p_clapham

How many divine magic spells does a initiate start off knowing? I'm not seeing the rules for that in the MRQ2 book.

I'm putting together a possible fantasy world for this summer.  Still not sure what system I'm going to go with, it might be D&D, Runequest, or Fate even.  I wanted a little input on the project, as I'm currently stuck on the last three worlds.

Here's the synopsis

At one point the world was whole, then 100 years ago it shattered into ten shards, each shard world cut off from the others.  When this happened these worlds were damaged, they each lost a quality or aspect.  Each world also became connected to two different kinds of mana, as the flows of magic warped and changed.  Now, 100 years later the worlds have come together once more, and there are difficulties.  Certain worlds do not play well with others, and some are utterly revolted by their new neighbors.

Here are seven of the ten worlds

Therion, A world without transgression. Blue/White

Therion is a highly sophisticated world, both technologically and magically, it also has some of the most complex laws found throughout the realm. This dates back to prior to the breaking where the ruling council of lawmages desired peace and stability at any cost. The breaking didn't change much, except reduce the amount of lawbreakers to zero. Now that the realms have joined the lawmages are panicking. They've had one hundred years of prosperity, and now the people are beginning to question their rule.

Kush, a world without civilization. Red/Green

Kush is a world full of steaming jungles, jagged mountains, and savage creatures. The people of Kush live in roving warbands, living off the land, never settling in one place. The technology level in Kush is very low, they have yet to discover metalworking. They are a people accustomed to conflict, every day in their world is a battle for survival. Magic is not unknown in Kush, each warlord is advised by one or more druids.

Scyrth, a world without law and order. Black/Blue

Scyrth is a collection of islands inhabited by thieves, pirates, and madmen. Law holds no sway on this world, yet somehow a semblance of civilization hold sway. A strange archaic society exists, under the iron grip of the pirate kings. Fell creatures are said to lurk in the deepest waters, things that are said to have caused the breaking.

Skorge, a world without death. Black/White

Skorge is a vast wasteland, dotted with areas of habitable land. In this world the dead rule the living. People don't die on Skorge, rather they rise as undead creatures upon their death.

Thane, a world without seasons. Blue/Red

Thane is a world locked into a eternal winter. The people of Thane are fierce warriors, and clever artificers living on a series of volcanic islands. The vents are their only source of warmth, and they are guarded jealously.

Solace, a world without conflict. White/Green

Solace is a land of rolling hills, lush forests, and golden fields. The people of Solace are simple, peaceful folk who don't understand the concept of violence.

Rath, a world without peace. Red/White

This world is a giant armed camp, with various warbands competing in deadly clashes. Everyone on Rath is a warrior of some kind.

I've got three worlds left, not sure what direction I want to go with them entirely.  I was hoping for some suggestions.

Black/Red – Uncontrolled Ambition, a world without humility? Restraint?

Black/Green – Some kind of dark forest. World without adults? Inhabitants all children?

Green/Blue – a world without gender?

This campaign idea is inspired by the Magic the Gathering game.  The whole shard world comes from their Alara set, while I used the color identities of the guilds from Ravnica for the shard worlds.  

I think just having Mov equal the average of STR & DEX is good enough on its own.

Later on in Numbers the Hebrews are wandering through the desert dying of thirst. Without god telling him to do so, Moses strikes a rock twice with his staff creating a small spring. God punishes him for this act by banning him from the holy land. So prophets can do things without God's intervention, they'll just get in trouble for it.

"And while Moses didn't have a magic staff, the Pharaohs magi apparently did."

Good point. The Old Testament goes out of its way to contrast the way God acted for the Israelites with how the Gentiles believed the supernatural worked. The Egyptian magicians could turn their walking sticks into snakes, could turn small quantities of water into blood, and could call small numbers of frogs out of the Nile. Moses' staff did cool stuff only when God told him to use it, but his stick-snake ate the magician's staffs, he turned the entire river into blood for days, and he called enough frogs out of the Nile to fill all Egyptian homes and public buildings with amphibians. After that, the Egyptian priests told Pharaoh plainly that they were beaten.

