MRQ Combat - 'By the book' or 'According to Mr. Sprange'

[Melkor]

Hi folks,

I just wanted to pose the question:

After having read the book, which states specifically that the 'Trigger' for a 'Parry' or 'Dodge' reaction is a SUCCESSFUL attack, and after having read Matt Sprange's 'Combat Clarification' thread, which states that a Parry or Dodge reaction can be made against ANY attack, successful or not (which in turn opens up the possibility that a FAILED attack roll can suddenly become successful if both opponents fail the opposed roll) -

How do you intend to play out your combats in Mongoose's Runequest ?

Personally, I think I like it as stated in the Rulebook (and combat example therein) more than I like Matt's clarification. To me, it just doesn't sit right that a failed attack should suddenly become a successful attack if an opponent fails his parry, and you fail your roll opposing it.

I think I am going to stick with the Rulebook, and hope that a 'Runequest Atlantean Edition' doesn't come out changing the text to that of Matt's combat clarification thread.

No offense to Matt, I just tend to get the feeling from reading through the forums that there were several different versions of the game through playtest, and that some of the responses, presumptions, and confusion are due to different ways that the game was played before release, and not being 100% certain of what made it into the final rulebook.

 

[Itto]

How do you intend to play out your combats in Mongoose's Runequest ?

I'm a two roll man, I've played it with the two rolls and it works sweet. By the time you look up the result on the table you may as well have the attacker roll again, so its not like it takes longer anyway. And you benfit with the addition depth it adds to combat, otherwise the only someone can fully dodge an attack is by getting a crit. And parrying with a sword for 4 AP, give the players the chance of the *2 is what I say.

 

[wartorn]

I'm going with the rulebook initially - I don't want to mess with the formula until I've tried it out a few times. After that if there is a problem, whatever system I go with will:

Have players elect to defend or not before knowing the results of the attack.

Not transform failed attacks into successes on failed defense (not that I dislike that idea in principle, just that if I'm going to force players to always defend it shouldn't put them at a disadvantage)

 

[Urox]

How do you intend to play out your combats in Mongoose's Runequest ?

Hopefully there will be a printable PDF errata for MQ in the new future that will clarify the "official" rules for people to play and evaluate.

 

[Halfbat]

I'll be running it as per MS's explanation.

I hate the multiple attack roll approach, even in d20 when it's only done for criticals, partly because players get miffed when the first is excellent and the second bad, but mostly because the explanation makes sense: if a character _knows_ an attack has missed, why is he trying to do something with it anyway? If there was no potential penalty then there are no chances for the "Reactor" to mess up...

 

[Dr. Halflight]

How do you intend to play out your combats in Mongoose's Runequest ?

I'm leaning towards the two roll mechanic. I did it mock combat with the run roll system & while it was very, very quick (a plus for me), I want to see the two roll system in action.

Doc

 

[Lord Twig]

Personally, I think I like it as stated in the Rulebook (and combat example therein) more than I like Matt's clarification. To me, it just doesn't sit right that a failed attack should suddenly become a successful attack if an opponent fails his parry, and you fail your roll opposing it.

I think I am going to stick with the Rulebook, and hope that a 'Runequest Atlantean Edition' doesn't come out changing the text to that of Matt's combat clarification thread.

I don't understand this. Matt did not change the fact that you do not have to parry or dodge if the attack missed. He just added the option that, if you really wanted to, you could parry or dodge and risk the possibility that you might turn your opponents miss into a hit.

So really the only thing you are doing is just saying to your players that they can not parry or dodge a miss.

The official way that Matt listed is the way that I thought it should be run from the beginning.

 

[nennafir]

Personally, I think I like it as stated in the Rulebook (and combat example therein) more than I like Matt's clarification. To me, it just doesn't sit right that a failed attack should suddenly become a successful attack if an opponent fails his parry, and you fail your roll opposing it.

I think I am going to stick with the Rulebook, and hope that a 'Runequest Atlantean Edition' doesn't come out changing the text to that of Matt's combat clarification thread.

I don't understand this. Matt did not change the fact that you do not have to parry or dodge if the attack missed. He just added the option that, if you really wanted to, you could parry or dodge and risk the possibility that you might turn your opponents miss into a hit.

