High Resilience Skill

[Rurik]

So Sin City was on cable again last night and I started watching it for the umpteenth time.

When it got to The Hard Goodbye and Marv started being, well, Marv, all I could think of was MRQ and the resilience skill. Light Saber duels my bum, this is surely the true inspiration for the combat system.

What do you say Marv's resilience is? I figure 150 at least, maybe closer to 200 (but NOT 201 or more).

And if you don't know what I'm talking about see the damn comic for chrissakes!(ok, technically movie, but really: comic). What is wrong with you?

 

[Utgardloki]

I have not seen Sin City or read the comic book. Give me a break! I just finished reading The Greatest Story Ever Sold and I am in the middle of The Road To Reality and about to start reading Why We Hate and have a copy of Long Walk To Freedom sitting in my car with the bookmark halfway through it, waiting for me to finish reading that book! If you want me to watch Sin City, you'll have to buy me a copy and send it to me (or else tell my mother to buy it for me for Christmas) because I have just banned myself from the book and DVD stores. :shock:

Still, I can guess what you are talking about. How would this house rule play out:

* For every even that causes you to make a resilience roll, you take a penalty equal to the square of such events. For example, after getting shot once in the torso for major damage, you make a Resilience roll at -1%. The second time you make a Resilience roll at -4%. The third time it is -9%, then -16%, then -25%.

Once you start getting past -100% down to -121%, -144%, 169%, ..., ol' Marv guy has just about had it.

OTOH, I already have a house rule assessing a penalty for how many hit points you've lost (below zero). Adding both these rules has the effect that once you've been shot a couple of times, all it takes is a firm blow to the stomache to do you in. (Well, not Marv, since that blow to the stomache is still only a -9%, but I guess after something else has brought you down to this state, even a minor wound can push you over the edge.)

But what happens if you hit Marv with a Mark V Blaster (5D6 damage to whatever hit location it hits :twisted: )

 

[Rurik]

But what happens if you hit Marv with a Mark V Blaster (5D6 damage to whatever hit location it hits :twisted: )

He kills you. If you have a spiffy long coat he takes it.

 

[Trifletraxor]

But what happens if you hit Marv with a Mark V Blaster (5D6 damage to whatever hit location it hits :twisted: )

He kills you. If you have a spiffy long coat he takes it.

Hehehehe!

 

[Utgardloki]

Thinking about applying Runequest to science fiction settings, I have to wonder.

The point of a Mark V Blaster (or a Mark VII Rifle) is that that thing does a HECK of a lot more damage than a crossbow. A Mark V Blaster blow to the chest, if it does class to maximum damage, should mean no more chest. I'm not talking about breaking Marv's heart; I'm talking about no more heart. :twisted:

Perhaps if you've taken a major wound and the damage below zero is greater than your SIZE score, that should mean that location is history. If you don't want to die, don't let anybody blast you in the chest with a Mark V Blaster.

(That's what the Hero Points are for. Marv spends a Hero Point, it becomes a grazing wound, and THEN he kills you and takes your coat.)

 

[Rurik]

That is quite a reading list. And you have time for gaming?

Either way, Sin City may not be as intellectually stimulating as you reading but it is a rip roaring good time. It is like pulp comic noir violence on super crack.

They have been showing the heck out of it on the movie channels where I am. Starz/Encore had it, I think HBO has it now.

And the DVD is cheaper than a RQ book. :wink:

 

[Utgardloki]

Well, right now my priority is to try to get my act together for once in my life. But, part of my life is playing RPGs and watching DVDs. If anybody gives me a copy of Sin City, I'll certainly be watching it. It's just budget that is getting in the way of getting my own copy.

Unlike DVDs, it looks like I'll need at least 3 or 4 books to run a Runequest game set in Glorantha. That might impinge on my DVD budget.

On the other hand, watching DVDs can be a part of preparing RPGs. I got quite a few, myself.

I do want to run an actual Battlestar Galactica campaign, but I plan to use D6 for that.

 

[Rurik]

I also meant to mention the square results you mentioned. I think the idea has potential. One issue is that you have to keep track of individual wounds, which adds book keeping. Maybe square the number of points negative a location is? so -5 in a location is -25 to resilience? Though it doesn't scale well to big creatures, like Dragons and such.

I am playing around with a table that that gives modifiers to resilience based on wound level and location, so that a major wound to the head is worse than a major wound to a limb for example. It doesn't scale to super high skills, but it makes a 120 or so resilience vulnerable to major wounds, specifically to vital locations. I'll post it when I am done tweaking.

 

[Utgardloki]

The intent of the Square rule was to keep track of the number of events that forced this resilience check.

So if a guy gets hit with a brick for 12 points of damage to his head, and this is "Major Damage" that requires a Resilience roll, he might take -70% for being 7 points below 0 in his head, and a -1% penalty for this being the first event.

