Any change to the Experience system?

[atgxtg]

Why learn against anyone? From a game standpoint, if dodgeing is as easy to do as parrying. and stops an attack completely, then parrying becomes an inferior form of defense. People would just choose to dodge everything, and not bother to learn how to parry at all. RQ3 kept this from happening as it was more difficult to dodge crtical and special success attacks.

Another factor is encumbrance (which I'm assuming is modeled in some fashion in MRQ) - Dodging is (should be) affected by wearing armor (and carrying a shield) while Parry/Block is not. If the average attack of your most enountered foe will be absorbable by 2x AP of your weapon/shield of choice you're much better off armoring up and using parry as a defense. When the Troll appears though, I advise you to get nekkid quick.

All of which supports not bothering to parry though. A character is better off in 2 point armor (enough to stop those minimum damage hits) and dodging. It's cheaper and more effective.

Realstically, parrying is practically always better than dodging, in the game I would hope for it to be at least as good as dodging.

I hope the rules have something more to this.

 

[HyrumOWC]

Block and Parry are the same thing. You parry with weapons and shields.

Parries with weapons allow you to reposite, while Dodge doesn't.

Dodge allows for the attacker to be Overextended, and for the person Dodging to be forced to Give Ground.

Overextended gives a negative modifier to the attacker, while Giving Ground forces the defender to move their full movement away from the attacker.

I'm sure glad combat got streamlined in MQ -- I'd hate to see it if they decided to add complexity!

So, are shields the be the red-haired step-child of MQ? They consume valuable XP... err... GM awarded skill checks.

Maybe the Min/Maxers will figure out that the best weapon *is* a shield, and will just go around bashing and blocking all day...

Shields will get used mainly because of the "two-weapon" rule allowing you a free parry with the off-hand weapon/shield and the fact that they have fairly decent AP.

Hyrum.

 

[atgxtg]

Dodge allows for the attacker to be Overextended, and for the person Dodging to be forced to Give Ground.

Overextended gives a negative modifier to the attacker, while Giving Ground forces the defender to move their full movement away from the attacker.

Just how much movement is "full movement". I mean, I can see someone being forced to retreat a few steps, maybe as much a 5-6m, but not 30m or so. This would also lead to a situation where faster, more agile opponents would be forced to give more ground than slower foes.

The dodging elf, gives ground and says, "Hey, this is great bow range!"

 

[atgxtg]

Shields will get used mainly because of the "two-weapon" rule allowing you a free parry with the off-hand weapon/shield and the fact that they have fairly decent AP.

Hyrum.

Okay, so the off hand weapon is wortha free parry whereas a dodge or weapon parry counts as a reaction? Okay, that makes a difference. Something that is "free" always has some appeal to it.

 

[waiwode]

Yeah, but we do have a shield skill. THere has to be some reason for Sword & Shield to be aw worthwile as sword & dodge.

RQ3 Dodge was effected by ENC. A character in Ringmail (10.0) with a battle axe (1.0) and a target shield (3.0) is already -14% to any Dodge attempt, but his Parry is unhindered. That factor certainly balanced out a reason to use Parry instead of Dodge for armoured warriors in RQ3.

Interestingly, you were allowed to both parry and dodge an attack if you wished!

The other factor in RQ3 ... a successful parry with a sword versus an unsuccessful attack used to damage the attacking weapon. A special success on a parry with an axe did damage to the attacking weapon.

Doug.

 

[HyrumOWC]

Dodge allows for the attacker to be Overextended, and for the person Dodging to be forced to Give Ground.

Overextended gives a negative modifier to the attacker, while Giving Ground forces the defender to move their full movement away from the attacker.

Just how much movement is "full movement". I mean, I can see someone being forced to retreat a few steps, maybe as much a 5-6m, but not 30m or so. This would also lead to a situation where faster, more agile opponents would be forced to give more ground than slower foes.

The dodging elf, gives ground and says, "Hey, this is great bow range!"

Avg human movement is 4m.

 

[andakitty]

Being so similar to BRP, at least we can plug in our favorite mechanic and go. For example, use SB5 parry/dodge rules in place of the matrix. This should work fine, if MRQ is as modular as it looks right now.. The biggest draw for me is still the fact that stuff is being published for it RIGHT NOW. Maybe the BRP crowd now has an analog to C&C, in a way.

I do hope Mongoose posts clarification of our little problem before the rulebook hits the store shelves, though.

 

[atgxtg]

Avg human movement is 4m.

Cool. I wasn't sure if full, mean "full round" or just how far that was in MRQ. 4m/15ft seems good to me.

 

[atgxtg]

Yeah, but we do have a shield skill. THere has to be some reason for Sword & Shield to be aw worthwile as sword & dodge.

