Total Health

[Zipp Dementia]

Can someone remind me how the old "total health" system worked. I know that toal health was (SIZ+CON)/2 but I don't remember if it takes you to unconciousness or death when you reach 0... or if you reach unconcious at 0 and death later... or if you roll to try and fend off unconciusness or death.

 

[Trifletraxor]

A total hit point of 1 or 2 lead to unconsciousness, 0 or below to death. That was the official rule at least.

SGL.

 

[Zipp Dementia]

Any idea why they took it out?

 

[Trifletraxor]

Not really, but I guess they had to make the system different from BRP as Chaosium owns the rules for that one.

SGL.

 

[weasel_fierce]

I think based on their license they could have copied RQ3 word for word and still been fine.

However, removing total health does make characters a bit more survivable, and leads to a higher rate of "incapacitated" characters rather than dead characters. Which can be preferable in a gaming group.


If using total health, I'd heartily recommend doing it as in Stormbringer5, at 0 you die at the end of the FOLLOWING round, unless brought to at least 1 HP

 

[Rurik]

Any idea why they took it out?

They made an effort to reduce bookkeeping and speed up play ('streamlining') in the system with MRQ. It was largely successful, though most of the freed up bookkeeping overhead got used up by keeping track of actions/reactions strike ranks (older versions had only one attack and parry per round and fixed strike ranks that did not vary round to round)

Keeping track of total HP and Location HP probably was seen as redundant. The end result is that MRQ is less lethal than earlier systems (which some people like, others don't).

In the old system HP were the Average of CON and SIZ (fractions were rounded normally* in RQ 2/3, MRQ rounds all fractions down by convention). HP per location were as a multiplier of total HP, Arms were 25%, Legs Head and Abdomen were at 33% and Chest at 40% of total HP (I think - working from memory here).

So if you had 12 total HP you would have 3 HP in each Arm, 4 HP in each Leg and in your Head and Abdomen, and 5 in your Chest.

If your took 4 points to the chest you would lose 4 HP in your chest and off of total HP. There was a rule that you couldn't take more than twice a locations damage to total HP, so if an arm took 12 points it would be severed, but only 6 HP would come off your total. There were CONx5 rolls to resist bad effects from bad wounds much like MRQ's Resilience rolls.

As was mentioned above, when total HP reached 1 or 2 you passed out. 0 was go to the Afterlife. Go directly to the afterlife. Do not pass Go. Do not Collect 200 xp.

* By 'round normally' I mean round up if the fraction is .5 or higher, otherwise round down.

 

[Trifletraxor]

I think based on their license they could have copied RQ3 word for word and still been fine.

As said elsewhere the licence is only for Glorantha and the Tradename, not the rules.

However, removing total health does make characters a bit more survivable, and leads to a higher rate of "incapacitated" characters rather than dead characters. Which can be preferable in a gaming group

It might be an advantage if you truly dislike characters dying during game, but does lead to some unrealistic situations where your can run around fighting with a hundred arrows jutting out of your body. (Also, you can fight after you've been decapitated if you have trained your Resilience high enough.)

If using total health, I'd heartily recommend doing it as in Stormbringer5, at 0 you die at the end of the FOLLOWING round, unless brought to at least 1 HP

This is a good idea, and saves a lot of life while still keeping the players fear for their characters life.

SGL.[/url]

 

[B_Steele]

Also, you can fight after you've been decapitated if you have trained your Resilience high enough.

Be fair, though...it is up to the Games Master to pass on the image of a decapitation to their players. In my games I generally don't use an image as drastic as decapitation unless I know the target we are speaking of is very, very dead.

A great deal of RPGs suffer from too much Rules hand-holding, when all it takes is a GM who can explain the situation to his or her players in a way that makes sense.

I've been running our MRQ now for a while and high Resiliences or non-Total HP have not been a problem at all for us.

Welcome to RQ, btw!

-Bry

 

[RosenMcStern]

I've been running our MRQ now for a while and high Resiliences or non-Total HP have not been a problem at all for us.

Resilience you can houserule easily, but the lack of total HP can be a problem if poison is involved. I would rather see better handling of poison than welcome back total HP, though.

 

[weasel_fierce]

well, there's two approaches to the resilience question

1: A troll hero with 97% resilience should be pretty damn hard to kill.

2: The rules update limits resilience to 5xCON max, so its no longer an issue

 

[Zipp Dementia]

Thanks for the welcome, Steele!

We played around with total health last night and my player said she wants it in, because otherwise she feels like she'll be hacking at limbs all day without every getting closer to killing something.

But we're also playing around with the idea of having 0 total HP = unconcious and -2 equal dead, allowing resilience rolls in both cases, and also doing the whole "not until next round" thing so that they get a chance to heal.

 

[weasel_fierce]

You can move the "threshold" where you die back and forth a bit with ease. Another option is to make the total HP CON+SIZ

 

[Rurik]

well, there's two approaches to the resilience question

1: A troll hero with 97% resilience should be pretty damn hard to kill.

2: The rules update limits resilience to 5xCON max, so its no longer an issue

Unless your CON is 22.

 

[weasel_fierce]

Unless your CON is 22.

True But then you fall into the "tough ass mofo" category

 

[Rurik]

Personally I halve Resilience checks for Major Wounds. Makes combat a bit more deadly even with high Resiliences.

