Impale Question

[Redcrow]

Wrong, it's when you pull out the weapon you make that damage. When the weapon is still in the body it will add a X% difficulty to the victims abilities.

I still think loz was right the first time he comment on this thred

You can houserule it that way if you wish, but that isn't RAW.

Combat Maneuvers

Impale (thrusting weapons only) - Impales the target
l Roll weapon damage twice, choose best score for attack, if attack penetrates armour and injures, the attacker can:
a) Leave weapon in target: they at -10% to skill per size of weapon, (small is -10%, medium -20%, large -30%, etc)
b) Pull weapon free: Brawn roll (costing 1CA), roll weapons normal damage per attempt (ignoring AP).

Emphasis mine.

 

[Deleriad]

Wrong, it's when you pull out the weapon you make that damage. When the weapon is still in the body it will add a X% difficulty to the victims abilities.

I still think loz was right the first time he comment on this thred

You can houserule it that way if you wish, but that isn't RAW.

Combat Maneuvers

Impale (thrusting weapons only) - Impales the target
l Roll weapon damage twice, choose best score for attack, if attack penetrates armour and injures, the attacker can:
a) Leave weapon in target: they at -10% to skill per size of weapon, (small is -10%, medium -20%, large -30%, etc)
b) Pull weapon free: Brawn roll (costing 1CA), roll weapons normal damage per attempt (ignoring AP).

Emphasis mine.

I seem to recall that the PDF you reference has a few mistakes and interpretations. What the book actually says is:

Successfully withdrawing an impaled weapon during melee costs a Combat Action and requires a successful Brawn roll. This causes further injury to the same location equal to the normal damage roll for that weapon, but without any damage modifier.

That only covers what happens on a *successful* withdrawal but not what happens on a failed withdrawal. Personally I would rule that failing to withdraw an impaled weapon does no significant damage otherwise you get munchkin style actions in order to keep on damaging the opponent every action. "I'll try to withdraw my spear using just my pinkie so I get -60% to my Brawn skill."

My personal rulings.
An Impaled weapon is considered to be pinned.

Attacker can try to withdraw an impaled weapon using a Brawn roll either at the same time as the attack (costing 1 CA) or as a regular CA on subsequent turns.

The victim of an impale can spend 1 CA try to remove the weapon using a Brawn roll on their regular turn. Failing doesn't do damage but succeeding does.

Everything else falls into "spot rulings." i.e. judge them on a case by case basis.

An attacker wants to try to keep hold of an impaled weapon. Make a Brawn roll.

Berserker is impaled by a long spear and wants to headbutt the holder. Take more damage as he pulls the spear through his body then headbutt.

Attacker holding spear wants to drive it further in. Will be Brawn roll probably. If victim is able he may be able to try and hold the shaft and oppose with a Brawn roll in order to prevent further pain.

That's my take on it.

 

[Redcrow]

Personally I would rule that failing to withdraw an impaled weapon does no significant damage otherwise you get munchkin style actions in order to keep on damaging the opponent every action. "I'll try to withdraw my spear using just my pinkie so I get -60% to my Brawn skill."

We'll have to agree to disagree on this, then. The way I see it is if you impale someone with a spear for example and then proceed to yank and twist the spear in order to pull it free, it would indeed do significant additional damage whether you are successful in withdrawing it or not.

If Pete or Loz have said somewhere that the .pdf I linked to is in error, I'm more than willing to take a look. Do you have a link, maybe?

As for the 'withdraw using just my pinkie', I would say the game is full of areas in which the GM must make a judgement call and this would be no different. Would you allow a character to throw a spear using only their pinkie just because the rules don't state anywhere that it can't be done?

 

[Dan True]

We'll have to agree to disagree on this, then. The way I see it is if you impale someone with a spear for example and then proceed to yank and twist the spear in order to pull it free, it would indeed do significant additional damage whether you are successful in withdrawing it or not.

Well, to me the brawn roll doesn't cover directly the effort of pulling the weapon out - but rather the effort of getting in a position to pull it out. Say, if it's an arrow - then the brawn roll is grabbing the arrow impaled in a twisting and defending enemy - if it's a spear you've just yanked in him, the brawn roll is to force yourself into a position where you can pull it out.

This way it makes sense that you don't do damage when failing... as, if you fail the brawn roll, then your hand has slipped from the spear, you couldn't get a grib on the arrow etc.

Because I think it's kinda dangerous creating a situation where it is positive to fail - as you deal damage and get to do it again the next turn.

- Dan

 

[Deleriad]

The CM sheet is generally good but it does have a small number of problems.

Blind Opponent is a bit garbled. It should read something like "Attacker makes Evade (or Shield) skill roll opposed by the defender's original parry roll. ..."

Change Range. This is entirely wrong. The target of the CM does not get a potential free hit nor do they get a chance to negate it. The Change Range happens automatically.

