Tywyll

One of the things that bothered me about the BRP system, especially coming from playing d&d for years, was the relative lack of significance to attributes (this was because I was mostly playing CoC which lacks attribute category bonuses). This was especially true for strength based damage.

I guess I didn't feel the system was 'grainy' enough.

But then I came across the flat bonus from RQ4, and that seems to solve the problem. Has anyone used that? What are the feelings about it versus the bonus die method?

Just borrowed a copy of Gurps magic from a friend and it seems incredibly easy to adapt to BRP. They use power points which translates directly to mp. Each spell is a skill, but I guess you could use school skills as well. They use a kind of curriculum approach, the mage have to know the prerequisite spells before being able to learn a spell. For example fireball requires that the mage knows create fire and shape fire.

I know this might not be everyone's cup-of-tea but some people might find it a useful alternative to the existing RQ (III) systems and the "new" BRP systems. An added bonus is that the book is available as a PDF, from which one can copy and paste as much as one pleases... I'm seriously considering adding this to my collection.

There's a fan created list of all spells, with just the basic data at: GURPS Resources

If you end up writing up any specific rules for this, I'd be interested in viewing them.

I look forward to seeing more details on both those proposed systems, when you are all ready to share!

BRP has spell resistance using both permanent POW and temporary Power Points, depending on particular spell, magic system, etc. It's pretty flexible. There are even instances of spells using other characteristics - INT, STR, and CON spring to mind - for resistance rolls.

Additionally, you can temporarily (for about 24 hours or so) increase your PP (what RQ3 called MP) above your POW score, up to double normal. This does give you the ability to punch through "normal" levels of spell resistance very effectively for certain spells, and reduces the mechanical dependence on things like POW crystals, which IMHO is a good thing.

Also, the "Magic" system (as opposed to "Sorcery", etc) provides rules for Wizard's Staves, which are effectively POW crystals built directly into the rule system - they store POW points equal to the Wizard's POW at the time of creating the Staff. Again, this allows spell casting without reducing PP (although it doesn't effectively increase your PP score for spell resistance rolls).

Finally, one key difference is that POW and INT no longer have species' maximums for human characters. This puts another level of strategic variation into magic use and conflicts - you really don't know how much POW that sorceror guy *might* have!

All in all, the BRP magic powering and resistance rules are pretty modular, and very flexible. They allow you to create different types of spell-casters, which should actually be quite cool in play - you won't necessarily be able to say "hey, I'm a POW 18 Rune Priest with 100 points of stored PP, I can wipe the floor with this other spellcasting guy". Takes some of the predictability out of spellcaster vs spellcaster.

Cheers,

Sarah

Hey, thanks for the details. That's good to know.

Now, if the book would just get here soon...

I'm still probably going to go with stat vs stat, though, if stat has no limits... humm, I'll have to think that through.

I like the idea that you get less effective the more MPs you use. It makes powerful NPCs defeatable and makes you careful with your MPs.

In any case, as soon as you have some POW Storage Crystals/MP Storage Enchantments or similar items the question becomes moot.

I think that last sentence kind of spells out my issue with handling it that way.

MP vs MP works if you accept a world in which POW storage crystals/spirits/etc or outside sources of mana are fairly common (at least as magic items go). If you don't want such items to be common, then the idea becomes wonky I'd think.

Personally, I'd rather see mechanics that allow the caster to increase their personal MP's beyond POW (if you need to Cap Pow, otherwise just let it increase) so that a powerful mage is powerful even when his toys are removed.

Then, I've usually run campaigns in worlds were magic items were fairly rare and significant, rather than one with the core RQ and D&D assumptions I think. Just a taste thing, but I'd like to see the mechanics allow for that stylistic choice.

I am quite fond of the promise of Nephilim, less so about the game that was released.

There's some recent discussion about it on rpg.net, and I believe it comes up on gamingtavern.eu from time to time.

The magic system from the core book was woefully wrongheaded in that it attempted to be a representation of Western magic. It was replaced by the system presented in the supplment Liber Ka.

If you want an alternate magic system to the two presented in BRP, it would work (with a little finessing), but if you're looking for something approximating what people think of as "real world" magic, stick to Liber Ka.

I would absolutely love to see a new English-language edition of the game that rethought the origin of the Nephilim, redid their relationship to their human hosts, and emphasized the "modern incarnations of mythological beings" aspect rather than trying to glom a Western occult conspiracy game around them.

