Chaot

Good points. And I should really dig around to see what was posted before in those old threads. The basic rules for weapon length and missile weapons can probably be left in. Alternatively, one might handle it through the narrative. Circumstantial Bonuses Depending on the situation and the declared actions, a player can gain a skill bonus ranging from 5% to 20% in steps of 5% (or penalties in steps of 5%) or can declare an special action using the weapon. Where applicable, the damage die can either step down one or up one. So a Vespiritus has his spear and is confronted by a ruffian with a knife. The ruffian has to close before he can attack Vespiritus. Should the ruffian be in a narrow area, Vespiritus could describe how the ruffian is pinned down and gain a bonus to his attack. Say Vespiritus declares that he wants to keep the three ruffians confronting him at bay. Instead of rolling attack to damage, he rolls to keep them back. Should he succeed, he doesn't do damage but the ruffians are held at bay. Should the ruffians close anyway, Vespiritus might get free attacks on them at a stepped up die. Jonna fights florentine. She presses her opponent but her goal is actually to knock them of balance. In a flurry of steel, she steps in and trips the opponent. Her attack die is stepped down one but her opponent now lays sprawled on the floor.

For a long time I've wanted to shift away from 'how dangerous the weapon is' to 'how dangerous the character is with the weapon.' I also want the end results to be a bit streamlined while keeping enough meat there to be entertaining. So, here's the run down. None of these terms are set in stone by the way, it's just something I use to organize my thoughts. The characters have Brawn [(Str+Siz)/2] and Finesse [(Str+Dex)/2]. These are used to determine how much damage the character does in combat. Brawn is used for big hefty weapons. Finesse is used for small and quick weapons. Character Damage (Brawn or Finesse) 1-8 = 1d4 9-14 = 1d6 15-20 = 1d8 21+ = 1d10 (this table can be expanded upwards as needed) For weapon skill, I would take a page from RQ6 and have the PC write down their 'fighting styles.' Fumble, Failure, Success, Critical, Special work as in BGB. Exceptions The damage above is listed for martial weapons. Impromptu weapons bump down a die type. A skill of 90% or above in a 'fighting style' bumps damage up a die type. 'Certain Kill' situations (point blank shot) bump damage up a die type. That is, of course, if you want to roll for it. Some 'Certain Kill' situations just result in a kill. Special Weapons (magic, amazing quality, special abilities, etc.) provide a +1, 2, 3 or 4 to a roll. Thoughts?

Don't worry, posts don't die here QB. They lie in slumber, waiting to be reawakened and wreak havoc on the poor fragile minds of BRP players everywhere. I was actually thinking of stealing your minor parry rules there. I think though I'm going to drop the extra die rolls and expand the Riposte rules to include both Special Parry and Successful Parry versus Failed Attack. I'm interested to see what sort of effect it would have.

I dig it! Your fields of magic section made me think of something, and I had to eventually pull out an old hard drive to find the darn thing. It would have been bothering me all day. But find it I did. If your interested, head over to PRIMEA and take a look at their magic types break downs. It's has a handy list of magical disciplines that you can riff on. I've wanted to combine it with the Maelstrom magic system in the past, to give it more distinct flavor.

I'm here for the dinosaurs. I'll stay for the rest, but I'm here for the dinosaurs. Definitely dinosaurs. I so want this.

I think this is a worthy goal and salute your focus on it. I was searching for some unrelated stuff this morning (unsuccessfully, unfortunately) when I came upon this old thread and thought I might reference it for your perusal.

I dig what you guys are doing. Originally, I was just using the skill groupings in the book, but the looser specialties work better, I think.

I can never keep early Stormbringer editions straight. If you asked me which was chaos value and which was elan I would have to take a shot in the dark. I did know about zomben's hand in demons, not about the cover though. Very cool.

Ha! Those are beautiful.

Welcome to the forums! I do not have Gateway Bestiary, nor do I have much knowledge of All the World's Monsters. I do share a love of the old Stormbringer game (though my version was the Whelan cover, 3rd?). Something about merging BRP and Ken St. Andre makes this world a better place to live in.

I would so play in that game! Right? Fun stuff. Thanks. When my brain decides it wants to I'll add more. If you feel inspired, throw a couple out there.

Local Fence Int 16 Cha 13 Knowledge Need something moved or taken off your hands? Flashing Blade Dex 16 Cha 13 Physical Errol Flynn, eat your heart out!

