Lord Twig

I was not in the playtest, but I did buy the Advanced Reader's Copy and the PDF. I heard back from Dustin and it was sent to me by mistake, but it has been sorted out very satisfactorily.

Hopefully HoT is still looking through this thread and this post is not wasted. I have been playing RQ since 1980 and have played through all the incarnations. Just a little back ground to let you know where I am coming from. This tells me that you are interested in the BRP system itself and not necessarily the setting. Great! Buy the BRP book, you won't be sorry! Or you can buy the PDF. It is slightly cheaper and you can get it immediately. As for the setting, there is a slew of books that are coming out that you will be able to use. It sound's like some of the MRQ fans are trying to convince you that because it is already in print it is the way to go, but I would say that good things come to those that wait. Sticking with BRP and choosing one of the new settings should give you plenty to play with and has the advantage of a superior system. One that you are already familiar with if you are playing CoC. (Make no mistake, MRQ is a different system that is just similar enough to confuse people.) I hope this is helpful to you, even though I let my biases creep in a couple times.

I received a copy of BRP from Chaosium. This is extra surprising considering I didn't order one from them. I had an order pending with Amazon for a while now. I checked my account at Chaosium and I see no record of ordering the book either. I haven't checked to see if my credit card was charged. I sent mail to Dustin to see if we can get it straitened out. I will probably keep the book, not sure what they want to do about payment. On the one hand I don't mind paying for it since I was ordering one anyway. On the other hand they shipped my something I didn't ask them for and asking me to pay for it seems wrong. On the other other hand I wouldn't feel right keeping something I didn't pay for. (What? You don't have three hands?) Anyway, we will see what Dustin says. By any chance did anyone else get a book they didn't expect?

Looks good! Maybe you can pass along a suggestion to the Chaosium folks. When you click on the Catalog link, then on Basic Roleplaying on the left-hand side, Ashes to Ashes should come up in the list. Right now the only way to find it is to click Chaosium PDF Titles link.

If you happen to get on the Internet over there stop by and let us know how you are doing. Until then good luck and take care!

The pdf is $15 cheaper than the book itself and it fits nicely in my laptop. I went ahead and bought a copy. Of course I am going to buy the book when it comes out also. I can't help myself.

Well, I don't know if it is a problem for everyone, but I am having a problem with them. Specifically Specials in combat. In RQ3 if you rolled a Special success with an impaling weapon you did double weapon damage. A Special success with any other weapon did Special Knockback, but that was about it. Honestly we didn't think that was good enough and we added some house rules to help things out, but I won't go into that. BRP allows all weapons to do something extra on a Special success, which is a good idea, but I'm not sure if it was executed well enough. It still has impaling and knockback, which is fine, but it adds bleeding and crushing, which I think have some issues. Bleeding is a nice idea, but I'm not sure it is as useful as an impale. Also it requires that you start tracking a bleeding wound and requires a roll every round to see if the bleeding stops. This slows down the game for little gain (1hp per round). Crushing increases the damage from your Damage Bonus, but generally not as much extra damage as an impale would do. If that was all it did it would just be a poor man's impale, but it also gives you a chance to stun your opponent for 1d3 rounds. Being stunned for 1d3 rounds is HUGE. However! You only stun your opponent if they fail a Stamina roll. This means that no matter who you are, whether you are a street urchin throwing a rock or a giant swinging a tree, your opponent has their Conx5 to resist being stunned. To me this means that it is vital that all characters get their Con up to, or as close to, 19 as possible. The result of failing a Stamina check against a Crushing attack is simply to great to risk. I am not sure how I will deal with this in my game. It may be that it will work out fine, but right now I am thinking that it needs to be fixed. Thoughts?

There has been the suggestion that Chaosium choose that particular number for that very reason. I have no insider knowledge of this however, so take that with a grain of salt.

4th edition has a built in "Ending". Each character is supposed to be created with a final Epic Destiny in mind. After a character reaches 30th level they embark on their final adventure and achieve that epic destiny, and therefore leave the game. Congratulations! You won D&D! You are now free to create a new character and start over again! Epic Destinies: 4th Edition Excerpts: Epic Destinies As for converting 3.5 to 4.0, I don't think they are at all concerned with it. It appears to me that they expect everyone to just "finish" their game, make new characters and start over in 4.0. You don't have to get rid of your world though! You can just have some world shattering catastrophe explain all of the changes that are taking place. They even give you ideas how to do it. Catastrophic Endings: Steal This Hook! - The Sky Is Falling!

