Got my first taste of Mythras today

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Acmegamer said:
Yeah that UK cover kinda lacked in my opinion and didn't serve the original done by Luise Perrin justice.
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The cover for RQ2 really grabbed my attention back in the day... something about it. Compared to the D&D art of the day it seemed downright exotic.

RQ2.jpg

EDIT: I wonder why copies of the 2016 Classic Runequest are priced at 65-100+ bucks in places (Amazon, Ebay, Noble Knight) despite still being for sale on Chaosium's site for $25.99?
 
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We played our fourth game of Mythras last night, a combat training module called Brace Yourself where the goal is to free a large group of townspeople from a Giantess (who was eating them) and her pet grizzly bear. There were four characters, two of us armed with swords, axes and hatchets, one with a bow and javelins and one armed with a spear and maybe something else. The giantess and the bear had made camp in a large clearing nearly completely encircled (the exception was one small pass) by a small ridge and had placed the townspeople in a pit with a hatch over the top. Our mission was to rescue the townspeople.

While the party had weapons and rope, we had no other equipment and no magic which was on purpose given the goal was to give us practice with the Mythras combat system and experience using combat special effects to implement tactics. Being new to Mythras I still think in terms of BRP mechanics (Magic World / Stormbringer specifically) and my first thought was that we were all going to die horrible deaths as there was no obvious way to avoid combat with what appeared to be extremely formidable opponents. However, once we got going, we discovered that the action point economy worked in our favor and that with the right use of combat special effects the archer prevented the giant from attacking the party while we focused on the bear and once done with the bear we ganged up on the Giantess.

It was an interesting and highly educational module and I highly recommend it to anyone trying to learn to play Mythras. A few things stood out:
  • It’s a little hard to explain if you are used to straight BRP or even D&D, but I found the Mythras combat special effects enables the use of tactics not available in other games. This was my biggest reveal and I suspect the exact point of the module.
  • And it’s not just special effects that foster more tactical depth but also the action point economy, the weapon reach rules, and the rules that regulate how much damage a weapon can parry (based on its size) and the knockback that might come with that. While Magic World has a smattering of this, its much more nuanced in Mythras. Mythas is just a much more tactical game (because of all this stuff) than Magic World, Stormbringer or even straight BRP.
  • This being my fourth time to use combat special effects I am just now beginning to get comfortable with them. In the past I tended to get “stuck” trying to analyze the effects to apply, but it flowed a lot better this time. This time was also different in that I wasn’t trying to maximize damage as much as I was trying to prevent being attacked. Special effects like press advantage and pin down were particularly useful in keeping us from getting smashed to bits.
  • It’s important to use the right weapon for the right enemy. The great ax was useful for attacking the bear but less useful when attacking the Giantess because its use precludes the use of a shield. Better to use a sword on the Giantess so you could take advantage of a shield.
  • It never came up but the thought donned on me that my fighter might get in a situation where he had to parry the tree trunk that the Giantess was using as a club. Bad things would ensue if that had ever happened… Best to use your special effects to prevent them Giantess from ever attacking you.
All in all, I think I will play both Mythras and Magic World (As well as Delta Green) depending on what experience I am trying to foster. Magic World is a great, lite, easy to play game that anyone can quickly get started with and understand. Mythras takes a bit more commitment and practice to fully exploit but rewards it’s players with a deeper, much more tactical nuanced experience.
 
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Sounds like a fun time was had. Nice to see more Mythras game play. Ronnie Sanford Ronnie Sanford I think my only issue with the action economy system is the tendency to want to min/max for the most action points. I still think that just doing a 2 action point system per Mythras Lite is the best route to go to stave off the balance issues and min/max issues of action points.
 
That is a well observed summary of the highlights of Mythras vs other BRP games, and of the scenario itself. "Brace Yourself" is possibly the 'most-funnest' in the series of combat modules so far. Possibilities for tactics are a bit more varied than the other two, and the chances for player success are very high.

In my playtest one of the PCs was disabled, but the others managed to defeat both the bear and giant. The chance for critical successes are very high (especially with the use of luck points), which goes some way to enabling a swift end for the big creatures, but not without risk to the PCs. This outcome is quite in-keeping with creature battles featured in Harryhausen set-pieces.

Runeblogger recently posted an overview https://elruneblog.blogspot.com/2021/11/brace-yourself-mythras-combat-module.html
 
It was fun to run the module and see the divide, harry and conquer strategy play itself out. The players didn't even use Luck Points or augments from passions, which I'm sure could have really changed the complexion of things.

I need way more experience with Mythras to say for sure, but I have this sneaking suspicion that the action point disparity between 2 AP vs. 3 AP characters might not be so "unbalanced" and debilitating as I thought at first glance. I can see players prioritizing size, strength, and/or power during character creation (with point buy) and making a character that hits harder, is less likely to be knocked back and maybe has more Luck points than the 3 AP character. With the right mix of combat traits and general tactics I can sort of envision a 2 AP character being more than able to hold their own in a fight or even being better suited to certain combat scenarios than you might think at first blush. I probably should whip up a stable of varied combatants and throw them into some mock battles to test this out.

