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Yes, plus it seems that a lot of the Celtic Christians were also still partially pagan. It was common practice with polytheistic faiths to just add a new god or goddess to the list. Some new god want's us to say prayers and be nice to each other and will grant us eternal life after death? Okay, sounds like a good deal, I'm in. I still got to leave out sacrifices for the old gods though, or they will curse and plague me in this world. It's probably why later on the Catholic Church would try to co-opt local deities as saints (Brigid- St. Brigit) or as legendary heroes whose time had already passed (Odin). Basically buying up and absorbing the competition.

Don't forget Lancelot and his superhuman abilities either. I think as far as Pendragon goes there is a difference between being magically enhanced and actively casting magic. It's okay for Arthur to wield Excalibur, but not okay for him to enchant it.As for Gawain, it is a left over from his originally being a Solar deity. As far as the latter Gawain goes he was given a blessing by a holy man, also named Gawain. So he probably gets a pass on the honor loss because it was, essentially a gift from God, who is untimely everybody's liege lord. Most of the spellcasting knights in the stories are extreme characters. Either they are honorless practioners of black magic and foul sorcery, or they are paragons of virtue who use their magic for just purposes. Fae are the exception, but seem to be covered under "force of nature" or "childlike ignorance".

Agreed poor wording choice. In fact I'd say I was off on intent there too. At least as far as that sentence goes, not in the over all effect. What I should have stressed more was that unlike the various other horrible things that can happen in RQ and other RPGs rape and forms of sexual abuse are something that sadly, were more likely to have happened in real life to a player or someone they know, and therefore Broo could hit too close to home. It's not that it is worse than the other horrible things that monsters and villains do in RPGs and fiction, it's just that this is something that is more common in the real world, and thus can tap into a pre-existing trauma, although the Broos version is now more like an alien infestation that actual rape. Still the sense of violation is there.

Exactly. That said, somebody might not not be forthcoming about everything bad that has ever happened to them or what might bother them. So it's not always a case of a caullous or unthinking GM, but could be a case where a Gm unknowing hit too close to home. The game and style of the campaign being run matter too. For instance if playing a game like Call of Cthulhu then the possibility of someone getting mauled by a werewolf of other monster and the PCs coming across a mauled, half eaten body is a possibility. Now if a player had an actual horrific experience in the past involving a half eaten human body, animal attack or cannibalism, well that's not something they could reasonably expect the GM to know about. In play in something actually upsets one of my players, as in real life upset not, "you'll killing my character" upset, then I won't go there, provided I'm made aware of it. Depending on the group sensibilities and unpleasantness such as Broos behavior can be glossed over, handled with euphemisms such as "have his way with" or skipped. No GM should really be trying to really upset a player. Add atmosphere to an adventure or make a bad guy stand out, sure but we shouldn't try to give players nightmares.

Yes and to ensure that the stakes matter to hem. D*D went for "life and death" of the PCs because that was an easy sell. Players would naturally be vested in that outcome. But not every contest has to be life and death, they just have to be about something the players feel vested about so that the result matters. Also every RPG does the relative ability thing and rigs the results to some extent, in order to both give the adventures a sense of heroic accomplishment and in order to maintain the campaign. If GMs rand thing truly "fair and unbiased" then most heroes would dies in a blaze of glory after they tempt fate one time to many. It's just more noticeably in some games than other. HQ2 single game mechanic for everything and the way it sets difficulties makes this very transparent to players. D*&D Challenge Rating essential does the same thing, only WotC convinced people into thinking that matching the PCs CR somehow ensures a "fair" fight, when, in fact, it ensures the opposite.

Yup. Essentially if the +1 in enough to get you a bump. But the overall effect of rating difficulties relative to the PCs abilities is designed so that a given oppoent can maintain the same threat regardless of the PCs advancement.

