Chaot

I never really used skill bonuses. PCs in my fantasy games routinely start with combat skills above 100% anyway, so I'm not sure how much impact a few extra skill points would make. In the Elric! rules, Dex's benefit is to determine when you go on the initiative round and not much else (I'm thinking the 'Special Aim' spot rule, but that's the only instance I can think of where Dex gives a bonus in combat). So, Str/Siz will give you a brawler who can both dish and take a lot of damage. Str/Dex will give you a quick and effective guy who will try and land the first blow but who is at a disadvantage as the fight wears on. So, I guess I'm saying that I may agree with you. My flavor of BRP doesn't use the bonuses, as I go mostly by Elric!/SB5 rules. I'd have to take a look to see how much bonuses would throw the thing off.

Both? It allows the character to position themselves in combat to strike strongly at weak spots. Keep in mind, I'm using Elric! rules. Combat is a bit more abstract then RQ rules. Instead of using leverage to bludgeon their way through they use position. You know, if someone came up to me and said that their character's shtick was an ascetic warrior who could take apart opponents by applying the character's complex knowledge of physiology I might say, 'yeah, let's try giving you a DB from Str and Int and see how it works.' It's kind of a cool concept actually. Thing is, I'm trying to encourage players to think outside the Siz stat. The genre examples I was thinking of are the swashbucklers. Tying Dex into DB seems an easy and obvious way to do it. It seemed like a decent trade off too. Going back to the ascetic warrior for a moment, if he's going to concentrate on his Str and Int to be a good fighter, it's likely that his Siz and Dex would suffer a bit. Both important stats when it comes to combat. This also seems like a good trade off to me, especially as it's dragging in a stat that isn't normally used in combat. It could make for a good spell-sword type character. If it doesn't break the system and opens up options so the player doesn't feel like their shooting themselves in the foot if they don't dump points into Siz, I'm tempted to give it a go. Yeah, I'm thinking small and medium weapons. Chivalry and Sorcery has been on my too buy list for years. It's right there with Harnmaster. Dual wields a dirk and a rapier. Would Martial Arts: Fencing cover both? Honestly, I don't know. I'll have to look at my book. It's currently in the room where my son is sleeping, so it will have to wait for tomorrow, unless someone wants to give a Martial Arts skill run down. But Fafhrd dual wields a longsword and a poignard. If Mouser was running around using a Martial Arts skill in conjunction with his weapons, I'm sure Fafhrd would be complaining to the GM that he should be able to use one too. Then we're back at Mouser being short shifted. Anyway, I'm really enjoying the ideas here. It's got me thinking about going through the rules and playing around with fighter types.

It may balance out better in RQ than it does in Elric! (which is the general flavor of BRP that I use). Cost of armor and fatigue don't enter into the equation much, and bonuses to hit due to Siz difference are at a bit of an extreme (and easily forgotten during the heat of battle). In my games, people usually put special consideration on the Siz stat because it effects both DB and HP. Hence, I end up with a lot of burly fighters. I'd like the players to feel that they can make a small and scrappy fighter and not automatically be outclassed by the big boys. Edit: As for Fafhrd and the Mouser, I'd say they probably have similar fighting skill levels, just radically different styles. This rule would go to emulating that.

You make good points Steve. You've convinced me. When I get a chance to actually institute it, I think I'll use Finesse as a skill. If you do test it out, please let me know! I'd love to hear how it actually works out in game.

Is it necessary to make it into a skill check? I guess it could be integrated easily into one roll. When someone is shooting a bow from horseback I have them make one roll and compare it both to their Ride and their Bow skill. I guess this could be the same sort of situation. I'm wondering if just having it as a default would be too overpowering though. Let's assume the Twain have an equal DB, Fafhrd's derived from Brawn and the Mouser's derived from Finesse. Using the Dex rank system for initiative, the Mouser has an edge. But Fafhrd's superior Size gives him more hit points than the Mouser. Is this a fair trade off? Edit: and would weapons really need to be categorized for Brawn/Finesse, or could the two DBs be applied across the board and chalked up to combat styles?

Just made a big ol' purchase. Color me happy.

Hmm, I look forward to seeing this.

Back when Mongoose put out their Lankhmar book I started thinking about stating up the Twain. The Mouser's a tiny guy and seems to get short shrift under BRP. Then I started thinking about dividing a character's damage bonus into two categories. Brawn would be determined by Strength and Size. Finesse would be determined by Strength and Dexterity. I started making a list on which weapons would utilize which form of DB, but set it aside. Someplace I have an incomplete listing sitting on a hard drive. What do the good folks here think of this idea? Is it worth pursuing? Is it just adding another layer of things to pay attention to?

? What is this?

I've got a bunch of stuff in my cart. Perhaps this is the push I need to actually buy them?

Hot damn. I've been looking forward to this.

