Topic: Castles & Ruins - Siege Engine Reliability

[doktorjoy]

In Castles & Ruins, the Siege Engine attack tables include a 'Reliability' number (e.g. 55 for Catapults), and no fumble range or fumble tables. However, nowhere in the rulebook is what this 'reliability' factor is used for mentioned (I've search the PDF versions, so I'm certain of this!). It also seems rather difficult to 'miss' with Siege Engines in this book, which I find unlikely if you're tossing a rock 500 yards and hoping to land it on a 30' high wall section and not in front of or behind it. Also - on page 182 it says "if the attack roll is within the fumble range... the attacker must roll again on the appropriate fumble table". No fumble range is given in the tables for siege weapons, nor are any fumble tables supplied.

Meanwhile, in War Law, Siege Engines *do* have a fumble range and there is also a fumble table, but the rules there are less useful for using siege weapons against structures (Castles & Ruins seems to deal with this much better - mainly by providing structure 'breach' values and using structural damage).

Can anybody shed any light on what the C&R 'Reliability' factor is used for?

For now, we're using War Law fumble ranges and tables, and C&R attack tables and structural hit point rules.

[Hurin]

War Law was published for RM2, which handled breakage by using item strengths and breakage factors, but didn't give much guidance for launchers (note that RM2 didn't even give strengths/Breakage Factors for handheld launchers like a longbow). Castles and Ruins was published for RMSS, which used (and introduced iirc) 'reliability factor' for launchers. Reliability is similar to item breakage factor: it is the number you add to a roll to see if the weapon breaks. Higher is better, because you need to roll 101+ to not break. RMSS kind of copped out though on the item strengths (see RMSS Standard Rules, 32.4, p. 135, under 'Operating Devices), because it just said 'A GM should assign breakage numbers to any device that he feels has a chance of breaking.' [Isn't that what we buy rules for -- someone to do that for us?]

So yeah, I would treat 'reliability' as the number you add to a percentile roll to see if something breaks. You will most likely have to assign fumble numbers yourself though.

[doktorjoy]

Thanks Hurin - that all make sense in fact and we already use RMSS's breakage factors.

I've just discovered that in the PDF version of C&R, there *are* fumble ranges - they're just not in my printed version.  The PDF version also has breakage numbers like RMSS Arms Law does.

[Spectre771]

but didn't give much guidance for launchers (note that RM2 didn't even give strengths/Breakage Factors for handheld launchers like a longbow).

I'll be darned!  I knew there were BF listed (Ch&CaL pg.27) for weapons, but weirdly nothing at all listed for missile weapons.  I never noticed that before.  I guess the assumption is that one wouldn't be beating a person repeatedly about the head and shoulders with a bow.

[Hurin]

Yes, I think that was the assumption (and I didn't realize this till just recently too).

I'm glad that RMU is finally using a single, standardized system for all of these, where everything gets a Strength #. So long as those numbers are tweaked to be appropriate (currently the Strength numbers for launchers are a little too strong, since they have been taken from a different system), RMU will have by far the easiest and most comprehensive system any RM edition has had.

Sidenote: RMSS gave penalties to Strength for wooden weapons (w) and soft weapons (s) facing edged weapons in melee, which helped to balance out their relatively high Strength factors. So I think this needs to be applied to the Strengths of weapons like Slings (currently stronger than Broadswords) in RMU.