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I'm not sure that a Humakti would ever DI to avoid death. I think it would be more along the lines of:

"Let me take my enemy with me!"

"Allow me to complete my quest, then I will join you!" 

...or something along those lines. Something to allow them to bring their opponent with them to the underworld, or to extend their time before heading to be judged. Never to "avoid" death! 😉

That being said, such a DI would be appropriate at any time the player thought it was. Humakt may not agree though.

SDLeary

20 hours ago, Kloster said:

Iirc, the greek hoplite phalanx was fighting shoulder to shoulder, with interlocked shields. In that case, the use of the xiphos or kopi (or any sword) becomes very impractical, and only spears (doru) has any chance to be usable. According to Hanson, the shield wall push was the main way of fighting but this is now disputed.

Over shield, yes. Under shield not so much. Doru is too long to reposition so easily. You want to fell an opponent, go for their shins... assuming they don't have greaves on, and give the guy behind you a clearer shot with his doru.

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18 hours ago, Kloster said:

Please note that here, I am not speaking of personal experience (foil fencing does not use shield), but of what I have seen on TV documentaries and reenactment: Greek phalanx warriors were using their shield as an offensive weapon as much as a defensive one, because the spear is too long to be used once the front rank of the phalanx are in contact.

Assuming a Greek Phalanx, they would probably drop their spear and pull out their xiphos or kopis. In a shield wall of any type, using your shield for anything other than protecting yourself, or the person to your left or to leverage and push against the opposition line in order to advance yours is somewhat suicidal.

SDLeary

19 hours ago, Kloster said:

Correct. It swill be harder, but I don't think the difference would be so high.

20%?

SDLeary

6 hours ago, Kloster said:

This is especially the problem I have with this kind of rule: when you know how to use a shield (a specific one), you know how to use it, whether in combination with a sword, an axe or alone. I agree the rule can be interesting, but it feels wrong to me.

Its not quite that easy though. Taking your axe example, you may know how to use the shield, but with an axe (rather than the sword which you normally use) the balance is different. Different enough, that the momentum is going to pull you to places that are slightly out of where you might be with the sword, making it harder to get your shield where it needs to be. 

So for me, any of the three routes work for a game... They are all three abstractions (Separate skills, Combat Styles, Pendragon combined skill), it just depends on what you are trying to emphasize.

SDLeary

On 1/25/2022 at 8:17 AM, Tizun Thane said:

Sure it is ^^ It's called candor. An article about candor as a christian virtue in the Jane Austen novels

I'm not seeing that. From all I can see, the only solid definition of "candor" is "frankness" or "honesty". Do you have a source for your definition?

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10 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

You are trying to twist things which are pretty simple here. Sorcery give you a way to access power and cast magic magic without gods or spirits, period. It does not mtter if you learn the spell from a Lhankar Mhy grimore or are taught the spell by a Chalana Arroy healer, or you get it from a Lunar magician, or even if you get it somehow on a HeroQuest. 

I'm with your interpretation on this. The only real restrictions are corporate (Cult/Organization) or social (cultural taboos).

SDLeary

12 hours ago, tooley1chris said:

Same question about Attack skill %. Are they chopped up because of multiple attacks in a round?

 

PAIN DIVINE (4)
Range: Self
Resisted: No
When cast, this spell sets all of the nerve 
endings in the caster’s body alight with eldritch energy. The sensation makes the 
sorcerer jumpy, jittery, and full of energy. 
While in combat, every time the sorcerer 
is injured (that is, a hit that isn’t parried or 
dodged, and damage gets past armor,) he 
or she may immediately make an extra attack at the party responsible for the injury, 
as though he or she was riposting with a 
critical parry. Also, more than one extra attack may be made this way. 
Note that this spell takes precedence over 
any actual ripostes, and the sorcerer can 
only make extra melee attacks (no missile 
weapons) at the party responsible for the 
injury. 

Also a no... straight % I would say.

SDLeary

12 hours ago, tooley1chris said:

So you get to attack until you miss and get very sleepy afterwards. But do attacks still have their % cut following each after the first? Couldn't you do that without a spell?

RIGHTEOUS FURY (5)
Range: Touch
Resisted: No
The caster must possess a positive Light 
Allegiance score. This spell may only be 
cast when knowingly facing a follower of 
Shadow. Once cast, for the duration of the 
caster’s POW in combat rounds, the target 
may continue to make attack rolls until they 
miss. The first such attack is on the character’s normal DEX rank, the next on the next 
lowest rank, and so on until any miss result 
is rolled. The character may not Dodge or 
Parry.

Considering the not necessarily limited use scenario (depending on your game), I would say no, not for the duration of the spell. Also, not being able to dodge or parry is a serious downside.

