olskool

For me, Difficulty Ratings have ALWAYS been a thing in my Runequest and CoC campaigns. I simply multiply the PC's (and NPC's) Skill level by the following Difficulty Ratings. EASY TASKS: 2 X Skill ROUTINE TASKS: 1.5 X Skill AVERAGE TASKS (the default level): Skill FAIRLY DIFFICULT TASKS (not often used): 0.75 X Skill DIFFICULT TASKS: 0.5 X Skill FORMIDABLE TASKS: 0.25 X Skill IMPOSSIBLE TASKS: 0.1 X Skill To make my Special Successes easier to follow, I have THREE LEVELS of Special Success... 1/2 SKILL OR LESS IS ROLLED: This gives a small special effect. I use the SEs from MYTHRAS in my games so you would get to choose one from the list for half skill success. 1/10th SKILL (rounding up): This is a more powerful SE list including the Crush, Impale and Slash of older RQ2. DOUBLES UNDER SKILL (treating 00 as zero, zero, not 100): This is my Critical Success level. All of the most potent SEs like COMPEL SURRENDER are located on this chart. With Skills above 100, only a roll of 99 is a Fumble. DOUBLES OVER SKILL: This is my Fumble roll. I use these with every game I play that is either percentile or D20 based.

Your welcome.

Yes I know. That's why I posted the link in the second reply. Just click on the picture of Cohan sitting astride his horse on Troll Bridge. There seems to be some confusion about my interpretation of this movie. How does this resemble classic Runequest? 1) The "monster" while in no way resembling a Gloranthan troll, has a family and an actual personality with motivations. Runequest did this LONG before Wizards started doing it in D&D. 2) Cohen's horse is basically intelligent and can speak ("who'd you think was bidding against you?") just like a rune-level character's Allied Spirit might. In addition, he tries to "council" Cohen just like an Allied Spirit would. IF you listened to the song, the horse CAN READ and Cohen can't. Does it get anymore Runequest than that? 3) Cohen bemoans the fact that there are more Trolls in the city than under bridges, clearly something early Runequest did do (non-humans in cities) that AD&D did not. 4) Our hero is old and broke. EVERY Runequest PC can relate to this, whereas D&D players SCOFF at copper and silver pieces after 1st or 2nd Level. 5) The World is changing just like a Runequest campaign world would change as the PC become rune level. The troll recognizes Cohen ("this is Cohen the barbarian, not some farmer with a pitchfork!") just like famous people would be recognized in Runequest (admittedly AD&D would allow this too). 6) The Troll sold out his relatives and Cohen PAID for that information just like one see Trollkin doing in Pavis. I love the fact that Cohen says "I don't need to kill him, just defeat him." That goes back to Runequest's ransom whereas AD&D just gives you XP for your kills. So, watch the video and decide for yourself if Cohen and his trusty steed are RQ or AD&D. Listen to the song as well. It tells THE REST of the story.

A video I was given recently reminds me of not only my own mortality but also how monsters in Runequest behaved compared to those in AD&D. If you listen to the song at the end of the video (while the credits are rolling), it is virtually a sequel to the video.

Simply scale your damage. Have each point of "Major (ie starship) Damage" equal ONE DAMAGE DIE of "Personal Damage." So... If your Starship Lasers do 1D4 points of Major Damage, each POINT of that Major Damage could do 1D10 points of Personal Damage to a human (or anything scaled as a human). Any device which does Major Damage AND any armor which absorbs Major Damage would be designated as such by being placed inside brackets [ ].

This is exactly how I do it too. The only real changes I make are using RQ2's Slashes, Impales, and Crushes. Impales (Spears, Arrows, Firearms, etc...) do = Maximum Damage + Rolled Damage + Damage Bonus. The weapon may become lodged in the target and a Bleed WILL occur upon removal of the weapon. Slashes (Broadswords, Axes, Machetes, etc...) do = Rolled Damage + Rolled Damage + Damage Bonus. The weapon may become lodged in the target and a Bleed WILL occur upon removal of the weapon. Crushes (Maces, Clubs, Hammers, Staves, etc...) do = Maximum Damage + Maximum Damage Bonus + Maximum Damage Bonus. Treat the damage as DOUBLED for the purpose of target KNOCKDOWN, and the target will also be STUNNED for 1 round + 1 more round for any damage that exceeds target's CON. A STUNNED opponent can do NOTHING while STUNNED.

The problem is that an explosion is a DUPLEX EFFECT. You have the shock wave (which cannot be avoided) then you have the fragmentation and debris launched from the point of detonation. They really are TWO SEPARATE EFFECTS and must be dealt with differently.

