Gnoman

Thanks for the input everyone, I'd hoped I was just missing something and there was one 'true' by-the-book answer/method between the lines, seems that isn't the case but you've all provided great alternatives and I really appreciate you taking the time to share your wisdom! I reckon I'll go with this method, I did think about the 'ignore the percentages - take the highest value' approach before posting, so considering you heard that from the author that's as good as by-the-book for me, many thanks! (I'm also just glad to find out I'm not the only person to struggle with this!)

Hello! I just bought the new Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Edition hardcover, I really like what I’ve read and I'm eager to run a game in the new year, so I started preparing a quick handout to guide my players through character creation when I noticed what appears (to my novice eyes) to be a contradiction between weapon skills, weapon specialties, and weapon classes that I can’t reconcile. I’ve re-read the sections a few times and I still feel like I’m missing something, and wondered if someone with more experience might be able to clarify, thank you. In short: I’m struggling to understand the way a weapon specialty/class can include weapons with different base chances, which doesn't seem consistent with having a single skill value, e.g. ‘Melee Weapon (Sword) 55%’ when a short sword has a base of 15% and a great sword has a base of 05%. Looking at the Melee Weapon (Various) skill description on page 47, it reads (bold/underlined my emphasis): Base Chance: As per weapon specialty Category: Combat Use this skill to wield a particular type of weapon in hand-to-hand combat, whether attacking or parrying. Specialties: Specialties are equivalent to weapon classes. See Weapon Classes (page 169) of Chapter 8: Equipment. Each specialty applies to weapons from that category of weapon only: but the gamemaster may allow use of a similar weapon class as if Difficult. Then ‘Weapon Classes’ on page 169 reads: The descriptions for the Heavy Weapon, Melee Weapon, and Missile Weapon skills in Chapter Three: Skills refer to weapon specialties and weapon classes. A weapon class is a rough group the weapon belongs to, while the specialty is your character’s skill using weapons in that class. Weapons fall into classes, with skills into specialties. And then under ‘Using Weapons of the Same Class’ on page 170: Use your skill specialty with all weapons of that particular class. This generalization means your character can use most types of similar weapons without hindrance. For example, if your character has the skill Melee Weapon (Sword), this applies to long swords, broadswords, short swords, etc., just as Firearm (Revolver) applies to light, medium, and heavy revolvers. So all of the above suggests (to me) that weapon specialties and classes are the same, ‘Sword’ is both a specialty and a class, so if I put points into ‘Melee Weapon (Sword)’ I will have the same chance to hit with all weapons in the ‘Sword’ class. But if we then under the list of weapon classes, we can see ‘Sword’ includes the following, each with diffent base chances: ‘Bastard sword (10%), broad sword (15%), energy sword (10%), great sword (05%), katana (15%), long sword (15%), monofilament sword (05%), rapier (15%), saber (05%), scimitar (15%), short sword (15%), sickle* (10%), sword cane (15%), vibro-sword (20%), wakizashi (15%).' *sickle is actually classed as an 'improvised' weapon rather than a 'sword' on the historic melee weapons table. So what's confusing me is how the skill’s base chance could be ‘as per weapon specialty’ if various weapons within that specialty have different base chances? If my character puts 50 points into ‘Melee Weapon (Sword)’, what would the total be? If I want Character A to use a great sword I might work it out as Base 05% + 50% = Melee Weapon (Sword) 55% If I want Character B to use a short sword I might work it out as Base 15% + 50% = Melee Weapon (Sword) 65% But if Character A later picks up a short sword, would their Melee Weapon (Sword) would still be 55%? If Character B picks up a great sword, would their Melee Weapon (Sword) still be 65%, even though they’re using the more difficult weapon? I've searched around and haven't found anybody else struggling to understand this, which makes me think I must be missing something - I hope some BRP veterans can clarify for me as I really like the feel of the system overall. I've also noticed the ‘Skill’ column for a lot of listings doesn’t actually align with a weapon class. For example, with the primitive missile weapons: The Boomerang weapon gives its skill as ‘Boomerang,’ but the weapon class list puts the Boomerang under the ‘Missile’ class, does that mean there there should be no ‘Boomerang’ skill? Knife (thrown) gives its skill as ‘Throw Knife’ which isn’t a skill mentioned anywhere in the book, so I guess that should just be ‘Throw’? Similarly most artillery weapons on the various artillery weapons tables give the relevant skill as just ‘Artillery’ rather than one of the Artillery weapon classes (Cannon, Launcher, Mounted Gun, Siege Engine, Missile, Turret). Thanks very much for any help, I'm really looking forward to running my first session!