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I've used the original Magic World. It's okay, but it really is just a trimmed down version of RQ. When I ran it we always ended up porting the characters over to RuneQuest or Stormbringer both of which had more robust game systems, and saved me the trouble of reinventing things that existed in other BRP games I wanted to flesh out Magic World. . Original Magic World Magic was also a bit overpowered, with some spells doing 1D6 damage per magic point. Pretty much any other fantasy RPG from Chaosium would be a step up from the WoW Magic World, so I'd suggest going with something else. The BRP BGB is an upgrade from WoW MAgic World, as is the current Magic World (basically the Elric/Stormbringer game system without the Moorcock stuff). Questworld was just an open game world to use with the RuneQuest rule system, as an alternate to Glorantha, and one which third party writers could have a bit more say in how the world worked that they could have in Glorantha. Most writers couldn't just pop new species, cults and cultures into Glorantha, but they could (and should) do so in Questworld.Other that the new world it had a couple of new cults and some adventures, all very compatible with Glorantha if desired. Overall Questworld was a good idea but came out at the wrong time. A year later RQ3 came out and made Questworld both moot and obsolete, as RQ3 wasn't tied to Glorantha the way RQ2 was, and had multiple settings. You are not alone. THat are a few of us who like RQ, especially RQ3 as a game system for settings other than Glorantha. Yup, but not as many of us around here as there used to be. The powers that be have decided to go in another direction with the rules and RQ3 is mostly dead.

Undead do not have a POW stat. The old in game explanation used was that POW equal Life Force and they are not actually alive, being incomplete creates In fact in RQ3 if you somehow give undead a permanent POW stat, say through a Creat Familiar (POW) spell it becomes a complete, living creature, although probably with odd abilities and appearance. Instead of POW then, maybe just go with Hit Points equal SIZ? Hmm now that I think about it, undead not having a POW stat doesn't really make sense according to the RQ rules. I mean, zombies and vampires are dead bodies reanimated by spirits similar to possession, and spirits have a POW stat right? Maybe something to do with the nature of animating the dead locks up the spirit's POW somehow, so it is not available or noticeable? Probably so it can't be driven out with spirit combat or show up with standard detection spells..

I believe it is a holdover from RuneQuest, where skeletons were not actually Undead, but instead were enchanted magical items (sort of like a magically animated robot). That is (probably) also why animated Skeleton STR and DEX scores were based on the POW points used to create them, rather that those of the deceased, and why they don't have an INT score.

Believe it not the Tower of Yrkath Florin sample scenario (by Ken St. Andre) in the early editions of Stombringer was/is a favorite of mine. While the text as written is a bit bare bones and dungeon crawly (well, tower crawly), if a GM fleshes it out with the stuff that Ken cut from the published version (i.e. the pirates and cave with dragon), and some sort of motivation for the PCs to go there, it becomes a very good introduction. That is assuming the group can deal with the POW 30 Demon Door. The adventure gives you quite a bit of Young Kingdoms/Melnibone vibe without needing the players to know that much about the setting.

It might be good to have conflicts that use multiple conflict pools too. For instance a small fighter trying to dodge a battleship using Speed/free POW as opposed to BODY.

Say clarence, On the off chance that you haven't thought of it yet, you could revamp the ship stats from M-SPACE to match those of the Comae Engine. Ships could be given combat pools (BODY would reflect the structure of the ship, INT the computer system, POW the generators and engines, and CHA the AI and interactive software), tags, lenses, etc. just like characters. The weapons, shields and armour stats could all port over to spacecraft scale as well. There are even a few tricks like base Speed and Handing off of POW-BODY which might give you similar stats but with simpler math. I'm just mentioning it in case the thought didn't occur to you yet.

Maybe but that's not the point.The OP wanted a method for adapting 2d20 Conan stuff to BRP. As there is no conversion from 2d20 Conan to BRP, but there is one from 2d20 Conan to D20/D&D Conan, and as people have been converting from D&D to BRP for years, D&D can be used as a Rosetta Stone. No judgments were being passed on the 2d20 game system. Just a desire to adapt 2d20 Conan stuff to BRP.

