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Critical damage example.


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19 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Jason has stated that the "takes twice the damage" is just a clumsy way of saying that the hit does special damage.

I know this reveals an OCD I never knew I possessed... but Jason's statement is incorrect. The phrase ins't a clumsy way restating the rules. It mistakes the rules for Special Damage wholly.

If one looks at the sidebar which defines Special Damage, and breaks out the three ways Special Damage works for three respective weapon types, one finds that trying to sum up the rules in this manner ignores the rules. Some dice are rolled twice, others are not, and Crushing Damage doesn't double any damage at all.

The game establishes a technical term ("Special Damage") and all that had to happen was to use that term consistently so that anyone using the rules would know immediately what the text was supposed to mean.

What gets to me is not the errors at this point. (There will be errors.) It is Team: Chaosium's inability so say, "Yeah, wow. That's a fuck up. Sorry about that. We should have done better. We'll get on it. That's some sloppy writing there." 

The errors are one thing. The inability of the team responsible for the book to look at the work and see what is right in front of their eyes is the part that is driving me nuts.

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"But Pendragon isn’t intended to be historical, just fun.
So have fun."

-- Greg Stafford

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What are you expecting? He said it's wrong, it just means that specials normally do "double" damage (impales and slashes do double weapon damage, crush does double damage bonus). It makes sense to me. It's a mistake, he's clarified it, job done.

Edited by PhilHibbs
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1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

What are you expecting? He said it's wrong, it just means that specials normally do "double" damage (impales and slashes do double weapon damage, crush does double damage bonus). It makes sense to me. It's a mistake, he's clarified it, job done.

Actually, that's not how Special Crushing Damage works. Which is my point. And Impaling and Slashing Special Damage has qualifiers on which damage elements are doubled and which aren't. 

I appreciate you are satisfied with the what he said. On the other hand, you took what he said and came up with a reading of the Crushing rules that runs counter to what is actually in the rules.

"But Pendragon isn’t intended to be historical, just fun.
So have fun."

-- Greg Stafford

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1 hour ago, creativehum said:

I appreciate you are satisfied with the what he said. On the other hand, you took what he said and came up with a reading of the Crushing rules that runs counter to what is actually in the rules.

Well, I don't know if that was an influence or not, I thought that the maximum damage bonus was for a critical. There's been some discussion about it recently with alternative ideas being thrown around, that's what confused me.

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9 hours ago, Psullie said:

Hi Atgxtg, I agree with your assessment, all I was saying was that I prefer combat lite campaigns and the RQG encourages that with a high risk factor in every fight. But that can pose a continuity problem if your primary antagonist gets killed due to bad luck, often requiring some very artful plot wrangling for the GM 

Actually the risk factor is rather small in most fights but it's still there, and that's usually enough to keep things exciting (it's really perceived risk that's import not actual risk, but thats another subject).  It's just the inherent risk factor in dice rolls. Something that has very low percentage of occurring will eventually happen with enough attempts. A GM should keep that in mind. Too much rolling can lead to accidental PC fatalities.

Ironically, it had lead me to atheroy that run counter to conventional wisdom. Namely that as PCs get better the game can get more lethal, not less-becuase the PCs have to face better skilled adversaries.  

 

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

Death from a crit needn't be final - look at Rurik Runespear.

Yes, that can be true, depending on circumstances and setting. In Glorantha theres enough magic to bring people back from the dead.

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

Antagonists get DI, too. Failing that, their vengeful ghosts could find a suitable vessel to further their schemes.

Depends on who they are. Either way their death doesn't risk derailing a campaign the way a PC death can. My point was that is can be difficult to maintain a campaign if PCs die frequently, which will happen with a lot of combat rolls. 

 

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

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21 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Actually the risk factor is rather small in most fights but it's still there, and that's usually enough to keep things exciting (it's really perceived risk that's import not actual risk, but thats another subject).  It's just the inherent risk factor in dice rolls. Something that has very low percentage of occurring will eventually happen with enough attempts. A GM should keep that in mind. Too much rolling can lead to accidental PC fatalities.

