Another missing thread?

[iamtim]

Nowhere did I say anything like "this is stupid" or "this sucks". If that is your assertion, either you never read the post, or you are deliberately and maliciously misrepresenting me.

No, just going by memory is all. I have no reason to deliberately or maliciously misrepresent you, I don't even know you.

If memory further serves, you made some incorrect assuptions about the rules (specifically spirits) based on your brief perusal.

Regardless, Mongoose is well within their rights to remove overtly negative or grossly incorrect posts.

 

[burdock]

Now that king amenjar has reiterated the content of his post.....it does seem quite mild compared to some that have been put forth in the past. I think the mongoose policy to eradicate threads if a certain number of complaints is made is fine........BUT.........I can't understand why people asked for it to be erased at all.......maybe it was a later post in the thread that was the culprit?

 

[burdock]

I just realised something about myself!!!!! I always agree with whoever made the last coherent post. Pretty dithery huh?

 

[iamtim]

Now that king amenjar has reiterated the content of his post.....

Not completely.

 

[RMS]

I'm sorry to hear you didn't care for it.

Simply put, the item quality rules come from a long-standing pet peeve of mine. I've never liked the fact that a sword is a sword is a sword ... that the average village blacksmith can turn out something in an afternoon that is, rules-wise, identical to the painstaking, months-long work of the finest craftsman in the world. I figured, since I was writing the book, I'd fix that. Anyone who thinks I'm being unfair to the work of the village blacksmith, of course, is free to ignore said rules.

I'm still waiting on my copy, and am anxious to see what the specifics are. My initial feeling is that the difference is probably below the granularity level that an RPG can handle, but I'm open to being convinced otherwise. I have allowed special items before when a weaponsmith (blacksmiths can't make swords - it's a specialize skill) scores a critical. Otherwise, I just treated a success or a failure as an average weapon taking more or less time to create than average (weeks regardless), and a fumble resulted in a subpar weapon.

 

[burdock]

tim wrote

burdock wrote:
Now that king amenjar has reiterated the content of his post.....


Not completely.

I agree!! I agree!!

 

[King Amenjar]

It's possible, but it seems unlikely since Matthew Sprange has posted and could have clarified matters if that were the case.

Incidentally, there have been a few "this sucks" and "this is stupid" posts and haven't all of them remained? I suppose I should feel proud to have had the post taken down because it scares Mongoose so much... I've become RuneQuest's Vaclav Havel... :wink:

 

[haargald]

You know, from what I recall, the OP was in the tone of "I looked at this book in my LGS and it's just stupid and I'm not going to buy it."

What I said was that I went to buy the book, picked it up off the shelf and having perused it, decided not to buy it because I didn't like the direction it seemed to be taking RQ in. I said that hitherto I had dismissed allegations that Mongoose were making RQ more like D&D, but now I thought that the weapon quality rules added a lot of weight to that argument by creating +5 swords for sale in all but name.

Nowhere did I say anything like "this is stupid" or "this sucks". If that is your assertion, either you never read the post, or you are deliberately and maliciously misrepresenting me.

But you did title the thread something like "Companion, no thanks" and then proceeded to basically admit you hadn't really read the whole thing. Kind of provactive and not particularly constructive really. Can't blame Mongoose for ditching that, even if other posters in the same thread were being much more constructive than you.

 

[iamtim]

You know, from what I recall, the OP was in the tone of "I looked at this book in my LGS and it's just stupid and I'm not going to buy it."

Nowhere did I say anything like "this is stupid" or "this sucks". If that is your assertion, either you never read the post, or you are deliberately and maliciously misrepresenting me.

I don't mean to be pedantic, but I didn't quote you as saying it was stupid. My direct quote above was that your post was in the TONE of "it's stupid."

Big difference.

 

[burdock]

king amenjar wrote

had the post taken down because it scares Mongoose so much..

I don't think mongooses decision was based on the contents of the post but on the fact that a lot of people complained.....which is a mystery to me. I'm suspecting it was because of some inaccurate info that inadvertantly got in there (as tim has pointed out)

 

[King Amenjar]

But you did title the thread something like "Companion, no thanks" and then proceeded to basically admit you hadn't really read the whole thing. Kind of provactive and not particularly constructive really. Can't blame Mongoose for ditching that, even if other posters in the same thread were being much more constructive than you.

No, I didn't "admit" anything. I didn't climb down from a position from a position when challenged as you imply here. I said that I spent a few minutes looking through the book; now the Companion isn't exactly War and Peace and many of rules seem to have changed little from RQ 3 and my main complaint was against the weapon quality rules. In the time I spent, I was able to read through them twice in order to confirm that they were what I thought they were.

 

[iamtim]

my main complaint was against the weapon quality rules

Didn't you also talk about the spirit rules?

 

[King Amenjar]

You know, from what I recall, the OP was in the tone of "I looked at this book in my LGS and it's just stupid and I'm not going to buy it."

Nowhere did I say anything like "this is stupid" or "this sucks". If that is your assertion, either you never read the post, or you are deliberately and maliciously misrepresenting me.

