Lord Twig

Ah, uh... How do they work in Stormbringer again? I have the rules somewhere but have not looked at them for a looong time.

We never had a problem with the RQ3 version. I am glad that it will be included as an option in the BRP rulebook.

How does the damage bonus work? Is it a fixed number? Bonus Dice? How does it interact with ranged/thrown weapons? Thanks!

As for the sword vs. spear argument, I find I agree almost completely with Nightshade. The sword has many advantages over the spear, particularly if you are looking at it from an adventuring perspective. The number one advantage of course is that it is easily sheathed, carried and drawn. This is a huge issue when you don't know if you will be walking across plains, wading through swamps, or climbing up or down chasms from one day to the next. Swords are good for thrusting and slashing. Swords have a point for a reason, and that reason is to stab people. If faced with undead, which is not uncommon for your typical ancient warrior who lives in a fantasy world, you want something that can cut them up. Spears do have reach. This advantage can't be ignored. The spear wielder will almost always get the first shot in. This makes it far superior to swords in many situations as the first shot is often the last. The possible counter to this is to parry and step forward when the spearman thrusts. If you parry successfully you are inside his range and can pretty much hack at him unopposed. He can't back up right away because he was moving forward when you stepped in. Of course if you miss the parry (or the spearman is good enough to avoid it) you are skewered and dead, see the point about getting the first attack in above. While a thrust will always be faster than a swing, once a spear is pushed out of line a sword will be faster. There is nothing that will convince me that you can move a 5 to 6 foot spear back in line faster than a 3 foot sword. I have tried this myself. A 3 or 4 foot spear doesn't really have any reach advantage (some of the spear will be behind your hand to balance it) and, as a thrusting only weapon, would be inferior to the quicker rapier. Spears are good for formations. Close formations don't allow for a lot of swinging, so a long thrusting weapon is ideal. Spears are easy to use. Throw one peasant a spear and the other a sword and the one with the spear will have a much easer time with it. This is not to say that mastering the spear is easy, just that it is easier for a layman to use. Pointy bit toward enemy, then thrust. Basic spears are relatively cheap and easy to make.

Here is a list of weapons styles that were reasonably common in our RQ3 Game and why they were used. For special rules we used impaling weapons did double weapon damage and slashing or crushing weapons received maximum damage bonus. Bastard Sword and Shield (1d10+1) Used by characters with at least a 1d4 damage bonus. Battle Axe and Shield (1d8+2) Exactly the same as the bastard sword. Has the same average damage as a bastard sword. Great Sword (2d8) Used by strong characters to get maximum damage potential and still have decent weapon armor points to parry with. Troll Maul (2d8) Exactly the same as a great sword, but favored by Trolls of course. Great Axe (2d6+2) Same average damage as the great sword or troll maul, but favored by Dwarves. Long Spear (1d10+1) Used by low strength characters that wanted a low strike rank and does great impaling damage. Broadsword or Short Spear and Shield (1d8+1) Used by low strength characters to get the chance of an impale. Bow and Broadsword (1d8+1) For low strength archers the broadsword does good damage and can impale. They would hold the bow in their off hand when pressed to melee and for defense they usually dodged. Favored by Elves. Heavy Mace and Shield (1d10) Only used by Trolls since there are better one-handed weapons. Just about any one-handed weapon would be used as a backup weapon. Daggers were of course carried by just about everyone, some practiced throwing them before charging with their two-handed weapons. Throwing axes were also used for this. Particularly strong characters would sometime carry javelins so they could do more damage than the 1d8+1 of a bow. Although not perfect, I thing the RQ3 rules provided for a good range of uses by the various weapons.

100% agreement. Elmal and Vinga are completely superfluous.

This works just fine, but there is a psychological factor to consider as well. With the standard system, lower is ALWAYS better. With your system a 30 is better than a 02. Again, mathematically it is just fine, some people (including myself) just don't like the feel.

In our game a character at 0 or less THPs was unconscious, but had a (10 - negative hit points) x5% chance of surviving the round. After that they would lose another THP until stabilized. Dead if vital area was double under. So if your 5 point head was at -5, you died. The dead could only be healed for 5 minutes after death, so they had to be healed to at least positive HPs on total and all locations in 5 minutes or there was no coming back.

You should wait until BRP comes out of course! Did you really expect a different answer from this board?

I guess that leads to the next question. Has the fumble tables been made less lethal?

What you are suggesting sounds like the HERO 5th edition. It is black with silver and green print and a green HERO symbol right in the middle. While it is not bad, I actually wouldn't do that for BRP. I also would not copy the D&D model and go with a faux book cover. You know, printing a picture on the book so that the book looks like a... well... fancier book. I think a little artwork on the front would be good, but maybe it shouldn't take up the whole cover. Have it be more of a framed look, maybe with a large Chaosium symbol on there as well and the name printed at the top. Oh well, I'd buy it if it depicted a steaming pile of crap on the cover, so I may not be the best authority.

How are fumbles handled in BRP? Is there a fumble chart?

I guess quick division in your head is hard for some people. Thinking back I guess there would frequently be a case where someone needed to know what the Special or Critical chance of a certain percent was. In these cases, almost always, they would just look at me and I would tell them. Guess I have a talent for it. So really not everyone needs to be good at math, you just need one.

I completely agree. They are fine as an optional rule, but they are not core BRP in my mind. I see GM fudging as a tool for dramatic license. Other's don't like it because it allows for GM abuse. At least, I guess that's why they don't like it. The opponents of GM fudging can probably state their case better than I.

