p_clapham

The Elemental Mastery rules are particularly neat.

Glad to hear it.

2012 release date indeed.

Funny you mention that, but Cinematic Unisystem is my favorite set of rules for magic too. Right now I'm working on a modified version of Barbarians of Lemuria using a variant of the Cinematic Unisystem. Another game that comes close, and is another of my Sword and Sorcery favorites is Desolation. It has a free form magic system similar to the Unisystem. In regards to your question... I just feel the simplified cultures cover the range well. Cimmerians are obviously Barbarians, Picts Primitives, and Stygians Civilized (debatable).

I've used modified D&D rules in the past for Sword and Sorcery games, but they don't have the same feel Rune Quest has. The game is gritter and more geared towards the low fantasy style of play needed for Sword and Sorcery. I highly recommend Lankhmar it's my favorite setting following Robert E. Howard's setting. I went and dug up the Black Magic rules for you, here is a brief synopsis. It functions almost identically to Sorcery found in the Mongoose Runequest rule set. Each spell counts as an advanced Skill. Then there are the four Manipulate skills: Magnitude, Range, Duration and Target. The additional rules are Sympathy, Agony, and Hatred. The better a Sorcerer knows his victim, or has a personal effect or body part, the easier it is for them to cast a spell on them. A Sorcery is also able to burn off hit points giving them a +5% to their Spellcasting and Manipulation rolls. Finally the more a Sorcerer hates his target the easier it is to inflict harm upon them with Black Magic. Corruption works like detrimental mutations from Runequest. The energies warp the Sorcerer's body, mind and soul. A test to see if a Sorcerer gains corruption is made whenever they learn a new black magic spell, casts a black magic spell, kills someone with a black magic spell (two corruption tests are made in that case). It's a 50/ 50 chance that the Sorcerer will gain a corruption feature, with the following modifiers. Every 5% used of Agony in spell casting is added to the chance they will gain a corruption feature. If they use Hatred they suffer a 5% penalty per level of spell Magnitude to the test. Looking through the Conan book I'd recommend Agony be used to represent Ritual Sacrifice/ Torture to gain arcane power.

Have you checked out the Lankhmar RPG, it uses Sorcery as the base magic system and has some neat rules for corruption. From a Legend perspective I'm not sold on the Cultural backgrounds, or the Borderer. Both of those can be done easily under the existing rules.

The majority of zombies I have encountered in the pulps tend to be voodoo zombies.

"Included in this book are new rules for action points, powers, gadgets, resources and mooks." -From the news page on Astounding Adventures. There's nothing mentioned about professions at all. That was one of the bits we saw with Pulp Cthulhu, the Reanimator. I rather liked that, and am sad to see it presumably excluded. A Herbert West style character could still be possible depending on what they have for powers. Zombie minions are pretty pulp.

The Upcoming BRP Astounding Adventures might be the solution. I wouldn't be surprised if it's based in some part on the Pulp Cthulhu rules.

Could this rule set be Pulp Cthulhu with the sanity points filed off?

Are we finally seeing the Pulp Cthulhu rules? http://http://www.chaosium.com/article.php?story_id=521 - My bad, there's an existing thread for Astounding Adventures.

I love flexible magic rules as well. Corum has a similar. Right now my favorite is from Desolation, a fantasy RPG using the Hollow Earth Expedition rules. For D100 Unknown East and Corum are the way to go.

I'm planning on using both the experience check system, as well as the MRQII improvement rolls. The later representing offstage improvements and training by the characters. I figure that should also make increasing attributes a little eaiser. The current system is a little harsh, where a player has to choose between a one point attribute increase vs dozens of skill increases.

So far I like the changes thus far. The way magic has been done feels more like the older versions of Runequest, and I'm very happy with the changes to divine magic. As well as the inclusion of Spirit Magic. I'm hesitant over the way Sorcery has been redone. Having magnitude merged into one skill made me happy, it' s a good measure of a Sorcerer's skill. I don't like having Grimoires as seperate skills, the old system of having each spell as it's own skill is a personal prefrence of mine. The rulebook seems very complete with very little tinkering needed, and I'm looking forward to taking it for a Sword & Sorcery test drive this semester.

I'll check out that article, is it in the recent signs and portents? Thank you for the quick clairfication.

I miss it too.

Two Questions on Combat Styles 1) How flexible are these? For example a character with a Sword and Shield style, could they use a Dagger in place of a sword? Or a character with a Mace and Shield, could they use a club in place of a mace? 2) Under the Profession lists a few of them have a weapon skill listed, rather than a Combat Style. The Noble Starts off with Sword at +10%. Does this mean any combat styles with sword listed in them gain this 10% bonus, or was the profession supposed to start off with a Combat Style at +10%?

Old Scottish Chub.

Thank you, I had missed that. I had a few more questions on the book. Perhaps I ought to start a new thread, a MRQ II Q&A.

So going through book, I see the starting number of spells for both common magic and divine magic. However I can't find anything in regards to starting number of Sorcery spells. Anyone have better luck than I on this?

Looks like a chunk of these posts got lost. The book is gorgeous. Still going through the content, but the cover is amazing, the pages are thick and sturdy. The book screams delux.

I've got both Aces High and the Worlds of Cthulhu issues with the Western Rules. I personaly prefer Aces High, it's got more usefull information, and a beastiary full of Indian Folklore. Worlds of Cthulhu does have the Dueling Rules, not sure if Aces has something similar.

How do I sum this up properly.... Well yes the "end times" are scary and all. Destruction on a massive scale, end of civilization and what not. what most people skip over is the pie. Realy good pie, seriously it's the best pie ever, and it's only around for short while. The Apocalypse, come for the burning end of all you know, stay around for the Pie. :thumb:

In terms of the players receiving a beneifit in game when they act in character. Did the Pendragon character trait rolls give bonuses to a characters action? A lustfull character being given a bonus on seduction rolls, while at the same time suffering a penalty to resist them. I'm kind of envisioning this as an add on. Not too unlike the tags or traits from Spirit of the Century. Characters would have one major trait and one to two minor ones. The former would start at 25%, the former at 10%. Each time the player roleplays a situation in game, they can petition the GM to let them use the trait. It would then be added to the relevant rolls for that round. Major traits would be broad and powerfull, like "HardBoiled' or "Behold the Power of Science!". Hardboiled could be added to the Con roll to keep a character concious. Seduce, or give a bonus to seduce a Femme Fatal. Or when the character is at half hitpoints, it gives him a bonus to his attack rolls for the remainder of the fight.

I didn't get too much of a Kill Things and Take their stuff vibe from the rules. Although they do appear strongly steeped in AD&D and Second Addition. I don't really see the book as a complete supplement, it's more of an expansion on the toolkit options from BRP. The game could devolve into a hack slash fest, but that would be rely on the GM and the Players. With the BRP's and by extension CF's reliance on skill use and allegiance for character advancement, killing npcs for eps is much less of an issue.