RosenMcStern

After an intense holiday week, during which I had three sessions of gaming, I think it is high time to report my considerations on how this new incarnation of BRP works in the field.

In the first two sessions, which were part of a long-running Glorantha campaign set in Sartar during the Kallyr/Argrath rebellion and recentlytconverted from RQ3/4 to BRP, I was dragged in as support to the Hero Plane to recover a HeroQuest gone bad. Basically, the Heroes had attracted a too strong Opposition and although they had defeated the adversary, their Uroxi had suffered the adverse effect of a Sever Spirit spell, a fact that can be extremely annoying when you are on the Hero Plane. In the details, all attempts to bring the poor fella back with normal means only resulted in Kargan Tor appearing and saying “He’s mine”, and I assure you that Primal Death can be rather rude when he wishes to. At that point I tried to set up a Lightbringer ring to go and recover the fallen, but all that resulted was the adversary showing up again, entering the quest as Trickster the Betrayer and illuminating our Wind Lord with a lucky roll on just two riddles. Just one moment before we fell prey to despair we finally managed to complete our Ring with a Chalana Arroy priestess and bargain him back from Kargan Tor.

Later on I realized that we had re-enacted a “Storm Bull is revived by Earth” myth rather than a Lightbringer, and this intuition turned out to be useful. To cut it short, the Enemy was confronting us again in a final showdown, threatening to kill us with Sever Spirit, Seal Wound and other antisocial magic, when we realized that we were in the mythic forge of the gods, with a very, very big anvil lying around and a very, very big and angry STR 37 Storm Khan willing to take revenge. It was just a matter of invoking our Law affinities on the anvil and turn it into a mythical representation of the Block and we were ready to go for the fun part of the re-enactment. As a reply to those who say that criticals and specials are unnecessary, I can assure you that a good special roll is a non-optional part of the fun. Especially when you roll a special Throw to smash the King of the Broos under the Block. Take that you fiend!

As you have guessed, 75% of the rules used were RQ magic and houserules for HeroQuests rather than plain BRP rules. What was the bonus (or penalty) introduced by BRP in this, then? Well, I think there were two points: first of all, dropping Strike Ranks and using just DEX and INT ranks sped up combat enormously, allowing the few scenes of combat to be run in a matter of minutes and giving more room to roleplaying, which is essential in these high level HeroQuests. Secondly, it is when everyone is using really magical weapons that you appreciate the advantages of not using Armor Points to parry. Even though the old “defensive AP” system works well with common shields and axes, it is less playable when the average blow delivers 25 points of damage and everyone has a magic weapon. In this sense, basing the result of a parry on the skill of the defender alone makes way more sense.

The third session, which I GMed, was a normal-level post-apocalyptic scenario in which the adventurers had to investigate a disaster area and found out the unexpected (think of the Stalker computer game). We experimented with psionics and mutations and the result was rather satisfactory, as just applying the basic rules conveyed a sense of total weirdness to a setting that I had placed only ten years in the future. Furthermore, I appreciated once again the fact that BRP firearms mix very well with low tech weapons. The PCs had two 7.65 handguns and even managed to kill a monster with them, but even the Delta Force trained PC in the group could not play the superhuman when surrounded by a few mutant guardsmen: with the numbers on their part their spears (and mutations) were more than a match for his automatic pistol and Kevlar armour.

For a final comment, I think I can confirm that BRP behaves like I expected: it is faster than RuneQuest, albeit the level of detail is almost the same, and works fantastically well when you introduce technology in the setting. The only problem we found so far is the lack of detailed options for two-weapon combat, but this is a minor problem. Lord Thousand might have some more elements to add to this report, too.

Everything you say is correct, except maybe the fact that you tend to use a hoplite shield to deflect rather than block a blow.. But the point is that you say that whether you parry with a sword or with a shield is not the most important factor, whereas the rules as written state that in melee this has no effect at all. Since weapon nature does have some effect, although highly inferior to skill, I think that if one wishes to sacrifice some degrees of simplicity for some extra realism, then an optional rule for shields in combat is useful.

I have added a new page on the wiki, which summarizes several proposals that were made about Dodge, shield use and two weapon use. It resulted in a nice collection of optional rules with which one can modify the flavor of combat. The rule that prevents multiple parries on the same DEX rank is specially recommended, because it is already in effect if you use the Strike Rank option.

