[Rq-rules] Thanks!

Sat Oct 20 19:56:23 PDT 2007

If I seem worked up, it's perhaps because this is a topic I actually have an oppinion on. Sue me if that displeases you.
Let's take your situation 1, can you name any roleplaygame that solves this situation realitically? -or mentions it in particular? I've never played one as far as I know. I still think that the original system would cover it. I''ve been fighting in lines, and somthing that often occurs, is that someone with a short weapon gets stabbed by a speardude that is situated next to the one that the stabbed one tries to spearhunt. If the neighbouring speardude is too far away, or is entangled in a fight of his own, the story might be different, but IMHO, the stanard RQ3 rules covers it reasonably as far as realism is conserned.
Your example 2 seems to show a different understanding of the consept of sr and reach of weapons. You don't like the predictability of a long weapon acting before a slow weapon. IMHO, the system only grants the weapon with the longest reach the option of acting first; it's by no means a guarantee that it actually will do so. That is up to the skill of the wielder of the weapon (and his dex and siz sr) Take an ectreeme example: Say you stand in a street with an M16 rifle. 100 yards away, some arabic fanatic starts charging you with his dagger. You get to shoot several times at him before he's at striking-distance, because an M16 have longer reach (and lower SR) than a dagger (sr3) but that doesn't mean that you'll automatically kill him. You still have to actually hit him. It's the same in melee, only with smaller margins of error. If you and I were to fight, had similar body stats, and you were unarmed and I had a spear, i still had to plug you with the spear in order to end the fight. But if we leave skill%'s aside and only regards SR (reach) -don't tell me that your fist would be on my nose earlier than my spearhead would be in your guts.

Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:20:00 -0500From: styopa1 at gmail.comTo: rq-rules at crashbox.comSubject: Re: [Rq-rules] Thanks!On 10/19/07, Bjorn Stolen <stolenbjorn at hotmail.com> wrote:

You critisize the illogic of the SR because the longsword gets to act first. Sorry, mac, but that's how things are in real life. You could of course make a system that is not based on realism. You can of course parry/dodge and then attack with the dagger, and nothing in the RQ3-system prevents you from doing that.   In some circomstanses the shorter weapon gets to strike first WHICH IS ALLSO COVERED IN THE SR-SYSTEM!!! (like when legionares use huge shields and short gladiuses to slash/stab in very cramped space, where spearmen are unable to use the advantage of better reach. So you may say that the SR rules in RQ3 do not pleace you, but you cannot say that they're not realistic.I've been doing WMA for 5 years, so I think I know what I'm talking about.

I'm not sure if I understand your last point, but I think it's importaint that both GM and player(s) understands what is meant with a low sr-weapon. A halebard have a low sr, but that doesn't mean that it is a lightening weapon capable of allways hitting first on default; it  depends on the wielder's ability to actually use it the way it's meant. If it's used wrongly, you'll loose the first hit-ability (perhaps that's why the base skill of a halebard is only 5%; an attempt to balance out it's high damage pool and low sr? -still realistic IMHO (and I've been fighting with halebards too; not in the USA'an SCA-system, but in the european Haerkamp-system.)Not sure why you seem to be quite so "worked up" over this.1) It's covered in the SR system, albeit POORLY.  The rules only state that once a shorter-weaponed character closes with a longer-weaponed character, the shorter-weaponed character gets to "strike first, regardless of SR".  Well THAT'S vague in ANY situation other than the simplest one:one combat - if the daggerman has closed with the pikeman, and the other pikeman wants to help his buddy, who goes first - the distant pikeman or the daggerman?  The other pikeman has a lower SR than the daggerman, but the daggerman gets to go before his target regardless of SR - when does the dagger land? 2) my main beef, which I presented admittedly poorly, is the absolute predictability of combat.  That's why I prefer a semi randomized result, because I don't like my players saying things like "I have a melee SR of 4 and his is 7, I know that 100% I'll be able to move 6m and STILL swing before him".  I've only been in HTH combat perhaps a dozen times in my life, and only thrice where I believed my life was seriously on the line (and only one of those with multiple combatants on both sides which would be the most frequent situation in RQ combat in my experience).  It was ANYTHING but mechanistic, and if you've been doing WMA for 5 years I'd imagine you'd agree. The more I think about it, I'd also consider strongly a benefit to SR based on user skill ... which goes to my point regarding the wrong-scaledness of the SR system...the fact that after a certain point, one can be certain that there is NOBODY in the world faster with weapon X.  Again, I dislike such system-enforced certainty in the minds of my players. 
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