p_clapham

I guess this is why so many of my games are in pdf form these days. Instant gratification. :-)

I am really happy to see the site has a mobile device option!

I figure I will either port over the sorcery spells I have in mind, or I will use the rules as a guide to creating ritualistic sorcery for the legend system. I had some rules for that drawn up under the mrq2 system. They were pretty basic, and not fully fleshed out.

Or use Art, which is the skill we had in mind when designing Legend/MRQII.

Oh!  I had forgotten about the Art skill.

I was thinking of spells like create zombie and hide life mostly.  Enlightened Magic sounds really interesting, I've downloaded it and will skim through it a bit today.

How easy is it to adapt existing spells from Magic World and Legend/ Runequest6 into Enlightened Magic Sorcery?

I prefer the Legend/RQ6 method of using characteristics for the starting values.  The smaller pool of starting skills is one of the other reasons I go with those systems over BRP.  The character creation in Legend/RQ6 feels less cluttered and more polished to me.

I'd make it a Advanced skill INT+CHA.

Here are a couple of edges for the Drive skill.

“Defensive” Driver

Drive 50%

Ranged, Resist (Drive)

This character is a terror on the road, tailgating, cutting off other drivers, and causing minor accidents around them. When this edge is activated make a Drive roll opposing the target's Drive skill. If you beat them apply a penalty to their drive skill equal to 10% of the opposing character's drive skill.

This edge may be taken a second time when the character reaches 100% or more in their Drive skill. Now if the character beats his target in the Drive roll he applies a penalty to their Drive skill equal to 20% of his Drive skill. This upgrade costs five advancement points.

Born to the Wheel

Drive 50%

Self

The character's prowess behind the wheel is nothing short of amazing. They are able to pull off daredevil maneuvers with ease. When this edge is activated the character ignores up to a -20% penalty to their Drive skill. So if a dark and rainy night applied a -20% penalty the character would roll their Drive skill with no penalty. This also applies to handling penalties.

This edge may be taken a second time when the character reaches 100% or more in their Drive skill. While this edge is active they can ignore up to -40% in penalties to their Drive skill. This upgrade costs five advancement points.

I've got some new edges for you.  I particularly like Double or nothing.

Double or Nothing

Gambling 50%

Self, Instant

Fate is a fickle mistress, but she appears to favor the character, most of the time anyways. When this edge is activated the character makes a Gambling roll, if it is successful the next skill check he makes is moved up one success category. So a failure would become a success, and a success a critical success. If the character fails his Gambling roll then the next important skill roll is automatically considered a failure. If he fumbles his Gambling gambling roll then his next important skill roll is automatically considered a fumble.

This edge may be taken a second time when the character reaches 100% or more in their Gambling skill. If he fumbles his gambling roll it is now considered a failure instead. This upgrade costs five advancement points

Light Sleeper

Persistence 50%

Self, Extended Action

Through sheer force of will the character needs far less sleep than the average person. The character now makes Persistence checks to see if they drop a fatigue level at 20+CON hours.

This edge may be taken a second time when the character's Persistence reaches 100% or more. The character no longer has to make Persistence checks to avoid fatigue due to lack of sleep. They can still rest to recover fatigue, but now they can effectively forgo sleep by engaging in light activity to recover fatigue. This upgrade costs five advancement points.  

Tough Guy

Resilience 50%

Self, Permanent

The character is able to endure punishment that would cripple a lesser man. When active the character adds one hit point to all hit locations.

This edge may be taken a second time when the character reaches 100% or more in their Resilience skill. The character now adds two hit points to all hit locations. This upgrade costs five advancement points.

Yup it was my Pulp Edges thread. Here is a link to the file in the downloads section. I'll be periodically adding new Edges in the thread, and will eventually do a updated version of the file.

http://basicroleplaying.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=558

A few weeks ago I put together a list of minor powers called Edges. They are skill oriented, each one requires you to have the relevant skill at 50% for the basic Edge, and 100% for the advanced Edge. Power wise they are about equal with the feats from D&D, in fact some of the edges are inspired from D&D. They require a Power point to activate for the scene, or turn if the duration is instant. I originally put them together for the Legend RPG, but they could be easily adapted to BRP.

I was thinking rather than going with the Call of Cthulhu route, I could treat Sanity points as a kind of hit points. Maybe have them equal the character's POW+CHA divided by 2. They would heal at the same rate as hit points using the POW in place of the CON attribute. When a character reaches half sanity they would go temporarily insane. If they hit zero sanity in a encounter they would pick up a permanent mental illness and reduce their permanent sanity points by one.

Another rule I am considering, each Innovation or spell requires specific science skills. For example Clone requires the character have both Engineering and Biology.

