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Nah, it just some people are decent people and some are jerks. One of may favorite boards is for Star Trek, and covers at least 4 different Trek based RPG, yet it is usually one of the most cilvil board's I've seen (it was the aforementioned first board), and we can actually debate topics rather than each other's lineage. Then again, perhaps it is due to the site being deciated to a show where everybody can generally get along with each other. I suppose if there was a Neo-Nazi RPG site, the members wouldn't be quite so open minded and tolerant. We do have some BRP/MRQ conflict here, but its mostly in the "I prefer X over Y because" type of discussion. But overall, you losers are alright. ;)

:focus: Jason, what new skills are in the BRP book? Also, about how many skill points does an average power level character start with during generation? How many hero points does an average power level superhero character start with during generation?

There is a tactics/strategy skill in the new BRP.

Good point. Hard to wik-it 'till we get-it.

He did, that's why he has 3 IDs.

Oops. :o Sorry, you two look so much alike on the board. Maybe one of you should change Avatars? BTW, "The Flaming Pigs" would be a great name for a band, either a modern musical one one, or an ancient mercenary one. Perhaps a group that specialized in taking down elephants....

That's the way I did it in my previous posted variant. I kept the skill categories, but used them for the base chances. So Manipulation would be INT+DEX+(STR/2), Knowledge would be INTx2, and so on. It simiplied skills greatly, since you only had to track those skills that were higher than the starting percentage (the skill category). THen I used 1/5th of that for improvement rolls.

I'm not keep on improvemnt as a reward. I could see improving a particular skill that was used well through. Like if a player managed to do an amazing job fast talking people I could see an improvement in that particular skill.

That's what Palladium did, sort of. They gave each weapon a PEN score and rated body armor that way. If BRP is drawing from WoW, then I suspect armor will be rated in K (Kinetic) and B (Ballistic). Basically the same thing. Maybe there will be a default of 1/4 AP from one to the other? A ballistic vest will have some effect on a knife. So a 12 AP kevlar vest providing 3 AP vs Kinetic would seem about right.

Critical & Armor- Good (tough) question. I'm mostly thinking no, otherwise Tanks become sort of useless, since any weapon can critical. I woundn't want to see a M1 get taken out by a bunch of guys toting AK-47s who score some crticals. On the other hand, its a critical. Most vehicles are open to some extent, so perhaps such a hit could go through an gun port or eye slit and get inside the vehicle? Have to think about this. Maybe a crtical/major wound table? Or how about crticals ignore only half of Avehcile armor. THat way a tank would still be immune to small arms. The big obstacle with crticals and implaes is that they double fdamage, or bypass APs entirely. That and the fact that APs seem to increase as a sqaure root of the thickness. It were are not careful, tanks bewcome vulnerable to shotguns and rifles.

MCBard, I Disagree. I've seen too many people who are good at one thing, and yet don't have a phenomenal stat to back it up. Using the CoC guidelines of 50% being professional level, then about half the people out there can't do their job professionally, since stats are generated on a 3D6 bell curve. Pretty much ANYONE can learn ANYTHING if they make a commitment and put the work into it. It just comes a lot easier and faster to those who are gifted. I also don't use the CoC skill raknings, as no other RQ based game has ever done so. Generally 90% is considered "master" level in most BRP RPGs.

A Pyrrhic victory?

Handling- Here is an idea I was wonder what people though of. Vehciles could have a handling rating like in CoC. a +10% to handling would cost a number of Hero Points equal to the vehicle's SIZ (so it is easiler to make a ferrari turn on a dime than a battleship). THis could be broken down for smaller increments. +1% for SIZ/10 +2% for SIZ/5 5% for SIZ/2 and so forth. Optionally, a vehicle that is supposed to be a bit sluggish, like a tank, could have a negative handling.

darkeart, Yes, there are a lot of ways to slice it. One thing about the new BRP is that since it has a modular approach with lots of optional rules, we will all end up customizing it to suit out needs. My take based on previous BRP experience. The general tweak in the past was to differentiate damage by weapon type and rate armor accordingly. That way you could have reflective armor that works against lasers but not against slugs or axes, or ballistic armor that is effective against bullets. I think the new BRP does the same thing, but with some tweaking. There are other approaches through. One possible "tweak" would be to simply count certain attacks as "armor piecring" and have them halve, third, or quarter armor. For example, a modern bullet will punch through most medieval armors with very little lossof energy. Quartering the AP value would make sense.

Not enough deatialed worked out/checked. I want to play around with it a bit first and see how well it holds up. Ideally, I can work up some sort of meta-vehicle design rules that will be useable for ground vehicles, space and whatever. Messing with 4 or 5 different methods and seeing what gives the best results and what is easiest. My tool for calculating APs for materials seems to be holding up though.

I'd rather see a files section than a wiki. I've seen several RPgs that have them, and genera;lly find them inferior. Either they are hard to find/organize, or too many people can edit them, or not enough people can edit them, or they are hard to find and navigate. Plus you don't get any feedback from a wiki. It just is, it isn't interactive like a forum.

Not so much as you think. I'm not sure if the GM book was ever done. I got the players book and it is basically everything in a stadard Hanmaster book. I don't mind a players/GM book when they are actually done that way. For instance a book on character creation and basic rules that players could pick up.