I personally like the 20% Specials and 5% Criticals. Of course 20 odd years of RQ3 might have influenced my opinion.

Yeah, I don't get it. Where's the danger? If you have that many chances to avoid death you might as well just not have put the basilisk in there at all. Of course as long as everyone is having fun that's the important thing. But I know my players would actually get upset and insist that I just let the character die. They would feel cheated of the challenge. These same players have no problem with GM fudging. They actually ran across a basilisk once and nobody spotted it. I rolled a Pow vs. Pow against one of the characters and succeeded. I fudged it and told the player, "You feel a magical attack against you." The characters stood looking around and basically doing nothing, so I rolled again and failed. Told the character he had been hit again. Again they didn't do anything, they stood around and talked about what it might be. Third time I failed again, looked at the player and said, "Your character just fell over dead." THAT got them into action. After they realized that there was a basilisk there and they hacked it to pieces they all agreed that the death was well deserved.

So which one is really more about storytelling and which is more about game mechanics? It just seems odd that games that bill themselves as "Storytelling" games need mechanics to make it cinematic, but they get down on a game that just says "Do what is dramatic!" So again we find that the "Storytelling" game adds a mechanic while BRP (and even D&D for that matter) rely on the GM to tell a story. And it is not ignoring a rule, it is following the "Dramatic License" rule. Just because the rule doesn't have numbers attached doesn't make it any less of a rule. Of course we can flip things around... Many games give out an arbitrary number of Experience Points based on how well the GM thought you played the game or how well you role-played. Once again this is seen as "Brilliant!" and "Encourages Role-Playing and not Roll-Playing". Whereas BRP's experience check, which are a lot less arbitrary encourages "Check hunting". Whatever. Really I don't have anything against games with Hero points or whatever. I played a lot of ShadowRun with Karma Points and found it to be very enjoyable. I just don't see it as "better" than allowing for GM fudging.

Indeed! I have heard people complain loudly about GM fudging, but I never understood it. For some reason it is okay for a system to fudge a dice roll by having points, but it is not okay for a system to fudge dice by saying, "GMs can fudge dice for cinematic effect if they wish". To reiterate: Random bandit rolls critical impale to the head of a hero with an arbalist. GM: "Looks like a critical to the arm! You'll be out of it for a while." This is BAD! Random bandit rolls critical impale to the head of a hero with an arbalist. GM: "Looks like you took a critical hit to the head. Your dead." Player: "I spend a hero point so it hits the arm instead." GM: "Okay, I guess it hits the arm." This is GOOD! This is revolutionary! This is the future of RPGs everywhere!

One of the reasons why our characters did not die more than they did in our RQ game was because of hit locations. There was a good chance that you would be taken out by a limb being "functionally incapacitated" and be out of the fight. As long as your group won the combat in the end you would be healed up while the others would be captured or "put to the sword". Another was admittedly a house rule where you made progressively tougher Con rolls when you were at 0 general HPs or less till you hit -10. At that point the Con roll was Conx0, which you of course failed automatically. Failing either of those, or getting your head severed or something like that, there was always the Resurrection spell to fall back on. Although we had a couple Humakti who managed to make it to retirement without ever dying. Actually I think they might have been a little disappointed about that.

No, I am just saying that it is not a deal breaker for me. As long as there is some attempt at accuracy in modeling the real world that is good enough. I guess other people might have a higher standard, while others have a lower standard. Such as Mongoose calling a blunderbuss a rifle because it is a long gun that you use with two hands.

Glad to hear it. I have always loved the improvement system in BRP and would be disappointed if it had changed. Wow... Just Wow. Unfortunately this is not the first time I have heard of this type of thing. I believe Steve Perrin had a similar experience. More questions! Are there rules for handling non-lethal damage? If so, can you comment on it? This would be especially useful superhero games where you generally knock out the bad guys and "bring them to justice". But would be useful in all genres when you need to capture someone.

It seem to me that determining damage dice is a pretty arbitrary thing to begin with. If I get stabbed in the heart with a knife, how much damage did I take? How about if I was shot in the heart with .45 auto? Is the damage from a thrown boulder from a giant that different from getting hit by a cannon ball? It seems to me dead is dead. Now, I guess that getting an arrow through the eye would probably kill you, but a 9mm through the eye might just blow out the back of your head as well, so it should probably have a higher maximum damage. But an arrow to the shoulder probably isn't that different from a bullet to the shoulder. I don't know for sure as I have never been shot by bullet or arrow. Granted there is system shock damage from bullets that strike at high velocity, but then that's why they do more rolled damage. Does there really need to be a formula to figure out damage dice? If so, what is the formula for figuring out how much damage a broadsword does compared to a battle ax? Or a halberd compared to a claymore? Anyway, the whole argument about gun damage seems a bit silly to me. As long as it is close enough to realistic that you can have willing suspension of disbelief, that is good enough.

I guess it is good that it is in there as an optional rule for those that like them. Personally I don't care for them. Feels cheesy to me.

Here's an easy one. Charisma or Appearance? Or something else? P.S. Congratulations on the new baby! At least that is what I assume it is. I have a 2-month-old baby myself.

You already stated your opinion about the cover in another thread. How about interior art? Have you seen any? If so, is it all new or is some borrowed from other books? What type of creatures are covered in the book? How many are usable as playable races? You mentioned that the powers will surprise us. So there is new stuff in there? Not just a copy paste from the other rulebooks? Do you know if any settings books are planned? Any planned adventure modules?