Fatigue...

[Kloster]

Even a couple points can keep you up. If an opponent doesn't have a damage bonus, the average damage from most of the melee weapons is in the 4-6 range; 2 points of armor will often take that down where you can take a hit or two depending on the roll and where they land.

...

A few points here:

- to get a Damage Bonus of 1D4, you need a STR+SIZ of at least 25 and the average is 24, so this DB is quite frequent.

- Yes, I agree, you can take a hit or 2, which means around 5/6 MR. After that, you have HP or location problems, which is exactly the durations I gave: less than 10 MR.

- Completely agree: "you can take a hit or two depending on the roll and where they land". Yes, depending.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

...

Its virtually as easy to boost armor magically as it is damage.

...

True. Completely true.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

...

Yes, but if you aren't already encumbered rather heavily, that can take rather more than the length of time I'm talking about.

The average on CON+STR is 21. A character with 25 FP is above average.

With a SIZ of 13 (the average) he has 7 to 10 ENC taken by Armor, around 10 by weapons and shield. He is thus starting fight with around 5 FP and can go down to -25.

Without taking rest, this character can last 30 MR.

But that character has almost NO equipment. He has nothing besides armor, weapons and shield. If this character has only the basics for non combat equipment (1 or 2 liter of water, 1 day food, a rope, some torches,...), this is far below. And this is not grossly overencumbered.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Atgxtg]

The average on CON+STR is 21. A character with 25 FP is above average.

With a SIZ of 13 (the average) he has 7 to 10 ENC taken by Armor, around 10 by weapons and shield. He is thus starting fight with around 5 FP and can go down to -25.

Without taking rest, this character can last 30 MR.

But that character has almost NO equipment. He has nothing besides armor, weapons and shield. If this character has only the basics for non combat equipment (1 or 2 liter of water, 1 day food, a rope, some torches,...), this is far below. And this is not grossly overencumbered.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Our tactic was to use pack animals or remove backpacks before going into battle. We also didn't go down the D&D road of every character lugging around a missile weapon, quiver, etc (that stayed on the pack animal). So, unless we were ambushed, we could just take off the non essential gear, rest a minute or so and attack with more FPs.

[Kloster]

Our tactic was to use pack animals or remove backpacks before going into battle. We also didn't go down the D&D road of every character lugging around a missile weapon, quiver, etc (that stayed on the pack animal). So, unless we were ambushed, we could just take off the non essential gear, rest a minute or so and attack with more FPs.

If you check, there is no luggage, no missile weapons, and very few equipments.

We also use pack animals or mounts, but still some remains.

Resting 1 minute or so means you have the choice of the combat. In most of the case, if I do have the choice and the opportunity, I don't take the fight.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Nightshade]

Not a problem. You can choose to do as much work as you want. THere is a point of diminishing returns, however.

Sure. I just don't happen to think its in the same place as you in some areas, I think.

No, I think it is a issue as to just how much work an effort the trollkin was worth. Same reason why NPCs got a short list of significant skills rather than full character sheets. He just isn't worth the detail. Now, some RPGs even simplify that further, and just track the one of two things that are needed to run the NPC in the context required by the adventure.

Likewise, I've been know to simplify HP and damage for monsters. I've gotne with "anything over 1/3 hp takes out a hit location and general HP and gotten results close enough to full fledged BRP combat to get past the players.

Again, in some systems I have no problem with that; True20/M&M minions are set up in a way to minimize bookkeeping and otherwise treated as the speedbumps they mostly are. But my reasons for using BRP/RQ when I do work directly against that kind of simplifying, as it inevitably makes a distinction between how some NPCs and otherwise identical PCs work and when I'm using the BRP based systems, that's _not_ what I'm wanting.

[Nightshade]

A few points here:

- to get a Damage Bonus of 1D4, you need a STR+SIZ of at least 25 and the average is 24, so this DB is quite frequent.

For humans, you're correct, but there are more non-humans that average below that than above, at least among the usual races chosen for PCs, so it tends to shift the average. Characters with a D4 damage bonus typically averaged around 7 points of damage, which was more of a problem; but again, I also didn't find armor values in the 4 range uncommon, and that'd still take a hit down to the point it probably wouldn't take out anything but a head or arm with one hit, and again, that's out of the hits that actually landed.

- Yes, I agree, you can take a hit or 2, which means around 5/6 MR. After that, you have HP or location problems, which is exactly the durations I gave: less than 10 MR.

Given a 30% attack and parry for opponents on both sides, the actual amount of time needed to land two non-parryied hits is around ten rounds (assuming no one is outnumbered of course).

[Nightshade]

The average on CON+STR is 21. A character with 25 FP is above average.

