Quote from: Elliot Wilen

• Bookkeeping:
• Check-mongering:
• It isn't really all that realistic for skills where improvement from practice is generally more important than improvement from experience.

These cover why I'm not a big fan of experience checks.  Especially the last one if you assume that there is quite of off screen time in the campaign.  

But it's not a game killer for me, just a mild annoyance.

Quote from: droogSome people like the feel that gives combat of a desperate and dangerous struggle.

I'm not harshing on RQ in any way here, but anyone who says you can't achieve this effect in D&D is officially Full O' Crap.

Quote from: jrientsI'm not harshing on RQ in any way here, but anyone who says you can't achieve this effect in D&D is officially Full O' Crap.

I'm not bashing anything either. I'd just like to get this straight and I feel like you've got your back up – I get the feeling you're having a discussion with somebody else in your past. Look:

D&D
1. Calculate modifiers.
2. Roll to hit.
3. Calculate damage.
4. Apply damage to HP. (Check for massive damage threshold?)

RQ
1. Calculate mods.
2. Roll to hit.
3. Opponent rolls parry/dodge.
4. Roll hit location.
5. Calculate damage.
6. Apply damage after checking for (a) armour protection (b) parry weapon degradation. Note separate damage results on general HP and location HP.

I think it's pretty obvious that RQ goes into a lot more detail, of the oh-my-god-he-slashed-my-sword-arm variety. If you add to that the effects of having fairly static HP, not to mention fumbles and criticals, it means that characters are always vulnerable even to low-level foes. Even an experienced character in RQ can go suddenly from unwounded to dead in one strike.

I'm aware that modern D&D has a massive damage rule: does it produce effects anything like this?

Quote from: droogI'm not bashing anything either. I'd just like to get this straight and I feel like you've got your back up – I get the feeling you're having a discussion with somebody else in your past.

Maybe you're right.  I'm not feeling self-reflective enough at the moment to really analyze the idea.  At this point I don't understand how we got into this back and forth.

QuoteI think it's pretty obvious that RQ goes into a lot more detail, of the oh-my-god-he-slashed-my-sword-arm variety. If you add to that the effects of having fairly static HP, not to mention fumbles and criticals, it means that characters are always vulnerable even to low-level foes. Even an experienced character in RQ can go suddenly from unwounded to dead in one strike.

I'm aware that modern D&D has a massive damage rule: does it produce effects anything like this?

Actually, I don't use the massive damage rules.  But you also omitted the fact that 3.x D&D has criticals as well, producing some really good massive damage of its own, especially once you start hitting the level where you can stack various buffs and such.  I use a variant crit system based upon the original Arduin Grimoire that would allow an occasional instant death, though we've had no such result in 18 months of twice a month play.  Hit locations aren't standard nowadays but they've been an option in the system at various times going back to Blackmoor (1975).

But generally speaking D&D characters eventually reach a point where low level foes become non-threats.  The group I run is 22nd level and they can virtually ignore many demons and giants, much less orcs and goblins.