It's sort of the conundrum of putting something that is supposed to be bad into the game, especially as it realted to modern sensibilties. Broo are despised and feared as monsters for these specific traits and abilities, but because rape is something that people are not comfortable with in the real world, and that has generally targeted one gender, it has become a sensitive issue. And that's not even getting into the disease aspects. It hits a little too close to home for some people's comfort. Conversely, the cult of Thanatar who decapitate people and enslave their spirits are at least as bad, yet don't upset people as much, because, thankfully, we don't have a history of something similar happening to people in modern times. At least not to the same extent as rape.

The three pages on diving in the Crash Dive adventure in Fearful Passages is probably all there is. Was there something specific you were looking for? Bermuda Triangle has some notes for SCUBA, and there are some things in soem BRP supplments, and even some non-BRP games that could be adapted.

Ah so basically Niven's agent didn't allow Chaosium to hold onto the rights long enough to develop a product line. That makes a lot of sense -especially back kin the 80s, when non-RPGers didn't understand how RPGs work, and the amount of detail and story plotting needed to make them work. .

No the problem still exists regardless of the ease/speed of progression. Once a PK hits 10th level or Sword 120% or whatever that is where they are and what the GM/adventures has to deal with. If a Gm starts a campaign with experienced characters the problem is instantly there. If you start a camapign qith high level characters the problem exists even though there has been no progression or advancement. The problem comes from having to rate difficulties and opponent's abilities relative to the PCs. That's a dead giveaway that the PCs actual ability doesn't matter. It's not about rate of advancement but how top provide challenge and risk. Games with levels and increasing hit points really require this, as in such systems PCs have little chance of winning if in over their head. Fights usually aren't decided by one lucky hit, but by a series of rolls.So while there might be a mathematical chance of a 1HD monster beating a 10th level fighter the actual odds of it happening are so remote as to enter the realm of lottery tickets. Sure Original D&D didn't tie opponent abilities to the PCs but it also had a ridiculously high mortality rate that would prevent any sort of real campaign development. One of the reason why it still worked was because of the novelty. It's like how a lot of the older computer and arcade games could keep people interested despite very simple play and poor graphics. The overland encounter tables in particular were notorious for that. Generate a new party of first level characters, leave town, run into a dragon or purple worm, get killed repeat. There was a reason why the game evolved into X HD monsters being found on X level and so forth. With a skill based, fixed hit point system, such as used in RuneQuest, there is always a chance that someone could get lucky and drop the big baddie with one hit. That also means that there is always a risk of it happening to a PC, so weak opponents always remain a threat. The classic example is Rurik Runespear and the trollkin. In a game like D&D the odds of a mook trollkin taking out a Rune Lord in combat are negligible. Even a max damage critical hit from such an opponent isn't going to seriously impair a high level fighter. So a level and hit point game maintains risk by rating foes abilities relative to the PCs, and by hit point attrition, with the PCs facing multiple foes over time who can whittle their abilities down. Now there are drawbacks to the skill based approach too. Namely that because there is always a chance that someone could get lucky and drop an opponent with a single hit, there is always a chance of fight becoming anticlimactic when a PC manages to one-shot was was supposed to be a "boss" opponent. Worse still, because there is always a chance that someone could get lucky and drop a PC, there will eventually be unwanted character fatalities, and that can often disrupt a campaign, or ruin a dramatic, cinematic style of campaign. While you want the risk of one of the guys mowing down James Bond with a AK-47 as he dashes across the compound, you don't really want it to actually happen. But you need the threat of that to keep the game exciting. HQ is somewhat similar to level based games in this regard in that challenges need to be rated relative to the PCs abilities to remain a challenge, e specially in extended contests. It's a little difference with simple contests, as there is a luck element, provided the abilities scores aren't too far apart. Well there are some problems with your theory: The first sort of depends on what you consider to be a "significant" chance. For instance using the Rurik vs. the Trollkin situation, I consider the chance of the trollkin winning to be "significant enough" in a game like RuneQuest to keep the contest exciting, but not significant enough in a game like D&D, where the fight is just tedious, unless it is followed up by or part of another encounter. For instance if a PC has a couple of masteries on his opponent and some hero points to bump his rolls the contest isn't going to feel exciting, just tedious. If the PC does loose in such an encounter he will feel more like he was cheated by the dice rather than out though, out skilled or outmaneuvered. The second problem is one of probabilities, and how it relates to game play. For instance, in most games there is always some chance of failure, but that chance is usually based more of how the die rolled work rather than a realistic probability of failure. For instance take driving. In games like BRP Call of Cthulhu there is a 5% chance of failure for any roll. Now if the GM makes a character roll to successfully drive to work everyday, then 5% of the time the PC will fail, and probably get fired for missing too much work (or be told to go buy a new car). Extend this to something like piloting an aircraft were failed takeoffs and landings could have more severe consequences and it becomes unplayable. That's why you aren't suppose to make routine rolls in BRP. The jam/mifire chance in BRP is so high compared to the real world that no firearm in BRP would be approved by a modern army. They are just too unreliable. The third problem is one of story and theme. In the end we really don't want the PC to loose. Or at least not to loose permanently -setbacks are fine. But we need a chance of failure, or at least the appearance of a chance, to keep the game exciting. So rolling insignificant chances of failure aren't exciting either because they come off as a cheat or a fluke (i.e. the 5 year old kid who kills a veteran warrior with by rolling a critical hit in RuneQuest), rather than a loss, or because the odds of their happening are so remote as to be tedious (the 1HD goblin that takes down the 10th level fights through an insane series of hits and misses). Yes, both are statistically possible, but neither is actually desirable. We want the risk, but not the actual outcome. In the end this comes down to dealing with two problems that work counter to each other. The first is that we want the PCs to succeed for story purposes, the second is that we want there to be a risk of failure for sense of accomplishment purposes. And every RPG does a bit of a juggle act to try and reconcile both of those goals. HQ2 does this by rating opposing abilities relative to the PCs, this always ensure the element of risk, but that makes advancement something of an illusion. HQ1 used an "Absolute" scale of rating opponents, which made advancement more significant, but at the risk of some contests reducing risk to the point where they were not interesting anymore. It's a tough balancing act. Both approaches have their merits and their drawbacks. Every GM has run games that were ruined or derailed by fluke die rolls, and games where a constest was so one-sided that actually resolving it was tedious.