Impale: the statement that damage is done for each Brawn attempt regardless of success is not supported by the book's text. (In fact the book specifically refers to the result of a successful roll only.)

The impale issue came up in a game a while back because a player had stuck a spear in a big critter and having a low Brawn thought he could keep damaging it by trying (and failing) Brawn rolls to remove it. Generally, like Dan, I figure that failing a Brawn roll means that the character can't get enough leverage to remove the weapon.

 

[Redcrow]

Because I think it's kinda dangerous creating a situation where it is positive to fail - as you deal damage and get to do it again the next turn.

It definitely has its drawbacks as well, though. For example, you can't parry with a weapon that is stuck in your opponent and I would rule that you also cannot Evade while maintaining a hold on a weapon that is stuck in an opponent. This could potentially leave a character completely unable to defend themselves if their only weapon is stuck and they aren't willing to let go of it in order to Evade an incoming attack.

To be honest, the idea of NOT doing damage when attempting to withdraw an impaled weapon seems almost 'cartoony' to me. The armor has already been bypassed and the dangerous part of the weapon is already deep inside the body next to all that soft tissue, internal organs, and arteries.

I would probably grant a cumulative +10% modifier for each attempt after the first to indicate increasing the size of the wound channel by repeated yanking and twisting and an additional +20% for any weapon crafted with a blood groove that would help overcome the bodies natural suction.

Impale is a deadly maneuver, and it should be. But it does have its drawbacks.

 

[Dan True]

It definitely has its drawbacks as well, though. For example, you can't parry with a weapon that is stuck in your opponent and I would rule that you also cannot Evade while maintaining a hold on a weapon that is stuck in an opponent. This could potentially leave a character completely unable to defend themselves if their only weapon is stuck and they aren't willing to let go of it in order to Evade an incoming attack.

Of course, as it should be... If I'm stupid enough to jank my weapon too deep inside an enemy, without a backup weapon - then I deserve to get a scare.

To be honest, the idea of NOT doing damage when attempting to withdraw an impaled weapon seems almost 'cartoony' to me. The armor has already been bypassed and the dangerous part of the weapon is already deep inside the body next to all that soft tissue, internal organs, and arteries.

To me it's the other way around. It seems cartoony and rather stupid to me that you get an edge, the lower Brawn skill you have - especially since Brawn in't used much in other combat situations. Also, remember that the damage is dealt to the same location - i.e. the one who's already damaged - in will therefore likely be able to grant a serious wound. Do you really want a villain or a hero risk going down because someone failed to yank out a spear? Doesn't sound very heroic, and it doesn't fit the visually-heroic style of other RuneQuest rules, and which the combat manouvers try to uphold.

That you only deal damage on a succesful Brawn, makes perfect sense to me, as a failed Brawn in my eyes indicates that he doesn't get to yank it free. His hold on the weapon weren't good enough, he didn't manage to grab the weapon etc... The brawn roll indicates the attacker trying to get in a good position and establish a good hold on the shaft. Maybe you even get a good grib but simply fail to apply enough force for the spear to move an inch... Which will of course hurt and damage some arteries and muscles, but not enough to deal weapon damage ignoring armour. I.e you can't (in my eyes at least) say that failing to properly yank a spear out of a man (because if you fail, you clearly didn't apply enough force to move it much) deals as much and properly more damage (due to ignoring armour points) as when you yank it inside him.

So, in short: if the brawn roll fails, the attacker didn't manage to apply enough force to do anything other than pain on the opponent, or he didn't get a good grib. In all fairness it perhaps should have been an opposed Brawn, but let's save on the dice rolls where we can.

Also consider this scenario:

An armoured warrior, say in full chainmail, is charging towards an archer. On the way there the archer hits the warrior with a weapon and chooses impale. When they are fighting, the best strategy for the archer is to continually grab the arrow he impaled and fail to yank it free... He might even only need to do this once before the warrior suffers a serious wound because of the ignore armour thing.

This sounds incredibly silly to me, and not very heroic... A potentially heroic fight between an armoured warrior and another relying on speed and flexibility - ended because the archer deals damage with each failed attempt and has a sucky brawn.

But of course, you can rule whatever you wish

- Dan

 

[HalfOrc HalfBiscuit]

I'm with Dan on this.

That said, I would probably allow a successful Brawn roll to twist the impaled weapon (and therefore cause extra damage) without removing it.

 

[Deleriad]

I'm with Dan on this.

That said, I would probably allow a successful Brawn roll to twist the impaled weapon (and therefore cause extra damage) without removing it.

That's a really neat idea. Actually what I would be tempted to say is that on a successful Brawn roll on subsequent turns you can either

* twist it or drive it further in and do damage equal to damage modifier;
OR
* draw it out doing weapon damage (but without damage modifier added).

