Camillus

Quick question. Does the coupon apply to PDF purchases through DriveThru or only for those from Chaosium? Cheers

Why the limitation on lasers? They are a fairly mature technology now and the US has already successfully tested a turret based laser system on an aircraft. Power is not likely to be a problem on a ship with a nuclear power plant (fission or fusion). Cooling might be an issue but the same is true of rail guns. Nuclear warheads are, perhaps, wasted on spaceship to spaceship missiles. Since there is no atmosphere the blast is limited to contact and you can achieve a similar effect with a big lump of metal travelling at high speed (a so called kinetic kill munition - KKM) unless the target is really big. If you're expecting a high rate of interception for missiles then why stick a complex warhead on them? By the way if missiles can be intercepted then there's a good chance that coil gun rounds can be as well. How does the weapon create an ionised trail in vacuum?

I'm guessing that it's actually "Shan" which would make it (possibly) about the insects from Shaggai.

It's a question of semantics. In this case "affect" is used to mean "acts directly upon without an intermediary effect" rather than simply "has an effect upon". Blast therefore does not require a resistance roll because its effect is a result of an intermediary - a ruinous beam of magic. The spell Change, however, does require a roll because it acts directly upon the victim without any intermediary.

Yes and no. You can grapple a missed attack as your own attack and attempt the disarm on a subsequent round. You cannot declare a parry and turn that into an attack (Grapple). It's compared against current hit points. Generally unless total hit points are specifically mentioned then current HP are meant. There are no specific rules for being knocked down so it becomes Keeper's call. Generally I'd penalise attack and defence. Any successful counter grapple or other attack on the target. If the grappler hasn't immobilised his target the target is free to attack back. No problem.

You need the Legend book.

I can allay your fears about Pulp Cthulhu - it definitely won't be D20. Unfortunately at this point in time, as far as I know, the book is vapour ware and unlikely to appear in the near future.

Zit, mine opens without a problem.

That's certainly true (although in fairness Star Wars armour doesn't appear to offer any protection against anything at all - rock wielding Ewok, I'm looking at you), and modern armour suffers that penalty by the RAW, but in a sci fi game it's likely that characters will have access to advanced armour which doesn't have that problem - unless you want to use the optional rule about energy weapons and armour.

It's worth bearing in mind that there's actually very little difference in the damage that a firearm does versus an energy weapon by the rules as written. Both a medium pistol (9 mm auto) and a laser pistol do 1d8 damage, for instance. The primary difference is in the rate of fire, range and ammo capacity.

The way I do it for skills over 100% is to allow both characters to add whatever their skill over 100 is to their roll (obviously only natural 00 counts as a fumble). So the character with a skill of 150% would add 50 to their roll in any opposed test. It has the advantage that critical and special ranges stay the same and there's no subtraction steps involved for anyone.

Special results only come into play if you get a Critical against an unarmoured opponent. The BGB says this on the matter (pg 192):

I'd use the Resistance Table - give each side a Phalanax (PHA?) rating and test them against each other. If the defenders are defeated (their PHA falls to the point where they automatically lose) then their formation is broken or they start taking casualties (or both). I'd get PHA by doing something like total SIZ as a baseline with a modifier for the quality or skill level of the troops e.g: *0.5 for raw recruits (skill level 25% or less) or pressed levy; *0.75 for inexperienced troops (skill level 26-50%), motivated untrained volunteers or demotivated professionals; *1.0 for professionals (skill level 51-75%) or demoralised elite; *1.25 for elite (skill level 76%+) I'd add other modifiers, for instance for a last stand (could be good or bad), and the quality of leadership. Leadership could either be a round to round modifier or once at the beginning or at key points in the exchange.

Basically yes. You can also make tasks easy (twice the normal chance of success) or hard (half the normal chance). If I'm understanding you correctly then no. If both parties succeed in a combat roll then the victory goes to the person with the best level of success: special beats normal, critical beats special. If both levels of success are the same (normal v normal etc.) then the defender wins.

While I can see what you're saying I have to say it very much boils down to the tone of the campaign. If you reward a goofy plan once what do you do when the next player uses one? You've set the tone with the first response you gave and if you now drop rocks on the second character's head it comes across as unfair. If the tone of the campaign is a serious one then the actions of the NPC's have to fit into that tone, if they don't you end up going from Excalibur to Robin Hood: Men in Tights and not necessarily being the happier for it. That doesn't mean that the character gets arbitrarily offed: there should always be the chance of an heroic rescue or daring escape plan but in the end stupidity should get its own reward.