But it is very much a 'eyes on your character sheet" form of improvement. The PC goes up a level and his attack bonus, hit points, and other abilties increase, but he now faces more monsters and/or monster with more hit dice. So it's only kept exciting if you don't look at the big picture. This typically becomes very apprent at higher levels when the PCs go back to some place that they have been at before. Suddenly the place is threatend by there tougher, higher level threats that luckily never noticed the PCs when they were low level, and all those low level threats seemed to have either vanished or now attack the PCs in huge warbands. Back in my AD&D days we used to joke that serfs and hunstmen would have had to be 10th level just to be able to survive the random encounters from day to day existence. It is just more noticeable in HQ because of the way HQ uses keywords to handle everything. So there is no real functional difference between Magic and mundane. So all you really notice is that your keywords and augments have gone up, and the numerical value. So you don't get the same feeling on learning new things and really improving, especially when die rolls are opposed and you see the opposing values going up too. Yopu can do that, but I think you'd be better off not statting up the N PCs too far ahead in such a campaign. if the goal is to take out the "final boss" you mightnot want to lock down the final bosses' stats until you see how the campaign goes. One of hte things that I don't like about linking the opposition to the PCs advancements is that it encourages the players to focus on a narrow set of abilities, as improving side abilties means falling behind in the relative power ranking. Possibly. But think the end result would be the same if you use HQ. In the end everybody gets reduced to rolling 1D20 against a key ability score with augments, and everything else just becomes "flavor text". But, conversely, it also comes down to how the GM presents stuff, essentially covering that all up. This really hold true for all RPGs, in the end it's dice and numbers, but the way it gets presented is what makes it exciting or not. Simplier game mechaics are easier to run and understand, but that also makes them easier to "see through". I think that considering the direction HQ has gone in, it might just make more sense to get rid of NPC stats and rolls entirely and just treat it all as modifiers to the PCs rolls, somehow., but that would be a bit radical. It kinda hold true

Yeah , that would have worked, and sounds just like something Chasoium would have done back then. It would have played to all their strengths.. I take it something prevented 'The City in the Jungle' from happening?

