Wayfarer Tweaks: Improving on RQ2.

[Richard]

Given that RQ2 is about to change is it worth having a thread (This one?) to flag up areas that need ironing out/clarification/tweaking? It could only be to the benefit of Wayfarer and the future of the system in general. Possible solutions could be offered by those lucky enough to have time on their hands. Matt and his crew could take the advice or not as they see fit but they would have a ready source of ideas from experienced players. It's a great system (...or version of the BRP system if you like) and it'd be nice to help it prosper in its new incarnation. My 2 Bolgs worth off the top of my head...

*The economics are a mess and could certainly do with sorting out. Compare the amount PCs have to pay for training and with suggested wages and living expenses!

*A clarification of charging and movement as that seems to be a recurring source of confusion on the forum.

*I'd suggest adopting the change from the term Magnitude to Intensity (Which will also be familiar to old RQ3 players like myself) for Grimoire/10 as suggested in a neighbouring thread.

*As helpful background of a generic nature for purchasers maybe a version of the recent Wiki on real world historic cults could be added to the book as examples for Divine Magic (I do realise these are gross oversimplifications for the purpose of fantasy gaming but that's what would make them useful).

*Improved generation and background sheets.

*A brief interesting starting scenario to get players 'into' the game. This could be presented a freeby bonus online support material.

*Improved artwork (Subjective I know...)

I'm sure experienced forum dwellers out there will have more ideas to contribute. If we let this turn into a re-release of the same material simply cut and pasted with all things Gloranthan deleted I think it would be a missed opportunity to strengthen the product.

 

[Da Boss]

Useful idea and thread............

Some excellent points there which I agree with:

to add to the list:

Combat Styles - a discussion of how these are both intended to work and how a GM can tailor them to his or her game style and campaign. The RQ description and infromation is (intentionally) vague and needs some clarifcations.

Unarmed Combat Work needed here

Dual Wielding: Most people seem to have adopted a House Rule about having to use the wepaon (or item) that grants the extra CA - my present rule is:

Dual Wielding: A player may claim an additional CA for a second weapon, shield or “useful” item in his or her off hand, but the extra CA must involve that weapon, shield or item. A character picking up a second item immediately gains the additional CA, but must, as normal use it with the item they have just began to wield. If a Character loses the item during the round, they loose the bonus CA unless they have already used the weapon or item that granted it.

Example: Krysia, a half Melnibonean mercenary is involved in a raid on a human trade caravan. She normally has three combat actions a round, but is armed with a lance and shield and so generates an extra CA, giving her a total of four. She can use up to three of these with her lance, but at least one of the four must incorporate her shield.

 

[Mixster]

We usually rule that if she picks up something new, she has used her "off-hand" CA for picking it up that round.

 

[Dan True]

- Penalty to Athletics when wearing armour. I usually go with 5*Armour Penalty, but probably need testing.

- I can only stress that the charging rules need clarifications and rewriting.

- Realistic range penalties. "No penalty up to weapon range" is simply too loose, when most ranges are 100+ meters. Perhaps the table from Wraith Recon with distance compared to SIZ of target.

- Dan

 

[daddystabz]

PLEASE specify/clarfy movement much better than in MRQII.

 

[master of reality]

Given that RQ2 is about to change is it worth having a thread (This one?) to flag up areas that need ironing out/clarification/tweaking?

*I'd suggest adopting the change from the term Magnitude to Intensity (Which will also be familiar to old RQ3 players like myself) for Grimoire/10 as suggested in a neighbouring thread.

I agree that the term "magnitude" should be changed to "intensity", but IMO Grimoire/10 should be called "magnitude". Grimoire/10 serves the same purpose that magnitude does for common and divine spells. What's confusing is that the term "magnitude" for sorcery spells refers to the ability of the spell to "overcome magical defences or resist magical attacks. It does not modify the effect of the spell which is controlled by the Sorcery (Grimoire) skill." (p. 128) Instead, the "magnitude" of a sorcery spell is determined by the sorcerer's manipulation skill.

I would change the sorcery rules to read something like the following.


