From: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com (RuneQuest Rules Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.imagiconline.com Subject: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #148 Reply-To: runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Sender: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Errors-To: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Precedence: bulk RuneQuest Rules Digest Monday, September 13 1999 Volume 02 : Number 148 RuneQuest is a trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance in RQ3 RE: [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance in RQ3 RE: [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance in RQ3 RE: [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance in RQ3 RE: [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance in RQ3 RE: [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance in RQ3 RE: RE: [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance in RQ3 [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance general comments Re: [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance in RQ3... RULES OF THE ROAD 1. Do not include large sections of a message in your reply. Especially not to add "Yeah, I agree" or "No, I disagree." Or be excoriated. If someone writes something good and you want to say "good show" please do. But don't include the whole message you praise. 2. Use an appropriate Subject line. 3. Learn the art of paraphrasing: Don't just quote and comment on a point-by-point basis. 4. No anonymous posting, please. Don't say something unless you're ready to stand by it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 14:30:10 -0700 From: Brad Furst Subject: [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance in RQ3 >From: "Rich Allen" >ENC is affected by the wearing of armor. My character is SIZ 12, with a STR >of 16 and a CON of 13 (a bit above average, in my estimation). This gives >him a fatigue score of 29. Now strap on a full suit of chainmail (20 ENC), >and his fatigue drops to 9!!! Add in a Battle Axe (1 ENC) and a "standard >traveler's pack" (14 ENC) and his fatigue is now -6 even though he is fully >rested. Sorry, that just don't make sense. It is okay. The character should not be wearing such armor except in battle. The character should not be carrying the pack except when not in battle. Your number are already precedented in the RQ3 Vikings (or was is Monster Coliseum, or both) where Frankish/barbarian knights start at negative encumbrance. Encumbrance penalties are not so bad. Such -6 is trivial to a Master with magic enhancements. Lesser characters (less experience or lower characteristics) should not be expected to use heavy armor without precautions. If your man in your example simply drops his pack before entering melee, then he can go eight rounds before incurring encumbrance penalties. That's a long melee. Many are over quicker than that. Recently I've been studying portrayal of time length of melee in film and television. One minute (5 rounds in RQ3) is very typical. For example, the recent film _Thirteenth_Warrior_ in the scene where the bad guys drop down through the roof of the lodge where our party is sleeping goes 60 seconds. Combat scenes in _El_Cid_ (!) may go as much as two and a half minutes. (I am intending that this paragraph is not for argument, but for consolation; instead, if you all wish to debate, I would rather know the number of combat rounds typical in your campaign). >What I would rather see is either a method of reducing >the ENC value of equipment in an intelligent manner, or possibly an increase >in the amount of fatigue a character starts out with. I don't think a >simple ENC/5 or similar system would do justice, so are there any other >ideas out there? In our campaign, if a character's fatigue drop to zero or below, then his soul ceases to exist and the character is dead. ;-) Really, we have been successful with the secret illuminati RQ4:AiG rules, but we gave those up soon in favor of a system which compares parameters using the regular Resistance Table. There [for melee and other short term situations] we compared the character's STR+SIZ (not CON) versus encumbrance. For long term [e.g., daily overland riding], we compared STR+CON versus encumbrance. You can see that the former allows fairer comparisons for characters whose size requires matching armor encumbrance. Brad Furst esoteric@teleport.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 22:28:25 -0400 (EDT) From: Terje Tollisen Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance in RQ3 For most cases 1 ENC = 1 kg = 2.2 pounds. So a person wearing 35 kg or 77 pounds of armour and equipment _should_ have a negative fatigue. Not because he gets tired as soon as he puts on, but because all that weight is making harder to do any physical activity (-6 to all rolls). Any normal person will be heavily hindered and encumbered by a load like that. (Just try to carry 35 litres or about 10 US gallons of water around;-) - -Terje Tollisen __________________________________________________ FREE Email for ALL! Sign up at http://www.mail.