I would use the system Twilight2000 used. You give each grenade a base range in meters. You then allow for 3 more "Range Bands" of an equal length in meters. The blast is full in the 1st range band. It is halved in the next range band and quartered in the 3rd range band. Frag hits are rolled for with 2D10 hits possible in the kill radius (1st range band). There would be 2D6 frag hits in the second range band. You would roll 2D4 for frag hits in the 3rd range band and finally 1D4 for frag hits in the final range band (I use 4 range bands in my games for uniformity across game platforms, you may need to change this). Each Frag hit does 1D4 damage and the locations are rolled randomly. IF the target goes prone, divide the frag hits in half rounding down. Treat 0 as a 0. If the target is protected by a soft object, halve the frag hits as above. IF the target is also prone, treat them as one range band farther away before you roll and half the frag hits.

I'm going to explain to you what I know regarding today's grenades. Futuristic grenades may or may not follow these laws of physics. FIRST, grenades use have two methods of causing injury. The first is the OVER PRESSURE BLAST EFFECT. This is the actual force of the explosive in the device (grenade, rocket, artillery or mortar shell, or mine). Some devices like grenades will have a smaller "explosive filler" to propel the primary method of injury... fragments or shrapnel. Other devices use their "explosive filler" as their primary wounding mechanism. Artillery shells fall into this category. Over Pressure Blast kills by essentially crushing or smashing the body. It is subject to the INVERSE SQUARE LAW. This means that as a rule of thumb, the blast damage halves every time the range doubles. This is why a modern US Frag grenade as a lethal or kill radius of 5m but an effective "fragmentation range" of 12m to 15m (depending on which generation of frag grenade you are dealing with). The kill radius is including the blast damage but the frag radius is the range at which there is a 50-50 chance of fragmentation hitting you. Note that the US Frag grenade has a maximum fragmentation range of 24 meters. This means that you can be hit by a fragment this far away from where the grenade landed. Over Pressure Blast Effect is like water or gas. It will fill EVERY SQUARE INCH of the area of effect and there is no way to hide from it. Thankfully, due to the INVERSE SQUARE LAW, it drops off VERY QUICKLY. The majority of explosives will have a BLAST EFFECT that affects EVERY location on the target's body. The typical Frag grenade would do 2D6 at the first range band and 1D6 at the second range band while dropping off completely at the third range band. Some explosives, mostly Hyperbaric munitions (using highly reactive dust like aluminum and lithium) and Thermobaric munitions (using vaporized fuel) can destroy the very air and turn human beings in their blast radius into mush or liquid (known as an OVER PRESSURE EFFECT). These explosives are sometimes called "Implosion Bombs" and are best used inside of structures to "implode" those structures. For those interested in the physics of the blast effect, a commercial stick of dynamite generates one Megajoule of energy. FRAGMENTATION EFFECTS can carry for much greater distances than BLAST EFFECTS can. They can reach up to FIVE TIMES the distance a blast will reach. It uses its momentum to cause punctures and lacerations to the people in the Fragmentation Range. The US Frag grenade has a 5m "Kill radius" but I think the enhanced Twilight2000 deals with this in a better way. In Twilight's enhanced system (found in Challenge Magazine), the base range for BOTH frag and blast is 6m. The second range band is 12m. The third range band is 18m and the final range band is 24m. The blast is only apparent in the first two range bands and frag chances drop off for each range band you go out. This makes calculation of damage line up with the range band the target is in. Other Explosive Effects: There are a couple of additional explosive types that must be addressed. The HIGH EXPLOSIVE DUAL PURPOSE (HEDP) and the HIGH EXPLOSIVE ANTI-TANK (HEAT) warheads. HIGH EXPLOSIVE DUAL PURPOSE (HEDP): A common round for both artillery and grenade launchers, it splits the difference between a true "armor piercing" round and an "anti-personnel" round. It uses a casing to direct the majority of blast effect towards the target. It would have the full blast and frag effects for whatever it hit, BUT... the blast effects and fragmentation for anyone near the sides of where the round impacted would be halved. In Twilight2000, these rounds tend to have a smaller blast radius and lower chance of catching fragmentation. The grenade above, might have a 4m blast instead of 6m IF it were an HEDP round. HIGH EXPLOSIVE ANTI-TANK (HEAT): This round is designed to punch through armor. It uses a hardened nose cone shaped like a funnel to compress and direct the blast into the target. This causes the blast to actually form a jet of molten PLASMA that will cut through the target's armor like a blow torch. MOST of the round's energy will be directed through this hole. Thus, a HEAT round the size of the Frag blast pattern above will have a blast pattern 6m long by 2m wide in Twilight2000. In addition, the chance of catching fragmentation when standing to the side of the impact is 25% to 35% due to the shaped charge directing the blast at the target. AVOIDING DAMAGE: There is NO WAY to avoid blast damage. It flows like water or gas and fills every nook and cranny of the space. In fact, if the blast is BIGGER than the space it occurs in, the blast damage will be magnified. Fragmentation is easier to avoid. It is projected up and out and just going prone will reduce your chances of being hit. Soft objects CAN slow or absorb fragmentation. Things like interior walls, furniture, or brush CAN reduce your chance of getting hit. This is why the US Army uses 4-ply plywood in its Forward Operating Bases. It has proven to stop fragmentation from mortars and hand grenades as long as you're not in their "kill zone." Hard objects like K-Rails, sandbags, and engine blocks will stop fragmentation completely.

