Al.

Sadly a leg end is either a foot or an arse.

Still CoC(k) survived for decades so it might all work out

Since as long as I can remember dagger has been 1d4+2 which has struck me as a little out of sync as a dagger is just the shortest sword there is and swords get +1 not +2. I can't say that it'd stop me playing in someone else's game if they stuck to Dagger/Dirk 1d4+2 and Shortsword 1d6+1 though.

Two variations on the same theme of exposing oneself to a horrible corrosive in a location which prevents inteference from others:

Stand in a pit of quicklime and get slowly causticed away

Stand in a volcano from which sulphur is mined

Does it have to be slow? Self-immolation is widely regarded as horrific and must take an enormous* strength of will to see through

Does it have to be a done deal? If you want dishonour (and potential redemption) are you not removing a more satisfying story possibility from the other players if your character can be rescued and then instructed by superior to do something undignified to atone (like a Samurai being instructed to shave his head and go to a monastery)?

* and in my mind unnecessary but we are talking here let's pretend and fantasy not real world so my opinion probably counts for even less than usual

So, I pulled out Sailing on the Seas of Fate and White Wolf. The ships match up, except in White Wolf the Pan Tang Galley has a Hull Quality of 3d6. So it looks like it should be 3d6. Odd typo that.

Thanks Chaot.

Mystery solved then. As you say a strange typo. I cannot believe that I hadn't spotted it earlier in the hmmm years that I've owned and read the book!

So if Triff is webhero number one for BRP

Presumably whoever uses Wayback machine and reposts the lost month's drivel er insights gets to be webhero number two

Good workTriff.

Presumably the holiday was as exciting and fun as you had hoped?

One of the rules which seems to split opinion in BRP is the autofire rule.

Inspired by the rule I saw in a game of SLA

Calculate chance to hit as usual(+5% per extra shot but no more than double skill)

Then roll

If roll is less than modified skill but more than skill - one shot hits

If less than skill - then half burst hits (or roll as per RAW

If less than special for skill (not modified skill) all shots in burst hit

Was there ever an official errata produced for Sailing on the Seas of Fate? Or does anyone have a tried and tested house rule.

I ask because (prior to new MagicWorld) I was flicking through and saw that the PanTangian Galley has Hull Quality (armour basically) 120 whilst Melnib Battle Barge rolls 3d6+10. And all of the other Boats and Ships also have a random value (all of which are much lower than the baddies)

Warning: youmay wish to skip this if a series of agreements and disagreements to one tangential line of conversation is not your thing

Oh, big long quote time!

Yes! woo hoo! Someone else makes a boo boo with where to put quote and /quote! I swear I mess that up 5 posts out of every 6.

Nah. If that were true there would be a host of projects that never would have been canceled. Manufacturers try to make money by creating a demand, even if there is no need.

True the capitalist military industrial complex does need to generate new markets for its weapons to generate sales and profits. Companies which stay in business though either have a protected state monopoly, underhand sales techniques or solutions which look sensible (or a mix of the three)

Something to consider here is that the comany in questionis hardly a major arms supplier.

Really? We may have different internalised definitions (which doesn't mean that yours is wrong of course)

This suggests that they are trying to find a niche by providing something the major companies do not. Technology-wise, I fully believe that the major industrial nations could build rapid fire heavy guns, but as yet haven't had a need to.

Which major industrialised nations? Italy is in the G8 you know. And France never went for small calibre CIWS. Preferring 100mm and now moving to fast-firing 76mm. Not to mention US hasn't fitted Phalanx (20mm) to its latest skimmers and is licensing a Bofors fast-firing 57mm for its two big new classes of surface combatants.

Sorry, but I disagree. History has shown that better fire control and higher ROF weapons work better than bigger guns. That is why you dont see 16 inch AA. BTW, the 16 guns on old US battleships could be used as AA. While they were certainly effective against anything in the blast radius, they were poor AA>

Yes slow-firing larger calibres are pants at modern AA. Possibly me being dense again but I don't see how that means that fast-firing larger weapons will be no good.

