magic armour and precise attacks

[Trifletraxor]

It short circuited munchkinism ('I've got Shield 4 and Extension 3 I wade blithely through the enemy ranks...'). ... No one was utterly invincible in a D+D buckets of HPTS good AC kind of a way.

I just countered that with mass grapples and strangulation. Or, in the case of newtlings, nets and drowning.

The eye?

Yes, yes; eye, mouth, nostrils, in through the ear, etc. I aim for his unprotected anus! I'll keep to my old rules. Precision attacks to bypass skin, armor and magic is out.

SGL.

 

[soltakss]

I aim for his unprotected anus!

Apparently, the "Thumb up the anus" is a recognised technique in both Judo and Rugby Union, according to an old friend, who plays both despite being registered blind, so it must be a good tactic.

 

[simonh]

So you have played with critical hits being able to go through skin armor too? I think you misinterpret the old rules. Magic spells and skinarmor is not mentioned in sentences you are quoting.

Are they 'other protection'? If so, then they're explicitly covered. Let's try the description of the Protection spirit spell: "It acts in every way like normal armour." I don't think there's realy any room for ambiguity.

As for skin armour, all animals have areas of thinner skin, such as the armpits, groin, inside the elbow, the eyes, the anus, inside the mouth, etc.

"Still, you MIGHT be right, in which case allowing magical defences to stand in the face of a critical hit was a common good houserule among RQ3 players."

Houseruling is another matter, but personaly I prefer this rule as it was orriginaly intended. It limits powergameyness and preserves a sense of uncertainty and danger in RQ. I like the idea that it's hard, or even impossible to guarantee that you can't be hurt by an opponent. If magical defences are perfect then becoming impervious to you're opponents attacks becomes quite feasible in many situations, and I think that's a very bad thing.

It's one reason I dislike the MRQ rule that crits inflict maximum rollable damage instead of rolling damage twice. The average damage is about the same in either case, but with a modest fixed cap on weapon damage, it becomes quite possible to protect against it. For example 5 points of a Protection spell guarantees imperviousness from dagger attacks (sans damage bonus), whereas in a roll twice system you'd need 10 points for the same guarantee.

In MRQ, with the new precision attack to bypass armor, if you let it bypass magic too, both protection from ARMOR and MAGIC becomes a total waste when fighting highly skilled opponents, ...

True, but I take that as an argument against the precise attack rule, which clearly doesn't scale to very skilled characters however you slice it. IMHO it's not a good argument against the principle that no defences should be perfect.

 

[Trifletraxor]

Houseruling is another matter, but personaly I prefer this rule as it was orriginaly intended. It limits powergameyness and preserves a sense of uncertainty and danger in RQ. I like the idea that it's hard, or even impossible to guarantee that you can't be hurt by an opponent. If magical defences are perfect then becoming impervious to you're opponents attacks becomes quite feasible in many situations, and I think that's a very bad thing.

Mhm... You're actually starting to convince me.

The precise attacks are still flawed though, and with the higher chance of criticals in MRQ it can't be readily brought back as a part of a critical either. What's your solution?

SGL.

 

[canology]

The precise attacks are still flawed though, and with the higher chance of criticals in MRQ it can't be readily brought back as a part of a critical either.

Actually, why not? Having a crit bypass armor certainly seems less unbalancing than the -40% rule. Or, heck, have the crit reduce armor by half if it seems too powerful. That way it falls somewhere between an old RQ2-3 crit and a special hit.

 

[Trifletraxor]

The precise attacks are still flawed though, and with the higher chance of criticals in MRQ it can't be readily brought back as a part of a critical either.

Actually, why not? Having a crit bypass armor certainly seems less unbalancing than the -40% rule. Or, heck, have the crit reduce armor by half if it seems too powerful. That way it falls somewhere between an old RQ2-3 crit and a special hit.

It's less unbalancing than the -40% rule, but still not good as with criticals at ten percent of the skill, there will be a lot of criticals. Half might work...

SGL.

 

[Richard]

My solution from my rules reworking was as follows...

p.47 Critical Hits. This was a real head scratcher. The hefty armour penalties to most combat skills and the ‘bypass armour’ option had to go to make sense of the existence of expensive armour at all. Having done the inevitable and dropped ‘bypass armour’ I had to find a way to get through the stuff for the occasional special hit. Simply using maximum weapon damage for a critical doesn’t really work. As pointed out by forum testers wee beasties and smaller weapons would still be useless against decent armour even with a crit hit. Doubling damage in the style of RQ3 kind of works but with crits happening twice as often and the slight drop in heavy armour value this seemed more than a little severe!