Using a weapon in the off hand is already described as Difficult in the rules. This does not apply to shields.

The original BRP rules state that shields do not take damage when parrying. This is wrong: a wooden shield will take damage from an axe blow, while a sword will probably not (though if it does it will probably break). Still, shields should not be inferior to weapons in melee, but rather superior. This point is probably one of the few flaws in the current incarnation of the rules.

This friend of mine has some nice "supers" images, mainly Marvel or DC, that the might be willing to let you use: Alexandre Togeiro's Art

Weapon are designed to deal damage, shields to take/defect it.

Well, to take rathere than to deflect it. The original rule in BRP was that shields do not take damage when used to parry, weapons do. This is no longer the case. The old rule is incorrect: if you use a weapon to parry, you use it to deflect the blow, not to absorb it, so the weapon does not take damage. If you use a big shield to parry, you are often just placing it between you and the attack, so it is more likely to take some damage, although it may have more HPs than a weapon.

If you're going to grant Martial Arts training as a specialized training in any weapon, it should be available in all weapons (at least in theory).

No, it should be available in all weapons for which a master has devised some special techniques. This is true for unarmed combat (where there are several styles), for fencing with light swords and sabers, and for fencing with japanese swords. It is probably true for gladiator schools in ancient Rome, assuming gladiators were better at killing than legionnaires (and again, the bonus applies only to shortwords and tridents, the weapon they used in the arena, while legionnaires mostly used the pilum). It might have been true for medieval schools of fighters, but we have no written record of it, so we cannot know for sure. I am rather skeptical about anyone devising special techniques for pikes or halberds.

Btw, I would really argue on the Humakti part. They're supposed to be the most highly skilled, highly trained swordsmen in the world, above and beyond any special abilities they gain through magic.

Except for the fact that they simply do not have the need for a special technique for increasing damage: they have Truesword. So why should they bother? Again, the pont is that you assume that everything non-magical should go into one (at most two) skills, while the MA skill, admittedly unlike all other skills in BRP, represents your ability to achieve ONE kind of special result. And this is clearly stated by the rules, which say that every different technique is a separate skill, not just "Mastery in that weapon".

My experience is that a Karate blackbelt with lots of training, and lots of tournament experience is going to get his ass handed to him by someone with just a little street experience, or by your typical football player who's never swung a punch at anyone in his life before, but I digress...

This was exactly my point, as I stated "there is no guarantee that the Blackbelt will beat the thug in a real fight". So you agree that combat training and Martial Arts (Karate) are not the same skill.

The current version of Martial Arts in the rules only works well with Karate and the like. It could be adapted to Kendo/Kenjutsu and Western fencing, but with some adaptations would be useful (Like in Al's examples). I think it works very poorly with pre-renaissance western sword fighting, which is explicitly left out by the rules. The rules also specify that there should be restrictions on which attacks qualify for the Martial arts bonus. For instance, Humakti should get no Martial Arts skill: their mystic techniques for increasing damage are already represented by their magic.

A thugh who has lived on the street for several years can knock almost any foe out with his bare hands in a matter of seconds, but he cannot break wooden planks with his hands. A character trained in oriental martial arts can, with the appropriate preparation, deal incredibly powerful blows, much beyond the capability of a skilled brawler. On the other hand, there is no guarantee that a Karate blackbelt with no real combat experience can defeat the aforementioned thugh.

The current rules depict this situation rather well, IMO. Combat skill represents your ability to hit a foe in a real fight (and note that you cannot train this beyond 75% if you only train in a dojo) while martial arts represents the ability to use secret techniques that achieve special results - and not the perfect timing that make you a master of your weapon of choice, as mentioned by Pete above, which are subsumed in your weapon skill. For Karate it is double damage, while for other fighting styles it is not necessarily so (frex, it could be the ability to halve your opponent's defence roll for fencing, which is mainly based on feints, and it could be +1d6 damage for Kenjutsu regardless of the blade size).

There was an interesting Marvel comic book mini-series by Alex Ross in the '90s about a parallel universe where everyone had super-powers, called Earth-X. You could take some inspirations from it. Admittedly, it is a very dark and apocalyptic setting.

