Underlings in RQII

[Deleriad]

I must admit that I find underlings in RQII to need too much tracking as written so I've been trying to find a way of simplifying them right down while ensuring that they stay dangerous. I am interested in what people think of the following.

An underling has Hit Points equal to its (CON+SIZ)/5. Rounded up as usual.

An underling is removed from combat when either its Hit Points are reduced to zero; it receives a critical hit; or it receives any Combat Manoeuvre (whether attacking or defending).

The only characteristic that needs tracking for an underling is SIZ.

An underling's attributes are Movement, Initiative, Damage Modifier.

An underling's Damage Modifier, Movement and Strike Rank Modifier are based on the normal average values for its species. Superior underlings will have better values.

An underling's Armour Penalty is equal to its worn Armour Points. E.g. an underling wearing a suit of armour providing 4 APs of protection has an armour penalty of 4.

An underling's Initiative Strike Rank is not rolled, instead it is equal to the normal average Strike Rank Modifier for the underling's species plus 4 minus any armour penalty. (E.g. an average human has a SRM of +12 therefore an average human underling has an Initiative of 16 minus Amour Penalty).

An underling has one attack and one defence per combat round. Underlings with missile weapons fire once per round unless they have weapons with a reload rate of 2 or more in which case they fire once every other round.

Underlings can normally move up to their Movement Rating or take some sort of minor action in addition to attacking. An underling can move at up to 5 times its normal MOV if it gives up all other actions.

An underling has only the four following skills: Combat, Evade, Resist, Non-Combat. Resist is used whenever Persistence or resilience rolls are called for. Non-combat skill rolls include all other non-combat, non-magical skills perception, stealth and so on.

Magic for underlings is assumed to have been cast before combat and is included in their stats.

An underling stat block looks like this
Spear carrier, human
SIZ 13 Move 8m, Initiative SR 12, Damage Modifier 0
Armour Points 3 (Ringmail), Hit Points 5
Combat: 55%, Evade 30%, Resist 30%, Non-Combat skills 35%
Weapons: Short Spear (1D8+1 M/L), Heater Shield (1D4 L/S)

This is taken from my wiki page where I'm toying with the idea.

 

[superc0ntra]

I find HP very low but otherwise it's a good way to handle underlings.

 

[Deleriad]

I find HP very low but otherwise it's a good way to handle underlings.

Thanks. The idea behind the HP value is to simulate serious wounds. For example, an average human being has a number of HPs in their head equal to their (CON+SIZ)/5 and getting a location reduced to 0 HPs is a serious wound. For an underling, any serious wound (or close to it) ought to be enough to remove them from play. Doesn't mean they're dead. They may be unconscious, getting to safety to try First Aid or healing, demoralised and backing off and so on. The more general intent is to say that any decent hit on an underling is enough to remove it from play. If you make it so that most underlings take at least two average hits to go down then you're sort of going against the intent of having a mass of extras whose role is to threaten the hero without taking up a whole lot of story time.

 

[PhilHibbs]

An underling is removed from combat when either its Hit Points are reduced to zero; it receives a critical hit; or it receives any Combat Manoeuvre

But all hits get a Combat Manoeuvre, so any hit takes them out

 

[Deleriad]

An underling is removed from combat when either its Hit Points are reduced to zero; it receives a critical hit; or it receives any Combat Manoeuvre

But all hits get a Combat Manoeuvre, so any hit takes them out

A parried hit doesn't nor does an Evade where the defender makes the Evade but loses the contest.

But yes, the intent is pretty much supposed to be if you hit an underling and it doesn't parry then that's it for the underling. One hit and they're down and out. Occasionally for PCs with Large weapons facing underlings with medium shields and light armour then a parried hit will still do more than 5 HPs damage.

The inspiration is pretty much a mix of Savage Worlds and D&D Minion rules. The idea is that an underling is just as dangerous when it hits but, in general, if you get a hit past its defences it goes straight down. I don't personally want to be tracking CAs, bleeding, impales, stuns, knocked prone, bashed and so on for nameless orcs. Really all that matters with a horde of nameless orcs is whether it's shoving a spear in your face or not.

I ran some big battles in Blood of Orlanth under both my house rules and RQII and also ran the Living Glorantha scenario locally which does have one significant combat with lots of extras around. I've been running RQ long enough that I can just about mentally track 20 on each side but I realised after the last time that the effort required really wasn't paid back.

 

[PhilHibbs]

If anyone wants a slightly more advanced minion generator/tracker, here's a cut-down version of my character creation spreadsheet with space for four minions with a small selection of combat skills. As with the main character creation sheet, either create a Google Docs account and save a version for your own use, or download it as a spreadsheet document for OOo or Excel (not tested it yet in either but it should work)

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc...k40aW9jdkFtRzdoY19aVWc&hl=en&authkey=CNO0jJMB

It could easily be copied and pasted into, say, a 3x3 grid for 9 minions or NPCs.