RosenMcStern

Welcome to the Royal Palace of Frederick II Okay, okay, I am done advertising Seriously, a low-magic fantasy and a high-magic fantasy would be good. I have already made a proposal for a low-magic fantasy, but what about the high-magic? Forgotten Realms is already done, Glorantha is out of scope (but look at my other post) so what?

Stat vs. stat in the 1-10 range handled with an opposed roll is not a good idea. Resistance Table is better in that interval. Let the GM decide when it is the case to roll opposed instead. After all, most contests are human vs. human (or dwarf/elf/troll). Bronto vs. Mother of Monsters should be the exception, not the rule.

Halving rule works well with both skills 200+, but is broken with, say, a 150 vs. 90. (101 vs. 90 is actually WORSE than 100 vs. 90) So they fixed it with the Player's update, which is less effective at 200+ level but works well at 101-190 level. But characters rarely have more than 200, so it is a better solution. Overall is is acceptable. But dropping the resistance table was a bad idea. I think STR 50 vs. STR 90 must not be resolved on the resistance table, but as an opposed roll of STRx1 as a skill. This handles STR 200 vs. STR 21o equally well. Resistance table is for characteristics up to 20-25, it breaks after 30.

BRP Anime superobots? BRP Gundam? This niche has a lot of fans and very few games available in the West (FASA Mec. I only remember a Palladium game about Macross/Robotech. The only time I actually touched my GURPS rulebook was to try a game set in the Universal Century (Gundam universe), and just because at that time "Advanced TFT" was the only system flexible enough to represent that setting. Now that we have a BRP with rules for sci-fi and psionics, though.... But Japanese licenses cost too much :mad:

I am afraid it is just the fact that nobody voted horror because BRP already has the best Horror RPG (I would say the best selling, but unfortunately WoD is technically a horror game and it sells more).

Anyone who was able to read the whole list without giving up, make a SAN roll. If you fail, you lose 1d100 sanity. If you lose 20% of your current SAN, you go permanently insane and preorder D&D 4th edition instead of Deluxe BRP. If your SAN drops to 0, you are insane beyond cure, and also burn all of your BRP stuff in sacrifice to the Great Old Ones of the Coast. (Armor Class 50 - OMG :shocked:)

It is already out there: take RuneQuest and use all the non-Glorantha sourcebooks with BRP. The point is rather: "What will the new main setting for BRP Fantasy be?", given that both classic fantasy settings used by Chaosium with BRP (Glorantha and Young Kingdoms) are now Mongoose's domain?

As an option: if you like it, use it flat. If you do not, use the dice. ALL systems (including D&D) use the same system: damage is weapon + personal. The difference is just: SYSTEM--|D&D/RQ4|GURPS/Pend|BRP/MRQ Weapon--|-Random|--Fixed---|Random Personal|-Fixed-|--Random--|Random All combinations were attempted except the Fixed/Fixed that would be incredibly boring. Frankly, I think fixed damage for weapons is not realistic (there are many ways you can deal an effective blow with a weapon, and a die roll is a good way to represent them), so it all boils down to whether your STR provides a fixed amount of damage or a rolled amount.

This is approximately what BRP does, except that the "more granular" increase at the low end of the scale fails because the (in)famous D2 is not included. A table with D2/D4/D6/2D6/3D6 etc. would be fine to me, but again, D2 is not very popular. Which is a shame, since it is the cheapest die (one cent ).

No version of d100 has ever had a 4-point granularity in the table. RQ3 and DBRP are "+1d6 per 16 points" (+3.5 per 16 points), while RQ4 and MRQ are "+1 or +1d2 per five points". Your table is a nice synthesis of RQ4 and MRQ, but the curve is definitely too steep. I have had player characters in my game with STR+SIZ normally enhanced to 66, and the bonuses you suggest are too high (4d6!).

Yes, this is what I usually mean when I prepend "I think" to a statement. Isn't it the same for you?

The point is that this works well if the damage dice are connected to the weapon impact and the "+" to sharpness (as it happened in RQ3 where maces had no +s and curved blades had +2). But with maces and axes doing smaller damage dice with a higher flat bonus, this might limit the damage bonus for blunt weapons more than it does for sharp weapons. Not very realistic IMO. I think this discussion has little practical value. Shifting from a flat to a variable damage bonus is easy if you do not like the "official" values. 1d2 -> +1, 1d4 -> +2, etc. And weapon damage benefits more from special effect to be differentiated than on average rolls, though different rolls add to the enjoyment of most groups. Still, all the complications that can give damage values more realism are not well suited to all groups. Some like detail and realism, others just want to roll dice and get the game flowing.

As using a knife is punished by a giant's kick in Trollball (and you do not know how scary it looks until you have witnessed Greg Privat roleplay the giant - he has the physique du role), I definitely think Trolls use full damage modifiers while using knives. At least during Trollball matches.

Ah, the Giant-with-a-dagger paradox! Maybe just "damage bonus cannot exceed base weapon damage"? (Or twice base damage)? But again, impact-based weapons benefit more from strength, so a general rule may be impossible to define. A realistic rule might become too complicate for most groups to adopt, as most players prefer KISS games.

I was not advocating either RQ or SB. In fact I see maces having a higher minimum, as in SB, as being more realistic. The point is that they are different and they should do different damage. peterb has already replied to this. Flexible armour. This was the point. Vs. hard armour, sharp weapons are more effective. But a grazing hit is impossible with a weapon that is basing its damage on sheer impact force. You cannot be grazed by a modern .45 shot, and I am very uncertain about a heavy maul grazing anyone, too. An arrow or a super-sharp katana is another story. The point is exactly what you have just reminded us: the SB way where blunt weapons have the highest minimum is superior to the RQ way where the sharp weapons do. But whatever the right way, having a difference is realistic.

Why are you assuming that it is aimed at a different system? In truth, it is multi-system - a true d100 system. But you'll be allowed to comment freely after you are back from Tentacles. Say hi to Simon & Loz on my behalf.

Well, this is still true in BRP, because your average parrying weapon will absorb 1d6+2 or 1d8 in damage equally well, assuming you are skilled enough to parry. The difference is just that the scimitar is a bit more likely to cripple if it actually strikes an unarmored foe, while the mace has some extra chances to knock down a lightly armored foe (if you use the old rule of "halve soft armor vs. maces"). Which is somehow realistic. And, as you pointed out, much more fun.

Exactly. Except that about one month ago someone (not me) started considering that the overall damage was reduced and taking down enemies was becoming increasingly difficult. You are just assuming that "It is good because it was in RQ4". This is no point. Removing the +1/+2s has just the effect of reducing variability among weapons, and this is by no means an improvement. The flat additions represent weapon shape in RQ3/BRP: curved blade weapons have +2 but a smaller die, straight-bladed weapons have +1, blunt weapons have no blade bonus. Polearms are the only exception. Removing flat bonuses yelds the improvement of scimitars, battleaxes, broadswords and maces having about the same statistics. If that is what you call an "improvement"... What if he just thought the +1s were ok?

Hmmm, I am writing something similar at present. It will become available for comments next week after the EU people are back from Tentacles. The problem is that it is all about Glorantha. And the big G is officially off limits for BRP. So I see no chance of proposing it to Chaosium.

It's a variation of the Degree of Success used in SPQR (Steve Perrin's system). It is nice, but it creates a totally new system. Also remember that even 4d6 is not enough to bypass a Dragon's armor, so a success level of 10+ is not equal to a critical.

D2 sucks big time, but when the reward is taking that pesky trollking down one SR before he possibly impales you, I think that no one would choose a fixed 1 instead. The lack of granularity in Damage Bonuses wa the first time I wanted to correct when I learned RuneQuest 3 in (gulp :shocked:) 1987. After 21 years and all manners of houserules, I think this is just a minor nuisance and there is no real need to correct it. Either you have 1d4 at start, or you'll manage to learn Bladesharp, sooner or later.

First of all, rolling a lot of dice is more fun. With RQ4 modifiers, you usually deal only 1 pt. extra damage, rarely two, where you used to deal 1d4. This decreases the damage dealt, so it is more difficult to down opponents. Having monsters do a slightly lower damage is not as important, when it comes to balance, as being able to take them down in one blow, as you are supposed to parry them with a 12-15 point shield and they are not supposed to parry you. STR+SIZ RQ3 RQ4 21-24 - - 25 1d4 - 26-30 1d4 1 31-32 1d4 2 33-35 1d6 2 Not everything that was in RQ4 is necessarily better than RQ3. If nobody has revived this concept it is because it does not add anything, not because they forgot.

I cannot see any real advantage in having a fixed number for the damage bonus. RQ3/CoC have a sudden increase in damage bonuses, going straight from 0 to 1d4, and this may result in the "poor granularity" you lament. MRQ uses the same progression as RQ4 (1 step every 5 pts. of combined SIZ and STR), but with dice (1d2, 1d4, 1d6, 1d8 etc.). My group has adopted the RQ4 damage bonus, and the result is not really satisfactory. All considered, I prefer the dice.

This sounds definitely the way to go. Allegiance was a great addition to the BRP rules, and is the variable that should be used for theist magic. I am working on a similar project (one that will become rather popular, I think), but do not want to reveal the details until I get hold of BRP1 later this month.

I have started a mailing list about d100 and derivatives in Italian at d100italia : D100 Italia We will talk about BRP, MRQ, HeroQuest and Glorantha. I have already invited Gianni Vacca via email, if there are other Italian members on this forum please join, we will be happy to have you on board.