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In one campaign some NPC was recruiting guards to accompany his caravan. Upon hearing the details one of the player characters mused "I'm free for a couple of months..." The Gm replied: "DEAL!"

LOL! That's a wise choice. Graduation levels could drop dramatically otherwise.

A sidearm throw isn'tt horizontal, as the thrower is either lying on his side, or leaning sideways. A typical grenade is in the air for a second or two, and that's why they have 4 second fuses. The idea was not to give the enemy enough time to grab it and throw it back - something that used to happen in the early days of WWII, when the fuses were 7 seconds.

Thanks for the grenade range data. So it looks like a success in BRP should be anything within 5m (1s4+1?), a special probably within 1-2m (1d2), and a critical right on the money.

Oh yeah. That's why I mentioned previosuly that fragmentation greandes are reffered as defensive grenades, as they must be thrown from some sort of defensive position to avoid the fragments. I can buy that. Another factor worth mentioning is the "Hey that guy is trying to kill me!" aspect to all this. Historically, those using more deadly (or deadly looking.sounding) weapons tend to draw more fire. So if they enemy actually seems someone preparing grenade they will probably concentrate fire of him to prevent it, which gives the thrower even more incentive to hurry up. That's pretty much the standard throw, if I recall correctly. Not as accurate but better distance.

That's more of a discus thing, thanks to the wierd wind up. Grenades tend to be much more straightforward. But the thing is, the people who miss 85% of the time in combat do much better outside of it. Most Police, FBI and other trained types hit 75% of the time on the range, but only about 25% of the time in an actual fight. So something similar is probably happening with grenades. Of course missing by 5m doesn't matter so much with a greande. Yup. It's probably a major factor. Cover is your friend on the battlefield, and most targets probably have a rock, tree, wall, vehicle, or big dumb friend to duck behind, making the throw more challenging. Still, if you stick with % missed by times distance thrown, it would be pretty difficult for even an unskilled (Throw 25%) combatant to miss completely. At 20m he'd have to roll a 75 or higher (so 26% chance of a miss) and at 15m he'd have to roll at 96 or higher. That sounds pretty close to what you are looking for.

I don't think it would make any difference to the locals. Basically they'd be viewed as something like the Lunars, or worse. Most of the openly worshiped Chaos cuts in Glorantha are cults that try to work with Law, such as the Red Goddess. But most Young Kingdoms style Chaos Cults are anti-Law, and would come off looking like the secret evil cuts in Glorantha such as Malia or Thanatar. Melniboeans in particular would make a bad impression. And Yong Kingdoms characters wouldn't have the Lunar Empire to cover thier backs. Frankly, I'd expect them to get jumped by Storm Bulls and other anti-Chaos types. Now Stormbringer bound demons are game changers, and the sorcerers would probably wipe out a wave or two of attackers, but that would probably just make the locals hit the panic button and bring in their big guns. Where the Gloranthans have a huge edge in with massed magic. Everybody in Glorantha has access to magic in some form. Twenty guys throwing disrupt could really catch a sorcerer off guard. Overall I suspect sorcerers from the Young Kingdoms would find Glorantha a bad place to visit and they wouldn't want to live there.

You can't unless you flub it, rush it, or have some sort of obstacle in the way. But...in combat, people generally rush it, can flub it, and the targets tend to use obstacles for cover. To illustrate the point, most firefights take place within 7m with about 85% of the shots missing. Under stress free circumstances definitely. In combat, less so (that 98%). Still, even a total screw up should be able to throw a grenade close enough to threaten an unprotected target. About 15m seems to be about right for a typical, skilled thrower. It kinda varies depending on the type of "rock". Generally they have gotten smaller and lighter over the years. Don't forget rifle grenades and grenade launchers. If you are launching a grenade at someone over 100m away, "missing" becomes more of a possibility. Still, most modern grades have a 15m/30m burst radius, and can be dangerous to people ever further away. A unbarred launcher seems more likely than a handheld grande for a SciFi setting.

Yeah, that's why I brought up the "Defesive Grenade" classification. Generally speaking the thrower is ususally within the secondary blast radius of a frag grenade. Yes, that's why I like to use the range as a factor to detemine the amount of error. If you are throwing at a target 20m away you're grenade is going to end up within 10m of the target, unless you drop it, or it rolls off a roof, or you are to hyper and overdo it, or falls down a hole or something. BTW with the method I mentioned earlier, you'd need to fail by more than 50% to be off by more than 10m. Yes, and grenades are going to explode somewhere.

I'd suggest multiplying the distance to the target and the percentage failed by to get the distance missed by, in some random direction determined by rolling 1D8, with 1 being straight past, 2 being past and to the right (45), 3 being to the right (90) and so forth. If you want a simplier method just use half the distance tot he target. So if a character threw a grande at someone 70 feet away, and had a 57% chance of success and rolled an 89, he'd fail by around 30% (it's 31% but close counts with hand grenade) or 21 feet. If he rolled a 5 on the D8 it would be short and to the left (45 degrees), which would probably be bad news for both the thrower and the target. If using the simpler method the grenade would be off by 35 feet. BTW, fragmentation grenades all called defensive grenades because the thrower will be within the blast radius and will need to have cover.

