. . . is now up in the RuneQuest section of the web site!
Lankhmar Preview
- Thread starter MongooseMatt
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Deleriad
Mongoose
Neat. Looks interesting. So I am going to complain because that's what being a gamer is all about 8)
Seriously, there's an instant problem from reading Fafhrd's stats. One is that the AP/HP for his bastard sword isn't given. This means that if for some daft reason the PCs want to fight him I have to hunt out the rulebook and find it myself in case Fafhrd has a mad desire to parry. It's not the end of the world but you expect better.
Relatedly, the imbalance between parry, shield and dodge is all too clear. Fahrd's dodge is low so he's going to be parrying a lot. That means that when facing a pretty commonly outfitted PC (d8+d4 damage) is going to be doing an average of 3 points of damage after the parry for each attack. Fafhrd's not going to last long.
I would hazard a guess that if you face Fafhrd against an opponent who is 100% sword and shield and wearing the same armour that, assuming the opponent is DEX 13 or better so they have 3 CAs, the opponent will win even though his skills are worse, purely because he has a shield. The shield will be blocking more damage than Fafhrd's parries. I guess Fafhrd's will have to keep precise attacking to disarm the shield (assuming that a shield counts as a "held weapon") before he can do anything.
Assuming 2 combat rounds, 3 attacks each, all attacks succeeding normally, all reactions succeeding normally.
Fafhrd does 6 * 9 (-8 APs of shield) = 6 lots of 1 damage.
Opponent does 6*8 damage (-4 APs sword) = 6*3 damage.
Within 10 seconds Fafhrd is at risk of being crippled and will have taken 3 times the damage that his opponent has. Within 15 seconds, he will have been hit 9 times and have taken somewhere in the region of 27 damage. Goodness knows how he lived that long.*
Finally, does Fafhrd really not have any legendary abilities at the time of his life when he is a "legend of lhankmar" or are they on the next page?
*I realise that I am working on a dumb Fafhrd basis. Smart Fafhrd abuses the rules. First thing he does is precise attack to disarm the shield until he succeeds at that. Opponent won't dare try to pick up the shield or he faces a free attack. Opponent now has to parry with useless (4 AP sword). At that point, Fafhrd just precise attacks the right arm each time so that he has to drop a sword eventually. Once the opponent has no weapons he precise attacks the head. In fact, in MRQ, if you ever face a skilled opponent with a shield you pretty much have to get rid of the shield or die.
Seriously, there's an instant problem from reading Fafhrd's stats. One is that the AP/HP for his bastard sword isn't given. This means that if for some daft reason the PCs want to fight him I have to hunt out the rulebook and find it myself in case Fafhrd has a mad desire to parry. It's not the end of the world but you expect better.
Relatedly, the imbalance between parry, shield and dodge is all too clear. Fahrd's dodge is low so he's going to be parrying a lot. That means that when facing a pretty commonly outfitted PC (d8+d4 damage) is going to be doing an average of 3 points of damage after the parry for each attack. Fafhrd's not going to last long.
I would hazard a guess that if you face Fafhrd against an opponent who is 100% sword and shield and wearing the same armour that, assuming the opponent is DEX 13 or better so they have 3 CAs, the opponent will win even though his skills are worse, purely because he has a shield. The shield will be blocking more damage than Fafhrd's parries. I guess Fafhrd's will have to keep precise attacking to disarm the shield (assuming that a shield counts as a "held weapon") before he can do anything.
Assuming 2 combat rounds, 3 attacks each, all attacks succeeding normally, all reactions succeeding normally.
Fafhrd does 6 * 9 (-8 APs of shield) = 6 lots of 1 damage.
Opponent does 6*8 damage (-4 APs sword) = 6*3 damage.
Within 10 seconds Fafhrd is at risk of being crippled and will have taken 3 times the damage that his opponent has. Within 15 seconds, he will have been hit 9 times and have taken somewhere in the region of 27 damage. Goodness knows how he lived that long.*
Finally, does Fafhrd really not have any legendary abilities at the time of his life when he is a "legend of lhankmar" or are they on the next page?
*I realise that I am working on a dumb Fafhrd basis. Smart Fafhrd abuses the rules. First thing he does is precise attack to disarm the shield until he succeeds at that. Opponent won't dare try to pick up the shield or he faces a free attack. Opponent now has to parry with useless (4 AP sword). At that point, Fafhrd just precise attacks the right arm each time so that he has to drop a sword eventually. Once the opponent has no weapons he precise attacks the head. In fact, in MRQ, if you ever face a skilled opponent with a shield you pretty much have to get rid of the shield or die.
