RQG : Why should we parry?

[Zac]

4 hours ago, Sayerson said:

So, while deadly combat has always been a standard in RQ, unbalancing core rules has serious knock on effects throughout gameplay. This is what will kill games and player characters.

I am not sure how this is an unbalanced core rule though.  Dodging is less effective. And more dangerous. Maybe that is the point?

[Zac]

3 hours ago, RosenMcStern said:

Let us go with Derik the Dodger instead. With a 100% dodge and a 40% attack, the chances are the composite probability of Derik non-criticalling (0.95) by the trollkin's chance of criticalling (0.02), or 0.95 x 0.02, that is 0,019. More or less one chance in 50. This means that Derik will survive an average of 50 trollkin attacks before someone kills him, barring the option of the ubiquitous Chalana Arroy healer in range of Heal Body.

I think this just points out Dodge needs some sort of niche to make it a useful skill.

[Sayerson]

I am not sure how this is an unbalanced core rule though.  Dodging is less effective. And more dangerous. Maybe that is the point?

Yeah, you are  definitely reading only parts on an entry. Unbalancing core rules is an issue of itself - in this case combat balance. But to each their own. Some just play games no matter what.

[Zac]

24 minutes ago, Sayerson said:

Yeah, you are  definitely reading only parts on an entry. 

Or perhaps I just don't see the issue the same way you do? No need to make assumptions is there?

[styopa]

2 hours ago, Zac said:

I think this just points out Dodge needs some sort of niche to make it a useful skill.

Dodge has a niche: it's the thing you use when the damage is so overwhelming that any sort of parry you're able to put up would be nearly pointless.

If you succeed, it is a PERFECT defense.  You take nothing.

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

...Also quite handy skill to have when your parrying weapon breaks. Looking at the new rules, the breaking of weapons and shields could be quite a common thing 

[Zac]

1 hour ago, styopa said:

Dodge has a niche: it's the thing you use when the damage is so overwhelming that any sort of parry you're able to put up would be nearly pointless.

Well potential damage. :-)

[Manu]

9 hours ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

...Also quite handy skill to have when your parrying weapon breaks. Looking at the new rules, the breaking of weapons and shields could be quite a common thing 

isn't it too much book keeping? Hp of the player (for each localization), plus hp for each weapon/shield? (OK, I'm whining a bit. I still love RQG)

 

[Mankcam]

I think a shield losing 1HP every time it is used to successfully parry is just a bit too fiddly for me.

I don't mind the shield taking damage from parrying against a higher success level by an attacker, but if the parrying shield is successful against an attack of a similar success level then I think the shield shouldn't be battered enough to lose 1HP. I know that it may be more realistic with bronze age style shields that this could occur, but I just don't want shields deteriorating or breaking as regularly as that in my game.

If this remains in the full rules then I can see some house ruling happening amongst various groups already. 

I think I will keep the rules as written in regards to parrying with a bronze age weapon, but I am likely to change the parry rules a bit in regards to shields.

I'm thinking that I may rule if a shield parry is successful then there is no further bookkeeping if it blocks an attack of the same success level, and there is no HP loss occurring to the shield when this occurs. However if the shield is used again within that same melee round (against multiple foes, for instance), then it follows the same rules as weapons for subsequent parries within that same melee round (-1HP loss even is parry is successful). 

I would not be surprised if many others end up doing something along similar lines.

 

Edited July 5, 2017 by Mankcam

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

6 hours ago, Mankcam said:

I think a shield losing 1HP every time it is used to parry is just a bit too fiddily for me. It may be more realistic with bronze age style shields that this could occur, but I just don't want shields breaking as regularly as that in my game.

Jason Durall has indicated that this ruling is changing in the full RQG rules out in November. It will only be damage in excess of weapons/shield HP's that will cause 1 hp dam on a normal attack. "Special" the same but all excess damage over weapon HP is applied. Critical gets nasty as the dam is taken off the weapon/shield directly without consideration to its Hp protection. See here:

 

7 hours ago, Manu said:

isn't it too much book keeping? Hp of the player (for each localization), plus hp for each weapon/shield? (OK, I'm whining a bit. I still love RQG)

 

I wondered that too. If it feels like too much bookkeeping its an easy rule to ignore, I don't recall ever using weapon dam much in previous versions.  I haven't play tested the damage to weapon/shield rules yet, but I have to say its starting to appeal. Its got potential to give RQ another distinguishing feature which again highlights the brutality of bronze age combat. Those parried crits could bring about really dramatic cinematic moments in combat I imagine , with cloven shields and shattered weapons.   