Another example of how biblical miracles are different occurs in 1 Samuel 4-6. Despite what Indiana Jones told us in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Ark of the Covenant was neither a weapon nor a radio for talking to God. The original Hebrew settlers in Canaan understood that the Ark was merely a symbol of their invisible, all-powerful God. But their great-grandchildren thought they had God in a box and took it into one of their first big battles with the Philistines. The Philistines freaked ("A god has come into the enemy camp!") and redoubled their efforts, dealing the Israelis a decisive defeat and seizing the Ark. The Israelis were devastated ("God is a prisoner of war!") while the delighted Philistines hauled their trophy home and set it before the idol of their main deity, Dagon (a shout-out to you Cthulhu fans). Now, here's where the fun began. The Philistines twice found the idol fallen face down before the Ark in Dagon's own temple; the second time the idol actually broke. Then a rodent-borne plague broke out, so the Philistines sent the Ark on tour. Plague broke out in every city the Ark arrived in. Finally, the Philistines put golden mice and golden tumors (symbols of the disease they were suffering) into the Ark as a peace offering to God and decided to send it back to Israel. But they were scientific about it. They loaded the Ark onto a wagon and hitched it to a cow that had just given birth. They figured if the cow returned to its barn and its calf, the plague was just a coincidence. But if the cow wandered into Israeli territory then the disease really was a punishment from God. The cow made a bee-line for Israel, and the Philistines left their wimpy neighbors alone for a while.

I'll have to go over the project with Jan first and see if it meets with her approval.  Even if she doesn't go for it, I might bang it out once the semester is over.  

This could be a lot of fun. Ancient Jewish texts are loaded with spells and magic symbolism. From Moses and Pharaohs magi turning sticks into snakes to Solomon using bound demons to build the great temple. A little research will yield enough to make you smile, Im sure.

Check out "The Key of Solomon" but be careful. While it COULD be inspired by Solomons writings it is not HIS writings.

For the most part I'm sticking to the Bible, which does have some pretty epic stuff in it.  In 2 Kings the prophet Elijah calls down a column of fire onto King Ahaziah and fifty of his men.  2 Kings is full of crazy stuff with Elijah and his disciple Elisha slinging spells left and right.  I'm hazarding a guess here, but "The Key of Solomon" sounds like it might be inspired by the Qur'an.  The Old Testament doesn't attribute any supernatural powers to Solomon, but the Qur'an certainly does.

I'm taking a Bible as literature course this semester.  For the second half of the class I have the option of doing a creative project rather than a second paper.  I'm seriously considering doing a RPG supplement for the world of the Old Testament using the Legend system.  I know this has been done already with the Testament RPG, but this would be a different system.  And I'd be doing my best not to peek at Testament as I'm working on the supplement.  Magic and miracles would be one of the more complicated aspects to the project, but as luck would have it my first paper is on magic in the Old Testament, 

I'm still somewhat surprised that the Corum sorcery rules didn't make it into Advanced Sorcery.

I played a little D&D in elementary school, but my first campaign was run after school by a teacher. Junior high I think.

So for my last article review of the semester I decided to look into any papers supporting the use of roleplaying games in the classroom.  I was able to dig up three of them through googlescholar, and I was less than happy after reading them.  Unlike other articles I've read, they didn't seem overly compelling, and some provided information that may have hurt their case.

Long story short, I wrote a less than enthused review, and suggested teachers ditch rule heavy games like D&D, and instead focus on games that build vocabulary and writing skills.  I really wish there had been a stronger article out there.  I'd write one myself, but I only have experience as a gamer not a educator.

Thanks for the replies!

 

The campaign is going to low magic, getting inspiration from western and central Europe around 11-1200, and perhaps harnmaster (which fits at least my definition of low magic). I´m thinking of letting the campaign at least start as a semi-histroical introduction into manorialism, and perhaps also introducing different PoV, a bit similar to Ars Magica, if I remember that system correctly, but with serfs and lords. Such campaigns tend to get a bit too complex though, so I´m not decided upon that yet. I´ve been thinking of using d20 variants that fit low magic settings better than standard 3.5 and Pathfinder, like adopting the magic system from true sorcery to GoT d20, or simply ruinnig black company d20, but I´d really like to move away from d20.

 

At the same time I don't want to overwhelm the players with too complex rules, my experience is that there are few players less willing to experiment with new systems than long time d20 players I´ll check out classic, but its seems like its a bit to close to d20. Enlightened Sorcery seems interesting, its the sort of magic I´d like to introduce into a low magic setting.

 

I really like your quick fix tooley, have to check up on some of the other BRP magic systems first, and if I don't find anything that suits me, I might run with that.

 

Am I right in thinking that Advanced Sorcery uses rules similar to Magic World, not being skill based etc?

 

I´m really liking how modular BRP seems to be btw, and really looking forward to getting back to playing d100 systems that aren't CoC. Haven't done that since Elric Dark Fantasy RPG from chaosium, which must be 17-18 years ago. 

