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Ooooooh. That's very good. I don't know what rule I have been using but it wasn't that. That's much nicer than the kludge that I had going. I guess it does pay to read the rule book. Thanks Rod.

Nice! I need to revisit this thread when the numbers side of my brain is working (long day) but this is kinda exciting.

And 100% is only 100% is it is unopposed. I much prefer higher skill values because of narrative. If my PCs are missing all the time, they get discouraged. If they are hitting but their attacks are being parried they feel much better about the whole thing.

Welcome to the boards. RPGgeek is a great site. I think you'll find us all pleasant company here.

Great stuff!

Welcome to the boards!

Since you're asking about monographs, there's a little bit in Rubble and Ruin. Maybe two pages. If I ever have a game that involves Psionics to a good extent I will probably lean on GURPS Magic 3ed. There's a lot of good psionic stuff in there and it's fairly easy to adapt to BRP.

1. Very heavily into Sorcery and Summoning. This is because I've been running Elric! for a long time. Recently I have run a bit with Magic (leaning heavily on Classic Fantasy). I currently have an overwhelming desire to run a kitchen sink fantasy heartbreaker that would include several powers systems (magic, sorcery, summoning, virtues, dragonlines martial arts, meld magic, psychic stuff and elemental paths...) 2. Only built in resistance, Pow : Pow or mp : mp, that sort of stuff. I could see giving beasties a save, like 'Con x1% for a spell not to land' or 'takes half damage from magic' or whatever, but it's not something I regularly do. 3. Summoning can be insanely overpowering but it's a question of scale and where focus is put during the game. If my PCs all have over 100% in combat skills and they are fighting city guards at 30-40% a guy with Hell's Blade or a Palsy is going to have some nifty scene descriptions but isn't going to outshine the PC who is a combat machine, just compliment. Even when you bring demon armor/weapons into it, it's still not taking away from the glory of the other PCs. When you start scaling up the challenges survival becomes an issue of strategies employed. Or if no strategy is employed, dumb luck. Outside of combat magic users may have some tricks to solve issues but the other PCs also have options through roleplaying. Never just one goal and always multiple options to complete said goals. Honestly, I don't find sorcery spells overpowering at all. I think they are a great resource to a group and, depending on the magic paradigm of the campaign, a great source of story ideas. I don't see magic spells being that different either. While they can scale up in power, they are limited by skill %. A PC using Magic is going to only have a few tricks up their sleeve for a long time.

Easily Classic Fantasy, especially if you want to include niche protection. Personally, I use a mixture of both Magic World and Classic Fantasy for my Ravenloft game and they work very well together but you have to make some choices on what options to use and what to scrap.

I think it just takes a long while to publish through Chaosium. I'm not really in the know but I haven't heard anything about the project being sidetracked.

This is cool! I have zero experience with the board game itself. Is it something that I should pick up?

Well, I'm very excited to see it!

Keep in mind that the only thing that's actually 'real' in your game is what comes out at the table. Your notes aren't the game world, they are prep for the game world. The stories that the players tell themselves in their head might inform their characters actions but they are not actually part of the game world until they are shared. With that in mind, you now have to decide what level of prep you have/want to do in order to run a relatively seamless game. I find that I can go into a game with some very basics of a character's mechanics decided (she has these two spells and is a decent Fast Talker) and go from there. More important is deciding on a way to represent the character. The players need a hook, a mental bookmark, something that they can hold on to so that the character can take shape in their minds and around the table. Sometimes you provide the hook but sometimes the players do it themselves. If they do, they're giving you a gift. They're showing you what they are interested in. If you embrace that and roll with it they are going to be more invested in your game. The mechanics can follow. Though I don't broadcast it to my players, often I am discovering aspects of NPCs as they occur in game. It's not a hard and fast rule though. I might be inspired to do a full write up. I might swipe something from the Digest. I might wing it. But when a decision is made at the table I write it down and set it in stone. Which brings me to my last thought. Sometimes it boils down to making a decision at the table and rolling with it. When something comes up I'll ask myself, 'why not?'. If I can't come up with a good reason I accept it and roll with it. 'Because I didn't plan it that way' isn't on my list of good reasons. This is how I run now. It's not how I have always run. Preferences differ and all of that. Ok, real last thought. Don't be afraid to gloss over stuff. Your players want to go someplace off the beaten track, ask them why. Then quickly narrate the result. You don't have to role play through everything.

*staggers* You mean we actually might see it!? Took 'em long enough...

I joked on this very board just after the rules came out that we needed to set up an itunes-like store. Core resolution mechanics are free. Want static armor? 99¢. Want random armor? 99¢ Want spell system? 99¢ for the resolution mechanics and 99¢ per each spell.

Oh, absolutely. It's such a beautiful film. When I fell into these films in my early teens it was probably my least favorite of the Corman/Poe stuff. It was not nearly serious enough. I've since got over myself and it rates as my favorite. The Gorgon is great and I think I've seen Old Dark House before, but I'm not certain. The others are new to me. Another favorite Lovecraftian film of mine is The Dunwich Horror (1970). It exudes character from every pour.