Then as I was pondering something else entirely I clocked the new Damage Bonus tables. A crit is a result of the character’s skill as much as weapon type or size. So how about this simple alternative? A Critical Hit in combat increases the attacker’s effective Damage Bonus for the blow (Same rule as for a successful charge, see above. Average critical damage might drop a point or so for some weapons but you’ll now have the potential to beat armour without the need for any unconvincing rules option!). >

* On a Critical Hit the attacker rolls damage for the weapon normally but their damage modifier is counted as being two steps better for this particular blow.
* If the critical is equal to or better than half the strike’s basic Critical chance the blow ignores any armour protection (Worn or natural, not parrying).
* If the roll is 01 the weapon also inflicts it’s maximum possible damage (Damage bonus is still rolled separately) in addition to the above.

 

[canology]

* On a Critical Hit the attacker rolls damage for the weapon normally but their damage modifier is counted as being two steps better for this particular blow.
* If the critical is equal to or better than half the strike’s basic Critical chance the blow ignores any armour protection (Worn or natural, not parrying).
* If the roll is 01 the weapon also inflicts it’s maximum possible damage (Damage bonus is still rolled separately) in addition to the above.

Wow... I really like that.
The only (small) problem I can think of with it is when you are using a bow (or any weapon without a damage bonus) you lose out on half your crits.
It's a nice and elegant solution though. And probably easier to use than the extensive crit tables from the playtest rules that I was planning on using.

 

[Deleriad]

What I am planning to do is:
1) drop the armor penalty and drop the armor bypass rules. (I do have an ENC penalty though and use fatigue more extensively)

2) Allow players to choose their critical result from a list (or maybe roll on a table)

maximum weapon damage OR
double rolled weapon damage OR
double rolled damage bonus damage OR
ignore one of worn, natural or magical armor OR
Choose a location OR
Damage two different locations at once (roll damage separately for each)

Part of this is that I have system which allows levels of critical so a really good critical (say 3 levels) would allow 3 picks on the table.

 

[simonh]

The precise attacks are still flawed though, and with the higher chance of criticals in MRQ it can't be readily brought back as a part of a critical either. What's your solution?

I've written up my prefered solution on my web site (see my SIG). Basicaly on a critical hit you can either choose increased damage, or ignore all armour.

 

[Trifletraxor]

Lot's of good ideas here. Gives me a lot to think about.

But backtracking to RQ3, impaling weapons, did they bypass armor? The way I understood it slashing and crushing weapons bypassed armor on a critical, while impaling weapons gave double max damage.

I sort of liked the old impale, with double damage rolls. I would like to see some different rules for crushing, slashing and impaling weapons. Maybe the double roll for impaling, better knockback effect for crushing with increased risk of downing the opponent, and something else for slashing. Any ideas?

SGL.

 

[Richard]

In RQ3 armour is ignored on a crit only. An impale (1/5 your chance to hit) doesn't automatically ignore armour. It allows you to roll and add weapon damage twice (Magic and Damage bonus not doubled added on to total). This gives you a better chance to pierce armour but is no guarantee. In fact one of the excellent, and convincing, side effects of this was that pointy weapons end up getting stuck in shields and armour fairly regularly. A nice dilema for wielders of scimitars, broadswords etc where a thrust or swing has to be stated in advance of the attack. 'Do I thrust for the possibilty of big damage or swing because I'm too worried I might lose my weapon?' It gets a little tactical but if the GM demands quick action responses things don't half get exciting!

 

[Richard]

Should mention that if you crit with a stabbing weapon it ignores armour and gets to max out double damage. Simulates being run through by the weapon or having something vital pierced or severed. Risk of weapon loss meant that 'swing' is the default option for optional attack weapons unless the player stated otherwise. I've tried to capture some of this flavour in my MRQ house rules (Above somewhere I think..)

 

[Trifletraxor]

In RQ3 armour is ignored on a crit only. An impale (1/5 your chance to hit) doesn't automatically ignore armour. It allows you to roll and add weapon damage twice (Magic and Damage bonus not doubled added on to total).

I know this, but what I wondered was: If you rolled a critical with an impaling weapon in RQ3, for example a shortspear doing 1d8+1 damage and have a damage modifier of 1d4, do you ignore armor too, in addition to doing 18+1d4 damage, or was the bypass reserved for slashing and crushing weapons?

SGL.

 

[Richard]

Oh get you. Yup you ignore armour because it's a crit. Ouch! Usually fatal in head and torso locations, generally maiming otherwise barring heal magic (Which usually means pulling that weapon out duble quick) Of course you've then got to get your damn weapon back out of the victim! This has backfired on a briefly triumphant PC more than once...

 

[Trifletraxor]

I will bring back a version of the old impaling rules with double rolls.

Anyone using houserules that where slashing and crushing weapons have different effects (except for severing vs. maiming)? I can imagine knockbacks with increased chance of knocking the opponent down for crushing weapons.

Any ideas for special effects of criticals with slashing weapons?

SGL.

 

[simonh]

Any ideas for special effects of criticals with slashing weapons?

In RQ3 my prefered solution was max rollable damage ona special for slashing weapons, double damage bonus for crushing weapons and roll twice and add for impaling weapons.