Advanced Sorcery has a bunch more spells, and three other kinds of magic systems I believe.  Of them, Arete is the coolest.  It isn't quite magic, more like getting a magical bonus from having a really high skill score.

In Legend (just found a copy of MRQ2) Damage Enhancement can be used on spells. Clearly we decided to (rightly) tone it down for RQ6.

It does end up making Wrack extremely powerful, enough to take out a entire hit location.  I'm curious about something, if you don't put any range into a Sorcery spell it turns it into a touch attack?  Wouldn't that allow a sorcerer to use a precise attack to target a specific hit location?

The only other one I know of is using one of the Diminish Characteristic spells with a spell like Palsy or Dominate.

When I have some free time I'm going to go through the Corum sorcery effects and see if I can put together any new sorcery spells for Legend/RQ6.

I was peeking through a sorcery thread on the Mongoose forums and came across someone combining Damage Enhancement and Wrack to toss out Wrack spell for maximum damage.  I had no idea you could use Damage Enhancement on spells!  I'm curious what other killer spell combos are out there for Legend or RQ6?

 

On the Mongoose forum Matt Sprange wrote "...I regret to say there will be no further Elric books forthcoming in the foreseeable future."  So we'll most likely not see it in that form in the future. However, havercake lad, one of the writers working on the book, notes that

"I am sure a good deal of the material I wrote for Talons of Winter will get used in some RPG system. I'm sorry for anyone who kept campaigns on hold waiting for the book, I had sent the draft in over a year ago and it was recieved very positively by its playtesters. I'd urge budding RPFG writers not to be discouraged by projects like this, I gather situations like this happen to far better writers.

Ideally the book is best left as uinchanged (sic) as possible and placed in a Young Kingdoms campaign setting, but if no one goes for the license then I will try to get parts of it published in another RPG setting such as RQ6's The Realm (RQ6) or in Uma (Orbis Terrarum)."

 

So we may yet see some of the setting published in some other supplement.

 

 

It sounds like it would work well under the Xoth setting.  Here's to hoping this product eventually sees the light of day.

You got a source for this?

Honestly I'm not sure where I heard this, but it made sense to me.  If you nailed someone with a mace in the right spot you could damage/ drive their armor into them.  On the other hand a person wearing plate is typically wearing layers of armor aren't they?  If they don't have chainmail underneath at the very least they will have padded armor on.

According to wikipedia, it seems the best weapon combo in a melee between heavily armored knights would have been made of a mace/hammer (or polearm; but were polearms usable in close combat?) and a dagger with a triangular or diamond shaped blade (such as a misericorde, rondel dagger or stiletto) to finish a wounded enemy stabbing them through chainmail or the openings of plate armor.

Blunt weapons were pretty devastating against plate armor.  You could beat a opponent's armor into their flesh, to the point where they would bleed out when the armor was removed. 

I'm thinking about scrapping the chart altogether now and just come up with a couple of effects for each skill.  I'm thinking they would be available on a critical success, and if it were a opposed role it could come up if the opposing roll had a failure or worse.  Here's one I came up with for Persistence.

Indomitable - The character automatically succeeds at all persistent rolls against the opposing character for the remainder of the scene.  The only way the opposing character can beat the Indomitable character's Persistence skill is if he rolls a critical success.

You're certainly welcome to try, but I think it'll be quite a tough job for several reasons, and, perhaps, not really a necessary one. Here's why.

 

1. If you read the skill descriptions (page 57 onwards) you'll see that each has the Critical, Success and Fumble consequences outlined. These tend to generate their own kinds of special effects anyway, so a separate system isn't necessarily that important.

 

2. Special Effects in combat result from differential levels. Non combat skills often don't need a differential comparison (it's just a straight roll, or an opposed roll) - and what I've described in point 1 handles the different success grades very well.

 

​3. Diversity. All the skills are diverse, so you'd need to work out a HUGE list of effects. And the attendant mechanics. Some Special Effects rely on comparing dice results in an opposed roll to see if a particular effect is successful: how would you replicate that if a skill relies on a standard, unopposed, non-differential roll?

 

4. Use the Existing Combat Special Effects and tailor. I do this when running Spirit Combat sometimes, rewording the effect and its consequences to take into account the nature of the contest. You could do this for non-combat contests too. For example, two characters are in a debate using Influence and Willpower. The Influencer scores a critical success and the resister fails the Willpower roll. The Influencer chooses 'Blind' and 'Disarm'. The Blind simulates the Influencer completely dissembling the resister's arguments, and Disarm simulates completely rubbishing the resister's evidence or point of view so that there's no come-back. Not all Special Effects can be used in this way, and some or more useful than others, but there's no reason why you can't port across the SE mechanics for certain situations where effects and consequences would add value.