The success of the entire White Wolf line demonstrates that there's a market for a game featuring semi-human immensely powerful beings living in secret amongst humanity engaging in a secret war with one another and other forces.

Oh, I totally agree that the promise of that genre exists. I'd love to see BRP do something in that field, with player's portraying supernaturals in the modern world.

What changes happened in the Liber Ka book?

My biggest disappointment with Nephilim was that it didn't actually give you enough to run a campaign in the rule book (always a bad idea, I think). I understand that the Gamemaster's Guide really fixed a lot of that, but still...

I agree absolutely. A newbie with a MP matrix used to be more effective with attack spells than an experienced caster relying solely on his soul. <unpopular-comment>One of the improvements of MRQ over old-school BRP is that the contest to overcome the target resistance is skill-based, not characteristic based.</unpopular-comment> Let us see how this evolves in the various variants of the new BRP.

I don't know why you couldn't just use straight POW vs POW, to avoid this problem? It didn't seem to be a problem when we played that way (though, to be fair, we weren't playing Fantasy or magic heavy settings, so I don't know).

It can change things up dramatically. Especially if you are in a mixed physical/spiritual combat.

The way this was always explained to me is that it was a built in spiritual/mental fatigue. The more of your own MP you use, the more fatigued you become, the less you are able to focus enough to overcome your opponent.

One of the major reasons MP matrices were so popular, even for low powered casting.

SDLeary

I can get the whole idea of the mage weakening... but I guess my reticence to use that as written is simply I would prefer not to make casters entirely 'stuff' based... needing magic items to bolster them and be effective. This is, I suppose, a reaction to long play of d&d where characters tended to look like christmas trees at high levels and breaking any since of realism.

Hey,

I was thinking of an old BRP game I had, Nephilim, a Chaosium rewrite of a French (I believe) game. I played it a few times, but that was years ago.

Does anyone remember it? Any thoughts or comments on its magic system? Was it any good? Worth yoinking for use in BRP?

Having done all this rereading of old rules sets in preparation for BRP, I realize that my group from back in the day was playing the system (in some aspects) incorrectly.

I've noticed that in RQ at least, Resistance struggles involving magic are MP vs MP rather than Pow vs Pow (which was how we did it in all the other BRP style games we've played, specifically in CoC sorcery).

Now that always seemed to work fine for us. However, I'm wondering how it would have worked if we'd been doing it 'right'.

Doesn't MP vs MP lead to spell casters being unable to affect targets as they run out of juice? Even dumb brutes eventually have the edge on the caster, especially if they've buffed any of their friends. That just doesn't seem particularly fair to the caster who already has such a limited resource pool for spell casting.

Is it a problem? Am I overlooking something?

Hey Peterb

I just read your system and it sounds really interesting. It might even be a fit for what I'm looking for (converting a world that was in d&d to brp).

Couple of questions that I think I missed in the read:

1) What is the base cost of a spell in FP? Is it only 1 regardless of the spell level?

2) What is the casting time of a spell?

Cheers!

What rules for training does BRP0 use? Can you train a skill or attribute in downtime?

Related question: BRP MA skill gives double damage dice when attacking (like an impale), but shouldn't there also be some sort of benefit when parrying?

See, that's why we need a Martial Arts supplement...

Seriously though, yes, I think there should be MA advantages to:

Parry

Dodge

Grappling

Escape

Recovering from Knockdown

Resisting Knockdown

Disarming

et al.

All depending on the MA studied of course.

There is a book called "Vampires: Burial and Death" which explores vampires legends and relates them to how a real human body decomposes. While its interesting (especially where it relates how "staking" started), its disappointing to learn how silly early vampire legends were and little the real vampire stories relate to modern vampire. The author talks a bit about Bram Stoker and speculates on why he changed various things.

Because of that book, all my vampire knowledge is pretty jumbled up and its hard to remember where I first heard of various bits of vampire lore.

Aaron

You are totally right, the original vampire is /nothing/ like the modern one. They are more like ghosts or zombies, haunting their former loved ones and all that, which from a roleplaying perspective, is kind of lame.

However, I like your vampire gangster idea, it definitely has some merit.

There are a couple of vampire related powers that seem to have been forgotten in recent movies. They might be usable to change the feel of a vampire-centric campaign.

These could work for some vampires mythos, but definitely not all and in general, I wouldn't be real thrilled about some of them (and I don't agree with the last one).

1-Vampires are utterly powerless during the day. And they need to sleep on dirt from where they were buried. Those old vampire movies have vampires lying helpless in their coffins during the day; Van Helsing even uses holy water to ruin Dracula's resting place, forcing him to return to his castle before dawn (no idea on what would happen to him if he didn't make it).