Mind you it all starts to add up to a small novel if you're not careful...

 

[Khamulcalle]

yes but the first question still was can it be done right after it happend? I think all the things Dan said is really good and I like it.

But I see it like this. My adventures gets in trouble and one of em gets impaled, that adventures thought will be if I am not quick enough now I will die...

...so he reacts (before he will faint or worse...) he swings his great axe and chop off the highway rouge's head...

...with this the fight is over, the adventure lays down and cries out in agony (and fear)... this draws the attention of the Chalana Arroy adventure who now comes rushing to her friends aid...

...with magic and good skills (and maybe a HP or two) she manage to remove the spear without provoking any further internal damage.

Had the rouge made the Brawn roll and yanked and twisted the spear the adventure would prolly been dead.

...had the rouge parry the great axe swing, then he is totally okay with me to use his next CA to do all that nasty stuff to the poor adventure (of course will this work the same way for the adventures if they gets an Impale CM).

To me this makes most sense, or its just a to good CM, and why would you NOT use this CM all the time? and if it's treated like most of you think it should be a Crit-only CM, well thats my oppionion.

/K

 

[Deleriad]

yes but the first question still was can it be done right after it happend? /K

The rules, as posted by Loz, are "yes." Of course you don't have to play by that if you don't want to. Impale is really, really nasty though still not as nasty as previous editions of RQ. It does have some risks though.

E.g. Both people have 3 CAs. Bad guy parries good guy's attack. 2 CAs left each. Bad guy impales! Cackles evilly. One CA left, immediately spends it on a Brawn roll. Brawn roll fails and no CAs left.

Bad ass good guy looks at the spear in his guts, looks at the weaponless, actionless bad guy. Smacks him in the head with his axe.

 

[Khamulcalle]

true...true...!

 

[Morgan d'Barganfore]

Yep, that could be nasty.
But going back to your suggestion that the impaler's brawn roll could be on a subsequent turn (and not a "reflexive" CA as part of the same attack), I'd suggest making the brawn roll opposed if the impalee chooses to use a CA.

 

[Deleriad]

Yep, that could be nasty.
But going back to your suggestion that the impaler's brawn roll could be on a subsequent turn (and not a "reflexive" CA as part of the same attack), I'd suggest making the brawn roll opposed if the impalee chooses to use a CA.

Exactly. The way I see it is that any time you want to do something but someone could try and stop you then it's opposed roll time.

So. Someone's stuck a spear in your rib-cage. They try and yank it out but it's caught on a bone. Your next action, you grab the shaft. Their next action they try to yank but you hold on. Opposed Brawn rolls there you go. The beauty of RQ/BRP has always been that there's only a small number of mechanics but they can usually be applied to all sorts of situations.

 

[Redcrow]

Also consider this scenario:

An armoured warrior, say in full chainmail, is charging towards an archer. On the way there the archer hits the warrior with a weapon and chooses impale. When they are fighting, the best strategy for the archer is to continually grab the arrow he impaled and fail to yank it free... He might even only need to do this once before the warrior suffers a serious wound because of the ignore armour thing.

This sounds incredibly silly to me, and not very heroic... A potentially heroic fight between an armoured warrior and another relying on speed and flexibility - ended because the archer deals damage with each failed attempt and has a sucky brawn.

That would indeed be an excellent strategy for the Archer and I would certainly allow them the attempt at trying to grab hold of the arrow. Afterall, the arrow has already bypassed the warriors armour as where any other weapon the Archer may have to hand has not, yet. Worst case scenario, the Archer succeeds in pulling the arrow out and so only does extra damage for a single CA. Not heroic? Sure, maybe if the armoured warrior just stands there like a stump and lets the Archer do whatever he wants. Or maybe it would be a good idea for the armoured warrior to break off the arrow so the archer can't do just that. That seems a little more like the heroic thing to do to me.

I would say it would be VERY difficult to NOT do additional damage with something that has already impaled someone. The only time I would say no additional damage is done is if the Brawn test were fumbled or something.

You may not consider that situation heroic, and thats fine. But I would certainly say it is realistic and thats really all this boils down to. If you prefer things more cinematic, then additional damage is only achieved on a successful Brawn test. But if you like things more realistic, then damage is done even on a failed test.

I have no problem with that. I just prefer things more realistic, so I'll stick with additional damage done even on a failed attempt.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

E.g. Both people have 3 CAs. Bad guy parries good guy's attack. 2 CAs left each. Bad guy impales! Cackles evilly. One CA left, immediately spends it on a Brawn roll. Brawn roll fails and no CAs left.

Bad ass good guy looks at the spear in his guts, looks at the weaponless, actionless bad guy. Smacks him in the head with his axe.

