Some tested houserules that appear to work...

[iamtim]

I just wanted to take a minute and put down on "paper" some house rules we've been using in our (now two) MRQ campaign(s); largely it's for my own benefit to keep them straight, but many of you will benefit from this as well.

Most of these house rules were created directly out of comments on this board, and will go into the RuneQuest build that will be powering our upcoming Gatecrasher 2371 science fantasy adventure game.

Brute Force, Resilience, and Persistence: treated as skills (as to not upset the character sheet, heh) but fixed at STRx5, CONx5, and POWx5 respectively.

Armor Use: treated as a skill for rating, generation, and improvement, but offsets armor skill penalty. Reflects specific training in proper armor usage when in combat or other physical activities.

Opposed Skill Rolls: uses a "degrees of success" style system -- crits trump successes, successes trump failures, failures trump fumbles. In the case of equal level results, the win goes to the player who rolled the lowest under his skill (so a 25 on a 90% beats a 50 on a 90% because 90-25 > 90-50). Skills with high levels (over 100%) are not halved.

We're still testing combat. We tried the one-roll approach as dictated in the Player's Guide, but I don't like the combat table interaction under that system. We'll be trying the two-roll approach for which the rules seem to be written. If I don't like that I'm going to go back to a one-roll approach but change the fail/fail box on the combat chart to read "Nothing happens".

 

[Trifletraxor]

That sounds like some really sound house rules. A huge step in the right direction.

SGL.

 

[Vadrus]

Will Persistance be affected if you have POW locked up in Divine Magics? Or will you keep it at Permanent POW x 5 rather than Current POW (for want of better terms)?


Vadrus

 

[iamtim]

Will Persistance be affected if you have POW locked up in Divine Magics? Or will you keep it at Permanent POW x 5 rather than Current POW (for want of better terms)?

*blink, blink*

GOOD question. I hadn't even thought of that, and I have a Divine Magic using Initiate in my game.

Hmm.

I'm tempted to say that Persistence varies as effective POW varies so for each point of POW dedicated to a spell, Persistence goes down by 5. When the spell is cast and the POW is returned, Persistence would go back up.

 

[Quire]

If I don't like that I'm going to go back to a one-roll approach but change the fail/fail box on the combat chart to read "Nothing happens".

Yay!

- Q

 

[Exubae]

Good thinking Tim,

Like it

 

[Halfbat]

We're still testing combat. We tried the one-roll approach as dictated in the Player's Guide, but I don't like the combat table interaction under that system. We'll be trying the two-roll approach for which the rules seem to be written. If I don't like that I'm going to go back to a one-roll approach but change the fail/fail box on the combat chart to read "Nothing happens".

Erm, just a confusion, iamtim, as with a one-roll approach you would never get a fail/fail under MS's recommendations (which work well, I think, as it puts _Reactions_ firmly into the reaction camp and means defenders start looking for openings) as the defender never gets the chance to react to the failed attack.

You _would_ get a fail/fail if you force the defender to declare a reaction at the point of the attack.

What are you doing about moving/Charging into combat when a character is less than 5m away?

 

[Vadrus]

Will Persistance be affected if you have POW locked up in Divine Magics? Or will you keep it at Permanent POW x 5 rather than Current POW (for want of better terms)?

*blink, blink*

GOOD question. I hadn't even thought of that, and I have a Divine Magic using Initiate in my game.

Hmm.

I'm tempted to say that Persistence varies as effective POW varies so for each point of POW dedicated to a spell, Persistence goes down by 5. When the spell is cast and the POW is returned, Persistence would go back up.

TBH I think you'd be best keeping it at the Permanent POW level, otherwise who in their right mind would use Divine magic, the penalty to resists would far outweigh any 15 minute bonuses from the actual spells.

Divine Priests and rich initiates would be possessed by a spirit everytime they left the temple :shock:


Vadrus

 

[iamtim]

You _would_ get a fail/fail if you force the defender to declare a reaction at the point of the attack.

I should have added that I would make that change, too. My bad.

What are you doing about moving/Charging into combat when a character is less than 5m away?

Haven't gotten there yet. I decided to play the RAW and change the bits that seemed odd in play to me as they came up. We haven't had too many less than 5m charges, so I haven't had occasion to investigate.

Although I'm tempted to say that you need at least 5m for an effective charge (i.e. to get the full charge benefit) and just be done with it.

I'll let you know as it comes up.

 

[iamtim]

TBH I think you'd be best keeping it at the Permanent POW level ... Divine Priests and rich initiates would be possessed by a spirit everytime they left the temple

Good point.

 

[simonh]

TBH I think you'd be best keeping it at the Permanent POW level, otherwise who in their right mind would use Divine magic, the penalty to resists would far outweigh any 15 minute bonuses from the actual spells.