Larger weapons do no necessarily have a longer range. The actual range depends on several factors. Heavier weapons do tend to have a higher inertia, but that cuts both ways. And frankly, if you want greater range and destructive power, you should be using AtA missiles rather than slug throwers.

No they don't that's very true. But assuming that I don't make a larger calibre weapon with less propellant, a shorter barrel and poor aerodynamics for the bullet I'd expect to outrange a smaller calibre weapon. I'd also, as you allude, have to cope with recoil and issues caused by muzzle-velocity.

We tried doing away with cannons on aircraft and it didn't work out spectacularly well. Certainly GWS have their place though.

No, no, no. First off, look at field artillery. Prioer to WWII it was thought that bigger was better. Since then, it has been proven that several smaller guns that are coodinated are more effective than one big gun.

I thought I'd conceded that one. Obviously needed to be clearer than one sentence (in paranthesis at that)

Secondly, Tank guns have hardly increased relentlessly since WWII. Far from it. WWII ended with the the Allies using 75-7mm guns, and the Germans using guns up to 88mm on tanks.In the 66 years since then, Tank Gun sizes have changed from 75mm to 90mm, then to 105mm and then to 120mm, with most of the changes occuring in the last 30 years due to improvments in armor.

I wonder if we are at cross-purposes semantically here? I'm not aware that tank guns have reduced in calibre; that we've gone back to smaller, high velocity AP and big fat HE? You have a point that the move from 20 or 40mm to 75mm or 88mm happened much faster than the move from 75 or 88mm to (common use of) 120mm. The Soviets even had 122mm in The Great Patriotic War but it wasn't common.

Reasearch into railguns, as well as in binary propellants is to overcome the velocity limitation imposed by the use of gunpowder as a propellant. As KE iincreases in porpotion to the sqaure of the velocity, speed plays a bigger factor in penetrating power than mass. In fact, thinner rounds penetrate better than thick rounds.

Again if we are arguing semantics or even two different arguments (one for each side) here? I will say though that smaller rounds are more affected by wind (pardon me). It may be at hyper velocity railgun speeds that this is no longer an issue. (Plus then I can have a Gauss Shotgun which does 4d6 at all ranges and doesn't get range penalties coz its hivap needles spread out and still have loads of energy)

Yup, and upping the size of the ammo wont help. The area affected would still be small compared to the movement of the aircraft.

In isolation. Or even worse if I did it and dropped RoF. Of course you are right.

And the forces on the firing craft would be that much worse. Imagine what sort of modfications would be required to allow a firghter jet to fire a 120mm gun.

Can't argue with that. Not sure that I was in the first place!

Targets fall over just fine with 5.56, and the range is fine. The whole idea behind the assault rifle was that most people cant hit man sized targets at 1000 metersanyway, so why design a weapon that can.

Targets fall over fine when close enough and if enough rounds hit and range is fine when close enough. Hitting man-sized targets is fncking hard at most ranges (I'm told) hence talk of beaten zones. It is quite possible that not every soldier with a Battle Rifle is able to make use of its advantages over an Assault Rifle (or whatever they are called now).

The big ".2 fanclub" push is really based on things that don't matter. Sure 7.2 hits harder and does more damage than 5.56.

And goes through cover differently and has different ballistics and has enough energy to hurt at longer range. And has more recoil. And is harder to use in full auto. And tends to need a longer barrel which makes it less handy in FISH and CHIPS or when crammed into a helo or APC.

I think though that you are taking a step into the unknown claiming that the differences don't matter.

And on a battlefield 5.6 means soldiers can carry more ammo.

Yup and strange 4.xmm designs even more

Yup, but they always want bigger, wheather they need it or not.

True dat. But as with every engineering decision there are sweet spots with specifications and trade off. (Hence Saab going 27mm mauser on Gripen rather than sticking with Viggen's 30mm monster of going 20mm like the US).