I don't think you can really judge whether a Role-Playing Game is a Role-Playing Game based solely on whether or not you can role-play while playing it. I role-play while playing Talisman, but that doesn't make it a Role-Playing Game. While the definition of what a Role-Playing Game is will always be a bit fuzzy, I think the best that can be said about D&D 4th Edition is that it has elements of a Role-Playing Game in it. It really is just a tactical miniatures skirmish game with persistent characters and a bit of story tacked on to give you are reason to keep playing. It does have persistent characters, character growth and things like that. Maybe we can just call it a Miniature Combat Role-Playing Game? It is kind of a sub-set of Role-Playing Games like Compute Role-playing Games or Massively Multi-player Online Role-Playing Games.

The biggest reason people do not use special tactics is because of limited resources, usually time. Like you said, is it better to throw sand in their eyes and hit them later or just hit them now and be done with it. Obviously the second option is quicker and that's fine! Really the only time you see the old "Throw Sand in their Face" trick is when you are down and there is an enemy standing over you (or vise versa). In which case the options are to try to use your sword and get stabbed or try to be sneaky and throw sand in their face before they realize what you are doing; thus buying you time to stand and stick your sword in them. In that case a Sleight roll might be more appropriate. On the other hand you should be able to feint or bluff at any time, but perhaps with diminishing returns. You can only fool them so often, but once is usually enough.

Absolutely right on all of those, but they did not license IP. They are systems that are inspired by popular sources, but are custom made with the needs of a Role-Playing Game in mind. Marvel and DC both had RPGs I seem to recall, and I believe neither has done as well as Champions. So go ahead and take the inspiration, but don't worry about the specific setting. Edit: Ah, I just got it. I'm slow sometimes. The problem was my use of the word "unique". Sorry, they are not unique. I guess the word "custom", as I used above, would have been a better way to say it.

It seems to me that some of the most successful games have been unique creations. Vampire/World of Darkness, Fading Suns, Ebberon, Champions, ShadowRun, etc.

I like the idea of rolling damage dice, but I also like the idea of more granularity. I have come up with the following. Obviously some people won't like it. An option would be to just add +1d6 for every 16 after 33 or 49, depending on when you thought that the granularity was no longer useful. STR+SIZ = Damage Dice = Average Damage 01-04 = -1d6 = -3.5 05-08 = -1d3+1 = -3 09-12 = -1d3 = -2 13-16 = -1 = -1 17-20 = 0 = 0 21-24 = +1 = +1 25-28 = +1d3 = +2 29-32 = +1d3+1 = +3 33-36 = +1d6 = +3.5 37-40 = +1d6+1 = +4.5 41-44 = +1d6+1d3 = +5.5 45-48 = +1d6+1d3+1 = +6.5 49-52 = +2d6 = +7 53-56 = +2d6+1 = +8 57-60 = +2d6+1d3 = +9 61-64 = +2d6+1d3+1 = +10 65-68 = +3d6 = +10.5 etc... Edit: Hmmm... Just had a thought. You could replace the 1d3+1 with 1d4 and you would get a pretty good progression as well. STR+SIZ = Damage Dice = Average Damage 01-04 = -1d6 = -3.5 05-08 = -1d4 = -2.5 09-12 = -1d3 = -2 13-16 = -1 = -1 17-20 = 0 = 0 21-24 = +1 = +1 25-28 = +1d3 = +2 29-32 = +1d4 = +2.5 33-36 = +1d6 = +3.5 37-40 = +1d6+1 = +4.5 41-44 = +1d6+1d3 = +5.5 45-48 = +1d6+1d4 = +6 49-52 = +2d6 = +7 53-56 = +2d6+1 = +8 57-60 = +2d6+1d3 = +9 61-64 = +2d6+1d4 = +9.5 65-68 = +3d6 = +10.5 etc...

Not everything that 4e proposes is bad. The idea of moving around in combat is good, but I honestly do not like the way that they have implemented it. BRP could use this I guess, but I won't. Powers, feats, whatever you call them, BRP doesn't need them in my opinion. Spending Experience Points to make magic items or preform magic spells was always a bad idea, so it is good that they are trying to fix that. I thought that the ritual magic in RQ3 was excellent. Definitely ahead of it's time. Something like it should be added to BRP. Probably in that 'Magic Source book' that everybody agrees would be a great idea, but no one is writing yet. :ohwell: