Weasel's combat modifications

[weasel_fierce]

So while getting our fussy 1 month old baby to sleep, I was thinking up what I think I'll be using from here on, basically making combat a bit more like RQ3


Armour penalties apply, as written, to dodging and various skill rolls (mainly swimming, climbing, jumping and fatigue rolls), but NOT weapon skills.

A successfull dodge will avoid a normal attack, and reduce a critical hit to a regular hit. A critical dodge will avoid a critical hit, and cause a normal success attacker to become overextended

A successfull parry will absorb damage equal to twice the printed AP value of the weapon. Excess damage strikes the target. Any time the weapon is "overcome" in this way, it looses a HP.
Critical successes absorb the damage completely, with no reduction of weapon HP. If the attack was not also a critical, the defender earns a Riposte.


Total hit points will be used (Im thinking of raising them slightly though, in keeping with MRQ characters being a bit tougher).
Total HP is CON. +1 per 3 points of SIZ, +1 per 15 points of STR, +1 per 15 points of POW.
Reduced to 0, a character dies at the end of the /following/ round, unless healed back to 1 HP or more.

Resilience rolls to remain conscious remain as printed. Rolls to avoid death are not taken. Instead any such injury results in blood loss of 1 HP per turn, untill bandaged or slain.


The above changes allow printed material to be used, with a minimum of modification (notably thinking of the arms&equipment book here), are easier to remember (no matrix) and brings some of the "oomph" of RQ3 combat back.
Anything not specifically listed here, remains as it works currently in MRQ

Comments ?

 

[frogspawner]

Looks great to me. A significant leap in the right direction, at very least.

I'd suggest basing total HP on SIZ not CON, but I realize that's a departure from established RQ and a matter of taste.

Good one!

 

[RosenMcStern]

Just wait for the Deluxe BRP to come out. It should be very much like RQ3.

 

[weasel_fierce]

Just wait for the Deluxe BRP to come out. It should be very much like RQ3.

It'll be a mix of RQ3 and Stormbringer5 to be exact. That has nothing to do with wanting to use my MRQ and Glorantha 2nd age books though.

 

[Dr. Halflight]

If both the Attacker & the Defender succeed, will you see who rolled highest to determine success or its all purely Pass/Fail?

Looks like a pretty good fix to me. I know that I had let the whole Combat Matrix hinder my thoughts of MRQ combat since day 1 & now that I'm not looking at that particular subsystem, I'm feeling better about combat. But I like unified mechanics and really dislike games that make Combat a distinct system.

 

[weasel_fierce]

At this point, its a pass/fail thing. Im not that keen on applying the opposed skills rule to combat, so unless I find an overarching need to, Im not going to.

I dont use opposed rolls very often in RQ, outside of combat, so its not a big issue for me, though I do like the new opposed rule for non combat tasks.

 

[Mugen]

I plan on using opposed rolls in the following way in combat :

*In case of a dodge, if defender's roll beats attacker's, the attack fails.

*A parry roll that beats the attack roll blocks 2*AP. In case where the parry is a success but doesn't beat the attack roll, only AP are substracted from the damage. Optionally, if Parry roll is a critical, AP are counted one more time to determine damage reduction (that is, 2*AP if attack roll is the best, and 3*AP if parry roll is better).