Converting HQ1 to RQ (Kakstan's Art Museum)

[Wolfram Riegler]

Sorry for double posting with the DM forum, but I assume this is the better place to ask this question. The answer does not have to be related to RQ6, as I think I already played nearly all incarnations of d100 🙂 But I really would need to get some values here to understand the overall difficulty levels of the various challenges (and monsters). So, here is my question:

I’m currently converting the adventure Kakstan’s Art Museum (from Ian Thomsons great Legacy of Pavis book) to RuneQuest.

I already converted two of the scenarios of Pavis Gateway of Adventures to RQ, but this adventure seems for me to be quite more complicated. I (very) roughly know how the mechanics in HQ2 work and as everything was very open in the official scenarios, I had no troubles with them. But in this adventure it is much more complicated (as I also think it uses the older HQ1 rules).

Maybe somebody can explain to me how to convert a few of the challenges, so I can try to understand how to do it in the future:

1) This magic is at 5w2 for resistance with mundane abilities, and at 15w if magic is used to resist it.
=> Wouldn’t 5w2 be roughly translated to 225% in RQ terms? and 15w to 175%? Or is it not that easy to convert it? Any ideas how the “if Magic is used” could be translated in RQ terms?

2) ‘Search Archive’ ability against Difficulty 6w
=> Next to the 6w the ‘Search Archive’ ability is interesting. In CoC it would be easy translated, but I’m not sure which skill should be used in RQ6. A Lore or a Craft? Or would you invent a totally new skill?

Thanks for any help!

[Joerg Baumgartner]

I think that simply translating HQ ability ratings to RQ skill ratings cannot work.

Any HQ contest consists of an opposed roll, thereby reducing the effective ability to about half its value if RQ has a single, unopposed roll for that action.

For activities thst involve several combat rounds of rolling dice in RQ, you still only roll once against an opposition in HQ. Figuring out those probabilities exactly likely takes a spreadsheet. Fortunately, you don’t have to.

Resisting a mgic with mundane abilities in RQ? You would need a citical or special success. Resisting with a magical ability rating like e.g. current MP, POW or spevialist magical skill still will be quite hard. Rather than going the super-RQ route, I would set a penalty to that roll and be done. E.g. half the usual rating in case of a resistance roughly at 2W.

That ignores the adaptation HQ assumes of opposition ratings to player character ratings, though. If character ratings are assumed to be in the same range, masteries cancel out.

[Wolfram Riegler]

Thanks for the response Jörg, but RQ6 (and also OpenQuest/MRQ1/MRQ2/Legend) is using opposed rolls, so this is not the problem. Resisting with mundane abilities is a skill called Willpower (or Persistence in the older versions) and in RQ3 terms I would simply translate it to the “standard” Resistance table vs. POW. But I think you are right, translating the HQ2 values directly to RQ wouldn’t make any sense, and I think I’m convinced of finding a different way.

However, I still try to get a feeling of how difficult it would be to beat a 15w or even a 5w2. For me it looks nearly impossible to beat 5w2 as a Non-Runelevel character.

[Charles]

A large part of the premise of HQ is based on not having pre-determined ratings. Instead, HQ gives the GM a toolkit to help choose a rating at the time the scenario is run.

The toolkit contains several take it or leave it approaches including:

• A mechanism to choose a base resistance and increase it every few episodes.
• If the heroes have recently done well, then increase the resistance. Conversely decrease the resistance if they have done less well.
• The importance and drama of the contest to the players and GM.
• GM fiat

All of these ratings 1) are relative to those of the heroes and b) can and will vary each time the same opposition is met (so as to better meet the dramatic needs of the story).

For the same reason, the recurring dramatic opposition (the bad guy NPCs) do not have stat blocks detailing their varying ability ratings. Instead there is a short narrative paragraph summarising their motivations and approach and often some runes to indicate the types of magic they might use. The GM can then increase or reduce the resistance based on how credible what the NPC is doing relative to their description.

For players and GMs used to the more ‘simulationist’* approach of RuneQuest, this seems like it is bordering on the GM just making it up as they go along. And there is some truth in that. But it can also be seen as a totally different approach that puts more emphasis on the storytelling and drama than on the nitty-gritty of RuneQuest.

Don’t get me wrong. I came to this community because of RuneQuest, specifically because it felt like it better modeled fantasy roleplaying than AD&D.

* Listen to Ken And Robin Talk About Stuff, episode 96, segment 1 to hear a discussion of simulation vs. modeling and what it means to RPG systems, from 2 very articulate game designers and writers.

