No subject

can be applied against a single foe to reduce the foe's attack chance by the
Defense skill. If the foe missed his roll because of the Defense modifier,
then the defender gets a Defense tick. Experience is gained by rolling below
INT%, without any modifiers. We played that characters could split Defense
between more than one opponent, regardless of the Defense skill.

Defense was useful in that a character with a high defense could apply it
against a single opponent and "Defend Him Out" or reduce his skill to 5%,
thus negating his attack. It could also be used to reduce an attack skill and
reduce the Anti-Parry effect.

I think that it could be used against all missile weapons by running and
jiggling about, in this case the character applied half the Defense skill
against all missile attacks.

So, Xena has a Defense of 80%, she fights three soldiers, each with 70%
attack. She attacks A, parries B and applies her defense against C, reducing
his attack to 5% (it cannot go below 0), giving her effectively two
opponents.

Then, Xena attacks a Rune Lord of Ares, who has 150% Attack, so she applies
all her defense against him. This reduces his attack to 150-80=70%. He then
goes Berserk, increasing his attack to 225% (In RQ2, Beserk multiplies attack
by 1.5 or 2 against Chaos), so after Defense his attack is 225-80=145%, this
reduces her parry chance by 45% rather than by 125%, giving her a chance to
parry.

Having despatched the Rune Lord, Xena is shot at by archers. She jiggles
about and reduces their attack chance by 80/2=40%. Of course, watching Xena
jiggling about is enjoyable in itself.

Thomas M. Cantine:

> I think the problem with knockback as it's written in RQ3 is that it is
> completely out of touch with the falling damage. You take way more damage
> being shoved three meters into a tree than you would falling three meters
> straight down onto solid rock. I have therefore written up the following,
> my own treatment of knockback and falling damage:

Looks pretty good.

> Falling
> 
> The damage for falling can be left as it is in RQ3 (i.e. 1d6 per 3 m of
> height). I agree that armour should not substantially affect falling
> damage, which is primarily due to rapid deceleration on impact. However, a
> tiny amount of incidental damage is from contact with the surface of the
> ground itself, and armour should help against that, hard armour being
> slightly more effective. Thus, for falling damage, allow soft armour (of
> any type) to count for 1 armour point, and hard armour (of any type) as 2
> armour points. This won't make much difference when someone falls off a 30
> m cliff, but will save someone tripping over a cobblestone from a few
> scratches and bruises.

Seems reasonable, but I would put a top limit on this, just because I like
the idea of falling being affected by Terminal Velocity (a bit technical, but
I don't like open-ended falling damage).

> The better protection from falling damage should be provided by the Jump
> skill, but one critical detail seems to have been omitted from the RQ3
> rules: the benefit of landing on your feet instead of your head. Since all
> falling damage goes to total hit points anyway, a successful Jump roll will
> have no effect on one's likelihood of surviving a fall whatsoever.
> Solution: allow legs to have 3 armour points each for the purposes of
> falling damage, and arms to have 2 armour points, not cumulative with the
> worn armour protection mentioned above. On a failed Jump, a lucky faller
> might still land on an arm or leg and enjoy the benefit of this protection,
> but on a fumbled Jump limbs have no armour points for falling damage. A
> special success allows the faller to spread the impact over two chosen
> locations, and on a critical success the faller may distribute the impact
> over any number of chosen locations.

So, a normal Jump reduces damage by 3, a special by 6 and a critical by a
maximum of 10. Seems a bit low to me. Perhaps reducing by 1D6 per location
might be better, giving a range of damage reduction.

> Note: The basic principles for falling damage also apply to adventurers
> colliding with surfaces at any angle, such as when one sprints into a brick
> wall. The damage given in RQ3 for knockback into solid objects (1D6 for
> every meter of movement) is way out of line with falling damage. In
> general, a movement rate of 5 m per strike rank is equivalent to a fall
> from 3 m of height. Unfortunately, while kinetic energy increases linearly
> with height, it does not do so for speed.  I offer therefore the following
> simplified scale of impact damage for typical speeds:
> 
>         Damage  Equivalent speed        Typical situation
>         1D3             1-2 m/SR                Walking into wall; tripping
> over cat
>         1D4             3-4 m/SR                Running into wall; falling
> from 1 m
>         1D6             5-6 m/SR                Sprinting into wall;
> falling from 2-3 m.
>         2D6             7-8 m/SR                Trotting horse.
>         3D6             9-10 m/SR               Charging horse

I always wondered what would be the result of a charging horse with Mobility
cast. A running horse runs at 10m/SR, a horse charging at full tilt goes at
double this - 20m/SR, a charging horse with Mobility can be going a lot
faster. When would this happen? I had a centaur who would break through doors
by casting Mobility and charging at absolutely full tilt into the door.