I also make one resilience test a round for major wounds to the abdomen, chest, or head. The rules make you roll twice, once to stay alive and once more to remain conscious (obviously you don't make the second one if you fail the first. On the first failure you pass out, then keep rolling every round, and die on the last failure. Rolling twice each round seemed excessive to me (though since I started halving resilience there is a lot less rolling either way you do it :twisted: ).

 

[zanshin]

Kept total hit points (apart from anything else it makes it easier to manage NPC's in a fight)

Made the total Con + Siz as per the hit location chart

When your total hits go to 0 or below - unconcious, and bleeding to death.
Check resilience each round - failure = lose 1 hp and take 1 point to the chest - success = stabilised , unconcious til healed back to positive hits.

When hits are = negative Con , death due to blood loss.

If a heal 2 is received or successful first aid received, stabilised automatically.

For a more cinematic feel , reduce unnamed NPC total hits to average of Con/Siz

For the gritty tough RQ2/3 feel , do so for PC's , named NPC's as well.

 

[atgxtg]

Since I know Zipp isn't familiar with older RQ stuff, here is a few other ways they used to handle hit points.


RQ1/2 used a differenrt formula that stressed CON over SIZ. HP were equal to CON and then adjusted by SIZ as follows:
SIZ 1-4:-2, SIZ 5-8: -1, SIZ 13-16: +1, SIZ 17-21 +2, +4 SIZ: +1 HP


A simplier approach was used in many other RQ based systems. Rather than using hit locations, ONLY TOtal Hit Points were used. In most games these were equal to CON, or the average of SIZ and CON. In some games they were equal to SIZ+CON.

Such games also used a major wounding system. Any hit that did half you hit points inflicted a major wound, leading to potential unconsciousness,crippled limbs, etc.

One of the reasons why Mongoose dropped Total Hit Points might be that magical healing was much more common in earlier editions of RQ. In RQ 2/3 pretty much every adventurer would know a few points of magic (reffered to as battle or sprirt magic, now called rune magic), and HEal was probably the most common spell in the game. Most RQ3 character took a point of healing during character creation. Practically everybody had a point or two of Heal. All that magical healing helped to mitigate the game's lethality.

The Mongoose version of the game is more D&Dish, with only dedicated spell casters starting with any any magic, and the requirement to find runes makes such magic less common, so I think the game was made less deadly to offset the drop in magic.

 

[Zipp Dementia]

Interesting. I compensated for the drop in magic by making healing potions a lot more common and available.

That's probably inspired by my Final Fantasy history ^_^

Similarly, I've made temple healers much more prevalent

Probably inspired by my Dragon Quest history ^_^

So without Rune Magic, what magical systems were there?

 

[atgxtg]

Interesting. I compensated for the drop in magic by making healing potions a lot more common and available.

That's probably inspired by my Final Fantasy history ^_^

Similarly, I've made temple healers much more prevalent

Probably inspired by my Dragon Quest history ^_^

The healing points thing is definitely more D&Dish that RQ. Most fantasy RPGs tend to follow the D&D "generic Middle Earth" mold. In old RQ, especially in Glorantha, you usually had an friend, follower, allied spirit, or the local Chalana Arroy healer patch you up.

So without Rune Magic, what magical systems were there?

Prepare to be confused.

RQ orginally had two types of magic. Battle Magic and Rune Magic. RQ Battle Magic were mostly minor spells and were the basis for MRQ's RUNE magic. RQ RUNE magic was the basis for MRQ Divine Magic. So in a sense, RUneQuesrt always had "Rune Magic", just under a different name. Many of the spells are the same, and some are fairly similar, but more powerful than their MRQ replacements. The old fireblade and firearrow spells were a lot more powerful than the MRQ versions, and most of the really powrrful Battle Magic spells like Mulitmissle and Fanatacism were dropped.

When RQ3 came out, Battle Magic was renamed Spirit Magic, and Rune Magic was renamed Divine Magic. In addition, Sorcery was added to the mix. Then there were other variation such as Lunar Magic, Dragon Magic, and Dragonewt magic.

RQ derived games like Stormbringer and Call of Cthulhu also had thier own magic systems.

MRQ renamed RQ 3 Spirit Magic (Battle Magic) Rune Magic, and created a new Spirit Magic system.

So, depending on what edition of RQ the people you are talking to are familiar with, the terms such as Rune Magic or Spirit Magic could refer to completely different magic systems.

 

[Rurik]

So without Rune Magic, what magical systems were there?

Rune Magic spells have been in all versions (blaedsharp, healing, disrupt, etc), though the magic system had different names. What is new to MRQ is the concept of Physical Runes that need to be integrated to cast spells. In earlier RQ anyone could learn these spells if they had a teacher and cash, and casting was always at POWx5 rather than a skill.

A summary of magic systems follows:

RQ1/2 Battle Magic = RQ3 Spirit Magic = MRQ Rune Magic
RQ1/2 Rune Magic = RQ3 Divine Magic = MRQ Divine Magic
RQ1/2 had no Sorcery. RQ3 and MRQ do.

Note that RQ1/2 had a magic system called Rune Magic, but it is the same as MRQ Divine Magic.