Yeah, which is one of the reasons why conversions are more than just number crunching, and even under the best circumstances there will be differences. D&D 3E/3.5 is probably the easiest to covert to BRP in part becuase the designers were influenced by RQ. In 3E carry capacity doubles with each 5 points of Strength while in BRP lifting ability doubles with each 8 points of Strength. So a 8/5th mutiple plus offset is probably the best way to line the games up.

I don't have to imagine it, I've played through it. Generally speaking most experienced players get used to having an experienced GM and ten to be somewhat unforgiving of inexperienced GMs. Especially if the group has one or more good GMs, who then set the bar rather high. Even other GMs can be rather unforgiving, as they tend to pick up on the mistakes first. And as GMing is kinda a thankless job to begin with, player being more likely to complain about their troubles (even when having fun) than to acknowledge the good stuff the GM is doing, it makes players even more gun shy of GMing, and more crtical of their own efforts when they do. Even Seth Skorkowsky did a video about it.

It was called Advanced Sorcery and edited by Ben Monroe. Basically it was a revised version of the Sorcery rules from Strombringer/Elric! with some new stuff, such as necromancy, thrown in. Not all that surprising at Magic World was basically a new edtion of Strombringer/Elric with the Moorcock specfic stuff removed. As Elric orginated as a rot of parody of Conan any of the Stormbinger Magic systems would give the right sort of fell in a Conan game. As for general conversion, I suggest reverse engineering the d20 to 2d20 conversion system that Morphidus came out with (edited by Jason Durall) . It can get you from 2d20 to D20/D&D which should make it easer to adapt to BRP. Attributes: STR, CON and SIZ are based off of BRAWN. For more variety you could triple the value given below and divide the points as desired. For instance a character with a 11 BRAWN would have a BRP STR, CON and SIZ of 16, or 48 points to spend between them. INT is based off of INTELLIGENCE POW is based off of WILLPOWER DEX is based off the average of AGILITY and DEXTERITY CHA (if used) is based off of PERSONALITY. If you want to use APP instead you could average WILLPOWER and PERSONALITY, or generate randomly, and modfiy for any applicable Talents Multiply the 2d20 Conan stat by 2 and subtract 6 to get a D20 (or BRP) score. Like So: 2d20= BRP 7= 8 8=10 9=12 10=14 11=16 12=18 13=20 14=22 15=24 16=26 As for Skills/Expertise, I'd suggest adding about 20% per level of expertise to the base chances. It's crude, overlooks much of detail of 2d20, is not a perfect fit, but it will probably get you in the right ballpark, especially for one shot NPCs. . If you need to make the NPCs more or less skilled for your PCs then you can use +15% or +25% or whatever best fits your group.

OH, certainly so, if a GM is willing to do that. One way would be to would be to convert 1 week of prep/sleep time into one or more magic points/POW. Lifeforce (and Traits) could be ported over easily enough, or discarded in favor on basing spell limits onto the relevant magic skill. Oh, and the damage/armor ratings would probably need to be converted (say half) to reflect the differences between the game systems. +1d6 damage in Pendragon is nice but +1D6 damage in BRP is phenomenal. Another way would be to keep the traits, lifeforce and weeks payment, and have a relatively low magic campaign where the magician PCs are only part time characters. It really comes down to how powerful and common the GM wants the magic to be. In Pendragon, a powerful magician can pull off some amazing things but pays for it with lots of prep time, magical sleep, or aging (I failed to mention before the bit about magicians who fail to pay the proper weeks cost in prep work or sleep instead pay with aging rolls). Depending on what the GM want's and what take on Celtic Myth being used, the magic system could even be adapted as a form of super powers. Lots of legendary Celtic Heroes had innate magical abilities that could be modeled using the magic system. Gawaine's solar based strength for instance.

Yeah. Greg went into a lot of detail about Celtic/Faerie Glamour in Pendragon, and how it isn't so much illusion, but only temporary. The Pendragon Magic system from KAP 4 is very different mechanically than other BRP games though (Pendragon doesn't have a POW stat with spells being paid for in weeks of prep time before hand, or magical slumber afterwards (think Merlin's line about sleeping for nine moons after helping Uther reach Igraine in the film Excalibur) You also need to use the Pendragon Personality traits (or adapt the RQG ones) to calaculate a Lifeforce stat, which is the limit on how poerful a spell a magicain can cast (modfied by time of the season, location and such). So Faerie Magic would work fine as a GM thing to explain away the magical nature of Faerie, but might not be something that a GM would want to run in other BRP games.