I would add one thing to this system. Repair parts. You can have a given repair or build need a number of repair parts based on the amount or percentage of damage the item has sustained. Repair parts are specific so you might have: Automotive repair parts Small Arms repair parts Electronics repair parts These parts can be purchased, made (IF you have the machines to fabricate parts), or scavenged from damaged or old objects or vehicles. The scavenged parts must come from the particular item in question (ie Electronics repair parts must come from computers, TVs, or other electronic equipment and Vehicle repair parts must come from a vehicle). A fumble would consume the parts BUT NOT FIX the item. We also used Building Units in my TRAVELLER campaign. There were Light and Heavy Residential Building Units, Light and Heavy Industrial Building Units, and General Purpose Building Units (used for repairs to structures). The players would make an Engineering skill roll to determine how many building units that they needed to build or fix something something. A good Engineering roll could save you a lot of money [in the cost of building units] and time on construction.

I don't think you need multiple throwing skills but rather an adjustment to the difficulty level for a given type of throw. The HARDEST type of throw would be the point pitch. Essentially the throw of a baseball pitcher at a POINT TARGET. These are ranged at 10m and 20m by the Army because hitting a point in space is hard. I'd say that a DIRECT THROW should be STR in meters is Short Range (please note that I use FOUR range bands in my own game) and then you would add STR in meters and increase the Difficulty for each additional range band after SHORT. A Direct Throw would hit a man-sized target directly. The longer-ranged throw would be the LOB. This throw is for range and your goal is to get it close so someone can move just a little and catch it or so it will land in close proximity to a target. The LOB should have a Short Range of [STRx2 meters] and you would add that amount for each added Range Band (once again, I use 4 range bands in my game) while increasing the Difficulty by one level per added range band. Keep in mind that even Little League players can throw a baseball (which is around 1/3rd the weight of a grenade) about 100 meters. The "Extreme Precision Throw" is so hard that Green Beret Sgt. Sanderson gained legendary status when he hit those riflemen in that 4-story window from 50 METERS WITH A THROWN FRAG! A dozen Rangers watched him do it! I heard about it a couple of days later and I was in Kismayo on the Southern end of the COUNTRY (The Moge is in the North)! It even made it into the movie!

Since nobody has even brought this up, I will. The US frag grenade weights 0.48kg and is shaped like a baseball for a reason. I did qualify EXPERT with the hand grenade but it was a LONG TIME AGO (I served from '88 to '96). To qualify EXPERT you had to have straight "GOs" in ALL of the grenade tests. Those tests were; 1) Properly Identify various Hand Grenades. 2) Hit a BUNKER TARGET (1m high x 2m wide square target) from the prone position from 10 meters out. 3) Hit a TARGET BEHIND COVER from the prone position at 20m. 4) Hit a TWO-MAN FIGHTING POSITION from the standing position from 35m 5) Hit a TRENCH from the standing position from 25m. 6) Hit a VEHICLE from the kneeling position from 25m. A "hit" involved being 5m or closer to the designated target. This earned you a "GO" on the US Army's "GO/NO-GO" standard for the test. The throw has more to do with throwing a baseball and the BUNKER target actually requires you to roll over (you're prone, remember) and throw DIRECTLY at the 1m X 2m opening with a hit scored only IF it passed inside the structure. The farthest I have ever witnessed a grenade thrown was in Basic ('88). A kid named Causey lobbed a practice grenade 70 meters. My longest throw (and the throw that got me my expert badge) was 50 meters at a 4-man cluster target. I put it right in the middle of the targets. Disclaimer... I played baseball in High School and I played Right Field. Throwing a grenade just came natural to me.

