KPhan2121

Thanks for the answer, I still have some follow up questions I'd like to ask. Would you still need to make a dodge check to attack him? On page 235 of the BGB, it states that the character with the shorter weapon "cannot attack until Dodging successfully". And this goes into the 2nd part of the question, does it count as a Closing action? On page 219 it states that a character that wants to close on a target needs to make a successful Dodge roll if being "kept at bay". And there's two interpretations of the rule with this. With the Close Combat and Closing Spot Rules, it sounds like that a shorter weapon user can make an attack after the longer weapon user makes his first strike. This is because keeping shorter weapon users at bay is an active action that replaces a normal attack and that it must be opposed by a Dodge Check. Now, with the Weapon Length Spot Rule, it states that the shorter weapon user cannot attack the longer weapon user without Dodging successfully first, which sounds like a Closing action since the following paragraph states that the longer weapon user cannot attack once that happens. Which of these interpretations is the correct one?

I have a few questions about Weapon Length and the Closing Rules. To get this straight, when a short weapon user charges at a long weapon user, the long weapon user gets to strike first regardless of the actual DEX rank. That counts as their Action for the combat round right? So what happens if the long weapon user already attacked (against another target) earlier in the combat round, I'm assuming that the long weapon user doesn't get to make that attack and the short weapon user doesn't need to make a dodge check before attacking. That makes sense to me like if this is a situation where a duo of short weapon users could overwhelm a lone long weapon user. If the long weapon user doesn't actively keep a short weapon user at bay, does that mean the short weapon user can just waltz into the close distance of long weapon user after he successfully dodges the long weapon user's first strike? Or is closing a separate action and the short weapon user just moves close enough to attack and retreats back to his original position? Lastly, is the dodge roll for closing an opposed skill check if the long weapon user is actively keeping him at bay?

You know, this has some similarity to the Psychic Powers rules I've made for the Fading Suns to BRP document. The psychic can choose a bunch of psychic paths which are skills that unlock more powerful abilities as you increase your skill rating. Check it out, it might give you some inspiration for some of the disciplines.

Hmm, this makes me think that you could use the Super Powers rules to make the demonic abilities. Like every power point spent towards creation would have the equivalent to the same amount of character points for items. Like if I wanted a demonic sword that had a fire ability, I would use 10 power points to give a sword Heat Projection giving it +1d6 heat damage. It wouldn't be so over powered like in Stormbringer 5e where the equivalent power points would give you a +2d10 bonus to damage and a +100% to hit. And there would be much greater variety in the powers. Imagine a greatsword that could give you HP drain and superspeed on top of the extra damage.

Thanks! I guess I'll just have to get Advance Sorcery then.

I'm preparing to run a fantasy game using the Sorcery rules from the BGB. One of the things that caught my attention are the rules for Summoning Demons and Elementals and binding them to the flesh or specific objects to gain powers, are there any guidelines to the sort of power they would gain? I looked at the Stormbringer 5e rules and found that they have a system for creating the abilities based on how much PP you spend. But the BGB's version of sorcery doesn't have any of that, is it just meant to be completely freeform?

I'm not familiar with MERP, but there is already a Lord of the Rings for BRP document. I never used it myself, but it seems pretty extensive with 172 pages. It says that it's using another LOTR game as a basis for the rules, but it could be helpful for your game. There's also an entire page dedicated to LOTR documents. https://basicroleplaying.org/files/category/47-middle-earth/

In earlier drafts of the game, I had considered using a minimum damage threshold based similar to the original game (and the d20 adaptation). The values were derived from the Fading Suns d20 game. In that game, you would roll damage then make a d20+damage rolled against a DC, it was 17 for melee attacks and 15 for ranged attack. I wanted to avoid too much needless dice rolling so I subtracted 12 from the shield activation DC from the d20 games and came to the minimum damage threshold values of 5 for melee and 3 for ranged. The first problem I ran into was Martial Arts, getting better at dealing damage would increase the chance that the shield would activate and stop the attack. I tried to solve this by making it so that any extra damage would not be counted towards the damage threshold, after all good technique and craftsmanship should not activate the shield. In the end I did not like the solution as it slowed the game down. The attacker would either have to declare which dice is the weapon's damage dice or roll the dices separately. One solution I've considered doing was making it so that Martial Arts lets you bypass the shields, but I thought that it made shields useless. I tried to make the benefit weaker, like every 20% of martial arts raises the minimum damage threshold by 1. Another was allowing the characters to decrease the accuracy of their attack to raise the minimum damage threshold. There were many more that were tried and dropped in favor of the current rules. Another problem was that the original game rolled for it's armor and the d20 adaptation had no damage reduction based off of armor, the BRP rules default to static armor values. However, there is the option to roll for AV, but I think it would slow down the game too much. Imagine having to roll to attack, then rolling defense, then rolling damage, if it exceeds damage threshold, roll shield AV. If the attack goes through the shield, then roll armor. The problem is further compounded if you have to do that for like 15 hits from an assault rifle. In the end, I think that the original Fading Suns system was created for that setting in mind. There are so many rules that only exist because of some facet of the lore. I've tried to introduce many houserules for BRP to accommodate for how it works in Fading Suns, but it was taking too long and the document was over 30 pages at one point. I haven't even touched the occult and space combat rules yet, the end result could easily reached 50 pages. I decided that it was better to have a simple system where characters take a penalty to attack based on the SIZ of their weapon. I think the increasing accuracy penalty captured the spirit of the Fading Suns rules without the complications involved in trying to replicate it. However, if you still prefer to do it like it was in the original Fading Suns game, I've posted a topic where I discussed how to make Fading Suns shields for BRP. It should be enough for you to use for your own game.

Right, made the changes. This is more of confusing rules on my part. The Slip Past Shields would go through an energy shield's AV instead of reducing it to 7. I added a sentence on page 13 "Success on the attack completely bypasses an energy shield's AV." As for the note under the energy shield's stats I changed the sentence to "... weapons or attacks that leak through energy shields." I hope that clears up the confusion. I also italicized all instances of "Leaks through energy shields" as well as all instances of "Energy Weapon(s)" to differentiate them as terms.

Finally got down and fixed up the typos Rhialto pointed out and some others that I found.

Thanks, glad to hear that you liked it! Ah, I spotted the mistake. Luckily its only a minor one, other then forgetting to change the name, the rules are as stated. The two races start with similar skills, but one of the languages is different. Ah, thank you for pointing those out. I'll rewrite those parts as soon as I can. Is it alright if I credit you for some of the changes on the next update? Yes. I have a request to ask you. Since you've played Fading Suns for a long time, can you take a look at the Urge and Hubris rules. Those were the rules where I had the most difficulty in translating Fading Suns to BRP and I ended up using Sanity to represent them. I'd like to hear your opinions on how they function.

I finally finished my document and just uploaded it. If you guys find any issues with the rules or wording of the text, please tell me so I can fix them.

I'm writing up a Fading Suns for BRP document very slowly. I can give you what I have, but its mostly a gear list at this point and the rules havent been solidified yet.

I have an even simplier system. Your energy shield provides two armor values, one high and one low. Most attacks target the high armor value, some attacks target the low armor value.

