Typos, Errata , Corrections, and Clarifications

[Lord Twig]

Reasons I was doing page flipping.

I looked up the Parry skill on page 71, which referred me to page 191. That's fine.

Looked up Shield skill on page 78 which referred me to "Parry" on page 191 (again fine), Damage ratings on page 261 (fine), Knockback rules on page 197 (fine), "Attack and Parry Matrix on page 191 (actually on page 193), Melee Weapon Parry Fumble Table" on page 194 (okay), and "Shields" on page 260 for more information. (Huh? Okay, I guess you talk about shields specifically here instead of parrying in general.)

However, there is also a "Shield" entry on page 203 that is not mentioned under the Shield skill. Here it says, "If a shield parries a special success such as a crushing blow, the shield automatically takes the full amount of damage to its hit points." That is different than what is said elsewhere.

On page 260, it says that "AP/HP are only used if the shield is struck by a special or critical, or is worn slung." But on page 215 under Broken Weapons it says, "A weapon or shield will break if it is used to parry an attack that exceeds the weapon's hit points by at least 1." When exactly would that situation come up? As far as I can tell a weapon doesn't do damage if it is parried, or maybe you do roll damage if an attack is parried?

Honestly I think it would be easier/better to just keep the 1 point/2 point/4 point to damage a shield or weapon when parrying and not worry about how much damage the attack does.

[Lord Twig]

Okay, hold up. I just noticed that Dodge refers you to the "Attack and Parry Matrix". So is that supposed to be the "Attack and Dodge or Parry Matrix"?

All those "or"s would make a lot more sense! One would be for Parry, the other would be for Dodge. Still would need some work though.

For example:
Special vs. Failure = Attack does normal damage, has special result by weapon type
Special vs. Fumble = Attack does maximum damage in addition to rolled damage, has special result by weapon type, or parrying weapon or shield takes 4 points of damage. Target rolls on the fumble table.

So a Fumble dodge turns a success into a critical, but a fumbled parry blocks the damage (though your shield takes 4 points) and you have to roll on the fumble chart. I would rather he just failed his parry!

Edit: Also, would the defender get his armor against any of those?

[Shaira]

At the risk of muddying the waters still further, I do think the entire Attack / Parry / Dodge system does need to be laid out, explicitly, in one place at some point.

Here is what I have pieced together so far - I know Jason is having a good look at the entire issue before posting his response, so I could be completely wrong, but this is what *seems* to be the likely way it works:

1.) Dodge is treated as an Opposed Roll vs. Attack. You don't use the Attack & Parry Matrix, rather a successful Dodge vs a successful Attack will reduce the success level of an Attack as per Opposed Skill Rolls on p173, with the caveat that the success level of an Attack can be reduced to no further than a Failure (see the Dodge Skill description on p55). Basically, a successful Dodge, no matter how successful, cannot make a successful Attacker Fumble - the worst they will do is simply Miss.

2.) Successful Attack vs Successful Parry. My assumption here is that the Successful Attack rolls its damage and compares it to the HP of the weapon or shield which has Parried. If the damage exceeds the HP of the weapon or shield, one of two things happens:

i.) If the parrying item is a weapon, that weapon breaks.
ii.) If the parrying item is a shield, that shield takes the extra damage to its own HP. If those HP are reduced to 0, the shield then breaks.

In both cases, if there are any damage points remaining, they "go through" and damage the target.

3.) Special or Critical Attack vs Critical / Special / Normal Parry. This is where the Attack & Parry matrix needs to be clarified. My assumption is that the dodgy "OR" is actually an "AND". So, on a Critical Attack vs Normal Parry, for example, you get:

Attack does full damage plus rolled damage bonus, and has its special effects based on impaling, bleeding, crushing, etc. I *think* that you then DO NOT match this damage against the parrying weapon or shield's HP, but I'm not sure. In any case armour seems to protect. And, finally, the parrying weapon or shield takes 2 HP damage anyway.

