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There go all the firewalls ("Yog-Sothoth is the Gate and the Key!").

Officially, the table isn't fixed. Unofficially, I did post a fixed SIZ table that corrects the metric values to match the Imperial ones. I also posted a "Revised & Expanded" SIZ table that gives values for all SIZes up to 330 (after that SIZ is 1/19th the weight in tons). I think Rosen used the revised SIZ table in BRP MEcha, too. Mechashef, posted a link to the thread: http://basicroleplaying.com/forum/basic-roleplaying/1368-brp-siz-table-metric-corrected-2.html I suppose I should check it for errors, clean it up, make it into a nice PDF, and make it available in the downloads section. I should try emailing it off to Chaosium and see if they want to use it for an Official fix. :cool:

One RQ2 related RPG, Privateers & Gentlemen, did just that, even going so far as to calling it MAS.

I don't agree. I've played several games that combine "roll influencing capabilities" with character improvement and they tend to work out fine. What I think is needed is for the "roll influencing capabilities" to be expended when used, rather than automatically renewing each session or adventure. What happens when the pool renews automatically is that player tend to use them up more often and with less thought, since they know that: 1) If they don7t use them, they loose them. 2) THey are going to get them back next week/adventure, anyway. By contrast when the points are gone for good players try to use them when they need them rather than whenever they fail a die roll. Sure, in such games players can usually earn more "hero points" but in the meantime the character is a bit more vulnerable.

Yeah, we just don't want to waste something as expensive an ammuntion on strangers.

This might help. There is something known as the "square-cube" law. What it states is that if you double the Length, Width and Height of an object or by extension, a creature) you cube it's mass. So if you have some idea as to the size of a typical specimen, you can make a good guess as to how much larger something is using SIZ. For instance if you know a average ant is 6 mm long an has a mass of 3 miligrams, then a giant ant 60cm long should have a mass or around 3000 kg (100 times as long, cubed, times mass)! That's about SIZ 55, and kind of explains why ants don't grow that big. Each of its spindly, hollow legs would need to be able to support half a ton, and would need to be stronger than steel. Even if it were made out of some strong stuff, the legs would probably stick into the ground and make it tough for the thing to walk. Another helpful bit is that most creatures are comprised mostly of water, and tend to have a mass something like 80% that of a similar volume of water. There is some variation, but it's a good rule of thumb for most creatures. So if you caqn get an idea of how big a suitcase it would take to fold the thing up, you can get a reasonable guesstimate of it weight (and SIZ). BTW, I once gave a group a SIZ 16 statue made of gold as treasure and worked out just how much the damn thing weighed (2.3 metric tons). At 100 coins /kg and with 1 gold con =240 RQ pennies, this meant the thing was worth over 55 million pennies, but was very difficult for the party to transport.

Mathematically, if he were made out of the same "stuff" as a human, his STR would sclae up a a slower rate than his mass (weight). So if you scaled up a average man (say 5' 10" and 170 pounds) up to 20 feet tall (about 3.42 times as tall), you would cube that for a weight of 6800 pounds! Since his mucle cross section would increase according to the square of the difference in height/SIZ he would be about 11.75 times stronger than a normal man. In game terms, this works out to about +28STR (STR 38-39) and +42 SIZ ( 55 SIZ) In the "real" world, there are reasons why creatures can only get so large, and why smaller creatures are stronger in proportion to their weight. But in a fantasy game (or for a superhero who can grow) you might just assume STR keeps the same porportion to SIZ. It7s not realsitic but is a better fit for fantasy.

My scaling post was based on the idea of making an individual creature larger or smaller (like with some sort of sci-f8i/magical device). If you are scaling up a species, (like making giant ants) then you should raise STR to go with SIZ. Realistically, the square/cube law limits how much you can scale up a being. Past a certain point no only would a creature not be able to move, but it bones couldn't support it, and it would suffocate under it's own bulk (think beached whale). But, for a magical species and atomic horrors, like giants, dragons, or huge insects, or radioactive lizards, just scale STR and SIZ equally. Most creates in BRP have average STR scores that are fairly close to thier average SIZ scores.

Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that naval tonnage is usually expressed in long tons (2240 pounds) rather than short tons (2000 pounds). So it adds in another step. This conversion could be combined into the SIZ calaculation by diding displacement by 11.2 instead of 10, but I wanted to show each step so people wouldn't wonder why I didn't just divide the tonnage by 10. Note that snce a mertric ton (1000kg) is approximately 2200 pounds, we could get away with using long tons as metric tons and be within 2%. But 2% can mean a difference 1000 SIZ/Hit Points for something like an Iowa-class battleship. What I'll do for VEHICLES will be to give a table where you can look up vehicle SIZ and SIZ by tonnage. SO it will be just one step. Currently, I have a spreadsheet do all the work, and just spit out the game numbers. So would I. but I'm trying to get everything to fit with the core book, rahter that rewiting everything from scratch. That way people can just grab stats and go with it. In my opinion, the SIZ table (orginal or revised) isn't the problem so much as the vehicle SIZ ratings. The SIZ table is for the most part, the same as the one in the BRP book, and is similar to the ones used in CoC and even RQ3. I'm tempted to just use the full SIZ value, it would work out better for a lot of things. Most ships can taker quite a few hits before "running out of hit points". But with the way BRP works, and with battleships having around 36 points of armor, hit points (and weapon damaged), need to to be scaled down to match. For example, with cannon doing 4D8+8 and a "saling ship" having 10AP and 96 hit points, one broadside is going to be far more effective in BRP that it probably should be. I'm not sure if using a "scaled down" SIZ table for everything would be any improvement. The gap between a tank SIZ 90ish/60mt and a Battleship (SIZ 240, approximately 28,000 tons), squeezes about 24,000 tons into the SIZ100-200 range. This squeezes eventhing from a 100 ton sloop up to a 20,000 ton battlecruiser into about a 100 point SIZ range. Conversly, the ratio between the battleship and carrier (SIZ 640) looks almost linear. While this isn't great for vehicles,I suspect it worse when used for other things. I'm open to sugesstions.

Realistically, yes. but as far as rolling up stats for an individual , no. It is just assumed to be factored into the rolled characteristics. Real world-wise, the sqaure/cube law would apply (if you double the size of something, you'd cube it's mass and square it's muscle power). In game terms, if you are using ther SIZ table, this woks out to about +2 STR per +3 SIZ and -2STR for -3 SIZ. At least up to around STR 90 or so.

I would think you would only add 1/2 the negaqtive db. I can't see why the db peanlty would be twice as bad with a thrown weapon. So a -1D4DB could just use -1D2. For bows, another other would be to tie the damage rating of the bow to it's draw weight. Realistically, a archer would not want to draw more than this, even if he was very strong, as it would weaken and eventually destroy the bow.

Since D&D is based on around a 50% (actually 55%) success chance for an unskilled character to hit AC 10 or made a DC 10 skill test, I would say it coverts over to around 50%+5% per rank. This means that a 5th level character with 8 ranks in a skill would translate to a skill rating of 90%! IF the character had any bonus for a high characteristic, making a DC10 check would be automatic. This does make D&D characters more skilled than starting BRP characters. but that is the nature of the system. It is also offset somewhat by the fact that D&D character don't have training in that many skilled in comparison to a BRP character.

No relies, is that a a good thing?

Well, you just made my day.

One thing worth considering is just how your players feel about BRP and or D&D. Usually players don't like to change systems, and if you've had trouble getting the group together in the first place, you could loose one or more players with the switch. While there are those of us who would prefer to play BRP over 4E under almost any circumstances, that might not be true with your players. I7d suggest talking with your players and see how they feel about changing game systems. Maybe they will like the idea of change,maybe they will like BRP. Maybe they won't. But you really want to get tyis out in the open before showing up with converted characters. I was in a group where the GM suddenly switched everything over to ARMS LAW (back before it became RoleMaster), and it didn't go over well. By the end of the first session we all "revolted" and ended up going back the AD&D.