For the purposes of modifying the effect of a sorcery spell, the magnitude of a sorcery spell has the same meaning as the magnitude of common or divine spells. The magnitude of a sorcery spell has a default value of one and can be increased by one for every 10% of the caster's Grimoire skill.

Intensity: Used to penetrate magical defences or resist magical attacks.

Intensity
Sorcery spells have a default intensity of 1 at no additional Magic Point cost. It costs one Magic Point to augment the Intensity of a sorcery spell. The intensity of a spell can be increased by one point (level?) for every 10% or fraction thereof of Manipulation skill.


Otherwise, the magic mechanics work fine.

 

[Dan True]

But what about common magic or divine magic that attempts to dispel sorcery? I'm not saying there's a problem, but a terminology change will need to remember this.

- Dan

 

[Dan True]

Oh ya, one more thing:

- Clean up the rulebook. Some stuff has been placed weird places, a few exaomples:

- unarmed damage under the unarmed skill instead of under unarmed combat in the combat chapter.
- Magic points = POW is placed under character generation. Why not under magic?
- Magic point costs for Common Magic.. I know what it is but I can't for the love of Cthulhu not find where it is references.. it certainly isn't the Common Magic chapter (or am I completely old, sad and blind?).

It just needs a little tidying up

-Dan

 

[RosenMcStern]

I agree that the term "magnitude" should be changed to "intensity", but IMO Grimoire/10 should be called "magnitude".

Nope.

The reason why it is called "Magnitude" is well thought of. In all the countermagic/neutralize/shield spell, no matter to what magic system they belong, it is clearly stated that they block/counter a certain amount of Magnitude. With the rules as writtent now, the subject is absolutely unambiguous: counter-intuitive, but not ambiguous.

But if you add a note like: ok, WRT sorcery, it is not Magnitude but Intensity that you neutralize, then the whole question becomes rather unclear. Spells will begin to work differently than how they are written.

 

[PhilHibbs]

I agree that the term "magnitude" should be changed to "intensity", but IMO Grimoire/10 should be called "magnitude".

Nope.

The reason why it is called "Magnitude" is well thought of.

I absolutely agree. Grimoire/10 needs a term, which should be Intensity, Level, Potency, or something like that, but Magnitude is already established and should not be changed, or existing scenarios and other material would become misleadingly incompatible, even more so than MRQ1 stuff is.

 

[sdavies2720]

At risk of wandering off-topic, I have a (simple) format request: Put the Chapter name on every page. As it is, when I open the book I have no idea which chapter I'm in, and have to either thumb to find a chapter heading, or go to the beginning of the book to see what page number I'm looking for.

Steve

 

[languagegeek]

Put the Chapter name on every page.

Yes please. Also, having the even page numbers at the bottom left while the odd page numbers are at the top right isn't a good idea, especially when reading the pdf - pick one or the other. Layout/Design/Typography isn't always a good place to be "innovative" as readers are used to conventions and can find deviations distracting and makes using the book more difficult than it need be.

Another typographic oddity in some of the RQII books is that emphasized words are both bolded *and* italicized. Italics are enough, bolding them as well is too much.

Certain new cults have been included in this edition. The names
may not be instantly familiar but are referred to in the Elric saga albeit obscurely.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Layout/Design/Typography isn't always a good place to be "innovative" as readers are used to conventions and can find deviations distracting and makes using the book more difficult than it need be.

There was a roleplaying magazine back in the mid '90s that was printed in white on a black background.

 

[Fabian]

Valkyrie, I believe.

 

[master of reality]

I agree that the term "magnitude" should be changed to "intensity", but IMO Grimoire/10 should be called "magnitude".

Nope.

The reason why it is called "Magnitude" is well thought of. In all the countermagic/neutralize/shield spell, no matter to what magic system they belong, it is clearly stated that they block/counter a certain amount of Magnitude. With the rules as writtent now, the subject is absolutely unambiguous: counter-intuitive, but not ambiguous.

But if you add a note like: ok, WRT sorcery, it is not Magnitude but Intensity that you neutralize, then the whole question becomes rather unclear. Spells will begin to work differently than how they are written.