This is actually something of a truism for most of not all RPGs. What happens is that the characters adventure and improve, but then get tougher missions and opponents, so the character improve even more, go on even tougher missions and face even more tougher opponents, and the process keeps repeating. So in the en d character improvement leads to higher difficulties to compensate, which can make you wonder what the advantage there was to improvement. It's more oblivious in HQ2, where the difficulty is set to the length of the campaign and character advancement, and in level based games, where everything is designed realtive to the level of the PCs, but it exists in some form in most, if not all, RPGs, and for a good reason. Namely to keep the game challenging. Now some skill based games, including most BRP derivatives can sidestep that somewhat thanks to the inherent risk with their game mechanics. In a game like RuneQuest of Call of Cthulhu, a good spear hit tot he chest almost always has the chance of killing a PC in one hit, so there is less need to escalate the opposition, and its' possible to use an absolute scale of competency instead of a relative one (like HQ1's scale of masteries as mentioned by soltakss). This is also why some RPGs, such as some of the FUDGE/FATE derivatives don't have character improvement as it is a net zero game, especially in a game system with opposed rolls and a bell curve. If both the PCs and their opponents get a +1 to their rolls, it cancels out, so why bother? I think the real point of abilities and advancement in HQG is that some sort of improvement system is expected by players., and not having one would not be received well. It might be better to replace character improvement with a way for players to change abilities around and maybe award more Hero Points.

I know what you mean. I think it comes down to the fanbase and target audience. With Strombringer, they had FRPGers and Moorcock fans as the target audience, and, at the time Moorcock was a very popular author in Fantasy cricles, and a lot of FRPGers were fans of his work. With Ringworld, I think the target audience wasn't quite there. Not as many Known Space fans were RPGers. With me, I knew a bit about Ringworld and Known Space, mostly due to the Kzinti, but I had already read some Elric books before I bought Stormbringer, and was somewhat familiar with the legends of King Arthur before I bought Pendragon. That gave me a bit of a leg to stand on with the RPGs. CoC benefited from Lovecraft's status in the horror genre, plus the fact that when it came out it was the only horror RPG out there. Ringworld had to compete with Traveller, Space Opera, Star Trek, and a handful of other Sci-Fi RPGs. Plus it really didn't cover tech as well as most other Sci-Fi RPGs, probably because the rules were adapted from a fantasy game. But of course I'm benefiting from hindsight. Just like I could say that RQ2's Questworld was a wasted effort, as RQ2 would soon be defunct and the Avalon Hill deal would pretty much kill the idea of an alternate to Glorantha that would be open to other authors. Questworld seemed like a great idea back when it came out, and the concept had a lot of possibilities. But once RQ went to Avalon Hill there was no chance of Questworld being filled out out by fan submitted ideas. They had a hard enough time just keeping Fantasy Earth and RQ3 Glorantha stuff coming. But again, that is looking back in hindsight. I'm sure if Chaosium knew how some thing were going to play out they would have handled Ringworld differently. Either they would have given it better support, or avoided it in favor of some other project. In the end Ringworld turned out to be a nice idea for a RPG that probably bit off more than it could chew. At least with the intial boxed set.

