Spellcasting tactics

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Kloster

IIRC, you count DEX SR only once, so the DEX SR 3 archer fires at 3, then 6, then 9. The DEX SR 1 archer fires at 1, 4, 7, 10.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Rate of Fire, 1/SR (RQ missile weapons table p.66): Use the weapon on the adventurer's DEX stirke rank., then on his DEX SR+3+Dex SR again.
Example: Arcos the Archer has a DEX SR of 2. He can fire a composite bow on SR2, then he must take 3SR to get another arrow ready and notch it, then fire the second arrow at his DEX SR after than. Thus he will fire at SR1, then at SR 7.

So you get:
DEX SR 3= SR 3/9
DEX SR 2= SR2/7
DEX SR 1= SR1/5/9 (the third shot wasn't expressed stated in RQ3 like it was in RQ2, but is in supplments for high DEX archers.)

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

Rate of Fire, 1/SR (RQ missile weapons table p.66): Use the weapon on the adventurer's DEX stirke rank., then on his DEX SR+3+Dex SR again.
Example: Arcos the Archer has a DEX SR of 2. He can fire a composite bow on SR2, then he must take 3SR to get another arrow ready and notch it, then fire the second arrow at his DEX SR after than. Thus he will fire at SR1, then at SR 7.

So you get:
DEX SR 3= SR 3/9
DEX SR 2= SR2/7
DEX SR 1= SR1/5/9 (the third shot wasn't expressed stated in RQ3 like it was in RQ2, but is in supplments for high DEX archers.)

Point taken. My mistake.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

I think you are assuming that your house rules were the core rules. In RQ you didn't have to prep a spell. You only had to pay the 3SR (5SR in RQ2) penalty for changing an action during a round. So I think a lot of your animosity towards disrupt is due to the 3SR penalty and the ability to "fast draw" an opposing caster with it.

Not really. I still have no sign that you didn't need to prep a spell if you did something else in the round already, and even under our interpetation, it was quite possible for someone to prep at the end of the round if he wanted to try and interrupt the Healer. But was it a useful thing to do? Keep in mind that spirit spells weren't automatic; someone with a 12 Power had a 60% chance minus encumbarances of getting the spell off in the first place, then had to overcome the targets magic points, and the target then had to fail an Int x 3% roll. For fairly middle of the road targets, this meant that on the whole you had maybe one chance in five of actually successfully interrupting his healing, then had to restart your strike ranks to do anything else. Was this really a useful thing to do? Under normal circumstances, my answer would be "no".

Healing was usually done by a supporting character, rather than the injured one. Retrats were made viable by having a reserve to fill in the gaps. Some could follow the retreating character but then they would get double teams and that was bad news in RQ.

You must have had very large groups of followers; reserves were usually a non-starter in our experience because everyone present was _already_ in the middle of the fight, one way or another, and that usually included any of the few followers that might be present.

Most of our spellcasting was done out of melee. So most of our archer was shooting at out of melee targets. Generally if you are evenly number or outnumbered there is always some free target for the archer to nab.

But at least in our case, not the people doing the healing; it was extremely rare for us to have the luxury of having someone retreat to do that.

Also, if you were really good (or had Arrow Trance) the risks of firing into melee were reduced greatly.

You could avoid it completely, but only at the price of a massive cut in your attack value or a delay until the end of the round. The latter is obviously useless for spell interruption.

Depends on how skilled the archer was.

I never saw it likely to happen until post 100% skill, since you had at least a divisor of one half, and possibly more. No one felt like dealing with fifty percent or more of their hits hitting the wrong target.

Yes there is. The fact that you are going off first and can strike them at range, long before they reach you. Unless you get surprised at close range,

You can't do much to prevent them from closing unless you can reliably put the target down every time. If you can do that, you're already fighting inferior opponents in the first place, since, all things being equal, an archer just can't generate the penetration damage a melee attacker does, as his attacks don't have a strength based damage bonus on them, and any magical bonuses can be just as easily matched by the armor of the defender.

I don't think so. With an average Dex the Archer will get off shots at SR 3 and SR 9. Since the melee attackers have to move to reach the archer, then their attacks are going to be delayed. Even more so if they are putting up protection before charging. If he has a DEX SR1 he will be shooting at SR1, 5, and 9. All off before the other guys get to attack.

