From: Elliot Wilen (8hum190@violet.Berkeley.edu)
Date: Sat 18 Aug 1990 - 09:56:33 EEST
Incidentally, in the sorcery article, when I
said 'you' I was actually talking to Steve Maurer, to whom I
referred later. He actually sent me his own fix for the rules,
which I have somewhere but haven't looked at very closely.
[Ed: Oops. I also sent you something suggesting penalties for casting
higher point spells, but probably after Steve did.]
I'll ask him if I can submit them as an alternate, but I think my fix is better (at first glance) since it's simple and involves very little change from the standard rules.
I have gotten a letter from someone which raises a couple of points against my approach, though, so I may have some revising to do. The revising might involve changing my system, but I'm hoping (in spite of the work it would involve) it will be preferable to write a new sorcery spell list.
Here's another problem with the rules which I don't think you mentioned: the armor rules. Maybe a fix to the fatigue rules will handle part of the problem, namely the fact that some types of armor weigh too much for someone really to wear them. Imagine a knight in plate armor! I also think that the new approach to helmets is a bad one. It doesn't really define helmets the way they should be defined-- by construction, not material. Actually, neither is ideal, but there's no real good way (or is there?) to distinguish between an open helm made out of plate and a visored one except by adding a point or two of absorption to the latter.
Besides, some of the armor types seem to be just plain incorrectly defined/rated; and many of them shouldn't be available for use as pieces on every part of the body.
In sum, I like the old (RQ II) approach to armor much better, and I think I might go back to that and try to elaborate it for use with RQ III. Maybe other people have ideas/opinions on the topic.
Far away, I have an idea to make the weapon damages in RQ a little more GURPSish (conversely, I've already decided the GURPS hit location system needs to be more RQ-ish). This would mean distinguishing between crushing, edged, and pointed weapons effects and how they interact with armor. GURPS does this in a non-complicated manner.
In the meantime, maybe someone can provide a ready-made method of getting rid of those breakpoints in the damage bonus chart.
For specialization: treat it as follows: if you learn a skill basically in one environment, and you have to use it under conditions with which you are unfamiliar, your skill is halved until the GM decides you've gained familiarity with the environment. This isn't a big penalty, but then again, hiding behind trees and under piles of leaves isn't all that different from hiding behind corners and under tables.
I'd use the same approach when someone picks up a new weapon and immediately has to fight with it before getting used to its balance. If half skill seems harsh, maybe just -20 (-10?) *or* 1/2, whichever is the smaller penalty.
For similar skills, I'm not sure what you're talking about. I thought you might mean something like a default system, in which a high skill in one area will help other related skills 'default' to a semi-decent value. But RQ's skills are quite distinct for the most part, except the weapon skills. I do think that someone with a 90% skill in 2H Hammer should also be pretty decent with a Maul. For that matter, I don't see how a person can be 90% with a one-handed Bastard Sword, yet 15% with it two-handed. (I could be very wrong there, though--two-handed fighting style might be a lot different from one-handed.) I could go on...there must be a similarity between fighting with a shortsword and a broadsword, for example.
While we're on weapons, I think it a bit odd that the only only advantage derived from using certain weapons two-handed instead of one-handed is that they require less strength. Either they should do a bit more damage (which might confuse the relationship between a long spear and a short spear, for example), or weapons should get a bonus for the amount by which the minimum strength is exceeded. (This also has problems.) Maybe instead, damage should be set by strength, and only *modified* by weapon. This is what GURPS does: a strength of 12 does a basic d6-1 with a thrusting weapon, or d6+2 with a swung weapon. This is then modified by the particular weapon.
But I think the above paragraph is getting rather far afield. One last tangential point, though: there should be a penalty for parrying a flail. Right now, flails have a chance of entangling opposing weapons. This is colorful, but not the real advantage of that sort of weapon. The real advantage is that they could be swung so that they'd swing around an interposed object and still hit. I think a minus or halving for weapon and shield parries would be appropriate.
For skill increases: I'm in favor of eliminating the learning by experience system altogether and just using training during off-time. This is more realistic. To reward good role-playing, though, you could award e.p. and use your method. To be hyper-realistic, you could award training time for skills used during adventure; typically, this would only be worthwhile for things like riding, shiphandling, and some lores, which might be considered to be being used all the time.
Incidentally, if the experience-by-rolling method is dropped, then weapon parry skills should be expressly connected to attack skills in some way. This might be sticky, though, since there's actually a complex relationship between shield parries, weapon parries, and weapon attacks (not to mention Dodge). But if something isn't done, people will have widely disparate weapon attack and parry skills. Maybe that's realistic. I doubt it. So here's another long-term project: rework the entire relationship between attacks, parries, shield parries, and dodges. I'll think about it.
You might want to just include this piece of rambling in an upcoming issue. Probably starting with "Here's another problem..."
[Ok, but I start it earlier, I'll admit it when I make a mistake.]
Yours,
Elliot
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