SDLeary

7 hours ago, wombat1 said:

This answer may or may  not be what you want as it will sound complex, but it isn't, not really.  Bear with.

The other dice can be simulated as follows:

1. A d 4 can be simulated by a pair of d6's as follows. Let's assume there are two color of dice, similar to a d100 pair. Indeed, I prefer using a pair of dice to an actual d4, which never seems to bounce very well on the table, so I wonder if it is really random.

Dark die.    Light die    Result

1-3              1-3                 1

                    4-6                2

4-6             1-3                 3

                   4-6                4

 

2. A d 8 can be simulated by adding a 3d die again, 1-3 will give us that d4 range, 4-6 will give us 5,6,7, 8.

3. A d12 can be simulated by a pair of dice again, with the 1st die, 1-3   2d die, 1,2,3,4,5,6  

                                                                                                                4-6              7,8,9,10,11,12

4 A d20 can be simulated by a d6 and a d10. 1-3 1st 10 numbers 4-6 2d 10 numbers.

5. I've lived happily forever without even thinking of a d32, but it is, ahem, a d4 and a d8.  I'll let anyone curious work out the d tails.  (Sorry, couldn't resist.)_

 

 

 

 

As polyhedral dice do exist, this does seem over complex just for the sake of not using polyhedral dice. As for things that go beyond standard gaming dice, then yes something else needs to be come up with. I suggest something that is easy to read and will put all the answers right with their "target numbers"... lets call this... a Table! Something that has lots of possibilities when you are already using percentile dice! 😉

SDLeary

1 hour ago, Beorne said:

But in the solo adventure you are alone confronting a charging rider, not in tight formation.

Then yes, it's extremely odd. It's like saying "hit me"! In fact, if I ran across this situation, I'd give the attacker a bonus, because the defender has apparently given up anything remotely resembling an active defense. Shields and Armor only take you part of the way! Though magic could be a mitigating factor in certain situations, I guess.

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5 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

You do apply the full HP of the shield on a successful parry. Depending on the level of success and incoming damage your shield might get chipped a little. 

 

So, on a successful attack and a successful parry the lancer rolls damage then you subtract parrying shield HP and worn armor from the damage, excess damage penetrates to the Shield Arm, I think, according to Rules As Written. Normally in our games we just keep the damage to rolled locations, this leads to more chopped off limbs, people cut in half, and missing heads though. 

I haven't read the listed part of the Starter Set yet, so make of this what you will.

Under normal combat conditions, you are only really able to parry a rider charging you (I'm assuming this as the weapon mentioned is a lance) if you are skirmishing. If you are in a shield wall bracing for the attack, your shield is generally braced tightly, and locked with the shield of the person next to you if possible, in order to provide as much a solid barrier as possible in order to deter the horse from proceeding.

Thus, in RQ terms, you would cover parts of your body with the shield, similar to protecting against missiles, leaving others open (known as Passive Blocking in RQ6/Mythras).

SDLeary

17 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

That is the GURPS and HERO way of managing hit locations. To be fair something similar can be achieved if the Major Wounds table would be segregated by hit locations. MW would still be triggered by half hit points but consequences would be calibrated by the MW table.

Perhaps, but this way you still show the varying sensitivity of differing areas to damage; you can also vary that if you so desire. For example, because the Head is a lot more sensitive than most other parts of the body, I'll often reduce the value from .25 to .20.

Also, this way you can still use current values in your favorite version of BRP for armor-by-location.

SDLeary

6 hours ago, Cloud64 said:

To rebalance the poll after Chaot's comment - no contrarianism intended I assure you 🙂 - I have to go with hit locations. This is on the grounds that even of the system were playing doesn't use them, I like to roll for location as it makes narrating the hit and its effect easier. 

And in this vein, I like to use Hit Locations, as well as HP. 

Location values are not ablative, they are not hit points. Rather, they are the Major Wound threshold values for that Location. Above that value in a single blow is a Major Wound.

Damage done is still deducted from the HP pool.

When I use this, I tend to use heroic hit point levels, which skews the locational values up as well, so as to not be too too lethal.

SDLeary

There was also Enclosure #1, kindof... It had the PenDragon Pass rules in it.

SDLeary

9 hours ago, Dagonet said:

Has anyone compiled a list of gaming magazine that have publish KAP articles over the years? I bet there is a wealth of resources out there. Assuming such a list doesn't exist (correct me if I'm wrong), I'll post one to start.

- White Wolf Magazine issue 37: "The Treasure of Galilee", an adventure for Chaosium's Pendragon by Paul Cockburn, p. 8

This is available as a PDF on Drivethrurpg. Is it appropriate to past a link? If so, I will edit the post to include it.
I will compile and keep a list from what everyone else contributes.