So really the only thing you are doing is just saying to your players that they can not parry or dodge a miss.

The official way that Matt listed is the way that I thought it should be run from the beginning.

But the rule book clearly does two rolls in the combat examples section on pages 60-61. The rulebook very consistently wants you to do two rolls, as it says this in the actual combat rules area around pages 50-51 and then reinforces it with the examples of pages 60-61.

I guess our point is that Matt new rule variant is not an "interpretation" of the rules as stated, as they are very clear that two rolls should be made, but an entirely new rule set.

Also, it does change combat quite a bit. With the 2 rolls as stated in the rules, the game is more defensive. This is because the attacker is less likely to hit the defender since they have to confirm their roll twice. (This is approximate, of course, as if in their re-roll they fail but the defender also fails their initial roll, they still hit. Overall, though, it would tend to make the game more defensive as attacks will miss more.)

I am all for either system and both seem fine, but Matt's system is definitely a DIFFERENT ONE and not some "clarification" as he tries to sweep it under the carpet.

Again, the rules very clearly have the attacker rolling twice but the defender rolling once, and this does impact the balance of combat.

 

[Melkor]

[I don't understand this. Matt did not change the fact that you do not have to parry or dodge if the attack missed.

The rulebook states that the Trigger Event for a Parry or Dodge is a successful attack - which indicates that you may only Parry or Dodge in the event that a successful attack triggers the reaction.

As stated in the book, an unsuccessful attack would not trigger the reaction, and thus, you would not be able to initiate a Parry or Dodge against an attack that was a miss.

Matt's clarification contradicts what is stated as a Trigger for Parry and Dodge in the rulebook.

 

[King Amenjar]

Unless I'm misunderstanding the arguments, there is nothing to debate here. If you read the rules, on p.47 you will discover that unless you defend, you are hit and take damage. It's not like RQ2 or RQ3 where the attacker had to roll weapon attack % or less to have a chance of hitting. This confused me, too, until I re-read p.47, because it seemed that in some cases you would be better off doing nothing rather than trying to parry and opening up the possibility of turning a miss into a hit. But there is no such thing as a miss anyway. There is only one slight - very slight - problem now, which is that if you are happy getting clobbered, but don't at all costs want to get impaled, then you are indeed better off standing there and taking it, because no defence means moving straight to damage, ignoring the possibility of a critical hit... we could, of course, just rule that if max damage occurs, you're impaled anyway.
EDIT: I missed Phase 1 on p.47. Therefore, I am talking rubbish.

 

[King Amenjar]

Ah wait, I see the problem now... in "clarifying" in the sticky above, Mr Sprange has totally contradicted... what he himself wrote... in the book... hmm.
Well my instinct is to ignore the clarification. It doesn't help much.
EDIT: This is all rubbish.

 

[Steve B]

No matter how they (Mongoose, Mr. Sprange, etc.) try to spin it, the glaringly obvious fact is that something is wrong. If the text in the book is correct, the table is wrong. If we accept Mr. Sprange's ruling, the book's fundamental combat rules are wrong. And neither of these is the way the game has been demoed, meaning their oficial demo guys can't see the intent throught the verbage.

This puts Mongoose in a pickle. The right thing to do would be to fess up and make it right, not massage a fix. But if they do that, now they face the aptly-named 'Runquest Altantean Edition', and I don't know if Mongoose fans will accept another one of those. Honestly, this is the best answer...the Conan line now thrives despite the short-term blemish.

I think they should follow Privateer Press's lead (misprint in' Superiority')and make PDF corrections to the appropriate pages and make them downloadable and printable to stickers to place over the wrong text. (Privateer actually caught the problem and stickered the books themselves before release.) Before this, they need to sit down and decide the "one true way" to run combat and it clear, with no contradictions or counterintuitive results.

But of course, it is much easier to just spin it and watch the willing masses accept it.

Personally, I'm still interested (esp. Lankhmar and the hope of Conan and rumor of John Carter) but I'm not buying until this satisfactorily resolved and not stiff armed by a condescending "do you think we would release a broken game?" comment. Well, they did...now the true test...how will they fix it?