Divine Priests and rich initiates would be possessed by a spirit everytime they left the temple :shock:

The penalty to persistence is only 1% per point of POW. IMHO the benefits of a 1 point divine spell are worth quite a bit mroe than that.

Also this si consistent with rpevious editions of RQ, as POW sacrificed for divine magic nolonger affected your skill category modifiers so this is nothing new.

 

[iamtim]

The penalty to persistence is only 1% per point of POW.

Not if you are using my house rule above, which is what we're discussing, where Persistence is fixed at POWx5.

Although a 1% Persistence hit for Divine Magic dedicated POW might be an uber-good option.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Brute Force, Resilience, and Persistence: treated as skills (as to not upset the character sheet, heh) but fixed at STRx5, CONx5, and POWx5 respectively.

Armor Use: treated as a skill for rating, generation, and improvement, but offsets armor skill penalty. Reflects specific training in proper armor usage when in combat or other physical activities.

I'm definitely going to give these a try.

Opposed Skill Rolls: uses a "degrees of success" style system -- crits trump successes, successes trump failures, failures trump fumbles. In the case of equal level results, the win goes to the player who rolled the lowest under his skill (so a 25 on a 90% beats a 50 on a 90% because 90-25 > 90-50). Skills with high levels (over 100%) are not halved.

I do it in a similar way except tied rolls go to the character who rolls nearst to their target number - my players like to roll high on the dice.

 

[RMS]

Brute Force, Resilience, and Persistence: treated as skills (as to not upset the character sheet, heh) but fixed at STRx5, CONx5, and POWx5 respectively.

Great. I thought those were great ideas...of course that's probably why I posted them at some point. (Not claiming anything original here since it's straight out of RQ2/3 and I'm sure many people thought of it.) Why not make the general Athletics (DEX-based) skill DEX x 5% too. That'd cover basics like climbing, swimming (dog paddling is the way I see this), jumping, etc. Then it would make sense that as a general skill they're all the same. Then I'd allow advanced skills to be built off of those: learning to use actual climbing equipment could result in a skill that starts at Athletics skill level and builds from there, but only works with proper equipement, etc. Learning to swim properly, starts at Athletics skill and builds from there if you take an actual swimming class. Any thoughts?

Opposed Skill Rolls: uses a "degrees of success" style system -- crits trump successes, successes trump failures, failures trump fumbles. In the case of equal level results, the win goes to the player who rolled the lowest under his skill (so a 25 on a 90% beats a 50 on a 90% because 90-25 > 90-50). Skills with high levels (over 100%) are not halved.

The old tried-n-true way and I like it much better than as written in MRQ. I like having different resolution levels count for something and I like the fact that lower is always better. It makes the game feel less "gamey" and more coherent.

We're still testing combat. We tried the one-roll approach as dictated in the Player's Guide, but I don't like the combat table interaction under that system. We'll be trying the two-roll approach for which the rules seem to be written. If I don't like that I'm going to go back to a one-roll approach but change the fail/fail box on the combat chart to read "Nothing happens".

Did you see the little blurb I posted on changing the tables? It basically reverted to RQ2/3 style tables and assumed you had to declare the reaction before the attack is rolled. I'd also add fumbles back in. It's fun and gives another possible level of resolution.

 

[iamtim]

Why not make the general Athletics (DEX-based) skill DEX x 5% too. That'd cover basics like climbing, swimming (dog paddling is the way I see this), jumping, etc. Then it would make sense that as a general skill they're all the same. Then I'd allow advanced skills to be built off of those: learning to use actual climbing equipment could result in a skill that starts at Athletics skill level and builds from there, but only works with proper equipement, etc. Learning to swim properly, starts at Athletics skill and builds from there if you take an actual swimming class. Any thoughts?

I'm thinking very similarly to you, but not going into Advanced Skills. Once I get around to implementing it, Athletics as a stand-alone skill will go away; instead, Athletics will be like Lore. There will be Athletics (Climbing), Athletics (Swimming), Athletics (Jumping), etc.

 

[Lord Twig]

I just wanted to take a minute and put down on "paper" some house rules we've been using in our (now two) MRQ campaign(s); largely it's for my own benefit to keep them straight, but many of you will benefit from this as well.

Most of these house rules were created directly out of comments on this board, and will go into the RuneQuest build that will be powering our upcoming Gatecrasher 2371 science fantasy adventure game.

Brute Force, Resilience, and Persistence: treated as skills (as to not upset the character sheet, heh) but fixed at STRx5, CONx5, and POWx5 respectively.

Armor Use: treated as a skill for rating, generation, and improvement, but offsets armor skill penalty. Reflects specific training in proper armor usage when in combat or other physical activities.

