Armour skill penalty

[Hoitsu]

How about if you use precise attack so that it only halves the armor value, or cuts it to 1/3? rounded down or up, just how you want it. Then it wouldnt be so uber and those runelords with iron armor, will get some use of it.

 

[simonh]

I use halved skill for those precise attacks and i dont think that any player in my games will get weapon skill over 120%. I just dont like Powergames. Thats why precise attack works for me.

But precise attack is a powergamer's wet dream come true. It's a classic loophole prime for exploiting.

Characters can start off with over 80% skill. A few skill improvements later, and Bladesharp 5 will get them up to 120% or thereabouts after just a few adventures. Also note that Precise Attack can be used for missile attacks, and either Spedart, or even better Good Fortune (+10% per spell point) combined with a precise attack is a character killer. Players can use these tactics in your game from day 1.

Finaly, saying on the one hand that the precice attack rules are no problem, an don the other that you're already decided to mod them to make them much weaker, is a bit weirdly inconsistent IMHO. After all, that's exactly what we're talking about here.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Hoitsu]

Or another suggestion, if you parry the precise attack, it dont bypass armor. That at least sounds realistic, because that armor bypassing attack is all about hitting in specific place like armpit, or hitting in seam of armor, where the armor is not protecting. so if you get something in the way, the attack is not going to hit where it should, in this case place where the armor is not protecting, so the parrying weapon or shield is directing the attacking weapon somewhere else and armor protects normally. Then the -40% sounds good.

 

[zanshin]

Or another suggestion, if you parry the precise attack, it dont bypass armor. That at least sounds realistic, because that armor bypassing attack is all about hitting in specific place like armpit, or hitting in seam of armor, where the armor is not protecting. so if you get something in the way, the attack is not going to hit where it should, in this case place where the armor is not protecting, so the parrying weapon or shield is directing the attacking weapon somewhere else and armor protects normally. Then the -40% sounds good

Beat me to it, exactly what i was going to suggest - any successful parry or dodge negates any precise blow element (bypass armour or hit location). Makes getting the drop on someone for a precise blow really important.

 

[Hoitsu]

And more suggestions, if you use that parry thing what i suggested recently, then the -40% is rather good for close combat weapons. But ranged weapons are another story. It is very hard to hit in non-armored spot of a guy who moves, so i would use either -60% or halved skill for ranged attacks in order to make that armor bypassing precise attack

 

[Rurik]

Well, as the original proponent of precise attacks costing a CA I tried a few combats and this is what I found.

If you delay the attack all the opponent has to do with his next action is a Fighting Retreat action. The attacker then has to close, the defender can then use a reaction to free attack and his action to Retreat again. The precise attack will never go off (unless the precise attacker has a 2 CA advantage over the defender).

This retreating tactic works well regardless of precise attacks or not. The fighting Retreat does not open you up to a free attack (as far as I can tell). When the opponent closes he is subject to the free attack. The only way to avoid the free attack is to charge, but the opponent would have to back up to charge distance with an action first, at which point you could:

1) Charge Him, or
2) Close to less than charge distance but not to within attack range, denying the charge.

So in short, if you keep withdrawing, you get to use your actions to withdraw and your reactions to free attack. Your opponent has to use his actions to close, his reactions to parry, and never gets an attack off assuming both parties have the same number of CA's.

Further driving home the fact that CA's are a Huge advantage.

Obviously this does not take tactical considerations such as terrain features that limit moving or other factors into consideration. It is a duel between two combatants on a flat field.

I found some other things about precise attacks. If you rule a parry stops the attack from ignoring armor they become much less effective. As has been mentioned it does not 'feel realistic' that the precise shot would ignore armor after being blocked. If you allow the precise shot to ignore armor after a successful parry, well, I hope you have a good shield against any two handed weapons. Also, because ignore armor is so powerful, Strike Weapon has not gotten a lot of attention. A greatsword with a few points of Bladesharp is a weapon destroying machine, often breaking spears in one attack and just about any weapon in two.

 

[atgxtg]

If we gave armor a coverage rating, it could be used to adjust the chances of a precvise attack. THat way, it would be easier to bypass earier partial armors than late gothic plate.

THis could be factored into armor cost and possibly weight and skill penalty too, with better qualtiy armors giving better protection or possibly more freedom (reduced peanalty).

I know they got some stuff like this for weapons in the Companion, I wonder if it will have stuff for armor too?

 

[Arkat]

Perhaps the bypass armor precise attack should be a legendary ability?
Means pc's wouldn't start with it and they would have to train (earn hero points) long enough to execute the maneuver with any degree of skill.

 

[Rurik]

If we gave armor a coverage rating, it could be used to adjust the chances of a precvise attack. THat way, it would be easier to bypass earier partial armors than late gothic plate.

