Centipedes of Doom?

[Rurik]

I thought Sorcery was the best part of RQ3 myself, not too complicated and made a lot of sense for a magic system. I since have heard time and time agin how many people hated it.

I am very curious to see the MRQ sorcery rules when the second half of my core rulebook arrives.

 

[Urox]

I thought Sorcery was the best part of RQ3 myself, not too complicated and made a lot of sense for a magic system.

I always had trouble getting my head around RQ3 Sorcery.

A good example of applied Sorcery is AH's Strangers in Prax, which details Arlaten the Magus, and goes into some practical usage.

 

[Signy]

I thought Sorcery was the best part of RQ3 myself, not too complicated and made a lot of sense for a magic system.

I only thought that I was the only person in this world to enjoy the RQ3 sorcery rules. Not so, apparently :wink: I do hope they are kept largely the same in the MRQ Companion.

 

[SteveMND]

I think there were a total of eight reported people who liked the RQ3 sorcery rules, Signy, so there's still a couple more out there.

I liked the sorcery rules as well, but only in theory, not in practice. I loved how infinitely adjustable the spells were, but the implementation meant it was very difficult to actually make the full use of the system.

In my home game, I remapped all the sorcery spells to a particular set of runes, and instead of having skills in the spell, you had skills in the runes -- to cast a spell, you had to have mastery over the specific runes; the better your skill, the more you could tweak. Something like that was what I was hoping for when I heard about Runic Integration in the new MRQ, but it looks like they went for a far different approach.

We'll have to see how MRQ does sorcery, i suppose...

 

[Rurik]

I thought Sorcery was the best part of RQ3 myself, not too complicated and made a lot of sense for a magic system.

I only thought that I was the only person in this world to enjoy the RQ3 sorcery rules. Not so, apparently :wink: I do hope they are kept largely the same in the MRQ Companion.

Glad to find someone else who liked it.

If anything a powerfull sorcerer was too powerful. But it took a long time getting there...

 

[Urox]

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.

From your description of the game, it almost seems that it was entirely based on crits and specials, which is essentially a different system than MQ. It sounds like you really needed to take someone out in one shot, and that the hit locations were ancillary.

 

[atgxtg]

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.

From your description of the game, it almost seems that it was entirely based on crits and specials, which is essentially a different system than MQ. It sounds like you really needed to take someone out in one shot, and that the hit locations were ancillary.

Several other RPGs do something similar. For instance in CORPS (A streamlined version of TIme Lords) the damage you take becomes your imparement, or penalty to actions that require the use of the damage location (so a leg hit will affect your running and climbing, but not lyour lockopicking).

THe game then added an eventually fatal rule. You would roll against the damage taken and if you rolled under it the would was eventually fatal. THis meant a drop of 1 health in a nunmber of minutes equal to the eventually fatal roll. With an addtional loss of 1 health for every time you doubled the time increment. Massive damage even had a chance of an autokill (sort of save or die).

The damage taken was also the basis for the stun chance, and if the character passed out.

Very simple and easy.

 

[homerjsinnott]

I think there were a total of eight reported people who liked the RQ3 sorcery rules, Signy, so there's still a couple more out there.

I liked the sorcery rules as well, but only in theory, not in practice. I loved how infinitely adjustable the spells were, but the implementation meant it was very difficult to actually make the full use of the system.

In my home game, I remapped all the sorcery spells to a particular set of runes, and instead of having skills in the spell, you had skills in the runes -- to cast a spell, you had to have mastery over the specific runes; the better your skill, the more you could tweak. Something like that was what I was hoping for when I heard about Runic Integration in the new MRQ, but it looks like they went for a far different approach.

I liked it, flexible but unworkable. Sad for P.Cs, great for npc's :twisted: :evil:

Although I did a house system that seemed to balance it out.

The problem seemed to be all about free INT. Too little, then way too much, same went for MP

 

[Archer]

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.

That is still just a version on to keep of overall damage.
Unfortunately I do not really see how to smoothly introduce that into MRQ.

And finally, unfortunatley it does not alliviate one of the problems; That having a large number of body parts (hit locations) ultimately becomes more important than having a high CON + SIZ (which determine HP/Hit location). More hit locations mean more places to divide taken damage amongst, making you tougher to kill.

For example: Creature with 16 Arms (just an example) and HP 5 in each arm, would be much harder to disable or critically injure than a creature with just 4 Arms and HP 10 in those arms.

It all depends on the spread of damage between available hit locations.

 

[Archer]

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>

Can you give us the description of those rules how to handle, to show us how we can design similar ones and implement in MRQ? It does not matter if the numbers are of, it is the principle that I am wondering about.

Just spreading damage over all hit locations works in some situation, for damage outside combat.