Sure. And he's probably doing maybe a D8+4 or 5 in most case unless you're talking runic levels, which is unlikely to put most targets in the same weight class down. Then they're on him and he has a problem. This is different in wide fields of fire, or course, but at that point its likely moot because the whole fight turns into either an archery exchange or a cavalry charge/archery exchange (and if it turns into a cavalry charge, he sure as hell _better_ put them down before they close, as a lance charge is about the last thing anyone in RQ without a shield wants to be on the recieving end of).

I'd love to run my Elf with Arrow trance against the sneerers. Especially if I have moblity up. Unless the attackers mass charge the archer, they have problems. Can catch me, can hit me with a sword, but I can critical them. If they do mass charge the archer, then they are easy picking for the melee fighter on our side.

And with Arrow Trance the moment someone does close, you're pretty much dead because your can't defend worth a damn, or even heal yourself; and that's even if its an option, since its a Gloranthan spell, and one available to only a small subset of cults at that. Though it increases your to hit dramatically, it doesn't intrinsically make you do any more damage unless you're already so good you can count on impales (and if you are that good, your opponets are probably good enough that a single impaling arrow isn't a killer)

If the area is tight, move to a narrow section and use the terrain to double team. Naturally, ambushes and other surprise situations throw everything out the window.

That's nice if you get the choice of making the fight come to you. You don't always. Sometimes that's just an invitation to get surrounded slowly or have people use longspears and archery to concentrate fire on you. Other times, it makes the whole thing moot because you're on the assault.

WoW. We used it all the time, as did everyone that I saw play the game. It makes a big difference with the way spells are cast. All the examples of magic Steve Perrin puts in the book used them. That's why a guy can cast Bladesharp 2 on his sword and still get an attack on on SR9, instead of losing his attack for the round.

I have to point out Steve wrote very few of those examples. As to the rest--they can do it our way, too; they just prep the spell the prior round. What I don't see anywhere is an example where someone attacks and _then_ casts a spell without prepping. You certainly couldn't do that in RQ2, and I have no real evidence it changed.

Only if the archer is an incompetent idiot. Why would he be standing so close to his screen? He can step back another yard or two, get a better field of fire, and be out of spear range. BTW, that is one of the tactics used in RuneLords, so I'm surprised you didn't see it when you were gaming with the author.

I don't recall every seeing a battle Steve ran where we had enough forces to be able to provide a screen for much of anyone. If you did, chances are you either got multiteamed something fierce, or the archer had no targets that weren't already in melee.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Kloster

Declaration phase is WHAT you do.
SR measure WHEN you do it.

And as I said, I see no point in declaration other than to tell everyone else what you're doing when in fact, I see no reason why they'd know. If you're going to cast a spell then switch to your crossbow and fire, just how does anyone but you know about the latter at the start of the round?

As I said, it serves no valid purpose that I can see and over favors Dexterity, which hardly needs more benefits in RQ.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Kloster

IIRC, you count DEX SR only once, so the DEX SR 3 archer fires at 3, then 6, then 9. The DEX SR 1 archer fires at 1, 4, 7, 10.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

I vaguely recall that being correct, though its been a lot of years. However, note prepping an arrow took three strike ranks, so you wouldn't be able to do that on following rounds. You could pretty much go 4-3-4-3 with that high a Dex, though.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

Rate of Fire, 1/SR (RQ missile weapons table p.66): Use the weapon on the adventurer's DEX stirke rank., then on his DEX SR+3+Dex SR again.
Example: Arcos the Archer has a DEX SR of 2. He can fire a composite bow on SR2, then he must take 3SR to get another arrow ready and notch it, then fire the second arrow at his DEX SR after than. Thus he will fire at SR1, then at SR 7.

So you get:
DEX SR 3= SR 3/9
DEX SR 2= SR2/7
DEX SR 1= SR1/5/9 (the third shot wasn't expressed stated in RQ3 like it was in RQ2, but is in supplments for high DEX archers.)