He was the master. I'm currently going through a 'not sleeping very much' period and filling it by catching up on Sherlock. After I finish with the detective I might put my eyes to the City in the Sea. It actually sounds really familiar, so I'm wondering if I've already watched it some night in the antediluvian past.

Haven't seen City in the Sea but I love me some Price and Corman flixs!

Ok. I tracked down my missing fonts (the sheet was done on another computer), tweaked the layout a little bit, and uploaded it to the downloads section in the character sheet division. Enjoy, and maybe post your fillable pdf?

Hello old thread. No worries, greengaloup. I actually know what hard drive it's stored away on! I'll pull it out tomorrow and post the pdf. Welcome to the boards.

Howdy. Here are my thoughts. You are correct in your assessment of the grimoire. It is not a limiting agent and is really unnecessary until much later in the sorcerer's career. As to the question of how the sorcerer and mage balance out, I feel that sorcery spells are geared to be helpful in certain situations but limited in the extent of it's effectiveness. Magic on the other hand is for specialists. Let's say the mage starts off with an INT 17 and POW 15. The mage can have up to 9 spells in memory, and needs to jot the rest down in a grimoire. The mage selects their starting 6 spells, but probably want to put their skills into three or less of them and have the rest as low level spells to be trained at her leisure. She wants one to be a POW v POW spell to bump up her POW. If she wants a direct damage spell, she takes one. The other is her utility spell. Now she shops for a familiar. A hawk is SIZ 1-2 and has an average POW 7. This works for her and her POW is now 14 but her mp pool is 21 mp. Right off the bat she can cast a 6 level spell doing 6-36 points of damage without her or her familiar going unconscious. Pretty impressive for a PC starting out. Now things are about to get scary. Our mage took Control because it's never too early to start bossing around minions. Her immediate goal is to make a staff. In the coarse of several adventures she has used her Control spell and her POW has increased from 14 to 17. She also now has enough money to make a staff. Her own POW goes to 16, her staff has 16 mp and her hawk has 7 mp. Here effective mana pool has just gone up to 39. She now has the luxury of developing some of her other spells because she's established her niche and does it well. Going straight from the BGB a sorcerer really can't compete with this sort of fire power. The sorcerer is around to cast the utility spells that will give the party a minor advantage. The mage is too busy musing about who she's going to explode. Now, this all changes when demon summoning starts happening, but the BGB really doesn't support demons. For that you want Elric! or to wait until the Magic World magic supplement comes out. Also, I highly recommend that you pick up Classic Fantasy. The work that Rod has done with the magic system is fantastic and greatly expands upon the options available to your mage PCs.

Just so we are on the same page, Brawn and Finesse aren't actual skills, they're really derived stats. Brawn is just the Damage Bonus score. I modified the Damage Bonus table, dropping the negatives and such, and am using it for base weapon damage. Finesse is just another way to calculate weapon damage so that you can have big bruisers and the tiny quick guys standing toe to toe. I just want to make sure that my concept is actually making it's way through my laborious description. Another way to thing of it, using RC D&D. We used to play around with the idea that the weapons used by the characters were just fluff. A fighter did a d8 (d10?) damage, a cleric did d6, mage did d4 damage in combat no matter what they were equipped with. Two things I want to instill. One, no need for futzing around with equipment lists. Describe what you want your character to be skilled in and they are. Two, keep variety of damage effects while not tying damage directly into PC skill level. Hmmm, I remember reading it long ago, but I don't remember much from it... In fact I just looked and found it sitting here on my hard drive. I will definitely dive back in and give it another read. Edit: Looking at the table of contents I'm betting I read it for the Politics section. I may not have even looked at combat.

It was definitely an old RuneQuest website, but not Pete Maranci's or Simon's or Tal Meta's or any of the other big ones I haunted. I'm sure if I spent some time going through links I'd find it again eventually. It might require the WayBack Machine though. I definitely see how my description sounds like Melee though. I really need someone in my area to run a FATE game or to demand that I run one. It's silly really, but FUDGE dice kinda turn me off a bit. Otherwise I might be playing FATE right now! Approaches sound interesting, and I'll see if I can get Accelerated Edition. I do want to keep weapon skills, just broaden them up a bit. Brawn and Finesse would be used to determine what the PC's base damage is. I have gone very broad on skills before. I ran a couple loose Pokemon games for my daughter that was BRP based with very broad skills. It works, but I'm not sure if that's what I'm aiming for or if I want to shoot for a skill list like the Magic World from the WoW boxed set. Thanks for batting this around with me, guys.

Oh yes? I've read the combat chapter but unfortunately I don't own it and really remember little of the details. Long ago, on a website by an individual who's place and name are lost in the sands of the time corridors, I read an article suggesting that damage should be set to 1d6 across the board and that combat should be varied based on skill and weapon length (and slash/crush/impale or something along those lines). While I wouldn't begrudge a list of effects, ultimately I would want the special circumstances invoked by the player to spring organically from play. Also, I've an eye at using this in a sort of (ever elusive) stripped down BRP, where the magic system is also a bit free form (possibly through the same sort of system). I'm thinking of combining skill packages into individual profession skills (like how my vague understanding of Barbarians of Lamuria works). Just to give a reference frame.