Newbie with a lot of questions

[juca]

Hello everyone, I'm a oldtimer Gurps and D&D GM and I was looking for something different for those two when I learned about runequest/legend and, needless to say, I was very impressed with what I saw.
I'm still in the process of "beta-testing" the system alone, learning the rules, it's strong points and pitfalls, but I already have some doubts:

1 - About Range for ranged weapons: The systems seems "all or nothing", does this approach works well with the system? As I said, I'm still testing it, but I'm already thing in maybe add "some color" to this rule, anyone with good house-rules for this?
2 - It is just me or the combat is a little too deadly? If you choose Maximize Damage, almost everyone, no matter his resilence or armor, will fall down in one hit. It is really this way or I'm forgetting something?
3 - About combat maneuvres: Is there a situation where you do not choose combat maneuvres, when you simply roll weapon damage? It seems that it happens only on a suscessfull parry against a heavier weapon... right? And what about this situation (light weapon parrying heavy weapon), does the damage (full or half) applies both to the target and the weapon?
4 - One last grip: Hard Leather armor versus Linen armor - the last is cheaper and have less encumbrance at the same protection, there is some reason to not choose linen armor over hard leather? In the same line, historically, heavy bludgeoning weapons where prefered against hard metal armors, there is a rule in Legend that represents it?

Sorry for all the newbie questions and sorry for my broken english, as it isn't my primary language.

 

[danskmacabre]

1 - About Range for ranged weapons: The systems seems "all or nothing", does this approach works well with the system? As I said, I'm still testing it, but I'm already thing in maybe add "some color" to this rule, anyone with good house-rules for this?

You could add range bands or something if you like. It's probably more realistic , but I can't be bothered with the admin involved.

2 - It is just me or the combat is a little too deadly? If you choose Maximize Damage, almost everyone, no matter his resilence or armor, will fall down in one hit. It is really this way or I'm forgetting something?

Maximise damage is a crit only CM.
However Legend is definitely more deadly than say DnD and other RPGs. But once you get used to it and how to play it (parrying, not charging into groups of people etc etc..) It's not that deadly.

3 - About combat maneuvres: Is there a situation where you do not choose combat maneuvres, when you simply roll weapon damage? It seems that it happens only on a suscessfull parry against a heavier weapon... right? And what about this situation (light weapon parrying heavy weapon), does the damage (full or half) applies both to the target and the weapon?

Only on successful Parry/attack. You don't do damage to the weapon in circumstances like that. But on the Sunder weapon CM you would.

4 - One last grip: Hard Leather armor versus Linen armor - the last is cheaper and have less encumbrance at the same protection, there is some reason to not choose linen armor over hard leather? In the same line, historically, heavy bludgeoning weapons where prefered against hard metal armors, there is a rule in Legend that represents it?

Looks like Linen can only be worn on the chest. I guess there could be RP reasons as well, Availability etc...

 

[rust]

4 - One last grip: Hard Leather armor versus Linen armor - the last is cheaper and have less encumbrance at the same protection, there is some reason to not choose linen armor over hard leather?

The production of linen requires a lot more time and effort than
the production of hard leather, so under the conditions of a rea-
listic economy linen armour should be far more rare and far mo-
re expensive than hard leather armour. Besides, most cultures
will simply not use it at all, either because they do not use linen
as a fabric or because they lack the tradition and skills to use li-
nen as an armour material.

 

[Mixster]

Hello everyone, I'm a oldtimer Gurps and D&D GM and I was looking for something different for those two when I learned about runequest/legend and, needless to say, I was very impressed with what I saw.

Welcome to legend.

1 - About Range for ranged weapons: The systems seems "all or nothing", does this approach works well with the system? As I said, I'm still testing it, but I'm already thing in maybe add "some color" to this rule, anyone with good house-rules for this?

The system works mainly because Ranged combat seems a tad underused. In the modern setting we are working on, we are discussing adding range bands.

2 - It is just me or the combat is a little too deadly? If you choose Maximize Damage, almost everyone, no matter his resilence or armor, will fall down in one hit. It is really this way or I'm forgetting something?

