Subject: RQ Digest, Volume 2, Number 1 This issue: Knockback and Characters (Mark Abbott) Height Vs. Weight Split (Steven A. Schrader) A new experience system (Andrew Bell) Ed's note: Welcome to the second volume! From the initial response, I never expected to get as many subscribers as we currently have (43). Still, I'm glad you're here, and I hope the contents so far have been at least somewhat interesting. I encourage you, however, to let me know what you would like to see more of. Drop me a line about what you'd like to see, and I'll format the comments I get and put them in the digest. Who's this Ed fellow, anyway? --- From: abbott%dean.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu (+Mark Abbott) Subject: Knockback and characters On the problem of knockback. You could try this: Impaling and slashing weapons do 1m of knockback per 10 points of damage greater than the size of the target. Blunt weapons wouldn't change, ie 1m of knockback per 5 points of damage greater than size. This would be a very minor change, easy to implement, and would still make blunt weapons do more knockback than edged or pointed weapons. If you try it, let me know how it works out. I'm always rules tinkering so I'm interested in most changes. By the way, I rather like the knockback rules in RQIII. I think they add quite a bit of color and tactics to a fight. One of my characters died recently as a result of the damage sustained in a knockback. He's a little guy (Size 5) and he took a substantial shot to the body which sent him flying. He would have been out of the fight but still severely injured except he flew into a tree. I rolled max damage for bouncing off a hard object and the extra damage killed him. As the extra damage was to an arm, the GM decided that his arm had been caught in a crook of the tree and he was hanging there, feet on the ground, almost looking like he was leaning on the tree. Quite a vivid image. Mark --- [Ed's note: I got this article in time for 1.11, and managed to forget to put it in. As a penalty for my negligence, I'm cutting my salary in half. :-)] From: "Steven A. Schrader 237 - 8196"Subject: Height Vs. Weight Split I still think the two should be removed from the same classification. Although weight IS related to height it is not dependent on it. There is a lower limit to the survivability of weight to a given height. For example, a 2 meter tall person would probably be dead if they weighed 100 pounds; however, that same person could get as heavy as 1000 pounds. This should be taken into account. That is what I have tried to do with the following. I do like the Idea of basing weight on height, and to my surprise one of my initial methods seems to be valid. One other consideration of weight is strength. It is impossible to be light and very strong. Look at all of your body builders, boxers, and Amateur wrestlers. Though they look light they are quite dense. There could be a case built for CON adding to the weight or at least keeping it from being low. This is too complex for me to handle now. This is getting long so I will wait for responses. [Sorry about the long wait. - Ed.] Frame Decimeters Meters Mixed SR Small Medium Large 1 2 3 4 1 0.1 0'3" 3 1 1 1 1 2 0.2 0'7" 3 1 1 1 1 3 0.3 0'11" 3 1 1 1 1 4 0.4 1'3" 3 1 1 1 1 5 0.5 1'7" 3 1 1 1 1 6 0.6 1'11" 3 1 1 1 1 7 0.7 2'3" 3 1 1 1 2 8 0.8 2'7" 3 1 1 2 3 9 0.9 2'11" 3 1 2 3 4 10 1 3'3" 2 2 3 4 5 11 1.1 3'7" 2 3 4 5 6 12 1.2 3'11" 2 4 5 6 7 13 1.3 4'3" 2 5 6 7 8 14 1.4 4'7" 2 6 7 8 9 15 1.5 4'11" 2 7 8 9 10 16 1.6 5'2" 2 8 9 10 11 17 1.7 5'6" 2 9 10 11 12 18 1.8 5'10" 2 10 11 12 13 19 1.9 6'2" 2 11 12 13 14 20 2 6'6" 2 12 13 14 15 21 2.1 6'10" 2 13 14 15 16 22 2.2 7'2" 2 14 15 16 17 23 2.3 7'6" 2 15 16 17 18 24 2.4 7'10" 2 16 17 18 19 25 2.5 8'2" 2 17 18 19 20 26 2.6 8'6" 2 18 19 20 21 27 2.7 8'10" 2 19 20 21 22 28 2.8 9'2" 2 20 21 22 23 29 2.9 9'6" 2 21 22 23 24 30 3 9'10" 2 22 23 24 25 31 3.1 10'2" 2 23 24 25 26 32 3.2 10'5" 2 24 25 26 27 33 3.3 10'9" 2 25 26 27 28 34 3.4 11'1" 2 26 27 28 29 35 3.5 11'5" 2 27 28 29 30 36 3.6 11'9" 1 28 29 30 31 Equation for Weight from Height is as follows: Siz = Hit-9+1D4+Abs((Str-10)/2) The above was checked on the Metropolitan Life Insurance chart for recommended weights for Heights. Some changes to Siz such be made based on str (perhaps an argument can be made for con . . . Suggestion?). Perhaps STR can be used as a Modifier. For example, for every 2 points greater OR less than 10 add 1 to the SIZ (always round down). For example, a character rolls up a person with a 16 Str, and using my previous rules, rolls a character with a HIT of 19. For his weight he rolls 1D4 + 10. He rolls a 2, medium build SIZ of 12. He is strong and since muscle is heavier than fat, he adds 6. He has a SIZ of 15. The person is 1.9 meters tall(6' 2") and 202 - 219 pounds