Chaot

So, I've been doing some more thinking about this as someone else brought up the concept over at RPGnet. I'm going to cross post some ideas to see what you all think.

Ok, so I've been thinking about this and I think I have an elegant way to explain the flow of combat in the series. From my recollection, combat usually begins with an armada attack and the lions fly out to destroy the ship. Then, the bad guys release the robeast. The lions go after the robeast and get their tails handed to them. Then they form Voltron and pretty much dominate the combat.

Well, the flavor of BRP that I use (Elric!/SB5) which allows the PC to parry as many times in a round as their skill allows at a -30 skill % per Parry. So, someone with a 121% skill could parry at 121% for the first parry, 91% for the second, 61% for the third, 31% for the fourth and 1% for the fifth. Now Voltron's pretty tough, but using these rules, an armada could possibly lay down some major hurt. With the armada's attacks split between the five lions, this reduces some of the dangers to the big V.

So the lions take out the armada and in the process have sustained some damage themselves. Suddenly, the enemy releases the Big Bad. Let's say the BB is of equivalent power level of Voltron. Now, the lions are hurt, but they know that if they wear the robeast down a little they'll have a better chance of taking it out as Voltron. So they throw themselves at it for a while, not doing major damage but enough to possibly give them an edge as Voltron. Once it's not safe to fight as the lions anymore, they change into the big V and dish out the hurt.

See, in the cartoons (from my recollection) it doesn't matter how hurt the lions are, when they form Voltron they seem to be performing at peak performance again. Maybe it's some aspect of the power crystals they use reenergizing themselves or some hand-wavy thing like that.

What do ya think?

and

This opens up another issue I've been struggling with. Voltron's Blazing Sword is his end move and seems to be pretty powerful. Why doesn't he just start out with it. But what if different weapons need some time to power up? The first rounds of combat might be Voltron using the various lion attacks to keep the robeast busy enough so that he can use the Blazing Sword. So what if weapons of different 'power' takes different amounts of rounds to power up?

Which helps answer another conundrum. What do all the PCs do when they form Voltron? Perhaps they're tracking and coordinating their various powers to greatest effect? That way it's not just the black lion yelling out orders. I don't know, but it's something to think about.

I've a list of powers for both Voltron and all of the lions as well as their general effect and effectiveness. I haven't translated them into actual mechanics yet except for some broad guidelines and ideas. I'm waiting until I nail down exactly how I want to represent the lions and Voltron. Despite the excellent ideas in the Mecha thread, I'm leaning towards twisting the Vehicle rules for this purpose. It just seems more appropriate to me. However, if my attempt fails, I'll be revisiting the Mecha thread and stealing... uh, I mean borrowing... left and right.

Edit: Any ideas/criticisms/refinements are more than welcome.

Dear god...

... it's beautiful!

This sounds interesting.

I'll look around some more. If I can't find the original document I'll paraphrase what I remember.

Edit: Found it. It's not quite what you're looking for but it is an interesting system.

As previously inferred, I have some stuff that I've sketched out but haven't playtested. I'll post them here later.

My suggestion would be to take a look at the Spot Rules. There's a ton of information in there that makes combat very interesting.

When I'm running a game and I don't remember a specific rule pertinent to the situation I'll wing it. If the player describes something neat and a rule doesn't come to mind I'll bump their skill up at 5% ranks. It makes it very easy to augment criticals this way.

Combat can become tedious, which is why I like to provide as many options as I can for my players. I believe this is where I insert my normal recommendation of Charles Green's Mook Rules.

I believe one of the RQ Simons had a rule for weapons that develop along with the given PC. I'm thinking it was the Krynn adaptation but the little poking around I did hasn't given me an answer. I'll poke around a bit more to see if I can find it again.

I was toying around with a 'high fantasy' version of this. I'll post it when I dig up my notes.

Thanks for pointing that out. I hadn't seen it before now.

