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In some ways the Pendragon method of doing things is closer to how a fight works than the alternating turns method used RQ (and most other RPGs).

I once did up a BRP variant where the order of attack was determined by opposed skill rolls. Things like weapon reach gave a bonus to skill.

That's why I always preferred the other version of called shot where you got to shift the hit location by 1 per SR you delayed.

Oh sure, probably. But then you got that RQ thing about multiple strikes making up one attack. Now yes, in the real world most of us can swing a sword more than a dozen times in 12 seconds. But not that many of us are skilled enough for most of those swings to be legitimate attacks. Of course before you get close enough to swing your sword you are probably going to have to eat an arrow or two.

As have I. It's amazing how many people who are skilled in their field have a kind of tunnel vision that hurts them when deal with things outside of it.

The thing is, historically the higher rates of fire were used when firing into a mass of enemies, not aimed fire against a single target. Elric! and BRP have a volley fire rule, which could be adapted to RQ Strike Ranks. The problem is, once you allow archers to fire more arrow per round, you then have to consider firearms. It is technically possible for a shooter to empty a revolver or semi-auto weapon in one melee round.

Here are some RQ3 Hippo stats. Sorry about the formatting. Let me know if there are any problems. Personally I hate the wide swing on STR and SIZ (6D6) but kept them to keep the stats consistent with Elephants (as they were in Gateway Beastiary). Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) STR 6D6+18 (39) CON 3D6+13 (23-24) SIZ 6D6+26 (47) INT 6 POW 3D6 (10-11) DEX 3D6 (10-11) Move 3 Hit Points 35 Fatigue 63 Damage Bonus: +4D6 Females tend to be smaller (take 3 points off of STR and SIZ) Hit Location D20 Points RH Leg 01-02 6/12 LH Leg 03-04 6/12 Hind Q 05-08 6/18 Fore Q 09-12 6/18 RF Leg 13-14 6/12 LF Leg 15-16 6/12 Head 17-20 6/15 Weapon SR Attack% Damage Bite 6 35+6% 1D8+db Charge Trample 6 50% 8D6 Armor: 6 points Significant Skills: Smell Intruder 50+5, Listen 50+5

With RQ3 category modifiers, even with a single attribute, the modifier isn't that small. For example, doctors and scientists with a 16 INT will get a +6% modifier to Knowledge skills. Now, initially that isn't all that much of an edge over the 10 INT "morons", but over time the extra 6% will result in faster advancement. Once you reache 100%, the high INT character can still improve, while the "morons" cannot.

Generally the modifiers were not overwhelming. Not unless someone rolled insanely good stats (not so easy on 3D6). I once saw an elf with an attack bonus over 20%, but it was a fluke.

Hmm, something in the book doesn't make sense to me. In the example posted it says that someone who weapons were at SR 6 could only attack at SR 6 and SR 12. So with two weapon you add the SR's together? So a Giant (SIZ SR0), with some Coordination (for DEX SR1) wielding two trees (weapon SR0) at 100%, could have a SR 0 with each weapon So if he was splitting both weapon attacks he could get two attack out each weapon on SR 0? That seems off. Shouldn't there be a 5 SR delay for the off hand weapon? Yeah I know a DEX boosted giant wielding trees is an extreme example, but I though there was a delay in the off hand weapon, or was that just in RQ3?

Me too, but I doubt it. Since the new RQ is falling back heavily on RQ2, I suspect we will get the old experience modifier based off of INT.

If you want some unofficial stats I could update the RQ2 Gateway Bestiary Hippo stats to RQ3/BRP standards. It's mostly adjusting SIZ, STR, and CON to fit the new scale, giving the Hippo a fixed INT, and then working out the derived stats based on the new attribute scores.

Well, back in RQ3 you added the appropriate Category Modifiers to skill improvement rolls. That gave attributes a much bigger impact on skill scores as higher attributes led to faster improvement. It was also necessary to have a positive category modifier in order to raise a skill above 100%. This really made attributes important for Stealth skills and Knowledge skills.

Very Pendragon-ish.

What consistency check? The thing about BRP, good and bad, is that it cobbles together various rules and alternate rules pulled from various Chaosium RPGs, none of which were designed to be used with each other. Like I said before the variable armor rules came from Strombringer, and it was release back in the RQ2 era. Back then plate armor was worth 6 points of protection, and the average SIZ for a character was 10-11, and thus the average damage bonus was +0. So under those rules having full plate potect 1D10+2 isn't bad. In fact, it makes variable armor at 7.5 points of protection, somewhat better than the 6 points it was worth in RQ2. But that also made sense considering that the plate is RQ was for a Bronze Age world (Glorantha) while the plate in Strombringer was for a Medieval world (The Young Kingdoms). Yup. Historical suits of armor were a mix of various types of armor, due to limitations in coverage, protection against certain types of attack, skill of the armor, weight permiitted, cost, materials available and so forth. We'd never have all those elements. Nor did they consider all those elements when designing RQ. For instance, RQ2 used mostly bronze age armor, with arm protection mostly due to "vambraces". Now, if we were to factor in your ABCs above, vambraces wouldn't be worth all those much, since they don't cover very much. While yes, there is a difference between 2d4 and 2d6-2 the question is are there armors that would fit those parameters in BRP? If there is is would probably be more a matter of coverage than material. I could see 2d6-2 being something like a breastplate, perhaps with armored sleeves of some sort. Very ogg protection when the chest is struck, but with lots of exposed areas. I agree. At least up to a point. All RPGs simplify things for playability. And all ignore of marginalize certain things even in the design process. For instance, we end up with one armor rating that is used against any and every type of weapon.

