Secondary Category Modfiers

[Atgxtg]

Just wondering, did they cap the category modifiers for secondary characteristics (i.e. STR for manipulation skills) in RQG? One of the problems with RQ2 was that any big creature wound up mastering every attack just because of the high STR. RQ3 capped the secondary modifiers at +10% to stop that. 

 

[simonh]

I can't find any mention of a cap. Makes sense though. Probably all category modifiers should be capped at say 25%.

Edited June 8, 2018 by simonh

[Atgxtg]

That's what I was afraid of. Most of the changes in RQ3 fixed bugs in the RQ2 rules. By dumping most of the RQ3 stuff they brought back all the bugs. So now dinosaurs and giants will be mastering every attack again. And now defense too, since parry and attack are now one skill. 

 

I don't think you need to cap primary mods so much, since STR and SIZ are the only characteristics in RQ2 that will get high enough need a cap, and STR is the only one that causes any real problems.

 

 

[simonh]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

Most of the changes in RQ3 fixed bugs in the RQ2 rules. By dumping most of the RQ3 stuff they brought back all the bugs.

 

I think that’s over stating it, there are some edge cases for sure, but what game doesn’t have those? Most bugs in RQ2 have been fixed. We now have rules for disengaging from combat, weapons used to parry don’t disintegrate like matchwood, characters have Magic Points instead of ‘Temporary POW’ and the weirdnesses of how that worked. Theres actually plenty of RQ3 in there, or similarly effective fixes.

Simon Hibbs

Edited June 8, 2018 by simonh

[Atgxtg]

 

1 hour ago, simonh said:

We now have rules for disengaging from combat

Didn't need those just running away worked fine.

1 hour ago, simonh said:

, weapons used to parry don’t disintegrate like matchwood

Ho do they handle that now? If not RQ2 HP, or RQ3 AP? Did they go with the Elric method? 

1 hour ago, simonh said:

, characters have Magic Points instead of ‘Temporary POW’ and the weirdnesses of how that worked.

Uh, not much difference there. Mostly semantics. About the only real difference I can think of is the passing out instead of dying when out of MPs.

1 hour ago, simonh said:

Theres actually plenty of RQ3 in there, or similarly effective fixes.

I hope so. Avalon Hill aside, most of what Steve Perrin did in RQ3 improved upon RQ2. Some things (ENC and Fatigue) didn't quite work out, but most things did. I really hope that caps for secondary characteristics get added. I don't want an Apatosaurus to be a master swordsman if someone can get it to hold one in it's mouth. 

 

 

[g33k]

20 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

... I don't want an Apatosaurus to be a master swordsman if someone can get it to hold one in it's mouth. 

c'mon, man... don't tell me you think ANYBODY gonna parry an apatosaurus-swordsman's lunge???!?  

[Atgxtg]

3 minutes ago, g33k said:

c'mon, man... don't tell me you think ANYBODY gonna parry an apatosaurus-swordsman's lunge???!?  

You haven't watched the outakes from Jussaic Park.

[PhilHibbs]

25 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

 

> We now have rules for disengaging from combat

Didn't need those just running away worked fine.

Except that there were no rules whatsoever for running away from combat. Other than "I run away, and there are no rules to stop me".

[Atgxtg]

Just now, PhilHibbs said:

Except that there were no rules whatsoever for running away from combat. Other than "I run away, and there are no rules to stop me".

Yeah, so? There shouldn't be any rules to stop you. It's rather easy to disengage from combat. The trick is in keeping disengaged from a faster opponent. 

[soltakss]

On 6/8/2018 at 12:14 AM, Atgxtg said:

Just wondering, did they cap the category modifiers for secondary characteristics (i.e. STR for manipulation skills) in RQG? One of the problems with RQ2 was that any big creature wound up mastering every attack just because of the high STR. RQ3 capped the secondary modifiers at +10% to stop that. 

 

Not really, but they use +5% for every 4 points above a certain limit, so a Great Troll with STR 28 would have a +15% to Agility, +15% to Manipulation, due to STR. A Great Troll with high INT/STR/DEX/POW/CHA would have good bonuses in verything but Stealth, due to primary and secondary characteristics.

As always, it is easy to houserule that Secondary characteristics can give a maximum +10% increase.

[Atgxtg]

Yeah, it easy to houserule, but easier still to stick with RQ3 and just port over whatever I want from RQG to RQ3. 

[styopa]

10 hours ago, soltakss said:

Not really, but they use +5% for every 4 points above a certain limit, so a Great Troll with STR 28 would have a +15% to Agility, +15% to Manipulation, due to STR. A Great Troll with high INT/STR/DEX/POW/CHA would have good bonuses in verything but Stealth, due to primary and secondary characteristics.

