[Runequest4] Fwd: [runequestpt] 1.4 Playtest - 24th October 2005

Tue Oct 25 12:42:47 UTC 2005

--- Simon Phipp <soltakss at yahoo.com> wrote:

> To: runequestpt at yahoogroups.com
> From: "Simon Phipp" <soltakss at yahoo.com>
> Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2005 12:30:25 -0000
> Subject: [runequestpt] 1.4 Playtest - 24th October
> 2005
> 

---------------------------------
Hiya All

We played our second session yesterday, all players
were present and 
correct so we could have a proper session. We started
looking at 
skills and spells at around 8pm, started playing at
9pm and finished 
at 11.30pm, so we had around 2 and a half hours of
gameplay.

During that time, we had one river crossing, one nomad
duel and one 
multiple opponent combat, which wasn't bad considering
we were still 
feeling our way through the rules.

Combat went fairly quickly and was more deadly than I
thought. We had 
to improvise a few things as most of the PCs were
mounted against 
foes on foot, so we had to have trample options and
riding people 
down, but we simply used the Ride skill as the attack
chance and 1D10 
+ Mount's DM as the damage.

I gave everyone a spell and the trainee shaman 2
spells. Our Storm 
Bulli took Bladesharp, our Zebra Rider took Mobility
and our Shaman 
took Spirit Shield and Disrupt, using the Fire Rune.
Don't forget, I 
am using a variant of the V1.4 rules for magic and
spells, making it 
more in line with RQ3 than V1.4.

The nomad duel was over very quickly as the PC struck
the nomad in 
the chest on a charging bison, giving him a Major
Wound and unseating 
him. This was fairly easy and very quick to run. He
even cast 
Bladesharp on his spear to give himself extra
percentages, taking him 
over 100%, so I used the RQ2 approach of reducing the
parry chance by 
the excess amount. His bison was also charging with
Mobility which I 
ruled increased its DM by half again. This worked
really well.

The multiple opponent combat consisted of a bunch of
trollkin and 
their mother raiding the party and trying to steal
away their bison. 
Once the PC on watch, the shaman, had seen the bison
start moving, he 
cast his fiery Disrupt at a trollkin, taking out its
chest. Another 
PC fired at another tollkin, taking out its abdomen.
He tried to use 
a Longbow on zebraback, but was forced to use a Nomad
Bow instead - 
Longbows do far too much damage.

Several trollkin attacked the zebrarider and shaman
with slingshots 
and took out the zebra. The zebrarider tried to use
his zebra to 
dodge the sling bullets, but I ruled that he simply
put the zebra in 
the way. Perhaps there could be a Heroic Ability of
Horsemanship, or 
whatever, that allows dodging on horesback -
cossack-style.

The shaman rode down the trollkin by charging at them
for a couple of 
rounds, trampling them underfoot. The rhinorider, who
was on foot, 
was attacked by the troll, as he was the biggest. A
troll maul is 
pretty devastating, even with the new rules and
reduced damage bonus. 
He had his abdomen and one arm smashed in but did some
damage to the 
troll. He tried to cast a 1D6 Bladesharp but it took
too long and he 
was Stunned before he could finish it. Then the shaman
rode the troll 
down on his bison. 

I allowed them to use Hero Points to change a failed
roll to a 
successful roll, mainly to help them cast spells.

General comments and opinions included:

1. They needed a Healing spell of some kind otherwise
they would get 
pounded by anything skillful or numerous.

2. They didn't like the D10 initiative as it impacted
on the game too 
much. They had to roll an extra die and make a
calculation for not 
much game benefit.

3. They didn't like the fact that a Parry could fail
even though it 
had succeeded because the roll was lower than the
opponent's attack. 
It felt counter-intuitive and slowed the combat down.

4. They didn't mind rolling Parry dice at all and felt
it didn't slow 
the game down. 

5. They thought that spell casting was too difficult
in some 
respects. Casting a Disrupt was OK as it was Instant
and could do 
damage with little manipulation. Casting Bladesharp to
do useful 
damage (1D6) for a reasonable time (6 rounds) took too
long and the 
penalties were too severe. They all asked how they
could get extra 
runes and were fairly sure they would concentrate
their runes so that 
the Storm Bulli would get all the Death Runes, the
zebra rider all 
the Movement runes and the Shaman all the magic and
spirit runes.

6. They compared the old RQ3 rules where casting a
Bladesharp 4 took 
4SRs and 4 MPs with virtually no chance of failure.

7. They liked some of the combat actions, although
they only used 
Attack, Charge, Aim and Movement. Given time, they
would use more 
actions.

Overall, they found it fast - certainly far faster
than HeroQuest 
which tended to get bogged down in calculating
Augments - and 
exciting.

So, quite a successful playtest.

See Ya

Simon

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Lev Lafayette
lev_lafayette at yahoo.com.au
http://au.geocities.com/lev_lafayette

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