Yeah, somewhat. I don't believe it was intend to be any more lethal than RQ, except where sorcery was involved. The thing is, SB, along with variable armor evolved from RQ2, where the AP ratings were lower (6 point plate) as well as the damage bonuses (average db was +0, instead of +1d4, since average SIZ was 10-11 not 13). Now, by porting the variable AP scores over from RQ2 into BRP, which uses RQ3 type AP and db scores, the armor ends up a bit underpowered. It's yet another example of how the various rules that have been pulled together into BRP were not designed to work together. Hmm, ya know, we could do up a variable AP method that incoproates both full suits of armor and piecemeal armor. We could just total up the AP for all the hit locations and use the average to determine the AP die roll. Full example, full 8 point plate over all 7 locations would total 56 points of AP and should give an average protection score of 8, for an die roll of 2D6+1. Something like:1(1D3-1) (2) (1D3), 3(1D3+1) , 4(2D3), 5(2D4), 6 (2D4+1),7 (2D6), 8 (2D6+1)

I can certainly feel for that- both as a GM and as a player. One thing about variable armor though is that it does make the game more lethal. In RQ, if you are wearing full plate you know you've got 8 points of protection and that is going to turn most blades,or at least tone then down a bit. In Stormbringer, if you are wearing full plate, worth 1D10+2 protection, you're not so sure if it will stop an attack. And those "3"s on the soak roll probably end up hurting you a lot more than those "12s" help you. Hmm, come to thing of it, the thing about the variable armor ratiings in BRP is that they come from Stormbringer (RQ2 era), and preceded the fixed armor table, which came from RQ3. So nor only does the variably AP scroes vary, but the also average less protection than their fixed counterparts. .

Because it adds more steps to task resolution. It's a lot easier to just roll the dice and compare to a skill score than it is to roll the dice against a skill score and roll another die against a list of modifiers. It also seems to minimize actual ability at a task. For example, if a character were climbing a wall, their skill at climbing doesn't seem to be worth much- only a 10% modifier at best.

Wow! That seems incredibly overcomplicated - and coming from me, that's a surprising statement.

Amen. Nice graphics and an interesting setting are nice, but I for one am curious about the game mechanics. What is that percentage score for in the middle of the attribute section? and how do the attributes work, since thy are listed as modifiers (+/-2, etc.)?

I don't think it would depend on the type of armor so much as the degree of coverage. Mail armor provides very good protection against blades. The thick is in getting the opponent to hit the mail rather than an exposed area. Even when someone has only partial coverage protection would be more along the lines of a yes/no thing, and not so much a wide variable. The opponet either hits the armor or he doesn't. Don';'t get me wrong, it will work. It's precisely how Pendragon works (although Pendragon also increases the protection, damage done, and hit points, so the end result isn't exactly the same). And it did work for Strombringer, although in that RPG normal armor gets eclipsed by demonic items. I'm just not so fond of it for BRP because of the high chance of getting next no no protection from a full suit. But, if full suits used a bell curve, I'd be happier with it. For example, if full plate w/helm went from 1D10+2 to 2D6, I'd be satisfied.

I prefer fixed armor values when using hit locations. IMO, variable armor values work better with general hit points. But there are some problems with variable armor. For one thing, it might be a bit too variable. I think a bell curve probably would work better than a single die. Otherwise it kinda makes armor too weak in BRP. That is you wind up with plate armor having about a 50% chance of stopping a broadsword on a normal success, and pricatically no chance against a special success or better. Another problem with variable AP is with cover and/or vehicles. If somebody is hiding behind a rock wall, the wall should stop an arrow or pistol round virtually all the time.

YES! That is precisely what my problem with how firearms are handled in BRP and in most other RPGs. It becomes more a matter of the bullet used as opposed to the skill of the marksman. Which is pretty much the opposite of how it works in real life. Most experts will tell you that someone who is skilled and accurate is going to be more dangerous and deadly even with a relatively light round.

Thanks. I picked up Vol 2. Overall it does a nice job. it puts the weapon damages on a progression and covers a lot of the options, tactics and special ammo that we've been discussing. Personally, I think the weapon damages are a bit too high, and give too many adds (i.e. 1D10+1D4+2 for a .44 Magnum), but that's something that can be worked with. Since the weapon damages and ranked on a relative scale to each other, it would be very easy to do up an alternate table and just plug it in.

I wasn't even aware of those books. I'll have to check them out.