Ironically, it had lead me to atheroy that run counter to conventional wisdom. Namely that as PCs get better the game can get more lethal, not less-becuase the PCs have to face better skilled adversaries.  

 

Yes, that can be true, depending on circumstances and setting. In Glorantha theres enough magic to bring people back from the dead.

Depends on who they are. Either way their death doesn't risk derailing a campaign the way a PC death can. My point was that is can be difficult to maintain a campaign if PCs die frequently, which will happen with a lot of combat rolls. 

 

PCs do die frequently and they always have for the 35 years I've been gaming at least.  Hasn't derailed any of my campaigns.  I make sure early on they get access to a magic item that gives them resurrection and that the Chalana Arroy charge them out of their loot for the ones the PCs can't resurrect themselves.  Between that, DI and the ability to stop death by casting Treat Wounds quickly, it's not campaign crushing.

Edited by Pentallion
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Even un-maxed, a Special that entirely bypasses armour's damage reduction is still dangerous. Most proper weapons swung by specialist fighters will do at the very least 5 damage (dice+1 twice for the weapon and the damage bonus on top) even rolling all 1s, and without any Bladesharp [or whatever] augmentations. A battle axe minimum special damage is 7 (with the expected damage bonus), as is a dagger's. Setting aside magic (and crushing weapons) for the moment, your expected result from a non-maxed special that avoids armour would be that the target's limb is rendered useless, or they drop if you've stabbed 'em in the vitals (because 'all 1s' isn't what you 'expect').  

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45 minutes ago, Pentallion said:

PCs do die frequently and they always have for the 35 years I've been gaming at least.  Hasn't derailed any of my campaigns.  I make sure early on they get access to a magic item that gives them resurrection and that the Chalana Arroy charge them out of their loot for the ones the PCs can't resurrect themselves.  Between that, DI and the ability to stop death by casting Treat Wounds quickly, it's not campaign crushing.

The magical healing is the reason why. Run a game without healing an where the dead stay dead and it would be a different story.

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

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In our RQ2 game, one of the PCs had a set of Power Arrows, which bumped the Level of Success up one level, i.e. from a Failure to a Success, Success to Critical and Critical to a Special Critical, which did Impaling damage direct, ignoring armour. For that reason, I have always split up Impaling damage from Critical damage, so in my games, a special does and Impale, a Critical does normal damage but ignores armour and a Special Critical does Impaling/Crushing/Slashing damage but ignoring armour. 

This doesn't relate to the exact rule as written, but is our in-game rationale.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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13 minutes ago, Pentallion said:

your point?

That  the reason why PC deaths haven't derailed your campaign is because of things you've houseruled as a GM, not because it doesn't exist. You've already taken steps to mitigate it. Also not every RQ/BRP game has that as an option, so GMs should be aware that the more dice rolling that goes on the more PCs will die.

Edited by Atgxtg

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

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1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

That  the reason why PC deaths haven't derailed your campaign is because of things you've houseruled as a GM, not because it doesn't exist. You've already taken steps to mitigate it. Also not every RQ/BRP game has that as an option, so GMs should be aware that the more dice rolling that goes on the more PCs will die.

Absolutely.

There is a difference between being "dead-can come back" and "dead-dead". I don't even count "dead-can come back" as dying, to be honest.

Our RQ2 game had common Resurrection, Rune Lords who DI-ed very often and buckets of magical Healing, including Healing 6 (Could become Healing 16 if I was lucky)  Heal Wound and Heal Body, so PC death was temporary and was treated as a knockdown.

It looks as though Pentallion has gone down that road, which is good, as it reduces the overall mortality.

Some people don't like that and enjoy playing a PC for a few sessions, letting it die and rolling up a new one.

Personally, I like playing a PC for many sessions and like to try and keep them alive.

