RuneQuest 3 - House Rules

[ChalkLine]

Hi, new here.
If you still play RuneQuest 3 you might like to look at my Rules Modifications I have uploaded.
They include:
- Combat Rules
- A new look at slings
- A new look at shields

- A variation on encumbrance

Some minor changes to some weapons

 

 

RQ3 Rules Modifications.doc

Edited February 22, 2019 by ChalkLine
Updated File

[Runeblogger]

Quote

Impale: maximum damage plus rolled damage
Slash: rolled damage rolled twice
Crush: damage bonus rolled twice.

I think you may like the new RQG rules... 

Quote

(1)       Any Two Handed Weapon uses the next higher Damage Bonus.
(2)       At Negative Fatigue Points uses the next lower Damage Bonus.

I like this! Good idea.

Quote

(1)       Short Swords, Broadswords, Scimitars, Bastard Swords and Great Swords all do 1d8+1 damage on a thrusting attack, they retain their existing damage for cutting attacks.
(2)       All spears do 1d8+1 damage.

Mmmhm.  Don't you think the dinosaur may resent more the impaled Great Sword than the impaled Short Sword?

Also, according to your house rules a short spear does 1D8+1 damage but 1D10 when thrown?

Quote

 

Sling
Ammunition	Damage	Effect.	Long	Enc.	Cost
Bullet	1d8	130	350	0.1	0.1L
Stone	1d6	100	300	0.1	Free
Clay Pellet	1d6	130	350	0.1	0.01L
Whistling Pellet	1d4+ Morale*	130	350	0.1	0.2L
Container	Varies	100	300	0.3	Varies
*In mass attacks causes Demoralise vs POW 11 to all under attack

 

Cool!

Your encumbrance rules look unnecessary to me, though. 

[ChalkLine]

They're more refinements than anything

The encumbrance rules in RQ3 erred on the side of silly. I'm a skinny, out of condition 54 year old but I can fight in armour for more than three minutes (a level of about stat 15) before flagging, and we go full bore and grapple and throw as well.

The short sword (and the dagger too really) don't really do enough damage. A stab into your organs is usually fatal, and often quickly.

As for the thrown spear, RQ3 errata gave javelins 1d10 damage and I just clarified that the spear can be thrown. I suppose I should have said 'as javelin'.

The special attacks are lifted from RQ2 and were optional for RQ3. That copy doesn't have the 'bind' for parrying:

Special Combat Results:
Impale: maximum damage plus rolled damage
Slash: rolled damage rolled twice
Crush: damage bonus rolled twice.
Bind: immobilise parried object 10 SR, can release at will.

[ChalkLine]

I hadn't thought of stabbing big animals. That needs thought . . .

 

[styopa]

2 hours ago, ChalkLine said:

I hadn't thought of stabbing big animals. That needs thought . . .

 

I'd toyed with the idea of impaling weapons being capped at (location hp+1) for max damage, as obviously once something has gone through a location, going "more through it" doesn't really do any more harm.  Thus their intrinsically higher impale/crit multipliers help them get to this cap faster, but then that's about all they do.

[womble]

2 hours ago, styopa said:

I'd toyed with the idea of impaling weapons being capped at (location hp+1) for max damage, as obviously once something has gone through a location, going "more through it" doesn't really do any more harm.  Thus their intrinsically higher impale/crit multipliers help them get to this cap faster, but then that's about all they do.

Apart from the fact that impaling weapons can extend their wound track by slicing through tissue with their edges. Harder to do if puncturing through protection, but a crit that has avoided armour could be much more devastating.

[Atgxtg]

Interesting.

Quote

Any Two Handed Weapon uses the next higher Damage Bonus.

Probably doesn't make sense considering that most two handed weapons (Great Sword, Halberd, etc.) in RQ do considerably more damage to begin with. So your rule would be "double dipping" for such weapons. 

[ChalkLine]

The big problem I have with the mods now is that they don't scale well as you get bigger. Even if you replace a 'crush' special with a 'slash' special the strength bonus is too large at +2d6 level.
I once had a different damage bonus table that just went up in dice; 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12 and then around again; 1d12+1d4 etc etc but I feel it's too finicky

[styopa]

6 hours ago, ChalkLine said:

The big problem I have with the mods now is that they don't scale well as you get bigger. Even if you replace a 'crush' special with a 'slash' special the strength bonus is too large at +2d6 level.
I once had a different damage bonus table that just went up in dice; 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12 and then around again; 1d12+1d4 etc etc but I feel it's too finicky

It's why mine replaced the original with a more graduated one with d4s.  Plus, I've always felt that with muscle powered weapons that strength should be a larger element to actual damage.

