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I7ll pull out my RQ2 book. I think I know the answer, but I could be thinking RQ3. I think there is no such limit on lore/academic skills, since you learn those mostly by study rather than use. For instance, you can learn more history by reading than by talking about it. That is also why such skills can be trained past the 75% limit that most skills have. But,like I said, I might be thinking RQ3. I7ll check RQ2 and see if it is he same, or not.

Oh, that's not entirely fair. The RQ3 Creatures book did come up with some new creatures. Or at least ones that were "new" to RQ. As for the drought since then, I'd blame that on the fact that Chaosium degenerated into the "CoC Company" during the late 80s, and didn't do much else of any significance for a couple of decades other than break up.

Kinda funny. I just don't think it was such a great thing to do in RQ. In AD&D the bonuses didn't kick in until 15, and a character needed some 12s here and there to qualify for a class. I once had the dubious honor of getting a DM to go back on his "one set of rolls, that it!" rule in AD&D when I rolled so poorly that I failed to qualify for any class. But, in RQ there is a certain charm to taking an average character and developing him into a hero. Plus stats could be trained up during play. But...back on topic, my point was that not every RPG is was constrained to do things the same way as D&D. IMO, I think that RQ3 probably should have ditched the 3-18 curve for the other stats, and gone with something like 2d6+3 for everything, and tweaked the SR breakpoints a little. But even then, we'd still have problems with non human characters.

LOL! Okay, to clairfy, the 4D6 drop the lowest method was not a standard method in RQ. It was the default method in AD&D. One thing about RuneQuest is that, unlike most of the other early FRPGs, it did not evolve out opf D&D. It had it's own methods and internal logic that was differernt from D&D. IMO, that is one of the things that was wrong about MRQ. It was more RQ written by and for the D&D crowd.

Ooh, PDF, even better! Thanks.

Works for me, thanks! I am helping a GM make the switch from D&D to RQ/BRP and while I had an extra copy of the RQ3 Boxed Deluxe set, I didn't have the errata except in my perfectbound book.

Well, it is because when RQ3 was written they needed a way to have races that were smaller (and dumber) than humans. With the old 3D6 method of RQ2, they didn't have much room to sueeze in a hobbit or dog.

Yes, but the 4D6 method was not used in RQ.

Does anybody have the RQ3 Errata from the Perfectbound edition of RQ?

Static Defenses have two drawbacks in a system like BRP. First off, as others have siad, it takes some of the exictement out of things. One guy hits, and then rolls damage. The second thing is that combat in BRP is much deadlier than in most "static defense" games. Rather that just seeing HPs whittle away, characters in BRP can be seriously wounded, mained or even killed from a single hit! The active defense roll gives the defender some way to avoid disaster. Imagine how much "fun" it would be to play with a static defense when the GM rolls a good attack roll and tells you that your character is dead, and there is nothing you can do about it.

I think I have a table with Ap's by NIJ ratings somewhere. It would give more variety than just one or two vests.

Pretty much. That has basically been Chaosium's problem from day one. Like most RPG companies, especially those from the TSR era, it is a tiny company run out of somebody's garage, on a shoestring budget. In the early days Chaosium was an innovative leader in the field, but they degenerated into the CoC company, and haven't done anything significant in decades other than break up. It is why BRP is such a shot in the arm to us. It is the first real sign of life in the company in years. How many people bought "zero" because they were worried that BRP would never really happen? Glorantha wasn't terribly marketable in the old days. That's one reason why RQ-RQ3 never surpassed D&D. The setting is very different from what most gamers expect. Most of the D&Ders I gamed with back them had a hard time accepting the idea of "fighters" casting spells. It is probably more marketable now than it ever was. Greg's probably made more money from MRQ'S Glorantha line and the current HeroQuest stuff than he did in Chaosium's heydey, even adjusting for inflation. I still think the setting is fine, and holds together as well as any fantasy setting out there. The various game mechanics that have been tacked onto the setting are another matter. MRQ1 being the worst fit, IMO. It isn't the setting's fault if its various pantheons didn't match up well with MRQ's runic associations.

All joking aside, I bet Greg would permit it if Chaosium could come up with enough Lunars.

Since it is D&D, can't the input be in the form of radio and check boxes? Just select race, gender, classes, and preferred gear. Invincibility and the desire to kill things and take their stuff should be the DEFAULT (and only) setting.

You mean the rumours of 5E being a classless, skill based system, using percentile dice isn't true?

Fair enough. I thought that was what you meant, but with the various editions and name changes it can sometimes get confusing. Not as confusing as RQ2, but then Issaries wasn't trying to confuse things. I haven't seen HQ2. From what I've read the major difference seems to be that the game has dropped any sort of benchmarking or absolute scale, and instead all tasks are rated on a scale realtive to the characters. Not necesariliy a bad thing, at least for a game that aims for the mythic/cinematic style of play that Robin Laws shoots for, but not ideal for ALL sorts of gaming.

Point taken. The comic lines aren't what they once were. There was a time when Marve's super hero titles worked under a certain "common reality". DC's too. Now there is a lot more variation between titles or even in one title, depending on who is wrting it. While I do like more flexibility and variation, I think that the lack of a any consitency is one of the things that is hurting the comics industry in recent years. And as I have noted, I disagree. I don7t think it handles the "lower end" fine, but needs tweaking there. The middle end requires massive tweaking, and it cannot handle the high end at all without a massive rewrite. Now we might be disagreeing on just where the middle and high end are. But even at the low end, BRP BAtman and BRP Daredevil need a LOT of help to avoid becoming a statistic. One "bat-fumble" and it's over. Hey, we see pretty much eye to eye here. I prefer the SAGA edition to either of the two other Marvel games. The first one is the most popular, buy really doesn't play that well (I think the fans of the old MSHRPG are probably looking at it through rose colored glasses, forgetting things like AMAZING Strength vs. AMAZING body armor). I thought the MARVEL UNIVERSE RPG was interesting, but the "allocated stones" mechanic was flawed. Too much was tied to the refresh rate, and characters with fixed bonuses looked like they could rule the game. But I never tried the system out to see how it actually ran. IMO the SAGA system, both in MArvel and Dragonlance was a very good game that never got the attention it deserved.The "player active"mechanic used, where all tasks were treated as something for the players do do, was an inspiration. I still think that Marvel SAGA would make a great system for an anime RPG.

