I have a headache.

Melkor

Mongoose
I sat down again last night and re-read the Combat section of MRQ - probably my 10th time to do so.

The combat example clearly indicates a two-roll system (the right hand page lists 'a succesful attack', then a different result on a second attack roll vs. the defenders parry or dodge) more than once.

My question is - based on the combat example, and not the Player's Guide PDF - what would happen if the first roll was a critical, and the second not....or vice versa....or if both attack rolls (according to how the example seems to illustrate combat worked) were criticals ?

I'm also unclear about the Criticals on Opposed Rolls thing. Criticals apply to normal skill rolls, but it was mentioned elsewhere (here on the forums) that critical results don't seem to apply to Opposed Rolls (for the purposes of Criticals not being listed as beating an opponent when both rolls succeed, but one is a critical - because the other has the 'highest roll' per the rules)....but in combat, they clearly apply to Opposed Combat Rolls.

If that's the case, why have seperate mechanics for criticals for 1) Normal Skill Rolls, 2) Opposed Rolls, 3) Combat Opposed Rolls ?

I may be the only one, but this frustrates me. I really want to use Runequest to run several campaigns I've been thinking up - Glorantha, Middle Earth, and Classic History - but everytime I read through the rulebook, I get annoyed by the amount of house rules I'm going to have to use to unify the system.

Does anyone else feel like the Player's Guide PDF was just a 'band-aid' to keep the rulebook from appearing to have several errors as opposed to a clear and concise final authority on the rules ?

I don't want to just 'give up' on Runequest and 'play something else'. I think there is a real gem in there somewhere - I'm just having trouble finding it right now.
 
There do seem to be rather more different types of opposed roll than are strictly necessery. This issue has been talked to death on this forum, but I'm sure this will continue to happen as new players come to the game and find the forum.

Since Mongoose are not averse to results tables, why they couldn't have used a single table that yields a generic result (crit/success/fumble/etc..) for the 'active' character, and then interpreted that result for the different situations (attack/parry, attack/dodge, non-combat) fails me. HeroQuest does this with great success.
 
FORGET THE TWO ROLL IDEA!!!!

Those possibilities of failed attacks are in those tables because Mongoose might make some new rules later.

Combat system works with one roll. Period.

Make your players do their decisions whether they parry/dodge or not before you throw the attack roll. Then even those crappy tables make some sense. And besides reality shows that if your opponent hits you with axe and it is considered to be a hit, no use for parrying, start think about your guests in funeral. "It is too late to hold if you already have shitted your pants"

Thank you.
 
LOL Hoitsu. Thanks for the humerous response. :lol:
I needed that laugh today.

My only issue with that is that the book clearly states that you declare reaction only after the trigger event, and trigger event for both dodge and parry is a succesful attack.

The Player's Guide PDF didn't mention anything about that. I understand it works (and sounds like it works rather well), but my frustration stems from the fact that Mongoose seems a bit discombobulated with regards to how they originally presented combat, modified combat with the Player's guide, yet still left some confusion at the end of the day.

Hoitsu said:
FORGET THE TWO ROLL IDEA!!!!

Those possibilities of failed attacks are in those tables because Mongoose might make some new rules later.

Combat system works with one roll. Period.

Make your players do their decisions whether they parry/dodge or not before you throw the attack roll. Then even those crappy tables make some sense. And besides reality shows that if your opponent hits you with axe and it is considered to be a hit, no use for parrying, start think about your guests in funeral. "It is too late to hold if you already have shitted your pants"

Thank you.
 
I havent played but two combats, still i changed almost everything a little bit. Nice ad ups in MRQ but they work best when combined with RQ2/RQ3 and common sense. Other rules seem nice but combat have been mostly screwed. Bought it anyway, thou
 
Hey, Melkor?

Perhaps I should do this over PM, 'cuz I'm not trying to start anything, but I *really* think you're overanalyzing all this. I understand you want to like the system, and I understand you want to see it work, but I found out that trying to puzzle out the puzzling parts of this system beforehand was kinda pointless.

Here's what I did: I told my players that it's a new system, and some of the rules are hotly debated. I told them that I was going to run it by the book (and Player's Guide) and after playing it for a session or two, start trying some alternate rules for the things that didn't make sense.

I did not like declaring a defense *after* a successful attack. In my head I pictured the attacker swinging and missing, and the defender standing there watching the weapon swing by. So after playing a session with combat as per the RAW and the Player's Guide, I changed it to where a defense is declared when the attack is declared. You know what happened? The combat charts worked, it seemed, like they were intended to work, and I enjoyed combat much more.

I did not like opposed skill tests; the whole "if both succeed the highest roll wins" made no sense to me in an otherwise roll-low system. So after playing a session I changed opposed skill rolls. The winner, now, is the person who had the greatest degree of success (i.e. rolled under their skill by the largest margin). And crits always trump a regular success; a dude who rolls an 02 on a 25% skill wins against a roll of 12 on a 95% even though the roll of 12 has a greater degree of success than the 02 because 02 on 25% is a crit.

I guess my bottom line is that I hear your frustration, and I think that if you keep reading and reading the rules you're just going to keep getting more and more frustrated.

I can tell you that in Gatecrasher 2371, my upcoming science fantasy adventure game using the RuneQuest rules, will do combat and opposed skills like I describe above; I don't think that changing the rules is as big a deal as you're making it out to be, especially considering that we've heard all that we're probably going to hear from Mongoose on it.

Please to be taken with great respect and an outstretched olive branch of friendship.
 
Tim - No offense taken. Thanks for the response.