Then in the next round when he is punched in the face for 1 point, he takes a -80% penalty for being 8 points below 0, and a -4% penalty because this is the second event. If the punch in the face had come first, it wouldn't have been a problem, but since his head is now at -8 points, it is a problem.

Of course, size matters, too. I drew up a table rating penalties for amount of hit points lost (below 0) and amount of hit points originally in that area.

I think this might work, although Mr Dragon, who is taking less penalties for losing hit points than Marv is, might complain more.

Problem with my system is that it is very difficult to survive getting shot in one location multiple times, because the wound penalties quickly add up unless you are superhumanly tough. So who really cares if this is the third time you've been shot, when you are already taking a -110% penalty?

On the other hand, assessing an additional -9% does have the effect to say "You are really getting hurt here." Plus, it keeps tough guys in line. Sorry, Marv.

OTOH, if you want to use my squaring rule, but not my hit point penalty rule, then it makes Marv more Marv-like, because shrugging off a few lethal blows isn't a big deal, but after five or six of them, things are beginning to look bad for our hero (or villian).

 

[Hoitsu]

About the high resilience and persistence. I was thinking to put a max value for those, depending on your attributes.

For example,

Resilience max value would be (CON+POW/2)x4. So Joe-Average would have max value 80% with CON 14 and POW 12. Resilience would still be a skill raised through experience or even training. As long as your attributes are those presented here, your resilience cannot raise over 80%. If you raise your CON by 1 point, your resilience max would raise 4 points. CON is definitely right stat for this but why POW? Because shrugging of damage is based for your personal strenght of will too. Getting Divine magic, will lower your skill cap, because you have to channel your "mental powers" elsewhere.

SIZ is not an issue here, i have seen really, really, big guys punched to the street with one punch, it is more about muscle and your bodily health, which CON represents.

With Persistence, the cap could be POWx5, because it is all about that strenght of will i mentioned.

In addition, you get penalties from wounds, -10% (or-5%) from every serious wound and -20% (or -10%) from every major wound. These penalties naturally stack. When you get first serious or major wound, the first checks you make immediately after that wound comes without penalties. After that, if you still hold on, you get that penalty from every wound to your next dice rolls. This also applies to persistence check naturally, hard to avoid getting mind-controlled if your thoughts are with your guts that are lying in the street.

For clarification,

Joe-Average with resilience 60% (the max value is not needed in this example) gets a serious wound to he´s abdomen, he rolls dice to stay concious, Joe rolls 54 and he is still lingering. Next round he have to repeat the roll and this time he gets the penalty (immediate shock is gone and pain creeps through he´s spine, that why the penalty) lets say -10%. He have to roll 50 or less now and Joe rolls 34!! "I am still standing" he shouts.

Joe sadly cant act, because of the lost CA´s and the opponent strikes a aimed blow to Joe´s head. Joe gets a major wound from hammer to the head and have to roll two times, first against death, then against unconciousness. to this roll, he gets the previous -10% from the serious wound. he rolls 23 and 45 and unbelievable, he is alive and concious (ofcourse he is in the ground and cant do anything. The opponent leaves Joe to die.

Next round Joe have to repeat he´s rolls against death and unconsiousness (because of the penalties, he roll just once for both, not separately for each wound) this time the penalty is -30% because of those two wounds and he have to roll 30 or less. Too bad for joe, he stays alive because he rolled 23 against death, but he rolls 45 for latter and falls unconcious and bleeds to death within 15 minutes...

I planned to use system like this, if you like, you could add the damage in each locations as penalty as well or not, as you like.

What do you think about solution like this?

 

[Utgardloki]

There are so many solutions, it's hard to keep track of them all, so I'll just address the issue of Size.

I agree that with human opponents, Size does not make a huge difference for resilience checks. A Size 17 human is going to be hurt just about as badly by a baseball bat that makes a solid conneciton with his arm, as a Size 13 human.

Where Size does make a difference, is with creatures considerably larger than humans. You hit an elephant with a .22, and the elephant will get mad, while a human might just fall down and die. Sure, the elephant will have more hit points, but even when those are gone, a blow that would send Marv reeling could just be shrugged off by an elephant because the energy dissapated does not mean quite so much to him.

One solution is to work in Size according to 1/10 the creatures Size score (round to the nearest integer). This way, small creatures are easier to smash than humans, small humans are easier to smash than large humans, and large humans are easier to smash than elephants. And elephants are easier to smash than giant elephants.

My own system does this by working in original hit points to determine the penalty to Resilience checks when hit points are below zero. Thus, a 2 point blow to a guy who originally only had 5 hit points in that location is a much greater deal than a 2 point blow to a guy who has 25 hit points in that location. For humans, this doesn't make a lot of difference, but elephants like this system.

Hoitsu's system looks like it would work out well in a more realistic game -- the sort of game where I think Marv would not have survived his entire movie. I don't think I'd use it for Conan or for Iron Kingdoms. But it would be great in Ravenloft or in Rokugan.

Your mileage will vary.