That's rather clever. Tie it in with the previous history stuff and you could break up the backstory into eras/events, what the PC did at the time, and what skills and abilities they picked up.

LOL! I think that is one of the more telling criticisms of Tolkien. Most events seem to unfold over many many years. I think Tolkien did it to give Middle Earth's history depth. The problem with it though is that it leads to years going by without anyone doing much or coming into contact with other cultures. For instance it appears than no one in Rhoan or Gondor had seen an Elf, and although Arnor fell over a thousand years ago, no new kingdoms of any sort spring up in the time before Aragorn restores Arnor. Another interesting bit about the family history of elves is that since elves are so long lived, an elven PC might actually have been at some great event years ago, rather than (or in addition to) one or more ancestors. Elrond was at the battle 3000 years ago, where Sauron was struck down.

Some of us have. I think about half the people I've gamed over the years have read Lord of the Rings. Few have read much more than that or kep up with the lore. Most of the people I've know who are familar with Lord of the Rings, think Gandalf is a human with magical powers, and do not understand what he really is. All the more reason to get things down. There are differences between the books, movies, and TV series. Some of which are very significant I don't play RQG, so I have to ask- why? Can PCs die in character generation ala Traveller, or do the players give up in chargen because of excessive backstory? Either way, it would seem to apply to RQG in general, and not just to a Middle Earth adaptation. Then I guess we disagree on this. I get the idea of wanting to play rather than writing up rules and background, but it's the GM's job to be prepared and prepare the players. There are four RPGs for playing in Middle Earth (MERP, LOTR, TOR, AIME), plus many FRPGs that were heavily influenced by Middle Earth. If someone is in a rush to play then those game exist. But just shoehorning Middle Earth into another game system without really considering how to do so is going to be a disappointing experience. Like all those AD&D supplements where they converted various fantasy and historical settings to AD&D, and they all ended up playing and feeling like AD&D rather than the intended setting. If a group is determined to play in Middle Earth using RQG then they are going to have to do the prep work. Sam with any established setting.

Yeah, Pendragon is very similar (probably because it was used as inspiration for RQG). Doing up Family History Tables could be a chore (I did just that for my last Pendragon campaign, which pushed the starting date back to around 410), but I think with Middle Earth it won't be as bad to set up, as Tolkien wrote up extensive timelines that would be of great help. Yes, but that is going to be the case anyway. By running Middle Earth with RQG (or pretty much any RPG that hasn't borrowed heavily from Tolkien) a GM is going to have to do a lot of work to make the game fit the setting. But then they lose out on the history and details that make the setting appealing in the first place. A GM can't really get away with playing fast and loose with the One Ring, or the major characters. A GM either has to embrace the lore, or set the campaign away from the people and events that made people want to game there. Now if a GM can get the players to write up characters from one area/culture they can start small, and won't need to go into a lot of detail about everything (much like what Tolkien did by using Hobbits as the main characters and making everyone else strangers), but they will need something to act as a foundation. Otherwise the campaign will just fell like yet another generic fantasy game. I've seen more than one gamer drop back into D&D mode while playing in Middle Earth.