No list here, but...

Dragons of Britain is one magazine. There were also a few issues of Tradetalk that had Pendragon articles.

SDLeary

6 hours ago, Oleksandr said:

This make me wonder, since basic game focused on chivalric adventures, would there be in the future games themed on german  (nibelungs and the like), or eastern european/slavic legends...

I would love this to happen. This had kindof begun during Pendragon 4 with Land of Giants. The "region" books from 4e were one of its best attractions.

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9 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I'm going to disagree a little, and suggest that sorcery casting is generally objectively different than Rune or Spirit spells.

Rune Magic is usually big and flashy as you exhort your god to grant you specific changes in the world.

Spirit spells are generally quick, and quietly focussed, with maybe a small chant or mantra.

Sorcery, OTOH, is usually quietly meditative, but with complex hand gestures to help with the focus.

However, I'll also say that a) most Orlanthi have never seen a sorcerer in action, b) trust that LMs are just doing their God's special magic, and, c) there's a very different word for LM sorcery, and the godless stuff... Which the LM temples are very loud in venting and ranting about!

Why wouldn't an LM Sorcerer invoke LM when casting a spell? LM is who  has provided the Sorcerer with the Knowledge and training to cast it! I would also imagine that at least some of the various sects of Malkionism also invoke Malkion or IG during their castings.

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8 hours ago, g33k said:

Rune Magic generally goes off really quick; also, mostly fits into well-known effects.
Spirit Magic is slower, but its effects are even better-known (there are very few cult-secret or unique Spirit spells).

Most experienced adventurers will know these patterns.

If someone is casting a spell, and is still casting after a round of combat... well... he's your godless huckleberry.  Get 'im quick before his spell goes off!

The thing is though, that all cults have certain rituals that take time; and according to the priests these ritual are for a reason or produce an effect.

SDLeary

2 hours ago, Raleel said:

9 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

One problem I have with both systems is that damage bonus jumps too precipitously from 0 to 1d4, which means suddenly you do up to about 50% more damage with most one handed weapons. Another one is the attrition of weapon and shield HP. Apart from the book keeping, it disadvantages players whose equipment deteriorates while their foes always come to the fight with pristine weapons.

For these you can easily import a variant. Mythras has a flatter damage table, starting at d2, for example, and doesn’t deal with that bookkeeping outside of dramatic moments. 

This thought deserves a separate thread, but what if we use the Damage bonus tables as steps..? Steps that iterate the damage die of the weapon. So, rather than going from 0 to 1d4, a Sword goes from 1d8 to 1d10.

I think it's been suggested other places on this forum, but because it came up here and I was thinking about it, thought I should codify the thought.

SDLeary

On 11/28/2021 at 12:10 AM, Mugen said:

...or by harvesting it from the surroundings.

As in KAP 4?

SDLeary

45 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Maybe. Depends on if parry changes the hit to the limb or not, and I think that varies by game. In some BRP games arm parries work like shields (the excess damage goes on through to the orginal location struct), and in others the damage hits the parrying arm.

 

True, though it looked like we were talking about RQ (insert version here), CE = Classic Edition(?); so using locations.

As to where the rest of the damage goes, it depends on how "parry" is being defined, knocking-away vs blocking, and so on. Even if playing a version of BRP without locations, this part would be how I would determine where the damage that got past the parry (vambraces or no) went.

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1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

Yes, there are differences between BRP games. It's not really a case of a latter edition supersedes an earlier one through, although a lot of gamers act that way. In reality, each GM is free to use whatever ruleset they wish, provided they have access to it. They can even pick and choose from among various rulesets. In fact, I suspect most BRP GMs swipe the odd item here and there from other games. 

Yes, although success level can adjust that a little, or a lot if the campaign has Ki skills. 

 

As can Vambraces

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4 hours ago, Alex said:

Wasn't that the take-away from Sandy's comment about the general pattern of the difference between G.n and P.n chaos?  "We're going to need a bigger broo," to paraphrase someone else.  i.e. that rather than a hoard of broos, you'd get one really huge one?

To double-disclaim that, I might be recalling him wrong, and equally, he might just have been using "one really big broo" as a frinstance placeholder.

The bigger ones are Dinosaur Broo, among other monstrosities from Sandy's mind! 😆

SDLeary

I can certainly see improvised items providing some defense. One or two points for a wrapped arm, perhaps more for a chair, which will only last a blow or two.

For Shields, I generally use the values from PDP: 12 points for Large (with a -5 to skill), and 9 for Common (medium). I then extrapolate out to 6 for Buckler. I also allow 6 point parries for Swords, thus 4 points for a dagger (an actual 14-16in blade or so dagger, not an oversized kitchen implement) seems about right. 

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