RosenMcStern

Complementary skill rules are enough to handle this. A 200% melee weapon user has +40% to his base skill if the GM allows it, so assuming he is using an easy (say one with 20% base chance) he is at 60%. Which is rather high.

If you want to see how to handle the Melee skill and the different specialties, check my OGL ruleset in the playtest forum. But the base BRP does not handle this, nor does RuneQuest. And please stop the off topic.

Stupor Mundi is going to be released again, in some way or another, but not soon. I doubt it will be converted to BRP, though. But Merrie England covers the niche very well.

I hate the idea that a character who always fought with a sword could pick up an axe and do equally well.

This is exactly what Combat Styles handles well. Your skill includes the techniques you have been trained in. If you have never fought with an axe, then it is NOT part of your combat style and you have a basic chance to use it.

In BRP, you can also buy training from a master in order to increase your skill. Of course, while increasing by experience can include any variety of skills, you usually train in one skill only. Hence....

Simple enough to add back in.

Absolutely yes. As optional, exception rules.

I am 100% sure they will not move away from Combat Styles. How CAs are calculated might undergo some review (Loz said this), but I have discussed Combat Styles in depth with Pete 2 years ago, and the whole concept suits "Real Combat" more than the other models. You do not learn "How to swing a sword", you learn a corpus of techniques that may or may not include some moves.

Mongoose RuneQuest no longer exists, it will vanish at the start of October. RuneQuest (the real thing) is now fully in the hands of people who are committed to making it good, not just of "some publisher". Weapon classes exist in out-of-print editions, or in BRP. RuneQuest (the real thing) does not include any weapon class concept any longer.

I am talking Weapon Mastery in the BRP sense - hitting 90% Attack/Parry in Stormbringer I - IV, hitting 90% in RuneQuest, etc. Not the Weapon Mastery Heroic Ability.

I understood this perfectly. And I still think IT WOULD BREAK THE RULES. In the current version of the RQ rules, having a very high skill (90% is NOT a very high skill) already gives you extra CAs: since your opponent will easily fail his roll, chances are you do not need to spend your CA and can save it for later use. OR you can roll your parry and then gain a manoeuver. Is there any need to add extra advantage to this huge advantage?

The RAW work perfectly. Adding CAs once you read a breakpoint would just add a level-esque complication that has nothing to do with the simplicity of the RuneQuest rules.

Or, perhaps more appropriately, with that Class of weapon: 1h Swords, 2h Swords, 1h Hafted Weapons, 1h Spears, etc.

Classes of weapons no longer exist in RuneQuest. There are fighting styles instead.

Given that everyone and his alynx has posted here, I will add my opinion:

3 CM for everybody; modifiers for major combat advantages only (2-weapons, martial arts, extra limbs etc.); weapon mastery is already a huge advantage in itself (it makes your opponent miss his roll): I do not see why it should grant an EXTRA advantage.

Errr, what Darran suggested is that there are specific forums on the Design Mechanism home page that are devoted to this kind of suggestion.

Rosen McStern mentions Fate Points. Anyone use them? They looked a bit overpowered and maybe a little too meta from first impressions...

Actually, I tend to tweak them a bit. You'll see what I mean when BRP Mecha is published. And I am not so keen on using them in Fantasy games. But RuneQuest uses them all the time, and they work fine (my bro managed to downgrade a 24-point blow to the abdomen from "cut you in half" to "knock you down" effect on friday, not to mention how much we used them when we played with Loz at Eternal).

Other people use them, too. So, if you feel like using them, do not worry. But the game is playable also without.

Yep, this is probably the way to go. Just check that the font is big enough to read in 2-page display on a typical PC screen, and leave 1-page display to the iPad or Kindle.

2. I'll be using a magic system along the lines of the Sorcery powers. What kind of tradeoff at chargen (skill points? attributes? other?) works best to balance the advantages of sorcery use?

What I usually do is giving out either sorcery or the benefits of Step Six. If a character has sorcery, he or she cannot use any of the options in Step Six, as magic aptitude is considered an additional option. Remember the POW limitation for sorcery, though. If you are using Magic, instead, the skill points required for the spells will even out the odds against non-magic users.

You can also use Fate Points (p. 176) to keep people alive. As magicians have less PP than the others because of spellcasting, they will often be unable to use Fate and tend to stay out of melee range, as they should.

3. Obviously, coming from AD&D many of the players are used to absurd amounts of HP. Most of us agree that's a problem and I'd like to start with the SIZ & CON average, but not sure if that's too steep a change. Definitely using hit locations. Any of you folks run games with SIZ + CON HP?

As Soltakss said, give them Healing and all will be fine. Teach your players that skill, not HPs, makes them invincible in BRP. Fate Points could also help keep them alive.

This is a good question. If your targets are PCs, Macs and tablet PCs, you might even go for a 2- or 3-column, landscape oriented document that is easy to read on a 4:3 or 16:9 screen. On the other hand, e-ink readers do their best with a 1-column layout, and definitely not with a landscape format. I am wondering the same for our new PDF-only product.

Today I experienced the Paris-Marseille train trip for the first time, and it is doable. Unless I really really have to be in Lucca (the Italian game&comics mega-fair is on the same date) I suppose I'll be there.

I think so... Jeff and Fabian are going to be there; Paolo maybe.

Extremely likely that I will be there. And my French, despite having been in Paris for 6 months, isn't much better than yours, Simon.

Alas, no. It is almost done, but that "almost" gets in the way of having it at GenCon.

