Redstone

I want to be sure I am doing impale special successes correctly. According to page 197, if the weapon is lodged in the body then: "If the target moves in any significant fashion, he or she will take half the initial rolled damage (without armor protection) again (applied directly to the hit location if hit locations are being used) because the extruding weapon is catching on nearby walls, moving within and widening the wound, or someother painful complication." So, if a person gets hit in the leg for 8 pts of damage with an arrow, and continues to fight, he will take an additional 4 pts (1/2 ) of damage. Is this per round? Or just once? Does successfully pulling the weapon out cause any additional damage?

Question about Psionics. I noticed under skill descriptions there is Craft/Psionic Tattoos. The skill description says "The art and science of using psionic nanites to give psionic characters new tattoos, allowing a character to gain new powers or increased psionic strength." Is there anywhere else in the rules that talk about increasing Psionic abilities? Also, I have a player who is going to try an Uber-rat. Any thoughts about starting age? And do they follow the Age-20 bonus rule for the technology skill?

nuff said.

Excellent explanation. Thankyou!

I am still confused by the psionics rules. You have POW/2 points to spend on psionics (assuming you go this route) That is about as much as I clearly understand. The example on page 35 says that Robert Longeye has PSI[ESP] 15. How did he get a rating of 15, considering that POW/2 will give you 10 at most? If you look at the description of ESP it says ESP Strength is 1 per +5 PSI [ESP]. Does that mean that Robert Longeye has a 75 in Clairvoyance? Which is bought by using your skill points? And if this is the case, what do you use the POW/2 points for? The one bullet point on page 36 says "Characters may only buy a power if they have first bought at least one level of the governing strength". Is this what you use the POW/2 points for? What is the advantage of buying a second 'level'? As you can see from my questions I am totally confused by the psionics. Maybe someone who understands them could just do an example for me. Thanks

You guys take some of this too seriously. Love the cover. Wonder what the rest of her looks like...... hmmmm

Our group spent sometime yesterday once again discussing the shield issue. Though there was one dissenting vote, this is what we are currently going with, and a little bit about the logic behind it. Just to reiterate, using this method eliminates the shield as a skill, considering it part of your combat ability, rather than a seperate skill. Brawling (for most characters) is your lowest combat skill. Brawling can also be argued to be your basic combat skill. So this is the lowest your shield USE (not skill) will be. Example: Shield base 15%, Sword skill 60%, axe skill 40%, and brawling skill 25%. You get into a fight at a tavern, but you dont want to kill anyone, so you grab your shield to protect yourself, your parry is now brawling + shield ( total 40%). The fight turns ugly and you draw your axe. Because you are now parrying with a shield as well as your axe, your parry now goes up to axe + shield (total 55%). Your axe breaks and you draw your deadliest weapon, your sword. Your parry goes up again taking into account your proficiency with your sword, to sword + shield (total 75%). Shield bash would now use your brawling skill. We are also debating allowing the shield to give one free parry, like MRQ.

Thanks for the explanation. That was what I figured but wanted to be sure. If I had read the entire book I wouldnt have had to bother you with these questions. I just found it! I have no idea how i can look through something so many times and continually miss a page...... That being said, one more question: Chud 3 is listing has having an AV of 6/3. The '3' is the 'Risk' reduction?

First off, my players have only rarely have attempted a shield bash, so we havent dealt with it more than 2 or 3 times. But when they do I have them make a Difficult attack (1/2) with whatever melee weapon they are using.

I know this has been discussed many times, but part of the problem is the system name. BASIC Roleplaying. People who have not heard of it assume it is a beginning, simplistic rpg system. I encountered this a couple of times at Gencon this year. People who have been playing D&D, or WoD for years arent interested in playing a 'basic' system. The name is a misnomer and puts people off.

Our group has elimiinated shield as a skill, and simply adds the base chance of the shield to the characters parry chance.

Couple of things. First off, great book! love the PA setting and the way you have made it both generic and detailed, as mentioned above. And the included adventure The Vent Fan was excellent! Couple of technical questions. 1. What is chud armor made of? 2. In the cybernetics it talks about the limbs having 2 points of layering armor, and 6 points of ballistic. I could not find where this is explained. Is this in the BRP book? Does that mean its 6 points versus bullets, and 2 points for all other damage? Its the 'layering' term the same as the AV? And to make sure I am on the right page, Kevlar II armor has AV/Risk of 2/11. That means that you reduce bullet 'risk' by 11, but against melee damage it provides 2 points?

I have picked up the RQII core core book and overall like the system. Does anyone have recommendations on how many spells a grimoire should hold?

So, I am not as deep into the rules as most you who post here seem to be. But I am not seeing anything here that makes it seem worth spending points in shield. You still seem better off parrying. Especially if you compare the BRP shield rules to the RQ shield rules.

One quick comment about Cthulhu Rising. There are alot of gamers out there who are not interested in the Cthulhu line of rpgs, but who are interested in scifi. As soon as you throw 'Cthulhu' into the title, the afore mentioned gamers will not even look at that book. Not only would they be turned off by Cthulhu in the title, they would have no reason to think it has anything to do with scifi.

Thanks Nick. Looks like I have another book to buy. Just as a note for whoever handles the basicroleplaying.com website, you need to change that on the description of the Creatures monograph. I would have bought one months ago, but, with one or two exceptions it looked like they were the same as the creatures as in the BRP book.

Are the creatures in the monograph any different than the ones in the BRP book? It looks like they are the same.

