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RQG: how much RQ3 still in it?


BWP

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Just a musing.  This is in NO WAY intended as a diatribe againt the design of RQG (well, maybe a tiny one) which I intend to purchase when it exists in physical form (so this is me saying I've not read the PDF).  (I should also say that I have no experience whatsover with MRQ2Mythras, etc.)

There are many things about RQG that sound fantastic to me, and I eagerly await putting them to the test on the gaming table.  What doesn't sound quite so fantastic is the apparent decision* to toss a lot of the RQ3 mechanical bathwater out in favour of the older RQ2 mechanics.  Was RQ3 mechanically perfect?  Of course not, it had many issues, although precious few of those issues were so bad that they could not be addressed by simple house rules.  However, thinking back on it, I can't think of a single RQ3 game mechanic that was not (IMO) superior to the equivalent RQ2 mechanic.  (And that's not even addressing the many mechanics that RQ3 provided that RQ2 never addressed at all.)  [Of course after many years of playing RQ3 with an ever-evolving set of house rules I may well have forgotten some specific printed RQ3 rule that I "automatically" reverted to a RQ2 rule ... but I don't think so.  Maybe Fatigue, which was too cumbersome (ha!) to be really workable, although the concept of it was fine and there was still room to fit it into the game in other ways (the idea of tracking how exhausted your character is in addition to how injured he is).]

I don't  expect RQG mechanics to change in any significant way now, of course, but as the game goes on I do hope we can get away from the apparent "RQ3 bad, RQ2 good" philosophy.

As it is, I expect that any games of RQG that I run in the future will come with a whole new swag of house rules, many of which will be there simply to reintroduce aspects of RQ3 that I never had any complaints about.

So my question boils down to: how much of RQ3 has actually made its way into RQG -- i.e., tweaks or additions to the RQ2 rules that clearly were sourced from RQ3?

* I say "apparent" because I'm only picking up on the comments from those that have got the PDF and are quoting here and there.

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"I want to decide who lives and who dies."

Bruce Probst

Melbourne, Australia

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Well, for starters, the RQ2 Defence stat is gone, replaced by RQ3's Dodge skill.

Which is good, as Dodge has been in all the Chaosium BRP games since RQ3 (to my knowledge).   

However most core structure looks more similar to RQ2 than RQ3.

APP is back to CHA. Cool.

Hit Points also went back to RQ2 's version, which feels a bit odd now that I have been doing (SIZ + CON)/2 for 30yrs. Not a dramatic difference however, and I guess it allows all the RQ2 reprints to be used with RQG, which is a smart move.

Edited by Mankcam

" Sure it's fun, but it is also well known that a D20 roll and an AC is no match against a hefty swing of a D100% and a D20 Hit Location Table!"

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RQG is RQ2 compatible by design, the intention is to be able to easily reuse the supplements brought back into print by the RQ2 reprint kickstarter project. I haven't seen any traces of RQ3 yet, but then I've haven't played RQG yet...

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Peter Brink

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Things I miss from RQ3: knockback for attacks doing damage > SIZ in melee, more-granular skill category modifiers, having a skill named "Sneak" instead of the more cumbersome "Move Quietly", the simpler formulae for both total Hit Points and hit location HP), the missile hit-location table, aimed shots, disarm attempts, a more systematic approach to attack/defense result interactions (e.g., my critical hit does maximum damage and ignores armour no matter what your parry result is), spirit and sorcery spells taking 1 SR per MP instead of the first MP being "free".

Things I don't miss from RQ3: Fatigue Points, ENC penalties to spell-casting chances, Sorcery skills as casting-chance limitations, POW sacrifices for specific castings of divine/Rune spells, one-use divine/Rune spells for initiates, confusion over whether you could resist spells (or overcome resistance) with non-personal Magic Points.

Things I expected to miss but so far don't: Appearance characteristic (which we often just called "Appeal"), melee rounds of 10 SR, separate Attack and Parry skills for weapons, weapons having AP instead of HP, mail ("chainmail") as an armour type, shields named by shape instead of just size.