The only problem is that rolling 5d4 or whatever is a bit of a pain just picking them up.

[PhilHibbs]

5 minutes ago, styopa said:

The only problem is that rolling 5d4 or whatever is a bit of a pain just picking them up.

And un-retrieved D4s on the carpet are a serious health hazard.

[Zozotroll]

Caltrops!

[styopa]

1 hour ago, Zozotroll said:

Caltrops!

Caltrops:  Attack base 25%+target’s SIZ*3; Damage 1d4+(Target SIZ/3);

Movement through: roll d4 for each caltrop hex moved through; if it’s less than your effective move, one of your legs is attacked.  Physical AP only count half vs this attack. *

Fall Prone in: 1 attack per 10 SIZ (FRU) of fallen.  *

*Normally assume 10 caltrops per hex; if less than, then fractional chance of everything.  "Hex" = 1meter hex or 1m2 area

(This is for RQ3 where humans move 3; basically if you're running you're going to step on one about 2/3 of the time; if you shuffle through them at MR1, you're perfectly safe unless you fall prone..which tends to happen if your leg gets wrecked.) 

[Atgxtg]

10 hours ago, ChalkLine said:

The big problem I have with the mods now is that they don't scale well as you get bigger. Even if you replace a 'crush' special with a 'slash' special the strength bonus is too large at +2d6 level.

Yeah that the problem with using increments of D6s, you get big jumps. D4 to D6 isn't bad but D6 to 2D6 is huge

10 hours ago, ChalkLine said:

I once had a different damage bonus table that just went up in dice; 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12 and then around again; 1d12+1d4 etc etc but I feel it's too finicky

I used the demon table from Elric (1d2,  1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1D10+1D2, etc.), with a couple of alternates (2d6 instead of 1D10+1D2) to make things eaiser It does feel finicky but it still works about as well as any  thing if you want a smooth progression and not have the minimums become a problem.

One approach you might consider is to have the db shift the weapon damage die rather than add in an a separate die. So +1D4 would be one shift, 1D6 two shifts and so on. That way someone with a broadsword (1d8+1) and  +2d6 db, would become 1D10+1D4+1 (or1D8+1D6+1, or maybe 2D6+2).

3 hours ago, styopa said:

It's why mine replaced the original with a more graduated one with d4s. 

Mitigates the problem somewhat. BTW, is is +1D4 per 16? 

 

1 hour ago, styopa said:

Caltrops:  Attack base 25%+target’s SIZ*3; Damage 1d4+(Target SIZ/3);

Damage should be 4+SIZ/3. D4s we step on always come up a 4. 

[ChalkLine]

Even armoured sabatons don't cover the sole of the foot and ancient shoes/sandles might only count as soft leather/hard leather

[styopa]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

Mitigates the problem somewhat. BTW, is is +1D4 per 16? 

Average STR+STR+SIZ.  For every 6 full points, +1d4 *starting at* -1d4.  So

0-5 -1d4

6-11 - no mod

12-17 +1d4

18-23 +2d4

etc. I have it in spreadsheets so it just automagically spits out. 

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

Damage should be 4+SIZ/3. D4s we step on always come up a 4. 

That is a fair point, but that's IRL.  Glorantha is a 'magical universe' so maybe it's not always so bad?

17 minutes ago, ChalkLine said:

Even armoured sabatons don't cover the sole of the foot and ancient shoes/sandles might only count as soft leather/hard leather

Absolutely true, it was honestly something I considered but ultimately felt was a little fiddly.  I settled on just saying physical armor (ie worn or natural) only counts for half.

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, styopa said:

Average STR+STR+SIZ.  For every 6 full points, +1d4 *starting at* -1d4. 

So it goes up a little faster to ofset the smaller increment, interesting. 

 

1 hour ago, styopa said:

etc. I have it in spreadsheets so it just automagically spits out. 

I worked up the formula for RQ3. At one time I had a little Tandy handheld that was programmed in BASIC to calculate all the modifiers and derived stats. It was impressive (to us) in the 80s. 

1 hour ago, styopa said:

That is a fair point, but that's IRL.  Glorantha is a 'magical universe' so maybe it's not always so bad?

Maybe not, but then I never learned the "Eurmal Weighs the Dice" heroquest.

1 hour ago, styopa said:

Absolutely true, it was honestly something I considered but ultimately felt was a little fiddly.  I settled on just saying physical armor (ie worn or natural) only counts for half.