And it was also something of a departure for old Chaosium, too. Their typical campaign packs would focus on some area in detail and really flesh the whole thing out so that a GM could develop it into a campaign. For example, RQ2's Borderlands not only came with seven adventures in the set (as opposed to the usual one, or, in the case of a series of modules 3-4), but it also gave the GM so many characters and situations to work with that he could easily expand it into many more adventures. Ringworld, on the other hand, had to try and cram in a lot of "big Picture" information on not only the RingWorld itself but enough of Niven's Known Space to make the setting playable. So the setting wasn't fleshed out to the same small scale degree that a typical RQ or CoC gamebook would have had at the time. In fact, I think if you look over what things really worked for Chasoium and what didn't, you'll see a pattern of the more detailed regional/local stuff doing better than the more generic/wide scale approach. Hence RQ Glorantha was more successful than generic RQ. CoC with it's detailed. mostly real world, New England town settings, tended to go over better than Stormbringer did, with it's description of the Young Kingdoms all short treatments, that fit onto a couple of pages (at least initially). Of course in Chasoium defense reguard liscened properties, it is often hard to flesh out such setting without altering of expanding upon the information given. CoC benefited from just layering on Lovecraftian Horror onto a real world setting. Ringworld didn't really play to Chaosium's strengths. Now had it been followed up with some sort of campaign setting, say a colony or outpost with various factions and problems, and several short adventures, similar to how Borderlands had set up, it probably would have done better. But adventures are the lifeblood of RPGs and no adventures pretty much dooms an RPG. I remember thinking that I really needed to read more of Niven's books before I could run the setting properly.

Exactly. Now something like this would play out different in a BRP style of fighting with alternating attacks and parries than in a Pendrdagon style of fighting where attacks and parries are combined into one roll. Still, I think Pendragon has an advantage is that is was built around opposed rolls, like D6 Star Wars. I think what might work is to limit actual hits to attacks that are not partially parried, and give the winner some sort of advantage bonus to his next roll for winning. Since this would be reflexive, it would increase the chance of getting a strike past the opponent's lightsaber. And since most weapons can't block lightsabers this rule would only need to apply during duels between Jedi and other Force users. I think many Force powers could be handled by adapting the inspiration rules. So someone who wants to jump vast distances could use their Control skill to augment their Jumping, someone who wants to do a "Burst of Speed" could do it to increase their Move rate, the "Lightsaber Combat" ability would improve Lightsaber skill, "Magnify Senses" would increase Awareness, and so on. It wouldn't work for every application of the Force, but it would work for most of the "Control" powers, and give us a simple framework to start with. That is something that Pendragon's Traits and Passions could help with. In Pendragon if someone tries for inspiration and fails they get disheartened, and there are a few other situations where their traits and passions can work against them. One of the neat things about this is that in Pendragon it is possible for traits and passions to make a character behave in an undesired way, or for actions to ultimately alter someone's personality. So confrontations like this can pull someone towards the light side or the dark side.

That's just in in the movies they don't get hurt unless they fail to parry. There are not "lot of little wounds" in the films. Thats fine for most poeple punches and kicks, but again doesn't hold for the fights we see in the films. Basically this is the D&D problem. If you adapt the setting to the current rules then it won't feel like the setting. You have to adapt the rules to better fit the setting. That's what Cahoiusm has always done when adapting BRP to a setting, and why the old AD&D supplments for variuous settings always played and felt just like standard D&D. Sucks. C'mon now. You telling me that Han and Chewie went though all three films and never got hit once because they had a ridiculously high RE2 Defense score? That opens up a whole can of troublnig worms. First off the automatic 5% chance to hit would hae gotten them a few times over. Secondly if their defense is that high, what about Luke or Vader? I think that ends up escalating game stats well over 100% pretty quickly. I think something like using Stormbringer/Magic Wolrd style Parries and Dodges would solve the problem far more elegantly. A parry just block the attack and a dodge dodges it. Tooss in some hero/force/character points and you can mimic the general style of the films. No but I berlieve Luke got him on Bespin with a quick shot. It didn't seem to do much too him. Of course it might not have actually hit him, but soem cybernetics. The respoinse is the same as when Luke get shot in the cyberhand in RotJ. Well if you are trying to mirror the duels from the films ten it should be a long drawn out thing, that's the point. The two Force users pair off and have a two or three minute fight. If it gets resolved in one or two rounds then it isn't like the fights in the films. What I suppose would help to keep in from going on for too long would be both fatigue, and that once somebody starts to get a signficant advatage his opponent is going to want to break off from the melee before he loses some body parts. Well if you stick with the stuff Lucas wrote, the sabers are deadly, but the duels take time. You don't get the one or two round swing-hit-kill results you get in D6. The only exception is when Palpatine manages to cut down two Jedi who are trying to arrest him. That is simply because he is that much better at it than they are. Personally I think to get the authentic Star Wars feel it need to be like the films Luucas did. Otherwise, well, it's just some space opera with laser swords. Look at the various D20 interpretations. I believe WEG did three versions. Yet because they were more D&D than Star Wars the felt more like D&D than Star Wars, and encouraged a D&D mindset. I used to tell some players that no matter how many levels they got, they'd never equal a Star Destroyer. That actually shocked them, since in D&D level is the great equalizer. If you just want to write the characters and stuff up into BRP then sure you can do that, but the results won't feel like Star Wars. You could mimic the Force use the Spirit Magic or Psionic rules. But unless you adapt those rules to fit the setting it will just feel like BRP.