THis could be factored into armor cost and possibly weight and skill penalty too, with better qualtiy armors giving better protection or possibly more freedom (reduced peanalty).

I know they got some stuff like this for weapons in the Companion, I wonder if it will have stuff for armor too?

The problem with this is mixed armor. You wouldn't know which location to use the modifier from until after resolving the attack, resolving parry/dodge, then rolling location.

 

[atgxtg]

If we gave armor a coverage rating, it could be used to adjust the chances of a precvise attack. THat way, it would be easier to bypass earier partial armors than late gothic plate.

THis could be factored into armor cost and possibly weight and skill penalty too, with better qualtiy armors giving better protection or possibly more freedom (reduced peanalty).

I know they got some stuff like this for weapons in the Companion, I wonder if it will have stuff for armor too?

The problem with this is mixed armor. You wouldn't know which location to use the modifier from until after resolving the attack, resolving parry/dodge, then rolling location.

UNless you make all precise attacks called shots. So they would have the -40% from the called shot, plus whatever the coverage modifer would be.

Personally I can see how an attack can be considered "precise" if the attacker has no idea what party of the body it is going to hit. THat is about as far away from "precise" as an attack can get.

I could even see factoring in a partial bypass. For insance, if fighting someone in plate, the back of the legs are often not plated, attacking the back of the legs bypasses the plate, but not the leather. so just bypassing the metal would be easier than bypassing all the AP.

 

[RMS]

I could even see factoring in a partial bypass. For insance, if fighting someone in plate, the back of the legs are often not plated, attacking the back of the legs bypasses the plate, but not the leather. so just bypassing the metal would be easier than bypassing all the AP.

I use something similar to this with hits in RQ2/3 that bypass armor. I would only allow it to do that if it made sense. Pretty much any hit to the head made sense, but hits to locations on lots of creatures who's armor derives from skin or hair doesn't make much sense. (I did the same with divine magic in my world: a Shield spell can't be bypassed, period. Granted it's magic, so who knows, but I just can't image the gods passing off puny spells that can easily be bypassed and ignored.)

The only problems I have with all the above is that it starts to get too fiddly. One of the beautires of RQ has always been that it's fairly simple while still feeling very gritty and realistic. For me, you'd have to be careful how far you take the line of adding an extra bit of info to track. For example, I wouldn't add any extra info to track negatives for armor on skill. I'd keep what's there now and only apply it where it makes sense: swim, fatigue, etc. and just ignore it where it obviously doesn't make sense such as weapon skills, riding, etc. Maybe there could be a slight negative there, but it's probably low enough to fall below the granularity of an RPG.

 

[atgxtg]

I could even see factoring in a partial bypass. For insance, if fighting someone in plate, the back of the legs are often not plated, attacking the back of the legs bypasses the plate, but not the leather. so just bypassing the metal would be easier than bypassing all the AP.

I use something similar to this with hits in RQ2/3 that bypass armor. I would only allow it to do that if it made sense. Pretty much any hit to the head made sense, but hits to locations on lots of creatures who's armor derives from skin or hair doesn't make much sense. (I did the same with divine magic in my world: a Shield spell can't be bypassed, period. Granted it's magic, so who knows, but I just can't image the gods passing off puny spells that can easily be bypassed and ignored.)

The only problems I have with all the above is that it starts to get too fiddly. One of the beautires of RQ has always been that it's fairly simple while still feeling very gritty and realistic. For me, you'd have to be careful how far you take the line of adding an extra bit of info to track. For example, I wouldn't add any extra info to track negatives for armor on skill. I'd keep what's there now and only apply it where it makes sense: swim, fatigue, etc. and just ignore it where it obviously doesn't make sense such as weapon skills, riding, etc. Maybe there could be a slight negative there, but it's probably low enough to fall below the granularity of an RPG.

I know what you mean. TO be honest, I am surprised with some of the changes in MRQ because they added in complicatioms. For instance, one of the desgin rules was "no math" meaning that the players wouldn't have to add and sutract things to figure out sucess chances or such. It is the reason for the persisence and resilience skills instead of stat rolls and why there is no more special success.

But adding in a skill penalty for armor when there never was one, just made for more complication/math. Persoanlly, I'd rather just ditch the skill peanlty and apply an penalty to swim, fatigue etc. based on ENC.

I'd also like to adjust the critical effects to allow a choice of effects. For instance, allowing someone to select any of the "precise attack" effects in place of the max damage.

 

[gamesmeister]

Also, because ignore armor is so powerful, Strike Weapon has not gotten a lot of attention. A greatsword with a few points of Bladesharp is a weapon destroying machine, often breaking spears in one attack and just about any weapon in two.

Don't have a problem with that tbh. You can still parry with a shield even if your opponent attempts a precise shot on your spear. Only if you miss your parry will he damage your spear, and to be quite honest, I would *expect* a spear to shatter pretty quickly when hit repeatedly with a greatsword.