In any event these combat modules have been the perfect test bed to get comfortable with the system. I wish more games took this approach to highlighting their systems (particularly games with a lot of tactical depth).
 
Nick J said:
I need way more experience with Mythras to say for sure, but I have this sneaking suspicion that the action point disparity between 2 AP vs. 3 AP characters might not be so "unbalanced" and debilitating as I thought at first glance. I can see players prioritizing size, strength, and/or power during character creation (with point buy) and making a character that hits harder, is less likely to be knocked back and maybe has more Luck points than the 3 AP character. With the right mix of combat traits and general tactics I can sort of envision a 2 AP character being more than able to hold their own in a fight or even being better suited to certain combat scenarios than you might think at first blush. I probably should whip up a stable of varied combatants and throw them into some mock battles to test this out
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Yes and no.

It is very debilitating with a lack of system mastery and good team work. you have to be able to use press advantage and overextend opponent well, know how to passively ward with a shield and have solid armor, know to pair up with someone else so you aren’t stuck being outgunned badly in action points (3AP vs 2 is much worse than 6 vs 5). You have to pick your targets a lot more, and can’t try it be the star solo person.

It is more evident if you are someone with “dead time” in their round, like an archer who reloads or a caster who has longer casting times. With a bow, for example, you are doing (S= shoot, r=reload) Sr-rS-rr-Sr-r vs Srr-Srr-Srr. The longer reload times exacerbate this, though many of those are also no damage modifier weapons, mitigating it a bit.

counterintuitively, it’s more pronounced with big weapons than with small weapons, because the base damage on a two hander is just huge compared to the damage mod. On the other hand, with daggers, the damage mod is close to the dagger, so having a higher str/siz vs the action point works.

Luck point increase, at default, is not comparable to the action point. Yes, luck points are more flexible, but one digit flip or reroll per session vs that much extra speed in combat in a combat focused game is a huge difference. As shown above, damage mod is not enough to compensate on raw output.

we had a big bruiser with two action points in one game. He was good. He could two handed axe limbs off with average rolls (2d6+2+1d4 averages to 11.5) and he was all but guaranteed a serious wound to a limb even against armor. Absolutely brutal. However, he was stopped by a couple of javelineers. He had to evade and went prone all the time.

it requires a tactically savvy player to pull off, which is sort of counter to what you’d expect. It can work, it really can. But you gotta mean it and accept the downsides.

of course, if you are a two action point sorcerer hitting someone at 500m with wracks via your projected senses, It just slows how fast they die a little bit ;)

edit: to illustrate the point in another way, for my shadow punk hack, action points are fixed. Part of this is because I wanted that much speed to be the product of cybernetics or magic, emphasizing the inhuman aspect. Part of it is because you can pull out a carbine easily and do 2d6 no evade at 500m. Damage mod is less relevant.

edit2: slight alteration of shooting example to emphasize the gap with weapon reload. Note, with modern weapons, this cap is largely irrelevant because they have magazines, and many can fire upwards of 30 shots before you are reloading. Also full auto allows you to fire a lot, and if you compare 2 AP guys and 3 AP guys, by default the rules have the weapons have faster firing rates in the hands of the 3AP guy.
 
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Nick J said:
It was fun to run the module and see the divide, harry and conquer strategy play itself out. The players didn't even use Luck Points or augments from passions, which I'm sure could have really changed the complexion of things.
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If we'd had Luck Points and Passions in play it might have made it too easy... as it was we were barely hurt. Our previous run-through was a bit more dire, but even then we survived... though much more torn up.
Maybe we just got lucky this time, getting a pin on the giant with the first shot and pretty much keeping him/her/them out of the action.

I'm looking forward to the ranged combat module, Take Cover! (mostly 'cause I like lizardmen).
 
The thing that needs to be said about the Mythras tactics is that the choices and options that the players have are the same choices and options that the characters have (with the exception of Luck Points).
 
Simlasa said:
If we'd had Luck Points and Passions in play it might have made it too easy... as it was we were barely hurt. Our previous run-through was a bit more dire, but even then we survived... though much more torn up.
Maybe we just got lucky this time, getting a pin on the giant with the first shot and pretty much keeping him/her/them out of the action.

I'm looking forward to the ranged combat module, Take Cover! (mostly 'cause I like lizardmen).
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We playtested this one. i killed one character with a spear to the head and it made it unwinnable at the time :smile:
 
CRKrueger said:
The thing that needs to be said about the Mythras tactics is that the choices and options that the players have are the same choices and options that the characters have (with the exception of Luck Points).
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That's something I've always liked about BRP in general... PCs and 'monsters' are cut from the same cloth. I think RQ2 mentioned that Players were free to play anything in the bestiary if the GM allowed it. RQ2 was also a big part of why I never cared for the idea of monsterous/evil 'races'... orcs or otherwise. Not because of any trendy notions of representation, but because 'evil' races didn't feel as plausible/interesting.
 
CRKrueger said:
The thing that needs to be said about the Mythras tactics is that the choices and options that the players have are the same choices and options that the characters have (with the exception of Luck Points).
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Oh, there are definitely points in my life that a luck point was used to avoid an untimely death. :-)
 
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