Good reason. I think this could mostly be covered by tossing out the Rune abilities that came with RQG. RQ Spirirt/Battle Magic, Rune/Divine Magic and Sorcery work out okay functionally. Maybe. It might be better just to ignore Rune inspriations and instead give some trait options based upon culture. That's what The One Ring does with Traits and it helps to capture the fell of the various cultures. You kinda lose some of the charm of the setting that way. As Middle Earth is a setting with a detailed and extensive timeline, I think it would be better to redo the family history tables to reflect the setting. It would be great to be able to tie the PCs to the great battles and events of the age. I think that is mostly true. It worth remembering though that there are those who use magic of some sort in the setting as well as weapons with heroic/magic properties. A GM would need to have some idea of how to handle the Witch King of Angmar and such. Yes, the original Magic World from Worlds of Wonder did just that, using the Gloranthan species as the base templates for generic FRPG elves, dwarves, etc. But the species of Middle Earth and not quite the same as their generic FRPG counterparts. For instance, Elves in Middle Earth, especially the Calaequendi, are tall, taller than most men and so would have a higher SIZ that the typical RQ Elf. So to do the setting justice a GM should adapt the system to the setting, which is pretty much the approach Chaosium used in the past for game such as Stormbringer, Call of Cthulhu, ElfQuest, etc. BTW, on a related note I do have some Middle Earth species writeups for RQ3 that I did up back in the 90s. It's not RQG, was a first or second draft, is about 30 years old, has some errors in it, was supposed to be modified with some rule changes that got left of the hard drive of an Atari ST, but they might be of some use. I think I still have the weapon crafting rules that went with it, too. I could post or upload it, assuming I could find it. I think I sent it to someone on the forums a couple of years ago.

I agree. I liked the earlier edition from C7 as well. IMO The One Ring captures the fell of Middle Earth better than any of the other games that have tackled the setting. It would certainly be something I would lean into if trying to run Middle Earth in RQ/BRP too. The game does a great job of combining the homespun, down to earth aspect of Middle Earth, with the more fantatical elements.

LOL! I think we are on the same page here. Ki Skills were something I was thinking about when I typed that text. But basically my point is that a lot of what is considered to be magical in a generic FRPG sense, isn't specifically noted as such in Tolkien's works. Instead such items are noted as being of superior craftsmanship. RQ's Land of the Ninja's Ki skills isn't out of place for Middle Earth. Neither would be the Lineage rules for magic weapon as presented in Pendragon's Saxons!, where just being the weapon of a famous person adds to a weapon's effectiveness. Probably because both approaches hack back to legendary items in Earth's history, all of which have some sort of backstory and not just something picked up at the local shop. Ki skills could also account for some of the superhuman abilities possessed by the Eldar. Legloas' archery skills, especially in the Peter Jackson films, could easily by explained in RQ terms via Ki skills (although the extremely long lifespan of elves could justify insanely high skill scores too.

Kinda. Just what constitutes "magic" is hard to pin down in Tolkien. Much of what the Elves do is considered to be magic by the hobbits and men. So in game terms a elven cloak,boots or rope might be treated as magical or not. A similar case exists for Elven and Numenorean weapons that are know to be more effective against creatures of the Enemy, such as Glmabring or Sting. Much of what is considered as magical are items that are superior at what they are supposed to do, but aren;t specfically as being magical in the text. So we have some wiggle room there. An effect thast works like Bladesharp might be magical or it might be the result of a highly skilled smith making good crafting rolls. Game system wise, you might want to consider using a more generic version of RQ/BRP as you base system, as RQG is more deeply entwined with Glorantha that other BRP games. I think RQ3, Stormbringer/Elric/Magic World, or BRP would all be easier to adapt to Middle Earth.

Welcome to the GM club. Uh, why? Seriously, every GM with any experience has messed something up badly, at least once, and most have done it multiple times. Being a good GM doesn't;t mean that you never mess up, it means that you try to learn from your mistake to avoid repeating it, and do what you can to correct the error. A bad GM isn't one who makes mistakes, but one who refuses to fix them, either out of ego or fear or looking like they have failed. Really it's a learning curve. I think a lot of new GMs are too hard on themselves (and some experienced players are too hard on new GMs) and expect to be able to do everything as good as an experienced GM. That's just not being fair. Situations like this are how GMs learn. So you have learned from your mistake and are doing what you can to correct it. Sounds like you good GM to me. I bet you won't make the same mistake again, and be a bit more hesitant about upping the opposition in the future. Judging what a group is capable of handling is one of the toughest skills for a GM to master, as the line between challenge and slaughter is fairly thin. Mostm if not all, of us have similar horror stories.

Wow, were are you located? I gamed in the Northeast U.S. and the DI houserule was as common to all the AD&D groups as the critical hit/natural 20 does does damage houserule. It was so prevelant that most people just assumed it existed unless told otherwise. I'd think a Runelord is at least a Lvl 10-11 character based upon the relative combat skill. A Runlord needs a 90%+ weapon skill, and to have a 90% base chance to hit in D&D would require a fighter to be at least level 8. That ignore attribute modifiers, specialties and such, but it also ignores Armor Class. But basically if they are uspposed to be master swordsmen they must be highly skilled and thus high level. More like Macintosh to Golden Declicious. Both do the same thing, simulate heroic fantasy world combat, but they do so in different ways. I don't know if RQ is more "realistic", per say. I've never seen anyone cast fireblade, or have thier allied spirirt do so for them in real life. I get your point, but RQ isn't all that more "realistic" than D&D. It's grittier and have a higher element of risk to them. Yeah, but for you to be dfown in the first place is the tough bit. 10th level fighter vs. 1HD monster is a foregone conclusion in D&D. It's mostly so in RQ/BRP but not quite. Pretty much anybody can fall to a single lucky critical and that is a game changer. You're still assuming that the guy is down, which is what probably wouldn't happen in D&D. Additionally, being dead isn't quite as inconvenient in D&D that in RQ/BRP. D&D has a lot of magic to bring character from the dead, so even if the mook offs a PC the other PCs can bring them back easily enough. Even the Rurik situation of being killed before coming back would just mean that a cleric would be inconvenienced and have to raise Rurik again. In RQ such magic is much rarer and most other version of BRP don't even have coming back from the dead as an option. Uh, it's a non feature. First off mook has to drop the PC. This is the tough bit. Secondly mook kills downed PC, easy bit. Thirdly, non of the other PCs do anything about it. Generally speaking, once you reach a certian level in D&D, unless you have a Total Party Kill, death is only an setback. Hmm, the guy used to post on this forum. Maybe he's still lurking and could post the details? But then, I haven't seen him around for over a decade. Yes, it's seconday becuase it's not a featuee of RQ, but of game mechanics in general. Basically the more attempts you make the higher your chances of eventually failing. It gets pointed out a lot with action heroes, comic book characters and such. It's the infitinte monkeys/Hamet thing. Mathematically speaking, if you shoot at James Bond or the Batman enough, you will eventually hit and kill them. But if that were to happen it would end the series, so it doesn't happen. Or it jet's retcooned or rebooted. If the mooks kill off the PCs at too high a rate, you run out of PCs. Because it kills a campaign and causes players to stop playing. Now the trick is to provide enough of a risk that it could happen to keep the game existing, but not have it happen enough to disrupt the game. It's the same reason why the NPCs doen't have skill scores assigned randomly. Realistically, a fledgling PC could run into a master swordsman in his first fight, but that doesn't happen in games because it makes for a bad game. Oh, I agree. Let the dice fall where they may, and deal with the consequences, unless your group is using hero points or DI or something. I recall one infamous weekend when I rolled up and lost five characters. All due to the GM rolling a lucky critical hit in the first combat. It happens, and it did derail those games- just going through chargen five times will do that. I was fine with it though because without the risk of that happening the game wouldn't have been an exciting and my accomplishments would have felt empty since they would have been rigged. But most of the protection/screening comes is the adventure design, not in the gameplay. They are written such that they PCs have a better than average chance of success. The PCs rareley if over, are over matched in skil and ability. Becuase it bad storytelling and bad gaming to just beat down the heroes every time. Not quite anything. In fact, a lot of what can and will happen is clearly spelled out. Much of what makes Glorantha interesting is stuff that is pre-written pre-ordianed, and involves heroes who overcome the odds and accomplish great things. That's what makes them appealing. SO you have a narrative, a highly structured adventures, player characters with free will, along with some form of randomizers (usually dice), and they don't always mix well. Player death can ruin an adventure, depending on where and when, and how much depended upon that player character. The more of a heroic campaign you are going for the more difficult such events can be. If you are running a "generic" game where the PCs are adventueres who don't affect the big picture much, and everything can be allowed to play out however the dice fall, then yeah, PC death isn't that big a thing to the campaign. But if the game is story focused and a PC has a major role then death can ruin not only an adventure but a campaign. It's not long chargen, it's player investment. Once the character starts to develop, no matter when, they player gets invested and doesn't wan't to loose that character. But, conversely they want (and need) to be put at risk and overcome obstacles in order for the adventures to be exciting and satisfying. My last group was playing Tunnels & Trolls a game where chargen takes about ten minutes, yet players who got invested in thier characters didn't want to lose them. Yes, but that is because no one wants to see a movie where the main characters get killed off half way through, and the bad guys win. But by that logic it's not good for Glorantha either. Basically most of the heroes tend to do things that defy the odds. That's why they are heroes. And that's why we find thier stories compelling. Now they can do so because their stories were written and the authors made sure things went as desired for the story. But if thing were all done organically, it probably wound't have come out as well. Same with PCs. Players play RPGs to play larger than life characters who can do things they can't, and who can beat the odds. But if they odds were really against the PCs they would be beaten pretty early on. So most games cheat and stack the deck in the PCs favor. Now you might thing that you don't stack the deck and run everything "fair" but adventures aren't written to be "fair", they are written so that the players have a good chance of succeeding. What if the Empire blows up the Falcon before they make the jump to lightspeed? That's the thing with a narrative/story type of advenure with heroic PCs wo are needed for something. If they fail then the universe fails with them. And the same thing can happen in RQ, if the PCs are that important to the course of events. Now if they aren't that important, that's fine, but they limits them to being minor players in the story. But that isn't a feature of RuneQuest so much as you choice of GMing style. Which is fine, as long as you understand what it means, and also what that means with dice and multiple attempts. What it means with adventures design and so on. I'm not opposed to that style, in fact, I run fairly similar to that with a lot of games (the type of campaign/genre/setting influences the style of play). As far as the difference between RQ and D&D they are also fine, as long as people realize and accept them. Over the years I've seen a lot of D&D players, who tried some other RPG and then got very unhappy when the tactics they used in D&D didn't work in the game they were playing. Rather than realize this and change their tactics, they would get upset and blame the GM or game. I've wiped out scores of PCs who though a frontal change was the best tactic to use against missile troops. That tactics makes sense in AD&D where fighter have lots of hit points, archers only get off a couple of shots before being engaged, and arrows do 1d6. That tactic doesn't make as much sense in RQ where hit points are fixed, archers can get off several shots before the opponent can close, and missile weapons can impale. It makes even less sense when the archers are on battlements, and is just suicidal when the missile troops have assault rifles and an M2HB machine gun. And yes, I've seen D&Ders charge a fort and a machine gun in order RPGs and be surprised when they got mowed down.