The problem as discussed in this thread is in combat, and the statistical chance to hit the same hit location enough times in a row to disable it, makes it a good thing to have as many hit locations as possible.
Number of hit locations become more important than the amount of HP you have in those Hit Locations.

And that is the nut that would be nice to crack.

 

[Archer]

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.

Yes, that are good rules. And they solve the problem in part.
But they still does not solve the whole problem.
On average we can use 1d8 for a damage roll (with perhaps +1d2 damage modifier), That would give us an average of 5 + 1.5, so a Total of 7 points. Assuming a character with 5 HP in his arm, and 4 AP from armour, we would need to strike him in the same place twice, before that hit location is useless, he looses actions, and might be rendered unconscious (depending on which hit location it was).

The heavier the armor a character wears, the more this problem will be apparant, since the character will take a lot of nicks and bruises in different hit locations, without being disabled. This prolongs combat quite a bit.

And if that armored creature has even more hit locations to divide the actual damage inflicted between (since hit location is rolled randomly), it will take an even longer time to down him.

The rules as they are written works fine against unarmored creatures with few hit locations, because a crit has the abilitiy to at least make them unconscious.

It becomes a whole different matter when we have 16 arms chaos octopus with 10AP of scales as protection.

 

[Enpeze]

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.

Yes, that are good rules. And they solve the problem in part.
But they still does not solve the whole problem.
On average we can use 1d8 for a damage roll (with perhaps +1d2 damage modifier), That would give us an average of 5 + 1.5, so a Total of 7 points. Assuming a character with 5 HP in his arm, and 4 AP from armour, we would need to strike him in the same place twice, before that hit location is useless, he looses actions, and might be rendered unconscious (depending on which hit location it was).

The heavier the armor a character wears, the more this problem will be apparant, since the character will take a lot of nicks and bruises in different hit locations, without being disabled. This prolongs combat quite a bit.

And if that armored creature has even more hit locations to divide the actual damage inflicted between (since hit location is rolled randomly), it will take an even longer time to down him.

The rules as they are written works fine against unarmored creatures with few hit locations, because a crit has the abilitiy to at least make them unconscious.

It becomes a whole different matter when we have 16 arms chaos octopus with 10AP of scales as protection.

Mongoose matt said such a creature would not have every single hitlocation counted.

 

[iamtim]

Yes, that are good rules. And they solve the problem in part.

Ok.

I still don't know that it is a problem; it could have been designed that way so combat isn't quite as deadly as it was in earlier versions of RQ. I dunno.

You evidently consider it way more of a problem than I do; I'll be interested to see what you come up with to counteract it should you run MRQ.

 

[andakitty]

Archer, I will give it some thought and post what I can with an eye to using the Fifth Cycle damage system to modify MRQ. I don't know how well it will fit because the stats are on an entirely different scale (but I think there is a conversion in one of the supplements) and the spells in that game do just hellish damage. They make Skybolt look weak. I'll try to post something later this weekend, but I think MRQ should work OK...the main difference seems to be more levels of saves in MRQ.

 

[andakitty]

OK. Fifth Cycle.

It uses 10 hit locations: 1 head, 3 torso, 2 arms, 4 legs. An average human has 5 hp in the head, 10 in each torso area, 7 in each leg area. Weapons do 1d4 to 1d12, some monsters a lot more. No damage bonuses. Armor is 1-4 pts., a successful defense with a shield adds 3 more. Monsters have 1-4 armor points, no more. Spells are...bad. A simple fireball from a mage casting it at full power does 16D8 damage area effect 5 meters diameter. This is divided amongst all 10 hit locations evenly. The game uses 5% critical, 20% special (of the skill % used for a successful attack). The special gets double normal dice. The critical works off a chart on which you roll and apply a result, varying from additional points of damage to bleeding out in x rounds to broken bones to instant death. Weapons are classified as piercing or crushing. So a critical hit to the arm by a broadsword would be something like '2d8 damage, will bleed to death in 3 rounds without intervention'. The penalties for wearing armor are harsh, so even the 1d8 broadsword frequently disables head or limb locations. There is an option for called shots, at -40%, interestingly enough.

The crux is that lost hp that bring a location to 0 in head or torso location produce unconsciousness, no save. Down to a negative as far as original hp kills, no save. Down to 0 in any limb location renders the limb useless, drop held items or fall if a leg location. If one limb area is reduced to a negative as far as original hp the victim loses consciousness, no save. And if any two limb areas are reduced to 0, victim loses consciousness, no save.

Falling damage is 3d12 for each full 3 meters fallen. This is applied evenly over all 10 locations, as a fireball or other area attack spell.

