The combat was over in 1 CA...

[iamtim]

I'm currently running a RuneQuest game on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of the month. Last night, being the 1st Thursday, I ran my game. The game is set in a homebrew world on an island filled with combatitive, hulking, Conan-esque Viking/Celtic barbarians. Negotiations between clans usually follow something along the lines of this script:

Barbarian #1: "Tell yer chieftan we'll accept his surrender."
Barbarian #2: "I dinna think so. You tell your chieftan we'll accept his surrender."
B1: "Ya dinna hear me. I said tell yer chieftan, boy."
B2: "Boy!? Did you just call me 'boy'!?"
*everyone reaches for dice to determine strike ranks*

Last night's game was no exception. Heh.

A quick prelude: in a previous session, the characters were ambushed by a group of ruffians from a rival village. They cleaved through these ruffians because, truth be told, I made them somewhat underpowered because I didn't really want the characters to be out and out killed.

So last night, the characters discover a small army enroute to their village, filled with no lack of bad intentions. The characters outrun the slower paced army and are waiting for the army -- with the village on alert and prepared -- when it shows up. The army, hiding in the trees just outside the village, send in three monstrously huge, hulking barbarians to parlay with the villagers. Who, in this case, are being represented by the characters. Keep in mind I learned from the encounter above, and built these guys to be badasses.

Pretty much as expected the negotiations went as expected, with the "bad guys" calling the "good guys" 'boy'.

By the end of the 1st combat action of the 1st round, the PCs had taken out EACH OF THE BARBARIANS.

All three of them had higher strike ranks, but decided to delay using an attack by the characters as a trigger. Unfortunately, they each lost the opposed weapons test so the characters went first. The speaker of the barbarians took a great axe to his unarmored head on a charge. He went negative in the head and made his resilience roll. The second barbarian fell to the ground after a staff swing to his left leg criticaled on a charge. The third barbarian -- seeing one of his compatriats nearly get lobotomized and the other dropped to the ground with a sickening *crack* -- dropped his weapon and backed away after a critical war maul attack slammed into his right arm, breaking the bone between the shoulder and elbow.

On the 2nd combat action, the barbarian speaker failed his resilience roll and crumpled to the ground. The third barbarian turned and ran, holding his broken arm for support.

The good thing is that the players completely realize that it was only the luck of the dice and that they could just as easily have been on the receiving end of such an assault.

I was fairly impressed.

 

[Rurik]

Out of curiosity, why did the NPC's delay rather than charge themselves? I don't see any advantage to doing this.

 

[iamtim]

Out of curiosity, why did the NPC's delay rather than charge themselves? I don't see any advantage to doing this.

Two reasons:

1. I wanted to try out the delay option, and...
2. They didn't want to initiate the combat, but were more than willing to defend themselves as needed.

 

[Rurik]

Out of curiosity, why did the NPC's delay rather than charge themselves? I don't see any advantage to doing this.

Two reasons:

1. I wanted to try out the delay option, and...
2. They didn't want to initiate the combat, but were more than willing to defend themselves as needed.

Fair enough!

I assume the Barbarians reconsidered their attack on the town after witnessing the players skills at parlay?

 

[iamtim]

I assume the Barbarians reconsidered their attack on the town after witnessing the players skills at parlay?

We had to halt the game after that encounter, so I've got some time to consider my next move.

The attacking "army" has about 45 hardened warriors whereas the village has under 30; that's certainly a factor. But the ease with which the "parlay" attempt was dispatched has certainly given the opposing chieftans pause... while *I* know that it was a few lucky rolls, I can't see them launching an offensive with a cry of "Let's rush 'em, boyos! It was just a few lucky crits is all!"

 

[B_Steele]

Also, never forget the morale-boosting of the townsfolk after seeing three of their defenders do so well against the attackers!

Torches and pitchforks beginning to be raised will sometimes thwart an attack just as well.

Bry

 

[simonh]

Given your description of the game, it seems like none of the characters in the game, either PC or NPC, are anything much like baseline humans in the MRQ game. Given that, to what extent do you think these results are due to moving away from the baseline stats assumed in the game?