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 20:48:30 -0600 From: "Rich Allen" Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance in RQ3 > It is okay. The character should not be wearing such armor except in > battle. The character should not be carrying the pack except when not in > battle. I don't agree. Medieval knights wore their full plate armor from the time they left their keep/tent to the time they returned, sometimes hours later, and some accounts of battles I have seen (on the History Channel) lasted close to an hour. One show I saw refuted to notion that knights were heavily encumbered while wearing their armor, showing one actor in full plate doing cartwheels and running sprints. And this was with PLATE armor, I don't believe chainmail is even close to the weight of plate, and I have worn a chanmail shirt. > If your man in your example simply drops his pack before entering melee, > then he can go eight rounds before incurring encumbrance > penalties. That's > a long melee. Many are over quicker than that. Um, maybe I'm looking at it wrong, but I don't believe simply dropping your pack will automatically recover lost fatigue. These still have to be recovered through normal means. Also, eight rounds is indeed long for a single combat, but most _battles_ consists of many single combats. Out group just finished taking out a rather large troll "infestation" in which we faced several waves of trollkins before meeting the three trolls that were in charge. We had no time for a rest, and no oppurtunity to retreat. While not the norm, this does happen in our games quite often. > Recently I've been studying portrayal of time length of melee in film and > television. One minute (5 rounds in RQ3) is very typical. I did something similar while watching the new Zorro film (Antonio Banderas). While the combats were short as you state, there were MANY more attack/parry combinations during this time than would occur in RQ combat. Maybe not a good example, as fencing tends to be quicker than sword bashing, but there it is. My favorite movie of all time, Highlander, also has quite long sword fights, and illustrates that in mass combat, a PC will normally encounter several opponents before the battle has ended, taking in some cases quite a long time. What I would be interested in hearing is thoughts regarding the ENC values currently assigned to armor. RQ2 has Fatigue calculated as the average of STR and CON, instead of the sum of the two, but a full suit of chainmail only has a 6 ENC. Quite a bit less than 20, even considering the lower fatigue rating, and this falls in better with my concept of how much armor affects fatigue while it is worn. A work maul has an ENC of 4, I just don't believe that chainmail is FIVE times more encumbering than a work maul when the chainmail is worn. Has anyone worked out a better ENC rating system for armor, or is some other method used, if any? Rich Allen *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 21:21:36 -0600 From: "Rich Allen" Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance in RQ3 > For most cases > 1 ENC = 1 kg = 2.2 pounds. > So a person wearing 35 kg or 77 pounds of armour and equipment > _should_ have > a negative fatigue. Not because he gets tired as soon as he puts on, but > because all that weight is making harder to do any physical > activity (-6 to > all rolls). Any normal person will be heavily hindered and encumbered by a > load like that. (Just try to carry 35 litres or about 10 US > gallons of water > around;-) Oh, I agree that if one was carrying the armor in his arms, he should have some serious penalties, but wearing 50 pounds of metal is quite a bit different than carrying it. I'm basing this weight, by the way, on modern-made chainmail: long sleeved hauberk is about 25-30 lbs, "pants" (actually more like chaps, laced up at the back) about 20-25 lbs, coif about 5 - 10 lbs. This is galvanized steel, very similar to that which was used in medieval times, but doesn't rust. When I wore the hauberk, it felt like a levi jacket with some weight in the pockets. It was a LOT lighter than when I held it in my hands. Also, we're not talking about a normal person, we're talking about someone trained as a warrior, with over 10 years experience at wearing armor. Rich Allen *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 00:06:29 -0400 (EDT) From: Terje Tollisen Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance in RQ3 How does the rules work again? Do get –1 to Agility skills for every ENC carried, and –1 to all skills per negative fatigue (cumulative for Agility skills)? I don’t have the books, and can’t remember. >I don't agree. Medieval