soltakss

http://renaissancekingdoms.wikia.com/wiki/Ship says that a Hulk has 4 crew, but that seems too low. They also give a Cog 4-6 crew, so their figures are suspect. I'd use the same as a small Cog, sp 15 officers and sailors. After all, they were used for transporting between England and Flanders/Low Country, so they were sea-going and should have am appropriate crew.

Well, yes and no. High Status often comes with wealth, but there are exceptions. The Noble family who have been ruined and just have their titles. The youngest son of a youngest son of a high ranking noble, he has the Status, he has the Title, but he has no wealth. The merchant who has made it rich but came from the sewers - he has a high credit rating but not a high Status. In Merrie England, I used Status (Wealth) or something similar as a Wealth score and Status (Social) as the social standing. It makes things a lot easier to manage.

Many Chinese dragons could assume human form, I think, often appearing as mandarins or sages. I would give them a specific character trait that outweighs all others. So, one could be wise, cheerful, cheeky, angry, lustful, greedy, devious or whatever. Over the course of a conversation, that trait would manifest itself in some way. Although hyper-intelligent, they would be easy tricked by taking advantage of that particular character trait. Also, give them certain traits of appearance, so they wear clothes of a certain colour or style, wear they hair in a certain way, use particular weapons and so on. Maybe there are different tribes of dragons that have different styles. Finally, each dragon should have something about them that doesn't transform quite right. One might have long fingernails, sibilant speech, slightly coloured skin, hidden scales, cast a draconic shadow/reflection or whatever.

BRP gives most animals 3D6 CON, which seems fair enough. Animals with small SIZ have proportionally small HPs. So, a cat with SIZ 1 but CON 18 would have 10 HPs, so 3HPs per leg, if locations were used. However, I'd just give it 10 HPs all over, as a sword is unlikely to just hit a single hit location. A SIZ 1 cat with average HPs has 6HPs, easily killable with a single blow. I don't really see a problem with the stats as they are.

In RQ, we have killed several dragons in the past. Of course, it depends on the dragon and the strength of the party, but someone who is magicked up can fairly easily kill a normal dragon (Critical in the head doing over 30 points of damage tends to do the trick). Don't forget that a big, strong human with a greatsword could do 22 points of damage without magic, add in Truesword and Bladesharp and you easily get above 30. The trick is getting into a position where the dragon cannot breathe on you, dropping on its head, attacking from behind/above and getting lucky, because as soon as it is engaged it will move into a better position.

Actually, it's only really flavour. If you prefer to have Torture as a Craft, Art or Lore then knock yourself out. It makes a slight difference to the starting skill, but that's about it.

Sorry, real life has interfered with things - January is just about my busiest and most expensive month. I will get back to people fairly soon.

Just because something is produced for Legend, it doesn't mean that Mongoose produce it. Anyone can publish a Legend Compatible book that can be used with Legend, without any input at all from Mongoose. The Genie has well and truly been let out of the bottle.

Coc is a very simple, fast-moving game, so I would allow pretty much whatever things a grappler wants to do. Basically, make a Grapple roll to grab hold, then a Grapple roll every turn, with the hold automatically broken on a fumble. A successful Grapple roll allows someone to be thrown, choked, Chinese-burned or whatever. If two people are wrestling, then each makes a Grapple roll and if one succeeds and gets a better roll then that person gets the option of doing something. The above rules are great and suit RQ/BRP, but are far too complex for CoC, in my opinion.

Monsters of Legend had stats for Size/Reach for all its monsters. A dragon has: Type Size Reach Damage AP/HP Range Bite E/L Claw E/VL Tail H/VL E=Enormous H=Heavy L=Long VL=Very Long I would recommend Monsters of Legend as a PDF - quite cheap and full of useful monsters.

Character generation in BRP shouldn't take more than 15 minutes, as long as you have decided what you want to be. The hardest part is to decide which Background/Profession you want and which spells to take. As long as everything else is available in tables, it is very easy to do. Even using hit locations is a lookup on a table and writing them down. The 7 point wishlist is satisfied completely by BRP, so these are good things to want.

I didn't know that Loz purloined ideas!