I will probably end up house-ruling some of the RQ3 rules into RQ:G, though I'll try it as written first.

Edited by trystero
Aimed Blows are in the RQ:G rules

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Self-discipline isnt everything; look at Pol Pot.”
—Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

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It’s worth noting that many of the reversions to RQ2 mechanics were suggested by the designers of RQ3 (or in fact both games). I think RQ3 was a much better game fir campaign play that’s RQ2, but mainly due to the extra mechanics provided, to allow your characters to do so much more, rancher than the changes to the mechanics already there.

The RQ2 strike ranks and turn sequence are fine, no complaints there.

I don’t really case how skill modifiers are calculated. No big deal either way.

Going back to RQ2 Hit Points is odd, it’s a much less scaleable system than RQ3 and doesn’t handle large monsters very well, but well see.

I’ll have to see how well RQG handles unarmed combat. RQ3 was more complex, but a lot more capable there.

Simon Hibbs

Edited by simonh
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Check out the Runequest Glorantha Wiki for RQ links and resources. Any updates or contributions welcome!

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53 minutes ago, simonh said:

Going back to RQ2 Hit Points is odd, it’s a much less scaleable system than RQ3 and doesn’t handle large monsters very well, but well see.

I'd say the opposite. In RQ3, large monsters had absurd amounts of hit points. We know that RuneQuest adventurers fight giants - that is part of the genre - but in RQ2 Bigclub had 28 hit points. In RQ3 Bigclub would have 42 (and actually it got worse, as RQ3 knocked up the CON of big monsters as well, so in the RQ3 version of SPH Bigclub had an insane 63 hit points).

Fighting big monsters is part of the genre of Glorantha, and was far more possible in RQ2 than in RQ3.

Jeff

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5 minutes ago, Jeff said:

I'd say the opposite. In RQ3, large monsters had absurd amounts of hit points. We know that RuneQuest adventurers fight giants - that is part of the genre - but in RQ2 Bigclub had 28 hit points. In RQ3 Bigclub would have 42 (and actually it got worse, as RQ3 knocked up the CON of big monsters as well, so in the RQ3 version of SPH Bigclub had an insane 63 hit points).

Fighting big monsters is part of the genre of Glorantha, and was far more possible in RQ2 than in RQ3.

Jeff

I'm unsure how HP's should scale from human to giant (depends on the size of the giant, I suppose). Giants double the size of humans should have double the amount of hp's. 3 times the size, 3 times the hp's? That sounds too simplistic. How big was Bigclub? Of course, the most important aspect of this is 'what does my story require?'.

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9 minutes ago, Jeff said:

I'd say the opposite. In RQ3, large monsters had absurd amounts of hit points. We know that RuneQuest adventurers fight giants - that is part of the genre - but in RQ2 Bigclub had 28 hit points. In RQ3 Bigclub would have 42 (and actually it got worse, as RQ3 knocked up the CON of big monsters as well, so in the RQ3 version of SPH Bigclub had an insane 63 hit points).

Fighting big monsters is part of the genre of Glorantha, and was far more possible in RQ2 than in RQ3.

Jeff

Ok, that's fair enough. It does seem a bit odd to me though that in RQG Bigclub has 11 HP in the chest an 9 HP in the arms, whereas for an average character the arms have 2/3 of the chest HPs, so you'd expect them to have 7. As you go up the HP scale, all the locations end up being about the same in RQG.

I suppose this is less of a problem with less HP escalation though.

Simon Hibbs

Check out the Runequest Glorantha Wiki for RQ links and resources. Any updates or contributions welcome!

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3 hours ago, Jeff said:

I'd say the opposite. In RQ3, large monsters had absurd amounts of hit points. We know that RuneQuest adventurers fight giants - that is part of the genre - but in RQ2 Bigclub had 28 hit points. In RQ3 Bigclub would have 42 (and actually it got worse, as RQ3 knocked up the CON of big monsters as well, so in the RQ3 version of SPH Bigclub had an insane 63 hit points).