 

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Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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2 hours ago, soltakss said:

Absolutely.

There is a difference between being "dead-can come back" and "dead-dead".

Yup. Just look at D&D, where being dead is pretty much treated as a temporary condition. The scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes to mind. 

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

I don't even count "dead-can come back" as dying, to be honest.

Depends on how easy/often it happens.

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

It looks as though Pentallion has gone down that road, which is good, as it reduces the overall mortality.

Some people don't like that and enjoy playing a PC for a few sessions, letting it die and rolling up a new one.

Personally, I like playing a PC for many sessions and like to try and keep them alive.

It's a tough choice. Make it too deadly and it becomes unsustainable. Make it too safe and it can become tedious and loose all sense of challenge. Me, I walk a tightrope. That is I keep it deadly, but try to mitigate things by trying to give the PCs the upper hand most of the time. I rarely run ambushes, since in most RPGs it's way too easy to kill off PCs.

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

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10 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

That  the reason why PC deaths haven't derailed your campaign is because of things you've houseruled as a GM, not because it doesn't exist. You've already taken steps to mitigate it. Also not every RQ/BRP game has that as an option, so GMs should be aware that the more dice rolling that goes on the more PCs will die.

Runequest is in Glorantha.  I didnt houserule anything.  All those factors are hardwired in the game.  Magic is evetywhere.  Resurrection is not only available but there are plenty of alternatives available to heroes as well.

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2 hours ago, Pentallion said:

Runequest is in Glorantha.  I didnt houserule anything.  All those factors are hardwired in the game.  Magic is evetywhere.  Resurrection is not only available but there are plenty of alternatives available to heroes as well.

 RQG is in Glorantha, but not all RuneQuest is in Glorantha (i.e. QuestWorld, Thieves World, RQ Vikings and Land of the Ninja, etc). and not all RQ related games have easy ways to come back from the dead (Stormbringer, ElfQuest, Ringworld). 

And yes you did "houserule" something. You mentioned that you " make sure early on they get access to a magic item that gives them resurrection." So your houseruling that the PCs get a Ressurection item, and they get it early. And items that can raise the dead, aren't all that common to begin with.

 

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

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23 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

 RQG is in Glorantha, but not all RuneQuest is in Glorantha (i.e. QuestWorld, Thieves World, RQ Vikings and Land of the Ninja, etc). and not all RQ related games have easy ways to come back from the dead (Stormbringer, ElfQuest, Ringworld). 

And yes you did "houserule" something. You mentioned that you " make sure early on they get access to a magic item that gives them resurrection." So your houseruling that the PCs get a Ressurection item, and they get it early. And items that can raise the dead, aren't all that common to begin with.

 

This is the Runequest forum.  Not the BRP forum.  Not Questworld or Stormbringer.

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1 minute ago, Pentallion said:

This is the Runequest forum.  Not the BRP forum.  Not Questworld or Stormbringer.

Yes, the is the RuneQuest forum, not the Glorantha forum.

 

QuestWorld was a supplement for RuneQuest 2, which is RuneQuest, not BRP.

RuneQuest  Vikings and Land of the Ninja were both  supplements for RQ3, which is RuneQuest, not BRP.

 

Now months ago I inquired if people wanted to split off the older RQ games and make this forum exclusive to RQG, but the overwhelming consensus was: "No, it all still RuneQuest."

 

 

 

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

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10 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yes, the is the RuneQuest forum, not the Glorantha forum.

 

QuestWorld was a supplement for RuneQuest 2, which is RuneQuest, not BRP.

RuneQuest  Vikings and Land of the Ninja were both  supplements for RQ3, which is RuneQuest, not BRP.

 

Now months ago I inquired if people wanted to split off the older RQ games and make this forum exclusive to RQG, but the overwhelming consensus was: "No, it all still RuneQuest."