Well if you use the fumble table in RQ, you could do it there too. BTW, I think the easiest fix for lightsabers would be to use the parry rules from old Strombringer, and Magic World where a parry just blocks the attack and no dfamage gets through, as opposed to the RQ method.

They are quire a lot, but it really comes down to how you run it and how your players use it. I've run the same adventures with two different groups with the same items and got vastly different results, because one group used their items more effectively than the other one. So it really comes down to knowing your players and how they will handle the item.

Why not, it's fun! Okay, so that puts the characters on enverybody's radar. Depending on what the dreams are about that could be a problem. Also, do the dreams only affect those who are asleep or do waking characters see them as well? Does the target have any say or control over this? Could a PC use the item to establish contact with an enemy and pick their brains? For instance: "Hello Jerk. I just wanted to tell you that you haven't got a chance of beating me, and whatever you do don't think of your secret plan while we are in telepathic communications." Okay, so it is limited. I'd probably suggest that since this is dream realted, maybe some sort of roll would be needed to control where the scrying goes. Like how you can't always control what happens in a dream. In fact, with all this being dream ralted, I suggest that the user must go into some sort of trace-like state to use the orb. So maybe they see through the orb, but not what is going on around them? My concern is that the players could end up relying on this for everything and avoid any actual adventuring. You might need some sort of limits or risks involved with the orb to keep the players from using it to solve all of thier problems. You could. Since it is about dreams, I'd suggest the astral realm could bet some sort of dreamrealm, or the Dreamrealm is a part of the Astral realm. The danger could be the potential of getting stuck there, or in someone's imagination getting out of control and conjuring up something they can't handle. For instance if the dream goes through a graveyard, the PC might have to make an Idea roll or some thing to avoid thinking up vampires or zombies that could plague them in the dream.

It's not quite that good, but close. For instance it took Qui-Gon time to melt through the blast doors, he couldn't just cut a man-sized hole to step through. And there are some materials that can stop them or are at least harder to cut (Phrik, Mandaloran Iron, etc.). Although WEG assumed there was little to no resistance, later sources have stated the opposite and that it does still take force to cut through things, so STR and SIZ would apply. In game terms I think rather than ignoring some armor as per d20,it should du cumulative damage when applied against an armored surface. So if it is being used to get though a 100 point armored bulkhead, it will eventually cut through but will take multiple rounds to do so. The ability to block blaster fire was said to be an application of the Force, which would limit the defelction ability to those with such powers. More because Vader didn't want Luke dead. According to the sources defeating someone by cutting off his weapon hand was something of a Jedi specialty and a sign of skill. Sith probably didn't favor this as much, but since many of the Sith in the films were once Jedi they probably were already skilled in fighting this way, and better at in beating foes with it than with other moves. Well there could be several reasons: First off it is a melee weapon, so it is like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Yes, Jedi could use lightsabers to defect blaster bolts through the Force, but those who didn't know how to use the Force couldn't, and so would be vulnerable at range. This would include droids. Secondly is that the weapon is very dangerous to the wielder as it would be very easy to injure oneself with it, requiring a lot of skill and probably proficiency with the Force. In D6 system terms a character needed to get to 5D or 6D to be able to wield one without much risk of hitting himself by accident. This meant a high skill and/or good Force skill and the Lightsaber Combat power. Yes, droids could be programmed to use the weapon decently, but it would be expensive and they would be vulnerable. Thirdly, damage isn't all that fantastic compare to other weapons. A repeating blaster is probably just as effective if not more so in the hands of normal people and droids. Lastly, anyone who could wield the weapon effectively was probably a Force user, and thus a threat to the Emperor and either needed to be controlled, per the Hands and Inquisitors, or eliminated. Palpatine probably didn't want a large group of Force user around, even if they were loyal to him, as they would always be a potential threat. One Sith apprentice and a handful of semi-skilled underlings was probably risk enough.