 

I'm not trying to dissuade you from starting a thread on Special Effects for non-combat skills; I'm simply pointing out that a) it could be a very involved job and you actually already have some of the tools in the Combat chapter and all it takes is a little creativity tailored to the circumstances.

I'll revisit the Special Effects table in the combat chapter.  Now I'm considering rather than having a table of non-combat Special Effects, I may end up creating a couple of special effects tailored to each skill.  That is a little more work intensive, but I think it would be easier that creating a chart that tries to encompass all skills.  There are the descriptions in the various skills for such circumstances, but I'd like to have some mechanical effects in place that can be used as a guideline for other effects.

Yeah, the BOND RPG was one of the few where that held true. Probably because in the books, Bond prefers a .25 caliber Beretta, -which is just about the weakest firearm available. So in the RPG the Beretta in Bond's hands is usually deadlier that a .44 magnum  is in the hands of a novice. Not only will Bond hit more often, but he is going to have much better shot placement. It would be pretty neat to port over the idea to BRP. 

This could be handled pretty simply using the rules suggestions from the Pathfinder thread.  Characters could sacrifice 5% of their chance to hit, in order to increase their base damage by +1.  So Bond shooting with a pistol that does 1D8 damage, uses 20% or his skill for damage, his pistol will end up doing 5-8 points of damage per hit.

D&D also holds a strange fascination with rpg gamers, even if you never play it. I guess its still the biggest bad boy on the block.

 

But from a rules mechanics point of view, BRP and RQ are still so much better from how I see it.

 

Playing class/level based rpgs are akin to playing an online MMO except with dice. I tend to find that you often play a class instead of a character. The rise in more narrative-focused tabletop rpg games from the mid 90s onwards has been great in shifting the hobby back to ROLE playing ( as in a Character role), although sometimes at the cost of poor game mechanics.

 

Hence why I love the BRP family of games. They have great simulationist mechanics which typically blend into the background, and allow for storytelling to take centre stage.

 

Despite such, there are still times when you just want to be that Level 6 Fighter who loots every nonsensical dungeon he finds. This is why MMOs work well, and they really are the true inheritors of D&D and other class/level based rpgs

That MMO feeling was really strong in 4E.  I didn't mind it too terribly, that edition had more upsides than downsides for me.  I was sad that they discontinued the D&D mini line prior to 4th edition.  I loved those prepainted plastic figures, so cheap and so useful.

I'm working on some generic skill maneuvers for the table, real basic stuff for right now.  I'd love some suggestions!

Well, I really love lethal combat, makes it alot more tense for my players. A solution would probably be to use Heroic HP values or limit the amount of bonus damage to maybe +5/+10 damage?

If you want to limit the amount of bonus damage I'd suggest you go the route Elric!/ Magic World goes with their weapon enhancing spells.  Rather than having the power attack damage stack onto the weapons and db damage, it instead adds to the weapon damage but no more than the damage die of the weapon.  So for example if someone were doing a 20% power attack with a sword that does 1D8 damage, the sword would do between 5-8 damage per hit.  I think that's a decent way of introducing a cap on damage, and still making it lethal. 

It's interesting, fairly simple... I think it could work. It would make for some deadly fights, but that seems to be your intention.

A few weeks ago, I had a dilemna about low damage-dealing weapons vs high armor and people offered alot of really good suggestions(most of which can be found in the rules btw). However alot of it went against my creed of simplier and faster. I really wanted to have it where every turn, some dynamic of combat changed, did not like the situation of hitting the same thing and not scoring some damage for alot of turns. So I asked my question to my players, after some dicussion we've thought to add power attack and deadly aim from Pathfinder. The idea is that any attack can sacrifice accuracy for damage, every 5% of accuracy can be sacrificed to add 1 extra point of damage. This allows combat to flow pretty quickly, while keeping the advantages of wearing plate mail since you have to stack more damage to reliably penetrate it.

What do you guys think of it?

I'm trying to come up with a decent way of organizing all of this. How about we roll offensive and unopposed skills into the ACTIVE skills catagory, and defensive skills into the REFLEXIVE skills category. It's simplifying things a bit, but it will let us copy the combat matrix and maneuver system more easily. I think that version works a bit better with your parry example.