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I7ve played AFTERMATH too. Yeah, it was a bit complex. Even wrose was the way the boooks were organized. There were lots of sepcial case rules that yo really had to hunt for to use. THe game love of using it'S own technical jargon, and hiding most items behind some sort of identifcation code didn't help. But, if the GM was really up on the rules, it could play fairly well and fast. THe GM really had to but up on the rules though, or it could bog down. It had a couple of things that I wish RQ had (like the different hit location tables you used depending on how you were fighting, so guys with shields tended to get hit on the shield side more, while guys fighting with rapiers took more hits on the leading arm and leg)

I'd say it depends on just what sort of style of gaming you are aiming for. A lot of people who I gamed with who play D&D were quite shocked by how deadly combat is in RQ. I had one group practically going into shock when one guy actually lost an arm. Some poeple like hit locations, other's don't. Likewise if you are shooting for (sorry couldn't resist) a style of play that models reality better, then a little more detail is fine. In fightfights, things like "stopping power" and suppression fire play a factor. They just don't in BRP. Now for CoC that's no biggie, as most of what you can shoot at tends to be bullet resistant anyway. But, for BRP to be used to play in other genres then problems will pop up. For instance, the ability to take out a sentry with a sneak attack with a dagger is important for certain modern day types of adventures. If you can't do it in the game, it's a problem. It is all a trade off between what you want to do, and how much you are willing to pay for it. I've played and liked both simple/abstract RPGs and complex/realistic ones. It depends on what you want to do with it. If reality doesn't make much difference and isn't important for an RPG you can go with D20 Modern. CoC combat rules are pretty weak in general (IMO the worst version of BRP. The goal of the game is what, survive long enough to go insane? Practically everything is immune to most weapons anyway, so the combat rules are almost unnecessary). Sure, loading makes a difference. But the standard damages should be based on the standard ball round. Otherwise the whole damage chart is sort of pointless. I can think of some loadings for 9mm that give it stopping power comparable to a standard .44 magnum round. But I don't expect to see the 9mm listd in the book with the same stats as a .44M. My problem with the 5th edition COC chart is that it out of whack. THe .38 does the same damage as the 9mm, when it shouldn't (a .38 caliber round is actually a shorter, 9mm round with less power, the .38 SPECIAL is the one that is close to a regual 9mm and the ne that is usuable in a .357mag); and the .44M is performace wise too close to the 5.56 and 7.62 rifle rounds. As a side note, I'd agrue against the .357M. Basically it's a 9mm (.357 vs .355) with a lot more power, so much so that it tends to overpenetrate, injuring or killing bystanders. That is why is is no longer the wondergun among the police that it used to be. As for what is easier to shoot mutiple times, so what? If we were running "Gun Range the Role-Playing Game" that might be a factor, but as far as a firefight goes it doesn't make a difference (well, I suppse it might for the D20 crowd. They might need a second box of ammo to get through all those hit points).

There uis some truth to that, but then again shields are not the big problem to a warrior wielding a spear. Most of the time the spear is going to "rebound" off the shield making it easier to bring back into play. Another big thing to consider is just how much of a reach advantage a spear has, especially when used in two hands. WIth a 8 foot spear or so, you probably have about 4-6 feet or reach. Now a foe using a sword and shield is probably reposed behind the shield, and so has to lower his guard a little to swing the aword (another plus for the gladius and other thrusting weapons). So that gives the spear user a good three feet or so. Since most combatnatant tend to stay out of reach of the longest weapon and dart in, that gives the spear user an easier time of attacking and retreating. If the foe manages to get in close, step back AND use the shaft to move his weapon out of line or even bind weapons. If you are fighting with a one-handed spear in a spear and shield arrangement, then you can always fight reposed to get an even fight with a swordsman. I can imagine just how must disagreement there was. There is a lot of variant among spears, especially among Yari. I wouldn't want to try to choke up on a 18-shaku Yari of the Oda clan. One key to choking up on a spear is just how it is weighted. A Point heavy spear is probably a bit easier to pull that off with. I'm not that strong and I have done it. You don't need a big sweeping arc, just a few inches. It doesn't need to be a powerful attack, just enough to mess up you foe and get you time and/or distance.