Which leads to some huge differences if you end up with big creatures fighting each other. RQ3 Bigclub vs Bigclub would take around four normal average hits to the same arm to disable the location, whereas RQ2 Bigclub vs Bigclub, the first one to hit is pretty much an instant kill or disable.

Sure, the adventurers are supposed to fight the big monsters, not other big monsters. RQ3 claimed greater scalability, at the expense of heroic narratives. Different games for different styles. I think the RQ2 stats for Bigclub are too badly imbalanced, comparing the damage he deals to the damage he can take, it's too far in that direction. The big monsters are pathetic in terms of hit points and terrifying in terms of damage bonus.

RQG is about the same, 1 more HP and 1 more D6 damage bonus (I said less earlier, he gets 8D6 in RQG, as against 7D6 in both prior editions). 29 hit points. I've had a smaller-than-average human character in my RQ3 game with more hit points than that.

Edited by PhilHibbs
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23 minutes ago, Jeff said:

I'd say the opposite. In RQ3, large monsters had absurd amounts of hit points. We know that RuneQuest adventurers fight giants - that is part of the genre - but in RQ2 Bigclub had 28 hit points. In RQ3 Bigclub would have 42 (and actually it got worse, as RQ3 knocked up the CON of big monsters as well, so in the RQ3 version of SPH Bigclub had an insane 63 hit points).

Fighting big monsters is part of the genre of Glorantha, and was far more possible in RQ2 than in RQ3.

Jeff

Neat. This is indeed a perfectly viable approach to the problem. In other terms, a coherent design choice. However, I cannot but notice that it goes along the "hit points as your capability to survive a fight" route: my warrior has a number of HP that is on the same order of magnitude as the giant's, so he can battle him.

While the above does not bother me at all in, say, 13th Age, it is not what I would expect in a BRP game, where hit points are more like what D&D grognards call "meat points". 

As for the 63 hit points of the RQ3 version of Bigclub, they still leave him in the 21-point range in the head, legs and abdomen. This means that a critical with a weapon enhanced with basic Gloranthan magic will still one-shot him, barring a CONx1 roll (arrow with speedart 21 points on a critical, shortspear with Bladesharp 4 22 points on a crit, bastard sword wiht truesword 22 points on a crit, and so on). Joe Humakti can still overcome BigClub if he sacrifices that one-use (in RQ3) casting of Truesword he has been saving for special occasions, and manages to never miss his parries. In fact, I have never seen a giant or a fiend last more than a couple of rounds against seasoned adventurers in RQ3 Glorantha. YGWV.

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Still need proper time on the excellent new RQG, but i'm really liking the possibilities and greater immersion and variety in character generation, love how its opening up Esrolia and other areas. Little modifiers to characterise different  backgrounds are giving real flavour. The Bison riders are pretty cool. 

That being said and to keep this thread on track, I noticed that how damage is taken in the hit locations is more RQ3 aligned then RQ2. IIRC RQ2 had a flat 6pts in excess of hit points to sever or maime a limb, no matter the size/scale of the creature. In RQ3 and RQG it scales with the actual hit points in the location, needing in excess of triple location hit points. So I guess  thats a nod to the scalability that RQ3 introduced in this regards. 

 

 

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6 hours ago, trystero said:

Things I miss from RQ3: knockback for attacks doing damage > SIZ in melee, more-granular skill category modifiers, having a skill named "Sneak" instead of the more cumbersome "Move Quietly", the simpler formulae for both total Hit Points and hit location HP), the missile hit-location table, aimed shots, disarm attempts, a more systematic approach to attack/defense result interactions (e.g., my critical hit does maximum damage and ignores armour no matter what your parry result is), spirit and sorcery spells taking 1 SR per MP instead of the first MP being "free".

I am reading the rules now and, from that (admittedly less than careful read) you can shield bash to knock people back, you can do an aimed shot and I think you can disarm (not sure about that).  Am I wrong??