Perhaps the bailiff is a believer in the saying in vino veritas and holds that no one can effectively lie when drunk. If so the character must, ipso facto, have been telling the truth and thus should be treated as a rebel. Besides he can't be seen by his overlords as being soft on rebels and regardless of whether it was done in jest claiming to be a supporter of the enemy is an offence that cannot be seen to be tolerated. Perhaps, if the bailiff can be persuaded, the character might be allowed a trial by combat to show his innocence. Of course that might not be a fair trial or it might give the character's companions the opportunity to rescue him.

There's a discussion about using a d100 system for Star Wars on RPG.net at the moment. I've mentioned BRP and a question about vehicle combat has popped up that I don't feel I can answer as I know bugger all about SW. Anyone got any suitable answers?

Seems to be a cock up. On page 189 it clearly states that missile fire occurs on DEX rank but before melee attacks. I'm guessing that it's a case of a rule getting changed (or not changed) during development and not being picked up in the final edit.

Iaijutsu (manipulation 5%) allows a character who has not yet drawn a sword (katana, wakizashi, ninjato that is in its scabbard, edge up and in the character's sash) to combine the draw with an attack or parry. A success allows the character to ignore any SR lost to readying the weapon, a special allows the character to treat the weapon as though it had an SR of 1 for that round and a critical allows the character to act on their DEX SR ignoring SIZ and weapon SR modifiers for that round. Failure means that the normal time is taken and a fumble is treated as a normal fumble for that weapon.

Copyright doesn't exist on names so you can use the names of D&D creatures safe in the knowledge that you won't be breaching WoTC's copyright. Copyright only applies to the representation of an idea and protects against the wholesale copying of work, and against the production of works that are clearly so closely derived from the original that they're copies in all but name. The relevant thing with names is trademark and the question there is whether Wizards have the trademark on a name or not. You can in fact search for registered trademaks in the US using the USPTO database. However it is possible that WoTC have applied for a trademark on a name but that it hasn't been granted yet, that might not show up on a simple search. A search for owl bear and owlbear doesn' show up any trademark. The main difference between copyright and trademarks when it comes to lawyers getting involved is that trademarks must be defended. If you allow people to use a TM without going after them you can potentially lose that trademark. With copyright you don't have to defend it and can choose to ignore a publication without your work entering the public domain as far as the law is concerned.

$300 over five years is a lot for one person but one of the beauties of the subscription system from a consumers point of view is that only one person in a group needs it. A single login and password can easily be used by five or six people when they are not at the game table and when they are at the game table only one person needs to be logged in. Five bucks a month split five ways is nothing. I'm sure that WoTC will not see ease of sharing as an advantage and will take measures to prevent it but there will be little they can do to prevent it in reality.

The highest roll wins when both rolls result in the same degree of success is the method given on page 173 for resolving opposed skill rolls. I don't think anybody is arguing that the person with the lower skill should never have a chance. They do have a chance: they can roll a Special or a Critical and so beat the more highly skilled character's Normal success that way. They will always have a chance, even if it is only 01.

I can't make it to Tentacles but I would certainly pre-order if some kind person could pick it up for me. I can make cake...chocolate cake...with sprinkles on...or pay in real cash money any out of pocket expenses. You know, whichever is more attractive.

I'm not sure I understand the distinction that you are making. The roll high without going over (normally called a 'blackjack' method) and the succeed by the greatest amount are mathematically identical, it's just that the blackjack system requires one less step since there is no subtraction required. Depends on whether you use the blackjack or greater margin approach. In the blackjack system B wins by rolling higher. In the margin approach A wins because they were 51 skill points below what was needed for a success. No, the higher the skill the easier it is to beat the margin of success of the lower skill. Player A will get a Normal Success on a roll of 05-20 which means the most he can succeed by (without scoring a Special or Critical) is 15. Player B on the other hand will score a Normal Success on a roll of 19-88 which means he can succeed by up to 69 points. In a situation where player A rolls 05 he has to hope that B rolls higher than 73 or B will have succeeded by more than 15 points and will have achieved a greater margin of success than A. This is true whatever system you use. No, because if A rolls 01-04 he has either a Critical or Special success which beats B's Normal success for anything above 18. As Thalaba pointed out the problem with giving the victory to the absolute lowest roll without accounting for margin of success is that it punishes the person with the higher skill whenever the person with the lower skill succeeds. If player B, with a skill of 88%, rolls 19 (1 point from scoring a Special) they have succeeded by a margin of 69 points. Most people would say that that indicates they have done particularly well. If player A, with his skill of 20%, then rolls 18, he has succeeded by 2 and is 14 points away from scoring a Special. Most people would say that he just scraped a success and yet under an absolute roll low system he has just won the contest. I find that a little illogical. As Thalaba pointed out it virutally requires the higher skilled person to score a Special in order to defeat the lower skilled person who succeeds, when most of us would argue that it should be the other way round.