Yeah, I think Stormbringer's roots were showing. One of SB authors, Ken St. Andre, designed Tunntels & Trolls, and RPG somewhat notorious for it's lack of any sort of game balance. Generally speaking, in T&T most contests tend to be lop-sided, and SB's magic rules are similar. Those with magic, especially demon items, tend to run roughshod over those who don't have magic, which is most people. It wasn't tough for a competent sorceror to summon a demon weapon that did far more damage than Stormbringer. IMO, the new scale used to rate (1 point per die shift) demon abilities in Elric! was a improvement, and I'm generally not that fond of the rule changes in Elric! I think they are trying to reinforce the world view. Modern people tend to expect people to "be fair" and look at other as equals, value all points of view and play by the same rules. But historically most cultures tended to be more tribal and believed that their own group and culture were superior o that of other peoples. Thus an Olanthi "knows" he is better than a Lunar and vice-versa. It not exactly hypocrisy as people don't actually view each other as equal or the situation as the same. The quote just extends that thinking to the spirit world.

Dou you place an there an upper limit on that? Otherwise novice archers with a high DEX 5% bow skill could delay their shots for 10-15 DEX ranks and shoot at over 100%, all the time. In Elric! the +10% per 5 ranks gave you a practical limit of +20-30% but with +10% per rank it could really add up. Just the sample Archer from the core book (DEX 13, Hunting Bow 60%) could delay for a dozen DEX ranks and attack at 180%! IMO capping the aim bonus at half again or twice skill would make sense

Oh, let me add Action Movie Physics as another RPG based off of the old James Bond RPG. It's not quite as close to the Bond RPG as CLASSIFIED, but very close. So close in fact that I suspect the author of one game was familiar with the other, as both game share the same air vehicle list, with the same stats.

So much of Gming comes down to presentation. A gm can make the kindest act appear cruel or vice versa just by presentation. Having Merlin say" Sir Reynard, hmm...what did I save him? Oh, yes, I remember, dragon bait!" can change how the whole thing plays out-even if the GM doesn't get back to it. "out of Story" is always a troublesome situation. Obviously the GM want's all the players to be active participants, but actions have to have consequences, so it's a bit of a juggling act. I think magical healing is okay as long as the players don't think they can rely on it. A trip into Faerie so Merlin could replenish his stash is always a possibly too. Player tend to latch onto any perks and never let them go unless given a reason.

You could come back to this later by having Merlin hijack Reynard for some task in the future to "make up for" the magic that Merlin had to use (not to mention the 3 moon nap he suffered later) to heal him. You could make some sort of nasty quest that the knight was fated to do and thus Merlin healed him for a specific reason. That would allow you to keep Merlin from seeming like some sort of paramedic or D&D cleric - especially if Merlin mentions it in an non-flattering way before (and after)sending Reynard off on a quest. "Hurry along, you're the one fated to delay the dragon long enough for me to fetch that moss I need. Wha? Will it kill you?, That's for you to find out." Then later on..."Yes, the moss, now I can finally have a decent cup of tea."

No they didn't. Like many other things the clergy didn't approve of. Think of that the next time your knights get shot at by Milanese Crossbowmen. Plus it could away open the door for an indulgence.

I think the thing is that knights will end up eclipsing heroic ancestors, making the link less important. Being related to some "great hero" who died with 6 000 Glory probably doesn't mean as much when you've got 20 000 Glory. Exactly. Glory is sort of a knightly prerogative, so almost any knight is going to have more glory than a non-knightly ancestor. It's also why medieval historians used to retoractively make famous people such as Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great knights. By chivalric thinking such men would have had to be knights in order to be so great. Probably, but it would most likely be frowned upon by the church. Most such vows were usually sworn "by" something, typically a God, and is actually what constitutes "swearing" -not profanity. Some. I kinda used them to add flavor to some Saxon NPCs, but didn't use them for any PKs- mostly due to my downplaying Saxon heritage in order to make the Saxon PKs part of Aurelius & Uthers cadre or "modern" knights. I did adapt the shapeshifter rules (quite a bit) to have a PK Ulfsark. A PK went mad during a fight, accomplish a few heroic things (the player was rolling low, and the penalties he was suffering ended up turning his die rolls into critical successes), and chased the enemy off into the forest. When he came too he met a strange one eyed traveler...

The simple solution would be to subtract 10m/second from their MOV to overcome the force that is pulling them downward. Yes that's like a bug hitting a windshield causing the car to explode. Plus even if the griff were travelling flat out, it would also have to withstand the impact. Exactly. I'd be inclined to just add add some multiple of it's MOV to it's STR for it's damage bonus.

He is, just not his own. It must be all the Mythos tomes the academics run into while making Library Use rolls. A few failed SAN rolls and they start thinking that adding two numbers use natural LOGs is the way to go.

Fair enough, I'll point the finger higher up on the educational food chain. Still, somebody somewhere decided upon this method.

Yes. You can use one for critcals and the other for specials. The idea is to eliminate the tables. Another possibility would be to have crticals end on 1's specials on 2's &3's and so forth. That way you could get up to ten different success (and failure) levels without any sort of table. -In fact, I think I might just write up a game that uses that.

You could go with the 0's and 5's like HARN does.

Probably. To strike with the second weapon weapons the rider would have to twist and lean over more than normal, not to mention exposing more of hisemlf to attack in order to get within reach. I could see negating some or part of the mounted bonus. Maybe +2/-2 instead of +5/-5? I'm not sure if it's worth the trouble though. There are a lot of reasons for a mounted knight to carry a shield, or even to dismount.

The solution there would be to shift 00 into he success range, but then 99 would always have to be a fumble. Yeah, pretty much. Unless the characters are ultra skilled, I know I don't have to bother looking at any roll over 25, and that's most of them.

Wow! I really am starting to think modern teachers are deliberately trying to sabotage the education system. Couldn't they have picked another method? I'd have done a partial subtraction method. That is I's subtract 25 from both values to get 13 and 300, then take the 13 off of the 300 to get 287.