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I think the problem is that POW can go up each session. As pointed out earlier, getting a POW gain roll is fairly easy assuming you know an offensive spell. Then it all boils down to making the improvement roll. If you buy some Divine spells, you lower your POW, but actually make it easier to go up. Again going to the multiple checks idea, if it took 1 check per 5 POW to earn an improvement roll, you would slow down the advancement to about half or a third of the current rate with no other changes in mechanics.

Arrrgh Niteshade! Now you got me thinking of doing a Stuff! conversion. Stuff! would solve all the problems, vehicles, spaceships, computers, weapon damages, armor. It's also fast and easy to reverse engineer for real world vehicles.

Hmm. The SSK has a 6L engine and the H6 has an 8L engine. Since HP represents "killing" the vehicle, maybe they just reflect "killing" the motor rather than actually destroying the vehicle. a Taurus has a 3L engine but reflects 70 years of automotive advances. So maybe we could use Engine SIZ or displacement as the base?

After looking over the vehicles in CoC more carefully, and discovering that the SIZ 51 Mercedes has 2/3rd the hit points of the SIZ 48 Taurus, I'm inclined to reverse my position and work in a CON factor for vehicles. Maybe we could call it DURability? Now to rate it.... Well, Reverse Engineering time. a 1999 Taurus has SIZ 48 or so, and 30 hp points. Good ol' algebra says 60-48=12 DUR. a 1929 SSK has SIZ 51 and 20 hp so algebra says in has a 40-51=-9 CON, err DUR. Uh -9?, back to the R&D lab.

(Turning the hot lights onto threedeesiz) "Alright, spill it. What in da new book? Don't make me get rough wit'cha."

Final SIZ, HP Scores are in flux until we see the BRP book. I just went with what seems to be the mostly likely vales to appear in the new rules, since they are using the COC chase rules in BRP. Ammo needs to not only penetrate the armor, but kill the vehicle too. If we gave an M1 90 hit points, then an tank round would have to be able to do over 90 points of damage AFTER armor. So that would kick up weapon damages. The problem is that since COC really compresses the scale, with a .50cal bullet oinly doing twice the damage of a .45ACP getting a good damage curve is problematic. I was thinking of a hit location chart. Hits to Body do HP damage, hits to cargo trash cargo, hits to engine can slow or stop the vehicle, hits to passengers hurt people, hits to controls reduce handling and so forth. That way the Hit Points can stay low, since only some hits will really damage the vehicle. Another idea might be to use a damage limit like they do in EABA. In EBA vehicle damage is capped based on the size of the vehicle. The idea being that small arms don't really damage big ships, just the crew and components. EABA then raises the cap for certain types of attack that blow through the armor. For instance, in EABA a M113 APC has only 17 hits points, but has a damage limit of 3 so any attack that gets through it's armor can only do 3 points of damage to the vehicle itself. So even if a Russian 14,5mm MG round that does 6d+2 hits the APCs side armor (4d+1) and gets 2d+1 through, the vehicle will only take 3 points. Any one unlucky enough to get hit by the bullet would take 2d+1 with no limit). Now things like Anti-tank rockets kick up the limit by 1 per die that they surpass the armor. So a 13d+0 anti-tank rocket that hit the 4d+1 side armor would raise the Damage limit by 9 to 12. So the vehicle would still exist, but the folks inside and all the internal systems would take 9d damage from the HEAT round and be killed. But at least it leave a nice home for the squirrels. Yes, but bullets also don't really do much damage to the actual car.They just poke lots of holes in it. It's the passengers inside who are going to get damaged. Yes and no. Material make sense, but I used SIZ since more massive vehicles will need stronger and thicker materials for support. Basically an 18 wheeler has thicker wheels and components that soak up more kinetic energy. Even if you take something large and reaatively soft, like a supertanker. YOu could shot the thing full of holes from now to doomday with small arms fire before you really damage the vehicle. 'Killing" it through Hit point loss is really a non issue.

One thing that would help, would be to give cult members and shamen/sorcerors a POW gain each year. Then you could lower the improvement chances without preventing someone from becoming a Rune Priest. If the POW was by rank, with Priests getting 3, Acolytes 2 and Initiates 1 character could always get some improvement. That allows the GM to be a bit more stingy with the rolls without slamming the door on potential Priests.

One solution I liked was the one used in TimeLords. Extra Weight counted as permanent ENC. So in RQ terns if someone gained an extra point of SIZ, they would get the bonuses, but be treated as if they were carrying 6 ENC (6 ENC=1SIZ in RQ for ENC purposes). Simple to do and easy bookkeeping.

