RosenMcStern

Since BRP is definitely and absolutely not OGL then you can't convert them to BRP. You'd have to look at another D100 system that is OGL-based. I'm trying to think of one, it's on the tip of my tongue ....

But please don't speak the name here, or you might have your tongue cut off by some Zealot :eek:

The OGL is great. Especially as it allows people to use those parts of the system they like, and exchange the ones they don't with their own houserules. Having something similar for BRP would be great, but isn't going to happen.

Being able to publish for BRP "as it is" would be enough for me. With all that options, there is very little need for houserules.

I'm curious to see the BRP license contract though (if I get a respons from Chaosium that is!)

Anything I sent them over the years got a reply. And we are talking snailmail, not electronic.

Me too. Let's see what happens.

Now the big question is: as there is a lot of independent stuff already out for MRQ, will publishers be allowed to make their products multi-compatible?

Mongoose RuneQuest have released their system under the OGL, which have led to a lot of 3rd party publishers using that version for their products.

This was quite obvious, of course. The OGL is definitely the best detail in MRQ (well, there are other advantages of course, let's be fair). In any case the system is being slowly corrected over the months.

@Lord Twig: I agree with your ruling, and in fact I also like to rule that a 1-handed weapon can never block more than its wielder's STR (STR x 1.5 for a two-handed weapon or shield). However, this sort of rules, although very realistic, tend to be not very appreciated because they add complexity. Furthermore, if your magically enhanced sword cannot totally block the attack of a weapon with Bladesharp on it, you are unbalancing combat magic.

Frogspawner: In a fencing or kendo contest, it works exactly that way - either you hit or you miss, no "amount of damage to be blocked". And this is better portrayed by an opposed roll than by checking if the blow overcomes the APs. However, in a real battle you will see a lot of blows clumsily blocked with shields and wapons just to avod being killed, so I just allow both options - opposed and unopposed rolls.

Yes, this is correct when the parryng weapon is inherently magical or, as in the case you mentioned, the parrier has heroquesting powers (<i>Garyunder</i> can jump on a thrown javelin, not everyone). I have witnessed and handled several occasions when a player character wielded a true adamant weapon, and in this case we just followed the AP rule - the weapon has infinite armor points and thus can parry anything. But we are speaking of an item forged for the gods, not a mere AP-enhancing enchantment. In this case the point was "Yes, you can do this with your weapon as it actually becomes, when you are on the Hero Plane, Arkat's Unbreakable Sword." rather than "Oh, your weapon has a lot of APs, you can parry it."

Indeed, this is a subjec that might arise in real play. Some time ago (fifteen years, in fact - please forgive my senile babbling) I introduced the Chaos Gaggle in my campaign. And it happened that a Rune Lord attempted to parry an attack from the Zeech [for those who lack this widespread knowledge, a Zeech is a land-crawling chaotic whale]. Now my GM ruling was "let's figure out the damage and see if the parrier survives" - there was the chance of a critical, after all. The most experience player contested me: "It's a whale, now what chance can he stand?". My GM judgement would be different now - I would just skip the attempt. Rules should cover the average situations, not the extremes. A whale ram cannot be parried, no matter the APs of your weapon.

I have run a RQ3 campaign with characters having several combat and Sorcery skills above 100%, and the skills were really useful. There was a lot of heroquesting in that campaign, and the 120-150% skills were really useful for gameplay. As for sorcery, since we used Sandy's Sorcery, the spells at 120% could be manipulated up to 24 points of effect, so yes, the extra skill was not wasted!

I think it falls down when you try to parry a brontosaur. I don't know what MRQ's position on parrying *enormous* attacks is, but BRP says "you can't parry a brontosaur". Which is fine, except you start getting into the question "well, what *can* I parry, then?", which ends up with everyone learning Dodge 'cos at least that's usable pretty much anywhere and you only need one skill

The discussion is getting messy 'cause we are discussing MRQ rather than BRP. Anyway, the official position in MRQ after the player's update is that you *can* parry a brontosaur. After a long debate on The Other Forum I think that the reality is that you can parry a Brontosaur, but only with a polearm, i.e. something that can damage the creature or hold it at bay. Parrying in that case is rather anticipating the opponent's move and feninting so that it does not really have a chance to attack, or its attack is disrupted - difficult but not thoroughly impossible. A shield or short weapon would be pointless in this case. The problem is "how do we define a rule of thumb to decide what can parry what?"

(where Dodge is the fallback for all instances where you can't use your generalised Weapon Skill to defend).

The point is that any Parry is always also a partial Dodge, and any Dodge is facilitated by the fact you have a weapon. In cases like the above (the Bronto) I would rather go for a Dodge augmented by the parrying skill with the weapon in hand. In my current RQ3 group we are experimenting with penalties to Dodge if you have no weapon in hand - unless of course you are dodging an unarmed attack.

We are talking different system variants. MRQ is more similar to RQ3 (with lowered weapon APs) while SB is already focusing more on skill. There is no "weapon damage on criticals" in any edition of RQ, for instance.

How does it add realism?

Your ability to parry effectively no longer depends on how sturdy is your weapon, but on your skill.

but what happens to AP then? you can't have a normal hit countered by a normal parry, but with some damage going through if the damage was high enough?

<mrq>Ah, The Big Complaint #2, you mean! The "attack succeeds but AP is subtracted" happens only if both roll the same number (and none has a skil above 100%). Many people complained that this makes APs useless, but I think they are wrong because this is effectively what happens in CoC and "default", AP-less BRP, so it is a perfectly viable rule.

I houserule that damage reduction by APs happens only if you have a shield, effectively differentiating between Parry and Block.</mrq>

it's long since my glory days of multiple bans a day. :cool:

Yeah, I remember. I had not suspected there were so many synonyms for the word "Beetle". And I have a degree in Entomology!

Is parry or dodge equal in MRQ?

Similar, but not quite the same.

And the opposed rolls, do they include the higher roller wins if same success evel?

Yes, even in combat. Many people do not like this, but once you grasp the idea it adds realism.

Trif, i had not realized you had been away from The Other Forum for so long

Okay, just one more question.

Why translate all the D20 spells to BRP? There are wagonloads of spells available from all editions of CoC, RQ, SB that are more suited to BRP. Apart from your personal campaign, I mean.

Where did I mention that the priesthood teaches you divine spells? I said "pilgrimages" and "heroquests", i.e. actions that show directly to your god that you possess a particular virtue and so you are worthy to invoke a particular kind of miracle. The most common miracles should be immediately available to initiates (healing for compassionate gods, weapon blessings for war gods, etc.) while others might require some extra dedication before you can use the miracle. What use are "journeys to special holy spots" if the miracle that is connected to them is automatically learned when you attain a certain cult rank?

Some interesting ideas. Things are heating up here.

[*]Magic Points = (INT-2)/2 x Max Spell Level castable

...

[*]Magic Points = (POW-6)/2 x Max Spell Level invokable

Why? Magic Points = POW is simple and effective. Do not fix what is not broken. Lower the MP cost for casting spells below your maximum level, instead!

Priests have Holiness (aka Allegiance<religion>), starting at roughly POW%

This i _do_ like! Way better than the Lore (Specific Theology) in MRQ.

Spells (aka Miracles) do not require learning/memorizing/pre-booking - all the religion's spells are available

Why? I think an appropriate Pilgrimage before being able to cast the spell (a minor HeroQuest in Glorantha) is a goodi idea. Having every priest with the same Holiness the same sounds not that good to me.

When casting a spell, make a POWx5 roll: Success = normal success; Fail = no effect (no MP loss); and there are no special/criticals/fumbles.

Why POWx5? Either you roll Holiness or you do not roll at all for a Divine Spell.

A 22% chance of one of the two contestants scoring a hit in a 12 second timespan looks fine to me. In a sports fencing or kendo exchange, this is the time it takes to score a hit. Of course things may be different in lethal combat, but we are talking about 22% of causing a wound, not 90%.

Does 'Unarmed Combat' allow you to model such things as claws? Are there rules for supergear (a super hero with a magic hammer for example)?

Claws? A magic hammer? I have never heard such silly ideas for a superhero game. And someone else even suggested that shields can be thrown. Phoooey!

I will post better suggestions after I have checked what made that "snikt" noise behind me :shocked:

Interesting idea, but I'm sceptical of introducing the mathematics of opposed rolls into combat.

Mathematics? Finding the higher roll is too much maths for you?

I do think all shields should have higher AP than weapons though. Deflecting would be hard with heavier weapons too... Hmm. :ohwell:

The point is that shields have higher APs than weapons in BRP, traditionally. Unfortunately, it is more difficult to break a weapon than to break a shield. What is realistic for parries becomes heavily unrealistic when it comes to weapons sustaining damage.

Deflect poleaxe with a dagger is hard? Yes it is. Give a -20% penalty per SR of difference when parrying. Fist or dagger vs. sword - bad. Sword vs. halberd - bad. Dagger or fist vs. poleaxe - suicidal, unless you are Bruce Lee :cool: - and even he would think twice.

I'd say that's a good reason to introduce a "Deflection" ability

Why a new ability/skill/feat for every mechanics in game? Sword parry works this way. No need to introduce new skills - it's your good old Sword skill!

I think part of it has to do with the era and weapons, too. I can see deflection if you are talking about rapiers, sure. Broadsword and shield, I don't know.

It is fighting style, instead. If you have a shield, you block with it, you don't parry with the sword. If you only have a sword, be it rapier or broadsword, you parry (i.e. deflect) with it. The fighting stance of a broadsword/shield fighter is absolutely different from the stance of a broadsword-only warrior. Pete Nash suggested something similar in his MRQ variant rules.

Read carefully, I'm a C++ man. Complexity is my business

The point has been discussed variously on That Other Forum. The blocking mechanics is the "default" one used in RQ3 and the original MRQ: I hit, you parry by placing your "thing" between my weapon and your body, and - "whack!" - your "thing" takes the damage instead of you - better have a very sturdy "thing" with high AP. This is exactly what a not-exceedingly skilled shield user does. The roll is basically unopposed. The attacker's skill is less important in this case, since the defender is relying on his shield mass to block, rather than on finesse.

This is not what a skilled fighter does with a weapon. When a competent fighter parries, he attempts to deflect the blow, not simply intercept it. It is a matter of finesse, and the parry is all or nothing. This is better portrayed with an opposed roll, where the higher skill is likely to have the upper hand.

Yeah! Flame wars! This forum is too nice, some real debate was needed

"a 91% guard spots a 90% sneaker 90% of the times"

That's not accurate, since one or other can special/critical/fail when the other doesn't. This statistic appears to assume they both have the same 'DoS' at the same time, which ain't necessarily so. If you examine the odds properly I think you'll find it's similar to the contentious MRQ method.

On the contrary, I have considered it, or else I would have stated 99% of the time. Mr 90% can still special/critical, and thus it still has some chances to win, but in _all_ cases that are not a special for Mr 90%, i.e. the vast majority, Mr 91% wins. We can make the maths if you like, it's just a matter of launching DevC++ and writing twenty lines of code, but I am sure the odds are somewhere around 85%-90% in favour of Mr. 91%, whereas they should be around 50%.

Not as simple as it could/should be, and awfully unrealistic too. A parried hit is not simply a miss - it's a different event in it's own right, and could/should have different effects.

We have debated this on the other forum for ages. Most people with rea l combat experience agree can a successful parry results in the blow being deflected and landing on the ground and/or off target, so the end result is almost the same. It is the mechanics of AP deduction from the damage that is unrealistic - a steel weapon is not more effective at parrying than a bronze one, except in the [uncommon] case that you hit it so hard that it breaks. At present, I use two differnet mechanics, one for shield blocks (unopposed) and one for weapon parries and dodges (opposed), and they work very fine.

(Although I can live with ORs for non-combat contests, like Hide v Spot, when used with a variation suggested by Nickmiddleton IIRC, i.e. higher skill wins ties).

Simple but awfully unrealistic. A 91% guardsman spots a 90% sneaker 90% of the times.

DoS (Degree of Success) mechanics means that whenever you have an opposed roll and both succeed, one of the successes is downgraded by one or more to achieve a simpler result. This is in BRP 0, as Nick explained above (simple Dodge downgrades Critical attack to Special), and is in the MRQ player's update, albeit reversed (attack with higher roll downgrades simple parry or roll to failure, parry or dodge with higher roll downgrades successful attack to miss).

Yeah, but I don't think any of the BRP0 options for combat is free of the 'Opposed Roll' taint.

The opposed roll for combat works fine. We have used this in MRQ for almost one year, and it works - in fact it is the only real advancement, in combat, of MRQ over previous RQs. It is the cross-indexing of opposed rolls with combat matrices / tables / whatsoever, instead of adopting the DoS mechanics, that makes the system a bit clumsy. But the opposed roll solves a lot of issues, and eliminates the old problem of endless combats when your opponent is too skilled at parrying.