Define too deadly, combat in the real world is pretty deadly.
A warrior in chain mail (5AP), getting hit by a sword that maximizes damage only suffers 3 damage, which is rarely enough to cause a serious wound. If bypass armour is used as well it gets deadly.
Some GMs don't think you can choose two Critical Only CMs though.
IMO, it seems it takes 2-3 decent hits or 1 really good hit to take down an opponent.

3 - About combat maneuvres: Is there a situation where you do not choose combat maneuvres, when you simply roll weapon damage? It seems that it happens only on a suscessfull parry against a heavier weapon... right? And what about this situation (light weapon parrying heavy weapon), does the damage (full or half) applies both to the target and the weapon?

Target only.

4 - One last grip: Hard Leather armor versus Linen armor - the last is cheaper and have less encumbrance at the same protection, there is some reason to not choose linen armor over hard leather? In the same line, historically, heavy bludgeoning weapons where prefered against hard metal armors, there is a rule in Legend that represents it?

Hard Leather Vs. Linen. Linen is a technological advance from hard leathers, so it seems logical.
Bludgeoning vs. Plate Mails: I'd think Piercing weapons would be preferable against plate, which is why the war hammer is also the military pick.
Nevertheless there are no rules to reflect this, but you could easily let armors vary with about +2/-2AP depending on whether the weapon is good against it or not. I wouldn't suggest doing so since it gets complicated though.

 

[juca]

Thanks for the fast anwsers! As I said, I'm still learning the system, so some rules can look differently than they actually looks, as is the case with damage, looking at the crude rules it seems overly lethal, when, in play, it seems more toned down.

I will see with I gather a group to playtest it. Thanks again.

 

[Loz]

Hi Juca,

Thanks for the fast anwsers! As I said, I'm still learning the system, so some rules can look differently than they actually looks, as is the case with damage, looking at the crude rules it seems overly lethal, when, in play, it seems more toned down.

Fights can be over quickly, but not necessarily ending in death. I've seen more combats end with opponents either helpless or surrendering, rather than hacked into dog food. Indeed, this is the intention of the system.

 

[Greg Smith]

Disarm and trip can be quick ways to end a fight in Legend.

 

[caul]

Hi, first post on the Mongoose boards, and I am a new convert to Legend as well. Since a little Q & A is going on here, I thought I'd join in.

Combat Actions - Can you only spend 1 per turn, and then the rest as reactions (Parrying, free attack gained from disengaging opponent, etc.) or can you spend as you see fit, thus attacking 4 times if your CA is high enough and you are dual wielding while leaving yourself defenseless? I'm thinking the second, but I wanted to be sure.

I picked up a bunch of the RQII stuff (for a reduced price) after getting the core for Legend. Is there anything I should look out for?

Thinking of making the serpent people (CoC 5.5, the green book) the primary threat in my game. Would I have to change them much, or just take their characteristics as listed, figure their attributes, and then apply necessary skills/spells/eq?

That is all I can think of right now. Look forward to chatting with y'all.

 

[danskmacabre]

Combat Actions - Can you only spend 1 per turn, and then the rest as reactions (Parrying, free attack gained from disengaging opponent, etc.) or can you spend as you see fit, thus attacking 4 times if your CA is high enough and you are dual wielding while leaving yourself defenseless? I'm thinking the second, but I wanted to be sure.

You can spend as you see fit.

I picked up a bunch of the RQII stuff (for a reduced price) after getting the core for Legend. Is there anything I should look out for?

MRQ2 stuff is 100% compatible with legend. The only difference is all the GLorantha stuff is removed and some rules clarified a bit better.

Thinking of making the serpent people (CoC 5.5, the green book) the primary threat in my game. Would I have to change them much, or just take their characteristics as listed, figure their attributes, and then apply necessary skills/spells/eq?

Not having read CoC for a long time, I'm guessing it's mostly compatible. you'd have to extrapolate the CAs per turn and some other things, but it should be easy enough.

 

[caul]

Awesome, thanks for the quick answers. The great thing about creatures from CoC, or BRP for that matter, is that all the characteristics are the same, and allow you to figure out DM, CA, SR and so forth. All you really need to worry about are HP per location (unless you are doing general HP), skills, spells, and eq...means almost endless supplements already out there for Legend!

 

[strega]

You may want to take a`look at the recent thread on Serpent people here on these fora.