[Charles]

If the question was more of what do masteries mean, then the following quote may help:

How Good are Masteries?
A hero with the same ability rating as an opponent will win about half the contests they engage in.

• One mastery will beat anyone who is a full mastery lower about 75% of the time.
• If the hero is two full masteries higher, the chance of victory is about 95%.
• At three levels, he is all but certain to win.
• At four, he will always be victorious, although opponents might survive to tell the tale…

[Peter Metcalfe]

I feel a discussion of the merits of converting from HQ1 to RQ is a bit misplaced in the case of the Kakstan’s Art Museum scenario because Ian Thomson’s scenarios always looked to me as RQ scenarios with HQ1 stats added.

[Wolfram Riegler]

@Charles: Many thanks for your explanation and of course for your quote at the end “How Good are Masteries?” – this was exactly what I was looking at. However, I never predefine skill tests in any of my adventures, but let my players choose how they want to solve a problem and afterwards define a skill and difficulty for the task. So, maybe I already use a kind of HQ way in RQ.

@Peter: I think what you say is exactly the reason why it is more difficult for me to convert it to RQ.

As I converted the HQ2 scenarios from “Pavis, Gateway to Adventures”, I felt free to define everything exactly as I wanted them to be. So, I used the scenario as an “empty form, to be filled with numbers as I want” – in this case stating NPCs and Monsters (and costs), in Kakstan’s Art Museum I felt like I should stick to the tests and difficulties as written.

[Pentallion]

Any decent DM of RQIII does make it up as he goes along. It may be a “simulationist” rpg, but it’s an rpg, not a simulation war game. If the enemy is too overpowered because you underestimated him, you fumble at that crucial moment, or ignore he has Sever Spirit, etc.

What HQ does is the same as what any decent DM does in RQIII, it’s just built into the system. But then, that’s why I prefer RQIII because I feel like I’m getting the best of both worlds.

To answer the OP, this is how I convert (with a grain of salt because I’ll turn right around and change anything I want to on the fly to keep the story going or keep the tension up): Base 50%. So skill of 16 is 66%. First W is 70%. Not really a mastery per RQIII rules. 2W is 90%, aka true mastery. At this stage, every point above adds an additional 5% so that 2W19 is 185%. Then, to make math simple, 3W becomes 200%. Every point after that is worth 20% so that 4W becomes 400%.

Opposed rolls are based upon what the average stat would be. So a poison with a POT 65 would have a 65% chance to succeed vs avg CON. Avg CON is 10.5, let’s call it 10 so that is a POT 13 poison in RQIII.

[Wolfram Riegler]

Thanks for the answer. Yes, I think you are absolutely right, I do not feel any restricted by the fix numbers in RQ, if I do not like them, I change them on the fly, or decide other ways to solve the problem (or not me, but the players).

Your conversion rules are fine to use as a base on which you will be able to fine-tune to your likings.

I see that you all still playing RQ3, haven’t you tried Legend/RQ6 or do you really prefer RQ3? I played it a lot in the late 80s and early 90s, but today I was quite amazed by the new rules. Next to the improved Magic and Combat system, I like the introduction of the opposed skill tests and the difficulties (which are again quite close to the HQ resistances).

[Pentallion]

The group I game with got as far as rolling up characters for RQ6, but no one really liked the changes. I like some of the magic, but since we’d already incorporated combat maneuvers for people who were 90% with their weapons, we already had a combat system we preferred over what that gave us. Just deducting the opposed skill from your own seemed simpler than their opposed skill system. In the end, however, the handing out of experience rolls was the final killer. We seriously prefer the “mark it and roll to go up after 7 days” method. What you do is what you get good at.

[Wolfram Riegler]

Ah, ok. I understand that. The thing with the missing experience checks also bothered me first, though I’m happy with it at the moment, as it prevents players from unnecessary skill checks… 😉

[Hannu Kokko]

Who ever plays any ruleset completely out of book 🙂 Used to play Rq2 and III for years (since 1981) and then some Mongoose Rq the second version

We play RQ6 but have used since the start a house rule for experience checks – you only get a check if you use the skill.

[Pentallion]

I don’t let my characters make skill rolls just to make them. For instance, it’s hard to go up in Feign Death because you can’t just say “I’m feigning death!”. Unless the party has a true chance of being wiped out and you’ve just taken a hit, or the battle has been lost and you’re hiding amongst the dead, etc. you don’t get to just roll it because hey, our guys don’t need me so I’m just going to lay here. Same with any skill. Go ahead and roll it, but you don’t get to mark it unless I say so. If they search, but there was nothing to be found, they don’t get to mark their search.

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