Centipedes of Doom?

[Archer]

Funny how we all speak about our players as if they were pets or moderately trained monkeys

So very true. Still, mine are not really housebroken yet, and have trouble following simple commands. So I am considering getting a cattle prod, perhaps some electric shock therapy will take care of the problems I have with training them.

However, the point never was that players shouldn't react to a situation, it's that in an even encounter the players actions should buy them an advantage, not just equalise an imbalance in the basic combat rules.

I completly agree. Two characters with same stats should be equal. And the advantage should be gained through actions, not because you happen to have additional appendages.

BTW my players don't always blindly rush into combat... not always ... I remember them having a plan... once

Hmm, mine does, usually. On the occassion when the "old timers" among my players got around to use their heads and came up with an amazing plan that would have avoided bloodspill altogether, they heard from behind "Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhh!", as one of the newcomers to the group scream his lungs of and charged a fortified regiment of troops.

 

[Archer]

You have said that the more hit location advantage should never be a factor because your players should be smart enough game around it. Well they won't always be able to, and more importantly they shouldn't have to.

Thats why the Total HP was such an equalizer in BRP, you could down an opponent by giving him a "thousand cuts" death, instead of seriously injuring just one very hard to strike hit location.

I think the best balance I have seen between being able to withstand an heroic amount of punishment, and not falling into the "punching bag" trap that we have now in MRQ, was a game (Mutant 2) that had a normal amount of HPs per hit location, but Total HP was not average of CON + SIZ, it was equal to the sum of those two characteristics.

This meant that it was more likely that you would drop someone by damaging a single hit location, but if you were unable to, he would eventually drop due to multiple injuries.

 

[andakitty]

Or use something like a bleed out rule. Like, if the arm reaches the negative where it is considered a major wound, say it bleeds one point per round out of the neighboring location, instead of making the saves only. So the arm is maimed, points automatically start dropping in the chest, and when you run out of points there you are dead. Your buddies have about 6-9 rounds to get that battle dressing on there...and if you want to be real nasty, say the hit point loss doubles if he keeps fighting. :twisted:

 

[Archer]

Or use something like a bleed out rule. Like, if the arm reaches the negative where it is considered a major wound, say it bleeds one point per round out of the neighboring location, instead of making the saves only. So the arm is maimed, points automatically start dropping in the chest, and when you run out of points there you are dead. Your buddies have about 6-9 rounds to get that battle dressing on there...and if you want to be real nasty, say the hit point loss doubles if he keeps fighting. :twisted:

Still does not solve the issue that you have to hit the same hit locations several times in a row to actually get someone to go down or be rendered unable to continue to fight. Damage dealt are nowhere near enough to cause such a result on the first blow, especially if the target is wearing armor.

As per info from those that actually hold MRQ in their hands, Damage modifier is now lower (commonly 1d2), that also brings down the average damage dealt (since weapon damage are basically unchanged), with the number of HPs per hit location has increased.

Without any sort of mechanic to keep track of overall damage, you will not get away from this problem. A character with more hit locations are harder to kill or disable.

Especially since you roll randomly to decide where you hit, and for beginner characters, the option to try try to hit a specific hit location several times in a row are not really possible (a hefty -40% penalty).

It is all about simple mathematics and logic.
You and I have argued this point before, in another thread. You did not want to believe me then either.

Now it seems, it is not only me that realizes the trouble ghe lack of Total HP brings.

As I have said (and you also said) several times, I have experience running BRP clone this way, and even fighting a garden variety octopus becomes a nightmare, just because the hit location is random.

So if there are some unique rules in the game you ran with Hit location HP only, that removed the random hit location factor, I would appreciate of you could share with us those rules. Perhaps that will allow us to find a solution to the problem (I can not see any except introducing Total HP or removing the random hit location roll, instead allowing a character to choose where he hits without penalty, or forcing every creature to have the same number of hit locations no matter their physical makeup).

 

[atgxtg]

Without any sort of mechanic to keep track of overall damage, you will not get away from this problem. A character with more hit locations are harder to kill or disable.

You can get away from that problem if you have some sort of would effect penalty. That way all those minor injuries do throw the opponent off, or make him pass out or whatever.Some RPGs do stuff like that.

 

[iamtim]

Still does not solve the issue that you have to hit the same hit locations several times in a row to actually get someone to go down or be rendered unable to continue to fight.

Do you know the combat rules?

If a location is brought to 0, the next combat action is lost.
If a location is brought to -1, the next 1d4 combat actions are lost; if the location is a limb, it is useless until it is brought to at least 1 hp. If the location is the adbomen, chest, or head, a Resilience test must be made or fall unconscious. If it is successful, it must be repeated every round until the location is brought to at least 1 hp.
If a location is brought to < negative starting hp a limb is severed or mangled, the character drops prone, and must make a resilience test or go unconscious; a test repeated every round if successful or until the limb is brought to at least 1 hp. If it's the abdomen, chest, or head, the character must make a resilience check OR DIE. A 2nd test must be made to remain conscious. This happens every round if successful or until brought to 1hp in that location. In both instances, if the location does not recover withint CON+POW rounds (half for abdomen, chest, or head), the character dies.

That doesn't sound like the kind of ruleset that's going to require a character to "hit the same hit locations several times in a row to actually get someone to go down or be rendered unable to continue to fight." That sounds like one good hit, and you're in for a world of hurt.

 

[andakitty]

With MRQ probably true, unless max damage is dealt. But I don't use that weapon list... see my latest comments in the 'Good in MRQ' thread. There would probably need to be a lttle more potential damage than in MRQ to make it work smoothly. I like combat to be lethal.

 

[Vadrus]

Just noticed another small oddity the system throws up, Falling Damage.

