Mugen

It's more complex than that. Basically, in Japanese Chinese characters can have one (or more) "native Japanese" pronunciation, and/or one (or more) "Chinese" pronunciation(s). For instance, the character 山, mountain, can either be read "yama" or "san". "Yama" was the word for mountains in old Japanese, and "san" is how the character was read in some part of China, altered by time and adapted to the Japanese phonetic system. Then, there are also two syllabic and purely phonetic characters, which are used for grammatical use (because Japanese is very different from Chinese and needs it) and to write foreign words. It's possible to write using only one of those syllabic systems, but it looks childish, and confusing because of the huge number of homophones (for instance, 三, three, can also be read "san"...).

Korean is. Or, at least, it is meant to be. In practice, you often see chinese characters used even in modern korean. But they're very scarcely used. It's nothing like Japanese, which requires you to learn thousands of characters, and to pronounce them differently depending on context... I remember Bushido treated all 3 writing systems used in Japanese as distinct skills. Which is funny, given how quickly the 2 phonetic systems are learned (and have only 2 very specific exceptions) when compared to the chinese one... Not counting the fact it was based on modern day Japanese...

And she even has a distinct "M" (for Maria Grace) on the helmet and collar of her pilot suit. Thinking about it, I think the only name that was directly taken from the original work was "Ranch du Bouleau Blanc", a straight translation of Shirakaba ranch. Edit : They even changed Mazinger Z's "Boss"'s name into Bélier in the 2 episodes he appears... 🤔

Do you imply that a weapon parrying a non-critical and non-special attack should suffer damage equal to the difference between damage and its current AP total ? My understanding is that it should only lose 1 AP in this case, like in RQ3.

Maybe the intent of the writer was to say that, after defeating a disease spirit, one will be allowed to have a POW experience roll. But this is not an exception to the rule, so why mention it at all ? And the details given differ significantly from the rule anyway...

As for myself, I was satisfied with non-errata RQ3, as in my idea 1 hand-fighting was a non-professional fighting style, and it promotted using two handed weapons, two weapons or one weapon + a shield, which IMHO is consistent with a game centered on European pre-industrial worlds.

Well, having 20 Hit Points instead of 10 will make your life longer. Even though in RQ you're likely to lose one limb or two before dying...

Yes, in RuneQuest POW has a special status when compared to other BRP games, as it is both a characteristic and a pool of "super magic points" used to fuel enchants, gain Runic magic and limit one's ability to store Magic Points.

Well, France had both the Mazinger Z Infinity movie AND the italian Jeeg Robot. But they were targetted for very small audiences.

Does that mean a Lunar that learned Bladsharp 3 from his cult spirits can't learn Bladesharp 4 from a spirit summoned by a Shaman ?

That would also make fighting with a shield much more effective than it is now, actually. Say I have 120% with my main hand sword and 90% with my shield, I'd be happy to parry with my shield if I split my skill with my main hand into a number between 50 and 70... But it also means my parry chance will depend on how I split my skill. If I chose 70 and 50, which one am I going to use ? 70 or 50 ? Also, is there a declaration phase before resolution phase in RQG ? If not, it means I'll have to decide if I split my attack when I'm attacked if my opponent has a lower SR. Anyway, attacking with your off-hand weapon is a better option than splitting, if you have enough SR to do it. Even with no proper off-hand skill, you'll attack first with full skill and one with half.

Go Nagai is one of the most influencial manga authors from the 70s, and he defined the Super Robot genre with Mazinger Z. There were big robots in Manga before him, but he was the first with a pilot inside the robot, shouting the robot's attacks. He created other succesfull robots, but also the very popular Harenchi Gakuen (the impudent school) and Devilman or the ultra-violent Violence Jack. The only other Nagai's work that had little popularity in France was Bomber X, a SF series with marionette animation and a super robot. Mazinger Z and Cutey Honey ("Chérie Miel"....) were translated in the late 80, but without much audience...

You're certainly right concerning super robot fans, but it will not appeal to the "nostalgia market", especially in France where the only known super robot is Grendizer/Goldrake/Goldorak. Anyway, that means the only possible title for french nostalgia market was "Goldorak RPG", which your game is definitely not...

In France, CoC is so synonymous with BRP that many people think they share the same problems, such as the fact characteristics have very little impact on the game.