What one RPG (Flashing Blades) did was increase the number of checks required to raise ta skill as skill rating increased. It also required that skills be maintained. A skill than didn't earn a check during the year would actually drop.

As some are aware, I've been working on some vehicle write ups and design rules for BRP. One roadblock that I've encountered is that the SIZ scores for large vehicles (over SIZ 100), have been factored down considerably from the SIZ one would expect from the vehicle's mass, displacement, and/or volume. I'm not complaining. I understand that there are playability reasons why this was done, but it does make figuring out the SIZ scores for large vehicles (mostly ships)a bit more challenging. I worked out a method for "adjusting" SIZ by tonnage to get SIZ values more in line with the BRP core rules, and was wondering if it looked okay to others, of it if it has some fundemental flaw that I have overlooked. So here it is. Feedback will be appreciated. SIZ (per SIZ table):Vehicle (Adjusted) SIZ 1-100: AdjSIZ=SIZ 100-600: AdjSIZ=SIZ/20+95 600-2400: AdjSIZ=SIZ/24+100 2000+: AdjSIZ=SIZ/10-40 Examples: Dulio-class battleship Displacement: 22639 long tons = 25356 tons = SIZ 2536 = AdjSIZ 214 Dunkerque-class Fast Battleship Displacment: 26,500 long tons = 28680 tons =SIZ 2968 = Adj SIZ 257 King George V-class battleship Displacement: 28,000 long tons = 31360 tons = SIZ 3136 = AdjSIZ 274 Bismark Displacement: 41675 long tons = 46676 tons = SIZ 4668 = AdjSIZ 427 Forrestal-class CV (CVA-59) Displacement: 60,000 long tons = 67200 tons = SIZ 6720 = Adj SIZ 632 Enterprise (CVAN-65) Displacement: 75700 long tons = 84784 tons = SIZ 8478 = AdjSIZ 808 Nimitz (CVN-68) Displacement: 81600 long tons = 91392 tons = SIZ 9139 = AdjSIZ 874 Southampton-class cruiser Displacement: 9100 long tons = 10192 tons = SIZ 1019 = Adj SIZ 142 Swiftsure-class submarine Displacement: 11195 long tons (submerged) = 12538 tons = SIZ 1254 =AdjSIZ 152 Los Angeles-class Submarine Displacement: 26100 long tons (submerged) = 29232 tons = SIZ 2923 = ADjSIZ 222 Carnival Miracle-Cruise Ship Displacement: 85900 long tons = 96208 tons = SIZ 9621 = Adj SIZ 922 Vosper Thornycroft Mk9 Displacement: 850 long tons = 952 tons - SIZ 209 = ADj SIZ 115

They can. There are a couple of BRP relased systems and supplments that do just that. The old FASA Star Trek RPG comes to mind. Fairly similar to BRP, but with stats on a percentile scale. You can do the same with BRP, by using the STATx5% rolls (Ieea roll, Agility roll etc) as the attributes. You could then divide the stat by 5 to work out things like hipt points, or simply multiply armor and weapon damages by 5 to get the same result. Of coruse the % rating idea doesn't quite hold up for every case, nor is high always better. With a D100 the average roll is about half the max, but depending on what you are measuring the "average" rating might not be the same as the statstical mean. In order words, the strongest human might not be twice as strong as an average human. In real life a 100% rating is abosolute. Something that works 100% of the time, just works. In BRP, is is a relative rating. For things like reaction speed, lower would be better. The reason why you see high % numbers advertised as "better" is because the desirable trait is the one being advertised.

My money is one an Ice World. How about an ice world with 100% of the surface frozen, but with lots of thermal vents heating the ocean underneath the ice "mantle". You have to drill through 20km or so of ice to get to the ocean. That way you get the worst of both desert and water worlds. Especially neasy if most of the "water" on the ice world either isn't actually water, or is somehow contaminated and undrinkable. Put something really good under the ice that everybody wants-gold, uranium, elixir of immortality, sexy amphibious girls-and wait for the fireworks. Worse still, mix n' match. A bunch of rich, sexy, immortals.