As far as mass producing deathrays, that wouldn't really be feasible for the player characters. Each deathray takes the same amount of time to create. A arch-villain with a bunch of scientists and engineers could manufacture deathrays on a mass scale for world domination schemes.

I had forgotten about the Science-Sorcery rules from Hawkmoon. Quite a few of the "spells" will work well as innovations for the system, as well as the Artifact rules. A flame-cannon works perfectly as a gigantic deathray.

As part of my pulp project I started putting together some initial rules for gadgeteering. This is what I have so far.

Gadgeteering works mechanically like sorcery. Rather than having a magic point cost, what the character invests instead is time. Each magic point you'd spend under the sorcery rules translates into one week spent working on the device.

In place of the Manipulation skill you instead have the Fringe Science skill. In place of Grimore you have one of the following skills: Biology, Chemistry, Engineering, or Physics. Each skill not only determines the intensity of the Innovations, but what kind of devices your character can build. A scientist with engineering will be hard pressed to create a clone of someone, while a bio-engineer will have a tough time whipping up a death ray.

Innovations are the "Spells" of gadgeteering, the special effects a scientist pours into his device.

For the Manipulation table on page 192, I simply cut out the reference to the POW attribute, and made the modifier 10. So a deathray with no points of "manipulation" in duration will have enough juice to last for ten minutes. For duration I decided to have the clock start ticking once the device is activated.

Here is a example device

A death ray with Damage, Armor Piercing, a range of 50 meters, and a battery life twenty minutes will take six weeks to construct, and require a Fringe Science score of 60% or greater.

It is still a work in progress, I'm tempted to mess around with the manipulation table a bit. I don't really like the idea of a armored shirt having a duration, so I may add a permanent duration at a steep manipulation cost.

For SAN loss what do folks think of the Wrack table as a guide? So a fear score of 60 would cause a player to lose 1d6 sanity if they blow their Persistence test. Given that I'm thinking of having Sanity based off Persistence rather than POWx5 it makes sense to keep the sources of SAN loss relatively low compared to Call of Cthulhu.

My issue with Skeletons and Zombies under the sorcery rules is two-fold. First with the POW expenditure you run into the problem of the minimum POW of 16 needed to cast spells. A sorcerer can't create too many of the undead without crippling himself magically. Second, summoning elementals and demons to do your bidding is such a better option. They cost more magic points to create, but are so much more powerful than say a skeleton that the POW expenditure is actually worthwhile.

I checked out the Necromatic Arts rules, they look very similar to what I was trying to accomplish. I think I will look into including some kind of Sanity Point system. What do folks think about a character's starting Sanity Points equaling their Persistence/ Willpower? Then if the character increased that attribute over the course of the game their Sanity score would increase as well. Or is that a case of placing too much emphasis on the Persistence/ Willpower stat in horror games, to the point where players will do their best to max that skill out.

I've begun tinkering around with some possible mechanics for fear and madness using the Legend system. Yes there is Call of Cthulhu with its tried and true sanity system, but I felt like trying to make something different. This is what I have so far.

Horror Checks

When a character is first confronted by a scene of horror or monster, he must roll his Persistence skill vs the Horror Rating of the creature or situation. If the character succeeds their psyche is unaffected, and the situation proceeds normally. If they fail there are consequences. To determine how screwed your character is, use this matrix:

Character succeeds – Fear roll critical – Table One

Character fails – Fear roll succeeds – Table One

Character fails – Fear roll critical – Table Two

Character fumbles – Fear roll fails – Table One

Character fumbles – Fear roll succeeds – Table Two

Character fumbles – Fear roll critical – Table Three

Each table has a series of potential consequences. The higher the table, and D20 roll, the worse off you'll be. Table One might just make your character lose a Combat action or two from fright. Table two can make your character temporarily insane. Table three can cause permanent insanity, or die from fright.

I'm still working out the tables and the consequences. This is what I have so far for possible table results.

Dazed – the character cannot attack for 1D3 combat actions

Stunned – the character forfeits the next 1D3 combat actions

Frozen in fear – the character cannot move for the next 1D3 combat actions

Paralyzed – the character cannot move for the duration of the encounter

Fight or flight – The character has a 50/50 chance of either going berserk (as per the Fanaticism spell), or fleeing the encounter

Unconsciousness – The character loses consciousness for the duration of the encounter

Temporary mental illness

Permanent mental illness

Heart attack – the character suffers enough damage to the chest to cause a major wound. They must make a Resilience roll vs the Horror Rating or die.

If you are looking to go with the Sorcery option I would suggest Magic World. It is a complete game using the BRP rules, and has a ton of sorcery spells. Its supplement Advanced Sorcery has a whole section on Necromancy, including Lichedom and raising zombies/skeletons. My only problem with those rules is that you have to spend a permanent point of POW for each zombie or skeleton you have to animate it. If you go that route I'd suggest you make it temporary (until the creature is destroyed) or do away with the POW cost all together.