As always, it is easy to houserule that Secondary characteristics can give a maximum +10% increase.

Shouldn't something with high INT/STR/DEX/POW/CHA have good bonuses in everything ?

[PhilHibbs]

16 minutes ago, styopa said:

Shouldn't something with high INT/STR/DEX/POW/CHA have good bonuses in everything ?

A huge creature with 75 STR has +75 in all combat skills, and that's base with no experience. I think that's excessive.

Edited June 9, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

A huge creature with 75 STR has +75 in all combat skills, and that's base with no experience. I think that's excessive.

That's my view. RQ3 solved that nicely by capping the secondary mods at +10%. So the huge STR 75 creature only gets +10% to it's combat skills from STR. 

Now primary mods (INT and DEX for attack/combat skills) were not capped. So a  creature with a 75 DEX or INT would have gotten +65%  in all combat skills, but that doesn't bother me so much. mostly because there weren't any creatures in RQ with a 75 DEX or INT.  I think Steve Perrin figured that out after seeing the dinosaur stats in Gateway Bestiary, and that's why we got the secondary caps in RQ3. 

Now I was thinking that since they are using fan feedback for corrections in RQG that putting the +10% or even a +15% cap limit to secondary mods would be a possibility if the issue were raise and the reasons explained. I didn't expect it to backfire and upset people. 

 

At this point I'm afraid to ask about the SIZ table. 

[PhilHibbs]

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

That's my view. RQ3 solved that nicely by capping the secondary mods at +10%. So the huge STR 75 creature only gets +10% to it's combat skills from STR. 

Oh, and it's worse than that, STR is a secondary bonus on Agility as well now. So STR 75 giants get +75 to all agility skills. DEFINITELY a bug! I'm guessing that the bestiary will fix it with a rule for large creatures, the core RQ4 character creation rules are for humans. There's no reason why other creatures can't have different category modifier tables, just like some creatures will have different hit point location charts. Humans can continue to have large agility and manipulation modifiers if they cast powerful strength magic. STR 20, cast Bear's Strength, doubled to 40, you can get +35 Agility and +40 Manipulation. I don't have a problem with that.

Edited June 10, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Atgxtg]

This is what I was afraid of. RQ3 fixed quite a few bugs that they discovered in RQ2. By going back to RQ2 the bugs are back. I was hoping that bringing this up here and now would let them fix it in the PDF.  I don't think they need different tables, just put a reasonable cap on the secondary stats. 

I don't mind magical enhancements so much either, since they are temporary and limited. An extra 10% or so isn't going to break things. An extra 75% will. Even on the small scale it will make animals much nastier, since their base combat scores will go up. A STR 50 critter, like an elephant or allosaurus is going to get something like +45% to base combat scores just from STR, that brings a 25% attack up to 70%, and a 40% attack up to 85%. 

 

 

 

[PhilHibbs]

4 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

A STR 50 critter, like an elephant or allosaurus is going to get something like +45% to base combat scores just from STR, that brings a 25% attack up to 70%, and a 40% attack up to 85%. 

I would add an extra line:

SIZ
1-4   5-8   9-12  13-16  17-20  Each +4
 -     -     -      -      -      -5

Anything with a huge STR is also going to have a huge SIZ, and if you apply this to humans as well it only affects the truly outlandishly large.

[Atgxtg]

6 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I would add an extra line:

SIZ
1-4   5-8   9-12  13-16  17-20  Each +4
 -     -     -      -      -      -5

Anything with a huge STR is also going to have a huge SIZ, and if you apply this to humans as well it only affects the truly outlandishly large.

Not every, but most things. But I just don't see the rational for the latter. Just because something is bigger it shouldn't be weaker, should it?

 

But anyway, I asked, got answered, expressed my concerns, and can move on. 

[simonh]

2 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Just because something is bigger it shouldn't be weaker, should it?

It's not weaker, this doesn't affect it's damage bonus or ability to use it's strength to exert physical force, it's just means being very bulky is an obstacle to fine manipulation and agility based tasks, which seems reasonable.

[PhilHibbs]

4 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Not every, but most things. But I just don't see the rational for the latter. Just because something is bigger it shouldn't be weaker, should it?

The SIZ penalty that I suggest is only intended to balance the STR bonus to Agility and Manipulation skills, without special-casing them. It doesn't make anything weaker, unless they have huge SIZ and puny STR, which would be odd.

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

The SIZ penalty that I suggest is only intended to balance the STR bonus to Agility and Manipulation skills, without special-casing them. It doesn't make anything weaker, unless they have huge SIZ and puny STR, which would be odd.

Oh, I know, but it seems artificial. Especially since STR is mostly about  muscle mass ans that's mostly a factor of size. But I leave it you guys to work it out. I got to stay away from this section before I get tarred and feathered.