I *think* that the principle behind the Attack & Parry matrix is that Attack/Parry is being treated as an Opposed Roll. Thus, if you get a Critical vs a Success, what's actually happening is that the Success is being bumped down to a Failure and the Critical to a Special, for the purposes of determining effects. NB: the Successful Parry doesn't actually *become* a Failed Parry, but is simply treated as one for damage purposes, etc.

If this is the case, then Critical vs Critical, Special vs Special, and Success vs Success should all have the same result: looking at the Matrix, they basically do. However, when you try to extend the theory further, it starts to fall apart quickly - you can see *similarities* between Critical vs Special, Special vs Success, and Success vs Failure, but that's all they are.

Hopefully Jason will get back with some clarifications on how all this works pretty soon. I'm sure it's actually extremely straightforward - you seem to have SB5 with Criticals and Specials rather than just Specials, so it should be just a question of clarifying the permutations and making sure the whole narration flows from top to bottom. At the moment we have the rules scattered about rather, and some *seem* contradictory (but may not be!).

One thing I will say: having seen the farce which was MRQ's muddy and confusing portrayal of combat 18 months ago when the rules first came out - and the fact that people on the MRQ forums are *STILL* asking today how combat works, I think it's worth making sure this is CRYSTAL clear in the BRP rules! I know the BRP *rules* work fine in this respect - we just need to make sure the *wording* of those rules is completely and unambiguously clear, even at the risk of repeating things.

Cheers!

Sarah

[NickMiddleton]

Originally Posted by Shaira

...I'm sure it's actually extremely straightforward - you seem to have SB5 with Criticals and Specials rather than just Specials, so it should be just a question of clarifying the permutations and making sure the whole narration flows from top to bottom...

And SB5 / Elric! DID have "impales" for some weapons, which we're even more effective than specials, so I suspect the confusion has arisen from translating that table (which had five levels of skill roll for Attacks ("impale", critical, normal success, normal failure and fumble) but only four for Parry or Dodge) to the BRP table (which has five levels of for Attack, Parry AND Dodge).

And speaking as one of the play testers, I'm kicking myself for not spotting these ambiguities at the time. *sigh* sorry all.

It might be worth going back to teh SB5 / Elric1 approach and having separate tables for spell out the Att vs. Parry and Att vs. Dodge principles.

One thing I will say: having seen the farce which was MRQ's muddy and confusing portrayal of combat 18 months ago when the rules first came out - and the fact that people on the MRQ forums are *STILL* asking today how combat works, I think it's worth making sure this is CRYSTAL clear in the BRP rules! I know the BRP *rules* work fine in this respect - we just need to make sure the *wording* of those rules is completely and unambiguously clear, even at the risk of repeating things.

What's particularly galling is that (unlike MRQ), Jason / Chaosium haven't tweaked anything substantial at the 11th hour... But you are absolutely right, this needs to be absolutely crystal clear.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

[Shaira]

Originally Posted by NickMiddleton

And speaking as one of the play testers, I'm kicking myself for not spotting these ambiguities at the time. *sigh* sorry all.
[...]
It might be worth going back to teh SB5 / Elric1 approach and having separate tables for spell out the Att vs. Parry and Att vs. Dodge principles.
[...]
What's particularly galling is that (unlike MRQ), Jason / Chaosium haven't tweaked anything substantial at the 11th hour... But you are absolutely right, this needs to be absolutely crystal clear.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

Hi Nick!

Thanks for your input - it's good to hear from someone who was on the playtest. First - can I really make it clear I'm not moaning or having a go at all. I think we're all well aware we're working with a proof copy here, and aware of just what that implies - and as Jason himself has said, this is the perfect time to get some fresh pairs of eyes on the MS and make sure any last minute stuff is caught and dealt with (I'm paraphrasing wildly - sorry Jason! ). No need to apologise or anything - it's just quite cool us lot also get to do our bit with last minute spit & polish!

I think your suggestion of separate tables, etc, is probably spot on. Anything, in fact, to make a real idiot sheet to spell out exactly what happens will help my addled old brain, and also make it that much easier on the newbies.