If you would like to go the generic Magic route I could design a spell for creating zombies and skeletons. Legend and Runequest already have several, it wouldn't be too difficult to modify one of theirs.

Here are a few more edges. Deadeye is a straight-up adapted Heroic Ability, the other two are modified from Common Magic and Sorcery.

Quivering Palm

Unarmed 50%

Instant, Resist (resilience), Touch

The character's mastery of unarmed combat is to the point where he can strike at his opponent's pressure points, disabling or killing in one blow. When the character activates this edge the next successful unarmed that deals damage has a chance of paralyzing his opponent. The target must make a Resilience skill roll vs the character's Unarmed skill. If the target fails the location struck is paralyzed for the duration of the scene. A limb stops working; the abdomen causes both legs to collapse, and the head or chest results in unconsciousness.

This edge may be taken a second time when the character's unarmed skill reaches 100% or more. He can now choose to make the blow lethal instead. The target must resist or the struck hit location takes enough damage to cause a Major Wound. This upgrade costs five advancement points.

Inflaming Oration

Influence 50%

Concentration, Resist (Persistence), Touch

The character is capable of turning his words into weapons, fanning the flames of fanaticism within his friends and allies. The character choses either a character or group of minions within his CHA in meters. Their attacks with Close Combat Weapon skills are increased by half, but they may not attempt to evade, parry, or cast spells. Willing targets of Inflaming Oration may surrender to the edge without resisting it.

This edge may be taken a second time when the character reaches 100% or more in their Influence skill. The targets of the edge now double their Close Combat Weapon skills.

Deadeye

Any Ranged Combat Style 50%

Self, Instant

The character is preternaturally accurate with ranged weapons, able to make impossible shots. When the character activates this edge he is able to increase the range of his chosen ranged weapon by 50%

This edge may be taken a second time when the character reaches 100% or more in their relevant skill. When activating this edge the character can automatically select the hit location struck. This upgrade costs five advancement points.

I've got my own pulp project using the Legend rules, it'll be interesting if I come up with anything similar to the pulp Cthulhu rules. I will definitely be plundering those rules for ideas when they come out.

Off the top of my head they had professions with special abilities/ powers?

This sounds very interesting. While the Necronomicon was used in more stories, I always felt the King in Yellow was a more skillful execution of the invented text technique.

Here are a few more.

Additional Limbs

1 point per rank

Base Range: Self

Duration: Continuous

Power Point Cost: None

Density

4 points per rank

Base Range: Self

Duration: Sustained

Power Points Cost: 1 per rank

The character is able to increase his mass, bringing up his strength and durability up to superhuman levels. Each level in Density adds one point to the character's STR, SIZ, and one Armor Point to all hit locations.

Your character possesses one or more additional limbs, such as legs, arms, tentacles, or a prehensile tail. Each rank gives you one additional limb of your choice. These limbs give your character a additional hit location as well. For a tentacle or tail use the arm hit location rules. These limbs do not allow you to take extra actions in a round. All limbs except your dominate limb are considered your off-hand.

Anatomic Separation

2 points per rank

Base Range: Self

Duration: Continuous

Power Point Cost: None

The character is capable of splitting off parts of his body, keeping them functional and animated. For each rank in the power the character is able to split off a hit location from their main body. Rank 1 could let you detach a arm, leg or head. At rank seven you can split all of your hit locations from each other. Separating or reattaching your parts takes a move action.

Your parts remain fully functional, so you can see through a separated head, grab through a separated arm etc.. Your parts are limited to whatever movement their form allows. A arm could crawl, while a leg could hop. As a side effect of having this power you are effectively immune to to severed hit location major wound result, as you can simply reattach those hit locations.

Animal Control

2 points per rank

Base Range: 15 Meters

Duration: Sustained

Power Points Cost: 1 per rank

The character can exert mental control over animals. Make a Persistence skill roll vs the animal's Persistence. The character may attempt to dominate a target of up to 3 INT per rank in his Animal Control power. If the target fails to resist, it must obey the commands of the character for the duration of the power. Suicidal commands instantly end the control.

Animate Objects

3 points per rank

Base Range: 15 meters

Duration: Sustained

Power Point Cost: 1 point per rank

With this power the character can animate objects, imbuing them with a semblance of life. The character can animate three points of SIZ or a cubic meter of material for each rank in Animate Objects. The objects move at a rate of one meter by default, although points of SIZ or ENC may be substituted for extra movement.

Armor

2 points per rank

Base Range: Self

Duration: Continuous

Power Point Cost: None

The character is incredible difficult to damage with this power. For each rank add one Armor Point to all hit locations of the character.