Runequest Quickstart, strange combat rules

[ragngand]

I don't agree with the parry rules in the Runequest Quickstart, if you succesfully parry an attack the weapon or shield takes 1 damage making it less and less useless until it falls apart and this is regardless if the broadsword is hit with a knife or a troll maul. My opinion is that the parrying weapon only takes damage if the attacking weapon's rolled damage exceeds the hit points of the parrying weapon.

Strangely a normal success parry against a failed attack breaks the attacking weapon if it overcomes the hp of attacking weapon. which seems very harsh. As the rules doesn't state if you have to commit to parry before you know the result of the attack, you should parry with your weapon against a failed attack increasing the chance of breaking the attacking weapon and often you would be more skilled with main weapon than with shield.

Also the way things are written the description of critical and special parry could just end after saying that neither the parrying weapon nor the defender takes any damage, here I would rather have the critical parry reduce the success of the attack by two levels and the special parry reduce the success of the attack by one level.

Another question I have is why there is no impaling requirement for double damage with a special success, as this could be a knock-back with risk of falling down for weapons without impaling and you could have the weapon stuck rule for the impaling weapon. It's not clear to me if the intention is just maximum normal damage with a critical success or if it also becomes an automatic double damage?

[Psullie]

hi ragnagand, welcome onboard

the parry and weapon damage topic was well thrashed out in the Cults of Chaos forum - hopefully the admin will open the discussion to the public now that the QS is available - and the consensus was that as this is a bronze age setting weapon damage was a big part of combat, repairing and maintaining your kit would be a ongoing activity,

also as the QS is heavily abridged from the actual rules, special results such as impale were omitted for simplicity. 

Critical = ignores armour, maximum damage (not doubled)

Special = double damage, less armour

Yes, it is possible to do more damage with a special than a critical. 

 

 

 

 

[ragngand]

Hi Psullie, thanks for giving me some hope about fixing this!

[styopa]

2 hours ago, Psullie said:

Critical = ignores armour, maximum damage (not doubled)

Special = double damage, less armour

Yes, it is possible to do more damage with a special than a critical. 

Except that's been revised, as a crit is now a special that ignores armor.

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

You should read Jason Duralls  posts in this thread which give a very good insight into the QS and also the current state of the tweaked combat rules. I think you'll be happy with the changes to weapon damage in the upcoming new RQG.

 

[ragngand]

Thanks Paid a bod yn dwp, that helps clear my concern, much appreciated!

[styopa]

2 hours ago, ragngand said:

Thanks Paid a bod yn dwp, that helps clear my concern, much appreciated!

There's a lot scattered around, unfortunately.

[g33k]

2 hours ago, styopa said:

There's a lot scattered around, unfortunately.

Yeah.

All in all -- given that different people have different preferred fora, that even on a given site thread-drift may bring the topic to something not evident from the title -- it's not too surprising that the info is scattered.  Kind of the nature of the beast, really -- Chaosium does their best to respond to all queries, but that means responding WHERE the query is asked.

The only "exception" that I think there should be (and even this has some scatter) is for Kickstarter:  I'm really peeved when a KS-backer has to go looking on a bunch of OTHER sites to find full info on the KS product, fulfillment, etc...

[Psullie]

14 hours ago, styopa said:

Except that's been revised, as a crit is now a special that ignores armor.

Thanks styopa, I must print out those as I keep loosing track 

[styopa]

3 hours ago, Psullie said:

Thanks styopa, I must print out those as I keep loosing track 

We'll all have a nice bundled hardcopy print...in 5 months.  ?