Appropriate challenges

[Utgardloki]

One area of Runequest that I am unsure of, is how to know whether a challenge is or is not appropriate for a set of PCs.

I intend to be converting over a D&D module (the Witchfire Trilogy), but am concerned that some of the encounters may be too deadly for Runequest characters. For example, in one battle where the PCs are set to face 23 opponents, I think I'll cut that down to about 6.

What guidelines are there for staging encounters against the PCs, especially when fighting nonhuman creatures?

 

[weasel_fierce]

its hard to give a real figure for, since there's so many factors involved. Generally, a man to man fight is a pretty big deal in RQ, whereas D&D often assumes that you can fight larger numbers with abandon.

 

[Exubae]

I intend to be converting over a D&D module (the Witchfire Trilogy), but am concerned that some of the encounters may be too deadly for Runequest characters. For example, in one battle where the PCs are set to face 23 opponents, I think I'll cut that down to about 6.

In any direct confrontation in RQ (Especially earlier versions) any numerically superior force will evenually win out, you either need to balance out the sides... NPCS on the players side, reducing opponents, or give the players space to think or use tactics rather than direct confrontation (sneak attack, hit and run, disruption, pick off stragglers, talk to the opponents and try to cut a deal, use the old diguise self as enemy and assassinate the leader... or my favourate.. Run Away...)

There are many ways to skin an alynx

Just a few thoughts...

 

[Utgardloki]

That could pose complications when converting modules over to Runequest, especially from D&D.

For example, I looked at one where the PCs have to get through a labyrinth defended by defenders who don't want the PCs getting through the labyrinth. In D&D, characters could just charge through like a pro quarterback trying to get past my old high school football team.

One thing Runequest does have going for it is hero points. Maybe I can be generous with them, especially at first, allowing PCs to spend hero points on obstacles that would stop lesser men and women.

I may have to playtest some encounters to see how they are. Any helpful experience already gathered would be appreciated.

 

[Rurik]

I STRONGLY Reccomend playtesting some encounters. If you are used to D&D the combat is very different. Superior naumbers are a big advantage in RQ (not so much in MRQ as previous versions, but still bigger than D&D).

Even relatively even match ups can turn lethal fast. A big factor is that 2 smaller damageing weapons are not as lethal as one big one. 2 guys with 1d6+1 weapons are no where near as lethal as a 2d6+2 great axe weilding guy in my experience.

That being said, you can still have a dungeon crawl filled with foes. Make Healing Magic readily available to the players and give them a pause between encounters to use it.

 

[telsor]

If you want the 'bad guys' to have numbers, you need to give the PCs some other advantages...

My PC ( ~100% sword and shield, -35 for armour ) would consider it a fairly serious fight to be up against 2 NPCs with, say 20-25% lower (effective) skills and 3CAs

A large part of that though is CA's...If they only had 2 actions each, they'd ( probably ) get creamed.

Things to balance it out would be..

Skills
CA's
Avenues of attack ( more than 2-1 is tough, unless the bad guys are really poor quality ).
Hero Points
Weapons ( as noted, low damage weapons are a lot less scary ).
Damage bonuses ( as above ).
Armour ( again, as above, although note that with armour penalties, this can be a 2 edged sword ).
Organisation ( both in prep time for combats, and battle tactics ).

How much of each you'd need is a balancing act you'll need to work out yourself.

Also, think of the NPCs morale...half of them go down, all the PCs are still going ( even if bloodied ) and they mightn't be so keen to charge in and be next...They could hold back, leaving those fighting to their fate, they could run, they could surrender ( what would your PCs do with a dozen prisoners? ), they might turn on their colleagues to show their 'real' loyalties...


I wouldn't normally suggest it, but if you find you've got it wrong, don't be afraid to 'rebalance' on the fly.

 

[Exubae]

Other thing is to keep the NPC/opponents skills low, 30% - should keep them flailing around. As Ruric said don't give them anything much larger than a club or short sword, as you can guarantee while your players are busy lopping of left legs, one of their victims will get roll a critical roll on a players head (usually on the only guy with heal 6).

 

[Utgardloki]

What if the PCs have a high Dodge?

Perhaps I can give all the PCs 30% in Dodge in addition to spending freebie and occupation skill points, which I intend to limit to a maximum of 30% for any skill.