By the way, I'm assuming base of 10 and increments of 3. The Hero Str 16 Cha 13 Communication He’s a hit with the crowd and a darling with the politicos. The Great Detective Int 16 Con 13 Perception Keen and ready for action, their trails of evidence often lead them into trouble. Thief Baggins! Dex 19 Cha 13 Siz 7 Manipulation Cuddly and klepto!

I'm procrastinating. Join in and add your own. The Face Cha 16 Pow 13 Communication Fast talking and suave, the Face relies on force of personality to get things done. The Diplomat Cha 16 Int 13 Communication Knows the ins and outs of schmoozing. The Big Guy Siz 16 Str 13 Physical That intimidating hulk in the corner? You don’t know what he’s capable of, but you don’t particularly want to find out... The Bruiser Str 16 Siz 13 Physical Gets in there and hits hard. The Brawler Con 16 Siz 13 This fellow has stamina. The Hired Thug Str 13 Con 13 Siz 13 Physical Doesn’t excel, but is over all pretty handy. The Artist Pow 16 Cha 13 Communication Dramatic and imaginative, the artist taps into the cultural zeitgeist and translates it for others to understand.

I love Classic Fantasy. Love it. Rod is very active over at his yahoo groups page for Classic Fantasy, including some character class discussions and such. I don't remember if there has been any talk about specialist wizards there, but it's where you want to go to raise the question. I am very much looking forward to the new Classic Fantasy edition under Legend.

Actually, all of Paul's games are really neat. When you have a chance, you should head over to his Zozer site and check them out. And welcome to BRP Central!

If you're looking at publishing timeline and similarity, you could draw the conclusion that CoC spells are probably influenced by RQ battle magic. Actually looking at CoC spells, they vary wildly in power and effectiveness and very much evolved as writers needed for their scenarios. They are generally written to be effective only in very limited circumstances and also have a heavy sanity aspect that limits their appeal. The BGB draws it's Sorcery mechanic from Elric!, which again, I think, is inspired by RQ battle magic. It is more designed to be an integrated part in an adventurer's career, toning down the extent of the spell's effects while giving them a broader range of usefulness. Again, no insider information or anything, it just seems to me that that is where the precedence lies.

I'm leaning very heavily towards doing an Actual Play thread at RPGnet which would involve Magic World Characters running through the In Search of The Unknown module using the Mythic Emulator to determine what the PCs do. If I do this, it will involve posting all of the stats used as well as the rolls. Serves as both being fun and getting Magic World in front of more people. Debating on whether I have the time to do it though.

By the way, if anyone hasn't been over there yet, you should really take a look at soltakss site. It's FULL of fun gaming stories and it's one of the few sites that kept me going in the dark times when there was little talk of BRP.

Also, Nephilim did an excellent job of incorporating summoning spells that revolved around the effects of the spirit/entity summoned. Another potential source of inspiration is the Virtues system in the Gods of Law monograph which is also conveniently available for free on line. With my first reading of your post, it seemed to me that you were looking for a magical combat system which I seem now is not the case. A shame, because I don't get to recommend Dragon Lines nearly as much as I would like.

My motto is, when in doubt, aim low. You can always increase the danger by calling in more combatants, adding a complication or changing the circumstances Typically a PC in one of my games will start off with a combat skill someplace over 100%. Sometimes far over. For random encounters and the like I generally set the NPCs at around 30%. I'll also likely use the Minion rules for this. If I want to bump up the threat level, 30% will increase up to about 60% or so. Then it's an issue of deciding how many combatants are present. For serious threats, I peg the main big bad at an approximate level of power to the players and give the big bad some backup in the 30% - 60% range. Like all things though, it depends on my mood. I do think that running a bunch of mock combats will give you a good idea of how you should peg combat to meet your needs.

Fractured Hopes is cool. I've got notes somewhere on a short campaign where baristas are a combo of holy warriors, shaman and lawgivers in the ruins of New York City. Kind of like The Warriors meets Mad Max meets Glorantha, with some other stuff mixed in.

Seriously!? That's awesome. Totally made my day.

Dragon Lines would make for a great Kung-Fu World. The issue is that Sage Kobold Productions are branding their products with the 'world' suffix right now. I've spoken to people about Magic World and they thought I was talking about a game using the Apocalypse World Engine no less than three times. Magic World is safely ensconced, I think, but Chaosium will have a hard road ahead if they want to reclaim the 'world' titles now.

Haven't seen the thread in question but I'm betting they are referring to Dungeon World and Apocalypse World, not Magic World.