in place, however, for similar languages.  So if you have that book you can apply it to other skills as well.

[Mugen]

11 hours ago, SDLeary said:

Silly question. If you want something like this, why don't you simply change the way the Combat/Attack/Parry bonus is figured? 

RQ3/BGB used this... (sorry, inserting a table didn't work)

Whereby you added 1% for every characteristic point value above 10, 1% for every two points over 10, and negative subtracted.

It could be argued that DEX and STR are of equal value in combat, so you could have them both be primary. And you could dispense with the 1% over blah blah and simply add the characteristics together, yes? So you could have a Combat = (STR+DEX)+1/2INT. This should get you somewhat close to the values that you are looking for at base without potentially borking skills and their attached experience and relationships.

SDLeary

Well, my plan is to have broad skills that can grow with experience, and characteristics grow way too slowly for what I want.

In my idea, a master swordsman should have Melee around 75, and Sword around 35, for a total of 110%. In order to reach 75% by increasing STR, DEX and INT, I would need an average value of 30 in all 3

Anyway, the base value for each aptitude is equal to the'sum of 2 characteristics (STR+DEX for Melee, CHA x2 for communication, INT  x2 for knowledge, and so on...)

There's also 2 categories of "specialties" : most are just a bonus to an aptitude, but others ("skills") cannot be used before someone taught you how to use those. Magic, crafts and specific knowledge are examples of skills.

Edited September 22, 2016 by Mugen

[Yelm's Light]

21 hours ago, RosenMcStern said:

Except that it does not happen so seldom. As soon as you start introducing "better than starting value" skill levels for secondary weapons, players of specialised fighters will ask the GM for permission to train in the new skill starting from the "improved" base chance. Or the character will get an experience check for the weapon, and ask (reasonable request) to roll for an improvement in the new skill.

This will immediately get out of control if you have imaginative and proactive players. And please note that here the players are not doing anything that is out of character and the GM should disallow: their character is a specialised fighter, it is normal that he wants to progress in other weapon skills and gain maximum efficiency on the battlefield. And since he is supposed to practice daily, it is also normal that he sees other weapons used and keeps them in his hands, so his character should know exactly how proficient he can be with an unfamiliar weapon, as there are very few weapons, if any, he has never sparred with.

Basically, in the very moment that you introduce this rule, you open a can of worms. And either you rule that the bonus only works when you pick up the weapon in the middle of a fight but not in the controlled situation of sparring (which is horribly unrealistic and absolutely unfair), or you are actually headed in the direction of having something almost as complicate as a root/branch system

Yet most people here say that it should be there. And most experienced fighters are deadly with whatever they have in their hands. Miyamoto Musashi killed his most dangerous opponent with an oar. Do you think his skill with the oar did not benefit from his battlefield mastery at all?

Magic and armour cannot be factored in, either. Nor can Dodge, which in some systems is subsumed in the weapon skill.

It is no compromise. It is exactly how Traits work

Basically, you're giving double experience for fighting in melee.  (That's the imbalance part.)  As for Musashi using an oar, I'll bet you he was pretty good with a staff long before that particular point.  He was the greatest warrior of his time, bar none.  Compare your average PC to Harrek or Jar-eel, and that's the extremity of the example you're using.

But why stop there?  Why not a general magic skill for having absorbed a bunch of magical axioms?

[g33k]

22 hours ago, RosenMcStern said:

Except that it does not happen so seldom. As soon as you start introducing "better than starting value" skill levels for secondary weapons, players of specialised fighters will ask the GM for permission to train in the new skill starting from the "improved" base chance. Or the character will get an experience check for the weapon, and ask (reasonable request) to roll for an improvement in the new skill.

This will immediately get out of control if you have imaginative and proactive players. And please note that here the players are not doing anything that is out of character and the GM should disallow: their character is a specialised fighter, it is normal that he wants to progress in other weapon skills and gain maximum efficiency on the battlefield. And since he is supposed to practice daily, it is also normal that he sees other weapons used and keeps them in his hands, so his character should know exactly how proficient he can be with an unfamiliar weapon, as there are very few weapons, if any, he has never sparred with.

Basically, in the very moment that you introduce this rule, you open a can of worms. And either you rule that the bonus only works when you pick up the weapon in the middle of a fight but not in the controlled situation of sparring (which is horribly unrealistic and absolutely unfair), or you are actually headed in the direction of having something almost as complicate as a root/branch system

Hmmm... I suspect that you are right; players WILL want to do this.