One concern I have is that Dodge becomes such an important skill in Runequest, that maybe I should just give all the PCs a very high Dodge (I'm thinking 90%), and then not let them build it up in character creation, since it seems that in order to survive in this game you have to maximize Dodge as much as possible, so players who want to survive will put as many points as possible into dodge.

I'm thinking this could work, although it makes the game a little bit like Exalted. With a high dodge, many NPCs will be unable to touch a PC. Even if an NPC thug gets lucky, the PC can just spend a Hero Point and say "Ha ha! You missed )

 

[B_Steele]

With a high dodge, many NPCs will be unable to touch a PC. Even if an NPC thug gets lucky, the PC can just spend a Hero Point and say "Ha ha! You missed )

That is exactly why the combat tables say that a successful dodge versus a successful hit still inflicts minimum damage. With an all or nothing Dodge system it becomes FAR too useful, and big bohunk characters could never land a blow against a small and wiry opponent.

I'm sure that doesn't help your situation in any way, but I felt it needed to be pointed out.

Bry

 

[simonh]

90% dodge for free seems excessive.

I'd start of with characters fairly close to the game default starting level, with perhaps a little extra, such as the free 30% bonus to Dodge you mentioned, although personally I'd prefer to leave it to the players where to deploy their points - strength through diversity and all that.

Don't concentrate entirely on skills as the way to make characters tough. magic is at least as important, and 3 to 5 free points in spells at game start will also make them more capable and adaptable opponents.

Gradually escalate the strength of opposition you throw at the PCs until you have a feel for the game balance. Provide them with a limited stock of low to medium power healing early on either as one-use items such as potions, or through an NPC healer, and watch how, and if, they need to use the reserve.

You will end up with much more optimized characters if you let the players also get a feel for the game in play, and after a few sessions provide them with the ability to fine-tune the characters based on their experiences. That way they will find their weaknesses themselves, and have an opportunity to address them. A generous dollop of advancement rolls (with easy access to mentors) and perhaps some free spells from a grateful populace recently saved from a dire enemy, will make sure any poor choices made early on won't hobble the characters for too long.

Providing boosts in limited areas at the beginning runs the risk that you'll over-compensate, or provide enhancements that don't match every character's different set of offensive and defensive abilities. 90% dodge might turn out to be excessive or unnecessary for some characters but vital for others, depending on what weapons, magic and tactics they use.

 

[Rurik]

With a high dodge, many NPCs will be unable to touch a PC. Even if an NPC thug gets lucky, the PC can just spend a Hero Point and say "Ha ha! You missed )

That is exactly why the combat tables say that a successful dodge versus a successful hit still inflicts minimum damage. With an all or nothing Dodge system it becomes FAR too useful, and big bohunk characters could never land a blow against a small and wiry opponent.

I'm sure that doesn't help your situation in any way, but I felt it needed to be pointed out.

Bry

I am in agreement here - dodge is hardly the end all defense in combat. Minimum damage + rolled damage bonus is significant. Try dodging a troll with a great hammer - succeeded cool. Take 1d6+4 damage anyway.

I find the best all around defense is a good sheild. Of course it limits you to using one handed weapons and is a seperate skill that needs improving. But it can stop a lot of damage, works against bypass armor attacks, and gives an extra reaction for parrying. Dodge on the other hand gets no bonus reaction, so if you only have 2-3 reactions you can only dodge 2-3 times in a round. After that you better be wearing armor.

 

[Utgardloki]

I was originally thinking of giving all PCs a free 30% for Dodge on character creation, and allowing skill points to be added during character creation as for any other skill. With a three step process I'm contemplating (Breadth of Knowledge skills, max 10% on any one skill; Occupation skills, max 30% on any one skill; Free Skill Points, max 30% on any one skill), PCs given a free 30% in Dodge could built it up to 100% if they like. The question becomes whether this becomes necessary for character survival.

I'm in the process of converting the Iron Kingdoms setting over to Runequest, which may limit the availability of magical resources. My thought is that all PCs are sorcerers. But healing is officially limited in the Iron Kingdoms, which conflicts with the goal of PC survival in Runequest.