ElfQuest, of all things, had a good solution for that. Since none of the elves wore much armor, they got a luck roll to get protection from pendants and other bits of jewelry,. I though something like POW roll could handle that stuff nicely without getting very fiddly. If one wanted to they could adjust the POW multiplier to reflect body part coverage. 

[olskool]

On 2/25/2019 at 3:30 AM, ChalkLine said:

The big problem I have with the mods now is that they don't scale well as you get bigger. Even if you replace a 'crush' special with a 'slash' special the strength bonus is too large at +2d6 level.
I once had a different damage bonus table that just went up in dice; 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12 and then around again; 1d12+1d4 etc etc but I feel it's too finicky

I came up with a simplified way to figure damage based on surplus STR for a weapon.  EVERY weapon is given a STR and DEX requirement and then each weapon is designated as a LIGHT or HEAVY weapon.  To determine your Damage Bonus, you SUBTRACT your STR from the weapon's required STR.  To this "SURPLUS STR" total, you may add 1 point for every 10 full points of SIZ above a size of 10 that the creature possesses (so a SIZ 31 Troll would add 2 to STR).  You then take this "MODIFIED SURPLUS STR" and give the character a +1 bonus to Damage for every 10 points of Surplus STR for LIGHT Weapons and a +1 bonus to Damage for every 5 points of Surplus STR for HEAVY Weapons. 

This system prevents the "double bonus" of a high STR character getting a big Damage Bonus IN ADDITION TO being able to wield larger and heavier weapons (due to STR requirements).  

Edited March 19, 2019 by olskool
spelling

[ChalkLine]

I thought about classing weapons either as a 1d8+1 (one hand) damage or 1d10+1 damage (two hand) and then sticking with the incremental dice damage bonus, but to be honest I just wanted tweaks and not a rewrite of the weapon rules. The other big difference is really in strike ranks, especially when using the 'closing range' rule. RQ2/RQ-G does this better with their wider strike rank range.
Perhaps if I was to do my own setting but not for general play

[Al.]

On 2/22/2019 at 6:30 PM, Runeblogger said:

Mmmhm.  Don't you think the dinosaur may resent more the impaled Great Sword than the impaled Short Sword?

 

In RAW I don't think that Greatswords (or Bastard Swords) could impale at all. So maybe this rule nicely encompasses the blunt chopping tip of a Greatsword being sub optimal for skewering said dinosaur through the vitals?

Edited February 26, 2019 by Al.

[ChalkLine]

If they can't they should

[styopa]

3 hours ago, ChalkLine said:

If they can't they should

While I'd agree with you that theoretically they could impale, I imagine it would be pretty rare...using a great sword like that would be about as likely to bend it into a "U" than hurt anyone substantially.  

I don't have the charts here, but that brings to mind, I don't recall the rq3 fumble tables really even having a possibility of some weapon damage (other than bow string breaks)?

[Atgxtg]

5 hours ago, ChalkLine said:

If they can't they should

Not really. The vast majority of them had blunt tips. 

 

Like styopa noted, it's theoretically possible to impale with a greatsword, but  it would be pretty rare.  A dinosaur tripping and falling on top of a character wielding a greatsword would be a likely case for it, but not so good for the one wielding the sword. 

[ChalkLine]

I'm a historical European martial artist (HEMA) and it's a common tactic to 'give point'. You only have to shove the point in a few inches to kill someone. It's also one of the only ways you can stop an enemy closing and grappling you and no one wants that

[womble]

Given that the evidence for Bronze greatswords in the real world is sparse, they can have points or not, as your game desires. Steel two-handed swords often did have working points, as ChalkLine says. The classic Landschnecht's zweihander, the claymore and the longsword of Talhoffer fame all could stab you up. Similarly, there are many patterns of hand-and-a-half sword which had effective thrusting points; hardly surprising when they're cousins to the Estoc which was primarily a thrusting weapon.

Having a point is a really useful attribute in a long weapon. It would be rational for the 'bronze-that's-not-really-bronze' greatswords of Glorantha to have them, if only for the purposes of keeping the target at range, and being able to work in a constrained environment.

[SDLeary]

2 hours ago, ChalkLine said:

I'm a historical European martial artist (HEMA) and it's a common tactic to 'give point'. You only have to shove the point in a few inches to kill someone. It's also one of the only ways you can stop an enemy closing and grappling you and no one wants that

Not to mention that if you are half-swording, that you have significantly better leverage to punch through target... presumably resulting (if successful) in something that would be called an Impale in game terms.

SDLeary