You're missing the point. The point is when gaming we want the risk of of death to make the fights exciting but we also don't really want our PCs taken out by a random mook and ruin the adventure. For example, image how Star Wars would have gone if one of those Strotroopers had actually hit Han Solo before he took off in the Falcon? In order to have an excting game we want that element of risk, but conversely in order to have a satify adventure, no to mention a campaign, we don't really want that to happen. Much of the design choices and differences between RPGs are about how you balance off those two conflicting goals. Somewhat. I think it had something to do with the way adventures were written and probably applied to early RQ as much as early D&D. Balastor's Barracks and such were dungeon crawls much like with D&D. I think the differences are that RQ quickly expanded beyond the simple dungeon crawl and that PCs can never really be safe in a fight to the same degree as they can in game with increasing hit points and "balanced" encounters. A master swordsman in RQ can almost always be taken out by a lucky critical, while a high level fighter in D&D can't be taken out by one attack from a low level oppoent. True. Player characters can only notice the things that the GM conveys to them, and even then they might not always grasp the significance of what they are told. While the players can work on their perception skills to help with this, the GM gets to design the encounters and can pretty much set the difficulty as desired, or just make something happen. I once had a character get ambushed by forty ninja (!!!) because the GM just sort of made it happen that way, and that was with a character who had superhuman sense ala Daredevil. I did plead my case to the GM and he changed his mind, but it did happen. Mathematically it's about one in four times not "a couple" but I see your point. I'll also point out that weapons break almost as fast in RQ2. I think that is more of a problem with the given WQ ratings rather than the method. Raise WQ by 4 or 5 points and you get much better results. . I don't find any of the various weapon breakages to be congruent with reality. Even plastic toy weapons are more durable than RQ2 weapons. Your forgetting impales and crticals. Even something like arrows can take down a shield, or make it unusable. Skill is a bigger factor. Yes, you can actually parry a pole ax with a dagger. If you do it right, it works out just fine. Problem is what happens when you don't do it right. But keep in mind that defending isn't just standing there and placing your shield or weapon in the way, but can include things like stepping forward and making contact before the oppoent fully extends. It why RQ had the succesful parry damaging a failed attacking weapon rule. Yup. For what is essentially one page of tables it does that wonderfully. Oh, I don't think HArn's injury system is all thatmore complicated that BRP. Basically it comes down to a matrix with 4 sucess levels for each oppoent.; damage vs. armor; and an inury roll based upon the result of the latter. Somewhat, but again it comes down just what is happening. For instance a blow could strike someone off balance and so on. For a real life situation I know hunters who swear that a bullet knocked a deer down, but real world physics proves otherwise. If the shot could knock the deer down, it would also knock them down when they fired the weapon. Newton's third law of motion. But realistically if the pain caused the deer to flinch or jump, and the bullet damaged a leg so that the deer couldn't stand on it - it would sure look like the shot knocked the deer down. Also realistically no one can really send someone flying by whacing them with a mace. Not unless thier the Hulk or something. Well for starters I'd probably go with RQ3 as my base, as I find that preferable to the BRP/Elric method. It's not perfect, but I think it holds up better than any of the other methods used in BRP games. Maybe I'd differentiate between a block and a parry (harder but no weapon damage). Come to think of it BTRC's Timelords did a good job of this. Weapons didn't break all that often, unless the wielder was very strong. Shield did break fairly easily, but had hit locations, so that you'd usually lose a chunk of it rather than having the whole shield go at once. But as you don't want to track weapon AP/HP , I might go with something like the HARN WQ roll, but set the WQ higher so that you have fewer weapon breaking. A steel sword should be tougher than a wooden shield. Maybe even factor in for a partially broken weapon/shield and a completely broken one. Being BRP, I might replace the 3d6 rolls with opposing the WQ's on the Resistance Table. Damage could be based upon the result (critical/special/success/failure/fumble). I'd probably use a two success level hit model for all weapons/shields. That is the losing weapon would be destroyed on a critical or fumble, but only partially damaged (say half damage and WQ/AP) on normal success.failure. Two normal successes/failures would break the weapon though. I''d probably need to consider how much fighting goes in in the campaign, and how often I want weapons to break before I made any decisions though. I mean if the average fight has a PC making five attacks and parries and there only a one in ten chance of weapon breakage the PCs are going to have a hard time (approx 12% chance) keeping a weapon for two fights.