It actually ins't that easy to get in under the business end. At least not without getting stuck. That's why the boarspear was so useful in hunting. Since the spear is a thrusting weapon, is is very easy to do a bunch of quick stop thrusts to keep an opponent at bay. Choking up on a 6-8 foot spear is effective, although if you really want to take it into melee do what the Zulus did and snap it in half. A 3-4 foot spear in great in close. Also keep in mind that spearmen can use the shaft as a weapon. While the point is the business end, the shaft makes a decent truncheon and can be be rather effective. And then since most weapon are swinging weapons, getting in closer that two feet or so is counterproductive. Then then is backpedaling. Basically in real fighting whenever somene ts too close you step back. So for spear & shield fighting it would go something like* Stab, Stab, Stab. Foe knocks spear aside, steps in, spearman retreats, brings spearpoint back into line.

The "double whammy" makes sense though. Generally speaking someone who has a higher degree of skill tends to produce better quality results than someone who doesn not. This is over an above the success/fail thing. Whne I was working on circuitboards, pretty much everyone could solder a board (that was their job), but some people did better quality work, had better solder joints, didn't "wick" as many wires, etc. My "blah" work was usually better than some people's "best efforts".

I've been working on a BRP variant, and considered the following idea for handling criticals ans specials without the math. It is also slightly inspired by HARNMASTER. Criticals: Any successful skill roll than is "doubles". I.e. 11, 22, 33, etc. Specials: Any successful skill roll than ends in 0 or 5 (ala HARNMASTER). The exception being 55, which is a critical. Fumbles: Any failed skill roll ending in doubles. The character gets a Luck roll to avoid the critical. Note that this will give percentages that are very close to 10%/20% (if you toss in a Luck roll to confirm criticals, you end up close to the 5%/20%).

Not too much, the limitations isn't that of the of the spear, but that of the Phalanx. Phalanxes overlapped the spears for the front four ranks or so. This made turning somewhat tricky. It is why the Phalanx was eventually abandoned. The spear itself is a fine weapon.

There are several games that handle it well, just that BRP was more SCA based. The damage die tends to make a large caliber weapon in unskilled hands more deadly than a small caliber weapon in the hands of someone who can really use it. Stun/Shock and delayed fatalities help with this. It all stems from damage being listed in "points". In the real world, any weapon can kill you, justhat is is easier to do it with some than with others. With a Hit point system, it is all based on if your weapon can do enough points of damage or not. Take a look at knives and daggers. In most RPGs they are a joke, and tend to be only slighly more damaging than a punch. In the real world you can cut someone's throat or stab them through the heart.

I agree. In fact, I'd go one step father and say that location is key for all weapon damages. It is just becomes less imprtant the more powerful and larger the weapon is. With pistol bullets and knives it is crucial, with nukes is isn't important at all. Plus with most melee weapons you can do damage taking the weapon "out" of the foe too. BRP's strengths and weakness tend to come from it's SCA orgins. n SCA combat you don't get linger deaths, and all that. You get up and functiong, lost limb, or dead.

Not much investigation. The Romans began developing more mobile formations for defeating Phalanxes and eventually adopted the thrusting sword encountered during the Iberneian campaign during the Punic Wars. The spear never actually vanished from the Legions (the Hasta being issued up to the end of the Empire), just that the Gladius became the primary weapon. Mostly becuase it does what a shortspear does, but is a bit stringer and makes wider wounds, and is less likey for the head to snap off or get stuck.

The reasons why a shortspear wasn't the standard weapon for roman infantry. 1) In the early years, the legions were still using longspears in Phalanxes. 2) In latter years, the Legion had worked out how to defeat the Phalanx, and by then had acquired the Spanish thrusting shortsword (gladius), which was ffaster and more effective for the style of fighting used by the Romans. Epscially if you have your front ranks "lock & lift" the enemy's spears and let you shotswordmen duck underneath and butcher them. Which is just what the Romans used to do against Phalanxes. But is is pretty much the gladius that kept the shortspear from becoming the primary weapon of the Legions.