Of course, the first rule that I have read that I know I will ignore (being the RQ2 lovie that I am) will be rolling to see if I can cast battle magic.  I want my simple spells just to cast.  Being a POWx5 roll to cast a spell reinforces the need to have high power right from the start, not only can you not cast many spells in a day - you may not even be able to cast them when you have the power to do so...

Stephen

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5 hours ago, Jeff said:

I'd say the opposite. In RQ3, large monsters had absurd amounts of hit points. We know that RuneQuest adventurers fight giants - that is part of the genre - but in RQ2 Bigclub had 28 hit points. In RQ3 Bigclub would have 42 (and actually it got worse, as RQ3 knocked up the CON of big monsters as well, so in the RQ3 version of SPH Bigclub had an insane 63 hit points).

Fighting big monsters is part of the genre of Glorantha, and was far more possible in RQ2 than in RQ3.

Jeff

RQ2 hp scaling is goofy.  You want to deliberately build a system that gimps "big monsters" so they're easier to kill, that's fine.  I prefer big monsters to be actually terrifying because they are.

Bigclub is THREE STORIES TALL (9m)  He's SIZ 69.  On a human proportions (yes, setting aside physics) he's 15,000 lbs.  Firstly, the idea that he's got body hp (28) double that of a decent adventurer is...well, sorry it's silly.  The only reason he's tough in SPH is because he (conveniently) has +10 AP skin.  Without it?  A single good special arrowshot to the head kills him.   

Secondly, because the RQ2 location hp mechanics go up linearly after a point, the damage proportions between limbs/core get all whacky making limbs intuitively too high a proportion of body hp.  For a normal 10-12hp human, chest is 5, legs/abd are 80% of that (4), and arms are 60%.  For a Bigclub, his legs are 90%, arms are 80%. What that means in RQ2 he can be nearly dead from one completely-mangled limb, where in RQ3 he'd be at about half...like a human.

I'm not trying to convince anyone of everything, Jeff and I simply will never agree on that.  Ultimately RQG has made their choice to prefer to be in synch with RQ2 stuff like SPH, Griffin Mtn, and Duck Tower instead of RQ3's River of Cradles, Dorastor, and Shadows on the Borderland, etc.

cf already discussed a year ago at 

 

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16 minutes ago, StephenMcG said:

I am reading the rules now and, from that (admittedly less than careful read) you can shield bash to knock people back, you can do an aimed shot and I think you can disarm (not sure about that).  Am I wrong??

In RQ:G, you can make an intentional knockback "attack" which does no damage, but you can't knock a foe back by hitting them for a lot of damage with a regular attack.

You're correct that Aimed Blows are still in the new rules (p. 197); I'd missed that.

The Sickle-Sword description on p. 210 says, "this sword has a curved single-edge blade used for slashing and for disarming an opponent" (emphasis added), but I don't see any rules for disarming opponents.

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Self-discipline isnt everything; look at Pol Pot.”
—Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

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38 minutes ago, trystero said:

The Sickle-Sword description on p. 210 says, "this sword has a curved single-edge blade used for slashing and for disarming an opponent" (emphasis added), but I don't see any rules for disarming opponents.

Good point I can't see any rule for disarm attempts in RQG, apart from as an outcome from the fumble table.

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38 minutes ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

Good point I can't see any rule for disarm attempts in RQG, apart from as an outcome from the fumble table.

We will have plenty of additional rules in the GMs book.

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8 minutes ago, Mugen said:

I think the way weapons are damaged by non-special attacks is from RQ3.

It is, though it still uses the RQ2 "Hit Points" name for the weapon's damage-blocking capacity rather than the RQ3 "Armor Points" name.

I think the new mechanism is the best of both worlds and a good improvement over both 2nd and 3rd editions.

— 
Self-discipline isnt everything; look at Pol Pot.”
—Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

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3 hours ago, Jeff said:

The book was actually the maximum length we were going to allow. 

LOL! It's funny how the rule books get bigger but we somehow end up with fewer rules in the books. But they did use smaller fonts back in the old days (like 4 point in the RQ2 appendix).

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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