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What if: 1) A normal character must use the lower of his Bow or Ride skill when shooting from horseback, as normal. 2) A character with Horse Archery can use his Horse Archery skill instead of Bow, and is not limited by his Ride skill. Additionally Horse Archery skill starts off as the average of Bow and Ride, although it can be improved like other skills.

I really liked that adventure. Tell him thanks.

Yeah, me too. With me it was more a case of my being so famialr with what "everybody knows" that I didn't consider that the common beliefs were not part of the legends. Then I started reading books like Dracula, and discovered that the literary vampire was far differernt from the film vampire, and that got me to dig deeper. QUOTE=Heimdallsgothi;41373]Well looking at classic monsters.... vulnerable to silver and magic..... 12 hps.... not so bad...

I think they did. I suspect that Aps o something like them were used in some wargames before they were incorpated into RPGs.

Yuo know the culture, just not it's source. Quite a few of the things that every assumes to o be part of werwolf and vampire legends come from the movies. It is somewhat significant to gamers, since it is mostly the film versions of monsters that the RPG analogs are based upon. Yes, indeed, although you will probably see more variation in vampire legends that werewolf legends. Back when I was running CHILL, it was very important for the PCs to do thier homework and discover just what subtype of monster they had to deal with. Relying on vampies supposed vulnerabilty to sunlight has proven hazardous some some PCs health.

Yup. According to folklore you didn't need anything special to kill a werewolf. Silver, transformation tied to phases of the moon, the bite being contagious, and all that came from The Wolf Man. Traditionally silver weapons were for use against vampires. It is just amazing how much of the modern "werewolf tradition" was invested by Siodmak.

Of coruse, when somebody who has been playing BRP for 20 or 30 years decides to change something, that's differernt. They at least know what they are messing around with. Amen. One of the things that I didn't like about MRQ was that most of the changes to the system created new problems. RQ had a bunch of checks & balances built in, and the new author(s) did not seem to be aware of them. That is why thet had to keep patching the combat rules. Often people familiar with another system just assume that things work the same way in another, and make changes that have effects that they didnot expect. For instance, a +1 sword in D&D does full damage to a werewolf, while a sword with Bladesharp 1 only does 1 point to a wearwolf in RQ. That makes a big difference when you have to fight a werewolf. And those who are unfamiliar with RQ/BRPO will be in for a nasty shock.

Sorry, Rod. I diodn't mean to imply that there is anything worn orbad about Classic Fantasy. I was just emphasising that it can be silly to play a differernt RPG and not expect it to play differerntly. There is a LOTR group in my area where one player kept acting like the game was D&D. He was bothered by differences in the systems (anything that was different that DD was "wrong", something that got funny when it was pointed out that Tolkien was the one who created things like orcs, grey elves, high evles, and half orcs, not TSR). The player was constantly complaining about the game system, and was always upset that his character couldn't do the same sort of things that a wizard could do in D&D. He never even tried to discover all the things that his character could do in LOTR that he couldn't do in D&D. There was really no reason for him to even try LOTR. There really is no point in somebody buying a differernt BRP if they are going to keep playing the same way. And a lot of players don't seem to get that and adapt. There isn't anything wrong with somebody wanting a "Classic Fantasy" experience and playing CF. I just think that new groups should atleast trying to et familar with BRP, before turning it into something else.

Well, the game really hasn't been very active for most of those 30+ years. It stared off well, but RQ3 resulted in them going over a lot of old ground, with lisended settings like Stromberinger and CoC adding some setting specfic nasties. But creatively the system was stuck in limbo for two decades.

There are lots of ways to reduce mortialty, but I think it is better first to understand how the game works as written before aking any changes. For those who want a gaming experience more like D&D, there is Classic Fantasy. But, I think that sort of defeats the purpose of playing BRP. I mean, if somebody wants things to be more like another game, they could just play another game. BRP/RQ is enjoyable in part becuase combat is so leathal and it forces players to trhink.