And -- barring Geasa against particular weapons, and similar prohibitions -- it's totally appropriate and in-character to want it and pursue it.

So:  the mechanics work the way the RP'ing says they should, and vice versa.  Ummm... not seeing the problem here, honestly...  I *like* it when the mechanical systems and the RP line up that way!

I mean... maybe tweak advancement down a bit slower, if you don't want the fighters to get broadly better?

But please also note that I don't mean this to be weapons-only:  Issaries and Etyries and Argan Argar folk will get better at languages & Oratory and such-like related skills.  Scout-types will get better at Tracking and Hunting and so forth.  Etc etc etc...

[g33k]

9 hours ago, Pentallion said:

Glorantha: Crucible of the Hero Wars states that you get either half or 20% of your Theyalan language skill to every other dialect of Theyalan.  I forget the %.  So if you spoke Sartarite, you probably spoke Esrolian at half that and Yggite at 20% of that.  I forget the exact rules.  They had something in place, however, for similar languages.  So if you have that book you can apply it to other skills as well.

It's in the RQ2 core rulebook, in Ch.X part... erm... G?H?  A section on languages, citing relationships between various languages.  Some get half-score, or 1/4 score, or 1/10 score...

[RosenMcStern]

2 hours ago, g33k said:

So:  the mechanics work the way the RP'ing says they should, and vice versa.  Ummm... not seeing the problem here, honestly...  I *like* it when the mechanical systems and the RP line up that way!

I mean... maybe tweak advancement down a bit slower, if you don't want the fighters to get broadly better?

But please also note that I don't mean this to be weapons-only:  Issaries and Etyries and Argan Argar folk will get better at languages & Oratory and such-like related skills.  Scout-types will get better at Tracking and Hunting and so forth.  Etc etc etc...

There is NO problem. This method is extremely realistic. I am just highlighting the level of complexity that this system implies. It is not a "shortcut" system that achieves the wanted level of granularity while having the same simplicity as the Trait system. It is a full fledged root/branch system where you have just one level of branching. It will increase realism, but also the amount of required book-keeping, as g33k correctly pointed out.

In other words, what I am saying is that there is no "compromise" solution between root/branch and traits. I have looked for one for years, and there is none. If you find it, post it here or on the RD100 forum, but so far, no one has shown up.

[g33k]

16 hours ago, RosenMcStern said:

There is NO problem. This method is extremely realistic. I am just highlighting the level of complexity that this system implies. It is not a "shortcut" system that achieves the wanted level of granularity while having the same simplicity as the Trait system. It is a full fledged root/branch system where you have just one level of branching. It will increase realism, but also the amount of required book-keeping, as g33k correctly pointed out.

In other words, what I am saying is that there is no "compromise" solution between root/branch and traits. I have looked for one for years, and there is none. If you find it, post it here or on the RD100 forum, but so far, no one has shown up.

I'm really not seeing it as "complex."

Each "family" of skills has a "graph" -- a picture of nodes/skills connected by edges/similarity.  Pictures are inherently easy to grasp.  If someone wants to acquire a new-weapon-skill, they either use the "base skill" as per an untrained n00b, or if they are a more-advanced fighter they use a "related weapon" skill as their "base skill".  It's something that comes up ONCE, as they begin learning the new weapon.

Same for someone learning e.g. a new language -- "base skill" as per a n00b, or as per someone who knows a related language and thus has a "leg up" on the n00b.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

[Yelm's Light]

Pure fantasy, and I don't mean RQ.  So you're master with, say, a claymore (2-handed sword) and you're going to know how to beat someone in a dagger fight where the movements, spacing, and tactics are TOTALLY different?  Not in my games.

You wait until you've mastered a weapon, and your so-called 'melee skill' is as high as you can get it, then you change to a different weapon.  Which, in effect, is a bonus for all of the fighting you've done since you started as a PC.  There's no logic to it, and a lot of imbalance for a questionable rationale.

Edited September 23, 2016 by Yelm's Light

[g33k]

16 minutes ago, Yelm's Light said:

Pure fantasy, and I don't mean RQ.  So you're master with, say, a claymore (2-handed sword) and you're going to know how to beat someone in a dagger fight where the movements, spacing, and tactics are TOTALLY different?  Not in my games.