I'm seriously thinking of listing two damage values on the weapons table. One that meshes with the values in Call of Cthulu, and another set that are a bit toned down and smother in progression. They would drop a .45 from 1D10_2 to 1D8, or maybe 2d4 with the +2 kicking in after armor (not much of a factor in the Old West). An .25 could do 1D4, a .36 Navy 1D4+1,a .45-70 Govement round would do 5d4. , and a .577-450 round do something like 3D4+2 or 4D4. Maybe tweak crticals to x3 instead of max? So that way the chance for an instank kill with most weapons is still there, but remote.

I know. It is one of the big pains in the butt when design the vehicle rules. As written, the rules were designed with the the idea of things like dagger points finding gaps through metal and striking the soft guy inside. They were not designed with the idea of things like .25ACP rounds finding gaps through 200mm of CHOBHAM armor and striking the not so soft chassis inside. Halving APs won't work through because the weapon damage and AP scales are so condensed in CoC. A 9mm pistol can sometimes get through 2 inch plate (19AP) thanks to impales (the other problem). Even halving armor makes the crew of an M113 APC vulnerable to AKM and M16 rounds. So We need to figue out how to: 1) Reduce the effects of crticals 2) Reduce the effects of impales. I was thinking of a couple of ideas: !) Only apply impale effects If the attack penetrates the armor. Basically the impales in the rules were really the ability to find a chink and hurt a person. Against something solid like a tank, the bullet would probably bounce or go splat. I was thinking of Calling this Hardened Armor and it would only apply to vehicles that have been specifically armored as such (like tanks). So you can still impale a Chevy truck. 2) Maybe have Hardened Armor drop critical hits to impales. That way there is still a chance of small arms firing pulling off a golden BB effect but it would take a critical roll and a high damage roll. 3) AP rounds of the same tech or higher could ignore HArdened Armor. SO that way an WWII era 76.2mm AP shell will "bounce" off a T-92 Tank, but a modern 120mm APFSDSDU shell will still punch right through.

Thanks to DirkD. The original was a pain to go through with all those "dead" pages in the front.

Call of Cthulhu. In COC most cars and truck seem to have HP equal to one-half SIZ. So I went with that for compatibility sake. Plus if HP=(CON+SIZ/2) and CON=0 you get half size. All vehicles do get some AP though, so they end up a bit tougher than their CoC counterparts. Even the Ferrari stops 5 points per hit. I've been toying with a modification for impales against vehicles where you don't get the extra dice of damage unless the initial result penetrates the armor. Hmm, with my current minimum AP rule the Nimitz would have a minimum AP of 768! I'm going to have to tweak that! Probably need to cap minimum AP's at 15 or so, or go to a cube root formula. The Nimitz has the armor, but it is spread out over a big area. What looks better, capping at 15 or a cube root (20AP).

Oh, I thought you miseed my post. As another method, that yeah, it is an option. Still, with the average character having a 10-11 POW translating to a 50-55% Luck roll and the idea of the mechanic being limited to terminal wounds only, most characters aren't going to get the chance to use it much. More likely to run out of characters before you run out of MPs. Maybe some Native Americans could have Spirit Magic? Good incentive to wipe them out and steal their land.

I never ran into the rich getting richer. Probably because I tried to make everyone roll stuff, even they guys who didn't want to. As for skill check hunting. With a good GM it isn't an issue. Only significant skill tests should award a check. If someone wants to switch out 5 weapons in a battle, he derserves everything that he is going to get. One thing I saw, and liked, and similar to what RMS did was the idea of awarding checks for failures. The idea being that you learn from your mistakes more than from your successes. In fact it makes more sense than rolling for successes and will really slow down the Rune Lords. I've also seen some games that require multiple checks for improvement. So as your skill gets higher it takes more to go up. Something like 1 check per 25% or skill or fraction thereof. But assigned skill rolls leads to "pyamidding". One method that another RPG did that I liked was to assign 10XP at a time, but assaign the award as 1st ability: 4 xp 2nd-3xp 3rd-2xp 4th-1xp That helps to spread the wealth, but would need to increase the costs of checks or go with the mulitcheck option to work. For instance a guy with 80% sword, needed 4 checks to improve could either spend his first place slot on it and improve, or a lesser slot and take multiple sessions to go up.

Uh Rurik, That's pretty much what I was saying. The Luck roll is POWx5%, so that is POW or less on a D20, and spending POW points thing is the same as MPs, just using RQ2 terminology.

Well, if I can get workable rules, and write up a bunch of vehicles it wouldn't take much to turn it into a viable product. System Generation tables would be easy. A lot easier than working up the armor rules for vehicles has been. Once you got the life zone forumla or a table like Star Data Table the rest becomes a mix of inspiration and math.