IMO, the older damages are a bit more consistent, basically you could work out damage values by compaisons with the statsgiven. The new version just looks like someone tweaked it to give what he felt was right. But that ended up pushing the pistol damage in to close to the rile damages. THe big difficulty with firearms in most RPGs, including BRP is the variable damage. In realisty firearms tend to make smaller wounds than swords and axes, but are still lethal becuase of wound placement. With a variable damage roll (1D10, 2D8, etc.) the damage done is more a factor of how well you roll on the damage die than how well you place the bullet (skill). 80% of your damage is just random by weapon. Something liek +1 to each damage die per 10% you make the roll by would probably work out better. We'd need to reduce the damage a little first though.

You missed my point. You see all ages at Chess clubs because Chess has been on the shelves continually. In RPG circles the same is true of D&D, in one form or another. But it is hard for a 15 year old to pick up and play an RPG that hasn't been on the shelves for 20 years.

Well, most people who try that either get stopped before they get a statistically significant sampling, or have government backing. But, based on the stuff that we found out from wars and firefights, pretty much no one actually dies immediately. There are very few spots on the body that will kill you right away if destroyed. So instant kills are probably less than 5% with all of the above. That said, the chances of someone dying with a few seconds, minutes, hours, or days without proper medical attention is pretty close to 100% for all of the above, too. And not being killed isn't the same as "up and fighting". Some who is down in 5 seconds and won't wake up for an hour is effectively out of the fight. There are some differences between gunshot wounds and wounds from other weapons, but all in all the primitive weapons probably have worse complications than bullet wounds. Such weapon leave bigger, more jagged holes, and are not as clean so the wounds go septic more often (warriors are notorious for not sterilizing their greatswords between opponents).

Probably the real reason* It's too OLD. Unless ypu are a CoC fan, you'd have to be pretty old to remember BRP products-older than the average gamer. If we took music or TV shows from the early 80s I doubt they would be propular with the average gamer today either. How many of the under 20 crowd are on this forum?

It does match what I used to see in the tramua room as well as personal experience. I used to get adrenaline shots at the ER, and would go into a state of hyperactivity, despite being sick, dead tired, and low on oxygen (asthma being one of the reasons for the adrenaline shot). When I was a child, there were times when I had to be physically retrained to keep my from running around, at least until I coughed up blood and got freaked out. That old fight or flight reflex is scary.

Actually the SR benefit is oay for attack, but the spear sort of get's screwed defensively in RQ. One thing that I liked about the Usagi Yojimbo RPG was that spears no only had reach (Similar to D&D 3+, but with people having differernt move rates), but that they had a rebound critical/special. Tat meant you could use a spear to cunterattack (basically attack vs. an attack instead of parry) and keep the counterattack to use in the round against another attacker (assuming you made the rolls. If you sucked of the other guy did good, you just got hit and wound in up close with a long range weapon). It made spear users a bit tricky to handle. You could try to rush in and hope to beat the spearpoint aside for the attack, or slowing close in and try to trap the guy somewhere where he couldn't backpedal and be able to keep the spear in play. It made the pretty useful for fending off animals, too.

Sometimes I just can't understand the reasoning behind certain posts. :confused: No such luck with this thread! :D

Yeah, From what I've read, it seems you sort of take a "blanket impairment" when the adrenaline rush kicks in and can basically ingore most of your injurues, for the short term, unless they are very severe, or make fucntioning impossible (i.e. you can't used severed body parts). Once the adrenaline wears off, then it all seems to hit at once and the guy crashes. Not too many RPGs work that way, do they?

Yeah, I agree with pretty much what both of you have posted. It is just that things such as "cheap and easy" generalyl don't apply in RQ/BRP. PCs, like most poeple who regualrly stake thier lives on their weapons, will try to buy the best avialbe, and spend the time to improve. But, skill pays too too. A man skilled with a spear can be a very formidable adversary for someone with a sword or axe. They pretty much have to knock the spear out of the way prior to any real attack, and then step in.