Not really. Being hit in BRP, unllike most RPgs, can be life threatening, even if you only get hit once. Also, specials and critical are more effective and parries might not be entirely effective against them. And then, of coourse, there is next round. The baker is only going to stop 30% of the skilled swordsman's attacks. So he might stop one or two attacks before he goes down. Once again, this isn't Pendragon, or Rolemaster, or D&D. Character, inclduing player characters don't have a big pool of hit points to soak up damage with. So they can't take two or three whacks before figuring out that they are overmatched. Characters just ca't take 10 or 15 points of damage before figuring out they can't win. And that is whatthe parry does. Gives them a chance. ## YES. The game would be far too deadly without it. However, depedning on which option you use, there might be limts on what you can do with one weapon at a given time. That is you might have to delay your attack a DEX rank or SR with your weapon becuase you are parring with it now. Yes and Yes and or maybe and no. You see it depends on what options you are using. Basicallyeach type of weapon is it's own skill. (1H sword, 1H Axe) and the skill score applies to all weapons of that general type. So if you have 1H sword you can use that skill when wielding ANY one handed sword. But your sword skill won't apply if you are wielding a club. Now, depending on what options you are using this can change a bit. One option splits attack and parry into two seperate skills Another option lets you apply half you skill to "similar weapons". That is is you know how to swing an axe, it might help you when swings a sword or a mace, but probably won't be worth much if you pick up a spear or a bow. Yet another option would be to treat each weapon as it's own skill. In that case, knowing how to use a boradsword, it won7t help if you pick up a bastard sword. your attack Are actually surprising easy to use, and really help with timing issues. It is also optional. Persoanlly I prefer SRs, since it prevents things like people running across a field and hitting somebody who had an arrow nocked in his bow and should have been able to shoot first. SRs also help with integrating magic into the order of combat. Most of the work is done is advance. A guy who attack on SR7 will always attack on SR 7, unless they do something else prior to attacking. Sor SRs look far more complicated that they are in play.

THat will change. One of the big differences between BRP and games like Pendragon and Rolemaster is that a good parry will stiop most attacks. Especially if backed up with armor and/or magic. What you will se if that once PCs get their defense skills up, they wont get hit as often. You can see this for yourself by running a fight between two generate guys average stats, 50% skill) and then refight it giving them both 100% skill. The real lethality in BRP tends to come fom the special and crtical hits. Such hits can often do enough damage to kill someone outright, although once again a good parry can make all the difference. But expect fights in BRP to be shorter and more brutal than in most ofther fantasry RPGs. You dont really want long fights with both sides tading blows, since it will greatly increase the chances of a PC being killed by lucky crtical or special. In some ways, two guys fighting in plate can be in greater danager than two guys fighting in clothing.

No slight taken. I think that Box Superworld does adress and solve most of the problems tat BRP has with Supers, and most of those solutions can be ported right over to BRP. For a "full. four color" Supers campaign, most of the Box WoW adjustments, or somethin glike them, are needed. So it would save us the trouble of reinventing the wheel.

I dont see why not. The BRP mpnograph is mostly a retread of older Chaosium products. If the RQ3 stuff can (and has) been rerelased as BRP why not Suerworld? Vierually all the stats and terms are compatible, and most interchangable, with BRP. And the fastest, and one of the best ways to do a BRP Supers project would be to base it off the Superworld Box Set. It's not like Chaosium has been shy to reusser older products for BRP.

I think the way to do it would be the opposite approach that what people havwe been doing so far. Rather than using BRP Gold as the core and moddiing it for Supers, I think it would be better to use the Superworld Box Set as the base and add BRP elements to it. The Box set did address most, if not all the problems with tuning BRP into a Supers game. Of coruse you gotta have the Superworld Box Set to do that.

I dont kniow whose decision it was, but IMO it was the wrong one. WOW Supers wasnt really playable. thats kina why the boxed set was done up. The core BRP rules are a bit to down to earth and realistic for a four colored comics supers campaign. It's not really BRPs fault. Superheroes campaigns are very differernt from other types of gaming. Where as most campaign settings have a certain underlying "laws of reality" to them, Superheroes settings use the reality of the comics.

Well, in RQ3, the category modifiers added to the chances of imrpvment as well as the base chances. IMO the est solution is to add about 20% to the cargeot modfiers and use them as the base chance for all skills under a given category (other than the 00%/01% skills). That way you only need to caclautate a half dozen base skill % scores. In fact, skills at the base% ont need to be tracked. Skills that have very high base % can just be given easy difficulties, and those with very low base chances can be considered difficult. That will give most of the benefits of the skill catgoies while still being low math.