There isn't a plane out there than a 20mm can7t take down.

Tricky. Very tricky. Yes aircraft are jampacked full of volatiles, explosives and essential systems but (combat aircraft in particular) are stupendously strong to withstand the flight stresses. Check the stories of F15s landing with most or part of one wingshot off. AA rounds are also prox fused rather than impactand bigger calibre = more shrapnel, increases chance of any hit and increases chance of enough hits to do damage

It is more a question of being able to get the most out of the weight allowed. If it were possible to store a few thousand rounds on a fighter jet, everybody would be using 0000 rpm+ weapons.

Seems a perfectly sensible analysis to me. Being dense though I cannot see which argument you were responding to. As a general comment, I can't argue with it.

Not so. In most Mecha settings the fighting is up close and personal, partly becuase it is more exciting this way, and partly becuase they want to keep both mecha "on camera

I've only ever been a casual anime watcher so that might very well be an accurate summation. Perhaps I should have written 'Hell yeah, I want my PC to be able to hit the big scary robot as far away and as hard as possible'?

Yeah, shrapnel is much more useful (and deadly) in the real world than in most RPGs (BRP included). Double so for aircraft, since the stresses from maneuvering can turn minor hits into delayed "kills".

Bingo on all.

But past a certain size it isn't practical.

That certain size isn't static though is it? Lots of factors feed into how big you want to go, or how big outweighs the advantages.

All that lead has to come down somewhere, too.

That's okay my Mecha will stand on a barge in the river and have the Kelly's directory on its head. Slightly more constructively I've heard apocryphal (sp) tales of horrible accidents befalling infantry near to tanks firing sabot rounds and being hit by discarding bit.

It isn't so much a matter of time, but one of need.

But there is a need. Otherwise Otomelara (a very successful big gun manufacturer) would not be working on it. The problem (or a problem at least) is that fast moving incomings are difficult to hit so throwing lots of projectiles at them very quicklyis necessary to hit (high rate of fire) but large incomings are difficult to destroy or knock off course with small calibre weapons (hence OM 67mm and USN going 57mm for their last ditch defence).

Plus bigger shells with proximity fuses put more stuff in the target volume than smaller shells.

Larger weapons also have longer range which is important when trying to destroy incoming threats a) coz further away they explode or ditch the better and it gives a larger window in which to hit the darned thing (I can start firing further away so it flies through a longer path of debris before getting to me)

Back during WWII the trend was for heavier artillery. But, afterwards it was discovered that lighter, rapidfiring guns are better than bigger, slower, less portable guns.

To an extent (Big Bertha seems a thing of the past for sure) but Tank guns have increased relentlessly since WWII. And the US research into Railguns suggests that big kinetic weapons may be making a comeback.

Even if somebody make a rapid firing 120mm gun, it would be of limited usefulness if there wasn't a way to carry and load enough ammo to make the gun useful.

Can't argue with that. Although the metric may be 'how many rounds fired very rapidly are required for one successful engagement?' rather than 'how many engagements will this many rounds let me fight?

Lots of aircraft have cannon that can toss off thousands of rounds per minute, but only carry a few seconds worth of ammo.

They do. Again so that a burst has a chance of hitting a fast-moving erratic target. Or even hitting a fairly slow target whilst the aircraft is moving fast and erratically to avoid getting hit. (USAF A16s in the 'first' (or second) Gulf War used their 30mm cannon pods like shotguns to spray a general area to hit ground targets in part coz the mounting just couldn't withstand forces imparted and stay zeroed and accurate.

Keep in mind that in the real world, it ususally inst a case of more damage = better. In many cases a 120mm cannon would be overkill.

Spot on again. Sledgehammer to smash duck eggs. But we all decided that full cartridge 7.62 (never mind anything bigger) was overkill and retooled to 5.56 (sometimes via intermediate 7.62) and then found out that the damned targets just would not fall over (or they were too far away and the lighter round couldn't reach out).