I agree that your point about Jason / Chaosium not tweaking anything. This is why I've absolute confidence that there's nothing seriously amiss here - we all know the rules work, it's just a question of editing and nothing more. Unlike MRQ, where I began to get a terrible sinking feeling that the dear old thing had been seriously screwed about with and hadn't been adequately playtested in quite a few key areas... nuff said, this ain't an MRQ discussion!

Onward!

Cheers,

Sarah

[Shaira]

Hi Jason,

Quick question on the "Fury" sorcery spell on p131.

It says:

"The spell increases the number of attacks that the maddened character can make in each round by one additional attack (and only one)... The spell does not add skill percentiles or increase damage done, so the targeted character needs to have enough percentiles in his or her attack skills to make an extra attack."

This doesn't seem to make sense. If the character has "enough" percentiles to make an extra attack anyway (I'm presuming this means 100%+ in an attack skill), in what way does the Fury spell increase the number of attacks? If the spell provides an extra attack, presumably it should:

i.) either do so at the target's original attack chance, or potentially force the target to divide his or her attack chance to include the new, extra attack. A skill in excess of 100% is not required.

ii.) allow the character to ignore the DEX rank -5 rules for extra attacks in the case of this attack, ie if a 160% fighter has DEX9, he would normally only get 2 attacks, at DEX 9 and DEX 4, totalling 160%, but the Fury spell would also allow him a third attack at DEX 1, although all three attacks would still have to total 160%. This option seems of limited utility!

Cheers,

Sarah

[Shaira]

Hi Jason,

Just wondered what you thought about the "Pox" spell on p132. This seems to be an extremely powerful spell as written - as indeed it was in SB5 also, to the extent that I've always houseruled it.

For the cost of 1PP, and after a PP vs PP resistance roll, the caster causes 1D6 PP "damage" to the target, and prevents the target from casting any sorcery spells for the duration of the spell. As far as I can see, the Duration is the caster's POW in combat rounds - a minimum of 16 combat rounds.

So at first glance this spell looks like it can take out a sorceror completely from a combat, at the cost of 1PP and a PP vs PP roll, whilst the caster can continue to cast sorcery without restriction. This also seems to have been the case when it was a Stormbringer spell!

Do you know if this is intentional, or am I missing some restriction that makes it less of a sorceror-stopper? When I've used this spell, I've always houseruled that the sorceror has a resistance roll each combat round to try and break the Pox, but as far as I know that's not actually how the spell is meant to be used.

Cheers,

Sarah

[Lord Twig]

Originally Posted by Shaira

At the risk of muddying the waters still further, I do think the entire Attack / Parry / Dodge system does need to be laid out, explicitly, in one place at some point.

Here is what I have pieced together so far - I know Jason is having a good look at the entire issue before posting his response, so I could be completely wrong, but this is what *seems* to be the likely way it works:

1.) Dodge is treated as an Opposed Roll vs. Attack. You don't use the Attack & Parry Matrix, rather a successful Dodge vs a successful Attack will reduce the success level of an Attack as per Opposed Skill Rolls on p173, with the caveat that the success level of an Attack can be reduced to no further than a Failure (see the Dodge Skill description on p55). Basically, a successful Dodge, no matter how successful, cannot make a successful Attacker Fumble - the worst they will do is simply Miss.

I can see treating Dodge as an Opposed Roll, but the caveat makes no sense. If I am reading the Opposed Roll rule right, you can't reduce an opponent to less than a success anyway, and that is only if you lose. If you win you don't reduce your opponent at all. You won, he missed.

Originally Posted by Shaira

2.) Successful Attack vs Successful Parry. My assumption here is that the Successful Attack rolls its damage and compares it to the HP of the weapon or shield which has Parried. If the damage exceeds the HP of the weapon or shield, one of two things happens:

i.) If the parrying item is a weapon, that weapon breaks.
ii.) If the parrying item is a shield, that shield takes the extra damage to its own HP. If those HP are reduced to 0, the shield then breaks.

In both cases, if there are any damage points remaining, they "go through" and damage the target.

This would be the RQ3 way of doing things, except that weapons would break FAR too often. I can guarantee that my players would never go for such a rule. (Please note that it doesn't matter if it is realistic to have weapons break all the time, having your magic sword break every few battles just sucks.)