This is just being posted as an example of a hit loc. system without a hit point pool that does work, without being modified. I doubt many would want to replace MRQ's with this, but I suspect MRQ will work well enough as it is. It has more 'safety nets' than this, of course. The primary reasons this does work are probably the low armor values and the fact that there are no saves when hp fall below a certain level. About the longest single combat between fairly evenly matched foes with this I remember ran about a dozen rounds. Multiple limbed foes are about like humanoids in regards to combat endurance.

Anyway, there it is. It's fun, it's fast, it's hit locations with no hp pool.

 

[Archer]

Mongoose matt said such a creature would not have every single hitlocation counted.

Then we have a working, if not perfect solution.

 

[Archer]

Yes, that are good rules. And they solve the problem in part.

Ok.

I still don't know that it is a problem; it could have been designed that way so combat isn't quite as deadly as it was in earlier versions of RQ. I dunno.

You evidently consider it way more of a problem than I do; I'll be interested to see what you come up with to counteract it should you run MRQ.

I will run MRQ, no question there. Even before I saw anything of the system, and heard about the OGL I decided that the settings I was working on for d20, would be for MRQ instead. So I am dedicated to running with this system.

MRQ will be far easier to modify according to one's preferences than d20.

As what to use in order to solve what I consider a problem. I am trying to think of a solution that is easy to integrate in the game without adding extra statistics, but I see few alternatives that works as easy and perfect as the Total HPs did in the past. Mainly because to take into account the effect of damage suffered in two different hit locations, you need to somehow keep track of the total amount of damage a character has suffered.

So I guess the only option is to do what I do not really want, add another statistic; Wound threshold (some other name might be a good idea), when a character has taken damage to an equal amount of CON he/she/it must make a Resilience skill test in order to not fall unconscious. Every time he takes further damage beyond this (should he still be conscious), he must again make this test or fall unconscious.

But that is just a preliminary idea.

 

[Archer]

OK. Fifth Cycle.
(removed the long explanation to make this post easier to read)

Ok, while I see that the same problem exist in Fifth Cycle, it is to a lesser degree. Mainly because they have limited the game to 10 Hit Locations.
Criticals doing x2 damage makes it easier to disable an opponent with a lucky blow than in MRQ. And hit location HPs seem to be slightly lower than in MRQ.

With the addition of critical injuries for Hit locations being dropped into the negative, it comes close the modified EDD/DoD'91 I ran without Total HPs.

It seems also that armor protect less and weapons/spells do more damage in Fifth Cycle than in MRQ, which further reduced the "punching bag" syndrome.

Judging from your description, Fifth Cycle works pretty much like the modified EDD/DoD'91 which gave my the experience (15 years of GMing this) of using only Hit Location HPs on RPGs.
Except the scales of armor, hps and damage, and number of hit locations in Fifth Cycle have all been considered to limit the "punching bag" problem as much is possible.

Unfortunately, with the information I have now, MRQ looks much closer to my modified EDD/DoD'91 (in fact very close, except % instead of d20 vs skill value), than Fifth Cycle.

Had it been more in line with Fifth Cycle, it would have the problem, but to a lesser extent.

 

[andakitty]

Actually, good on you, because Fifth Cycle is hard to find. So usually someone who wants to play it has to wait until one pops up somewhere on the internet or half-price books or whatever. Sadly I don't think I will even play MRQ, much less run it. The more I look at the book the more I dislike some of the changes...the 'skill saves', less damage, weakened criticals, the combat chart, the halving rule (now that I look at it more closely). Some of the damages just seem wrong, like 2d8 longbow. I don't wish to houserule yet another game.

So, anyway, hopefully the line will do well. I will continue to support it, the upcoming books look very interesting. But anything I buy will be as reading material. MRQ looks like a fine game for those who don't mind certain changes, such as those listed above.

Hopefully the Fifth Cycle description will allay some fears about hit locations. Or not. When I look at what I typed about it last night it really doesn't look as playable as it in fact is. Multi legged beasts can be taken down in it fairly easily, anyway.

 

[Urox]

This is just being posted as an example of a hit loc. system without a hit point pool that does work, without being modified. I doubt many would want to replace MRQ's with this, but I suspect MRQ will work well enough as it is. It has more 'safety nets' than this, of course. The primary reasons this does work are probably the low armor values and the fact that there are no saves when hp fall below a certain level. About the longest single combat between fairly evenly matched foes with this I remember ran about a dozen rounds.

You may have misunderstood me -- my opinion is that systems like this are flawed, not unworkable.

As you said, damage reduction (AP) becomes problematic. From your description of the above, it also seems that combat results are shifted somewhat from skill to luck (and opinions vary on how large the role of luck should be).

I am trying to remember -- did Tri-Tac have total HP? All I can remember are all the little damage ticks and Hydrostatic Shock...