What might work would be to allow character some sort of default protection from other forms of armor. For instance, while a tank might have armor designed to stop kinetic attacks,just the general thickness/mass would provide some protection against lasers. Maybe 1/4th value?

A tank is protected with its full 24 points against a laser. At most, you can adopt the optional rule used for body armor (half value against energy weapons if not specifically designed to stop them). I think that the effectiveness against only one type of damage is valid only for "armor" bought as a power, not for actual body armor. Which makes sense in most cases.

The body armor assigned to, say, the Hulk, represents the extreme hardness of his muscular mass, which will stop any kinetik attack. Its effect should be lessened against energy weapons, though. As for the fact that you will not see the Hulk damaged by lasers in the comics, the point is that he should be given some energy/radiation armor, too, possibly given by his gamma-ray saturated body. But there are two different "reasons why" here, so it is correct that there are two different powers to buy.

That said, I am in favour of introducing a (very costly) power called toughness that simply lets you ignore the first X points of damage from any source.

A better statistic for this would probably be "for every 10% over 100%, increase the lowest crit range by 1"

So, at 100%, the crit ranges are 01, 11, 22, 33, etc

At 110%, the crit ranges are 01-02, 11, 22, 33, etc

At 120%, the crit ranges are 01-03, 11, 22, 33, etc

I think that stays in tune with the idea of crits being 10% of your total skill.

Okay, now re-read what you and Atxtg have written. Do you really define this method simpler than the official rules (or the SB variant of 10%)?

What you can do is use doubles and give them a 10% (01-10) crtical chance for each 100% of skill. SO a character with Sword at 162% would critical on die rolls of 01-10, 11, 22, 33, 44, and 55. This gives the same percentages as the doubles method and can handle skill scores up to 1000%, more than high enough to handle anything you will ever see in game play.

Which is doable, but I do not see it as being easier or more intuitive than the RAW. For crits and fumbles, you only need to remember five magic numbers (10-30-50-70-90, i.e. the odd tens) and you know whether you criticalled/fumbled or not. It is a bit more complex with specials, but you usually do not need to make calculations in 95% of the cases. If you roll above 20, no problem. If you roll very low, no problem. If you roll in the "twilight zone" and you had modifiers, you need an on-the-fly computation, but this is usually an acceptable trade-off for a more detailed combat.

I still have to see a player who is happy to give up half of his chances of an impale (often the only opportunity he has to bring down a really powerful opponent) just for the sake of using doubles and avoiding a division of his adjusted skill by five.

My advice is to stay with the RAW for criticals/specials. In any case, you have two viable and tested alternatives.

a) 1/10 of skill (used in SB and MRQ) is easy but not so compatible with using also specials.

doubles are crits is even easier, but it is useless if you allow skills above 100%. In general, avoid it for high-powered campaigns.

Both alternate systems halve the chance of a special success, because you are supposed to just not use specials when crits are 10% of the successful rolls. As victory in a combat against strong foes is heavily dependent on specials, using these variant rules might even slow down combat in some cases. So the advice is: get ready for some more math and use the standard rules.

Hmm, I re-read the description, and it implies that big shields as they are now would become almost unbreakable: a big shield would need 52 HPs to break in a single blow, a sword only 16, and the big shield would take no damage from a critical that does not do at least 26 points of damage.

My suggestion is still to let shields absorb the damage (ALL the damage, not just the part that overcomes their AP value) from a higher success level attack. Shields should be easier to parry with, not harder to break.

Which is more or less what I was suggesting as an optional rule. I only have the Italian version of SB, which is a mixup of editions 1-4, so I did not know this version of the rules, and the 1-4 version is a bit too harsh (as reminded, old versions of SB have criticals at 1/10th of basic success, and automatic break of any non-demonic weapon the opponent is wielding on a critical success). I think it is the best solution, although it is a bit more complex.

Well, it surely has disadvantages: fail a SAN roll and your character becomes affected by all kind of nasty phobias >:->

Can't say I'm keen on that one. (The Critical/Special chances are a bit too fundamental to fiddle with, for my taste. Would you really want to introduce different crit/spec calculations, and separate Skill Results Tables?).

I agree with frogspawner here (and we seldom agreee on anything, so you can guess this proposal doesn't sound so good ). A good spot rule / houserule should be as less intrusive as possible, and reworking criticals is intrusive. There are other ways, including the reintroduction of APs in the parry for shields.

I think all these optional rules should be listed in the wiki, so that everyone can have a look at all of them and choose which he or she likes for his or her game. If no one else volunteers, I'll manage to add some of them to our Wiki as soon as possible. And of course the debate is still open.

I'd probably argue that the best scenario would be to allow weapons to do exactly what you describe and treat shields the old way, but that's not RAW and would require a minor house rule or two.

I have proposed a spot rule that does something similar on another thread last week.

The new rules systems are there IMO to keep people (PC's) up longer, rather than to speed up combat.

I disagree totally. In RQ if someone scored a critical and the opponent parried, the opponent either was unharmed or a least he stayed alive (a broadsword does 9 pts. on a critical hit, and your average parrying weapon absorbs 10). In BRP, if your opponent scores a special, either you score one, too, or you are hit! Damage is more, not less, frequent.

You could define a successful parry as:

i.) Successfully putting my shield between me and an attacker's weapon

ii.) Successfully blocking the attack of my attacker's weapon.

I would call option i) a Block, and option ii) a Parry. Unfortunately, no RP makes a difference between them - well, GURPS does but only in the name.

I have split the mechanics in my MRQ houserules, obtaining a greater realism, but even experienced players find it hard to use the difference in game, so I think this is not the way to go.

Personally, I would consider a parry in which you get injured / damage gets through as a failed parry / block, but that's just me.

Lots of people with combat experience have the same idea. It was them who persuaded me (on the MRQ forum, not here) that unsing APs for parries is unrealistic.

Which makes the generally higher HP of shields significant.

And lets you parry a halberd (average damage 13 with a 1d4 damage bonus) with a buckler (AP 15)

The Rules as Written make a difference between a shield and a parrying weapon only when you try and block a missile thrown at you, something that is not possible with a sword. This makes shields useful only in the field in which they were most often used historically: mass battles, in which the enemy usually throws sharp, painful things at you. Which may be fine for some of us (I prefer this over the old RQ rule that uses APs).

However, many of us wonder what use is a shield in a standard BRP melee. In this situation a shield user has no real advantage. To be more precise, a two-weapon user has no real advantage in melee over a 1-weapon user, not only a shield user.

Several spot rules have been proposed in recent threads. Read them carefully and you might find something that suits your tastes. I would not recommend using Armor Points for parries: if both MRQ and BRP have dropped this classic rule, there must be a reason

i think this is a VERY good idea!

It is a bit more complicate than your houserule of making Dodge Difficult on the same DEX Rank you attack, but it works similarly. Let us see why.

Basically, this means you cannot Dodge at full percentiles when you have used all of your MOV score. This may happen in three cases:

a) you have moved half your MOV but not your entire MOV and attacked at one quarter your DEX Rank

you have moved less than half your MOV and attacked at half your normal DEX rank

c) you have not moved and attacked at your normal DEX rank

Note that option c) above implies that a dodger cannot attack at his normal DEX Rank, because this would leave him without MOV points to spend to Dodge. Options a) and imply that whenever you move and wish to Dodge you must leave some unspent MOV points for possible Dodges, something like APs in good ol' X-Com. This may work rather fine, but requires some bookkeeping and some thinking in advance on the part of the players. All in all, it is a very tactical approach that makes a move towards miniature play. Not that I dislike it, mind me.

Dodge is superior in many ways, especially the fact that with a successful parry, you can still take damage if the damage points exceed the AP of your parrying weapon and your armor. With a successful dodge, you avoid all of it.

Not in this incarnation of BRP, where a parry is all-or-nothing. The difference between dodge and parry is slighter now.

When mounted, for instance, you can only Dodge at half percentile (-20% if also in armor). A cavalry fighter does not dodge in BRP.

Well, a cheap-and-cheerful advantage if you use Strike Ranks is that the second weapon can parry in the same strike rank as you attack - which you can't do with a single weapon only.

Not sure if there's a corresponding rule with DEX ranks - it would be a good one to have.

Yep. In fact this is one of our houserules that we wanted to post to the Wiki, but I have been too laz.. er, busy writing stats for Anime robots to actually do it. I will do that after a bit more of playtesting.