I don't mean to be pedantic, but I didn't quote you as saying it was stupid. My direct quote above was that your post was in the TONE of "it's stupid."

Big difference.

That wasn't even close to the tone! "This is stupid" would be meaningless invective. I never used any such: I said that the spirit combat rules were badly written and that I thought the fun had gone out it because it was now a single roll - another poster said, on the other hand, that he liked it better with a single roll: my group used to like spirit combat, his obviously found it a chore. I then said I was suspicious of the enchantment rules because it looked as if it could open the door to overpowering through magic item creation and that I especially disliked the weapon quality and that all of this looked like "D&Dification" because 3rd ed D&D is all about the magic items, whereas up til now RQ never has been. It's all a far cry from the Beavis and Butthead level of discourse you attribute to me and others.

 

[iamtim]

That wasn't even close to the tone!

Well, that's pretty subjective, and considering the post was deleted I'm probably not the only person who read it with that tone.

*shrug*

 

[GregLynch]

I'm still waiting on my copy, and am anxious to see what the specifics are. My initial feeling is that the difference is probably below the granularity level that an RPG can handle, but I'm open to being convinced otherwise.

I think you'll find the differences palpable but not overwhelming. As an example, you could get a sword that was +15% on attack and +2 on damage. That's about the best you can get (though there are sundry other options), and that's with an awful lot of time and money invested and the very good fortune to find a weaponsmith capable of making it. Is it something to sneeze at? Of course not. Is it as good as a Magnitude 5 Bladesharp? Not at all.

You could, however, slap a Magnitude 5 Bladesharp on the sword in question ... then you'd really have something.

(blacksmiths can't make swords - it's a specialize skill)

This is very true... Let's just say I wasn't thinking.

 

[King Amenjar]

I'm still waiting on my copy, and am anxious to see what the specifics are. My initial feeling is that the difference is probably below the granularity level that an RPG can handle, but I'm open to being convinced otherwise.

I think you'll find the differences palpable but not overwhelming. As an example, you could get a sword that was +15% on attack and +2 on damage. That's about the best you can get (though there are sundry other options), and that's with an awful lot of time and money invested and the very good fortune to find a weaponsmith capable of making it. Is it something to sneeze at? Of course not. Is it as good as a Magnitude 5 Bladesharp? Not at all.

You could, however, slap a Magnitude 5 Bladesharp on the sword in question ... then you'd really have something.

A percentile system should easily be able to cope with the granularity: if we had +1% per level of quality that would do it. A sword with +5 damage, though, is spectacularly powerful: it's cutting through chainmail as if it wasn't there... except, of course, you could now have bought 10 point chainmail. This is the basis of my dissatisfaction: one thing that I liked about RQ and disliked about D&D was that your character were defined by their own selves; their attributes and their skills, not by what kewl stuff they'd managed to acquire. That seems to be changing.

 

[GregLynch]

A percentile system should easily be able to cope with the granularity: if we had +1% per level of quality that would do it. A sword with +5 damage, though, is spectacularly powerful: it's cutting through chainmail as if it wasn't there... except, of course, you could now have bought 10 point chainmail. This is the basis of my dissatisfaction: one thing that I liked about RQ and disliked about D&D was that your character were defined by their own selves; their attributes and their skills, not by what kewl stuff they'd managed to acquire. That seems to be changing.

You're right, +5 damage is spectacularly powerful. That's why I wrote the rules to cap it at +3 (I did waffle a bit whether to go with +2 or +3). The only way you're getting your damage to +4 or higher is with magic. Or Damage Mod, of course, if you're particularly big and burly.

I'll note that I'm going off my original manuscript here. My writer's copy of the Companion is in transit, likely somewhere on or over the Atlantic, and things may have changed somewhat in the editing process. If I'm making a fool out of myself by arguing a point that's no longer valid, everyone here has my sincere apologies.

 

[King Amenjar]

But is there anything to stop someone getting 10 point Chainmail or 11 point Plate? With Crits no longer bypassing armour this seems to me a bit much...

 

[GregLynch]

But is there anything to stop someone getting 10 point Chainmail or 11 point Plate? With Crits no longer bypassing armour this seems to me a bit much...

Yep. Bonuses to armour AP cap out at 2. Thus, you could have 7 point chain or 8 point plate. Respectable, but not invulnerable.

Again, this is off the manuscript.

 

[King Amenjar]

But is there anything to stop someone getting 10 point Chainmail or 11 point Plate? With Crits no longer bypassing armour this seems to me a bit much...

Yep. Bonuses to armour AP cap out at 2. Thus, you could have 7 point chain or 8 point plate. Respectable, but not invulnerable.

Again, this is off the manuscript.

If this made it through to the final draft, then I must have missed something when I read this part of the Companion... I read and re-read and it seemed that you could buy +5 armour. Anyone care to clarify? If Greg is right... I'd retract some of what I wrote if it hadn't been taken off the forum anyway...