Shadowdragon

By "a ways from release" do you mean a couple weeks? My campaign is starting soon and that book sounds like it's exactly what I'm looking for. I may just have to use a temporary set of spells until this book comes out. I hate it when a bunch of stuff I need for a campaign wont be available until several months after the campaign is supposed to start. I've also heard there's going to be a monograph on Witchcraft that contains rules for alchemy and making potions. I'd love to have it for the start of the campaign but it's not supposed to be out until the end of the year.

Actually, I'm looking to add spells to BRP Magic. I've split the list of spells into three lists; one list for spells available to both arcane and divine spellcasters, one list for spells only available to arcane spellcasters, and the third list for spells only available to divine spellcasters. So far the only Divine-only spell from the list is Heal. I was thinking of converting some spells from the divine spell list in Basic Magic to use with the BRP Magic system (divination, regrow limb, restore characteristic, resurrect, sanctify, and soul sight) so the divine list has more than just one spell on it. I'm also looking at other types of spells to see if there are any I can add to the three lists. The priest character in my campaign will worship a God of the forge, patron of dwarves and gnomes, master of fire, earth, and creation. The spells on the divine list will be a mix of healing, fire, earth, and items spells (dull, sharpen, seal, unseal), so I'm trying to find more of those kinds of spells, especially ones that arcane casters wouldn't have access to.

I'm looking to expand on the spells available under the Magic Powers system in BRP. Are any of the spells available in Basic Magic or Runequest equal in power level to the Magic spells in BRP? I mean can I just grab some Spirit Magic spells and mix them with BRP Magic spells? Or would spells from those books require some major adjustments to balance them with the Magic spells in BRP? I'm mostly looking for divine spells (I'm planning on using the Magic Powers system for both arcane magic and divine magic), but I've heard the divine spells in Basic Magic/Runequest are really powerful. Is there a way to balance them with BRP Magic, or is there another set of spells that are already balanced with BRP Magic I could use as divine spells?

Can an application of first aid heal more hit points than the wound inflicted in damage? Say a character gets hit but only takes 1 point of damage. If the wound is treated with first aid, can only 1 hit point be recovered, or could the healer get a critical success and heal 4-6 hit points?

I just don't understand why there are two different ways of dealing with exactly the same kinds of situations. Opposed rolls are quick and easy (well, quicker and easier than resistance rolls) and handle exactly the same kinds of situations that resistance rolls do. I just don't see a need for resistance rolls, unless I'm missing something that can't be handled by opposed rolls, or a roll modified by a difficulty.

I kind of like the idea of removing the Resistance Table. I hate having to look up tables during a game, so the fewer the better. Besides, it's nothing that can't be handled with opposed rolls and rolls modified by difficulty, like it is in RQM. There are Characteristic roll % values in BRP, might as well use them.

I noticed that hard leather has AP 2 and random AP 1d6, while ring armour has AP 5 and random AP 1d6. Is one of these a typo? In fact, the random AP values in the BRP book don't seem to match up with their static AP values very well. There also seems to be some values missing (what is the random AP range for a static AP of 4). If the armour table in BRP is wrong, what should the random values for static APs 1-8 be?

Strange, I've been reading through RQM and I don't find it to be much like D&D, and I've been playing D&D since Red Box. In fact it looked almost exactly like BRP with one or two very minor changes (like actions per round instead of DEX ranks). What about RQM do you guys find to be "D&D inspired"? How does it deviate so significantly from previous versions of Runequest? Were earlier versions of Runequest not based on the BRP system?

Do you mean RQ 4 or Mongoose RQ? I'd like to avoid any game influenced by D&D.

Oh, sorry, I thought RQ 4 was the latest one. Yea, I meant the Mongoose RQ.

I never realized the Runequest 4 book was available as a free SRD download. Glancing through it and the Monsters SRD I think I may be better of using Runequest instead of the basic BRP book. There are still some parts of basic BRP I'll use (I like the rules for Magic Powers better than the magic systems used in Runequest), but overall Runequest looks very promising. The Monster SRD even has stats for goblins and giant spiders (3 different sizes of giant spiders actually! Small SIZ 13 ones, medium SIZ 26 ones, and large SIZ 39 ones). With it and the Monsters 2 book I should have enough critters to last me a while

Oops, I forgot human INT averages at 13, not 10. I've been converting creatures based on a human average INT of 10. I guess I can't just use convert D&D INT directly into BRP INT. Why is INT 2d6+6 instead of 3d6 anyway? There are humans dumber than INT 8.

The first adventure I want to run has some giant spiders in it. I've been able to stat out the rest of the creatures, but the spiders are proving to be difficult. Besides, I'm always interested in checking out monster stats. The selection of monsters in the core BRP book is pretty small. I've been thinking of getting the Basic Bestiary book but it looks like it has exactly the same monsters as the core BRP book. Once I get a bit more used to BRP (and when/if I get used to this SIZ thing) I'm going to be statting out a ton of new monsters.

