Runequest Questions

[robertsconley]

Does Runequest really cause this amount of amputations? There were over a half dozen plus one PC getting a leg smashed. Luckily the PC had Healing 6 but still. The rule states that if a limb take more than 6 over the amount of hit point it is severed or irrevocably crippled. For example arm with 4 hit points will be severed if it takes 10 points of damage. Part of this was due that one of the players had a pole ax doing 3d6 or so damage.


My second question is that when you fire a missle weapons what defense the target gets? I know that if the target moves the skill is reduced by 1/4 and if the target is actively dodging the skill is reduced by a further 1/2. So moving and doding mens 1/4 skill.

Also I am not getting how movement and strike ranks work. I guess is boils down to what determines who moves when when they are not engaged. Plus how do you get out of melee if you want to run away? Rather are their any penalities for moving out of melee. Or moving from one melee to another (provided you only move half your move).

Thanks
Rob

[ffilz]

Yes, limbs go flying in RQ. Lately I've been using HP = SIZ + CON/2 + POW/4 which dramatically reduces the flying limbs (but big attacks will still send them flying). I also use HP * 0.3 per location for head, arms, and legs, HP * 0.4 for chest and abdomen (HP * 0.25 for tails). Those multipliers might be from RQ3.

Definitely with the original rules you absolutely need someone with Heal 6 in the party or the death rate will be high. Of course Heal 6 doesn't help when the head, chest, or abdomen is hit this hard...

Hmm, I've never used those modifiers to missile skill.

The way I handle movement and strike ranks is that your movement starts at your DEX strike rank. Each hex moves costs one strike rank, which delays any attack at the end of the movement. So attack happens at DEX SR + hexes moved + SIZ SR. I allow the 5 SR for "readying" a weapon to be combined with movement.

I haven't really imposed any penalties on disengaging. Of course your opponent can chase you.

Sometimes strike ranks can get wonky. If they cause something to happen that really doesn't make sense it's probably time to make a spot ruling.

I also use the rules allowing delay of attack by 1 SR to change hit location roll by 1. I allow a max of 4 SR of delay. Optionally, you can choose to strike at SR 12 (no movement allowed) and 1/2 attack to pick location. This provides a nice tactical choice and seems to work well. The half attack prevents the slowest opponent from just choosing location. The 4 SR maximum prevents fast opponents from having too much choice of location (also means that not all moderately fast people will just choose to attack at SR 12 with whatever hit location mod results). My intelligent monsters will make use of these tactics.

One final thing I started to do was require players to use a D12 set in front of them to indicate when their next significant action would occur. That really sped up SR counts. When an NPC attacks, I make it clear what SR it is, this allows the players to adjust their hit location modification delay tactics (of course based on the information from this round, the NPC may choose a different delay for next round himself...).

Frank

[ffilz]

Now to get father afield with my house rules, which provides a big help to the missile defense:

Instead of computing the skill bonuses from the attributes, players assign the following array of bonuses (5, 10, 10, 15, 15, 20, 20, 25) to the bonus categories (attack, parry, defense, manipulation, stealth, communication, knowledge, perception). Yes, some of those categories have the same bonus computation under the stock rules, but this division makes for good chargen I've found. I do require that the distribution be reasonable considering the attributes. Oh, players also divide a fixed number (103) of points amongst their attributes. 103 is too high and the next time I run, I will reduce it. The number came about because in a spur of the moment, I had some players just pick their attributes. Two players came within a couple points of 103, the third player came in somewhat higher. I decided the stats at 103 looked decent and set that value. I don't think I'd drop it too far, maybe as low as 95.

Ok, now armed with that, a Dodge skill is the only defense skill. It has a 10% base. You can use Dodge against missiles.

I haven't gone too far in dealing with these bonuses for NPCs. I was giving Trollkin a 20% or 25% total Dodge skill. Dark Trolls and such I think I gave 10% or so to. I mostly left attack and parry skills at what was in the module (I recently ran Rainbow Mounds from Apple Lane).

Oh, and for previous experience, I use something derived from RQ3. They tend to give 1 to 3 skills with +20, a few more with +10 (up to 6), and 4 or 6 with +5. Magic ranges from 3 points up to 6 for priest background.

PCs start as initiates if they can meet the qualifications (no Charisma rolls necessary), otherwise they are lay members.

Frank