It's mostly moot.

a) Bad guy impales! Cackles evilly. One CA left, immediately spends it on a Brawn roll. Brawn Roll succeeds. He has his weapon to hand but no CA's left to parry the Bad Ass Good Guy

b) as above

c) Bad guy impales! Cackles evilly. One CA left, can only parry if equiped with a shield or second weapon. (And I'd rule, given the definition of Evade, that he'd have to release the impaling weapon to evade)

 

[duncan_disorderly]

That would indeed be an excellent strategy for the Archer and I would certainly allow them the attempt at trying to grab hold of the arrow.

Yes, but I imagine it would be quite difficult to grab hold of an arrow sticking out of an armed and still active opponenet who didn't want you to do so.
.

I would say it would be VERY difficult to NOT do additional damage with something that has already impaled someone. The only time I would say no additional damage is done is if the Brawn test were fumbled or something.

I quite agree. In fact I would think that you may wish to keep the impaling weapon in situ and inflict pain/damage by twisting/wiggling it rather than pull it free. The only downside being that you can't use it to parry, and you can't really evade if you are keeping hold of a weapon.

 

[Deleriad]

I think there's a broader point here as well. The difference between realism and literalism.

In RQ/BRP if you fail a roll the dice are silent on why, how and so on. If you fail an attack roll maybe you swung and missed. Or maybe you couldn't get into position to attack. Maybe the blow glanced off some armour or a parrying weapon or hit but so poorly that no significant damage was done. Maybe you were about to attack when you realised that you would have left yourself open so aborted the attack at the last minute. The system doesn't tell you why you failed, only that you didn't succeed.

However it is easy to be literal. "I swung and missed."

With the impale example, causing damage when you fail a Brawn roll to remove the damage is not realistic, it is literal. It is assuming that the reason you failed was that it got stuck on a bone or in the guts therefore did some damage. That assumes that there is only one way to fail and one consequence. There may be many reasons you failed. Perhaps your grip slipped on the blood. Perhaps the opponent grabbed the shaft. Perhaps you lost your footing. Perhaps it is lodged behind a rib or in a thigh bone so the attempt causes pain but no significant extra damage. And so on. There are probably a lot more reasons for failure that don't cause damage than do cause damage.

Obviously trying to capture all the possibilities in a set of simple rules isn't an option. The rulebook, inadvertently, doesn't directly address what happens on a failure.

Personally, having read this thread, my rule would be:
If the Impaler fails the Brawn roll to withdraw the weapon no damage is done and he loses his grip on the weapon.

Writing it that way gives an hard-coded 'explanation' for why no damage was done. For someone new to the ruleset it answers the "why" question. On a gamist front it gives a balance of risks to Impale that will make players think twice.

 

[Dan True]

That would indeed be an excellent strategy for the Archer and I would certainly allow them the attempt at trying to grab hold of the arrow. Afterall, the arrow has already bypassed the warriors armour as where any other weapon the Archer may have to hand has not, yet. Worst case scenario, the Archer succeeds in pulling the arrow out and so only does extra damage for a single CA. Not heroic? Sure, maybe if the armoured warrior just stands there like a stump and lets the Archer do whatever he wants. Or maybe it would be a good idea for the armoured warrior to break off the arrow so the archer can't do just that. That seems a little more like the heroic thing to do to me.

Of course the archer should be given the chance to pull it out if he wants. The point is that the archer is given a higher chance of killing the warrior, by having a low brawn...
Also, if an arrow has already penetrated and dealt, say, 3 damage. Then failing to pull it out should probably not deal 8... That should only be dealt when he succeeds the roll.

I would say it would be VERY difficult to NOT do additional damage with something that has already impaled someone. The only time I would say no additional damage is done is if the Brawn test were fumbled or something.

If you did succed on applying force, yes - but that already assumes some degree of success. But to my perception, the failed brawn roll can mean a lot more than "you twist and turn the spear, but it won't come out".. it can also mean "your hands slip in the blood". But Deleriad expressed it much better than me:

With the impale example, causing damage when you fail a Brawn roll to remove the damage is not realistic, it is literal. It is assuming that the reason you failed was that it got stuck on a bone or in the guts therefore did some damage. That assumes that there is only one way to fail and one consequence. There may be many reasons you failed. Perhaps your grip slipped on the blood. Perhaps the opponent grabbed the shaft. Perhaps you lost your footing. Perhaps it is lodged behind a rib or in a thigh bone so the attempt causes pain but no significant extra damage. And so on. There are probably a lot more reasons for failure that don't cause damage than do cause damage.

I agree completely.

- Dan

 

[Khamulcalle]

c) Bad guy impales! Cackles evilly. One CA left, can only parry if equiped with a shield or second weapon. (And I'd rule, given the definition of Evade, that he'd have to release the impaling weapon to evade)

This is really in my liking

@-> Deleriad: A really good post (again! )

/K