knights wore their full plate armor >from the time they left their keep/tent to the time they >returned, sometimes hours later, >and some accounts of battles I have seen (on the History >Channel) lasted close to an hour. First of all, in a real battle, you can assume one had time to rest a bit from time to time (at least I assume that IMHO). Second, this would be more related to the fatigue loss rules and not really how much ENC and Fatigue one has; and most people think the fatigue loss rules stink anyway. (That is another discussion that’s been here several times before.) I have walked around in about 10 kg or 22 pounds of roman armour for hours many times, and that works ok. But after a few hours I am really beat, and my whole body is tiered. It was no big problem, but it was hard work to walk through rough forest terrain to run. >> If your man in your example simply drops his pack before >>entering melee, then he can go eight rounds before incurring >>encumbrance penalties. That's >> a long melee. Many are over quicker than that. > >Um, maybe I'm looking at it wrong, but I don't believe simply >dropping your pack will automatically recover lost fatigue. >These still have to be recovered through normal means. No, you would regain them at once. Assume the character is rested. To find his current FP you take (STR+CON)-ENC-(FP loss due to exhaustion). This would be FP=29-35-0=-6. Now if he drops the backpack you get FP=29-21-0=8. If he fights for 10 round he would have FP=29-21-10=-2 .Now lets assume he had to dive into the water and swim. He would take off his mail, and get FP=29-0-10=19. (Ok, maybe there are some FP loss/gain while stripping down, but I dropped that part.) >When I wore the hauberk, it felt like a levi jacket with some >weight in the pockets. >It was a LOT lighter than when I held it in my hands. Yes, a chain mail feels a lot lighter when you wear it, but have you tried the whole thing on, with the pant? That should give you about 50-60 pounds of extra weight. Put a heavy load on your back as well, and you’ll be out of breath in no time. >Also, we're not talking about a normal person, we're talking >about someone trained as a warrior, with over 10 years >experience at wearing armor. That is why I have made a house rule with an armour skill. The longer you have worn armour,the less it encumbers you. This skill does not follow normal experience, and is increased very slowly. - -Terje Tollisen __________________________________________________ FREE Email for ALL! Sign up at http://www.mail.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 09:20:36 -0600 From: "Rich Allen" Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance in RQ3 > That is why I have made a house rule with an armour skill. The longer you > have worn armour,the less it encumbers you. This skill does not follow > normal experience, and is increased very slowly. Sorry to snip out most of your reply, but THIS is exactly what I'm looking for!!! Can you send your house rule to the list, or maybe give us a link to a web page that has it?? Pretty please? And yes, to answer one of your other questions, I have hiked into a wilderness area here in the US for a week-long camping trip. I carried a 65 pound backpack for 11.2 miles with a one hour break near the middle of the hike for lunch and rest. I was no-where near exhaustion when we got to the camp site, although I slept like a log that night! I was 16 years old, weighed about 130 lbs at the time and I am 5'11". The chainmail suit I was fortunate enough to try on was complete: hauberk, coif, and the pants-like leg coverings that laced up in back and circled the waist. The total weight was about 55 lbs, and while it had been quite a few years since the wilderness trek, seemed to weigh MUCH less than that 75lb backpack after I had worn the mail for a few minutes. I could climb the deck-stairs two at a time, and I believe anyone who was in good physical shape could do the same. Rich Allen *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 19:30:29 -0400 (EDT) From: Terje Tollisen Subject: RE: RE: [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance in RQ3 >THIS is exactly what I'm looking >for!!! Can you send your house rule to the list, or maybe give >us a link to >a web page that has it?? Pretty please? Wish I could, but I can’t. The rules are some paper back home in Norway, and I can’t get it while I live in Australia. But I can explain the basic idea of the rule. I had two skills, one for soft armour and one for hard armour. Then I sat up a table that showed how much reduction in ENC you got depending on specific armour type and skill. It might have looked like this: SKILL 10 20 25 30 ....... A Soft L 0 10 20 30 R Hard L 0 5 10 15 M Courb 0 5 5 10 O Ring 0 0 5 5 U Chain 0 0 5 10 R So a character with a soft armour skill of 30 would get the ENC from a soft leather armour reduced but 30%, and the ENC of a chain mail reduced by 10% There was much science to back up my tables. I just used what experience I have with armour myself, and discussed it over with my players. - -Terje Tollisen __________________________________________________ FREE Email for ALL! Sign up at http://www.mail.