frogspawner
Mongoose
Yes, using the RQ3 rule would be an improvement.kwinland said:
Yes, using the RQ2 rule would be even better... :wink:duncan_disorderly said:
Basic Combat Question....
- Thread starter kwinland
- Start date
This conversation about fully trained warriors being able to work well in armour always reminds me of the only rule I particularly like from MERP/Rolemaster:
Each type of armour had a skill associated with it. Unskilled characters took a real beating when wearing plate for instance but skilled warriors could offset most of this penalty.
I wonder if this could be applied to RQ in some way?
...and hi there Rurik!
Each type of armour had a skill associated with it. Unskilled characters took a real beating when wearing plate for instance but skilled warriors could offset most of this penalty.
I wonder if this could be applied to RQ in some way?
...and hi there Rurik!
bluejay said:
Yeah, it could, but would require some more match/complexity. You could have armor skill offset the Encumberace penalty. Maybe put a minnimum penalty too (as in RM), so no matter how high the skill, there would be some sort of penalty.
Note that if the armor skill is affected by the armor penalty, then the skill score will really need to be higher than the armor penalty tobe of any benefit. Or the GM could decie to apply the armor skill to the penalty before the penalty is calculated.
Or the GM could allow characters to reduced the armor penalty by 1/10th their armor skill.
PersonallyI favor applying the armor penalty to fatigue tests rather than as a skill penalty, but even then you could apply the armor skill to the Fatgiue test.
The drwaback is that it does add more complexity. IMO the armor peanty is one of the nore complex bits with MRQ to begin with, and one area that is more complex than RQ2.
Maybe it could be simplified into armor categoes with light, medium, heavy types of armor and fixed penalties? Skill could ten drop the armor penalty by a category.
I’ve been reading this thread in some interest, especially when a couple of people mentioned SCA combat. I’m a royal peer and knight of the SCA with about 12 years of heavy armoured fighting experience, and I spent this afternoon and evening trying to match what I do with how the rules work. It was quite an interesting analysis, of which I’ll post the most relevant bits here.
First off, I have a fundamental problem with the use of dice to randomly determine where a character’s blow lands. In a fight, a basically trained human being selects the target of their attack, before they initiate it. But according to MRQ (Mongoose RuneQuest) every such attack would be regarded as a Location Strike, instead of a normal blow (as it should be if we were being realistic).
The next issue is that of armour penalties. From personal experience I can say with absolute certainty that armour does restrict your combat skills. The heavier and/or more rigid the armour, the bigger the effect. Now most of us who practice weekly wearing the stuff, simply don’t notice this inconvenience. We get used to the weight, and we adapt our combat techniques to avoid it. However, if you are placed in a situation where you’re not wearing all the bits you should be, i.e. you forget your demi-guantlet or gorget, (or wear a suit of that damnable plastic armour) suddenly you become just that tiny bit quicker, or slightly more flexible, which can be enough to win a fight against an equally skilled opponent. In the SCA there is (sadly) a reason why the folks wearing the authentic field plate or the full chain hauberks don’t seem to win so many tournaments, and that is because extra mass slows down your manoeuvrability and the velocity (acceleration really) of your blows. In this case the MRQ rules for armour are actually realistic.
Armour’s greatest penalty is in the amount of fatigue it creates in its wearer. Historical armour always incorporated large amounts of padded garments underneath it, which was in some ways more important than the surface layer. It is the padding which absorbs the kinetic energy of the blow (saving bone fractures, serious contusions and stunning effects), the surface usually stops the cutting edge from slicing. However, the same combination of layers also traps heat and sweat, eventually forcing even the fittest person to drop from heat prostration. In a fight where I have to move dramatically (fighting multiple opponents for example), I am exhausted from 45-60 seconds of explosive combat. There is a very good reason that armoured knights usually fought from horseback. The horse does all the manoeuvring for you, thus saving a great deal of needless heat build-up.
How would one model this though? An Athletics roll every CON-(AP value) rounds of combat or increase a fatigue level? Personal experience suggests that combat should be regarded as a Heavy Activity, not a medium one.
The MRQ rules for parrying simply don’t cut the mustard for me. Fighting in a full contact sport shows that a single handed weapon parry can normally ward off the damage from a similarly massed weapon. Using it to parry a greatsword however is a lesson in futility. Personally I’d replace the static 2, 3 or 4 points blocked to a dice roll of the parrying weapon’s damage instead. This realistically portrays the effect of the relative masses of attacking and parrying weapons.
Taking a look at how to model myself as a warrior in MRQ terms is quite funny. Firstly I am always aiming at a particular location, normally at a level of accuracy that I can strike through a slot 5cm in width about 50% of the time. In MRQ this is a combination of two precise attack options, Location Strike and Bypass Armour, and normally I can only have one or the other. However for this example (and since I can do it in real life) I’ll double the penalty to make a total of -80%. I am also wearing a mixture of steel and leather armour with a full helm, which gives say about another -30% penalty.
Thus since I almost never miss my target location (although I can be blocked or dodged), my basic combat skill should be 210%. 210% minus location strike, minus bypass armour, minus armour mass penalty = a 100% guaranteed hit.
Now is that a reasonable skill percentage for a knight? The trouble is, is that I am nowhere near the best fighter in my kingdom and there are some guys out there who can have me for breakfast without breaking a sweat. 210% is simply basic competence for a warrior of my rank, and does not take into consideration, my skills in feinting, out maneuvering, and psychology which are all part of my weapon style.
I suppose all things considered that MRQ, like most RPG’s, is an abstraction, and will always remain so. It is futile to try to represent reality with it.