After gaming 20+ years, I do tend to overanalyze RPGs now. Partially because I don't get near the opportunity to actually play that I used to, and partially because I know what I want in a system.

MRQ seems to do everything I want, but has these little issues that frustrate the hell out of me. When I read the rulebook and compare it to the Player's Guide PDF...I see a system with great potential that seems to have been hampered a bit by execution.

That's neither here nor there. I should get out and play more than sit back and analyze. I also have hope that some of these things will be clarified with the eratta Matt said was being worked on in the other thread.

Really...I am counting on that to help alleviate some of my frustration.

In the meantime - I do like what you (and Hoitsu) suggested regarding declaring reactions before an attack is resolved. I also like what you are doing with reactions. It just seems to make more sense.

Thanks again.
 
iamtim said:
I did not like declaring a defense *after* a successful attack. In my head I pictured the attacker swinging and missing, and the defender standing there watching the weapon swing by. So after playing a session with combat as per the RAW and the Player's Guide, I changed it to where a defense is declared when the attack is declared. You know what happened? The combat charts worked, it seemed, like they were intended to work, and I enjoyed combat much more.

I did not like opposed skill tests; the whole "if both succeed the highest roll wins" made no sense to me in an otherwise roll-low system. So after playing a session I changed opposed skill rolls. The winner, now, is the person who had the greatest degree of success (i.e. rolled under their skill by the largest margin). And crits always trump a regular success; a dude who rolls an 02 on a 25% skill wins against a roll of 12 on a 95% even though the roll of 12 has a greater degree of success than the 02 because 02 on 25% is a crit.

Huh. I do the exact same things.
 
State defence before...best opposed roll wins. Yup, me too. Seemed obvious. Could there be concensus in the wind? Someone at Mongoose want to come out from behind the setee...? It's safe now! Just add a quick errata using these fixes (or call them 'optional' rules if 'fixes' seems too much to bear). We love you for all this new setting stuff you're giving us....really we do (Haven't had time to fully play test my tweaks yet but they seem to be working. Available at the drop of an e-mail). All we have to do now is overthrow the d20 Empire of Evil!
 
iamtim said:
I did not like declaring a defense *after* a successful attack. In my head I pictured the attacker swinging and missing, and the defender standing there watching the weapon swing by. So after playing a session with combat as per the RAW and the Player's Guide, I changed it to where a defense is declared when the attack is declared. You know what happened? The combat charts worked, it seemed, like they were intended to work, and I enjoyed combat much more.

Tim, that's what I plan to do now, but one question - in your game, did you play that a failed parry/dodge turns a failed attack into a hit? See, I can't bring myself to play that way, but you say it all seemed to make sense.
 
gamesmeister said:
in your game, did you play that a failed parry/dodge turns a failed attack into a hit?

The jury is still out on that. That situation occured once in my last session; the characters were fighting, essentially, a black spawn of Tsathogghua and a failed spear throw together with a failed dodge was ruled to have been a hit.

*EVERY* time there's a fail/fail situation, though, seems a might much to become a hit. "He accidentally stepped into your swing" only works so many times.

So, yeah, for right now I'm playing it that way but I'm not convinced I'll *keep* playing it that way.
 
Why don't we just make a fail/fail situation work against both combantatans in some way. The way I'm looking at it, the attacker misses, but the defender either missed the attack, or blocked badly.

THis would be a good sitation for weapon damage, like in the old days. Maybe each weapon loses a hp as they hit wrong?

Or both combatant's are off balanced?
 
atgxtg said:
Or both combatant's are off balanced?

I know I usually loathe rules-talk, but damn, that's perfect. I'll try that when I play on Sunday, maybe tweaking the exact effects of being off balance to either a -25% on the next attack roll or a forced reroll of Initiative with a penalty.

That said, I'm really not the guy to ask about fixing the rules up for good. Not that anyone has asked me; I'm just ironing it out clearly that I'm not the guy for the gig.
 
atgxtg said:
Why don't we just make a fail/fail situation work against both combantatans in some way. The way I'm looking at it, the attacker misses, but the defender either missed the attack, or blocked badly.

THis would be a good sitation for weapon damage, like in the old days. Maybe each weapon loses a hp as they hit wrong?

Or both combatant's are off balanced?

Sounds good to me. In fencing for example, it happens to everyone. An attack goes one way that misses, the attempted parry misses as well with nothing done.

Clear cut and concise. I like it.
 
I just wish we all didn't have to make these tweaks to the system in order for it to work well.

At the end of the day, I think it still needs some work, and I hope that work is done by Mongoose when the produce eratta.
 
Melkor said:
I just wish we all didn't have to make these tweaks to the system in order for it to work well.

At the end of the day, I think it still needs some work, and I hope that work is done by Mongoose when the produce eratta.

Just to interject - I really want to like MRQ. It has an exciting lineup of stuff coming out for it, and it is based in the Chaosium system which I already like.

I just have a hard time these days making myself buy a book that I know I'm going to have to do extensive house-ruling on.

I was hoping for a "1.5" edition... but at this point even a really good errata that fixes the major issues would be enough to get me to jump onboard. So I'm with you, I guess is what I mean.
 
Greetings

Melkor said:
I just wish we all didn't have to make these tweaks to the system in order for it to work well.

At the end of the day, I think it still needs some work, and I hope that work is done by Mongoose when the produce eratta.

I agree. It also looks like the Companion will produce its share of discussion and suggested tweaks.

I think there is a usable system waiting to get out it just does not (yet) interlock as one might hope.

Regards
 
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