Combat Actions will be staying. That said, how one comes by them is fully open to review by me and Pete

Like not tying them to characteristics, or giving alternate ways to calculate them? Instinctively, I would say "DROP THEM", but given the endless threads that appeared here about "how to give the proper advantage to shield wielders", and the answer not yet found (while this is not a problem in MRQ because of the extra CA), maybe they should stay.

Though I am still in favour of having "3 CAs per round, 4 for dual wielders".

But there is plenty of time to discuss this

Congrats! Greatest news EVER for the RuneQuest brand since the first edition in 1978.

Well, here.

Dodging

If a character chooses to Dodge a blow in melee combat his next attack is considered Difficult, since he has unbalanced himself while dodging.

Sounds fine. Dodge is still very useful, because you also use it to Manoeuver in combat.

Parrying heavy weapons

Since massive weapons have a great deal of momentum when swung or thrust they are correspondingly more difficult to parry with a standard weapon than when using a shield. If a character tries to use his weapon to parry a blow from a weapon of SIZ 2 or larger he must make a Difficult roll to succeed. Using a shield or dodging instead simply requires a Normal roll to succeed.

Fine, too. It is not impossible, just harder. However, I would make it "1 SIZ larger" rather than "SIZ 2".

Two weapon fighting

Fighting with two one-handed weapons effectively requires a character to have a minimum STR equal to or higher than the total STR requirements of both weapons added together. For example, a Dagger requires a minimum STR of 4, and a Long Sword a minimum STR of 7, so a character would need a minimum STR of 4+7=11 to dual wield these in combat.

If a character is armed with two weapons he can attack and parry once with each of them per combat round. Off-hand weapon attacks and parries are considered Difficult, unless the wielder is ambidextrous (i.e. has DEX of 16 or higher). If the wielder is ambidextrous he gets an individual attack and a parry with each weapon per combat round at no penalty to either. The first off-hand attack is at 5 DEX ranks later than the main hand attack. Any further possible attack will come at 5 DEX ranks later than the previous attack - see BGB pp. 233-234.

Totally unrealistic and unbalanced. It recreates D&D or T&T, not real fighting.

Riposte

If a character achieves a Special parry result with a shield or off-hand weapon, he has succeeded in turning his opponent's weapon away and created an opening to Riposte. The character is allowed an immediate free Riposte attack with the weapon or shield that didn't parry. If a character achieves a Critical parry result this Riposte attack is Difficult for his opponent to parry or dodge.

Why limit it to dual wielding? Does a fencer without a main gauche lose his ability to riposte?

Weapon and shield breakage

If a weapon is used for parrying and takes more damage in one blow than it has Hit Points, the weapon is immediately considered broken, and any further damage passes on to the target of the blow. If a shield takes more damage than it has Hit Points its Hit Points are reduced by the amount of the excess damage, and is considered broken if its Hit Points reach zero. Any damage a shield takes past zero passes on to the arm of the bearer.

This reintroduces the need to roll damage on a parried blow. I do not like it.

The first two rules are enough to produce variance among fighters. I do not see the reason to make things unrealistic and overcomplicated with the other three. Shield/weapon damage can be handled correctly only if you introduce the difference between a parry and a block, which you did not. A weapon or shield is never damaged when used to parry, only when used to block.

1. We moderate combat in our Dark Sun campaign; and at times we can go a session without any combat at all, but it still comes up fairly often. Besides the Total Hit points option being flicked on, what mortality rates will we likely be dealing with using BRP?

It depends on players being cautious, and how much healing magic is available. If you have few magic healers around, use the Fate Point option to allow rerolls of failed parries.

2. I found a site where someone had worked in the six standard D&D core ability scores into BRP (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA). Since it didn't seem to disturb the system much, I thought it was a good idea. I won't be using EDU and APP has been replaced by CHA, as per Classic Fantasy. I've made a Willpower derived roll from WIS, and have factored WIS into skills already. Do you think this could hurt the game in any way?

APP and CHA are 99,9% interexchangeable. WIS and POW are 90% exchangeable. You can make the formulas you want to interexchange between POW, CHA and WIS, but in the end, is the result worth the maths? Just assuming POW = WIS will work.

3. What should I expect when we resume with the new rules in place? I might get shouted at for this, but we will actually be resuming practically in mid-combat. Last session a PC broke out of a cell during a retrieval process before he and the others were about to be thrown into a large lair of an Earth Drake. If this PC is facing more than a couple prison keep guards at a time, will he get chopped up in no time?

In BRP, even ONE prison guard can kill you with one blow, if he rolls 01 and you fail your parry. Either you accept this, or you put safeguards in place (Fate Points in this case, as the guy is alone and no one can heal him if he gets criticalled).

Oh dang. A good way to lose $29,99. I really really want that Victorian bonanza.

I think that I can now reveal that I have a Steampunk game in the pipeline. I cannot say anything about the date or the exact system, but it will be d100 and it will have airships, armoured steam trains and other steampunk weirdness.

BRP Mecha is on hold. Which means that it already includes a corpus of playable rules, but a lot of other rules need refining and playtesting. Unfortunately, playtesting stopped about 1 year ago because I had to prioritize other products like Merrie England and the Rome campaign, or stuff that you have not seen here because it is in Italian. I hope to make it in 2012, and it might even appear together with a sci-fi supplement that shares the ship combat rules.

"Correct" meaning, "If you want to move from the BRP-tiered success system to a 10%-tiered success system, the correct..." Right?

Definitely. BRP works fine as it is. MRQ wins in hand-to-hand combat, but lacks the (playtested) rules for integrating firearms, particularly automatic ones, into combat. So both work fine. It depends on what you want in your game.