soltakss

But, if the pointy hat fits ...

I recommend BRP WitchCraft as well - it is everything you need for witchery. There is a Merrie England supplement for BRP(See my sig for further details) , but I specifically didn't include witches in detail because they were covered by BRP Witchcraft. I'd play things fast and loose, allowing things to be made easily. Use Fairy Tale stories rather than real-life ones.

You could probably run the Rune of Chaos without any conversion, though.

Three-Step Island is just off the coast of Corflu, which puts it about where you need your island to be. It is a Wolf Pirate base in this part of the Third Age, but you could change that. The Wolf Pirates are raiding various places along the coast right now and might raid/have a base on your island.

I check in on the Alephtar Games Forum between a couple of times a week and every day, mainly so I can shake my head and tut at the number of SPAM messages, but when I checked today I got the message It seems to have solved the SPAM problem, albeit in a fatal way.

It's available as a PDF - well worth it, especially with the Gloranthan Classics Bundle.

Sorry, I was in a cafe earlier and couldn't give a longer reply. My internet connection at home has returned, for the time being, if a bit shaky. Ah, I am not overly familiar with the Status system on CotAC - I'll have to check it out properly. I doubt that your situation will be more complicated than the unholy mess of Statuses that make up the Crusaders in the North. Unless they have actual connections with the Archbishops of York and Nidaros, I wouldn't bother using Status for them. As the PCs become more well-known then they might gains status with each Archbishop, but at the moment they would be either vaguely known or unknown. If you are planning a campaign where the Orders are pitted against each other then Status (Order) might be useful. However, if you are not then do you really need a status for each Order? The Angevins didn't rule until Henry II's time, so for your date it should be Norman Kingdom. That allows you to use the status in the lands that the Normans have conquered, e.g. Siciliy. I wouldn't bother deriving different Statuses either. If you have Status (Gaels) then have an implicit relationship with the Norse, but don't make it a specific Status, unless the PCs have strong interaction with them. So, they might start off as the poor nephews of McTarbert who the Norse know because their grandfather helped Magnus Bare-Leg, in which case they would use a modified Status(Gaels) roll in their dealings with the Norse. However, once they have dealt with the Norse a few times then they can build up a Status (Norse) which they can use instead, so rather than "You know, those poor nephews of McTarbert", they become "You know, those monks who rid us of the dragon that plagued the Isles" or "You know, those monks that stormed Castle Tarbert and chopped the head of the laird - look there it is on top of that pike!". Yes, they can. The important thing is to work out which factions are important enough to the plotline to have their own Status scores. The Byzantine Emperor is very important at the time and has the Varangian Guard, which may well contain kinsmen of the PCs, but do they need a Status skill for him - probably not until they go to Byzantium and join his guard. It is easy to go overboard with factions and statuses. I'd keep it as simple or as complex as you think suits the game. If the PCs use the same Status skills over and over again then they are the important ones and the ones that should be developed. Status (Wealth) should be used as a modifier to other situations. There are BRP rules to do this (I think you add 1/5th of the skill if applicable). So, yes, you could say "Who's that savage? I have no idea who he is but I like the cut of his cloth" or "Who's that savage? I hope he doesn't think that buying expensive clothes will impress me" or "Who's that savage? Obviously not a man of God otherwise he would wear more modest clothing" or whatever. You could have someone who is the grandson of a very important man, say the King's Bodyguard, who has a very low Status (Wealth) but has a very high Status (Gael) because of that. You could also have a very rich foreign merchant on his first trip to the Isles with a very high Status (Wealth) but a very low Status (Gael). In a contest between the two, who will the locals trust? It depends. So, Status is very much a hand-wavy setting-dependent skill.

A person could have a low Wealth score but a high Status score amongst the Gaels, so he would be treated with honour amongst his own folk. Amongst the Normans, for example, the fact that he has high status amongst the Gaels means nothing to them, however he could play on his importance to Gaels to get some benefits amongst the Normans. People could be respected in the Church but despised by the people, or respected by Normans and hated by Saxons and so on. My gut feeling is that a PC who is respected by or has a high Status amongst different communities should have to spend points on different Status skills/specialities. If you want to optimise, then spend them on Wealth as that generally helps everywhere.

I don't enjoy playing computer games, but there again I never enjoyed playing arcade games either. I spent long enough standing beside someone for hours while they destroyed world war 2 aircraft carriers one after another or whatever. For me, it isn't an age thing, just something I've never liked doing. I don't have the co-ordination, the patience or the inclination to learn all the moves, but friends of mine who are around the same age as me spend several hours a day online playing all kinds of stuff. But Skyrim looks great and should port across to a Tabletop RPG really well.

Scholboy error

Agreed, they are all useful. For reference tables they are good rolled up into one PDF. For random tables, I sometimes write a program that generates 2000 rolls, so all I need is a D20 and D100 and I can have fast rolled tables. So, for Deus Vult Scenarios and RQ Ruins, I generated 2000 of each to save time in generation.

Started to reply yesterday, but work took over and 5 hours after I had started, I gave up ... The BRP Rulebook has a section on chases (p216-217) but they are mainly for motor vehicles and seem to have been plucked from Call of Cthulhu. RQ Pirates, which must rank in the top three of RQ supplements brought out by Mongoose. When they bring out Pirates for Legend then it is a must. RQ Hawkmoon:Granbretan has Mass Combat rules, but I've never used them. I think something else did, but I can't remember where it was. I need to do an index of all major rules in all the RQ supplements some time. I've never played Song of Ice and Fire, so I am not sure what you mean by this. RQ Empires and RQ Guilds and Factions have rules for dealing with organisations and states, but I am not sure if they are what you need. I haven't played REIGN, either, but again RQ Empires and Guilds and Factions have similar things. BRP books? Very few. RQ books? More. I treat them all as being the same anyway, so as far as I am concerned RQBRP and LegendBRP are the same as BRP.