I like how Ken mentions the flexibility of the game, but I think I disagree with him on how far you can stretch it powerwise. I wouldn't say that it breaks down at the demi-god level.

Those would be Shattered Hopes.

I would prefer to have my Hopes Fractured.

Oh, I'm at work right now, so I can't check, but do you have the Viking stuff?

Mr. Green, I want my Fractured Hopes NOW!

Ok, I'll wait...

Excellent.

I'd take the Rat-Thing from CoC and bump the numbers up a bit. Elric!/SB5 also has stats for a rat pack.

So, looking back over the list, some more additions in no particular order.

Ghosts (CoC and Bronze Grimoire)

Ghouls (CoC and Bronze Grimoire)

Skeletons (CoC and Bronze Grimoire, but I like the CoC write up better)

Vampires (CoC and RQ3?)

Zombies (CoC)

Abominations (Bronze Grimoire. They're Golems. I included them for drawing inspiration.)

Shark, Large (Sailing on the Seas of Fate)

Elementals (Elric!/SB5 and RQ)

Worm, Large (the Nalargrun from Fate of Fools and Atlas of the Young Kingdoms vol. 1)

Ponies (Atlas of the Young Kingdoms vol. 1)

Lion (Unknown East)

Dragons (Elric!/SB5)

Crocodile, Ancient (Melnibone)

Mammoth, Lesser (Melnibone)

Giant Squid (Sea Kings of the Purple Towns)

Sea Turtles (Perils of the Young Kingdoms)

Edit: There are also large bats that are used for mounts in the Corum book. Since it was published by Darcsyde, I don't know if the material would be available for a book.

barring direct intervention by Nyarlathotep himself, you will have BRP Rome available at Tentacles as a dead tree supplement (200 pp. or more).

Maybe a silly question. Will Chaosium also stock dead tree books or is Tentacles the only place to get a paper Rome?

Also, the core BRP book has an entry for Dogs but none for Cats. This must be remedied! There are stats for Cats in CoC's COmplete Dreamlands

No stupid questions, just my stupid answers.

I routinely drop CoC critters into my BRP fantasy. (For reference, I generally use Elric!/SB5 rules.) It works fine. Looking at MRQ stat blocks, it appears that it would be simple to drop them in too. Now everythings not going to work exactly as it would in the original given system, but it's not a difficult fit.

Generate several typical starting PC's and run several mock combats with your players so they understand the combat system - for gamers coming from other systems they will need to understand the difference BEFORE they start playing.

Excellent advice. Once you have combat down and character generation down, the rest of the system kind of falls into place. One nice thing about BRP is that there are so many ways to resolve a conflict. You've got the Active/Defensive Matrix, you've got Stat:Stat, you've got straight skill rolls, and you've got Characteristic Rolls. So, if a situation comes up it is easy to wing it without breaking the momentum of the game by looking up rules.

My player's were fine with running fast and loose (way back at Stormbringer3) while we learned the rules. BRP has many more options and it may take a while for you to decide how those options affect the game you'd like to run.

Anyway, have fun! I'd be interested in what you decide to do.

Elric!/Stormbringer does this well. Peg your PCs at the above 100% mark for fighting skills and your goons in the 30%-50% range. I also use the -CON before dead rule.

Handing out situational modifiers can not only greatly benefit the PCs but get them thinking. It makes combat interesting as you watch what the PCs come up with.

There are also Charles Green's excellent mook rules, published in the now sadly out of print 'Gods of Law.' I've posted them before, so I'm sure Charles won't mind if I post them again.

A Mook gets an attack but no defense roll and no Hit Points. If a PC hits them once, they're dead. A more powerful Mook is the same except it takes two hits to put him down. Simple, elegant, and it blends right into the system.

I've played around with it too. You've got a bruiser? Give him 60% and 1d6+1d4 and three hits to go down. You got a light but nimble thief? 30% to hit with 1d4 but four hits to go down (because he's tumbling and dodging and such).