I've been working on the rules and came up with alot of ways to do shields in Dune. The Fading Suns Method The first way was based on how Fading Suns does the shields, with a minimum damage to activate. In this case it was 5 damage. One of the issues I've found was alot ranged weapons were less likely to activate the shields compared to most melee weapons. One of the solution I did was reduced the ranged damage minimum to 3 and had it so that only the weapon's original damage dice was counted. Any extra damage from specials, martial arts, damage bonus, etc. was not counted towards the damage minimum and added after the shield gets bypassed. This accounts for smaller weapons being more likely to bypass the shield, but it doesn't account for the skill element of shield fighting. My solution for this was be to have a Shield Fighting Martial Art Skill, basically every 10-20 points in the martial art raises the damage minimum of melee and thrown ranged weapons by 1. This is probably one of the more accurate ways to handle shields in Dune (and Fading Suns), but its kinda finicky. When my friends playtested it, they complained that it slowed down the combat a bit. The Attack Sinister Method Another method I though about was using Dex. You can take a -5 to your Initiative to make an "Attack Sinister" that bypasses the shield. But I ran into the problem where the everyone was doing that and it negated the the initiative penalty and made it pointless. It also did not have a skill element and it made it a neccesity to have a high dex character. Combining the two I took the damage minimum fron the Fading Suns Method and made it so every -1 or -2 penalty to initiative increases the damage minimum of melee attacks by 1. This method turned initiative tracking into a nightmare since everyone was taking a different penalty to their initiatives. The Activation Rating Method In this method, the Energy Shields still provided Armor Value, but it had an adjustable activation rating as well. So a shield on low power mode had an activation rating of 50%, you can increase this in 10% increments up to 100% with increased power consumption as well as tiring out your character. The problem was the lack of skill element, constantly remembering to apply a penalty to all actions when increasing the activation rating, etc. The Two AV Method This method is probably the simpliest method to use. The energy shield provides two Armor Values, one high and one low. All attacks are resisted with the high AV. You can target the low AV by using a one-handed melee weapon in conjunction to a Shield Fighting Skill that works like Martial Arts. There are a bunch more ways to handle energy shields that I've come up with but these are the ones that I remember. So far the Fading Suns and Two AV method seem to be the best. The problem is that BRP is a generic system and shouldn't try too hard to emulate every little nuance. It just adds in a lot of fiddly rules like in The Fading Suns method I described. It will lead to madness. You could just shield fighting act as a limiter and the first three points don't need to have rules for them. The penalty on the attack roll is enough to represent them. The fourth point doesn't really need a houserule, it could be treated like a shield bash attack. Give it 1d4+db with Knockback. There's a problem with this method as it makes the shield too weak. A shield should be able to withstand firearms and artillery strikes, 6d6 halved is still too lethal for a shielded character. Having a bonus to Parry is similar to one of the ideas I came up for energy shields. However, I ultimately decided not to use them since you'd have to have this constant modifier in place for all of the characters that use shields. Its an unnecessary complication to the game that doesn't add much to the game or narrative. Having energy shields provide a substantial armor value should be enough to show how powerful they are.

The ways for someone to escape a grapple. If the grappler fails his grapple check at the start of his turn The grappler making a maneuver that forces a resistance check and failing it If the grappler isn't grappling the arms and allows the grappled person to grapple back. I personally just have the characters make opposed grapple checks with whoever rolls lowest or the best level of success It's actually harder to initiate a grapple then you think. Even if the guy initiating succeeds on his grapple check, the defender still has the ability to parry his own grapple skill or dodge. If the defender wins over the attacker, then the grapple fails. If the attacker wins over the defender, then two things can happen: if the defender dodges then the attacker can roll (or choose in my case) where he grapples or if the defender parries then the attacker can only grapple the arms. If the defender is wielding a gun I would grant them the point blank bonus, but I would also allow the attacker to parry using his grapple skill. Remember that they can't use their gun if the arm that's holding the gun is being grappled.

Well that is my original idea that I posted. I had the shield's activation threshold be set at 5, but it only counts the weapon's damage dice without any modifiers to it. So the extra damage from martial arts and the damage bonus as well as specials doesn't count towards the shield's activation. So lets say a dagger rolls 4 for damage, and the character also deals an extra 3 damage from martial arts and another 2 from his damage bonus. The weapon's damage dice are only counted in a shield's activation threshold and it doesn't activate due to the dagger only rolling a 4 for damage, but once he bypass the shield he uses his full damage, 9.

This sounds a lot like the shields and missile fire spot rule, just that it applies to melee attacks too. It could work, but it would require an extra dice roll. Maybe have something like a reverse martial arts skill? Like the attack roll must roll underneath the activation threshold to bypass the shield. The reason why the damage threshold was used was due to a inherent property of the energy shields in the setting. Basically, a dagger could slip pass the shield more easily than a great sword would. The great sword has to overcome the shield through brute force. There would have to be some sort of modifier to the shield's activation check based on how damaging the weapon is. One of the things I can do would have the activation check be how much damage was dealt times 5. I prefer to stay away from the resistance table if I can, it would be very sluggish to have to use the resistance table after every hit.