Opposed Skill Rolls: uses a "degrees of success" style system -- crits trump successes, successes trump failures, failures trump fumbles. In the case of equal level results, the win goes to the player who rolled the lowest under his skill (so a 25 on a 90% beats a 50 on a 90% because 90-25 > 90-50). Skills with high levels (over 100%) are not halved.

We're still testing combat. We tried the one-roll approach as dictated in the Player's Guide, but I don't like the combat table interaction under that system. We'll be trying the two-roll approach for which the rules seem to be written. If I don't like that I'm going to go back to a one-roll approach but change the fail/fail box on the combat chart to read "Nothing happens".

Role reversal! Now I get to argue for MRQ as written. Well, at least a little.

I like the Brute Force, Resilience, and Persistence part. All good there.

I personally don't care for the Armor skill. I have just halved the penalty and removed it altogether from Weapon skills.

I actually like MRQs standard methods of opposed rolls a lot. It is simple quick and easy plus gives a great ratio of success. The only problem is the Halving rule. I use the "skill over 100 subtracts from both skills" option myself.

As for Divine magic I will use Dedicated Power as a pool that can be used for Divine magic and you will never get it added back into your power. This fixes the Persistence issue and a host of others.

 

[DirkD]

Brute Force, Resilience, and Persistence: treated as skills (as to not upset the character sheet, heh) but fixed at STRx5, CONx5, and POWx5 respectively.

Is this really necessary? That way you are very good at resisting spells at the start and you get worse the longer you play the character. The rulebook way makes more sense to me - when the spellcasting percentages are low the resistance is low and both will increase afterwards.

Was there a real need for this rule? Was the spellcasting on beginner level so strong that you had to increase the resistance so much?

 

[iamtim]

Brute Force, Resilience, and Persistence: treated as skills (as to not upset the character sheet, heh) but fixed at STRx5, CONx5, and POWx5 respectively.

Is this really necessary?

It is if you believe that the ability to push yourself against normal odds should be a function of your attributes and not a skill that you pick up.

 

[Deleriad]

Brute Force, Resilience, and Persistence: treated as skills (as to not upset the character sheet, heh) but fixed at STRx5, CONx5, and POWx5 respectively.

Is this really necessary?

It is if you believe that the ability to push yourself against normal odds should be a function of your attributes and not a skill that you pick up.

Well I'm going to play (partly) Devil's advocate here. The deeper question is: how much of a skill is 'nature' and how much is 'nurture'.

For example, someone who is an olympic weight-lifter may have exactly the same muscle bulk as a heavy-weight boxer yet I would bet that that weight-lifter is able to life much heavier weights because they have trained.

Similarly, a genius playing chess for the first time, having just learned the rules will probably lose to an average club player.

A 100m sprinter may have the same or lower dex as a gymnast yet will presumably win the race.

However, clearly, no amount of training will turn a person with IQ100 into a chess grandmaster. A naturally chubby person will never be a champion sprinter. Your natural mental and physical limits come into play eventually.

RQ has *always* worked on the premise that nurture (training) trumps nature. The bonus to a skill has always been trivial compared to the increase from training and experience. MRQ is no different in this respect but has followed the logic of RQ2-3 and made everything that you would ever roll d100 for increasible through experience and training. It makes sense: some people are able to train themselves to resist pain, fatigue, brainwashing and so on through dedication and hard work.

The problem is that if you don't micromanage the system then it starts getting counterintuitive fast. Your physical body puts limits on what you can achieve and helps set how quickly you can improve; your intellectual capacity does likewise and it seems reasonable to suspect that any 'magical' potential of a person does likewise. Follow this argument to its limit and you find that your 'characteristics' should set your starting value, rate of increase and maximum value and that the importance of your characteristics varies from skill to skill. That level of detail would detract from the enjoyment of playing the game so MRQ, like every version of RQ before, has simplified.

 

[RMS]

It makes sense: some people are able to train themselves to resist pain, fatigue, brainwashing and so on through dedication and hard work.

The problem is that if you don't micromanage the system then it starts getting counterintuitive fast. Your physical body puts limits on what you can achieve and helps set how quickly you can improve; your intellectual capacity does likewise and it seems reasonable to suspect that any 'magical' potential of a person does likewise. Follow this argument to its limit and you find that your 'characteristics' should set your starting value, rate of increase and maximum value and that the importance of your characteristics varies from skill to skill. That level of detail would detract from the enjoyment of playing the game so MRQ, like every version of RQ before, has simplified.

You have some good points there. If you want to take this line, then a reasonable idea would be to simply limit the peak skill in some areas to STAT x 5% (or some similar mechanic). Let Resilience start at CON+POW for a typical beginner, and then let it be trainable, and max out at CONx5%. Same with Brute Athletics maxing at STRx5%, so that you avoid the duck out arm wrestling the troll syndrome. I would limit many of the basic skills this way (if I took this approach). It'd be a simple way to do what you propose with a reasonable limitation.