Yes, that's my point. High damage isn't always about an attacking doing more damage, but could be about it doing damage to a more vital location.So a light energy/force attack to a leg probably gives you a limp, but to your skull gives you a concussion, and to your brain gives you a coma. A greatsword might hit with several times the force of, say a .25 caliber bullet, but if the latter goes through someone eye it will do "more damage" in game terms, even if it does less actual damage. A lot of what makes "damage" in the game are the various vulnerabilities of a living body, and wouldn't nor shouldn't translate to a parry object. You can't impale a broadsword with a thrusting dagger.

Depends on what vbersion of D&D you are playing and under what house rules. Most groups that played AD&D had some sort of DI rule, usually along the lines of Level as a percentage. And there are all sorts of raise from the dead/wish type spells that could have gotten him back. But the key point is that high level PCs aren't at nearly as much risk against low level oppoents in D&D than in RQ or other skill based RPGs. Only for massive damage. Rarely if ever for a mook stabbing a body while it's down or already dead. Because the rest really isn't all that relevant. In just about any RPG other RQ the situation couldn't happen. BTW, how did the Trollkin kill Rurik after Rurik called DI but before he got back up? DI should have gone off on SR 0 in RQ2 so Rurik should have been able to defend himself. Now I understand that a PC taking lots of risks is eventually going to fall to something, just by the percentages, but that is secondary to the fact that a hero type PC fell to a mook.