The high points: General -Harmaster divided into GM Edition, and Player Edtion -Layout Changed -Inclusion of Optional rules, noted with check box. GM chan check those options that he wants to use. Character Generation -Family Development, Medical and Pysche expanded and put into GM Edition. -Attribute generation modifiers boxed off and put into table for easy reference -Relationship between family and occupational skills has been clarified and new options provided. Skills -Number of skills reduced; number of specialties increased. -Specialty rules rewritten -Practice, sudy ML decline revised -Personal Effectiveness table added -Some skills have been more carefully codified. -Information on language families. -Psionics rules revised and moved to GM edition. -Skill descriptions move to all new GlossDex (a Glossary style Index). -New skills (Condition, Initiative, and Spirit) Combat -Several section reclassified as advanced rules to make the game easier to for new players to get up to speed. -Numerous optional/advanced rules. -Several different weapon damage options -Optional armor damage rules -Missile combat radially revised -Quick Combat system improved Weaponcraft -Simplified and made more interesting with several optional additions Religion Ritual invocations clarifed and moved to GlossDex. Gloss Dex _Now its got one.

You mean that guy who goes around dressed as a bat?>:->

Yeah, I guess so. I know that I hated the second edtion ENC rules. Very much like MRQ, where a guy wearing armor suffered bug skill penalties. GOLD handles that differendlty, but is a little more complicated. I can fill you in onthe changesif you want. Robin did put a list on the iside cover that mentions all the changes between the 2nrd edtion and the "Author's Cut".

Okay, I did some lokking over the CoC rules and some thinking. Here are the latest tewk ideas for the BRPVDR. 1) Impales-since these reprensent hiting vital locations, slashing muscles, and tearing open ateries, they don't make sense against vehicles. So you can't get an impale against a vehicle. SPecial Successes DO get to rollon a Vehicle Special Charet, where you can take out headlight, blow tires, tear open fuel and brake lines, damage the steeering, and other things. 2) Heavy Weapons-The big gun damages do seem to be HE rounds and damage drops off over range. I'm thinking of putting in rules for Indirect fire. Basically you really can't relaibly hit a person with an artillery shell. So. I thinking of: -Reducing the chance to hit to 1/10th the skill. A success indicated that the round landed within the burst radius doing full damage. A special sucess works as normal, and a critical success indicates a direct hit, where he round literally lands on top onf the target. -A failure misses by a percentage of the range equal to the percentage missed by, with a cap of 20% of the range. So if you are firing at a target that is 1000m away, had a 5% chance to hit and rolled a 20, you missed by 15% or 150m. Note that a "near miss" might still place the shell close enough to do damage. -If a spotter is available to give corrections, the attacker can increase his attack chance by 10% per round. So eventually they will be able to zero in on the target. -Any modifiers for moving targets is doubled. 3) Autofire weapons, Burst Rate, and Ammo. I'm thinking of putting a burst rate down on weapon that caps off just how many rounds they can fire in a round. That keeps the .30 and .50 cal MGs from being able to fire off a couple thousand rounds of ammo in one turn. Of course some weapons might be able to fire off 100 rounds of ammo a melee round. I am also thinking of adjusting the cost for ammo to reflect the burst rate. So that way if a weapon fires 20 round per merlee round in stead of 1, you get 200 rounds of ammo with it for free instead of the base 10, and every 3 extra hero pints gets you another 200 instead of another 10. How do that go down with everybody?

THe fallout actually happened some time ago. When second edtion was released Columbia simplified a lot of the rules against Robin's wishes. He ended up doing a Harmaster:Gold edition with the rules the way he wanted them. I preferred 1st edition to 2nd, but Gold edition to first. Now, I suppose Robin and Columbia both want to go their own ways. With indie publishing Robin could get by without Columbia, but I suspect thet will fight over the system. What edition do you have? Maybe we can compare notes. I've still got GOLD around.

THe most obvious examples to me are Castle Falkenstien and the SAGA rules used by TSR in Dragonlance and MArvel Super Heroes. In all three cases, I liked the use of cards. If the rumors that Falkenstien was originally designed to be an Amber RPG are true, then card definitely would have been the way to go. I played MArvel SAGA the most out of the three, and for the most part cards worked as agood as dice, andin some cases batter. In Marvel each power an d skill was tied to an attribute (like Strength skills, Agility skills, etc.) and the deck was broken down into suits that were tied to the attributes. If you played a card that matched the suit for the action you were attempting, it was "trump" and you got to add another card from the deck. This allowed for the longshot percentages. Also, as character got good, they could master a skill, given them more trump cards. One thing that was nice about the SAGA system was that, much like HERO Points, players could hold an important card in their hand for reserve. And while someone was holding onto a card, the other players couldn't draw it out of the deck. Another neat thing was that cards were used much like hit points. As you got injured you paid off the damage in cards. So if you took 5 points of damage you had to discard 5 points worth of cards. This meant that as you got hurt your had fewer cards in your hand, limiting your options and impairing your ability to act. A neat way of handling injury. Also, more experienced characters could would have larger hand size, and there was a rule for letting them play low value point cards as a freebie. So yeah, I like cards, when the are done right.

I did/anm doing something similar with my BRP variant. Rather than use Hit Points at I, I'm using a Wound Threshold idea (about 1./2 HP). Damage below it is a minor injury, above it a serious one, and every mutiple of the threshoild kicking up the severity to Mortal. BAsically, a bunch of 2-3 point hits shoudln't kill you, at least not right away. With the Wound Threshold idea it takes a reeally good hit to kill someone outright. Although most wounds will kill you in time if not treated. I went with something like 1D100+CON for the time, varying from S/R, rounds, hors and days depending on the serveirt of the injury.

Neither of which can be agreed upon. History is so much fun. I wonder if we have stats for African Elephants in the book. I'd assume the Punic Wars will be covered. Oh, BTW, Jason's old Pax Romana stuff is still available for downloading. Its not the full supplment, but is good for a BRP Rome fix.