That's a tricky question to answer. First because there were not just one "Langue d'Oil" and one "Langue d'Oc", even in the middle ages. And you can see it in english : the word "cat" comes from a dialect from Normandy. The french word "chat" it is still spelled "ka" nowadays there, whereas in Paris and the rest of France it is spelled "sha". And both Normandy and Paris are in the "Langue d'Oil" area. Second because there is no written trace of the languages that were spoken in the 6th century. The first time a "french" text is written is in 842, in the oaths of Strasbourg, which consists in 3 texts, one in Latin, one in "proto-french", and one in "proto-german". And the "french" language used in this treaty is very different from any medieval french language, and closer to vulgar Latin.

Sorry for the post above. I wanted to tag fmitchell, and for some reason I was not able to type any text after that... fmitchell made the suggestion that you could use a sci-fi or "mad science" rules from another game and adapt it to BRP. If you read french, you could take a look at Hawkmoon french editions, as both have such rules. As far as i know, they didn't exist in the US edition. First edition proposes a very complete set of rules to create almost every thing using a set of Knowledge skills. The rules are also somewhat cumbersome, and have a tendency to impose high maluses on skills, making projects very hard to succeed. Second edition, based on Elric!, treats science more like a series of spells that you learn individually. Though I prefer 1st edition rules, those are far more easy to handle.

@fmitchell

No, it was a sorcerer using the sorcery spell Enhance INT multiple times, each time with a higher Intensity.

Fair enough. Splitting may be an interesting option when you're at 100% and slightly above (and you consider a failed attack is the same as a parried one, but let's keep it simple). But the higher your skill will be and the more attacking just once will be interesting when compared to splitting. In a scenario where your opponent has 80% skill, 120% seems the turning point to me. If you don't split, you'll attack once at 95%, and there's 40% he won't block a successful attack. That gives you .38 successful attacks on average in a round. If you split, you'll certainly want to concentrate on your sscond attack, as it's the one with the less chance to be parried. That will give you 50% versus 80% on first attack, and 70% versus 60% on second attack, for a total of .5x.2 +.7x.4 =.38 attack per round on average. But you'll also have to consider that you'll have 62% chance that all attacks are missing or parried in a round if you don't split, versus 65,2% if you do. Of course, opponent's skill also has an impact, and the lower your opponent's skill, the higher the turning point will be.

Sure, but if you miss your attacks (or those are parried), you won't kill your opponents quicker.

Even in this situation, splitting attacks sounds like a bargain to me, and I'd rather try to kill opponents with one almost guaranteed unparried attack per round rather than hope for two succesfull attacks.

To be honest, with the current multiple parries rule coupled with the rule for skills above 100%, it's difficult for me to see a situation where splitting attacks is not a bad idea nonetheless. See the example given at the beginning of the thread of a character with skill 185%, splitting his skill into 134 and 51%. It's possible that he hits twice, but the chance that both attacks either fail or are parried is higher than if he just rolled under 95% and applied the -85% to the defender. Even with the increased critical chances, I would personally not do it.

It seems to me someone on this forum showed that you could go up to INT 28 by casting Enhance INT multiple times, so that each spell was more powerful than the previous one, and with a reasonable duration. I don't remember the details, and obviously you had to have a good INT stat to start with.

So, skill checks aren't really opposed to another skill check anymore, but characters with a skill superior to yours will reduce your effective skill by 20 or 50%. Do I understand it correctly ? If so, deciding who makes the roll will be very important: if we both have 75% in our skill, I'll have 75% chance to succeed if I roll, and only 25% if you roll. I must say I prefer opposition rules where the difference in skills define your chance of success, and a character opposing another one with similar skill level has ~50% chance of success, whether they have 20 or 90% in their respective skills.

I'm confused by the befuddle critical and fumble effects, as I always assumed Resistance rolls used the skill opposition rules. My first reaction was to think Befuddle was just an exception to the rule, but if that was the case the fumble effect would be almost pointless, given how easy it is to resist a fumbled roll. Did the rule change since first edition, or did I read it wrong from the start ? Also, concerning opposed rolls, what is the current status concerning the case where both protagonists fail ? In first edition, it was "the one with the lowest roll wins". If it's still the case, IMHO it should be replaced with "the highest roll wins", to have the same rule in both cases.