If you are going strictly Dracula, this isn't true. Dracula moved about during the day and in sunlight. Van Helsing states that:

"He can do all these things, yet he is not free. Nay, he is even more prisoner than the slave of the galley, than the madman in his cell. He cannot go where he lists, he who is not of nature has yet to obey some of nature's laws, why we know not. He may not enter anywhere at the first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to come, though afterwards he can come as he please. His power ceases, as does that of all evil things, at the coming of the day.

"Only at certain times can he have limited freedom. If he be not at the place whither he is bound, he can only change himself at noon or at exact sunrise or sunset. These things we are told, and in this record of ours we have proof by inference. Thus, whereas he can do as he will within his limit, when he have his earth-home,his coffin-home, his hellhome, the place unhallowed, as we saw when he went to the grave of the suicide at Whitby, still at other time he can only change when the time come."

So, coffins and unhallowed places work for him, otherwise he's locked in whatever form he's taken when he last slept (and it might be inferred that he grows weaker without those places, though its not specifically stated).

2-Vampires are slaves of the vampire that turned them. This essentially gives the GM a way to prevent the PC vampires from getting too far away from his campaign intentions. Maybe by using a VAM vs VAM resistance roll.

This is inferred, perhaps, but not necessarily set in stone. I think as a rping game, the more free-will PCs have, the better. However, I do like the idea of the Vam vs Vam resistance roll, so a vampire can shrug off commands from their maker.

3-Killing a Vamp also destroys all vamp he turned. This was always the reason Van Helsing was so into killing Drac as he was the projenitor (sp) of all other vamps. This is another way to force PC vamps to help their NPC creator. It also prevents them from wandering off too much as they need to keep an eye out for their boss. Also, different "nests" of vampires will have its own boss vampire who will, in turn, be loyal to some other vampire whose identity will be a secret to most of the hive to keep enemies from moving up the food chain. Of course, you might want to change the rules a bit to keep all the PCs from just dieing at once. I like the idea that if a Vamp kills his master (pretty tough considering rule #2) then that vamp takes the place of his old master. This is a good way to explain why a Vamp doesn't turn hundreds of people since each one is a potential threat.

I've never seen this anywhere. Dracula is not the progenitor of all vampires, merely one of the greatest. Also, Mina doesn't die when dracula does, and in fact she is only cured because she hasn't fully turned yet.

The other problem with this is the idea of spontaneous combustion of vampires because some unknown ancient gets accidentially unearthed somewhere, which I don't think is necessarily good. The only myth where I have seen this is in Anne Rice, and the only vampires it worked for was the very first vampire, as the 'spirit' of all vampires was connected to her... but they even got around that problem with some work.

One way I can see to run a vamp game would be as if it were a gangster game. Each gang is a group of vampires whose boss is loyal to some other more powerful but unknown vampire. The gangs are fighting other gang who are loyal to yet another vampires. But, all of the gangs are eventually loyal to Dracula who trying to keep all these cold-blooded killers under control and working on some evil master plan. Meanwhile the PCs are working for their gang while secretly plotting to kill their way up the Vampire food chain, eventually killing Dracula himself and taking over the whole show.

Yeah Tywyll, you're looking for the Magic/Wizardry rules which were taken from Magic World from the Worlds of Wonder boxed set.

Sorcery remains much like it was in Elric!

Actually, I was hoping it might have to viable (in an offensive sense) systems of magic.

See, I'm thinking of my own campaign setting which has three types of magic. Innate (Sorcery in my terms, limited in purview, like a Fire Sorcerer, or Life Sorcerer), Learned (Wizardry...more generalist, can learn all different kinds of spells, but the spells are fixed) and Divine.

For Divine, I'll probably use RQ style magic.

I'm trying to figure out which to do for the other two. The Magic rules /might/ work for Innate, but I think that RQ sorcery with its Manipulations might more fit the bill. One idea I had was to modify 'Spirit Magic' from RQ3/MRQ to be Learned Magic, since the spells are already set and don't really change except intensity, and even that is fixed once you learn it.

I don't know, how much can you manipulate spells in the new Magic rules? The WoW that I recall they just got more powerful, but I don't recall being able to affect more targets or make them last longer (though I could be wrong on that).

Hey,

In the new BRP, in the Sorcery system, how much is there in the way of direct damage, offensive magic? I know in Elric!, offensive magic was typically limited to 'debuff' style effects rather than something that could hurt or kill outright. Does BRP keep this distinction?