Ah. You're correct, though note my caveat when I answered Kloster.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Not really. I still have no sign that you didn't need to prep a spell if you did something else in the round already, and even under our interpetation, it was quite possible for someone to prep at the end of the round if he wanted to try and interrupt the Healer. But was it a useful thing to do? Keep in mind that spirit spells weren't automatic; someone with a 12 Power had a 60% chance minus encumbarances of getting the spell off in the first place, then had to overcome the targets magic points, and the target then had to fail an Int x 3% roll. For fairly middle of the road targets, this meant that on the whole you had maybe one chance in five of actually successfully interrupting his healing, then had to restart your strike ranks to do anything else. Was this really a useful thing to do? Under normal circumstances, my answer would be "no".

That is the difference. We would almost never cast a spell after doing something else. We would either cast it before, or wait until the next round. Since the delay didn't apply if you made a statement in the declaration phase (which was the way we played, as did the other RQ players we knew).

We were running from what we read in the book. If Steve was running it differerntly, there was no way for us to know.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

You must have had very large groups of followers; reserves were usually a non-starter in our experience because everyone present was _already_ in the middle of the fight, one way or another, and that usually included any of the few followers that might be present.

Not really. I think it was how we did things. We didn't run into a lot out double and triple teams, since those would butcher anyone who wasn't Rune level. So if possible we would open up a fight in such a way as to get a numerical advantage. Things like mass disrupt on someone, etc.

Plus one guy who gets pumped up with bladesharp, protection and Strength is much nastier than one with each. So we would often work towards getting a numerical edge. Like having two guys attack one guy and just parrying the second.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

But at least in our case, not the people doing the healing; it was extremely rare for us to have the luxury of having someone retreat to do that.

We usually did. Sort of went with Glorantha. Those Chalana Arroy healers aren't much use in the fighting, but are great for hanging back and healing people.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

You could avoid it completely, but only at the price of a massive cut in your attack value or a delay until the end of the round. The latter is obviously useless for spell interruption.

I never saw it likely to happen until post 100% skill, since you had at least a divisor of one half, and possibly more. No one felt like dealing with fifty percent or more of their hits hitting the wrong target.

I don't know why not. Most fights start at some distance. So if you are walking with a missle weapon ready, you should be able to get off a shot and change weapons before being attacked.

One guy used to carry a heavy crossbow, and when a fight broke out, fire a Speedarted heavy crossbow on SR4 for 2d6+5 damage to open the fight. Then he'd draw his bastard sword and go at it. If he KNEW there was going to be trouble, he had a mulitmissle up. Often he'd get a bonus for shooting into a mass.

Since most attacks in RQ3 came off on SR7, and most foes moved at 3m/SR, unless they were close when they were spotted, he could shot, drop crossbow, draw sword and beat them to the attack on the following round. If his crossbow shot dropped his foe (it usually took out a hit location, and anything other than a arm hit would stop them), he'd double team someone and collapse the enemy line.

If two people had missile weapons ready, one with crossbow and the other with bow, then we'd get the crossbow shot and 2 arrow hits. Generally it wan;t tough to free up somebody.

[/quote]
You can't do much to prevent them from closing unless you can reliably put the target down every time. If you can do that, you're already fighting inferior opponents in the first place, since, all things being equal, an archer just can't generate the penetration damage a melee attacker does, as his attacks don't have a strength based damage bonus on them, and any magical bonuses can be just as easily matched by the armor of the defender.
[/quote]

1d8+1+speedart is as good as what you get with a sword and damage bonus (usualyy a d4). Speedart on a thrown javelin was even worse since you got half your Db.

But the real killers were the impales and criticals. Since bows got 2 or 3 attacks per turn, especially for an opening volley, you could drop someone. If a group was disciplined and the left side shot at the closest guy, and the right and the second closest., you could probably drop a couple three people in the first turn. Especially with Speedart on the first arrow.

Sure. And he's probably doing maybe a D8+4 or 5 in most case unless you're talking runic levels, which is unlikely to put most targets in the same weight class down. Then they're on him and he has a problem. This is different in wide fields of fire, or course, but at that point its likely moot because the whole fight turns into either an archery exchange or a cavalry charge/archery exchange (and if it turns into a cavalry charge, he sure as hell _better_ put them down before they close, as a lance charge is about the last thing anyone in RQ without a shield wants to be on the recieving end of).

1d8+5 or twice that on an implae with 2 shots on the first turn typically had an effect on anybody. Keep in mind that the first arrow shots go off BEFORE most foes get their protection spell up, so 1D8+4 is a significant attack. If the foe chargeds without protection, then he is vulnerable. If he hangs back to put up defenive magic, tyhen you are getting free attacks, and can even start dropping back.