Fine you win. We can call grimoire/10 intensity and leave the term magnitude alone

 

[Mixster]

- Magic points = POW is placed under character generation. Why not under magic?

I think the reasoning is that Magic Points is an Attribute just like Combat Actions or Damage Modifier, hence it makes sense to place it under attributes.
Not that I think it's a good reasoning, but I think that's why it's not under magic.

- Magic point costs for Common Magic.. I know what it is but I can't for the love of Cthulhu not find where it is references.. it certainly isn't the Common Magic chapter (or am I completely old, sad and blind?).

Yeah, right now it's under spell traits and descriptions, under magnitude (x). But it should probably be on the page before under casting common magic spells it could say: Each common magic spell costs a number of magic points equal to their magnitude.

At risk of wandering off-topic, I have a (simple) format request: Put the Chapter name on every page. As it is, when I open the book I have no idea which chapter I'm in, and have to either thumb to find a chapter heading, or go to the beginning of the book to see what page number I'm looking for.

I second (third?) this. It's not a big problem for me since I always look upper right when looking for the page number, and I don't have the PDF. But I can see the problem.

- Penalty to Athletics when wearing armour. I usually go with 5*Armour Penalty, but probably need testing.

Aren't there already penalties to jumping, swimming and climbing in armour? Since athletics is also used for throwing things that don't have a combat style, I find it odd that it should be harder throwing a ball wearing a leather vest than without one.

 

[Dan True]

Aren't there already penalties to jumping, swimming and climbing in armour? Since athletics is also used for throwing things that don't have a combat style, I find it odd that it should be harder throwing a ball wearing a leather vest than without one.

Well, if the leather vest is burly enough to protect properly (i.e. grant AP), then it will interfere with movement... Moving you arm is harder when it's worn down with mail or plate. Athletic tests to avoid failling over, be tripped etc. will also be influenced.

But, the main reason is to give a penalty to the Athletic test to avoid fatigue. People in a lot of armour will fail their athletic tests to avoid fatigue more often.

- Dan

 

[Mixster]

Aren't there already penalties to jumping, swimming and climbing in armour? Since athletics is also used for throwing things that don't have a combat style, I find it odd that it should be harder throwing a ball wearing a leather vest than without one.

Well, if the leather vest is burly enough to protect properly (i.e. grant AP), then it will interfere with movement... Moving you arm is harder when it's worn down with mail or plate. Athletic tests to avoid failling over, be tripped etc. will also be influenced.

But, the main reason is to give a penalty to the Athletic test to avoid fatigue. People in a lot of armour will fail their athletic tests to avoid fatigue more often.

- Dan

Nice application of the idea. But I think it might hurt the other parts of athletics too much, it is already impossible to climb if you are wearing more armour than a leather skirt. And sprint shorter distances on every Combat round. You are also jumping shorter distances.

The problem is, I see knights doing all sort of athletic stunts in plates, so I don't understand why athletics should be at such a terrible penalty. Rather have them take more Fatigue tests or something would be my way of doing that.

 

[Dan True]

Nice application of the idea. But I think it might hurt the other parts of athletics too much, it is already impossible to climb if you are wearing more armour than a leather skirt. And sprint shorter distances on every Combat round. You are also jumping shorter distances.

The problem is, I see knights doing all sort of athletic stunts in plates, so I don't understand why athletics should be at such a terrible penalty. Rather have them take more Fatigue tests or something would be my way of doing that.

Well, depends on whether you go for the realistic or epic. But again, the most important thing to me is that it's a penalty on fatigue tests. The other stuff might be too realistic and stop people from wearing armour.

- Dan

 

[Mixster]

Well, depends on whether you go for the realistic or epic. But again, the most important thing to me is that it's a penalty on fatigue tests. The other stuff might be too realistic and stop people from wearing armour.

- Dan

Well, modern equipped Marines carry about twice the amount of weight a Full plate weighs.

This guy tells a bit about it in the "weapon that made britain" series:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMuNXWFPewg&feature=related

Also, note, he is pretty agile in his armour.
So I find it pretty realistic that you just get tired faster with armour.