It should also be noted that this DEVIATION ROLL system was also used for Mortars and Artillery but the deviation distances would be multiplied by 5 for Mortars and by 10 for Artillery Shells and Artillery Rockets (the Russians LOVE their Artillery Rockets...).

You can always use the system devised by GDW in Twilight2000. You roll a 1D6 for the direction on a HEX grid to get the DIRECTION OF DEVIATION of the toss. You then roll 1D6 for the number of meters your throw is off from that "target hex" which YOU [the thrower] designated. This is known as the grenade's DEVIATION. From the 1D6 roll [for Deviation] you SUBTRACT 1 for every 10% or fraction thereof that you rolled UNDER the To Hit chance. IF the modified result of the roll is 0 or less (yes, negative numbers are possible) your grenade lands in the Designated Hex. Otherwise, it's considered to have landed or rolled to the hex indicated by the Deviation Rolls [for direction and distance]. We would roll TWO DIFFERENT COLORED D6s. One color for the Direction and the other for the Distance of the grenade's Deviation.

Since I use MYTHRAS/RuneQuest6 Special Effects, I divided my successes into THREE catagories; Special Success = 1/2 Skill (ru) Outstanding Success = 1/10th Skill (ru) Critical Success = Doubles UNDER SKILL (with 00 meaning zero, zero NOT 100). Fumbles = Doubles OVER SKILL I then divide the Special Effects (hereafter SEs) into 3 tiers based on their power to affect a given combat. Under my system, you get ONE SE from a given Success (unlike MYTHRAS where multiple SEs can be earned). Fumbles also generate an SE, which is either picked by the person the fumbler was attacking or it is rolled randomly (at the GM's discretion). I find this system very fast and intuitive. I have passed it along to INNOCENCE (another poster here) by request, so you can also ask their opinion on my breakdown of the Special Successes when used during play as well. .

I replaced POW with WILLPOWER and made POW a "derived stat" like HP in my own games. Willpower is a measure of mental strength but bravery is a strange thing. I have met lots of stubborn and willful people who weren't brave at all. I think I'd start with Willpower and then roll another 1D20 and AVERAGE the two (rounding down) for what I'd call a BRAVERY score. This would allow for a person who is stubborn or willful but NOT "mentally tough" if they were to roll low on that 1D20 for their Bravery score. I would then use a system like Twilight2013's Coolness Under Fire rule (hereafter CUF). Under CUF, you give a character Threat Conditions for things like being wounded, exposed to magic, being outnumbered, or seeing companions wounded or killed. IF the Threat Conditions exceed your CUF (or in our case BRAVERY), bad things begin to happen (like Morale checks). IF you witness good things like The wounding or killing of an enemy, the healing of an ally, a persuasive speech by a leader, or the arrival of reinforcements, your own Threat Condition total is reduced by those things. It is one more thing to track but it will give you what you're looking for with virtually no fuss.

I've been using the Mythras ACTION system with everyone getting three ACTIONS. I like how every one takes an ACTION and then you reset. I have every ACTION represent 2 seconds and every round represent 6 seconds. 10 rounds is then 1 minute. I also allow a PC to move 8m (run), 6m (trot), 4m (walk), or 2m (crawl) in addition to a more basic ACTION (like an attack). Movement penalties do apply.

DARPA has a working cannon that does just this. They are using it to direct charged particles (Particle Beam Cannon?).