And with Arrow Trance the moment someone does close, you're pretty much dead because your can't defend worth a damn, or even heal yourself; and that's even if its an option, since its a Gloranthan spell, and one available to only a small subset of cults at that. Though it increases your to hit dramatically, it doesn't intrinsically make you do any more damage unless you're already so good you can count on impales (and if you are that good, your opponets are probably good enough that a single impaling arrow isn't a killer)

What single. If you got arrow trance, then you can get or two or three attack per round, and can cast multimissile. If you can't drop someone when you have a doubled attack percentage and 10-15 chances to critcal, there is something wrong.

That's nice if you get the choice of making the fight come to you. You don't always. Sometimes that's just an invitation to get surrounded slowly or have people use longspears and archery to concentrate fire on you. Other times, it makes the whole thing moot because you're on the assault.

No argument there. The situation limits your options. When I ran I tried not to run many ambushes because I could usually wipe out the group. If one side is prepared and the other isn't, especially with battle magic, it becomes a very one sided fight. And yeah, tactics work both ways. If you are concentrating on your missile attacks and someone sticks a quarrel into you, you are just as dead.

I have to point out Steve wrote very few of those examples. As to the rest--they can do it our way, too; they just prep the spell the prior round. What I don't see anywhere is an example where someone attacks and _then_ casts a spell without prepping. You certainly couldn't do that in RQ2, and I have no real evidence it changed.

What after. Statement of Intent. You might not have used it, but that was the way it was written. I never saw anyone prep a spell in a prior round. If you prepped on SR 9, it was 3 SR delay, +DEX SR+ magic points. That would be slower than just declaring the action during the declaration phase.

by the way, that might also be the reason why your fight lasted longer. Without the declaration and using lots of delays meant lots of 3SR penalties and longer fights.

I don't recall every seeing a battle Steve ran where we had enough forces to be able to provide a screen for much of anyone. If you did, chances are you either got multiteamed something fierce, or the archer had no targets that weren't already in melee.

So what was everyone doing on turn one? Did the foes just pop up right in sword reach each time?

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

That is the difference. We would almost never cast a spell after doing something else. We would either cast it before, or wait until the next round. Since the delay didn't apply if you made a statement in the declaration phase (which was the way we played, as did the other RQ players we knew).

I'm not denying that it didn't apply if you did it first. I'm still not finding any sign it didn't apply if you, for example, fired a bow and cast a spell.

We were running from what we read in the book. If Steve was running it differerntly, there was no way for us to know.

I don't recall Steve ever asking for declaration, but since I'm also basing that on memories that are now literally decades old, take it with a grain of salt. He probably did have some kind of declaration in SPQR, but then, SPQR doesn't use strike ranks.

Not really. I think it was how we did things. We didn't run into a lot out double and triple teams, since those would butcher anyone who wasn't Rune level. So if possible we would open up a fight in such a way as to get a numerical advantage. Things like mass disrupt on someone, etc.

Just a difference in the style of battles encountered, then.

Plus one guy who gets pumped up with bladesharp, protection and Strength is much nastier than one with each. So we would often work towards getting a numerical edge. Like having two guys attack one guy and just parrying the second.

Oh, it was always attractive if you could do it. We just rarely found you could, unless the battle was pretty much already over (i.e. half the opposition was already down).

We usually did. Sort of went with Glorantha. Those Chalana Arroy healers aren't much use in the fighting, but are great for hanging back and healing people.

I don't think I ever saw a dedicated healer; even those from healing cults locally had enough combat capability to at least hold their own against lesser opponents (and at least one was perfectly capable of braining most opponents after a while because of Bludgeon and her quarterstaff).

I don't know why not. Most fights start at some distance. So if you are walking with a missle weapon ready, you should be able to get off a shot and change weapons before being attacked.

Well, you can if you have visibility. Have to note that's not a given, however, and when it does occur, it applies to everyone pretty much equally.

One guy used to carry a heavy crossbow, and when a fight broke out, fire a Speedarted heavy crossbow on SR4 for 2d6+5 damage to open the fight. Then he'd draw his bastard sword and go at it. If he KNEW there was going to be trouble, he had a mulitmissle up. Often he'd get a bonus for shooting into a mass.