Cheers

My bad

I forgot to tell what is my favourite verion.

It would be Sandy's sorcery, then RQIII then MRQ

Cheers

Jean

Thank you very much!

Would you mind sharing why they are your favorites? What is it about Sandy's that works so well for you?

What is meant by an 'Art' in his style of magic and what leads to you getting one?

Are there 'direct' offensive spells (those that cause damage)?

Do you have any experience with RQ4 Sorcery?

Cheers!

Hmmm...

Back on topic.

Has anyone considered / tried using the HQ mechanic for skills over 100%?

Each 100 gives you a mastery which can be used to bump up success levels.

So some one with say 150% attack, coulld roll a 43 and the result is upgraded from a normal success to a special success.

Any thoughts / comments.

Honestly, I think that would be too powerful, unless there was some way to block it/reduce it.

What about Pathfinder? Looks like the survivors are already downloading the free version alpha of their "life preserver."

I think it will take more than a great system to make a dent into this market. Paizo is gearing up for a major turf war with WotC. To that end they are publishing 2 or 3 items a month. And they look slick. Good original art, smooth layout, etc. They are starting their own version of the RPGA, they have events scheduled at Gencon...And even they have an uphill struggle ahead of them. That is the level of effort that will be required.

I love BRP better. I just wish it it had the resources and marketting savvy worthy of the product.

Not to mention Green Ronin's True D20, Mutants and Masterminds, et al. If the GSL doesn't change, its unlikely they will kill those lines (at least right now) to join the 4th Ed bandwagon.

I do think that MRQ will grab more players than BRP, just on the basis of greater market saturation. How Chaosium could combat that, I don't know, short of pumping out tons of new material to support BRP (which, from a finanacial stand point, is the best way for a company to stay afloat)

Mongoose Sorcery: it is by far the best incarnation of RuneQuest Malkioni Magic, if you accept the fact that a half dozen spells are totally botched and need total rewriting. A wizard reacts faster than a theist magician, and once he reaches a good skill with magic he can cast devastating spells at a cost of one or two Power Points, plus cantrips for zero Power Points. This is the first BRP magic system that allows you to have a powerful magician that does not rely on external Power Point sources. This is The Way it was Meant to Be.

(waits for the people with the tar and feathers)

Actually, from what I'd read, it definitely appeared to be the simplest of the systems (and in many ways, the most playable).

My concerns with it are the following:

1) As mentioned, I think many spells need to be tweaked so as to prevent abuse.

2) Improvement. The system works in MRQ where you decide which skills go up, but since you activate several skills in a single role, how do you decide to handle improvement rolls in a "use=skill check" system? I was thinking that each time you used meta-magic skills while casting, you'd only get a single check and it could go to any one of the skills involved.

3) Power. I definitely agree that its finally a potent magic. Is it too potent though? Any Sorcerer can through out an Intensity 5 or 6 spell for a single MP, while spirit and even divine mages are struggling. Is this not imbalanced too much? I mean, I guess since I'm not using Glorantha I could ditch Spirit magic full stop, but I'd probably use Divine magic for Priests and I guess Sorcery for Arcane.

Any thoughts or experiences would be appreciated.

Cheers!

On the contrary, I remembered. I mentioned "cantrips at zero PP", and that is one of the improvements in the magic system. Treat wounds is one of the spells that need reworking, because repeated castings have a cumulative effect. Together with Shapechange, Fly and others. But this is the first time we have a Malkioni Magic system that does not make you feel "Sheesh, we should rework it from scratch!"

Is there a list or errata anywhere that has the spells that need fixing?

I read some complaints on the Mongoose board, especially about the Heal spell, but they mentioned a few others. Anywhere where that's been put together in one place?

I'd think the easiest fix for Heal would be to say that its not cumulative... a wound can only be healed by magic once, so do you want it to be a Heal 12 or a Heal 1? After that, you are left with time and first aid.

Not really.

Well, actually you gave me a pretty good run down right there.

I've read and understand MRQ pretty well. The stuff in Sandy Petersen's stuff seems interesting, but perhaps more complicated than its worth. I've not had a chance to read through RQ4 in detail, and I was always underwhelmed by RQ3's Sorcery.

thank, I have.

So, can you shed any lights on the differences and benefits of the various systems?

Sorry, I only use the RQ2 version...

There is a sorcery version that predates Avalon Hill's? Where is that one?