RQ3 Dodge was effected by ENC. A character in Ringmail (10.0) with a battle axe (1.0) and a target shield (3.0) is already -14% to any Dodge attempt, but his Parry is unhindered. That factor certainly balanced out a reason to use Parry instead of Dodge for armoured warriors in RQ3.

Interestingly, you were allowed to both parry and dodge an attack if you wished!

The other factor in RQ3 ... a successful parry with a sword versus an unsuccessful attack used to damage the attacking weapon. A special success on a parry with an axe did damage to the attacking weapon.

Doug.

Yeah. But that is RQ3, and I had not problem with that. What I was wondering was the advantages of wearing armor and using a shield as opposed to wearing 2-3 point lethater and dodging in MRQ.

THe "free" parry helps some.

 

[atgxtg]

Being so similar to BRP, at least we can plug in our favorite mechanic and go. For example, use SB5 parry/dodge rules in place of the matrix. This should work fine, if MRQ is as modular as it looks right now.. The biggest draw for me is still the fact that stuff is being published for it RIGHT NOW. Maybe the BRP crowd now has an analog to C&C, in a way.

Yeah. I suppose that someone could buy MRQ setting books and run them with BRP, RQ3, Stormbringer, or any other RQ variant fairly easiliy. That might end up being a big plus, providing more useful material for fans of any BRP system.

[qoute]I do hope Mongoose posts clarification of our little problem before the rulebook hits the store shelves, though.[/quote]

I believe they have. I though it was states that the text is right and the chart is wrong. That looks like a clarification to me. True, it would mean more if we actually had the text to read, but forturnately the text will be incldued in the rulebook.

 

[wartorn]

All of which supports not bothering to parry though. A character is better off in 2 point armor (enough to stop those minimum damage hits) and dodging. It's cheaper and more effective.

Realstically, parrying is practically always better than dodging, in the game I would hope for it to be at least as good as dodging.

I hope the rules have something more to this.

If you take the single case of 2 pt armor yes dodging may remain the better alternative (we don't know the encumbrance penalty). But its not 2 pt armor and dodge vs. 2 pt armor and parry its 2 pt armor and dodge vs. 10 pt armor and parry. Get thee hence with your false dichotomies!

You feel strongly about this I can see. I feel strongly about my point because from experience (in admittedly tangentially-related MMA) I have been subject to and witnessed successful 'blocks' being 'broken through' by strong attacks - albeit with reduced force. So in my view, this 2x AP rule models something that shouldbe modelled (though I'd like to see STR in there as well). I would like it if PCs are forced to dodge the attack of a Troll because force-on-force shouldn't logically work in that circumstance. I'm assuming Trolls to be quite monstrous 9' plus here.

I agree with you completely that parrying should not fail often - if 2x AP of a shield isn't enough to absorb the blow of a broadsword + STR modifier of the average warrior the system is broken. Most of the time (say 90%+?), human on human, the 2xAP should absorb the full impact of the blow.

If parrying is the perfect defense, and there is no risk to it, the equation turns and the question becomes 'why dodge?' when doing so means giving up my protection.

 

[Enpeze]

Shields will get used mainly because of the "two-weapon" rule allowing you a free parry with the off-hand weapon/shield and the fact that they have fairly decent AP.

Hyrum.

sounds like Warhammer 2.

Avg human movement is 4m.

sounds like Warhammer 2 again.

Taking in account that I somewhere read that in earlier playtest versions MRQ used a "reversed" d100 attack-roll for hitlocation determination (is this true?) it seems that the game redesigners has been inspired by WFRP2.

 

[HyrumOWC]

sounds like Warhammer 2 again.

Taking in account that I somewhere read that in earlier playtest versions MRQ used a "reversed" d100 attack-roll for hitlocation determination (is this true?) it seems that the game redesigners has been inspired by WFRP2.

They may have but I don't remember. I do know they fiddled a bit with doubles under your skill being a crit, instead of the 10% they settled on.

Hyrum.

 

[atgxtg]

All of which supports not bothering to parry though. A character is better off in 2 point armor (enough to stop those minimum damage hits) and dodging. It's cheaper and more effective.

Realstically, parrying is practically always better than dodging, in the game I would hope for it to be at least as good as dodging.

I hope the rules have something more to this.

If you take the single case of 2 pt armor yes dodging may remain the better alternative (we don't know the encumbrance penalty). But its not 2 pt armor and dodge vs. 2 pt armor and parry its 2 pt armor and dodge vs. 10 pt armor and parry. Get thee hence with your false dichotomies!

I don't care if it is 2pt armor plus 20 points of parrying. THe fact remains that there is still a cap on the parry armor, whereas dodging can stop infinite damage.

