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I just got a nice e-mail from Dustin apologizing for the continued delay and suggesting that the Adventure Contest monograph is still coming soon (hopefully in March)! Just FYI

Alternatively, the weapon could have a skill “Aid Wielder” that gave a +1% bonus for each 5%/10%/25% (depending on the GM) skill. This skill gets a check either each time the player does (this is what I would do – I tend to be more generous and less interested in bookkeeping) or each time the weapon made the difference in hitting. An example of the second option would be: PC 50% with weapon, Weapon 50% with Aid Wielder (and GM gives +1% per 10%). If the roll is between 51-55% the attack hits but the weapon gets the skill check.

And just in time for my birthday... now I know what I want!

Hi, I think there was a thread recently about “option 6” or something like that which addressed the impact of the including the extra 260 “personality” points. I am inclined not to use them myself – but if I did, I would use them to replace the INTx10 free points. (This would be for normal power-level fast and furious games like a zombie apocalypse or the like.) This link should go to the thread: http://basicroleplaying.com/forum/basic-roleplaying/1077-utilisation-step-six-step-6-your-games.html For the record, I run “Normal” games. Hope this helps, Rich

Wouldn't the gallery be a great place to put them... Please...

Happy Holidays! I enjoy our BRP conversations, and I am thankful for this forum and the community of people sharing this fun hobby. Best wishes to all.

The first two pre-gen characters got their second pages reversed. That through me for a bit until I noticed the names.

Yeah – that data is almost perfectly linear (cubic rock disintegrated) = 1/3xpounds C-4 +0.6. Note that the response measure is in cubic units. I’ll stick to cube root of the increase in explosive = final damage roll.

My old house rules that I am trying to BRP-ify were based loosely on the original zip-lock Car-Wars game. In that game you had six different armor locations; four sides and top and bottom. What I am hoping to do is come up with something that feels like BRP – fast and easy, not too much book keeping, while still keeping the feel of “crazy guys welding together combat cars and going at it”. I’ll keep the board posted on how it turns out.

No, unfortunately, I’ve been saying 14 – and I just double checked and that figure is correct. Therefore the car has 23 HP and is still running fine. I think the real take home lessons here, are 1) I had made a mistake regarding how much damage a car can take before it is affected by HP loss, 2) in most cases it is easy to house-rule through the issues as they come up, and 3) there is room for adjustment with the vehicle rules as written (I think I will lower the AV on certain vehicles).

My understanding was that when there are two numbers, such as with the sedan that the first number applied to the car, while the second applied to the passengers.

Thanks for your input – in this case I am working on post-apocalyptic jalopy mechanics (as per, say, Mad Max) and I am actually trying to understand the BRP mechanics so I can develop a credible system. In game play, I would agree with your version, but I would also tend to pile additional damage on the car – the blast cutting through the engine compartment is likely to destroy vacuum lines, rupture any number of other soft components and generally disable the vehicle. I like the idea of a major wound system for cars – it would be easy to implement and go with a fast and furious chase system.

I’m with you up to here – 6D6+6 will average 27 points – more then enough to toast the driver, but with 14 AV on the car, it is only going to take 13 points – hardly more then a fender bender. There we go – I had miss remembered those rules. Half damage for half movement and the vehicle stops at 5 HP – still given the armor, the mine would not have even dropped the car to half move. I looked at explosions and didn’t see anything about not counting armor – so I am still left with my initial conundrum, how can a passenger car survive an antitank mine and still drive away. The problem seems to me to be the amount of armor given cars. Does anyone see an “unintended consequence” to simply lowering the AV of vehicles?

We had a lot of other issues with HARP (particularly balancing combat) so the deficiencies with the magic system were just irritating. I house-ruled away the problems we dropped HARP before too long anyway. My recollection (and this is about three years later) was that all the non-combat spells had crazy-high power point costs while the combat spells seemed balanced (at least against what fighters could do). I seem to recall 20 PP could either deliver a massive lightning attack destroying a squad of orcs or create a single glass of beer. Now, I’m not telling you to not convert it to BRP – I was just trying to give your thread a bump. I think if you did convert the system, you would likely want to have two power cost formulas, one for combat spells and another for non-combat; that’s just my opinion.