 

[caul]

Checked it already, and when I start putting material together I'll probably post it there...

 

[Prime_Evil]

About Range for ranged weapons: The systems seems "all or nothing", does this approach works well with the system? As I said, I'm still testing it, but I'm already thing in maybe add "some color" to this rule, anyone with good house-rules for this?

If you want to keep things simple, you could probably add a house rule similar to GURPS where the damage is halved at long range - i.e. when the distance to the target is more than half of the maximum range of the weapon.

 

[Mixster]

Combat Actions - Can you only spend 1 per turn, and then the rest as reactions (Parrying, free attack gained from disengaging opponent, etc.) or can you spend as you see fit, thus attacking 4 times if your CA is high enough and you are dual wielding while leaving yourself defenseless? I'm thinking the second, but I wanted to be sure.

You can spend as you see fit.

Wait what?

So on my first strike rank I could use all my combat actions to strike at any target I'm close to?

I'm pretty sure that's neither RAW nor RAI.

 

[Harshlax]

When the strike rank comes round to your action you spend a combat action to do something, then when everyone has acted the cycle goes round again, and if you have Combat Actions left you use 1 to do something else, potentially acting multiple times in the same round. Of course, you may have spent your actions before the next strike rank cycle due to defending yourself.

But the earlier poster is correct, that if you haven't spent them on parries you can spend more than one CA making attacks during a round.

Hope that clarifies things a little.

 

[Darkholme]

I believe he's asking if you can spend several CAs simultaneously to do all his actions on his first initiative pass.

Thats a No.

You can spend one per pass, + one to defend yourself any time it comes up.

 

[juca]

About Range for ranged weapons: The systems seems "all or nothing", does this approach works well with the system? As I said, I'm still testing it, but I'm already thing in maybe add "some color" to this rule, anyone with good house-rules for this?

If you want to keep things simple, you could probably add a house rule similar to GURPS where the damage is halved at long range - i.e. when the distance to the target is more than half of the maximum range of the weapon.

Well, what I was looking is, more specifically, more "range bands", like, lets say, -0% at close range, -25% at medium range and so on.

About Combat Actions, again, without really playing it (I only tested them by myself...), it seems that having more combat actions is really overpower, as, as long as you have at least one combat action more than your opponent, you will have one last attack which will be undefendable by the target. Is this expected and not that much an issue or it can lead to a "Combat Actions" race?

Thanks again

 

[danskmacabre]

Wait what?

So on my first strike rank I could use all my combat actions to strike at any target I'm close to?

I'm pretty sure that's neither RAW nor RAI.

No as pointed out by someone else, you have to wait for your next initiative pass to do this.
However you COULD just use all your actions to attack and not parry if you want, but you still have to wait for the initiative sequence to come around, but of course you might be chopped up by then due to not parrying!

 

[danskmacabre]

About Combat Actions, again, without really playing it (I only tested them by myself...), it seems that having more combat actions is really overpower, as, as long as you have at least one combat action more than your opponent, you will have one last attack which will be undefendable by the target. Is this expected and not that much an issue or it can lead to a "Combat Actions" race?
Thanks again

If combat was always just one character standing in front of another character on an open, flat, featureless field, then you be right, it would be simply a CA race.
But in games that I run anyway, it's not like that.

Generally a character built to fight well will have 3 CAs with a 2 handed weapon and 4 CAs with 2 weapons.
Often a sorc or non-combat specialist might only have 2 CAs and may well try to stay at the back of combat doing stuff (maybe spells, range combat whatever).
Many monsters have 2 CAs only, 3 CAs sometimes and fast ones more.

Further take into account say a character with 4 CAs who may be have 2 or more opponents on him who might only have 2 CAs each and the character is in trouble.
But if a character is up against an NPC/monster with only 2 CAs solo, then the NPC/Monster may well be in trouble. Although not necessarily, it might be slow but have tough armour, lots of Hit points, nasty attacks etc.

 

[danskmacabre]

Well, what I was looking is, more specifically, more "range bands", like, lets say, -0% at close range, -25% at medium range and so on.

If you want this level of granularity, I would just houserule it.
Currently if a shot is outside your range but within twice the range your skill % to hit is halved.
You could break this up into Quartered as well or even smaller range bands if you like I suppose.