Oh, not familar with that series. Hmm, I wonder how damage and Db, scales up? At some point, the db would make melee weapons more effective than ranged weapons. That would explain why most of the really big mecha tend to carry melee weapons. A 5 ton sword must be appealing if you got a 12D6 damage bonus.

Disintergrating metal limks are the preferred method for most machine guns and autocannon. Clips aren't practical for such weapons due to the size and weight involoved. But then. most folks don't have giant sized, fully artiuclated robatic hands and arms to do the reloading. Hmm, just a thought, but a mecha scale crossbow could be a nasty weapon. Yeah, especially if you got giant sized robotic arms to swap them out when empty.

Not exactly a strong case for first rate military hardware. Hadly cuttin edge stuff. Out of all the things Saddam did, the invasion of Kuwait was probably the best justified. They Kuaitis were stealing millions in oil and Saddam actually did (for one) try to come up with a non-military solution. Is that a good thing? I don7t think that they are leading the world in TD design, just that everybody else went with a tracked TD. Sorry, but I just don't buy the idea that a 10mm rapid fire cannon is goin to turn out to be a signficant improvment over the current technolgies or that it will revolutionize the military forces of the world. Im not sayingthat Italy can't produce some new and game changing military tech, just that heavy caliber high ROF cannon isn't it, and that the seck is stacked against Italy. It doesn't have as much money to spend on R&D. How about belt-fed weapons? Not everything uses an easily changed "clip". (I'm thinking of something like a GU-11 gunpod)

I hope not. I7d prefe not to use copy-mecha.

I'll try to trim this down to the central points. For everything else there's PMing. The ones that actuallymanage to sell military equipment to other major nations. The US, the UK, France, Russia, Germany, and a few others. Italy hasn't been a major miltiry power since the 1920s, nor a major weapons maufacturer. So it is highly doubtful that any majoradvances in weapons technology is going to come out of Italy. I dont see this idea as a step forward, more like a low cost alterative to more sophsicated methods of AA. It not that they will be NO good. Just that a ligther weapon can do a better job for less. To make a rapid fire heavy weapon, one would need to come up with a way to store and transport lots of heavy ammpo, away to load it at high speed, a way to deal with the recoil and heat generated, a way to keep the barrel functional and accruate, and to deal with barrel wear. All for a slight increase in killing potential. Not worth the trouble when all aircraft are "soft" targets. And useless for tanks, since the weight limitations would require that the tank sacrifice its armor in order to carry enough ammo for rapid fire- which negates the need to use a bigger round. Then you would be in for a surprise. You are putting to much emphasis on the size of the shell. Funny since heavy tank guns today are not designed as long range weapons, ut instead are used at point blank ranges. And BTW, I mean point blank in its actual meaning (so close that the round will have negligible drop), not the one people tend to give to it (i.e. really close) All engineering revolves around trade offs. To get X, you have to give up Y and put up with Z. Its not so much "sweet spots but a matter of choosing what characterstics you want, and what you can live with. And that is why they are stories. If it were the norm, people wouldn't be talking about it. Once you damage an aircraft you compromise its structure and its ability to withstand G forces and frction forces. Aircraft that limp back home with extensive damage usually are nursed on the way back and dont do and fancy maneuvers. The increase isn't very significant though, as the energy of an explosion does not increase linerarly. Since fighter aircaft can move as much as 300m/s in a dogfight, the increase in area of effect isnt that significant. Then load missiles, and hope the setting doesnt have some spcial reason prohibiting them from working at long range (Mobile Suit Gundam). Most mecha shows tend to treat the mecha like gladiators, and fights are conducted in fairly close range. Nobody seems to pack a big bertha type of weapon and start shooting at targets hundred of km away. No, but to change significantly requires a singificant advanced in technology. There are good reasons why battleships are obsolete, and why no one uses 10-0 inch guns anymore. Its not that those guns arent powerful, but that there are better ways to do more damage with less. What you mecha can do and where it can stand will depend a lot on the setting. Most mecha settings have some technolgical advances that make mecha viable combat weapons, which in turns dictates how they can be used. Yeah, being near a tank in combat is a dangerous thing. sabot rounds notwishtanding, the shockwave can be pretty nasty at that scale.

Like I said, doesn't appear much. didn't say it never happened. But for every mecha series that has it, there ae dozens that don't.

Oh, big long quote time! The USMC (and possibly other branches) wanted 27mm mauser instead of 20mm and settled on 25mm for its better energy.