For example, if all the characters are bloated barbarians with bulging muscles, presumably they have similarly bloated damage modifiers? This will make limb-severing hits much more common that you'd usualy expect in MRQ.

Typical conanesque fantasy art avoids heavy metal armour for bare-limbed musculatures, and in one case you describe a character taking a hit to an unarmoured head. Were any of the characters wearing significant armour? If not, that will exagerate the effect of increased average damage rolls even more.

All this is speculation, of course.

Taking out a character on a crit, while certainly possible, shouldn't realy be a given. Crits do happen, and if they are near-guaranteed to be lethal then PCs realy aren't going to live very long. As soon as an NPC crits, it's by by character. Therefore the game needs to be ballanced such that crits are at least potentialy survivable, so armour, defensive magic and healing are very important.

This is one area where MRQ has made a significant departure. Crits have easily determined, fixed damage yields where in earlier editions they were still rolled randomly. While potentialy very deadly, there was always the possibility the rolled damage would still be low. In MRQ that's not the case. I'm wondering whether this effect has noticable consequences in situations like the game you describe.

 

[Utgardloki]

I've long intended to implement a concept of "Villian Points" which would work similar to "Hero Points" for the PCs. So just as a PC can spend a Hero Point to survive an otherwise deadly attack, a villian can use a "Villian Point" for the same purpose.

One concept is to just assign the villians VPs. Another is to bring out VPs when desired, but every time a VP is used, the PCs get a Hero Point.

 

[iamtim]

I've long intended to implement a concept of "Villian Points" which would work similar to "Hero Points" for the PCs.

I like the way Savage Worlds did it. Each PC gets X "bennies", and the GM gets X "bennies" as well. In SW each major bad guy also gets a private pool of "bennies".

But, figger, if you give the PCs each 2 Hero Points, just say the GM also gets 2 Hero Points to use on any of the NPCs.

*shrug*

 

[GregLynch]

This is one area where MRQ has made a significant departure. Crits have easily determined, fixed damage yields where in earlier editions they were still rolled randomly. While potentialy very deadly, there was always the possibility the rolled damage would still be low. In MRQ that's not the case. I'm wondering whether this effect has noticable consequences in situations like the game you describe.

Actually, in AH's RQ III, critical hits did max weapon damage and ignored armor. If it was an impaling weapon, like a spear or an arrow, it did double max weapon damage and still ignored armor. Such a hit to the head, chest or abdomen was pretty much an automatic death sentence.

 

[Rurik]

I gotta agree - criticals were definately deadlier in RQ2/3.

 

[RMS]

I gotta agree - criticals were definately deadlier in RQ2/3.

Definitely. Everything was deadlier in RQ2/3, for good or bad. Weapons did a bit more damage as a whole, people had half as many hit points per location, and general hit points reduced to 0 resulted in death (no rolls).

 

[Rurik]

Definitely. Everything was deadlier in RQ2/3, for good or bad. Weapons did a bit more damage as a whole, people had half as many hit points per location, and general hit points reduced to 0 resulted in death (no rolls).

While I agree with most of what you've said I just don't see the twice as many HP/Location in MRQ. People keep claiming this but I just don't see it. Maybe 1 more hp per location in some cases but that is about it (until you get to really big creatures anyhow).

 

[RMS]

While I agree with most of what you've said I just don't see the twice as many HP/Location in MRQ. People keep claiming this but I just don't see it. Maybe 1 more hp per location in some cases but that is about it (until you get to really big creatures anyhow).

It's poetic license, ok! Don't get all literal on me.

No, you're right for the most part. Legs and chest get an extra HP now, over past editions of RQ, and abs and head get an additional 2 points. Those last two get pretty close to doubling though for a "typical human" when they move from 4 to 6 and 3 to 5, respectively.

 

[canology]

Given your description of the game, it seems like none of the characters in the game, either PC or NPC, are anything much like baseline humans in the MRQ game. Given that, to what extent do you think these results are due to moving away from the baseline stats assumed in the game?

For example, if all the characters are bloated barbarians with bulging muscles, presumably they have similarly bloated damage modifiers? This will make limb-severing hits much more common that you'd usualy expect in MRQ.