The USMC (and possibly other branches) wanted 27mm mauser instead of 20mm and settled on 25mm for its better energy.

Of coruse, most mecha settings are the exception.

Hell yeah. Hit the other scary robot as far away and as hard as possible.

Not surprising. High ROF 40mm guns make great anti-aircraft weaponry.

OtoM' have been even cleverer they've been using shrapnel in the fast forty for decades so they get range and swamp the target volume with stuff and increase the chance of a hit.

For the record: I've always favoured softkill against AShMs anyway as I'm less likely to run out of volts than I am shells and a missile which ditches is less dangerous than one in bits tumbling towards me with lots of remaining energy.

Then again, for a campaign set in actual Fuedal China and not the Hong-Kong/Hollywood version of it,

Its not just decadent, imperialist pig dogs though is it? Chairman Mao was responsible for the Wuxia cinema movement was he not?

My favourite d100 Martial Arts rules are the ones from Elric! No seperate MA skill but when Brawl exceeds 100% then add nother 1d3 damage. Very simple to expand this to weapons, when weapon skill exceeds 100% add one more damage die (Staff becomes 2d8+db for example).

For Grappling: allow (Grapple/5) or (Wrestle/5) to be substituted for Str in resistance rolls. I guess one could limit this to characters whose Wrestle or Grapple skill exceeds 100%

seing that rollled characters don't get any attribute bonuses for playing at a higher teir.

Whoops. No they don't do they?

So playing that Epics roll 1d6+12 and Superhumans get 18 has not exactly been RAW. Taking a look again at the rules it appears that allowing players to choose Siz freely doesn't come from the rulebook either.

Edu roll seems to be 3d6+3 not 3d6 so for point buy why not start at Edu at 13 rather than 10? And leave allocated points as is?

Rolling 'for' the poison is perfectly sensible and logical but always letting a player make rolls which affect their character is more fun. (Which makes me wonder why I still roll for foe's attacks, parries and blocks, ease and quickness I suppose)

My favourite fix to the 'why pay points for two weapon skills?' question is to assume that Sword training includes Sword and Shield.

(I forget who first suggested this on this board on my search skills have proved insufficient to find and acknowledge)

Actually BRP BGB RAW has this covered.

Admittedly I think that it was clearer in the playtest draft than the published rules. Lookup skill specialities (don't have book to hand) and the line reads something similar to:

Character with Missile (Archery) 200% can use a Crossbow at 100% since this is half of a related skill speciality.

Erm yes should've mentioned that when I first dropped its name into conversation. The final bit of the translation hasn't been translated. I suppose that I just found the bits which had been translated so useful that I forgot that.

The pre-errata rules say to figure SIZ into the SR calculation, which would have led to tall sorcerors being quicker at casting spells than short sorcerors.

Even more amusing than that old chap since Siz describes mass, it would mean fat sorcerers being faster than thin ones. So it's be a good algorithm for the discworld at least.

In my old RQ3 games, it was Max Roll + Number of Dice/Bonus.

So, 2D6+6 gave a possible max of 21. I can't remember if that was explicitly spelled out in the rules, but that's how we played at Sandy's, so I stuck with it.

Its explicitly stated like that in (Chaosium) RQII, I'm not sure whether or not it made its way into RQIII.

Having said that I think that Frogspawner's algorithm looks neater and if I hadn't internalised the RQII one I'd use that.

For example, the hippo, which is

rarely ever depicted as a dangerous animal in roleplaying games, is widely consi-

dered to be the most dangerous big animal of Africa.

Indeed. Used to be it killed more peeps per year than all of the other big game* combined. Not no more. The message has finally sunk in amongst tourists and they (we) have learned not to get between daddy hippo and his calves. Its a bit sad though that Rhinos got the blame for a long time (even down to the RQII rulebook).