Why not surprise your players-make an island world. Just ring all the land masses with tall mountains and have a desert-water world. Any tunnel-craft?

For cars, and most wheeled vehicles: MOV=Square root of (kW/mt) *21 For tracked vehicles (tanks, etc): use *15.75 (75%). Note that for diesels and other hig torgue craft you might need to increase the kW by about double or so. I7ve got a conversion from torque somehwere, if you need something more accurate.

Generally speaking, if you want to change the type of fantasy game you want to run, you need to make the setting different from the standard fantasy settings you've used in the past. One method you can use to get the style of play you want is to remove the "high fantasy" elements from your setting. If there are no elves, dwarves, and orcs around, you are less likely to end up with a campaign that feels like LOTR. Likewise you can change the style of the game by drawing on something other than a taolkensique psedo-Europe for the various contries and cultures. Another possibility would be to based you campaign on some historical setting. A historic medieval setting is very different from the standard High Fantasy setting. You could drop the fantasy elements, or retain them, but keep then true to the setting. Norse Alfar, or Celtic Sidhe are both "elves" but different from the typical high fantasy elf. One key factor is to make sure to replace things you remove with something else that can keep the setting interesting. This doesn't have to be new fantasy races, but could mean adding more detail to the human cultures in you setting to make them more colorful and interesting. You want to give the players something different to deal with, rather than just giving them less to deal with.

Here is something preliminary for breaching charges. I am working on some comprehensive Demolition rules but can't quite comprehend what what would be the best approach yet. Just in case anyone doesn't know better, this is all for gaming use, not for use in the real world. All the numbers have been rounded off for ease of play. Basic Rule: To breech a concrete wall, use a number of pounds of TNT equal to the cube of the walls thickness (in feet) amount of TNT. For example, to breech a 8 foot thick wall, use 512 pounds of TNT! Other Materials: Material (amount needed) Loose Earth (x1/4) Timber, Poor Masonry (x3/4) Good Masonry, Rock (as per concrete) Dense Concrete (x1.5) Reinforced Concrete: (x2, will break up the concrete but won't cut the reinforcement) Placement (amount needed) Ground, untamped (x1) Ground, earth tamped, shallow water, or elevated (x1/2) Tamped or stemmed, shaped charge, deep water, or placed inside center of mass (x1/4) Explosive Modifier (if you are using something other than TNT) Black Powder (x2) Ammonium Nitrate (x2) Amatol 80/20 (x.8) M1 Dynamite (x1) TNT (x1) Tetyrtol (x.8) Tetryl (x.8) Sheet Explosive M118, M186 (x1) Nitroglycerin (x.66) Composition B (x3/4) Compostion C-4, M112 (x3/4) RDX (x3/4) Picric Acid (x1) Guncotton (x1) Dynamite (x1.25) Optional Thickness Modifier (to better match up with real world amounts) Wall up to 1 foot thick (x3) Wall 1-3 feet thick (x2) Wall 3-5 feet thick (x1.5) Wall 5-7 feet thick (x1.25) Wall 7 ft+ (x1)

It doesn't seem that shocking to me. Things that "everybody knows" tend to be the ones taken for grated and not preserved in writings and maps. If someone needed to find something, they would ask somebody, who would give directions or just point to some building in the distance. Once a buidling no longer existed, few people cared enough to keep track on where it had stood. One nice thing about RPGs is that such vague areas give authors more wiggle room. For all we know everything might have been exactly where Pete placed it.

I7ve only tried it for a handful of designs. Mostly converting old airships (all of which crashed). I suspect I might nee to use my other speed formula for airships, but the car one worked out with a better fit for the test craft. With a futuristic design, you probably only need about 25% of the ship's mass for it's structure, giving you a lot more room for payload. There are even some fully rigid airships as possibilities. I'd reccomend using the "bleeding rules for special hits against an airship, allowing "firast aid" rolls using the approaite craft skill. I'd kick up the time required to 1 per 20 SIZ of the airship, and let people get around this by assigning more people to damage control. So a SIZ 133 airship would take 7 rounds to attempt to patch a leak, or 1 round for a damage control pary of 7 people.