Edited July 5, 2017 by Paid a bod yn dwp

[Mankcam]

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Edited July 5, 2017 by Mankcam

[Mankcam]

13 minutes ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

Jason Durall has indicated that this ruling is changing in the full RQG rules out in November. It will only be damage in excess of weapons/shield HP's that will cause 1 hp dam on a normal attack. "Special" the same but all excess damage over weapon HP is applied. Critical gets nasty as the dam is taken off the weapon/shield directly without consideration to its Hp protection. See here:

I wondered that too. If it feels like too much bookkeeping its an easy rule to ignore, I don't recall ever using weapon dam much in previous versions.  I haven't play tested the damage to weapon/shield rules yet, but I have to say its starting to appeal. Its got potential to give RQ another disguising feature which again highlights the brutality of bronze age combat. Those parried crits could bring about really dramatic cinematic moments in combat I imagine , with cloven shields and shattered weapons.   

 

 

Ah I have been checking these forums from my phone while I have been touring, and may have overlooked a few earlier posts. Sorry if I have commented a bit late on this one. I think I remember reading Jason's comments when he first posted them, but then I completely forgot about them for some reason!

Well Jason's statement is something that I think will work much better, and saves me thinking up a house rule. 

Cool - thanks for pointing this out to me 

Edited July 5, 2017 by Mankcam

[styopa]

I'll probably follow the rq3 rule here: -1 ap if the parrying item is exceeded.  Simpler, consistent rule in all cases.

Further, with the significant reduction in armor values from rq3 but not weapon damages it will be lethal enough.  It might be gloriously cinematic to have shields shattered but imo not terribly realistic.

[Mankcam]

Not sure if I like that a successful Parry blocks all attacks. Yes this is balanced by a varied outcome regarding the attacker's success level, but that does actually read a little complex to remember on the fly 

I kind of like CoC 7E's approach where the Parry success level must match or be better than the Attackers success level. It seems logical and easy to remember.

Edited July 5, 2017 by Mankcam

[Mugen]

One thing that didn't make much sense to me in RQ3 was steel weapons were not only harder to break, but also better for parrying.

A 16 steel kite shield was turned 24 AP, and a 10 AP sword was turned into a 15 AP sword.

It made perfectly sense steel weapons lasted much longer than bronze ones. But I was not very happy that they also soaked 50% more damage on a succesful parry.

[styopa]

4 minutes ago, Mugen said:

One thing that didn't make much sense to me in RQ3 was steel weapons were not only harder to break, but also better for parrying.

A 16 steel kite shield was turned 24 AP, and a 10 AP sword was turned into a 15 AP sword.

It made perfectly sense steel weapons lasted much longer than bronze ones. But I was not very happy that they also soaked 50% more damage on a succesful parry.

Your point is simply logical, but probably was decided to be a bookkeeping headache and thus simplified.

I entirely agree that a 16AP shield is 16AP, but has (itself) substantially more AP in terms of damage they can take.  I don't think players would really mind tracking that.

[Atgxtg]

On 7/3/2017 at 6:39 PM, styopa said:

Unless you're fighting something with catastrophically massive amounts of damage.  Then again, think about it - were there REALLY that many people that went wading into battle IRL expecting to *dodge* their way through it?  Nah...shields were ubiquitous in just about every martial culture for good reason.

Until you get to Japan, where, basically, there REALLY were that many people that went wading into battle IRL expecting to *dodge* their way through it. Shields were very rare, and swords were far to important to risk on a defense action. 

But then there was more of a "beat the opponent to the strike" thing going on. 

 

Edited July 5, 2017 by Atgxtg

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, Mugen said:

One thing that didn't make much sense to me in RQ3 was steel weapons were not only harder to break, but also better for parrying.

This was also true in RQ2, although weapons used HP instead of AP.

2 hours ago, Mugen said:

A 16 steel kite shield was turned 24 AP, and a 10 AP sword was turned into a 15 AP sword.

It made perfectly sense steel weapons lasted much longer than bronze ones. But I was not very happy that they also soaked 50% more damage on a succesful parry.

It's one of the problems with using weapon hit points for a "parry". A real parry deflects the attack rather than block/absorb it, so the parry weapon's HP really shouldn't factor into things. Shields also tend to be better at blocking (because they are so big), but even so wood tends to stand up to swords, spears, arrows, and even axes a bit better than flesh. It might be worth breaking down "parries" into partial and full parries, and only having weapons get damaged on exceptional rolls (specials, crtis, and fumbles). 

 

The argument can also be carried over into armor too. Often a "softer" armor (bronze, iron, low grade steel) can soak more than a harder armor, since the energy being used to deform the armor is not being passed on to the wearer. Harder armor might better resist being cut or punctured, but more force can sometimes pass through it to the wearer. I'm not sure if there is an easy fix for this in RQ, though. 

[SDLeary]

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Until you get to Japan, where, basically, there REALLY were that many people that went wading into battle IRL expecting to *dodge* their way through it. Shields were very rare, and swords were far to important to risk on a defense action. 