Steve

 

[andakitty]

Honestly, I'm not planning to run it all. I'll just go along with the GM's interpretation, if I'm lucky enough to find a game.

 

[King Amenjar]

This puts Mongoose in a pickle. The right thing to do would be to fess up and make it right, not massage a fix. But if they do that, now they face the aptly-named 'Runquest Altantean Edition', and I don't know if Mongoose fans will accept another one of those. Honestly, this is the best answer...the Conan line now thrives despite the short-term blemish.

Well, until the so-called clarification muddied things, there was no need for a fix because nothing was wrong - it was just a case of people not reading the rules properly and assuming things worked just as in RQ2/RQ3, when they didn't. Recant the "clarification", problem solved. Not that there is a problem for people who don't use this forum.
EDIT: This is also all rubbish

 

[Steve B]

there was no need for a fix because nothing was wrong - it was just a case of people not reading the rules properly and assuming things

So, do the combat tables jive with the combat rules text?

Believe me, I want this game to succeed, and I have every inention of owning it if I can be convinced that it's not fundamentally flawed. But right now, rulebook<>Mr.Sprange<>demo-guy and I'm still concerned the book may be at odds with itself.

Hopefully the SRD will alleviate my woes.

 

[King Amenjar]

there was no need for a fix because nothing was wrong - it was just a case of people not reading the rules properly and assuming things

So, do the combat tables jive with the combat rules text?

"Jive" in the 50s hep cat sense or in the 70s blaxploitation sense? I see no problem with the combat rules as they are in the book. Well, I do actually, but more of this later - they function, and I can't see the problems people are drawing attention to about two rolls or one.
You either defend, and use the combat tables, or you don't defend and get hit. There is no such thing as a successful or unsuccessful attack unless your victim announces a reaction and tries to dodge or parry, at which point the tables come into play and tell you what happened. I like it this way: I like the idea that if you have 3 seconds to try and stab someone and they aren't trying to stop you, you are damn well going to stab them. Remember the little Murphy's Rules cartoon about the RQ untrained assassin who was 50% likely to miss a sleeping victim. Glad that's gone.
Where there is a bit of a problem, perhaps, is that if you don't roll, you can do as you like. If one side knows they're getting more attacks than their opponents have got reactions, they are all going to say, "Bypass armour!" knowing someone gets a free automatic hit. But I don't think anyone's brought that one up.
If we go with the clarification posted here, though, we get into a worse problem, which is that in some circumstances, such as if both you and your opponent are poor fighters (especially if your opponent deals out heavy damage) you will actually benefit from not choosing a reaction - not defending yourself at all - which seems utterly wacko.

 

[Steve B]

At the risk of taking this off-topic, the root of the problem is the weird straight roll/opposed test hybrid system they've developed.

For one. it's a paradigm shift and will take some getting used to.

On the other hand...WTF? I am amazed that the I attack/you attack system still exists in any game. Combat is opposed! MRQ takes a partial step in that direction, but now it's in a weird middle ground with elements of both.

But it is what it is...as long as it works!

 

[King Amenjar]

Even The Riddle of Steel hasn't got away completely from I Attack/You Attack, because there's an element of it in real fights at the end of the day.

 

[King Amenjar]

Wait, I'm wrong... you do have to roll and can miss. Therefore, you have to roll twice. My bad.

Hmm... roll the attack. If it succeeds, choose to react. Use the tables. Hmm, this is pretty much how we used to play RQ3, when I used to let my outnumbered players know who'd hit them before they decided who to parry. I still don't see what the arguments were about, unless everyone else had been as stupid as me...

 

[Decurio]

For my group, we'll be sticking with the initial two roll system as it is presented in the MRQ corebook.

I never understood the problem everyone was having with the combat system:

1) First roll; this roll is 'digital.' Did it succeed or not?

2) Second roll; this is a qualitative roll based on the defense, if any, opted by the defender using their combat reactions.

This is not a complicated system. I think it models the differences in facing an experienced combatant and an unexperienced rookie, both in terms of attack and defense, very well.