When the characters were playing Humans, it would be 3d6 and place the stats where you want. Then redistribute up to 3 points as you wish. This pretty much gave the player a lot of control over the type of character they wanted to play. On the very rare occasion that all of the players rolls were very low, I'd let them reroll. For anything other than straight 3d6 the player was aloud to roll to columns down the line. They then choose the column they wanted to play. I'd let them redistribute up to 3 points as well.

Just replied to this over at RPGNet. Below are my basic thoughts on it. _______________________ BRP could work really well. All it would need is for you to do is play around with scale. Mice as Halflings, Cats and Birds as Humans, Dogs as Bruisers, Men and Women as Giants. Tweak as appropriately to give them the right 'flavor.' Alternatively, you could try and keep it on the same scale. Give the critters high Dodge, Move Quietly and Hide skills and a ton of Fate points and you may be golden. I've wondered whether a game on the small size scale could work or not, or whether it would just fall apart mechanically. By the way, here's the write up of Cats (from CoC Complete Dreamlands) STR 1D3 CON 2D6 SIZ 1 INT 2D6+6 POW 2D6+6 DEX 2D6+24 Bite 30%, 1D4+db Claw 40%, 1D3db Rip 80%, 2D3+db Dogs are in the current BRP rules. You'd have to rig up something for mice. Sounds like a fun idea though.

I've always viewed Pow as the character's innate connection with the multiverse and Sorcery as aligning oneself with aspects of said multiverse to produce a result. To me, the whole "complex occult formulas, formalised as spells" refers to ritual and putting one's self into a certain mental space. Actually understanding why Sorcery works is besides the point. It's a method of tapping into something by rote. Int determines how many of these rituals you've internalized.

Thing is, I've sung the praises of Gods of Law so much, people are going to stop believing me. Ya gotta help me out here Marcus, ol' buddy ol' pal ol' buddy ol' pal.

They're really beautiful. I kind of regret not picking up the hardbacks.

*cough* Gods of Law! *cough*

For Paladins, I would go with the Virtues system from Gods of Law. Emulation of the gods sort of thing.

Put me in your camp. I think BRP can simulate a lot of genres, even more than people give it credit for. I also think one can start cutting bits or adding bits without to much worry of 'breaking' the system. Still, we have a verb/noun magic system, written by our own Loz. It's in the Unknown East supplement.

It looks like Chaosium is taking Trollslayer and moving it to a shelf book. This is the first time they've upgraded a book, right? Have they done this before?

I could even use 2d10 and add the results, but I'm not sure I could respect myself in the morning.

Oddly enough, HeroQuest probably has some sort of secondary or tertiary influence in my current approach to gaming despite me not having read the rules directly. This mainly comes through reading the mechanics and a half remembered article about coupling HeroQuest with RuneQuest and the tendency for fanciful 'joke' skills being included included in some character write ups. It manifests as me throwing in personal characteristics, associations, and quirks as skills to be used to impact a given scenario. That being said, HeroQuest has been on my to-buy list for a very long time. At first I put it off because I'm just not that into Glorantha. Then I got excited about Mythic Russia, but let it fall to the wayside. It is a book I ned to pick up. I've a rather sever allergy to d20s, so I'm afraid I'd be grinding there too. But really, I'm just hashing some stuff out in a public forum because I've no goal to publish and I know the folks 'round these parts like talking BRP. I've been thinking about your posts, stat wise, and it's making me rethink cutting Siz, Int, and Cha.

Excellent! I too am looking forward to more.

Hi all, thanks for the input. I guess I should clarify what I want to use this system for, so we're all on the same page. It would be for a beer and pretzels pick up fantasy game for a setting that will hopefully have a Mystara feel to it. I'd like to capture some of the feeling of playing with the Rules Cyclopedia while using a mechanic that I enjoy and not being bogged down with details. This is a very good point. I've been thinking about Combat skills and Armor and I'm wondering if I shouldn't just abstract it further, tying damage and defense to skill percentages. Maybe by using the magic level table. Combat/Defense Table 01-20% ---- 1d4 21-50% ---- 1d6 51-100% ---- 1d8 101-150% ---- 1d10 151% < ---- 2d6 So, say Borag the Barbarian has a Combat 68% and a Defense 42%. His weapon value, no matter what he was fighting with would be 1d8+db. His armor value, no matter what he was wearing, would be 1d6. For the most part, how Borag is equipped is just flavor. He's a competent warrior. If he's not going after you with his battered and notched broadsword, he's taking you apart with a chair leg and his rugged fists and gnarly teeth. I'm thinking that Dex might be used in a similar way as Str too. You could use it to augment the Defense roll. As an example for how magic items might work, say Borag had The Mighty Cleaver of Doom or Some-Such. It adds +2 to the damage roll and inspires a supernatural fear in his enemies, making them fight at a -20% to their Combat roll. Thoughts? In my normal games Cha plays a big roll. For this though, I think Communication, Mercantilism, and Thievery can cover the bases well. As it stands, I'm seriously thinking about dropping Int too. Knowledge and Lore cover anything that Int might be used for. The stats would shake out as the three physical and the one spiritual/magical. As far as game balance goes, I fully expect that all PCs will wind up with at least some magic skills. I'm also thinking about snagging the alternative mp system from Gods of Law. I really need to post my Social Status/Reputation rules that I alluded to in another thread. Gotta dig the things up first though. Just to reiterate, I'm not a Cha hater (though I think renaming it App is a step in the wrong direction) I just don't think it adds enough for this style of game to be included as a Stat. As it stands, I think I'm going to be dropping Siz, Int, and Pow. Still, I'm not entirely happy with this magic system yet either. I'm going to be giving it some thought. Things are still in a state of flux. Thank you. Watch, I'll probably end up doing a bunch of work and then end up using Classic Fantasy for my fix.

