[Runequest] Advice Sought re Damage & HP

Tue May 27 22:04:32 UTC 2008

I'm not ignoring your experience, and I'm sure that with adrenalin and stuff that people can endure edged combat, but blades are pretty nasty... This one is done by a person probably a lot less well versed in the use of a longsword than the averidge Rune Quest hero: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v4j3mvrDyQ (I know, it's skinned, and it's not defending itself, but I think this one illustrates what max rolled on the dice is.

As for daggers; remember that we're talking about serious stuff, not bowie-knives (who do 1d3 dam)
We're talking rondelldaggers, like this one, often as long as 40 cm: http://www.deltin.it/i6.htm 
-or stuff like the scramaseaxes, like this one: http://www.drakkaria.cz/images_items/scramasax---replika-pro-serm_3.jpg
-This is 1d4+2 damage :DAnyways, realism and roleplaygames are seldom a match IMHO, and as I do HEMA myself, I have given up to let all aspects of sparring combat be reflected realisticly in roleplay-rules (but I regard the RQ3 system as one of the better ones for melee).

Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 10:01:49 -0500From: styopa1 at gmail.comTo: runequest at rpgreview.netSubject: Re: [Runequest] Advice Sought re Damage & HPOn Tue, May 27, 2008 at 5:25 AM, <Nick.Middleton at wrsl.com> wrote:

Royce,If you can find it, the RQIV:AiG weapons table "flattened" out weapondamage to single die's, so daggers stopped being so insanely dangerous to anormal human (1D4+2 is high if the average arm has only 3HP - anunexceptional dagger blow will render an arm permanently maimed / uselesson 1 in 4 blows?!) and in general addressed the anomalies in the RQII/IIIweapon damages. Similarly one could use RQIV:AiG fixed DB's, or a die-sizestep table (+1, +1d2, +1d3, +1d4, +1d5, +1d6, +1d8, +1d10, +1d12 give spretty good spread).1) Since I spent some quality time on a farm as a teen involved in slaughtering / butchering / rendering farm animals for food, etc. I might have some insight that helps here.  (I certainly didn't appreciate that it was 'quality' at that time, nor that it would be useful in this context, but it has been.)  Dismembering a creature, even with a weapon designed for it, and PARTICULARLY one that's alive, kicking, and presumably trying to avoid the end result is EXTREMELY difficult.  It's without any reluctance whatsoever that I (in every RQ game I run) declare simply that you have to TRIPLE the location's hp to sever.  Arms are still particularly damaged/disabled, but the battlefield doesn't look like a George Romero homage every time.  Even that's pushing it, as a special success with an axe and any strength bonus could still cleave through a normal fellow's abdomen a goodly % of the time, which is ABSOLUTELY unrealistic.  A body is harder to cut through (more give = less bite) through than a tree, and I challenge anyone to cleave THROUGH a (relatively puny) 6" tree at one blow.2) I think there was just a slight disconnect in the original rules about averages, effects, and the (relatively) huge impact a single +1 or +2 could have on weapon damage.  D4 average is 2.5, which, if the average arm has 3 hp, is about right.  But according to canon rules, ANY hit with a dagger (3-6 damage or more) will disable an average person's arm?  I'd say either recognize the dagger in particular is broken and should just be 1d4, knives 1d3, or simply bump up the hp/location by one, so the 'average' dude has 4 hp/arm.  I think the former fix breaks fewer other things.I agree that RQ's lethality is shocking to someone acclimatized to more 'heroic' games, but I don't believe that makes it bad- it's a feature, in my mind.
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