Al.

Is this (from p.203, about Armour) an error, then?

"In settings where shields are also used, a successful shield parry may not be enough to stop a blow, and damage from the attack can potentially pass through the armor value of the shield and to the character. In these cases, armor values for both shield and armor are subtracted before the character takes damage."

Or has Shaira simply chosen to simplify?

That George Carlin joke is a killer. What the heck is in that crate?

The True Cross?

With optional 'This is for decorative purposes only SPQR do not licence this for use as a support for drunkards, do not remove footrests' sign?

Al

I'm not a biologist but I am a Dad of three boys so the following is important to me.

The bestiary includes a 'Brontosaur' as any Dinosaur geek knows there was no such thing. Twas a mistake made (and corrected years ago) please relabel as Apatosaurus or Diplodocus for the second printing.

Al

Ever since SBIII I have limited demon (and other magic) weapons to no more than twice the base mundane damage. (i.e. Stormbringer being a Greatsword does 2d8+2d8 not the 2d8+every d6 or d10 in existence of the official write ups)

Al

George's travels are becoming increasingly cross-genre. A legend among intergalactic shaman truckers.

I almost don't want George to reach his destination.

By definition George never will.

Dropping BRP off at Leng is just a pause on George's great journey

Al

Of course George is a cyborg I cannot believe that I was so stupid to over look that

We're missing a golden opportunity to widen the fanbase here.

Why the assumption that George is a he?

Judicious absence of grammar and George could be intepreted as intrepid heroine or hero.

(Personally she strikes me as a one-legged afro-latino gung-fu master driving the rig as a way of meeting lost souls in trouble, but that's just me)

Al

but I see that the book does ask for such on page 89:

Any time a magic spell affects a living [and unwilling] target the caster must overcome the target’s POW or

power points

[emphasis and brackets added] in a resistance roll. Each spell description will designate which value is used.

Does it by gad? I'm guilty of assumption there, then

I note that the Blast spell on page 94 does mention that,

"Under most circumstances, armor (non-magical) or the Armor spell will absorb the damage, and the Blast spell can be dodged. If the Blast spell is parried with a shield, the shield will take the damage, with any remainder carrying over to the target."

Which would seem to make Blast less useful than the other attacking spells.

The point which I was TRYING (and apparently failing) to make was that locational or total hit points work in different ways.

By all means buff up attacky-blasty-death spells but realise that this makes them inconsistent with big sharp lumps of metal.

Of course once one has realised that it doesn't mean that the inconsistency is bad or unwelcome.

Al

From RQIII there are several different possible rlationships betwween PPs spend and damage inflicted.

Disruption 1 PP = 1d3 to one location, no armour protects; but need to overcome target's PPs with caster's

Lightning 2PP* =1d6 to one location, no armour protects; but need to overcome target's PPs with caster's

Sunspear 6PP* =4d6 to total hit points, thinnest armour protects, no need to overcome PPs with own

Thunderbolt 6pp* = 3d6 to total hit points, no armour protects, no need to overcome PPs with own

* working on the model of 1 point of Divine being worth 2 of Spirit

The new BRP spells

3PP=1d6 to 'Hit Points', no armour protects, no need to overcome target's PPs with the caster's own

I cannot see a direct ruling in the book as to whether these will damage total or location hit points. (which doesn't mean that there isn't one)

Bumping up the damage for these spells might 'fix' this problem but still leaves a disparity between locational hit points and total hit points for other sources of damage. So is it in fact a problem?

Not having locational hit points is more 'cinematic' as your character stays on her feet for longer. The 'Magic' spells follow that in the same way as a Greatsword does.

Al

A 1d10 bite? Are these Cimmerian ponies? With sabretooth fangs? I must remember to have my BRP character train a herd of those things, and unleash them upon my enemies. :eek:

I'll train one of them to count the number of dead too, so not all of them are a one trick pony...