Yes,it does. And on more that one level. Packages for the various types of heroes (call the "Origin Packages" and spring them at the next Convention) would be a nice boon for such a game. All things that would help with running such a game, but still a sign that BRP really needs tweaking to handle Supers. At least Supers in the mold o the comics. If you wanted to run a more gritty/realistic type of Supers campaign, without the "four color" trappings, BRP works nicely, "out of the box." I could see using it for a "modern day" version of Cybergeneration. With teenagers in 2011 getting super powers in a world devoid of superheroes and villains (Hmm, that could really be interesting...) Yes. BRP is, at it's heart, a toolkit to create and RPG system tailored to a concept. No debate there. I'm not saying that BRP can't be adapted to handle something. I'm saying that it isn't well suited for some things "out of the box". For instance, I think Superheroes would require some tweaking with the STR, SIZ Table, and damage relationships to get them to beeter match up with the genre. I don't see that as a flaw, just a sign that "super reality" is substantially different from most other RPG "realities". It just ins't possible for one system to hanbdle all things equally well without some "modding". Pius some RPGs are better suited for this sort of thing. Any one of the three Marvel Super Hero RPGs handles the X-Men better than BRP does, in no small part because those games were specifically designed to do just that. But running a typical Supers campaign in BRP is going to require more work on the GMs part than running a typical fantasy or modern day campaign.

Yes,it does. And on more that one level. Packages for the various types of heroes (call the "Origin Packages" and spring them at the next Convention) would be a nice boon for such a game.

She7s right. The cannon tends to stain everything, and it7s impossible to keep the mashed potatoes on the plate. The cannon just isn't that practical. THe enemy always target the corn starch storage depots. A biscuit cannon with a gravy feed device, yes, but not the actual gravy cannon. Now a gravy bomber on the other hand, is a very logical and reasonable means of applying technology to meet (meat?) the need for aerial gravy distribution.

It's not that easy. For example, in the Comics, heroes get sent flying, then get up and continue the fight. With BRP a strong character is probably going to take a weaker one out (0HP) with one it. Whatever option used, would need to be applied to the NPC mooks, too, or else the PCs are going to be warned for murder fairly soon. And then some attacks simply should be treated as lethal. A burst from a SMG isn't going to just knock Batman out. Game Mechanics have a lot to do with that. For instance, if someone has an attack that no one bought armor against, then the PCs are toast. Those "X-Men" would have a hard time in BRP if they were up against the Radioactive Man. True, to some extent, but most of the major heroes and villians in the comics have had thier abilties defined to some extent. For instance the Hulk, Thor and the rest of MArvel7s "A list" strongmen can lift 100+ tons, and giving us a decent benchmark for working up a BRP STR score. Where I see problems is in what they can do with that score in the game.

Quite clarification. By HQ1 do you mean HQ1 or HeroWars (the name HQ was forced to go by when somebody else had the copy write on the HQ name)? I think I have HQ1, and haven't seen the latest version. But I think I agree with you on this. The new version relative scaling is good for the type of heroic fantasy gaming that the game was built for, but would be a nightmare for the superhero genre. Since Supers can routninly do impossible things we need an absolute scale just so we can wrap our head around what they are actually doing.

Yeah, but I don't think you could prove it. For one thing HQ rates everything in a relative fashion. Supoers would need some sort of benchmarks to show just how fast, strong, etc. they are. Strong 10W3 works okay in Glorantha, but isn't worth crap if you are trying to pick up a tank. Another problemis that in HQ all things are equal. A character can, overcome a foe's Nuclear Death Ray ability with lLepidoptery. Just how is a mystery (bore the bad guy with trivia until he surrenders?), but HQ allows it. I think that for HQ to be a really, really good superhero game the abilties would need to be defined, and that is the big no-no.

I agree. It didn't. But I also think the added complexity was needed to fit the genre. I don't think it could handle "X-Men" level very well. One thing about BRP is that it is simply to easy to kill a character with an attack at "X-Man" level. BRP is just not as forgiving as the X-Men comic. Attacks that would leave a character in the comics lying on the group unconscious would put thier BRP counterpart in a body bag. Not that this is a bad thing. It is just the difference between BRP lethality and the comics. There is a scense in one of the issues of Avengers where Hawkeye threatens to shoot a villain (Power Man or whatever he changed it to) with an arrow. The villian doesn't back down and Hawkeye actually does it. The bad guy is shocked as despite years of shooting people, Hawe\keye has never managed to penetrate someone with an arrow before. The effect is like running a group of D&Ders in BRP and having one of them get impaled by an arrow. At one point, long long ago (15 years?), I was in the process of licensing Superworld with another author and we were going to radically re-invent the system to accomodate the genre. Various complications made it fall through, but it would have been interesting.

What I would like to see is something where you could "dial the realism factor" to suit a campaign. Say with BRP core ruls at one end, and a 4-color comic variant at the other. A few alternate rules, some variant tables and the ability to cut & paste stuff.