Typical conanesque fantasy art avoids heavy metal armour for bare-limbed musculatures, and in one case you describe a character taking a hit to an unarmoured head. Were any of the characters wearing significant armour? If not, that will exagerate the effect of increased average damage rolls even more.

That is true, the race that all our characters belong to is well above baseline human in its physical attributes.
And no, we don't wear more than leather or cuirboulli armor, and we only have divine magic so there is no Protection for us to cast.
But, damn... we weren't expecting the fight to be over in one combat action!
I suspect that our badassery will be deflated the first time one of us is on the receiving end of the critical hit. :roll:

The game seems to be pretty realistic feeling, though not quite as lethal as old RQ.

 

[Utgardloki]

But, figger, if you give the PCs each 2 Hero Points, just say the GM also gets 2 Hero Points to use on any of the NPCs.

I thought about assigning Hero Points to NPCs. But then I thought that if PCs get a hero point after the villian uses a villian point, that could help change the dramatic structure away from the "World War II Movie Style" endgame that characterizes my D&D games.

(You know the movies, where it opens with two groups of combatants, and ends up with one group slowly being whittled away to nothing. A Bridge Too Far is a classic example.)

With this RQ variant, the Villian at first gets the upper hand, being able to use Villian Points to foil the hero, but every time he does so, the heroes get stronger until they are able to achieve a climactic burst of heroism.

Another idea I got from reading this thread was to define a Legendary Ability to treat unarmored locations as if they were wearing armor -- this would be good for achieving a "Conan the Barbarian" feel, although making this a Legendary Ability means that most opponents are either wearing the best armor they can get or else will soon be dead.

 

[Gnarsh]

Did the barbarians all just miss their defensive actions? I thought you'd said you were going to be using the two roll method? If so, then a sucessful parry or dodge should have significantly reduced the damage taken, even on a crit starting roll.

Even with a one roll system, a successful dodge should have transformed the crit into a "normal hit", meaning no max damage. On a parry, you'd allow the max damage, but half the shield is subtracted (not as good a result as a dodge). Dunno. It just seems like something you're doing is overweighing the offense while not keeping enough defensive capability.

 

[iamtim]

Did the barbarians all just miss their defensive actions?

IIRC, one failed a parry, one fumbled a parry, and one successfully parried but enough damage went through (due to a crit) that the parry was almost pointless.

I thought you'd said you were going to be using the two roll method?

You've stumbled on to one of my dirty little secrets. While I'm now convinced the rules were written for a two-roll method, and I contemplated using it, I don't use the combat charts in actual play. I use a more RQ3-like system: defense is declared at time of attack and one roll is used; if the attack succeds and the dodge/parry fails, the attack succeeds as if there were no dodge/parry. If the attack succeeds and the dodge succeeds, the attack is dodged; if the attack succeeds and the parry succeeds, the attack is diminished by the AP of the weapon. An attack critical requires a dodge or parry critical to be blocked. A dodge/parry critical on a non-critical success or a failed attack causes the attacker to be overextended or allows a riposte.

Now, before anyone gets up in arms, I do this because it's my personal choice, not because I think the combat charts or the two-roll system are problematic. It's easier for me adjudicate combat in play by remembering the above as opposed to looking up the result on a chart. It seems a more logical flow to me.

I still stand by what I've posted in the past about combat in MRQ and the combat charts. I just, heh, don't use them. :?

 

[Trifletraxor]

I've long intended to implement a concept of "Villian Points" which would work similar to "Hero Points" for the PCs. So just as a PC can spend a Hero Point to survive an otherwise deadly attack, a villian can use a "Villian Point" for the same purpose.

One concept is to just assign the villians VPs. Another is to bring out VPs when desired, but every time a VP is used, the PCs get a Hero Point.

Please kill me...

SGL.

 

[Utgardloki]

Please kill me...

SGL.

Why?

The point of Villian Points is to avoid getting people killed. Or at least to avoid getting villians killed.

I should probably have a rule against villians using villian points to keep the heroes from keeping themselves from getting killed. But then again, if you can't trust your friendly neighborhood GM, who can you trust?