Speaking as someone who came within an ace of losing two fingers to a horse's bite I can believe that there should be a big number there. Actually getting their evil, oversized chompers to bear on a foe though might be tricky; hence I suspect the low skill%

Al

Good effort Chaosium

1. The mere promise of contributor's copy was enough for me to justify buying the download

2. The eShop is a bit fiddly but continued clicking of the mouse and we're in business

3. Opens fine in Preview on my Mac (10.3.9 on a G5)

4. Pretty Picture Cover all present and correct (and it looks a lot better big than it did in the previews and adverts

5. I like the selection of images (with a big back catalogue of piccies this could have gone either way)

Proper review will follow a proper read

Al

Sgt Stokes always said that 90% of your training is in how not to die. Try and remember those bits eh?

Al

Personally I prefered the use of 'Notable Traits' in the RQ renaisance books (River of Cradles, Sun County, et al).

Two keywords each with a brief description. As a shorthand for describing the character's personality.

But my Pendragon players love the Personality Trait rules.

Al

Once you've bought it (and you should)

check out

Unknown East Magic House Rules

Al

Aplogies for (re)stating the bleeding obvious but:

A 'good' GM and 'good' players can have a fun, roleplaying experience with any rulest or none.

However mechanics CAN (not Do but Can) shape the game.

Example

In my Pendragon games PCs get double Glory for defeating their foes

a) if unarmoured

without fighting

(unarmoured and without fighting you get triple not quad)

coz Blodwyn the Druidess repeatedly hitting a Goblin fae with a stick until it stops moving is not glorious or saga worthy. But Blodwyn the Druidess fooling said Goblin into thinking that the autumnal leaves are gold and sending him off cackling to collect them as a solve is saga worthy. AND MORE FUN.

Al

Levels of Success

Criticals should be the stormbringer III model of 1/10 of skill. None of this 1/20 for crits and 1/5 for specials brain ache.

Allegience

1. Starting Allegience

I don't like the low starting allegience scores. Firstly in their original incarnation they did not tally with sample npcs (for newcomers to BRP this may not jar so much and some say that npcs do not have to follow the core rules but this is my nitpick so I get to choose) and secodnly there is a disparity with how the scores increase in play. Example, you gte 1 Chaos point for starting with a spell. In play you get 1 Chaos point for casting a spell. This suggests that a starting character has never cast the spells which (s)he knows.

'Balance' starts at (lowest starting characteristic)

'Chaos' starts at 1d8 per spell known (additional 1d8 for any bound demons or elementals)

'Law' starts at 1 per skill which starts at 90% (additional +1 for 120%, and 150% etc)

I know that the sample allegiences have been re-named in BRP but at work and cannot remember the new labels

2. Effect on Luck

I want a more low key but more pervasive effect on characters

If Balance is highest add to Luck score when being Lucky

If Chaos is highest add to Luck score when casting magic

If Law is highest add to 1/5 to Pow when resisting magic (or if you've moved over to opposed rolls add Law to Luck score when resisting magic)

Al

Herewith my inaugral post in 'things what are far too late to influence playtesting but nonetheless seem like a good idea'

Rules are:

No timetravel

Nitpicky and pointless are to be preferred over elegant and useful

Idea 1.

The 'Dexterity roll' (Dex x5%) from previous editions has been renamed the 'Agility Roll'

Therefore 'Agility' as a skill category became 'Physical' which i think sounds horrible and clunky and breaks continuity with previous editions. So how about 'Athletics' as the category

Al

There's some sample future gear in the BRP book, but if you'd like a more detailed treatment of things, I'd suggest checking out Cthulhu Rising in either monograph or the online .pdf form (if still available).

Question: Will BRP contain more or less futuristic gear than a) Ringworld and FutureWorld.

If the answer is less then perhaps I ought to get my arse into gear and finish my 'Rongwild' monograph and post it here.

Al

It is depressing that DnD is turning into a pen & paper version of a Massively Multiplayer video game.

D&D started as a wargame. Then it added dungeons and er dragons. Then it added some guidelines on getting better between battles then it added the nebulous concept of roleplaying.