You feel strongly about this I can see. I feel strongly about my point because from experience (in admittedly tangentially-related MMA) I have been subject to and witnessed successful 'blocks' being 'broken through' by strong attacks - albeit with reduced force. So in my view, this 2x AP rule models something that shouldbe modelled (though I'd like to see STR in there as well). I would like it if PCs are forced to dodge the attack of a Troll because force-on-force shouldn't logically work in that circumstance. I'm assuming Trolls to be quite monstrous 9' plus here.

No, I don't feel stronglyu about this. I'm just rying to fathom how it works, and looking at the "fallout". Sure, it is possible to power through a block. A good parry, however, is more than just a block. RQ used to cover this with the degress of success resulting in better parries. A critical parry used to stop ALL of an attack. Not a game problem as crtical parries were rare, and it is possible to, say, block a great axe with a dagger. It's also possible for the axe to slice through the dagger and hit you, or for the axe to knock the dagger out of your hand, or for the axe to drive the dagger into you.

I agree with you completely that parrying should not fail often - if 2x AP of a shield isn't enough to absorb the blow of a broadsword + STR modifier of the average warrior the system is broken. Most of the time (say 90%+?), human on human, the 2xAP should absorb the full impact of the blow.

I'm just worried about people rushing to grab greatswords and 2H axes and then being able to bash righ through any sort of parry defense. A couple of D6s or D8s backed up with a D4 db is going to get through that 10 points.

If parrying is the perfect defense, and there is no risk to it, the equation turns and the question becomes 'why dodge?' when doing so means giving up my protection.

Several reasons. First off, to avoid the knockback effect. Secondly, if the weapon you have to parry with can't take the damage, but you need it for offense. For instance, if you are carrying a rapier and the foe has a greatsword.

In game terms the effect of making parrying less effective than dodging has far reaching ramifications. For starters no one will carry around useless equipment.

Realsitically, you sort of combine both actions. For example, if a guy is carrying a shield he will probably interpose it between himself and an attack while dodging. Sort of a "if dodge fails, get a parry". The two options really are intertwined.

But realsitcally, the reason why they teach parrying is that is is generally much more effective that trying to dodge. THe foe can swing, cleave, thrust and lunge with his weapon faster than you can probably move your whole body. Parrying is much faster, and a lot less tirring too. Parrying is also less tiring.

 

[atgxtg]

Maybe the Min/Maxers will figure out that the best weapon *is* a shield, and will just go around bashing and blocking all day...

Spiked Bucker! That way we get impales!

 

[Urox]

Shields will get used mainly because of the "two-weapon" rule allowing you a free parry with the off-hand weapon/shield and the fact that they have fairly decent AP.

What exactly is the 'two-weapon rule' ?

I've seen that in MQ, characters usuall get at least 2 actions per round. Is this assumed to be one for attack, and one for parry (making whiffs by the opponent essentially a free attack)?

 

[HyrumOWC]

Shields will get used mainly because of the "two-weapon" rule allowing you a free parry with the off-hand weapon/shield and the fact that they have fairly decent AP.

What exactly is the 'two-weapon rule' ?

I've seen that in MQ, characters usuall get at least 2 actions per round. Is this assumed to be one for attack, and one for parry (making whiffs by the opponent essentially a free attack)?

Here's the cut and paste:

Two Weapon Use
A character wielding two weapons or a weapon and a shield may use the off-hand item to either:

• Parry one additional attack per Combat Round (over and above the normal Reaction allowance)

OR

• Gain a single bonus Close Combat Attack action. This bonus attack may not be a precise attack and suffers a –20% penalty to the relevant Weapon or Shield Skill.

Hyrum.

 

[atgxtg]

Ooh, so a shield either gives you an extra parry or a free shield bash attack.

That has possibilities. :evil: :idea:

 

[Urox]

Two Weapon Use
A character wielding two weapons or a weapon and a shield may use the off-hand item to either:

• Parry one additional attack per Combat Round (over and above the normal Reaction allowance)

OR

• Gain a single bonus Close Combat Attack action. This bonus attack may not be a precise attack and suffers a –20% penalty to the relevant Weapon or Shield Skill.

I am going to guess the rules disallow wielding two shields? Otherwise, for the expense of about 1 average damage per attack, you gain a boatload of AP).

So then, dual wielding War Swords seems to be pretty decent, at 1d8 damage and 4AP.

Besides the AP, the only other bonus I saw to a Shield is parrying missile weapons. But, is it worth the half xp penalty?

 

[andakitty]

Also maybe you use Dodge to disengage, as in Stormbringer 5. It looks like the options are fairly balanced.