On a final note, I do worry about the Bypass Armour rule. Personally I would change it to “Halves the opponent’s Armour Points” otherwise it is far too powerful and does cause a breakage point once a PC reaches 140%+ (or possibly earlier) weapon skills. Besides, you should surely get something for that 20pt dragonskin… :lol:
First off, I have a fundamental problem with the use of dice to randomly determine where a character’s blow lands. In a fight, a basically trained human being selects the target of their attack, before they initiate it. But according to MRQ (Mongoose RuneQuest) every such attack would be regarded as a Location Strike, instead of a normal blow (as it should be if we were being realistic).
The next issue is that of armour penalties. From personal experience I can say with absolute certainty that armour does restrict your combat skills. The heavier and/or more rigid the armour, the bigger the effect. Now most of us who practice weekly wearing the stuff, simply don’t notice this inconvenience. We get used to the weight, and we adapt our combat techniques to avoid it. However, if you are placed in a situation where you’re not wearing all the bits you should be, i.e. you forget your demi-guantlet or gorget, (or wear a suit of that damnable plastic armour) suddenly you become just that tiny bit quicker, or slightly more flexible, which can be enough to win a fight against an equally skilled opponent. In the SCA there is (sadly) a reason why the folks wearing the authentic field plate or the full chain hauberks don’t seem to win so many tournaments, and that is because extra mass slows down your manoeuvrability and the velocity (acceleration really) of your blows. In this case the MRQ rules for armour are actually realistic.
Armour’s greatest penalty is in the amount of fatigue it creates in its wearer. Historical armour always incorporated large amounts of padded garments underneath it, which was in some ways more important than the surface layer. It is the padding which absorbs the kinetic energy of the blow (saving bone fractures, serious contusions and stunning effects), the surface usually stops the cutting edge from slicing. However, the same combination of layers also traps heat and sweat, eventually forcing even the fittest person to drop from heat prostration. In a fight where I have to move dramatically (fighting multiple opponents for example), I am exhausted from 45-60 seconds of explosive combat. There is a very good reason that armoured knights usually fought from horseback. The horse does all the manoeuvring for you, thus saving a great deal of needless heat build-up.
How would one model this though? An Athletics roll every CON-(AP value) rounds of combat or increase a fatigue level? Personal experience suggests that combat should be regarded as a Heavy Activity, not a medium one.
The MRQ rules for parrying simply don’t cut the mustard for me. Fighting in a full contact sport shows that a single handed weapon parry can normally ward off the damage from a similarly massed weapon. Using it to parry a greatsword however is a lesson in futility. Personally I’d replace the static 2, 3 or 4 points blocked to a dice roll of the parrying weapon’s damage instead. This realistically portrays the effect of the relative masses of attacking and parrying weapons.
Taking a look at how to model myself as a warrior in MRQ terms is quite funny. Firstly I am always aiming at a particular location, normally at a level of accuracy that I can strike through a slot 5cm in width about 50% of the time. In MRQ this is a combination of two precise attack options, Location Strike and Bypass Armour, and normally I can only have one or the other. However for this example (and since I can do it in real life) I’ll double the penalty to make a total of -80%. I am also wearing a mixture of steel and leather armour with a full helm, which gives say about another -30% penalty.
Thus since I almost never miss my target location (although I can be blocked or dodged), my basic combat skill should be 210%. 210% minus location strike, minus bypass armour, minus armour mass penalty = a 100% guaranteed hit.
Now is that a reasonable skill percentage for a knight? The trouble is, is that I am nowhere near the best fighter in my kingdom and there are some guys out there who can have me for breakfast without breaking a sweat. 210% is simply basic competence for a warrior of my rank, and does not take into consideration, my skills in feinting, out maneuvering, and psychology which are all part of my weapon style.
I suppose all things considered that MRQ, like most RPG’s, is an abstraction, and will always remain so. It is futile to try to represent reality with it.
On a final note, I do worry about the Bypass Armour rule. Personally I would change it to “Halves the opponent’s Armour Points” otherwise it is far too powerful and does cause a breakage point once a PC reaches 140%+ (or possibly earlier) weapon skills. Besides, you should surely get something for that 20pt dragonskin… :lol:
Good Sir, I have to disagree with the you here. Sometimes the sword arm is open, sometimes the opponent goes captian america on you. I think the luck of the roll does a pretty good job in this aspect of fighting, dealing with all the little variables that happen. Also, remember what it is like to be a noob. Where your weapon doesn't always land where you want it. That is where precise shot comes into play for those more experienced fighters.
As the armor penalty goes, I use encumbrance instead of AP's, for the penalty. I also use STR+CON-SIZ and subtract the ENC from that to get the penalty.
I also agree on halving the AP on a bypass attack, only bypassing full AP on a crit.
weasel_fierce
Mongoose
rolling for hit locations indicates whatever happened to be open enough to land a blow.
If you want to hit something specific, you aim for it.
If you want to hit something specific, you aim for it.
Yes indeed my Lord, people parrying with their arm (or throwing themselves prematurely into a blow) is a common occurrence. In RQ3 I would have modeled that as a fumble on your parry, but it doesn't work so well in MRQ.
You are probably right. It does strike me as a little strange though that somebody throwing a blow at the left hand side of his opponent's head could end up striking his opponent's right leg instead!
Still as I said, this is an abstraction.
This is a much better interpretation of the abstraction. It also indicates the basic difference I perceive between a mediocre fighter and a skilled one. The mediocre fighter waits for an opening and strikes at it. The skilled fighter forces their opponent to open up the location they want to strike.
I suppose I am blinded by what I consider is the basic competence of a skilled fighter. I effectively use Location Strike all the time when I'm fighting and consider this normal (and pretty fundamental). :roll:
It does seem like a better idea!
Trifletraxor
Mongoose
Iqari said:
Your post was a great read with some very interesting points. Keep up the good suggestions!
SGL.