Some ACTUAL weapons to look at for inspiration. The LRAD: A device that laser-focuses SOUND into a clear beam weapon. The "warble" is around 194 Decibels (just short of a pressure wave) and is intensely painful to those in its beam. This beam is a 10 to 1 ratio (ie at 100m it is 10m across). This device is commonly used for crowd control. The ACTIVE DENIAL SYSTEM: A device that beams an energy wave similar to microwave energy that heats up the surface of anything in the beam. People who are hit by the beam experience an intense "burning sensation" on their skin and are forced to flee the beam. I have been in the crosshairs of both systems during my LE career and they work quite well. You should look them up. PLASMA CUTTERS (and PLASMA WEAPONS): Modern Plasma Cutters swirl a very high pressure stream of air (up to 250 PSI) and then IGNITES it with a high-voltage current. The swirling gas super-heats to 2000F and can cut steel like butter. It is the combination of air pressure and a swirling motion that allows the plasma jet to form when the electricity ignites it. Since plasma is the fourth state of matter (between a gas and a solid) it will have BOTH a "kinetic effect" and a "heat effect" on the target. GDW's Traveller2300 had a good system where you could go with a gun that fires a blast of super-heated [nuclear] material enclosed in a laser beam to direct it by creating a vortex of super-heated air. The device was called a PLASER (plasma-laser) and caused MAJOR damage but was short-ranged by virtue of the energy needed to contain the plasma. The second method would be like Star trek's Romulan Plasma Torpedo. This weapon would have nuclear material brought to near fusion but restrained by a magnetic field to prevent decay and release of the plasma. This would be fired at the enemy and then release a huge wave of heat energy, concussive wave energy and hard radiation. The magnetic field is not as much science fiction as some believe. NASA's new compact fusion reactor designs use magnetic fields to hold the plasma in them in check too. LASERS: For every Watt of power used over one Second of Time, a Joule of Energy is created. Modern lasers are rated in OUTPUT energy but in today's systems, the energy required to produce this output is around TEN TIMES the weapon's output. Thus, a 25KW Laser requires 250KW of power for a one second burst generating 25 Joules of energy. The US Navy is experimenting with lasers that have a ONE MEGAWATT energy outputs but these require not only huge amounts of power (10 Megawatts), but also significant cooling (usually Nitrogen). Still, such a laser would produce ONE MILLION Joules of energy for damage (a .50 Caliber round does just more than 13k Joules of damage). This is roughly the equivalent of a quarter of a stick of dynamite for damage. Traveller2300 once again solves the scaling problem in an interesting way. They give us practical PULSE LASERS. These Pulse Lasers have high-density batteries (think of the newer graphite batteries in development now) that "pump" a COMPACT high-energy "homopolar generator." This generator then dumps to a capacitor which, when charged, fires a VERY HIGH ENERGY Laser beam (think 5 Megawatts) for 1/100th of a second. To determine the Joules of Energy inflicted on the target, you simply divide the power output of the laser by 100. This generates damage equal to a large caliber modern-day rifle while still giving multiple shots. When attached to powered armor, Lasers really come into their own as portable heavy weapons. The downside is that they cannot fire faster than 1 shot every couple of seconds (due to the need to charge the capacitor). GAUSS GUNS (and coilguns): Magnetic accelerators are being built NOW. Just YouTube "Coilguns" and you will get hits on dozens of videos of magnetic accelerators. The Navy's railgun requires 25 MEGAWATTS of power to project a round to something like MACH 12. Most railguns are also using Capacitors just like Lasers in order to release the energy in a single fast "dump." If you get a chance, check out Traveller2300 at FAR FUTURE ENTERPRISES. While the game itself leaves a lot to be desired, the devs really looked into the hard science behind the equipment in the game.

I base my Persuasion skill's base modifiers on CHA, WILL, and INT. I changed APP to CHA like I stated in my post above. Then I added WILLPOWER in place of POW and made POW a "derived attribute" BASED on that WILLPOWER score. This way, my PCs (and NPCs) can sacrifice POW WITHOUT changing all their skill bonuses in my modded RuneQuest.

Consider this stolen! I can see how this initial test will "influence" any Persuasion Rolls the PCs must make later on. On a successful roll, NO MODIFICATIONS to Persuasion would be made. For my "outstanding success roll" (1/10th of the success chance ru), the PCs will gain a one shift Difficulty bonus (ie a Difficult test becomes Average). IF the PCs roll a Critical Success (Doubles under the chance of success with 00 being zero, zero), they gain two levels of Difficulty Shift (ie Average tasks become Easy tests). Likewise, a failure means they suffer a negative level of Difficulty Shift (ie Average rolls become Difficult ones) and a Fumble (doubles over the success chance) would result in two Difficulty Shifts (ie an Average task would become a Formidable one).

Just change it back to Charisma. Charisma is a measure of one's ability to influence others [for good or bad] and doesn't rely solely on "looks." One would be hard-pressed to argue that Winston Churchill, Teddy Roosevelt, or Adolph Hitler were very good looking, BUT YET, they got people to do the things they wanted them to do. I always use Charisma for just this reason.

Since we're onto hero quests now, I might recommend THE NEVER ENDING STORY about a real-world kid who "hero quests" through a magic book to save the mythical world of Fantasia.

It's the only fantasy movie I can think of that is set in the right time period with the right range of cultural levels (primitive, barbarian, & civilized) interacting with each other that isn't also "high fantasy" from a magic use or character action level. If we go "high fantasy," then several options come into play. For some reason Clash of The Titans pops into my mind immediately. The Hero goes on an impossible quest aided by magic from the Gods to change the World. My preference is for the older film though. I've ALWAYS been a fan of Ray Harryhousen's claymation monsters.