I’m hoping that I am overlooking some detail in the combat system – maybe someone here can see it and tell me what I’ve overlooked. In the real world I drive a 1997 Accord with 230,000 miles on it. According to the book, this vehicle will have AV 10 and HP 40 – as GM I rule that the thing is down 10% of its HP due to mileage (whatever) – leaving it with HP 36. On a particularly bad day, someone takes my car and drives over an antitank mine which goes off delivering average damage of 6D6+6 or 27 points. Now the driver takes 27-2 or 25 HP which will reduce a normal person to mush – but the car takes 27-14 or 13 points and after I wash out the interior I can drive it to work. Unfortunately, someone decides to use it for LAW Rocket target practice. Each rocket does 8D6 or, on average 28 points. My poor car was at 36-13 or 23 points when the first rocket hits doing 28-14 or 14 points – leaving the Accord at HP 9 which is still above 5, so it has no damaging effects to its performance. (If it looses another 4 HP its max speed will drop by 50%.) Am I missing something? Thanks, Rich

I own HARP, and have run it, but I didn’t care for the way magic worked in actual play (which minimizes the odds that I will try and convert it to BRP). I recall (and this was a few years ago) that I like the system on paper before I started running with it, but once things got underway I found that the costs for spells were completely out of whack with my gaming style. For example, to cast a simple light spell that will allow someone trapped in a cave to see would drain a mage in a few minutes – but the same mage could cast combat spells that would level a building.

Just me being lazy and using Excel to quickly approximate the values. Sorry if it offends. (I used the “power” function to the power of .33 – obviously this is only a quick approximation of the true value – but it shows the trend). Since this problem only comes up in my games once every few years, and since I usually game with scientists (and corresponding graduate students), in the past we have just done “back of a napkin” calculations in game and gone with that.

Maybe it is just me, but my first thought for scaling explosives would be to use the cube root of the amount to increase damage – something like this: [table]Amount|Damage 1|x1 2|x1.25 4|x1.58 8|x1.99 16|x2.51 32|x3.17 64|x3.99 128|x5.03 256|x6.34 512|x7.99 1024|x10.07 2048|x12.69 4096|x15.99 8192|x20.15 16384|x25.39 32768|x31.99 65536|x40.31 [/table]

Hello Leon, Here are the spot rules I have written to go along with my modern firearms system (which can be downloaded here). I don’t think there are any formal rules in the core book. (TP are “trade points” that I use in my post apocalyptic setting for measuring "cost"). Bullets The cost of a single bullet (round) varies with the weapons risk. The ENC is equal to the Risk for 200 rounds. Standard Ball (Risk in TP per round): Standard damage. Depleted Uranium Bullets (x3 normal cost, x2 ENC, Uncommon): Ballistic armor counts half (round down) versus these rounds. Expanding Bullets (x2.0 normal cost, Common): These rounds have +2 normal risk. "Safety" Round (x1.5 normal cost, Uncommon): Damage +1 risk, but ballistic armor counts as double. High Charge Round 1 (x2.0 normal cost, Common): P: +1 risk. High Charge Round 2 (x3.0 normal cost, Common): P+: +2 risk. High Charge Round 3 (x4.0 normal cost, Common): P++: +3 risk. Teflon Bullets (x5 normal cost, Uncommon): Ballistic armor does not protect against these rounds. Tungsten Core Bullets (x2 normal cost, Uncommon): Ballistic armor counts half (round down), but damage is -3 risk.

I use the standard system – but when I am gaming with people who are troubled with the calculations I have a one page (single sided) handout of useful information – and I always include a look up table.

This is a great answer. AI, I think you should consider adding to the Wiki under “Gamemastering”.

Thanks to both of you – your comments were very helpful. I think I will ignore “burden” for any armors that I invent.

Thanks. I guess I had seen the text on page 261 and expected more. So the burden is just a text description of the armor with no mechanical backend? Is it just left to the GM to interpret? I always just use the old ENC system and am very happy with it, but I am trying to write something that will be “BRP Cannon” and therefore compatible with all the different options. This has lead me to dig through corners of the rules I normally wouldn’t worry about for my own game.

I saw this quote this morning and thought it should go here: "The dog now constitute a considerable part of our subsistence, and with most of the party has become a favorable food. Certain I am that it is a healthy, strong diet." William Clark, April 13, 1806

I was looking through the Core Book at armor last night – and saw a column for “Burden”. When I tried to find the actual rules for the Burden element I came up with a blank. I did find the usual encumbrance rules but not burden – does anyone know what I have overlooked? Thanks