You could limit the POW gain to a special success, critical or POW as percentage.

Plus, these guy have been around for a long time. Sure, we are all technophiles, but not everyone is. When Chasoium started, "Computers" were those things the size of truck that had big tape spools on them. It not good business, but Charlie & Co. just might not be up to the net part of things.

Oh yeah. IMO the setting would really need to use one of the Luck Rule/Hero Point ideas to be viable. Otherwise the first shootout with 1d10+2 pistols and no armor will wipe out a lot of PCs. I am thinking of adapting the Luck rule from Boot Hill 3rd edition. When a character takes a Mortal wound (it inflicts enough damage to kill them) they get to make a Luck roll. If successful the wound is reduced to 1 hit point (and the character marks off a POW point-so they can't pull this stunt all day long). That would take the edge off without spoiling the setting.

Either that or pick up an offensive Spirit Magic spell PDQ. Generally it used to be the 2nd or 3rd spell we would take in campaigns. Typically Heal, then an offensive spell and protection.

For planet creation: Well, there is no BRP SPACE game yet, but when one comes out maybe. But, You can dig up a lot of the info you will need from another RPG and port it over. 2300AD and the Worlds Supplment for Decipher Trek both have excellent Star System Generation stuff. Since both base their math on real world data it all good to port over. A Type G2V star is the same regardless of what system you are running. If you are comfortable with math, I can give you the formula for things like figuring out a star's habitable zone.

Speed is the rated velocity in kph or mph. MOVE is the MOVE score for BRP. From what Jason mentioned when I asked him, the average Move rate for a human is 10. So, as far as I know, a vehicle with Move 10 is the same as a person with Move 10. The MOVE value that I calculated is the same as meter/second. So if you multiplied them by 12 you would get meter/round, assuming that they don't reduce the move rate to one-third like in most RQ/BRP games, in which case you use 3xMove for meter/turn. The CoC Speed rating is the rating that they use in the CoC chase rules, and appears to be mph/10.

I'm working on a method of working of vehicles in BRP terms that is fast, and will let you write up real world vehicles using real world data. Once the specs are written up, they can be modified with the Design rules (soo to be simplified and updated). Here are three sample vehicles, along with an explanation of how the numbers were calculated. Example #1: 2006 Ferrari 599GBT “Bat” Real World Data: Curb Weight: 1705kg (3750lb) Top Speed: 330kph(205mph) 0--60: 3.7s Lateral Acceleration: 0.97g BRP Data: (How it was calculated) SIZ: 48 (Per RQ3 SIZ table) Hit Points: 24 (1/2SIZ, n) Armor Points: 5 (1/10 SIZ, n) MOVE : 92 (330kph/3.6) Speed (CoC): 21 (mph/10 or kph/16) Handling: +17% [(20-3.7)+(.97x5)] Example #2: 1981 Ford Escort Real World Data: Curb Weight: 1363 kg Top Speed: 145kph (90mph) 0-60: 14.67s Skidpad: 0.55 g (estimated) BRP Data SIZ: 46 (Per RQ3 SIZ table) Hit Points: 23 (1/2SIZ) Armor Points: 4 (1/10th SIZ) MOVE: 40 (145kph/3.6) Speed (CoC): 9 (mph/10 or kph/16) Handling: +8% [(20-14.7)+(.55x5)] Example #3: Me-262 Jet Real World Data: Weight: 7,100kg Top Speed: 884kph Thrust: 1800kg Gs: 3.5 BRP Data: SIZ: 56 (Per RQ3 SIZ table) Hit Points: 16 (1/2SIZ) Armor Points: 6 (1/10th SIZ) MOVE: 246 (884kph/3.6) Speed (CoC): 55 (mph/10 or kph/16) Handling: +20% [(1800/7100x10)+(3.5x5)] Note:The only "surprise formula" is the one for handling: Ground Vehicles: 20-(0-60time)+(lateral accerationx5) Jet Air Craft: Thrust/Weight Ratiox10+(lateral accerationx5) Anyone think this is useful? Is this a better way to go?

True, although I think part of the problem with RQ is that lifting is STR based rather than STR+SIZ based. If you added the two together for lifting you would get results closer to the real world record holders. But we were just consider what surprise pitfall could exsist from coverting systems.

The problem is the POW. If you add the nubed to the stats, a Race with +5 POW woukld end up adding 10 to it's MAX power, for a 31. STR & CON could only be trained up to the highest of their original STR, CON or SIZ. So in RQ3 the 18s were rare. But BRP isn't RQ3. It seems to be closer to CoC, and even RQ2, where the training formulas are a bit different. With RQ2, the max was 21 for humans.