Wow. I would not allow disarming shields as they are typically secured with a strap as well. If you interpret the rules as allowing disarming shields than all combats would pretty much start with trying to disarm your opponents shield just as you described.
Which is silly.
Shields do rock in MRQ - there is no way around that. The problem Fafhrd has is that the system gives very little bonus for wielding a 1H weapon with 2 hands (+1 damage for his bastard sword) compared to wielding a big 2h weapon (massive damage) or using a shield (they rock). Choosing to use a single 1 handed weapon as your preferred fighting style is not rewarded by the system.
But then we are bound by the narrative of the story.
A higher dodge or resilience would increase his survivability - a GM can easily customize him to the power level of their game. In some games skills around 80 are going to be common, in others rare. Heroic npc's really need to be statted relative to the power level of the game in question.
Which is silly.
Shields do rock in MRQ - there is no way around that. The problem Fafhrd has is that the system gives very little bonus for wielding a 1H weapon with 2 hands (+1 damage for his bastard sword) compared to wielding a big 2h weapon (massive damage) or using a shield (they rock). Choosing to use a single 1 handed weapon as your preferred fighting style is not rewarded by the system.
But then we are bound by the narrative of the story.
A higher dodge or resilience would increase his survivability - a GM can easily customize him to the power level of their game. In some games skills around 80 are going to be common, in others rare. Heroic npc's really need to be statted relative to the power level of the game in question.
To be fair, Fafhrd and the mouser are pretty clever swordslingers, and you'd expect them to use precise attacks and tricksy manoeuvres to disable, neutralise and then skewer their opponents. The books are full of swashbuckling sword work of this kind. Perhaps some tactical notes on likely combat tactics for the pair would help.
Dead Blue Clown
Mongoose
Fafhrd parries much, much more than he dodges in the Swords tales, for obvious reasons. I took note of that.
Note also that while Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are indeed badasses, they don't win all of their fights and they don't even stick around to finish all of them. It's eminently possible to beat them, but they cheat, deceive, run away, and so on.
A 'legendary' character in Lankhmar is not going to handle the same as one in Glorantha. Fafhrd and the Mouser choose their fights very carefully because at the end of the day, they're just two guys with some smarts and a lot of luck, who can handle a blade better than most. That's what I wanted the stats to reflect.
I ran through several fights with both of them when I was doing their stats, and the results always aligned with what I was aiming for. I have to say, overall for someone who knows the source material - and that'll be 99% of the people picking this up - what's there is definitely good enough.
Could I have done a passage on how they fight? Sure, but A) it's not unfair to assume a reader already knows that given the license we're dealing with, and B) words were precious on that project. A page about how Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser fight is a page that no longer gives information or ideas about what the readers' characters should be doing.
Note also that while Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are indeed badasses, they don't win all of their fights and they don't even stick around to finish all of them. It's eminently possible to beat them, but they cheat, deceive, run away, and so on.
A 'legendary' character in Lankhmar is not going to handle the same as one in Glorantha. Fafhrd and the Mouser choose their fights very carefully because at the end of the day, they're just two guys with some smarts and a lot of luck, who can handle a blade better than most. That's what I wanted the stats to reflect.
I ran through several fights with both of them when I was doing their stats, and the results always aligned with what I was aiming for. I have to say, overall for someone who knows the source material - and that'll be 99% of the people picking this up - what's there is definitely good enough.
Could I have done a passage on how they fight? Sure, but A) it's not unfair to assume a reader already knows that given the license we're dealing with, and B) words were precious on that project. A page about how Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser fight is a page that no longer gives information or ideas about what the readers' characters should be doing.
Deleriad
Mongoose
Dead Blue Clown said:
Granted. Though except in unusual cases fantasy depictions of swordplay rarely differentiate between parrying and dodging a blow in the strict way that RQ3 and MRQ do. Ironically, I've always thought that the books were a good vindication of RQ-style combat because they stress the overwhelming power of numbers and the difficulty of surviving.
To be granted, I don't like the Legendary Abilities as presented in MRQ so I am happy not to see them here. The problem I'm flagging is not the stats, per se, but the imbalance in the game system (at least in my eyes) between parry, dodge and shield. Fafhred's fighting technique is probably the least survivable one in terms of RQ rules. Light armor, no dodge and a 1-h weapon used one or two handed. Basically, Fafhred is fighting with one hand tied behind his back.