This is involves rolling 1d6 for every 5m fallen, each d6 is rolled seperately and applied to a random location.

There are two oddities:

1). SIZ does not affect it so a larger creature with more HP will survive falls better. So drop a mouse 20m and it dies instantly, drop a horse 20m and it's likely survive and even trot away in many cases, the exact opposite of real life.

2). The random locations for damage again means that the more locations you have the more chance you have of surviving with only minor injuries i.e. a centaur is 30% more likely to be only lightly wounded than a horse if they fall the same distance.

I honestly don't go searching out these things but just a cursory read seems to turn up more and more oddities.


Vadrus

 

[SteveMND]

You know, I'm sure there are those out there, but I really haven't found a system yet that accurately models falling damage. IIRC, I seem to actually had liked RQ2's, but I seem to recall that had problem as well.

 

[WildHealer]

I really haven't found a system yet that accurately models falling damage.

You kind of have to apply this to Total Hit Points to have anything like a realistic situation. In MRQ I guess you'd have to apply it to all Hit Locations simultaneously, like the Poison rule. Add that to the ever-growing list of House Rules, I guess...

 

[SteveMND]

SIZ does not affect it so a larger creature with more HP will survive falls better. So drop a mouse 20m and it dies instantly, drop a horse 20m and it's likely survive and even trot away in many cases, the exact opposite of real life.

Come to think of it, I suppose ti wouldn't be that hard to add a house rule that modified the 'effective distance fallen' depending on the SIZ of the creature. Say, -2 meter of effective falling damage for ever point of SIZ under 8, and +1 meter of effective falling damage for each point of SIZ over 20. Or something like that...

 

[Balbinus]

Or use something like a bleed out rule. Like, if the arm reaches the negative where it is considered a major wound, say it bleeds one point per round out of the neighboring location, instead of making the saves only. So the arm is maimed, points automatically start dropping in the chest, and when you run out of points there you are dead. Your buddies have about 6-9 rounds to get that battle dressing on there...and if you want to be real nasty, say the hit point loss doubles if he keeps fighting. :twisted:

I'm quite tempted by that actually, not sure if it's necessary or not as yet but I like the Icelandic sagas and lopped off limbs are normally fatal in those.

 

[Urox]

Do you know the combat rules?

That doesn't sound like the kind of ruleset that's going to require a character to "hit the same hit locations several times in a row to actually get someone to go down or be rendered unable to continue to fight." That sounds like one good hit, and you're in for a world of hurt.

I think what people are concerned about is the underlying mathmatical model.

If the average HP per location is 6, and a moderately armored foe has 3 AP, how does this work out in combat?

Well, say a warsword does 1d8+1 with a strengh bonus, so you get an average of 5.5 damage, which is reduced to 2.5 which averages to 3 blows to a location to reduce it to 0.

Yes, you can roll above average damage or crit, which makes combat more lethal, but there is also Dodge and Parry working against it.

Also, something that hasn't really been discussed much is the role of Healing in combat -- something niggles at me that having a "Cleric" hanging back and Healing limbs as they get low might have some problems.

We can argue until we all turn blue, but I think at this point there is a enough evidence to show that a BRP HP/Loc system is flawed without Total HP. Not necesarrily bad, but problematic, and subject to anomalies.

 

[Balbinus]

Does anyone know why total hit points were taken out?

I'm following the reasons people think it is a problem, in all honesty I don't known enough yet to agree or not, but presumably there was a purpose to the removal. Anyone know what that was?

 

[WildHealer]

Does anyone know why total hit points were taken out?

Off the top of my head, and without meaning to sound sarcastic, I believe this was something to do with the much-vaunted "streamlining". Apparently keeping track of Hit Location HP and Total HP was thought to be too complex for people. Which is a bit strange considering we'd been doing fine for the quarter of a century before...

 

[Balbinus]

Does anyone know why total hit points were taken out?

Off the top of my head, and without meaning to sound sarcastic, I believe this was something to do with the much-vaunted "streamlining". Apparently keeping track of Hit Location HP and Total HP was thought to be too complex for people. Which is a bit strange considering we'd been doing fine for the quarter of a century before...

Gosh. I have to admit, I never found it especially complex. I suspect I may be houseruling them back in in that case.

 

[andakitty]

No, locations without the pool can work. I have a game that works quite well (it is very similar to BRP in many ways, RQ2 in particular) with only hit locations. In this case it is MRQ's implementation that may cause problems. For falling, something like 1d10 per 3 meters fallen, spread over all the locations. The numbers are going to be off because the game in question has values in individual locations. But the point is, it can work OK>

 

[Urox]

No, locations without the pool can work. I have a game that works quite well (it is very similar to BRP in many ways, RQ2 in particular) with only hit locations.

Which game system is that if you don't mind telling? Or were you referring to a homebrew?

 

[andakitty]

No, a little known game published around 1990 called 'Fifth Cycle'. It is percentile roll under, similar weapon and armor values, 20/5% special/critical levels, hitpoints are location only. Hit points per location tend to be higher. Weapon damage lower even than MRQ. What makes the hit point system work is that the specials give a double damage roll and criticals let you roll on this nasty table that yields results like broken bones, bleeders, and instant death. I suspect the game is the result of someones homebrewed RQ game. It just has too many similarities. The combat system and hit point structure look wonky, play very well. As may well be the case with MRQ.

 

[SteveMND]

Gosh. I have to admit, I never found it especially complex. I suspect I may be houseruling them back in in that case.

You know, that's the funny thing about game design. I used to think that the old RQ3 fatigue rules were as simple as pie, and very workable, yet a lot of people really hated them. Eh, such is life.