[Runequest] Advice Sought re Damage & HP

[David Cake]

At 9:42 AM +0800 27/5/08, Gary Sturgess wrote:
>2008/5/27  <devinc at aol.com>:
>>  The lethality of RQ combat encourages players to try to find other ways to
>>  solve problems beyond hacking and slashing.
>
>The thing is, nothing in the RQ rules says anything about "this is a
>game where combat is supposed to be de-emphasised".

	It isn't. Its a game in which combat is dangerous.

	RuneQuest PCs don't, generally, decide to solve their 
problems by non-violent means much more than PCs in any other game.
	Look at the examples in the old RQ2 rulesbook - a typical 
example had people fighting, and then when they realised they were 
losing, surrendering and offering a ransom. And fights always had a 
lot of healing going on (more than other games, I think).

	Typically, RQ is just as violent up until the point where 
people get badly hurt. Then people surrender, run away, rescue their 
comrades, fall back and heal, attempt divine intervention, etc.
	And occasionally, when these fail, or when the injury is too 
vicious and quick to be dealt with, they die horribly. It IS a more 
lethal game. Personally, I think it adds to the game, but it can be a 
shock to someone used to D&D (where, after the level at which Raise 
Dead becomes easily affordable if not castable, a character is almost 
never lost) to have a well established character suddenly killed and 
realise they aren't coming back.


>There's an
>extensive fumble table, lots of weapon skills, many combat oriented
>spells (which in prior versions of the game are called BATTLE
>magic)... and the majority of introductory scenarios include combat as
>well. It's not really fair to claim that the lethality of RQ is a
>feature rather than a bug - if it was intended to mean "don't fight
>unless you have to", then they went about it fairly poorly (IMHO, of
>course).
>
>I think it might be significant that of all the BRP descended games
>(Mongoose RQ, Elric, Call of Cthulu) AND Glorantha descended games
>(HeroQuest, Pendragon Pass, and of course Mongoose gets in here as
>well), ALL of them have made combat less lethal than it is in RQ2 and
>3 (if only by removing hit locations).

	? Combat is actually far more lethal in some of those, 
especially CoC. It may have removed hit locations, but it also almost 
entirely removed healing and armour, added firearms, and pitted the 
PCs against hideous monsters regularly.
	And the game balance in Elric! is odd enough, but in general 
I found that, if nothing else, the absence of healing and 
unreliability of armour made it at east as lethal.

>
>It also scales badly. Beginning PCs are indeed extremely fragile. Rune
>level PCs generally have more armour than hit points, which means that
>they can wade into combat caring only about critical hits (which even
>a normal parry can stop). Combat isn't anywhere near as lethal once
>you get some decent armour - the real message that RQ teaches, IMHO,
>isn't "avoid fighting except as a last resort" but rather "get
>yourself some decent armour, as soon as possible".
>
>RQ3 is one of my all time favourite games, but I've run enough
>beginning level games over the years to convince myself that it is
>broken at that level - YMMV.

	I largely agree. High level RQ combat is, indeed, quite 
broken, and its always, IMO, been a problem with the system.
	High level RQ fights always ended up being a bit unsatisfying 
in my experience. There was always an element of 'wait for the lucky 
critical', and a lot of healing (it was not uncommon for rune level 
fights to have several incidences of one or the other taking a savage 
injury, going defensive for a round and having an allied spirit cast 
heal 6, and carrying on the round after). One very interesting thing 
about them was that numbers continued to matter a lot right up until 
high levels (two merely quite competent opponents at 75% skill can be 
a real threat to a true master at 150%), and another is that its 
almost impossible for any amount of skill to compensate for enough 
sheer size and bulk, both of which are quite contrasts to most RPGs, 
especially the D&D genre.

	Cheers
		David