heavy. Another person rolls a character with a str of 4 and a HIT of 16. The Siz roll is a 1, SIZ 8. Adding in the Str modifier, SIZ goes from 8 to 11, or 143 - 155 pounds. this person has more fat than muscle. Also, when succesfully raising STR, a character's Siz will be affected Another note, I suggest the following classification changes. Agility DEX = Primary STR = Secondary SIZ = Negative Boat Dodge Ride Locomotion DEX = Primary STR = Secondary HIT = Secondary SIZ = Negative Climb Jump Swim Manipulation DEX = Primary INT = Secondary Same As RQ III Attack% = Locomotion Parry% = Primary(DEX) + Primary(Str) + Negative(HIT) -- Steven A. Schrader --- From: acb@romeo.cs.duke.edu Subject: A new experience system One of the more common complaints about RQ is the experience system. First off, it leads to skill check frenzy, where the player tries to use as many skills as possible to get as many checks as possible. Second off, it causes the players to concentrate on skill check gathering as opposed to the adventure itself. It also requires book-keeping on the GM's part to remember if a player succeeded in a skill that he would not immediately know yes or no. It also doesn't make much sense. To correct for this, I have eliminated skill checks completely and replaced them with an experience point system. I do not have complex calculations to determine how much a particular encounter was worth; instead, I evaluate the characters' performance and reward based on that. I haven't actually used this system enough to tell what a good number of experience points is for a typical adventure, but in part that depends on your style/power level of play. Players should be limited in what percentage of their points they can put in a single skill, based in large part on what they do on the adventure. You might even wish to give a certain part of the experience as "You get 50 riding experience points, and 250 general experience. Since we didn't do any combat, no more than 10% (25 exp. points) can go into any single combat skill." Note that I think it is perfectly reasonable to have skills like 65.34%, which means you have 34 of the 66 points needed to go up to 66%. Anyway, the way the system works is: to go from x% in a skill to x+1% requires x+1 experience points. (Thus from 0% to 1% is 1 experience point.) In total, we get this table: % cost % cost % cost % cost ----------------------------------------------------- 1 1 26 351 51 1326 76 2926 2 3 27 378 52 1378 77 3003 3 6 28 406 53 1431 78 3081 4 10 29 435 54 1485 79 3160 5 15 30 465 55 1540 80 3240 6 21 31 496 56 1596 81 3321 7 28 32 528 57 1653 82 3403 8 36 33 561 58 1711 83 3486 9 45 34 595 59 1770 84 3570 10 55 35 630 60 1830 85 3655 11 66 36 666 61 1891 86 3741 12 78 37 703 62 1953 87 3828 13 91 38 741 63 2016 88 3916 14 105 39 780 64 2080 89 4005 15 120 40 820 65 2145 90 4095 16 136 41 861 66 2211 91 4186 17 153 42 903 67 2278 92 4278 18 171 43 946 68 2346 93 4371 19 190 44 990 69 2415 94 4465 20 210 45 1035 70 2485 95 4560 21 231 46 1081 71 2556 96 4656 22 253 47 1128 72 2628 97 4753 23 276 48 1176 73 2701 98 4851 24 300 49 1225 74 2775 99 4950 25 325 50 1275 75 2850 100 5050 I have found this experience system is good for creating characters: you just build them with a certain number of experience points, based on how good they are. I replace every x1 on the previous experience charts with 40 exp., so the age roll isn't so important. It tends to equalize skills somewhat. This system also allows for a similar skills system. To work this, I give various skills a relatedness factor. For example, bastard sword is .8 like broad sword. To get your effective skill with the weapon you're less effective with, take the square of the SSM (similar skills modifier) and multiply that by the difference between the skills. Add that to the lower skill to get your effective skill. Training up the lower skill costs (1-SSM) as much. Thus if you have 80% bastard sword skill and 40% broadsword skill, your effective broadsword skill is 40% + (.8 * .8 * (80% - 40%)), which works out to 66%. It would cost you 20% as much to train up your broadsword skill to 80% as it would if you had no bastard sword skill. Hopefully by next issue I will be able to combine this with my fighting style concept. I have a fair idea how it should work, but I'd like to flesh out the details before I write it all out. -Andrew acb@romeo.cs.duke.edu --- The RuneQuest(tm) mailing list is a courtesy of Andrew Bell. All opinions and material above are the responsibility of the originator, and copyrights are held by them. RuneQuest is a trademark of Chaosium, Inc. Send submissions, mailing list changes, requests for old article lists, etc. to: acb@romeo.cs.duke.edu acb@dukeac.ac.duke.edu or ...!mcnc!duke!romeo!acb Request old articles by volume number and issue number.