Location-less armor problem

From: Joerg Baumgartner (rq4@sartar.toppoint.de)
Date: Tue 31 Aug 1993 - 18:52:52 EEST


One point the people wanting to chase hit locations out of RQLite seem
to miss is the effect of armor. In my RuneQuest-campaigns, most
characters (PCs and NPCs) wore different values of armor on different
locations. As long as we keep the simple integer damage reduction as

the effect of armor, the question where the hit occured is essential.

Or, put in other words: if my character wears his ancestral ringmail
hauberk, a bronze plate helmet and soft leather covering on the limbs,
how does this reduce incoming damage? What if he leaves the helmet off?

Neither the Nethack approach (each piece of armor reduces the chance to
take damage) nor the Stormbringer/Elric mechanic of rolling for the
armor seems appropriate to me.

(Of course the effect of partly covering armour like that of Lunar or
Spartan hoplites remains difficult to determine, it's an all-or-nothing
approach, much like sorcerous Damage Resistance.)

With regard to the ongoing RQLite discussion:

Do we have any Swedish or Danish participants on this list with access
to Aeventyrspels "Drakar och Demoner"?

This is a Basic RolePlaying system very popular in Scandinavia which
appeared to be sort of RQLite. I own some fragments of it (my read
Swedish is sufficent), but don't have the full measure. If somebody
has, please report!

This is a system which introduces thirteen year olds to the mechanics
we use in RQ, including the concept of hit locations etc, and makes it

easy for swedish RQers to explain RQ to newcomers. Maybe we could learn
from them...

-- 
Joerg Baumgartner      rq4@sartar.toppoint.de

0,,

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Sat 05 Jul 2003 - 20:29:23 EEST