 

 

 

Sorry, that don't cut it.  This thread is about the new RQ roleplaying in Glorantha rules.  We're not discussing critical damage in RQ3 or BRP or Stormbringer.

YOu're muddling the rules discussion.  Please take your complaints about the survivability in Stormbringer without demon armor to the appropriate forum.

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4 hours ago, Pentallion said:

Sorry, that don't cut it.  This thread is about the new RQ roleplaying in Glorantha rules.  We're not discussing critical damage in RQ3 or BRP or Stormbringer.

Hold it! Yu said this was the RuneQuest forum and that I was posted wasn't RuneQuest. It was RuneQuest, admit it. 

 

4 hours ago, Pentallion said:

YOu're muddling the rules discussion.  Please take your complaints about the survivability in Stormbringer without demon armor to the appropriate forum.

No, you're muddling it. I didn't mention demon armor at all. What I did mention, and it is revlant to this thread, is the risk factor inherent in long or multiple combats and how it can derail a campaign if PCs die off too often. Everyone seemed to see and agree with that. 

 

Then you said it isn't a problem because you always give your groups access to a high powered item that case raise the dead characters. I pointed out that the reason why it isn't a problem is because you houseruled that item. You replied that you didn't house-rule anything and that it was all part of Glorantha and RuneQuest is set in Glorantha. I responded that not all RuneQuest is set in Glorantha, not all Chasoium D100 RPGs are RuneQuest,  gave examples to illustate my point and maintained that items that can raise the dead are very rare in RuneQuest, and that giving one out to every group early on is still houserulling things.

You told me that this was the RuneQuest forum and that my examples didn't belong in the RuneQuest forum, despite the fact that several of them were RuneQuest game settings. I raised the fact that supplments such as QuestWorld and RuneQuest Vikings are indeed RuneQuest, and that the community decided months ago to keep the old and new  RuneQuest stuff in the same forums.

So now you say cut it because this thread is for the new RQG, and accuse me of muddling the discussion with complaints about survivability without demon armor from Strombringer. 

 

I'm not muddling it. I never raised the issue of demon armor in this thread, you did. What I did raise was how crticals are deadly (no surprise) and just how often PCs can expect to be on the receiving end, and that GMs should keep that in mind. Now you have a solution to the problem, but not every GM in every RQG campaign does what you do and hand out a powerful item that can raise the dead to every one of his groups early on. In fact I doubt many do. I doubt there is a note in the rules that GMs should put a Truestone loaded with healing magic for his PCs to find. I don't recall seeing such a item in the old RQ adventures. 

Doy you think that every RQG GM should hand out such an item?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

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11 hours ago, Anunnaki said:

 

@StephenMcG, I like your idea of giving players a choice when they critical. If facing a lightly-armored opponent, maximum damage might be better than ignore armor; and the other way round for heavily-armored opponents. But, of course, the same rule applies to NPCs. :)

Given the difference between max and 'average' damage, it's going to have to be a pretty heavily armoured target to make ignoring armour the better choice. Even with a dagger, average rolled special damage is 6 vs maximum of 12, so you're looking at plate or better levels of protection before it's worth avoiding. Take a broadsword and it's plate with a significant magical assist, and a two handed weapon is pretty much always (until you're getting into superheroic levels of armour points) going to be more effective if you take the max damage.

I think the effect of parrying amplifies this at the low end: take 'rolled' damage, and after the parrying weapon has blocked, you're left with nothing to avoid the target's AP with anyway.

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But hitting with a dagger or light weapon might prefer to avoid armour.  I need to look again but I think the critical avoids both armour and magical protection.  Well worth it for a trollkin spear-carrier, or beginning character with no damage bonus or much magic...

The choice provides some flexibility (IMO anyway!).

🙂


Stephen

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6 minutes ago, StephenMcG said:

I need to look again but I think the critical avoids both armour and magical protection.

It does, but I think it does not bypass the sorcery Ward Against Weapons spell. For that you would definitely want the bigger number, as it's a resistance table roll.

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