Granted, I've yet to play MRQ enough to be confident in finding the system unbalanced. I have played a LOT of RQ2, RQ3 and other BRP systems so I'm fairly sure of my early impressions. My working assumption is that it takes about the same number of improvement points and training to get to sword and shield 100% as 2H Weapon 120%.* However it seems to me that weapon and shield is vastly better than single weapon in MRQ.
When you took Fafhred and the Mouser up against some experienced players with solid characters how did it work out?
*Once at a hundred% then Weapon+Shield specialises in just weapon skill so that the user should stay roughly 20 points behind the single weapon user.
Dead Blue Clown said:
Stop threadjacking. This isn't about Lankhmar or Fafhrd - it is about the combat system.
Oh wait, never mind.
I think Deleriads' point is that parrying is not likely to stop enough damage to prevent him from being nicked to pieces in the RAW.
Since this is ostensibly a thread about the Lankmar preview, I will say it looks like good stuff.
(Not that I've read the books though).
Deleriad said:
I think you are overestimating Dodge. A successful dodge still takes minimum weapon damage plus rolled damage bonus - so in your example with a d8+d4 attack Fafhrd would be taking 2-5 points (avg. 3.5) on a successful dodge. Ironically, the dodge skill works best when wearing halfway decent armor to soak up that residual damage.
You are right in that a single weapon style has the big advantage of only needing one improvement roll, as compared to 2 for weapon and shield, but I have run a number of combats to test out the rules and various houserules, and boy do shields rock.
Deleriad
Mongoose
Well, it is about realising the books within the combat system. The books were often an inspiration for me when I was GMing combat in RQ3 et al and I'll definitely be getting them when Mongoose publish.Rurik said:
I could care less about whether Fafhred is 160% or 200% or whether he's SIZ 18 or SIZ 17. The problem for me is when the game system seems to go against the grain of the books. What Fafhrd's stats suddenly crystallised to me is a realisation about the goodness of shields. Depending on whether or not you rule that you can use precise attacks to disarm a shield, it looks to me that someone who is 100% sword and shield with 3 points of armour (i.e. the captain of a mercenary band) has a 50/50 chance of bringing down Fafhrd if both are allowed to be equally sneaky.
Its been far too long since sourcey slave girls have graced the pages of role playing products. Thats what a swashbuckling games needs, and it will be good to be reminded on every page :wink:
On the Fafhrd getting cut up thing though, I'm sure that he would have a quality weapon rather than the "mass produced" stuff which could mean that his sword *could* have upto 3 more APs and be in no way magical.
On the Fafhrd getting cut up thing though, I'm sure that he would have a quality weapon rather than the "mass produced" stuff which could mean that his sword *could* have upto 3 more APs and be in no way magical.
GbajiTheDeceiver
Mongoose
It's appropriate for Lankhmar, so no problems there.Itto said:
Deleriad said:
You take me way to seriously. The threadjacking quote was directed at DBC in a kidding fashion. He was butting in on our discussion of the combat system.
What business does he have chiming in about the Lankhmar book anyway?
(kidding again)
I am really in total agreement with you on how suitable the system is for Fafhrd. His particular fighting style (1h sword and light armor) is about as poor a choice as you can make in the rules as written.
The writing looks quality, layout and borders look clean (Not sure if clean applies to a bound up bint though
), artwork seems a bit odd (who is the women on one leg - what the hell is she doing?
From the preview it is definately worth a better cover image, but thats another thread.
), artwork seems a bit odd (who is the women on one leg - what the hell is she doing?From the preview it is definately worth a better cover image, but thats another thread.
Feeling a shift back to RQ3 combat on this or beef up dodge a bit ... still probably best to wait and get the big picture on the setting specifics.
Looks good to me. Though am biased, have always used RuneQuest as a gritty sword and sorcery system...so this fits the bill. Only need the Conan sourcebook plus this for source material and my campaign will be complete.........though as a RuneQuest fanatic from way back i will buy everything else just for the hell of it!
Dead Blue Clown
Mongoose
I'm sorry I'm being so graceless by popping in and vanishing so often, but I just wanted to say a definite thanks for the responses about the writing so far, guys n' gals.
And now, I vanish once again.
And now, I vanish once again.