The way I ready it a successful parry against a successful attack is a parry that blocks all damage. Period.

Originally Posted by Shaira

3.) Special or Critical Attack vs Critical / Special / Normal Parry. This is where the Attack & Parry matrix needs to be clarified. My assumption is that the dodgy "OR" is actually an "AND". So, on a Critical Attack vs Normal Parry, for example, you get:

Attack does full damage plus rolled damage bonus, and has its special effects based on impaling, bleeding, crushing, etc. I *think* that you then DO NOT match this damage against the parrying weapon or shield's HP, but I'm not sure. In any case armour seems to protect. And, finally, the parrying weapon or shield takes 2 HP damage anyway.

I read it as a successful parry blocks the attack, but takes damage from it. So a Critical vs. Success does 2 damage, Special vs. Success does 1 damage, Success vs. Success of course does none. Against a failed of fumbled parry the weapon does damage to the target of course and in the case of a fumble the target also rolls on the fumble table.

This of course runs afoul the problem of "I parry a critical dagger strike with my Hoplite, it takes 2 damage. I parry Big Club the Giant's swung tree with my buckler it takes... 2 damage.

Originally Posted by Shaira

I *think* that the principle behind the Attack & Parry matrix is that Attack/Parry is being treated as an Opposed Roll. Thus, if you get a Critical vs a Success, what's actually happening is that the Success is being bumped down to a Failure and the Critical to a Special, for the purposes of determining effects. NB: the Successful Parry doesn't actually *become* a Failed Parry, but is simply treated as one for damage purposes, etc.

In the Opposed Rule only the winner's success is downgraded, the loser just failed.

Originally Posted by Shaira

If this is the case, then Critical vs Critical, Special vs Special, and Success vs Success should all have the same result: looking at the Matrix, they basically do. However, when you try to extend the theory further, it starts to fall apart quickly - you can see *similarities* between Critical vs Special, Special vs Success, and Success vs Failure, but that's all they are.

They are the same except Special vs. Special, and I believe that was an oversight. Agree with the rest.

Originally Posted by Shaira

Hopefully Jason will get back with some clarifications on how all this works pretty soon. I'm sure it's actually extremely straightforward - you seem to have SB5 with Criticals and Specials rather than just Specials, so it should be just a question of clarifying the permutations and making sure the whole narration flows from top to bottom. At the moment we have the rules scattered about rather, and some *seem* contradictory (but may not be!).

One thing I will say: having seen the farce which was MRQ's muddy and confusing portrayal of combat 18 months ago when the rules first came out - and the fact that people on the MRQ forums are *STILL* asking today how combat works, I think it's worth making sure this is CRYSTAL clear in the BRP rules! I know the BRP *rules* work fine in this respect - we just need to make sure the *wording* of those rules is completely and unambiguously clear, even at the risk of repeating things.

Cheers!

Sarah

It is unfortunate, but probably true that BRP will suffer enhanced skepticism because of MRQ. Even though they are different companies the claims that MRQ is related to BRP is enough to link them in people's minds. Being burned once before, people will be extra cautious before buying BRP. It really needs to be pretty tight.

I am encouraged that Jason asked for input. It reassures me that the book will be pretty clean when it is finally released.

Originally Posted by NickMiddleton

And SB5 / Elric! DID have "impales" for some weapons, which we're even more effective than specials, so I suspect the confusion has arisen from translating that table (which had five levels of skill roll for Attacks ("impale", critical, normal success, normal failure and fumble) but only four for Parry or Dodge) to the BRP table (which has five levels of for Attack, Parry AND Dodge).

And speaking as one of the play testers, I'm kicking myself for not spotting these ambiguities at the time. *sigh* sorry all.

So how did you actually play it in the test? This could go a long way toward clearing up the confusion that those of us who didn't are having.

Originally Posted by NickMiddleton

It might be worth going back to teh SB5 / Elric1 approach and having separate tables for spell out the Att vs. Parry and Att vs. Dodge principles.

Agree.

Originally Posted by NickMiddleton

What's particularly galling is that (unlike MRQ), Jason / Chaosium haven't tweaked anything substantial at the 11th hour... But you are absolutely right, this needs to be absolutely crystal clear.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

Agree again.