Ah, intersting. Of coruse that does explain steel cored bullets and other forms of encasing a penetrator with a softer outer metal. The Russian 5.7mm pistol round does that. It also explains why that doesn't happen with tank guns, too, as they fire fin stabilsehd rather than rifled rounds (rifling is a disadvantage at those velocities). I7m going to have to show you a copy some day. It is a little overcomplicated by today's standardards, but very detailed and does things very well. It has a lot of nice ideas, and is one of the few games where modern (even futuristic) weapons and primitive ones can coexist. Like is life, pretty much anything can kill you, just some things are better at it than others.

Well there are a few reasons for this. First off, the sword is typically a better weapon overall than most other melee weapons. It is fairly strong, and highly verstile, as you can slash & stab with it. Many other weapons of the era were either not as study, slower, or not a versitile. Swords were the weapons for the rich. So in a way they should be better. Eas of use has been mentioned, and is quite true, and should be factored in. The old adage that to train an archer start with the grandfather comes to mind. THe ability to make and maintain weapons is a factor too. Sometimes people just got stuck with what was avaiable, rather than the "best" weapon. Another thing overlooked is the various "special effects" of weapons usually don't come into play in RQ. For instance, Certain weapons are more effective at bashing down foes in armor and that plays a factor. I think the solution to the problem would be to facotor in different effects for special success. Maybe give each weapon two or three special effects to choose from. For instance, a sword might get a slash & stab options, with an axe might get at cleave (more damage than a slash), and a maul might get a bonus to knockdown (2x) or some such, a hammer might get an 1/2AP benefit, Bills & Hook could get a dismount special, and staves a trip, swotdcathers and sai could get a disarm (foe makes DEX roll or disarmed) on a special, and so on. Also, weapon reach isn't a big issue in RQ, but is a big factor in real combat. The spear has been and continues to be (thanks to they bayonet) a very useful weapon in part because it has a nice reach advantage over most swords, aces, and maces. Oh, and I disagree with Nighshade about the spear. The Egyptians, the Greeks, medieval militia, Swiss Pikemen, bayonet. The weapon has been one of the most used weapons throughout history.

Not too shabby Rurik, About the only thing I'd dispute is that AP rounds loose accuracy over long distance. I don't think that is a property of AP as much as a property of less mass, and thus lower inertia. Main reason I bring that up is because a lot of AP rounds have increased powder for more energy and flatter trajectories. Oh, and the AP anti-tank round typically have the longest range. BTW, Sandy may have used Jane's to get the weapon damages, but for whatever reason, those numbers were thrown out when they revised the game. First edition CoC damages are different that what is is 5th, and seem to work better IMO. P.S. Rurik, you sure you haven't read Timelords? Your damage idea is fairly similar to what they do there.

So far this is looking like the most decisive poll in RPG history!

The reduced damage values would work with the bleeding rule I inbtroduced eariler. As for the damaged in the book, they are pretty random, and do not match up well with the actual energy of the various rounds. FOr example a .38 round is not nearly as lethal as a 9mm round. A .38 special round on the other hand is. The big problem I have with the 5th edition damage is that the pistols are overpowered compared to the rifles. For example, an 5.56 nato round has more energy than a .44 Mag, yet the damages are about the same. It also has nearly twice the penetrating power, an important factor when dealing with body armor. First edition CoC (and most Chaoisum products) put the 9mm at 1D8 so I went with that. I suspposed I could redo the damages with the 9mm at 1D10 and shift up the rifles a little, but was worried about making some weapons "autokills". With general HP and little armor to speak of, I am concerned about making the guns too lethal. In the real world, one shot from most weapons won't kill you-at least not right away. Lying on the ground, bleeding, crying for your Mommy, yeah, but not dead. BTW, I was assuming that double damage on an impale was still the standard rule for CoC, so that, combined with the shot range modifier would make most pistols pretty dangerous at the 20 foot range that they are typically used at.