I've got two things to work on, then that then something for Merrie England. That's two more years of my life down the tubes ...

But, it is all Open Game Content, which makes it useful.

Historical. No knights in shining armour rescuing damsels in distress - I'll leave that for Merrie England. Clashes between Celtic and Nordic mythology, Heroic battles, sectarian disputes, religious clashes, that kind of thing.

I couldn't post this in the Age of Arthur sub-forum as it seems to have disappeared and I didn't want to resurrect old threads. My Age of Arthur project has been put on hold while I look at other things. Many of you won't know that I had such a project, but I reckon it was 55% complete before I mothballed it. Originally, I was going to do an "Age of Arthur BRP" supplement, but have decided to switch to a "Legend: Dark Age Britain" instead. This is for several reasons: I have been advised that most RPG companies wouldn't want to publish an Arthurian supplement, as it would clash, compete with and be crushed by Pendragon. Legend seems a better fit, especially if I have to self-publish it (Lulu looks good for the books). A smaller format book means that I can split the project into logical sections, so possibly Dark Ages: Britain, Peoples of the Isles, Age of Arthur Splitting out Arthur would allow me to explore the "Historical" period in one book and the "Arthurian" period in another, which would solve a lot of problems. However, it won't be this year, but they might start coming out next year, unless someone beats me to it.

POW in Legend isn't used in the same way that is was in RQ2/3, so isn't that important. Increased POW allows you to have more Dedicated POW, and hence a few more divine spells, and makes you luckier, but that's about it. Personally, I prefer the RQ2/3 approach with possibly hundreds of points of Divine Magic and enchantments, but that's just me.

Oh, I am sorry ...

If you belt someone wearing a helmet around the back of the head with a cosh then it might hurt - it will certainly make their ears ring. 1D8+1D4 does, on average, 4.5+2.5=8 points of damage and a max of 12, possibly enough to knock someone out who is wearing a helm, but more likely to damage them a bit. I don't think it is doing too much damage, but use 1D6+db if it makes you feel better, or disallow the damage bonus, either way makes it less effective.

I'd love to, but my wife won't let me! Seriously, one game a week and a lot of time spent reading forums and writing stuff is "more than enough", apparently.

You haven't got those damages quite right (see the Table on p395 of the BRP Rulebook). – Blackjack: 1d8+db – Flail: 1d6+db – Warhammer: 1d6+2+db – Broadsword: 1d8+1+db – Longsword: 1d8+db – Heavy Mace: 1d8+2+db Or he could use a Broadsword, Bastard Sword or Heavy Mace, all of which do more damage. In any case, a blackjack is a weapon for thieves and brigands, or for policemen. Or, I could hot you around the head twice with a blackjack and see how well you are afterwards! It depends on what you mean by Blackjack. Wikipedia says it is a truncheon but also says it is slang for a cosh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baton_(law_enforcement)#Blackjack - both are pretty dangerous. There is a big difference in what people see as being reasonable damage from weapons in a heroic game and what is realistic in real life. Two blows from a blackjack to knock me out is reasonable, maybe it would kill me as well, possibly reasonable. But, as other people have said, if you use a blackjack for non-lethal/stunning damage then it should be OK.

You would also have to ignore damage bonus, or introduce an arbitrary figure, recalculate Hit Points in some way, work out a new mechanism for general rolls, work out a new mechanism for overcoming somebody else using magic. An Opposed Roll mechanic might be suitable, with skills representing the things that STRx5 etc used, then you could roll your Magic skill vs an opponent's Magic skill, or roll your Strength skill to lift a boulder and so on. You would need various difficulty levels to represent large vs small boulders, but it is doable.

In my opinion, piloting a small, nimble spaceship, perhaps a fighter, INT + DEX, piloting a very large, unwieldy spacecraft, perhaps a freighter or liner, INT x 2. [EDIT]Oops, you are asking about the skills used in the supplement.[/EDIT]

Pah! HeroQuest was "Coming Soon" or "Coming Next year" for 20 years!

Also, various rites are performed using the Perform (Ritual) skill, such as Absolution. This might not seem very important, but if you go on a Quest with some sins hanging over you then they might be used against you, but if you are absolved first then those sins have been washed away so cannot count against you. There is a nice example in The Pillars of the Earth where a knight is given absolution for all the sins that he might commit in pursuit of a goal - this is something that actually happened, especially when on a Crusade (In the book, this came back to haunt the Bishop, though). Divine Blessings are the equivalent of Divine Spells. We called the Blessings rather than Spells for aesthetic reasons and also to get around the idea of Christianity/Islam/Judaism using spells/magic. We didn't just use the Divine Magic from BRP Magic (RQ3 Magic Book) because that would have required the purchase of another book and because Divine Blessings work slightly differently when looking at stackable spells. We decided to go with different magic instead. However, it should be fine to use Divine Magic as Divine Blessings as long as you use the different rules in Merrie England for how many points are used/available. A lot of things could in theory be covered by blessing people and these should be handled by the GM in consultation with the player concerned. So, a priest could bless an enterprise (perhaps a ship going on a voyage), a sick person (perhaps to heal them, perhaps to ease their suffering, perhaps to hasten their end), a lunatic (to drive out the demons possessing them) or whatever.