Much good sense has been typed already about big predators being cautious, something (like cavalry charges) which BRP-style rules haven't yet captured. Although I'm sure that it will be argued that that is the GM and players' job.

* but not insects, obviously

I'm not sure how directly useful this is but inspired by Jason (and Sam's) original idea of having one power system to rule them all I've used the Elric! spells and Demon Powers as either spells (cost 1 creation point to 'buy' but X MP to cast) or talents (cost X creation points to buy buy 0 to use) and its worked (balanced?) fine

In Elric! I think the recommendation was Scribe (or maybe half Scribe skill)

FWIW RetroQuest is by far my favourite third party d100 game name (sorry Newt!)

The website is always worth a look, in fact my only whinge is that you overhaul it so frequently that some things are gone before I have a chance to properly nick them. Any chance of an archive? Or even at a minimum put your groovy weapons and armour page up again for a week?

If you are going to slim down the weapons skills (a move which I fully support) could I suggest a bit of flavour to the names. Inspired by aconvention game of PenDragon I played in where the GM CNBA with PD's huge list of combat skills and didn't want to write a new character sheet so Sword covered all individual weapons, Spear all weapons used in formation and so on.

Add another vote to folding Dodge into Parry (so weapon skill) in melee and as a DEXx5/Dexterity/Agility roll for throwing onself out of the way

But but but Polar Bears can punch though ice to get to the yummy aquatic mammals beneath (can't remember if the ballpark figure is 7x or 10x a human's strength but its lots).

I agree with all the other points though.

What are you multiplying by 5? How do you refactor the rules to use multiplication instead of division, and why is that any simpler?

*Edit* And no, not trolling, dead serious.

LOathe to speak on someone else's behalf but I SUSPECT that what ATXTG (sp?) is saying is that

If chance of special= 1/5 chance of success

Then roll dice and if its a success multiply RESULT by 5

If new value is still a success then the roll is a special success (or Critical in Elric!)

I'm sure that I could write that in terms of p(x) and p(y) being 1/5p(x) but I'm equally sure that I'd make an error in nomenclature

Its a perfectly valid mathematical process argument (IMMOO). And multiplication IS conceptually simpler than division (it is only a series of additions ultimately).

But it doesn't change my view - if this is fun for you then great but if not what's the corrollary?

In the (rather underated) PS2 game Kengo Master of Bushido

'Block' blocks foe's blade (although sadly the graphics don't show the duellists catching the attack on the nice soft tough spine of katana to avoid chipping the cutting edge). I favour giving a chap with a shield a 'free' Block rather a skill bonus.

'Parry' is harder to pull off (as in timing when to hit the button) but leads to you sliding past foe in an AiKiDo-styley. Parrying as a word really ought to include Dodging and/or Defense (sic) in d100 rules. Which leads neatly to the (almost) universal RQIII houserule of downgrading an Attack according to the level of Parry. I'd keep it purely as a matter of skill but I suspect that one could modify Parry skill according to weapon used by and used against.

Agree fully with the proposition that movie swordfights do consist of attacking the blade rather than foe. But a realistic representation wouldn't leave time for witty repartee now would it?

They probably shouldn't be allowed outside without supervision.

Okay but where to draw the line?

Who does one ban from the table (or leaving the house unsupervised )

Someone who can't (or won't do mathematics)?

Someone who is rubbish or dull at narration?

Someone who struggles to come up with new or imaginative character concepts?

.... or ideas?

.... or solutions to problems?

Mathematically (or procedurally mathematically) I've no doubt that 1/5 or 1/20 of a skill ain't that hard. But is it fun? If it is for a person or people then great. If not are we really saying that they are a poor excuse for a human being or that they should not play BRP? Really?

Albert Einstein - If you want your children to be bright, read them Fairy Tales.

If you want them to be brilliant, read them even more Fairy Tales.

<admittedly there are several similar if different in detail versions and that may not be your particular favourite and I didn't hearit from him first hand but you get the point I am sure>