Gerry

 

[atgxtg]

Also, because ignore armor is so powerful, Strike Weapon has not gotten a lot of attention. A greatsword with a few points of Bladesharp is a weapon destroying machine, often breaking spears in one attack and just about any weapon in two.

Don't have a problem with that tbh. You can still parry with a shield even if your opponent attempts a precise shot on your spear. Only if you miss your parry will he damage your spear, and to be quite honest, I would *expect* a spear to shatter pretty quickly when hit repeatedly with a greatsword.

Gerry

But would you expect another greastowrd to shatter so easily? Most of the time they will go to pieces in two hits.

 

[kustenjaeger]

Greetings

I know what you mean. TO be honest, I am surprised with some of the changes in MRQ because they added in complicatioms. For instance, one of the desgin rules was "no math" meaning that the players wouldn't have to add and sutract things to figure out sucess chances or such. It is the reason for the persisence and resilience skills instead of stat rolls and why there is no more special success.

But adding in a skill penalty for armor when there never was one, just made for more complication/math. Persoanlly, I'd rather just ditch the skill peanlty and apply an penalty to swim, fatigue etc. based on ENC.

I'd also like to adjust the critical effects to allow a choice of effects. For instance, allowing someone to select any of the "precise attack" effects in place of the max damage.

I think in substance I agree that this is the way to go - at least for me. Just thinking about it if one drops ranged Precise Shot and then has it as a Legendary Ability (a la William Tell ...)

Regards

 

[Hoitsu]

Almost every one here uses frases like "when using bladesharp" or "if you have Protection" and so on.
Of course it is the very soul of magic to make people more powerful and it has nothing to do with real life stuff. Like that Greatsword thing, it shatters with two strikes, of course if you use magic. It seems to shatter easily even with out it but PLEASE sont bring the magic when talking about some spesific rules. Magic changes all, remember that. Of course a guy with Bladesharp-4 do damage and hes precise attack is deadly. Why even bother to use it because you can kill your opponent even with normal attacks with that Bladesharp?
The question seems to be more like how much magic you are willing to give to your players? do they all have that Bladesharp-6 and Protection-6 and so on? or is that just in rare occasions? Think about the balance in your games...it helps to solve many of your "rule problems"

 

[simonh]

Think about the balance in your games...it helps to solve many of your "rule problems"

That's exactly what I'm doing. Even if it's a fantasy game and 'magic changes all', I still want a reasonably ballanced game. I'm not going to just ignore Bladesharp because it's magic - it's magic that I'm sure will feature in most people's games and does need to be taken into account.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Hoitsu]

Of course RQ includes magic but the question is "How Much"? with reasonable levels of spells, you dont have most of these rule problems we are discussing here about, but that is again my opinion. I am familiar with the older versions of RQ, i bought it in 1989 and have used it since. I dont have any problems so far adapting my house rules and balancing the new rules. Of course not everyone is familiar with the system and i dont expect it. Maybe i just need "too" realistic rules.

 

[atgxtg]

Almost every one here uses frases like "when using bladesharp" or "if you have Protection" and so on.
Of course it is the very soul of magic to make people more powerful and it has nothing to do with real life stuff. Like that Greatsword thing, it shatters with two strikes, of course if you use magic. It seems to shatter easily even with out it but PLEASE sont bring the magic when talking about some spesific rules. Magic changes all, remember that. Of course a guy with Bladesharp-4 do damage and hes precise attack is deadly. Why even bother to use it because you can kill your opponent even with normal attacks with that Bladesharp?
The question seems to be more like how much magic you are willing to give to your players? do they all have that Bladesharp-6 and Protection-6 and so on? or is that just in rare occasions? Think about the balance in your games...it helps to solve many of your "rule problems"

Uh, do you even loook at the game stats?

A greatsword does 2d8, and usually with at least a +1d2 db, since anyone strong enough to use a greasword catches a damage bonus.
Now a greatsword also has 4AP and 12 HP.

So without ANY MAGIC, a greasword can smash another greatsword with about two average hits.


As far as "bringing magic into it"-that goes with Glorantha. I don't know how famialr you are with preveious edition of RQ, but magic was a lot more common than in D&D. Practically everyone in the old RQ adventures had some battlemagic, and bladesharp 3 was pretty common. I fact, if you look through a typical RQ2 Gloranthan adventure, at least half of the characters listed have bladesharp 3, bludgeon 3 or fireblade. Probably closer to 2/3rd or 3/4th. Spells like Porection were even more common.

Now if MRQ is going to be ran for GLoantha, this will be significant.

 

[Hoitsu]

in my experince the balancing does not work by changing the rules but limiting the amout of magic. And with this Rune Magic thing and integrating runes in order to get spells and when cults limit the power of those, magic (at least powerful magic) is not by far as common as in previous versions