Moonowl67

Hey Silent Bob, I actually do have Classic Fantasy and use it for the PCs and some of the magic (along with Magic World and my customized Deep Magic Rebuilt) that flies around the World of Rel'Pek. It's an excellent addition to the BRP family; it would have been nice to see Classic Fantasy, Vol. 2.

So, a little history here: my BRP campaign started as a side games running alongside a paragon-level DnD 4E campaign and when that campaign wrapped up and I decided to try BRP as the main Campaign. While 4e had it's much discussed flaws, one of the things I (and my group as well) found that 4e did very well was to create a fairly simple an action system. We found the Action, Move-Action, and Minor Action to trio to be almost as intuitive as the D100 Skill system. So, after much email discussion (which led to an enlightening tangent email-chain on game design, but that is another story), my group and I have decided to take the best of the DnD action system and incorporate it into BRP, using the Index-Card method noted above. Here's what the final system looks like: Turns: Combatants chose one the following on their turn, in addition to a Minor Action on their turn. 1) Full Attack (Multi Attack). 2) ½ Mov and a single Action (use a power or attack). ½ MOVs can be sacrificed to pick-up an additional minor action (for a round in which they get an Attack Action and two minor actions) 3) Full MOV. Impaling melee weapons and Brawling/Grappling may attack, but the attacker’s movement ends with the attack (usually… ). All combatants also a have Minor Action on their turn; examples of which are: 1) Draw a weapon 2) Retrieve a potion (assuming it’s in an easy to reach location). 3) Drink a potion 4) Open an unlocked, unbarred door or window 5) Retrieving the correct runed-stone from your pouch to throw through the window (ahem . . .) 6) Aim a ranged weapon to gain +10% to attack (can be used twice if you don’t move). Engaging/Disengaging rules still apply and occur on the attackers/aggressor’s. Riposte’s are still allowed. Initiative: Roll D10 + either INT or DEX (according to the nature of the action). Higher Characteristic wins ties in Initiative Ranks. (Mark Cards with rank, arrange in descending order) Each combatant takes their turn: Engage/Disengage; up to half MOV and attack, or full (no attack action). If attackers use multiple attacks, then they sacrifice the MOV for a full attack action. Those that hold action/cast long spells are put aside until they act. . . When they act, note the new Initiative Rank on the card. Those that act are flipped over End of round: apply any effects noted on the end of round card. Re-order cards by Initiative rank. Our first test of the system is on this coming Wednesday (8/27/2014) - I'll let you know how it works out!

I like the index cards ... I've heard of that, but never had it explained so well... and one of the players actually requested trying a random initiative order.

It's a simple question; I'm just curious to see how different people have employed initiative/combat order in their BRP-related games. I have a magnetic white-board (black, actually) with vertical slots labeled 0 to 26, some magnetic strips attached to hanging file-label holders. I jot down a combatant's name or description and their INT and DEX on a strip and insert the strip into the label holder. Intentions are declared, I jot down a quick note and move the combatants accordingly on the white-board. I then use a small stack of magnets down, from the highest actor, to the next, and so on so show who's turn it is to act. In my game, I decided to make Powers and Actions happen in the same segment, to bring some heat on the spell casters. i should mention that we also use minis, mostly from our 4E game, and have a fun time converting meters to the 5' grid. Overall, it's a system that works pretty well - last week, we had a gun-fight on a train; a fairly major combat that still took a couple of hours to run (including orcs tossing rune covered stones through windows like grenades - the discovered it was an assassination attempt disguised as a robbery). I'm afraid that, in the interest of 'running rules correctly and consistently' we may be unnecessarily slowing the action down. I blame coming off of years of running the very rules-layered 4E. Nobody complained, and they seemed to have fun with it. What do you do to keep things moving, and how does your initiative system support that end?

One of my players also suggested this: Add a check-mark for EACH success in a skill check, and that shows how many rolls you get to make at the end of the night. BUT there's only one success allowed per night (two on a Saturday). So at least you get more rolls if you make multiple successes. To Which I've added: To increase a characteristic, sacrifice a number of check-marks (chances to increase) equal to the value of the characteristic being increased. These check-marks must be sacrificed before you check to see if a skill advances. You must use check-marks from skills that fall under the characteristic being increased, except POW. With POW, you can use check-marks from any skill (represents personal power). Under this system, you'd have to be able to save up the check-marks. We haven't tested this system yet . . . or my elaborate (just over a page) write up posted on this site.

Basic Gamemaster contains rules for hiring spellcasters to cast a spell on your behalf. A single source for relative prices would be handy, though . . . I have a player who wanted his PC to craft his own high-quality musket, and had to ab-lib on the cost of materials.

This is an old topic, but one that came up in my relatively new BRP game . . . so I took a crack at creating yet another set of alternate rules for advancing characters in BRP . . . uploaded them right here:

I'm thinking that if you really want that army of undead, you can ab-lib that with some form of magical focus like an artifact gifted by or dedicated to an evil power, or perhaps the location of a singularly evil historic event, then the POW sacrifice that transforms corpses to create zombies or skeletons in POWX10 feet or meters. Or you could change the rule to an area-of-effect. To preserve game balance, and avoid a TPK, make sure the good guys have a small army available to them, as well!