A couple of comments. I have been playing rpgs for 30 years and I am able to come up with work-arounds for problems. The intent of this thread was to address the issue of BRP's popularity. RoseMcStern's response emphasizes my point! His response to my first two issues was 'go get/download another book'. Imagine how well this will go over with a person who is new to GMing. Not only are you telling him he needs another book, but its a book from another system and you will have to fudge some of the rules. As for my third issue, once again you need to look at it from the perspective of someone who is fairly new to rpgs. When I created my first character, and I was looking at the starting percentage being capped at 75% (if I am remembering that correctly) I incorporated the base weapon chance into that 75. Now if pick up a similair weapon that has a better base do I ignore the points over 75? Do I need to develop every skill seperately? Do I develop the skill for the highest base chance weapon and then subtract if I use a different weapon? ..... The rules should clearly state how to handle this, and then give optional rules. Instead it comes across as "here are the choices, you decide". Thats fine if you are familiar with the system, but, once again, it is confusing to a new GM. As for the difficulty modifiers, I simply missed that in the book. Atgxtg gave me the reference for that. And RosenMcStern is right about a setting being a help. But the mechanics need to be easily understood as well. If you look at the dreaded d20 (3.5e) system, there is no setting with that. Yet it is extemely popular. Once again I want to thank everyone for suggestions on how to handle these problems. It was not my intent to get these questions answered in this thread, but I appreciate all the help.

One of the best ways to get information spread is word of mouth. In other words GMs using and enjoying the system, and talking it up. From my view, there are a few problems with BRP that keeps me from loving it, and hence, 'talking it up'. The biggest problems that our gaming group has with the system are as follows: 1. lack of monsters - obviously you can create your own, but this is time consuming and can be alot of work 2. shields are almost useless as written - we simply dont understand the shield rules. Why use a shield when in all likelyhood you will have a better chance with your weapon parry? 3. confusion about how to incorporate weapon base into skills, especially during character creation 3a. how to handle similair skills - do you have to purchase rifle, shock as well as rifle, stun? arent they close enough to use the same skill, and then if so, how do you factor in weapon base? 4. modifications based on difficulty (this can be done on the fly by saying "subtract 20 from your pick lock skill for this lock", but this is not addressed in the rule book, other than difficult (1/2) or easy (2x). 5. Stats have little effect on skills. Now, there are ALOT of good things about the system, but I am trying to address the issue of system popularity, and I see these as impediments. One of the best things I have seen for BRP has been Classic Fantasy, I believe that this is the type of product needed to advance the system. If there had been a creature section and an index included it would have been darn near perfect! I just want to reiterate that I am not trying to bash the system. In fact in our group we have bought 3 copies of the BRP book and 3 copies of Classic Fantasy. I am only giving my opinion on the shortfalls of the system that might be turning prospective GMs off.

1 level per 3 siz is consistent with other spells. Thanks. I have seen mention of your Classic Fantasy in other threads. When do you expect it to be out?

Lets say that a member of the city guard is lazely leaning on his spear while watching the people enter and leave the city. The wizard of the party wishes to embarrass the guard and wants to teleport the spear away from him, making him fall. Do I, as the GM, make a resistance roll for the spear, based on the city guards stats? Along those same lines, what if the local drunk at the tavern is sitting on a chair. When the mage attempts to teleport the chair away, does the chair get a resistance roll? What about a warrior aggressively holding his weapon in the middle of combat? Etc, etc etc.

If I cast a level 1 summon fire elemental, does that summon the fire elemental that is listed in the creatures section in the book?

I have a question about rates of fire. For example, a light pistol has an Attack per round rating of 3. Does that mean anyone can fire 3 shots in a round? Or is that only if you have a skill rating of at least 150? And if that is the case, if you have a melee weapon with an Attk/rd of 1, are you limited to 1 attack per round, regardless of your skill? Volley Fire: I went back and reread the rule, and I am still confused. If you use volley fire, are you still limited to the Attk/rd as stated in the equipment list? Or are you only limited by your DEX Rank? In other words, if your DEX rank starts at 18 could you fire 4 times as a difficult skill check (DEX ranks 18,13,8,3)?

Thanks Jason for clearing up the easy/difficult issue. That makes sense to me. However, I am a little confused by your comment about the base chance being figured into your skill ranking. Is that not how it is supposed to work? You spend your points to buy a skill in a specific class of weapon, such as pistol-energy, and then you add the base chance to it? I also have a question about rates of fire. For example, a light pistol has an Attack per round rating of 3. Does that mean anyone can fire 3 shots in a round? Or is that only if you have a skill rating of at least 150? And if that is the case, if you have a melee weapon with an Attk/rd of 1, are you limited to 1 attack per round, regardless of your skill? After your comment about the volley fire, I went back and reread the rule, and I am still confused. If you use volley fire, are you still limited to the Attk/rd as stated in the equipment list? Or are you only limited by your DEX Rank? In other words, if your DEX rank starts at 18 could you fire 4 times as a difficult skill check (DEX ranks 18,13,8,3)?

I want to make sure I am understanding the rules correctly: As I understand the rules, the only way to get multiple attacks in a round is if your skill with that weapon is 101 or greater. So, lets say you have a skill of 82 with Pistol - energy, and you use a Blaster (base 15%), you have a combined skill of 97 and get one attack per round. If you pick up a Laser pistol (base 20%) you have a combined skill of 102 and can attack twice per round if you want to split up your percentage (ie 52% and 50%). Now, lets say your thief has a combined skill of 80 with a dagger. He sneaks up successfully on a guard and makes his rear attack. According to the spot rules, this makes his attack an 'easy' attack, so he doubles his skill with that weapon, making it 160. Can he now make multiple attacks, if he wants to split his percentage?