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 19:00:00 +0000 From: "Nicholas Marcelja" Subject: [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance general comments Some general comments on wearing armor. on the average through out history the weight of armor is 55-65 pounds. including weapons and shield. I wear a 30pd mail shirt. 15pd helm 12 pd shield 2pd sword. 6pds vambraces. 10pds greaves. so about 65pds of gear. I have spent 8hours pluse in armor with about 3hours of that in combat. spread the combat out over the entire day. note: modern combat troops in the US and other armies carry 55pds of armor and weapons into combat. RQ3 encumberance was always a bit off. there are some other systems on the web that are much better and quicker. nick (SCA: Grendal) Nicholas Marcelja nam@grendal.rain.com or marcelja@sharpwa.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 09:15:09 -0400 From: "Bob Stancliff" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Encumbrance in RQ3... > Rich Allen > ENC is affected by the wearing of armor. My character is SIZ 12, with a STR > of 16 and a CON of 13 (a bit above average, in my estimation). This gives > him a fatigue score of 29. Now strap on a full suit of chainmail (20 ENC), > and his fatigue drops to 9!!! Add in a Battle Axe (1 ENC) and a "standard > traveler's pack" (14 ENC) and his fatigue is now -6 even though he is fully > rested. Sorry, that just don't make sense. In the spirit of SR's really being a means to determine the sequence in which events happen in a round, and not strictly reflecting how long they take... it is safe to describe Fatigue as a means to determine how much you can carry before you take action penalties and how long you can fight before you get too tired to fight, without it strictly reflecting how much energy or strength you have left. The -6 modified enc. is saying that you are carrying a load that is too large for free or unhindered movement, and that due to this physical restriction and the need to move the mass during combat, you are going to be tired very quickly. I have seen people who would let you add the 14 enc. back if you dropped the pack before fighting, and you would have to hope that it didn't disappear during the fight. If you had put that pack on your mount or a pack animal, you wouldn't have to carry it, except, perhaps, in caves. I can also assure you that some thought went into assigning enc. values for armor when the game was designed so that people who wear more than, for instance, Bezainted, will have to take regulars rests to continue fighting during a battle... and that does make sense. The severity of the enc. rules and the effects of enc. on actions and spell casting is intended to be a strong incentive for people to wear a little less armor than they might be able to afford, so that they can retain more options during combat, such as the ability to escape or cast attack magic against foes. Also keep in mind that an advanced character can get enough Strength or Vigor cast from external sources to negate the short term effects of any encumbrance that he can normally carry. What he is really given up is the ability to cast spirit magic or sorcery, and a divine spell becomes a risk of wasting an action. In my game, I mated RQ3 with some RQ4 rules to get a bastard system that happened to shorten the combat round to 6 seconds. I felt it necessary to increase the Fatigue stat to allow combat to last slightly longer so I added in a third stat (size). Most of my characters are so careful of enc. limits, that they rarely wear more than ringmail unless it is made from the skin of a very powerful monster or creature with naturally tough skin or scales. If you kill something like a giant or a dreamdragon, any armor made from it would lose nearly 1/2 of its armor points, but would weigh only slightly more than the approximately equivalent metal armor. We have made 5AP Cuirbouilli from Giant skin, AP8 Scalemail from Krang, and AP10 Scalemail from the Spotted Shark (Strangers in Prax). I have only had two characters wear Platemail (one Iron, one Copper), and only for special missions. Bob Stancliff *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #148 ************************************* *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. RuneQuest is a Trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. With the exception of previously copyrighted material, unless specified otherwise all text in this digest is copyright by the author or authors, with rights granted to copy for personal use, to excerpt in reviews and replies, and to archive unchanged for electronic retrieval.