Sounds like a Palantir from Lord of the Rings. Some questions: Are there limits to how far it can broadcast dreams and to how many people it can broadcast too at once? Or does it blanket everyone in the area? When you say that it can communicate with one known target, is that one specific person, period, or any one person that the wielder knows, but one at a time? When scrying how does it shift it's point of view, and can it go indoors and through rooms? Can it be used to just look for an item or person without knowing where they are? Is the scrying just visual or can the PC eavesdrop as well? Also, what are the requirements, die rolls, and costs for the character to use the item? What I would be worried about is the players sitting around doing nothing while one player does lots of recon via the orb before they head out on any given adventure. For instance getting detailed maps of the enemy potion, a head count of their numbers, who and where the commanders, and prisoners are. I think a lot of groups with such an item would spend hours getting all sorts of minor and irrelevant details before attacking, because they could. Likewise they might use it to coordinate attacks from multiple locations, because they could. That is where the magic point costs come in. It's keeps the PCs from spending all day using the orb, or falling back to it as a crutch whenever something doesn't go according to plan.

That doesn't fit Star Wars. Jedi don't trade min or hits until one drops. They mostly are unharmed until someone lands a decisive blow, and 10 points of armor won't stop much. Keep in mind that the average character is doing 4d6-5d6 and will do 14-18 points on average. That's assuming a lighsaber doesn't get any bonus. In Pendragon knights get the armor, supplemented by a shield and perhaps the armor of honor, and that soaks up most of the damage, and either completely block s a hit of turns in into a m in or injury. But that model doesn't fit Star Wars. Lighsabers should pretty much block all the damage on a partial success. It should probably take a critical success or a failed roll to get past the opponent's guard. One problem I see is that is we go with something like even 20 points then PKS and NPCs will just wind up being big and strong so they can do 6d6 or 7d6 to get past it, kinda what ca n happen in late Pendragon when Plate becomes more common. We could go the WEG route and just set Lightsaber damage to 5d6 regardless of the character's damage stat, but that doesn't seem to fit with what we know knight and lightsaber forms. I disagree. It's not that the characters is Star Wars are taking less damage. It's that they generally aren't getting hurt at all. This is like how RQ or Pendragon combat compared to D20/D&D. where combat is decided by hit point attrition. In Star Wars, for the most part the PCs shouldn't get hit-that's what we would need to model. Lightsabers with a very high protection score will work for Jedi, but we'd need to figure out why Han, Chewie and Leia can run around and not get hit. In the orginal trilogy Leia get's shot twice (stun, flesh wound), and Luke once (robtic hand). I don't thing there should be attribute loss, nor the game be as dark and gritty and Pendragon combat. Pendagon is emulating medieval combat, as well as medieval medicine. Most of the fatalities happen long after the battle is over. Today, if soldier can get to medical treatment, they generally (over 95%) survive. I'd suggest that a successful First Aid roll negates stat loss, or that it be eliminated completely . There is a reason why the other Star Wars RPGs don't do it. I disagree. :Look at the lightsaber fights from the original trilogy. A New Hope - Obi-wan vs. Vader: No one gets hurt until Obi-wan basically sacrificed himself and gets cut down/vanishes. Empire Strikes Back - Luke Vs. Vader: It's all fun and games until Luke loses a hand, and discovers that you really can't pick your relatives. Return of the Jedi - Luke vs. Vader with Kibitzing by the Emperor: Once again not one gets hurt by a Lightsaber, or at all, until the Emperor pulls out the Force Lightning, and then Vader has second thoughts and shafts him. There is no nickly and diming like there in in Pendragon. It is more like "parry, parry, parry, parry, parry,parry, parry,parry, parry,parry, parry,parry, parry,parry, parry,parry, parry,parry, parry, oops!". So what we'd need tpo mimic is the ebb and flow of the duel and who has the upper hand without inflicting hit point loss. I think we might want to have the Jedi fight for "advantage" in +5/=- increments.