Not really, RuneQuest and BRP are generic systems, Stormbringer is a setting-based system. BRP/RQ armour covers anything from prehistoric to far future. Armour is designed to be wearable, durable and protecting. It is not designed to protect from a bazooka shell or from being trampled by an elephant, so most armour will be designed to protect against common damage. In fantasy games this normally means hand to hand or fairly primitive missile weapons. In modern games, it covers hammers, axes, knives, clubs and firearms. In future games, it can cover knives, clubs, forceblade weapons, blasters and so on. Weapons designed to kill humans do enough damage to kill humans, so armour should protect against that kind of damage. Hence, all the D100-style games have a very similar range of damage and damage protection. Not sure that plate cannot be cut through - it can certainly be punctured and I would guess that a very heavy weapon would slash through plate. There are far more armour materials than bronze and iron. Ancients used leather, linothorax, wicker and ceramic armour. Whilst they wouldn't stop a Bastard Sword or Greatsword, they might reduce the damage enough to survive the blow. For playability, tripling bronze is quite a heavy penalty. Long-hafted weapons such as Axes and Spears tend to be wooden most of the way up, with a metal head. So, ENC and HPs should not change that much, unless they are protected by a wire coil. Why double small weapons and treble large ones? Surely, if a weapon is made entirely of bronze it should be 3 times the ENC regardless of its size. Even Viking shields were wooden, covered with leather and with a metal rim. Wicker or leather shields should be lighter and offer less protection. Wooden shields should absorb about as much as a Viking shield, as they would probably be leather bound. Stone maces are as heavy as metal ones. Spears have a wooden haft and a stone head, so should have the same HPs/Aps. Long bladed weapons should be fragile. It is a common misconception that Glorantha is a Bronze Age world. Sure, main weapons are based on bronze, but iron is relatively common for magical characters. In any case, the Gloranthan metals are analogues of real world ones, but are substantially different. I am not entirely convinced that this is true. I strongly disagree. The best modern-day flint-knappers are nowhere near as skilled as their Stone Age predecessors. Many skills have been lost or now exist in a rudimentary form compared to ancient masters. D100 systems have a relative skill base. This means that 90% is considered Mastery. Anyone who dedicates their life to the pursuit of a skill will become a master of the skill, given enough practise and talent. The ancient world had stone masons, architects, poets, painters, scholars and many more professions. Many of these were very skilled at what they did. The idea that ancient cultures did not specialise as they were too focussed on survival is just wrong in many respects. Evidence is there that many of these societies has specialised people who spent their lives doing one or two things really well. Chinese, Persians, Greeks and Romans had specialised soldiers. They were well trained for their time. Many other cultures had a specialised corps of soldiers backed up with militia. These were well-trained. Epics and tales tell of great warriors, they would have been equally skilled. No, no, no, no. Because D100 skills are relative, this means that a master of the skill is measured relative to peers. Sure, a Babylonian Priest would have a good grasp of basic mathematics but would not know of algebra, calculus, group theory and the many newer branches of mathematics. This does not mean that a Babylonian Priest should not have 90% Mathematics. What was once cutting-edge theory is now being taught in high schools., What is now cutting-edge will be taught in the schools of the future. How are ancient Egyptians and Babylonians basically cavemen with 80-word vocabularies? Did you know that more ancient languages have richer and more complex grammar than most modern languages? Vocabulary is based on what people are talking about. Ancient vocabularies are going to be as rich, if not richer than today's languages. Sure, they won't have terms for computers or spaceships, but so what? Saying that a Babylonian epic is limited and formulaic is misunderstanding the purpose of ancient epics. They were often written for specific purposes, sometimes as religious works, sometimes as records of historical or legendary people. You might as well say that Haiku or limericks are limited and formulaic. The only time that relative skills do not work well is when you have a genre mix. A modern-day mathematician going to the Babylonians would have a higher Mathematics skill, for example. In this case, it is best to establish what the baseline is and then assign a bonus or penalty to the skill. The baseline should be the predominant culture of the setting. In fact, genre-mixing also means that you do need rules for different types of armour and weapons as well, as they will be important.

One thing I have found is that fictional characters are exactly that - fictional. They do not follow rules based on logic and do not have internal logic, as their activities depend on the stories involved. Also, as each character has its own frame of reference, you cannot compare two characters from different literary works. The best you can do is to establish a base line of what to expect and then model characters on that.

World English Dictionary [TABLE=width: 100%] [TR=class: tr1] [TD=class: td1, colspan: 2]athletics (æθˈlɛtɪks) [/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD=colspan: 2] [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: tr2] [TD=class: td2, colspan: 2]— n[/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: tr3] [TD=class: td3n1, width: 1%, align: right]1.[/TD] [TD=class: td3n2]a. track and field events[/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: tr3] [TD=class: td3n1, width: 1%, align: right] [/TD] [TD=class: td3n2]b. ( as modifier ): an athletics meeting[/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: tr3] [TD=class: td3n1, width: 1%, align: right]2.[/TD] [TD=class: td3n2]sports or exercises engaged in by athletes[/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: tr3] [TD=class: td3n1, width: 1%, align: right]3.[/TD] [TD=class: td3n2]the theory or practice of athletic activities and training[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] So, sports or exercises engaged in by athletes describes running, and jumping. Climbing might be seen as a specialised activity, especially in modern times.

Some people prefer it, some don't. Legend has split Swimming out, but has Athletics for other things. I can see the point, if you want reduced skill lists. I like more skills, so would prefer Climbing and Running to be different skills, but I don;t mind either way.

If you prefer, have the next hit an automatic success. That should scare the player a bit.

You need to make the roll after the exposure period. If it can be deadly after 5 minutes, then roll after 5 minutes to see if you die. If it takes 30 days and you are not exposed for 30 days then there is no need to roll. However, I would add up all exposure times, so if you were exposed for 10 days, then went away and came back for 10 days and went away again and came back again for 10 days, that adds up to 30 days exposure, so needs a roll.

I think images are controlled like attachments and you need to have a certain number of posts to do that. You might be able to do it with the Wrap HTML Tags button to refer to an image that is on the web, but I have never tried it.

I spent a lot of time with torture in the last Merrie England - The Spanish Inquisition is very good for that kind of thing.

In that case, you are right I don't have my copy of Legend available at work, unfortunately, so was going from memory. Professions certainly charge 10 points for each advanced skill.

To me, a Craft is in the doing and a Lore is in the knowing. Torturing is in the doing, so it should be a Craft, in my opinion. It is the difference between knowing that slowly pulling someone's arms out of their sockets causes excruciating pain and being able to do it without killing the person and allowing a confession to be obtained. Your torture may vary, of course.

All Advanced Skills cost 10 to buy. Normally, Backgrounds don't give Advanced skills out. If you look at all the culture skills in Legend then all are Basic skills. But, you can always handwave that in your game by saying that these are 0 cost Advanced skills, like Language (Native) or Lore (Regional).

And I'm back - they've had a lot of SPAM lately - must have clicked on the wrong user to ban. Of course, I can now no longer claim to have never been banned from a forum

Advanced skills cost 10 points to get, which should come out of your allowance.