To bring this back around to being a "Typos, Errata, Corrections, and Clarifications" post...

One of the best things about RQ3 was that you never needed to look at a table. You rolled the dice and the result was the result. With that in mind I suggest the following (and I hope I am not being too bold).

I think Dodge as an opposed roll would be fine, as long as it works the way I think it does (and if it doesn't it might still be fine, depending on how it works. ).

So a Dodge that wins the opposed roll means that the attack failed, no damage is done. A losing Dodge that still succeeded on the roll reduces the degree of the attack if it lost by degree (Special vs. Success for example) but not if it tied the degree of success but still lost (or it would reduce it to a success regardless of degree more likely). A Failed Dodge of course does nothing to reduce the attack and a Fumble could make it worse.

For parry I honestly saw nothing wrong with how RQ3 did it. Attacker always rolls damage regardless of the parry (Unless it was a Crit parry of course) and if the damage exceeded the AP of the shield the rest of the damage went through to the defender and the shield was damaged in the process (usually just one point).

Looking at that table in BRP maybe it could be an Opposed Roll as well. So If the defender wins, no damage is taken, the shield is fine. In the case of the attacker winning the result would depend on degree.

Critical vs. Success = Attack rolls damage plus gets special effect depending on weapon type, defender subtracts shield AP from damage (not armor), parrying weapon or shield takes 2 damage.
Special vs. Success = Attack rolls damage plus gets special effect depending on weapon type, defender subtracts shield and armor AP from damage, parrying weapon or shield takes 1 damage.
Success vs. Success = Attacker rolls damage, defender subtracts shield and armor AP from damage.

A Special parry would use the same results, just shifted down one. Critical shifts it down two (to a regular success). A Failed parry of course would be like he hadn't tried to parry at all. A Fumble would require the defender to roll on the Fumble table.

Make sense? Or is it done a different way?

[NickMiddleton]

Originally Posted by Lord Twig

I think Dodge as an opposed roll would be fine, as long as it works the way I think it does (and if it doesn't it might still be fine, depending on how it works. ).

So a Dodge that wins the opposed roll means that the attack failed, no damage is done. A losing Dodge that still succeeded on the roll reduces the degree of the attack if it lost by degree (Special vs. Success for example) but not if it tied the degree of success but still lost (or it would reduce it to a success regardless of degree more likely). A Failed Dodge of course does nothing to reduce the attack and a Fumble could make it worse.

The way I assumed things worked when I ran my play test games for Dodge was that:

1. Dodging an attack used the opposed skill rule.
2. That if the Dodging character won, they avoided the blow.
3. That if the Dodging character lost, the blow hit them.
4. That a "tied success levels so higher roll wins" result meant a normal success for the winner (so a losing despite rolling a critical Dodge means you only took a Normal blow)

I need to find the time to sit down with a clear head, think through exactly how I usually play this, write that out and then re-read the combat and systems chapters carefully, as the problem is as much the half a dozen subtle variations in my head as what's actually in the text. Alternatively Jason will clear this up soon.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by NickMiddleton

The way I assumed things worked when I ran my play test games for Dodge was that:

1. Dodging an attack used the opposed skill rule.
2. That if the Dodging character won, they avoided the blow.
3. That if the Dodging character lost, the blow hit them.
4. That a "tied success levels so higher roll wins" result meant a normal success for the winner (so a losing despite rolling a critical Dodge means you only took a Normal blow)

I need to find the time to sit down with a clear head, think through exactly how I usually play this, write that out and then re-read the combat and systems chapters carefully, as the problem is as much the half a dozen subtle variations in my head as what's actually in the text. Alternatively Jason will clear this up soon.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

I don't understand why none of this was brought up during the playtesting. For an RPG that is nearly finished to have problems with the combat matrix, especially one based on a 30 year old game system puzzles me.

Did the playtesters just run the way they have for years and therefore didn't reference their rules and notice stuff like this? Typos, omissions, page references to non-existant pages, these I can understand. Not having Attack & Parry functional and simple I can't.