But then there was more of a "beat the opponent to the strike" thing going on. 

 

It really depends on what you are defining as Japan, or Japanese.... Yayoi infantry used shields; and its less clear, but so may Asuka and Nara. Even once we get to what we consider the traditional samurai, the main form of defense still seems to be parrying.

SDLeary

[David Scott]

Can someone help this guy out on Chaosium's G+, he's confused about this as well

https://plus.google.com/+JorgeJaramilloV/posts/jP9xcSaEud1

Edited July 5, 2017 by David Scott

[SDLeary]

47 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

It's one of the problems with using weapon hit points for a "parry". A real parry deflects the attack rather than block/absorb it, so the parry weapon's HP really shouldn't factor into things. Shields also tend to be better at blocking (because they are so big), but even so wood tends to stand up to swords, spears, arrows, and even axes a bit better than flesh. It might be worth breaking down "parries" into partial and full parries, and only having weapons get damaged on exceptional rolls (specials, crtis, and fumbles). 

Some parries deflect, some parries block; the point is taken though about AP or HP being the determiner of how much is being parried by a weapon (as opposed to a shield). And while shields do stand up to abuse better than flesh, I think the ablative nature in RQ3 was the best. It sounds like that is what will be used in the final RQ:G rules. I think this works too for bronze (and lesser iron as well) weapons, because of the nature of the metal. Steel, we need something else though, and I'm not sure what that is.

 

56 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

The argument can also be carried over into armor too. Often a "softer" armor (bronze, iron, low grade steel) can soak more than a harder armor, since the energy being used to deform the armor is not being passed on to the wearer. Harder armor might better resist being cut or punctured, but more force can sometimes pass through it to the wearer. I'm not sure if there is an easy fix for this in RQ, though. 

The problem with softer armor that deforms, is that deformity... that could impact the wearer causing damage. It does lessen whats getting through though. 

SDLeary

 

[TRose]

28 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

It really depends on what you are defining as Japan, or Japanese.... Yayoi infantry used shields; and its less clear, but so may Asuka and Nara. Even once we get to what we consider the traditional samurai, the main form of defense still seems to be parrying.

SDLeary

 Also the traditional Japanese Samurai was also an Archer first on the battle field ,not a swordsman. A Japanese Samurai would fill the sky with arrows then engage in sword play after the enemy was weaken. And a shield is more of  a hindrance  then help to an archer.

[Atgxtg]

52 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

Some parries deflect, some parries block; the point is taken though about AP or HP being the determiner of how much is being parried by a weapon (as opposed to a shield). And while shields do stand up to abuse better than flesh, I think the ablative nature in RQ3 was the best.

I think I agree. At least out of the various methods that have been used so far in RQ and it's variants. Although I do think I'd prefer a bit more control over the parry vs block thing. The RQ3 method tends to make some weapons much worse at parrying than they probably should be due to low AP scores. Plus longer weapons tended to be more likely to break this way than shorter ones (the extra length not only acts a lever for it's outgoing damage, but often for it's incoming damage. It's why bronze age swords tended to be short).

 

52 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

It sounds like that is what will be used in the final RQ:G rules. I think this works too for bronze (and lesser iron as well) weapons, because of the nature of the metal. Steel, we need something else though, and I'm not sure what that is.

Well since NuRQ is all about Glorantha, we probably don't need that something else just yet.

IMO I think some of "that" could be addressed with the fumble and resistance tables. Comapring damage to weapon AP scores and the damage to the weapon being tied to the result. 

52 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

 

The problem with softer armor that deforms, is that deformity... that could impact the wearer causing damage. It does lessen whats getting through though. 

SDLeary

 

Yup, plus once the armor starts to deform it's weaker against the next hit. Not sure if it's worth the bookkeeping to track through.

[Mugen]

2 hours ago, TRose said:

 Also the traditional Japanese Samurai was also an Archer first on the battle field ,not a swordsman. A Japanese Samurai would fill the sky with arrows then engage in sword play after the enemy was weaken. And a shield is more of  a hindrance  then help to an archer.

That also changed over time. In the end, the samurai's weapon of choice on the battlefield was the lance.

[Atgxtg]

32 minutes ago, Mugen said:

That also changed over time.

Yeah it changed. In large part because Feudal Japan didn't have the whole ransom and spoils of war thing going on, and killing horses didn't have the same negative connotations that it did in the West, so the horse archer Samurai were no longer possible in the same numbers. 

32 minutes ago, Mugen said:

In the end, the samurai's weapon of choice on the battlefield was the lance.

I assume you mean the Yari, not the Nage-Yari (throwing lance). I suspect that's probably due to economics. Spears are a lot cheaper, easier, and faster to produce than high grade swords.