With a SIZ of 13 (the average) he has 7 to 10 ENC taken by Armor, around 10 by weapons and shield. He is thus starting fight with around 5 FP and can go down to -25.

Without taking rest, this character can last 30 MR.

And that's well within what I'm talking about, with is fights that last 11-20 rounds.

But that character has almost NO equipment. He has nothing besides armor, weapons and shield. If this character has only the basics for non combat equipment (1 or 2 liter of water, 1 day food, a rope, some torches,...), this is far below. And this is not grossly overencumbered.

I'm guessing from this that your PCs were not in the habit of dropping their packs at the start of fights if they weren't already on pack animals then, which was the habit locally all the way back to RQ1.

[Kloster]

For humans, you're correct, but there are more non-humans that average below that than above, at least among the usual races chosen for PCs, so it tends to shift the average. Characters with a D4 damage bonus typically averaged around 7 points of damage, which was more of a problem; but again, I also didn't find armor values in the 4 range uncommon, and that'd still take a hit down to the point it probably wouldn't take out anything but a head or arm with one hit, and again, that's out of the hits that actually landed.

...

Except for 2 ducks, I've never seen player characters with STR+SIZ average lower than the one of humans.

I've seen a few trolls, 1 centaur and 1 grotaron. Everything else was human.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Atgxtg]

Except for 2 ducks, I've never seen player characters with STR+SIZ average lower than the one of humans.

I've seen a few trolls, 1 centaur and 1 grotaron. Everything else was human.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

No elves or dwarves?

[Kloster]

No elves or dwarves?

Nope.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Nightshade]

Nope.

That would explain it, then, but if you look among the "playable" (that is to say, ones with previous experience rated for them) RQ3 races (keeping in mind I'm not a Glorantha player, so things like Great Trolls are a non-starter, but some of the non-Gloranthan races such as halflings and orcs from the RQ3 monster book were) I think you'll see my statement is basically true; there's more that are downrev on damage than up.

[Atgxtg]

That would explain it, then, but if you look among the "playable" (that is to say, ones with previous experience rated for them) RQ3 races (keeping in mind I'm not a Glorantha player, so things like Great Trolls are a non-starter, but some of the non-Gloranthan races such as halflings and orcs from the RQ3 monster book were) I think you'll see my statement is basically true; there's more that are downrev on damage than up.

Maybe more like 50-50. While the Trolls were the only major species on the "plus" side of the curve, there were a lot of weird ones like Baboons that could be played as characters. I never recall anyone wanting to play a baboon, but the stats were there. Morokanth, Broo, Scorpion Men. There, but for some reason just not popular with the players.

[Kloster]

Maybe more like 50-50. While the Trolls were the only major species on the "plus" side of the curve, there were a lot of weird ones like Baboons that could be played as characters. I never recall anyone wanting to play a baboon, but the stats were there. Morokanth, Broo, Scorpion Men. There, but for some reason just not popular with the players.

Agreed, but I never saw them played. And except for a dark troll, I always played humans.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

That would explain it, then, but if you look among the "playable" (that is to say, ones with previous experience rated for them) RQ3 races (keeping in mind I'm not a Glorantha player, so things like Great Trolls are a non-starter, but some of the non-Gloranthan races such as halflings and orcs from the RQ3 monster book were) I think you'll see my statement is basically true; there's more that are downrev on damage than up.

I agree with what you say, it is just I've never saw somebody using them for a character.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Nightshade]

Maybe more like 50-50. While the Trolls were the only major species on the "plus" side of the curve, there were a lot of weird ones like Baboons that could be played as characters. I never recall anyone wanting to play a baboon, but the stats were there. Morokanth, Broo, Scorpion Men. There, but for some reason just not popular with the players.

Note my comment: intelligent baboons were Gloranthan, and weren't even listed in the Glorantha book. So in practice, if you weren't playing in Glorantha (and perhaps even if you were, given the usual constraints on options because of exclusion of chaos entities) a PC was more likely to have no damage bonus than a big one. Dark trolls and centaurs tended to be the only viable core RQ3 races with a bonus, and even centaurs were problematic as PCs in many ways (because of the difficulty they had with so many environments).

[Rurik]

I played a Baboon and had great fun with him. I've always liked Gloranthan Baboons and never understood the hate for them.

It really must come from Gringle's Pawnshop, they are probably one of the first enemies faced by like 90+% of RQ players. But does everybody hate Centaurs too? I think not.

Negative stereotyping is what I call it.

[Kloster]

...Dark trolls and centaurs tended to be the only viable core RQ3 races with a bonus, and even centaurs were problematic as PCs in many ways (because of the difficulty they had with so many environments).

This makes me remember of a ladder. We had to pull the centaur with ropes.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster