RosenMcStern

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

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

Similar, but not quite the same. 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. 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! This i _do_ like! Way better than the Lore (Specific Theology) in MRQ. 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. 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%.

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:

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

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! 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 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%. 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.

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).

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.

Mythic Russia Homepage (Firebird) You can buy the book on Amazon. It is definitely worth having, whether you like HeroQuest or not.

As you questioned a WoW player, try and think of a way to attract his attention to the beauty of BRP instead of just explaining the mechanics in a competent fashion. a) esthetics. The layout of such a flyer must be attractive. You used a 10pt font with few border room, and it looks like the text for a lecture. Go for a 8pt. font, two columns, and you will be able to accommodate more text and have room for pictures, too. Put a background or other adornments in it. Use grayed lines for tables. Space the paragraphs correctly. Make casual lookers really wish to read it. make the examples intriguing. The last character an adolescent would like to play is a young man killing rats for his mother, or helping old widows. This sort of examples are good to teach GMs how to start a campaign with increasingly challenging, but will bore a teenage after one and a half lines. In a fantasy setting, what a prospective player wants to see is magic, so I would go for a young magician who just graduated at the Magic Academy, a la Rincewind, and have it buy and use some weapons because his magic skill is not high enough to last for a whole combat, or because it is not ethically correct to waste magic against such lowly creatures. But above all, each line in the description should be exciting. c) make five settings, as suggested, with five different example sets and equipment tables, and appropriate pictures. However, point out that the system is identical for all five sets.

Remember that not everyone has MS Word. Convert it into PDF before publishing (it also becomes easier to read).

Indeed. But do not tell my 3rd age gaming group. They love the Maneuver skill (which sucks IMO). Some points were, but most changes were in fact improvements.

I was not questioning Jason's criminal record. The point is that explicitly quoting/using/reviving RQ:AiG is a no-no for any publisher, unfortunately. A pity, because the manuscript is very good.

The story is even more serious than that. Greg could be convinced to un-greg it (IIRC it was Stephen Martin that persuaded him RQ:AiG was bad). The point is that the author of RQ:AiGwas falsely accused of heinous crimes. Even though he was later cleared of all charges, no publisher of games the target of which includes minors would touch that manuscript with a 10 feet long pole!

On the contrary, the whole point is that, unlike the darn RQ Divine Intervention, plot bending involves finding a plausible reason why things should go that way. I strongly suggest you read Mark Galeotti's example in Mythic Russia.

Nope. Negate a major wound means: my Major wound threshold is 6 HPs, I take 8 damage, the damage is reduced to 5 HPs because "it is just a flesh wound". Or you could take all the damage to your general HPs and simply not consider it a major wound. This if you want a parallel with MRQ. However, what I strongly suggest is rather adopting the mechanics for plot bending, that is explained in both MRQ and Mythic Russia (better in Mythic Russia). This is more useful, and encourages good roleplaying.

Since my SR is way higher - no, wait, wrong forum, this is BRP - er, lower than the others', and my skill is higher, I am not afraid of fights. On forums, at least. Why not? Some Heroic Abilities in MRQ seem rather silly to me (wall-leaping, decapitating strike), but having Powers that represents "excellence in skill" may be interestin. Certainly I would not like a feat-ridden system like That Other Game version 3.5+. HPs in MRQ do not reduce damage, they downgrade the wound severity. Damage is reduced as a side effect. The effect would be to negate a Major Wound, for instance.

Do not forget Hero Points. They are a worthy addition that MRQ applied to D100, stealing the idea from HeroQuest or Mythic Russia. You may not like Legendary Abilities, which are covered by Powers in BRP, but Hero Point usage in combat makes a game better.