I'm very tempted to give all starting PCs a 90% in Dodge on the theory that if I didn't, they'd build Dodge up to 90% on character generation anyway. I can make the option open for PCs to shift points from Dodge to other skills if they want to (again, only on character creation), but the consequences of that will be on their heads.

I don't think this is too far from the default starting level. Essentially I'm using a concept of "occupation skill points" to replace the mechanic of "profession" in the MRQ rule book, and giving the PCs free "breadth of knowledge" points to encourage more "realistic" characters. ("Breadth of Knowledge" points have to be scattered among different skills, unlike Occupation and Free skill points which can be concentrated on a few min/maxed skills.) The adventure I am planning on using is designed for D&D characters that are above the minimum starting level, so everything should be roughly in balance.

 

[frogspawner]

In my RQ-like system, Defence/Dodge skill is what all (and only) 'hero points' (or equivalent) add to, automatically (base 10%, btw). So if Defence/Dodge gets to 90%+ it's ok - because the players have earned it through sheer roleplaying/heroism.

They may (eventually) be able to Dodge stuff incredibly - but that's what heroes do.

 

[Trifletraxor]

In the good old days nearly everyone parried, even though a successfull dodge dodged all the damage. Everyone was to afraid for that critical attack which they would take all the damage from if they did not also make a critical dodge. But then weapons and shields actually had some armor points.

SGL.

 

[frogspawner]

I should explain the way I use this Dodge is as an extra layer of defence in addition to parrying. It reduces damage by 10 (whether the hit is critical or not), or more if the dodge is special/critical.

 

[Utgardloki]

I think that everybody is making some changes to the combat rules, in one form or another.

My intended plan is to simplify combat if I can. Attackers make one attack roll to hit. If the attacker hits, a dodge attempt can be made to dodge. A successful Dodge avoids all damage.

One scenario called for 23 attackers to attack the PCs. If they have 35% in their weapons of choice, and they are attacking 4 PCs with 90% dodge, about a third of them will hit each CA, which means each PC will be hit twice unless he dodges. There's a 19% chance that both dodges will fail, and this will use up 2 reactions for every CA that the attackers get.

Making further assumptions that the PCs average 3 reactions per round each, and the attackers average (using my house-ruled initiative system) 1.5 attacks a round, this means the PCs have to make three Dodges to avoid getting hit by the attackers (average) 1.5 attacks per round. This means about a 28% chance of getting hit at least once.

I think I should start with small forces and build up to bigger ones.

 

[telsor]

"I think I should start with small forces and build up to bigger ones."

Probably a good idea.


Might even pay to run a practice combat or two before the real game starts to get you and your players familiar with the system.

 

[telsor]

I am in agreement here - dodge is hardly the end all defense in combat. Minimum damage + rolled damage bonus is significant. Try dodging a troll with a great hammer - succeeded cool. Take 1d6+4 damage anyway.

Which brings up an interesting question....How DO you fight a big troll/giant/whatever?

Parrying is good, but a decent roll gets through anyway, not to mention continual knockbacks.
Dodging cuts the weapon damage, but a big damage mod will still wipe you out.

 

[weasel_fierce]

Its also worth noting that RQ tends to lean towards a more reasonable/realistic attitude to violence and life, than D&D style adventures tend to assume.

You're going to be harder pressed to find the "holy genocide" where heroes enter a cave full of degenerates and hack them to pieces, while emerging unscathed. Maybe thats not a big thing either

 

[Rurik]

I am in agreement here - dodge is hardly the end all defense in combat. Minimum damage + rolled damage bonus is significant. Try dodging a troll with a great hammer - succeeded cool. Take 1d6+4 damage anyway.

Which brings up an interesting question....How DO you fight a big troll/giant/whatever?

Parrying is good, but a decent roll gets through anyway, not to mention continual knockbacks.
Dodging cuts the weapon damage, but a big damage mod will still wipe you out.

A good sheild easily gives the best survivability in melee. The average damage from a Dark Troll with a great hammer is 12. Parrying with a weapon doesn't help that much against that kind of damage. Your goal is to stay alive until you disable him. Once you hit a location, if you can, try aimed shots at that location again - disabling an arm makes the maul useless and a leg makes him immobile.

Ideally, you want to outnumber the Dark (or larger) Trolls and have magic available. Missile combat is good. They are tough Mofo's for sure.