Any ideas about extending this to, say, Move 30 (30m/SR)?

>         While it may not be necessary to calculate beyond this speed, it's
> interesting to note that kinetic energy increases as the square of
> velocity. This means that an unhappy adventurer travelling at 60 m/SR
> should suffer approximately 100D6 damage on impact, demonstrating why
> trebuchets are not a viable means of personal transportation. In any case,
> since the same amount of kinetic energy is applied to the adventurer on
> launch (though over several meters of acceleration) for maybe 50D6, it
> doesn't matter how one lands; the launch will kill you.
>         One might wonder how it is that a person being hit with a boulder
> flung by a trebuchet would take only 12D6 damage, but 100D6 damage from a
> wall at the same relative speed of impact. While dead is dead, the
> ballistic adventurer will leave fewer recognizable bits behind, because
> every one of those bits will make the same abrupt splattering deceleration.
> In contrast, the trebuchet ball might carry away with it a couple of hit
> locations, leaving behind several relatively intact portions. Indeed, an
> adventurer struck in the arm by a trebuchet might well survive, since no
> more than twice a limb's hit points may be done to total hit points through
> ordinary damage. No such luck with falling damage.

Once again, having this open-ended doesn't seem realistic.

>         (2)  Special success with a blunt or slashing weapon. I have
> omitted slashing weapons from this, for reasons discussed above.

Presumably this works for Crushing/Impaling weapons, not crushing/slashing
weapons.

>         (3)  A moving adventurer or monster collides with another. This can
> happen when one adventurer is knocked back into another, or when one runs
> (deliberately or blindly) into another. To determine if knockback takes
> place, match the mover's SIZ + current movement rate (in meters per strike
> rank) against the stationary adventurer's SIZ on the resistance table. If
> the stationary adventurer is aware of the impending collision, he may
> include his DEX with his SIZ on the resistance roll, or he might already be
> bracing against knockback with STR instead (as per RQ3). If the moving
> adventurer is moving under her own power (rather than simply having been
> knocked back herself), and actually intends to collide, she may also add
> her DEX for the resistance roll. On a success, knockback occurs; see below
> for magnitude and effects. On a failed resistance roll, the moving
> character suffers knockback of 0 meters; see below for effects. (The
> stationary character could alternatively Set Spear vs. Charge, precluding
> the use of DEX in the resistance roll if the spear attack misses. If it
> hits, though, it preempts the knockback attempt...)

>         (4)  An adventurer or monster deliberately pushes, shoves, trips or
> otherwise attempts to knockback (or knockdown) someone. This is similar to
> RQ3's old intentional knockback rules, with the resistance roll of
> (SIZ+STR) vs (SIZ+DEX), but requires the establishment of a connection for
> the transmission of force in the first place. This is done with a
> successful attack roll, and the weapons usable for this are Fist, Kick (for
> swashbucklers especially), Grapple, Shield Attack, or any hafted weapon
> used with both hands (the classic quarterstaff shove). A successful attack
> does no damage, but if it is neither parried nor dodged, it allows the
> attacker to attempt the same old resistance roll as per RQ3. This takes
> place on the same strike rank as the attack.

This kind of attack should be able to be avoided with a Dodge, simply because
that it exactly what dodge is designed to cope with.

So, 3 and 4 are quite similar, except that 4 moves at 0 and requires an
attack roll.

> How much knockback?
>         The amount of knockback is easy to calculate: it's usually just the
> attacker's rolled damage bonus in meters, minus the target's rolled damage
> bonus, plus the attacker's current movement rate in meters per strike rank.
> When a character is knocked back, you may treat that character's movement
> rate at any point as the number of meters remaining in the knockback. Thus,
> if Throg is knocked back 5 meters by Lulu, and he bumps into Grothnar 2
> meters away, his movement rate on impact with Grothnar for damage and
> knockback purposes is 3.

How does this work? If Lulu has a 3D6 damage bonus and Throg has a 2D6 damage
bonus, does Lulu roll 3D6 and subtract Throg's 2D6 from the result? Do you
add movement to the result? So, if Lulu rolls 11 and Throg rolls 8, does
Throg move back 3m? What if Lulu runs at Throg with Movement 3, does Throg
move back 6m?

Simon


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