This page contains OGL material that is still correct for RQII and house rules. Material which is not from the OGL is marked as either HR - indicating a house rule - or RQ - indicating that it is based on RuneQuest II and presented as fair use. Remember, nothing's better than buying the book.

Characteristics

All characters and creatures have seven Characteristics with the following exceptions:

1. Non-sentient creatures such as horses, bears etc have a "Fixed" value for Intelligence - known as "Fixed INT".
2. Some creatures which are not native to the material plane (e.g. ghosts and wraiths) are missing physical characteristics (STR, CON, DEX & SIZ). HR
3. Unnatural creatures that have been animated by magic (e.g. zombies, skeletons) don't have life force characteristics (INT, POW, CHA). HR

Creatures with one or missing characteristics are known as "Incomplete Creatures." Creatures with Fixed INT which otherwise have all the characteristics are NOT incomplete but are non-sentient. 

• Strength (STR): A character’s brute force, Strength affects the amount of damage it deals, what weapons it can wield effectively, how much it can lift and so on. 
• Constitution (CON): A measure of the character’s health, Constitution affects how much damage it can sustain in combat, as well as its general resistance to disease and other illnesses. 
• Dexterity (DEX): A character’s agility, co-ordination and speed, Dexterity aids it in many physical actions, including combat. 
• Size (SIZ): This is an indication of the character’s mass and shape. Like Strength and Constitution, Size can affect the amount of damage a character can deal and how well it can absorb damage. Unlike most other Characteristics, a high score in Size is not always an advantage. While a large character can take more damage, a small character will have a much easier time when sneaking around in the shadows. 
• Intelligence (INT): A character’s ability to think around problems, analyse information and memorise instructions. It is a very useful Characteristic for characters interested in becoming accomplished spellcasters. 
• Power (POW): Perhaps the most abstract Characteristic, Power is a measure of the character’s life force and its personal force of will. It is related to intuition. 
• Charisma (CHA): This quantifies a character’s attractiveness and leadership qualities. It is used primarily in social skills. It is also related to beauty: its appreciation and creation. 

Maximum Characteristic Values (HR)

The maximum value for a characteristic is equal to its greatest possible rolled value plus one for each dice rolled and 1 for each 6 points (or portion thereof) added to that dice roll. Example: a human with INT rolled on 2d6+6 has a maximum roll of 18, is rolled on 2 dice (+2) and adds 6 points (+1), therefore the maximum human INT is 21. Permanent magic and advanced technology may be able break this limit.

Attributes

These are a set of secondary scores that define exactly what the character is capable of. Some are derived from the character's characteristics (Dynamic attributes) and others from its species (Static attributes).

Movement Rating (MOV)

This the number of metres a character can move in one Combat Round. Human characters have a Movement of 8 metres (8m). RQ

Combat Actions (CA)

This is the number of actions a character can perform in each combat round. See RQII rulebook for formula for deriving CAs.

Strike Rank (SR)

This determines how quickly the character acts in combat.  Strike Rank is determined by adding together the character’s INT and DEX, and halving the result. Example INT 12 and Dex 13 gives a SR of 13.

Damage Modifier (DM)

The Damage Modifier applies whenever the character uses a close combat skill or thrown weapon and measures how much additional damage the character does. Note that small, weak characters will have a negative damage modifier. To calculate a character's Damage Modifier, add up its STR+SIZ and consult the following table. 

Hit Points (HP)

These determine how much damage the character can sustain before reaching unconsciousness or death.  Hit points are located in certain areas of the character’s body, representing exactly how much damage he can sustain in that location. To calculate how many HPs are in each location, add the character's CON+SIZ together and divide by 5, rounding up as usual. See the Base Hit Points Table if you don't like maths.

Base Hit Points Table

The character's base HPs are used to determine the number of HPs in each of its locations. For human (and humanoid characters) the table below summarises the HPs for each location.

Hit Points by location table for humanoids

Any location, no matter how weak has at least 1 HP. E.g. Puny Pete the gnome has a SIZ of 2 and CON of 3 which means that he he has 1 base HP. Even though he would normally  have 0 HPs in each arm because 1-1=0, no location can have fewer than 1HP when fully healed so he has 1 HP in each arm.

Example: Fahir has CON 13, SIZ 14 (total 27) so his base HP attribute equals 6. Therefore he has 6 HPs in each leg and his head, 5 HPs in each arm, 7 HPs in his abdomen and 8 HPs in his chest.

Whenever a location is damaged, it loses HPs. Any location that has been reduced to zero or fewer HPs is disabled. Any location that has suffered damage equal to at least twice its normal number of HPs has either been severed or permanently maimed. If the character survives, the location will eventually recover HPs but will never be functional again.

Improvement Roll Modifier (IRM)

See RQII rulebook for explanation. 

Magic Points (MP)

A character’s starting Magic Points will be equal to the character’s POW. MPs are usually used to activate spells but other effects may also cause a character to lose MPs. Any character who has been reduced to 0 MPs may fall unconscious for a period of time (RQ II).

A character regains a number of MPs equal to 1/10 of its POW every hour - rounded up. E.g. a character with 12 POW regains 2 MPs every hour. A character cannot regain any MPs until an hour has past since the last time it lost any MPs. Example. Nikolos, POW 15, casts a spell requiring 4 MPs and hopes to regain 2MPs in an hours time. 45 minutes later he is forced to cast another spell requiring 2MPs. He will have to wait another hour, now, before he regains any MPs. (HR)

Skills

Common Skills

Every character has a range of basic skills that allows it to perform a variety of actions with varying degrees of expertise. Common skills represent those skills that every character of has a chance to perform. Some of these skills may, however, vary by species and culture. Example, every human has the common skill of Perception. Nomadic horsemen have the common skill Ride Horse but some humans may know how to ride buffalo or ostriches as common skills rather than horses. A troll's common skill of perception includes using Darksense while a Wind Child's common skill of Athletics includes its use for Flying.

Each Core skill has a Base Score which is set set by the total of two Characteristics or one characteristic doubled.

The Common Skills table lists all the basic skills that a human character possesses and the characteristics used to determine the skill’s base score.

Common Skills - RQ

Common Skills for non-human characters

Any modifications to the basic skills for a non-human character are given in the description of the species.

Skills and Traits

Many non-human species have traits such as Dark Sense, Flying etc. Often that trait simply allows them to use a common skill in a specific way; e.g. a Gloranthan Troll with Dark Sense actually uses darkness to sense in the same way that human eyes use light, thus the more darkness there is, the better the troll "sees." On the other hand, Gloranthan trolls have the trait "photosensitive" which subtracts 20% from all Perception tests conducted in direct sunlight due to the effect the sun has on them. Such trolls cannot use their darksense to see if there is no darkness around and must, in that case, rely on their relatively poor eyesight. (HR)