Just to put my method into action, here are stats for the Zillo Beast from Clone Wars. Wookieepedia lists it as 67 meters tall and 60,000 metric tons. UI used RQ's rock lizard as the baseline. It's probably about a bit a monster as we'd ever need to stat up, except perhaps a space slug. Zillo Beast STR 4D6+102 (116) CON 4D6+102 (116) SIZ 4D6+155 (169) INT 2 (fixed) POW 4D6+35 (49) DEX 2D6 (7) Move: 15 Hit Points: 143 Damage Bonus: +16D6 Armor: 48 points! (3x the db, which is why it was so hard for the Republic to stop) Attacks:Claw 40%, 2D6+16D6 Bite 40% 7D6+16D6, Tail Lash 55% 8D6, Trample 75% 16D6

I thought it was a bit rushed for one of your postings.Your stats are usually more solid. BTW, there are a few tricks that can help with statting up creatures. It's stuff that some of us figured out when working on an aborted bestiary. First off, the mass formula from Superworld, which is used as the base formula for RQ3 and most later versions of BRP is 2^(SIZ/8)*25 kg. I've got a table for this, originally from Suerpworld and RQ3 that can give you a SIZ score for any given mass. This also makes it easy to figure out stats for golems, robots and other creatures not made of flesh, by using specfic gravity (density) to determine their actual weight. Useful if you wanted to stat up something like Talos from Jason and the Argonauts. What that means is that every time you increase SIZ by 8 you double the mass. Also if you double the height, length and depth of a creature, you multiply the mass by eight. and increase SIZ by 24. STR increases with area, not volume. In BRP terms that means STR changes by 2 points per 3 points of SIZ. CON generally follows STR, in that larger creatures tend to be tougher. BTW this STR thing is why insects are so strong, as their SIZ falls off faster than their STR, and and why we don't have giants in the real world. The structural strength requited by the giant's skeleton to support it's weight increases slower than the weight does. DEX does seem to drop off a bit with SIZ as the muscle to mass ratio decreases and because the messages need to be sent further, which takes slightly longer. Roughly this seems to be about -1 DEX per 24 SIZ or so. This can be condensed into anice table that shows what happens if a creature is made twice as big, three times and so forth. (I did one for Giants in Pendragon, although that had slightly different values as the SIZ formula is different in Pendragon). POWER goes up at around 1/4 to 1/3rd SIZ just so that bigger creatures aren't especially vulnerable or easy to control via magic (or the Force). So if you took a 6' tall man and used a growth ray to make him a 12' tall giant, his SIZ would increase by 24, and his STR and CON by 16, and he'd lose a point of DEX. Armor is usually a multiple of the damage bonus (0.5x, 1x, 2x, etc). A creature's maximum attack damage die, seemed to go up a step for every 8 points in SIZ. This was also adjusted upwards for a carnivore and down for a herbivore. Not that every critter did the max, but this allowed us to get values such as the 3D6 bite used for the large shark, as it has a huge mouth to bite with. I actually did up a couple of spreadsheets that helped to automate a lot of this. The idea was that you could enter the stats for a similar creature and scale up the SIZ to get what you wanted, and the spreadsheet would work up the other stats for you. I wasn't perfect, but it put most stats in the right ballpark, and kept all the creature stats on the same scale, so it was internally consistent. They might actually help a GM trying to stat up Star Wars critters.