You wait until you've mastered a weapon, and your so-called 'melee skill' is as high as you can get it, then you change to a different weapon.  Which, in effect, is a bonus for all of the fighting you've done since you started as a PC.  There's no logic to it, and a lot of imbalance for a questionable rationale.

YGMV 

My RQ MV, too ... 

fwiw, I'd consider claymore-to-dagger a pretty big leap.  But all melee combat has ENOUGH overlap that the Highlander is gonna be at least ok -- and notably better than a rank newbie -- with the dagger, or any other weapon...

[SDLeary]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

I'm really not seeing it as "complex."

Each "family" of skills has a "graph" -- a picture of nodes/skills connected by edges/similarity.  Pictures are inherently easy to grasp.  If someone wants to acquire a new-weapon-skill, they either use the "base skill" as per an untrained n00b, or if they are a more-advanced fighter they use a "related weapon" skill as their "base skill".  It's something that comes up ONCE, as they begin learning the new weapon.

Same for someone learning e.g. a new language -- "base skill" as per a n00b, or as per someone who knows a related language and thus has a "leg up" on the n00b.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Its certainly not complex to understand. Managing it at the table on a character sheet is something else though. Especially as a Branch Skill can be pretty much anything that falls under the Root. 

SDLeary

[RosenMcStern]

2 hours ago, g33k said:

It's something that comes up ONCE, as they begin learning the new weapon.

Same for someone learning e.g. a new language -- "base skill" as per a n00b, or as per someone who knows a related language and thus has a "leg up" on the n00b.

The moment things start to get complicated is when you need to do it dynamically during play. That is, a player lack a skill and wishes to "default" on another, or to "graft" one branch on another "root". The typical occurrence is when you lose a weapon and are forced to grab the closest available replacement. Doing this implies two-digit additions during play, and this goes beyond the math comfort zone of many players.

You may of course disallow dynamic handling of skills, and only allow operations on the "tree" at skill improvement/training time. This will tone down complexity to a level when it is reasonable to tell the player "Use a calculator if you find it difficult". But by disallowing dynamic intersection of branches you lose one of the most enjoyable aspects of skill specialisation.

[Jeff]

Although this is all interesting, this is not an approach the new RuneQuest will be taking beyond a simpler Weapons Category system (all weapons within the same category start with a minimum of half the skill rating of the best skill the adventurer has in that category), and with Languages (frex, if you speak Heortling, you know Esrolian at 1/2, and Old Pavic, Tarshite, and Stormspeech at least at 1/3rd that skill).

[RosenMcStern]

Should we read this as an implicit "open another thread in the general BRP subforum instead of posting in a thread with a misleading name", Jeff?

[Mankcam]

Yes that sounded like " Last drinks guys, move next door if you want to keep going into the wee hours" 

Edited September 23, 2016 by Mankcam

[Jeff]

Yep. The thread really has nothing to do with its title. So best to open a new thread with a less misleading title.

[g33k]

10 hours ago, Jeff said:

Although this is all interesting, this is not an approach the new RuneQuest will be taking beyond a simpler Weapons Category system (all weapons within the same category start with a minimum of half the skill rating of the best skill the adventurer has in that category), and with Languages (frex, if you speak Heortling, you know Esrolian at 1/2, and Old Pavic, Tarshite, and Stormspeech at least at 1/3rd that skill).

OK, thanks!  Sorry for the thread-drift...

This is the answer to (part of) my OP query:  there are subsystems for "Weapons Categories" and specific "Language X related to language Y" bonuses, but there is not a generalized "related skills" mechanism.

The other part of my question -- largely ignored by me and everyone else these last 3 pages -- is if there will be any official "complementary skill" or "synergistic skill" rule, like "Spot Traps" works better in the wilderness if you have a good "Tracking" skill, but finds a hidden-needle in jewelry better if you're a skilled whitesmith; etc etc etc.

Edited September 23, 2016 by g33k
clarity & apology

[Jeff]

Skills may be combined together to augment one another.

[g33k]

5 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Skills may be combined together to augment one another.

Thank you!  :-)

 

[soltakss]

On 9/20/2016 at 9:07 AM, Iskallor said:

I dont think there would a novice in sight if a Humakti rune lord turned up holding a spoon. They would surrender or leg it.

Because it hurts more ...

[Mankcam]

.

Edited September 26, 2016 by Mankcam