Now here's my favorite part of the system, and I don't know whether it's intentional or not. Once your players see you rolling defense dice, they know they're up against a major opponent. It adds a nice bit of drama.

So BRP Mooks, 1) cut's down your notes tracking, 2) provides a simple mechanic to let your PCs be heros, 3) provides meta-game information to your PCs to help keep them alive, 4) is easy.

That being said, I'm sure there are at least two people on this board who will call me a blasphemer.

I would use the modified skill rating. My reason being, if it's easier to succeed, it's also easier to critical.

Whenever there is a calculation, I round in the player's favor.

Yup. I round up for players and down for NPCs.

Just happen to have my Sailors on the Seas of Fate with me.

For a Frigate I'd use the Galley

Hull Type: Warship

Hull Quality: 120

Seaworthyness:20

Structure Points: 120

Length:250 feet

Beam: 40 feet

Freeboard: 15 feet

Draft: 15 feet

Capacity: 500 chained slave rowers, 100 rowers, 60 officers and sailors

Other Notes: 2 banks of oars (3/4 rower arrangement), up to 8 war engines

I'm using the Small Cog for the Sloop

Hull Type: Merchant

Hull Quality: 1d6+4

Seaworthyness:22

Structure Points: 45

Length:70 feet

Beam: 18 feet

Freeboard: 9 feet

Draft: 7 feet

Capacity: 40 tons

Crew: 15 officers and sailors

Other Notes: difficult to sail at a half wind angle

Sorry. I haven't had time to work on them yet. It's still on my list.

Edit: By 'work on them' I mean I need to type the stuff up. I'll let you all vet them.

I haven't posted in a while. Thought I'd check in.

Today I had the bizarre idea to stat Voltron up. Unfortunately, it's a bit late tonight. This will probably have to wait till morning, as I've two kids to put to sleep. Still, anyone excited by the idea? I'm thinking of riffing on the ship rules to build the Lions and Voltron. The Robeasts will probably be Cthulhu level monsters.

Fun.

That said, I'd love to run some old TSR D&D modules using this system, and wonder if it'd be a good choice for this style of fantasy.

I have a long standing desire to run Tomb of Horrors with BRP. The set up would be that the PCs would each have a high level character. These are the the people organizing the raid into the ToH. Next, I would have a large group of NPCs that I had rolled up ahead of time that the PCs had recruited for the excursion. Each given NPC can be controlled by any player.

My thought is that it would turn into a bit of a resource management game as the players decide which NPC to run and if they want to risk their high level character in the tombs. I've never had the time to run it though.

And, yes, BRP does fantasy very well.

Thanks. I like your force ideas as well.

I would also consider taking the mook rules from Gods of Law for a Star Wars game. They really speed up combat but present a level of danger for PCs while letting them shine. It's a nice way of representing the various chase scenes and blaster fights present throughout the movies.

Dog fights can be emulated fast and loose using the ship rules. Everything else seems pretty straight forward.

*digs around*

Elfquest Wolfriders - min/ave/max

STR 2d6+2 - 4/9/14

CON 2d6+6 - 8/13/18

SIZ 2d3+1 - 3/5/7

INT 3d6 - 3/10.5/18

POW 2d6+6 - 8/13/18

DEX 2d6+9 - 11/16/21

APP 2d6+6 - 8/13/18

RQ3 Elf

STR 2d6+2 - 4/9/14

CON 3d6 - 3/10.5/18

SIZ 2d4+4 - 6/9/12

INT 3d6+6 - 9/16.5/24

POW 2d6+6 - 8/13/18

DEX 3d6+3 - 6/13.5/21

APP 3d6 - 3/10.5/18

Note: I did the min/ave/max quickly. I believe my math is correct, but you may want to run it yourself. I include it because it gives me a better idea of how the dice fall and hope it will be beneficial to you.