I trying to make some rules for a Fading Suns game and I'm a bit stumped on the energy shields. I'm thinking of using a modified version of the rule from Fading Suns D20 since it's easier to translate mechanics. In the d20 game, the damage dealt to the shield is used as a modifier to roll against an activation check. The DC for ranged weapons is 15 and 17 for melee weapons. So a guy fires a gun and deals 5 damage. He rolls a d20 and adds the damage, if he rolls 15 and above, the shield activates and grants 15 damage resistance. Weapons that "leak through shields" basically reduce the DR by half. My own take for BRP is to have the Energy Shield give an armor of 15. The shield has a damage threshold of 5 and it only counts the weapon's unmodified damage. So it excludes the damage bonus, extra damage from martial arts, special successes, etc. The extra damage can be added after the hit lands. So a character with a dagger rolls 4 for damage, this goes underneath the shield's damage dice. Once the shield has been bypassed, he can add his damage bonus (d4) as well as the martial arts damage (d4+2). You wouldn't be able to do this with ranged weapons, so a bow's full damage is used to see if it exceeds the damage threshold. Otherwise I'm thinking about a Shield Fighting Martial Art similar to Dune but I think that would be making energy shields too weak since having a high enough shield fighting skill will effectively render them useless, but it'll be simpler to do. They both have their pros and cons so I'm not sure which to use. What do you guys think?

I do a stat block and don't have a detailed skill list. I just have Primary skills that they are expected to have in their profession and secondary for anything else. If they have really high skills, then I add a Tertiary Skills. Here's an example from a game I was running. Imperial Templar STR 15 CON 14 SIZ 15 INT 13 POW 11DEX 13 APP 13 EDU 14Move: 10Hit Points: 15Damage Bonus: +1d4Armor: 10-Point Templar Armor Attacks: E-11 Rifle 45%, 2D8+3 (Impaling) Vibro-Dagger 45%, 2D4+2+1D4 (Impaling) Grenade (Explosive) 45%, 3D8 (Knockback) Skills: Primary Skills 45%, Secondary Skills 30%Powers: None

In this case, it would only allow you to carry more while flying. Like if you're flying while lifting a car to drop or throw. The Sprint power can double your ground speed or be applied to your Super Movement, Flying etc. As for the Core Rulebook, I can't find anything about it. It just says that the Flight can be conbined with Superspeed which is not what you're looking for. Yeah... I think you'd like Unified Powers. It seems to be closer to what you're looking her.

Which "travel" powers are you talking about? You can always take many levels of a power in order to increase it's effects. As for porting something else. I recommend looking at the Unified Powers homebrew, I personally think it makes super powers more interesting while simplifying them. Now, if you are going to port M&M. I'm not too familiar with the system, but I understand that it doesn't have an HP system and it makes it harder for characters to one shot eachother. You'd have to tweak with the dmg and hp model of the game in order to lessen the lethality of the game since you characters could be throwing 10d6 worth of dmg per attack. Or you could just play it straight and have the setting place restrictions on supers killing eachother. Thats what I did and it worked alright for my game. I just tweaked the rules a little. The BRP system is not designed for overly powerful characters and works better for lower powered games.

That sounds like an interesting idea. I think the adjusted damage should be based on the difference of quality rating between the attacking roll and the defending roll. Awesome! I'll take a look at the quick-start rules as soon as I can.

Well, I've noticed with my players is that they don't think about the decision until after they make the roll. Which means they pause the game to look up what the different effects do and how to do them. For them, the tactical choice is made before their turn when the intent is announced first and they don't do that when the intent is announced after. They opt to wait for the results before making any tactical considerations, which slows the game down. They want a "Does this work? Yes or no." instead of a "You have a list of choices you can make after the roll." I think it comes down which person has the responsibility for the rules. The announce intent before approach has them thinking solely on the combat situation with me handling the rules of how it works while the choosing from a list after approach has them being responsible for the rules. I have a player whose pretty mechanically minded and likes dissecting the ruleset, so he's pretty much fine with anything. The other two aren't and don't like it when the rules intrude into the narrative.