I've been looking at some other books for examples of SIZ and I don't think that's going to work. Leng Spiders average 1.5 metric tons and 10 feet in body length (about the size I want for my giant spider), but it's listed with an average SIZ of 35 in the CoC book. According to Atgxtg's table and the Comparative Sizes table in the BRP book, that weight should be SIZ 47. Sigh, I dislike games with ambiguous size ratings. Unfortunately, since SIZ effects db and hit points a few points too high, or too low, can make a big difference. Well, at least I assume it will since my only experience with BRP is with Call of Cthulhu and there isn't much combat in CoC. I'm expecting a lot more combat in my high fantasy campaign.

Hm, I think I may be doing this square-cube thing wrong. A large tarantula is about 10cm long and weighs 150g. For a 244cm long spider (about 8 feet) I got a weight of 2179kg (SIZ 51). That doesn't seem right for something that's only 2 feet longer than an average human is tall. But then, SIZ 55 for something only 60cm long also seems way too high.

I am actually thinking of removing db from bows and slings and using normal db values for thrown weapons. One of these days I have to track down every game that uses a version of BRP so I can pick and choose the best bits from each and make my own version of BRP.

Isn't weight just as bad at determining SIZ as height is? I mean something could be really small but really dense, making it a lot heavier than it looks. The ghost of a giant wouldn't weigh anything at all, so does that make it SIZ 0? Also, I read somewhere that the value of a characteristic doubles for every +10 added to it. Doesn't that mean that SIZ 20 is supposed to be twice the mass as SIZ 10, and SIZ 30 is supposed to be twice the mass of SIZ 20? Sigh, I don't think I'll ever get the hang of SIZ in BRP. I can think of weight and height in very general terms, but not in the level of detail required in BRP. I mean I know that a hobgoblin is slightly larger than a human, but I don't know if that makes it's average weight 170lbs, 190 lbs, 210lbs, etc. Maybe I should just post up a bunch of creatures and get some help from those of you who are a little more experienced at figuring out the SIZ of creatures.

For me it's more the other way, I'm statting out a bunch of creatures and I have no idea what SIZ to give them. Should a 10 foot long spider be SIZ 20, 30, 40, 100? Are 4 foot tall goblins SIZ 4, 6, 8? In other games size is split into very few levels (D&D only has 9, Savage Worlds has 12 I think). It's difficult to go from them to a system like BRP that breaks size down into hundreds of teeny-tiny levels. If SIZ weren't so important in BRP I'd just get rid of it or exchange it for something a lot easier and simpler.

OK, lets say I'm trying to stat up a 20 foot tall giant. Should such a giant have the same STR range as a regular human but a much higher SIZ range? Such a giant would have longer limbs, denser muscles, and stronger bones, making it much stronger than a normal human, but how much of that extra strength comes from the giant's size? Should those factors be represented by a higher STR, or are they already represented in the really high SIZ?

What would be some benchmarks for SIZ then? I'm just trying to figure out how big SIZ 30 actually is and how it compares to SIZ 300, for example. Some examples using common real world animals/objects/terrain features would be really helpful. If a T-Rex was SIZ whatever then a dragon of about equal size would be about the same SIZ. If a 1 inch long spider is SIZ whatever then a spider 10 feet long would be SIZ whatever. Stuff like that.

I'm usually better at figuring out how tall or long something is. Is there a way to figure out a creature's average weight based on it's height or length? Say I've got a 4 foot tall goblin, or a 20 foot tall giant, or a 40 foot long dragon, etc. how do I figure out how much their average weight is?

OK, I don't really like making a new thread every time I come up with a new question, so from now on I think I'm just going to put all my questions into one thread. So, I found the rules for Encumbrance and was wondering if there's an amount of weight a character can carry before they start taking penalties (maybe based on the character's STR or something), or is every point of Encumbrance counted towards the penalty?

Is there any relation between a creature's STR and it's SIZ? If I drop a creature's SIZ by 5 should I also drop it's STR by a similar amount? If larger creatures are supposed to have higher STR scores then isn't that pretty much the same as adding SIZ twice when figuring out a creature's DB? Maybe DB should just be determined by the creature's full STR value.

If a character with a negative DB uses a weapon that adds 1/2 the DB is the DB really doubled? Getting a -2d4 penalty on damage rolls seems excessively harsh and makes weapons like bows and slings next to useless. Is there another way of handling DB and weapons that add 1/2 DB to damage?

On page 26 of the core BRP book it says "Values for SIZ characteristics higher than 25 can be found in Chapter Eight: Equipment on page 237." I looked on page 237 and there's no table on that page. I skimmed the entire book and I couldn't spot a table for SIZ values over 25. Is there supposed to be such a table in the core book? Are SIZ values over 25 simply +2 inches equals +1 SIZ?