About the only useful way to _use_ a heavy crossbow in my experience; the reload times were way too slow for anything ongoing. The big problem with the above procedure in my experience was getting enough warning to have it all set up at the start.

1d8+1+speedart is as good as what you get with a sword and damage bonus (usualyy a d4). Speedart on a thrown javelin was even worse since you got half your Db.

Javelins _were_ a better choice, but their bulk tended to be a limiter there. And yes, the Speedart boosts it up, but that's one arrow; and frankly one hit wasn't liable particularly likely to put anyone down, certainly not anyone with a shield.

But the real killers were the impales and criticals. Since bows got 2 or 3 attacks per turn, especially for an opening volley, you could drop someone. If

Unless you were really good, this wasn't reliable; even a Speedarted comp bow arrow only had an expected impale damage of 17. That wasn't going to take down anyone who got a shield in the way. Crits would (critical impales were the biggest killers in RQ on the whole) but again, if you can count on crits, you're talking about a _very_ powerful group.

a group was disciplined and the left side shot at the closest guy, and the right and the second closest., you could probably drop a couple three people in the first turn. Especially with Speedart on the first arrow.

There's nothing "probable" about it at routine power levels; given moving targets sliced 10% off, you expected at a 60% (or the equivelent lower with Speeddart) to hit one attack in two; of those about a quarter would likely get a shield parry if the target had one. Since the only of those particularly likely to take someone down were impales, that meant that you couldn't count on that doing anything other than contributing some damage.

1d8+5 or twice that on an implae with 2 shots on the first turn typically had

It wouldn't be on both arrows.

an effect on anybody. Keep in mind that the first arrow shots go off BEFORE most foes get their protection spell up, so 1D8+4 is a significant attack. If the

Then the opposition probably doesn't have their Speedarts up, either. While a typical Protection spell takes longer to put up than a Speedart, a typical Speedart + arrow shot isn't going to take less time than that spell cast.

What single. If you got arrow trance, then you can get or two or three attack per round, and can cast multimissile. If you can't drop someone when you have a doubled attack percentage and 10-15 chances to critcal, there is something wrong.

Given I saw people with very high skills fail to drop people with just Multimissile (and I have no idea where you're getting those crit chances; that would only apply if you had Arrow Trance _and_ already where at or above 100%; if that's the case, there are all kinds of things compareable opponents can do to make everything _but_ the crits trivial.

No argument there. The situation limits your options. When I ran I tried not to run many ambushes because I could usually wipe out the group. If one side is prepared and the other isn't, especially with battle magic, it becomes a very one sided fight. And yeah, tactics work both ways. If you are concentrating on your missile attacks and someone sticks a quarrel into you, you are just as dead.

I'm not talking about ambushes; I'm just talking about cases where you don't have the choice of ground, and have to deal with what's available. That's pretty much the routine case if you're on the offensive.

What after. Statement of Intent. You might not have used it, but that was

Sigh. Let's not do this again. You do the following: "I'm firing a an arrow, then casting a Healing spell on myself." Did or did not the Healing require 3 strike ranks of prep? Even _with_ statement of intent, my reading is that it does, because you were doing something before it in the round.

by the way, that might also be the reason why your fight lasted longer. Without the declaration and using lots of delays meant lots of 3SR penalties and longer fights.

Don't see how it mattered much. Most preps were done at the end of the round anyway, which was usually wasted strike ranks.

So what was everyone doing on turn one? Did the foes just pop up right in sword reach each time?

No, but if you wanted to actually control the battlefield yourself, you often had to move, and that was true of archers as much as anyone else. Unless you just were happy to stand and let fights come to you, what was a problem for one was for another. It also didn't take that long to close from line of fire if you were indoors, in forest, swamp or some sorts of rough. That includes a lot of encounters I've seen over the years there; not all fights take place in sparse forest, plains or deserts.

[Atgxtg]

Nightshade,
BTW, While we these debates do get heated at times, I would like to say that it is a lot more fun disagree with you and the folks here that it is on some other forums.

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

While we these debates do get heated at times, I would like to say that it is a lot more fun disagree with you and the folks here that it is on some other forums.

Sorry, I know it's poor form to post just saying 'Hear, hear!', but "Hear, hear!".