Each edition of D&D has always shown its powergame er I mean wargame roots. But with each generation of rules there have always been people who have used it to run fun, dramatic, cool games :deadhorse:

I am certain that some people will run fun, etc games with 4th Ed.

In summary of my posts on this topic.

I don't see anything in 4th D&D which I will lift for BRP.

But I will lift bits from Savage Worlds and d100ise them.

Just coz someone chooses a bad system it doesn't make them a bad roleplayer (or bad person) :deadhorse::deadhorse::deadhorse:

Al

In general, you should only add a rule if not having it significantly reduces player enjoyment of the game.

Ray,

How could anyone disagree with that?! :cool:

On the gripping hand the extra bits in Savage Worlds (which is sort of where I'm coming from in this debate) really do add FUN. :party:

(They need to as the vanilla Savage Worlds combat gets old very quickly)

Al

[heresy]

Maybe the Resistance Table should be scrapped and always use STATxX v STATxX instead...?

[/heresy]

No actual reason why not.

By the same token why not use the Resistance Table for all resolution?

Al

Another mistake is thinking that because a license sells well in one medium, it will translate to another and be equally successful.

I'm in absolute agreement on the points made on IP so far. But for the sake of completeness there is also the shock success of licensed properties in other media to consider.

Star Wars Action Figures

Star Wars Lego computer game

(Actually all of the Star Wars licensing which started the whole shebang)

PlayBoy selling goods emblazones with its logo to young women WTF saw that one coming? :eek:

etc

Maybe its time to dust off the April Fool of the 'My Little Pony' rpg and look at Rupert the Bear or Bob the Builder or Barney the Purple Dinosaur BRP supplements

Al

There's two answers to this:

1. One or two broad skills for this sort of thing is not an excessive game-load add on.

2. If one does have narrow skills, its not like people _don't_ tend to use techniques they've gotten good at frequently; the limitation is that if other people get used to them, they tend to lose some effectiveness--but they tend to need to get used to the _specific_ technique.

Horse for course of course.

I didn't like the decision and effect of yet more scores to keep track of. Sounds like you feel that they added something.

Al

Why not use existing skills?

I feel a curious mixture of 'no we do not need anything new' and 'yes we do' in response to that question/statement.

For one. 'Feint' is already subsumed into weapon skill. 'An Attack is actually a sequence of moves designed to land one blow on target' has been part and parcel of BRP combat for a long time.

For two. Fast Talk affects Intellect and Orate emotions. So Fast Talk could be used for 'Duel of Smarts' and Orate for 'Intimidate' and 'Taunt' dead easy like. If you wanted more detail then make Orate a cluster skill with specialisations: Command, Inspire, Intimidate, Taunt in the same way as Ride has the specialisations: Dragon, Flycycle, Horse, Whale

(Actually I should go back and amend my previous post to be Orate 20% and Orate 100% not Intimidate 20% and 100% that was just lazy posting)

What is missing from official rules are:

What is the passive or defending score?

What GAME effect if Intimidate, Taunt, Verbal Trick, Physical Trick work?

For the former I like my (on the hoof) equivalent skill or (characteristic x5)

For the latter something like:

Fumble.............Foe gets double skill next turn

Failure............No effect on foe

Success.........Foe's Attacks next turn are at half normal skill

Special.........Foe is unable to act next turn

Critical.........Foe is unable to act next turn and Attacks turn after are at half normal skill

Al

Just don't tell the velocity freaks that you are using the diameter of the round to base damage on...

I'm kinda including velocity by having a subtly different calculation for pistol, carbine and rifle. To take into account length of barrel and quantity of propellant and thus velocity.

Ultimately it is a very rough and ready calculation (well six of them) which give same numbers which make ENOUGH sense to me for a GAME.

I am sure that there are better ones out there.

I am equally sure that the whole muzzle energy vs. energy imparted at target debate has been aired by people infinitely more qualified and erudite than me.

Al