As per the discussion in this thread, I've been toying around with a very bare bones fantasy system. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to put it through it's paces, as life continually insists on getting in the way of game time. But this is what I have so far. There are six stats, Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Power and Charisma. I dropped Size and I'm seriously thinking about dropping Charisma as it doesn't do much right now. Reasons to keep it in would be for determining beginning skill levels and to possibly fuel Bardic and Religious magic. I'm not sure if this is enough for me to keep it around. Then there's the derived stats, Hit Points, Magic, and the Damage Bonus. Hit Points will either be the character's Con or (Str+Con)/2. I'm leaning towards it just being Con. Magic is the character's Pow. Damage Bonus will be determined by referencing the character's Str on the Damage Bonus chart (which I've modified to take into account that its one Stat being referenced instead of two). Str ---- DB 1-6 ---- -1d6 7-8 ---- -1d4 9-12 ---- none 13-16 ---- +1d4 17-20 ---- +1d6 21-28 ---- +2d6 ect. That's just a rough table included to give an idea. It will likely change before I'm done. Next are Skills; Artistry, Athleticism, Combat (divided into Melee and Missile), Communication, Craft, Knowledge, Language, Lore, Mercantilism, Perception, and Thievery. Combat and Language are separated from the other skills for ease of use. I find it easier to put Combat skills and Armor next to each other for quicker reference in combat. I'll get to that in a second. For Language, I've decided to make it a special skill. You have one single language percentile that holds for every language you begin with. So if you have a Language 60% and have Common, Orcish, and Goblin under it you know those languages at 60%. If you meet up with a Dwarf for a session you can put an experience point in to start learning the language. I'll be using the Experience system I referenced in the thread linked above. This will give you pidgin Dwarfish, allowing you to speak it at half your language skill, so 30% for this example. If you adventure with a Dwarf again and invest a second Experience point in the language, your skill becomes your full Language percentile of 60%. For combat and weapon effectiveness, I'm looking towards what Al. posted in the above linked to thread. Weapons break down like this. Unarmed 1d3 Small 1d4 Medium 1d6 Large 1d8 Large used 2h 1d10 Great Weapon 2d6 Armor breaks down like this. Very Light 1d4 (Padded, Leather) Light 1d6 (Studded Leather, Chain Shirt, Hide) Medium 1d8 (Scale, Chainmail, Breastplate) Heavy 1d10 (Splint, Banded, Half Plate, Full Plate) etc. Adding a medium shield to your armor increases the armor by one step. Adding a large shield increases armor by two steps. So a character wearing Medium Armor with a Medium Shield would have an effective Armor of 2d6. These numbers aren't quite set yet. I want to run them through some mock battles and see how they stand in play. Magic is skill based and pretty free form, as mentioned in the thread linked to above. For every 10% you have in the magic skill you can invest 1 MP. This is then referenced to the Demon Summoning table to determine effect. MP ---- Damage --or-- Percentile 1 ---- 1d2 --or-- 10% 2 ---- 1d4 --or-- 20% 3 ---- 1d6 --or-- 30% 4 ---- 1d8 --or-- 40% 5 ---- 1d10 --or-- 50% 6 ---- 1d10+1d2 --or-- 60% 7 ---- 1d10+1d4 --or-- 70% etc. Special effects are adjudicated by the level descriptions in the Primea spell list (which I'm shamelessly using). These range from 1st to 5th level effects and casting them only costs as many magic points as spell level. A 5th level spell effect only costs 5 MP. However, the character has to be sufficiently skilled in the magic form in order to cast a given level spell effect. 1st ---- 01-20% 2nd ---- 21-50% 3rd ---- 51-100% 4th ---- 101-150% 5th ---- 151% < So, that's about it. I think it's a fairly solid structure to hang a game on. There'll be magical do-dads and gee-gaws and baubles throughout that I'll codify as I go along. Thoughts? Opinions?