SDLeary

This type of system seems to be a common evolution. I've played with something similar, but ended up with 6 levels. IIRC, my starting points were RQ:AIG and LotR. Each level is one multiple of CON less than the one before, less ENC. Rolls are only made at the end of strenuous activity, or when called for by the GM. Thus starting off at CON x5 - Enc, then CON x4 - ENC, etc. Penalties (from second level on) start at 5% and double each level. Has Charlie mentioned when he expects a dead tree version of Outpost 19 yet? SDLeary

The biggest issue here is demand. The reseller (Waterstones in your case) has to know that they will be able to sell it in order risk bringing it in, they have to know there is a demand; this is even a bigger issue for many game stores. If you want to buy from your local bookseller or FLGS, let them know you are interested. Also, have your gaming group go in and tell them too! Perhaps even pull a few people off the street and have them ask after it! ;-) SDLeary

This is probably the best strategy. The biggest issue I think is that Chaosium is now essentially all Operations and Editorial. They have one creator on staff, and he seems to be mostly a fiction writer (William Jones). Expecting them to be able to pull together/create a world is a long shot. It is literally up to third parties for a world. Could they take a business loan and hire more staff? Perhaps, but I'm not sure the Wizards Attic stuff has cleared their financial liability records yet. I'm not sure they could qualify. A world would almost certainly have to come from Us or from a third party company. Which would mean a level of polish and creativity in a draft that would be able to convince Chaosium that it would worth it to take a chance on publishing. SDLeary

No PP... hmmm.... Impose some sort of Fatigue from the extra exertion required? SDLeary

Ask and ye shall receive! PenDragon Pass Religious Traits Scroll down a bit to see the message from Dave Dunham from 2 Oct '93. SDLeary

Allegiance combined with Personality Traits would work well. Allegiance appears to simply be a stripped down version of the Passions from Pendragon. In addition to Allegiance/Corruption, you could also have negative Personality Traits, such as Suspicious, checked instead of awarding points. Or give a negative Directed Trait... A very good fit for the noble ME world. SDLeary

The 4th edition is the best to look in for this, despite layout issues that make it slightly difficult to follow. The way the Traits work is the same, but the actual pairings are a better fit for a heroic environment like Literary Britain or Middle Earth, imho. The interesting things about Traits in Pendragon is that they play into Belief/Religion, and if you use the additions to the magic rules from Beyond the Wall, into Shamanic interactions with spirits. For Religion, each is defined by a set of five Virtues, which are Traits that the Religion value over others. If all five Virtues have scores of 16+, then the character receives a Religious Virtues bonus. Example: Pagan Virtues -- Generous, Energetic, Honest, Proud, Lustful Bonus if all over 16 -- +2 Healing Rate Christian Virtues -- Chaste, Modest, Forgiving, Merciful, Temperate Bonus if all over 16 -- +6 Total Hit Points Virtuous Traits have been taken further. IIRC, there is a Digest entry somewhere that listed the Virtues for the major Gloranthan gods aimed at using them in Dave Dunham's PenDragon Pass rules (If your interested I can see if I can find this.) Traits can also be directed. A character might have a Directed Trait of Mistrust (Romans) at +3. If required to make a Suspicious roll against a character that happened to be Roman, then this would apply a +3 to the roll. Also, if you are in Europe, one of the Jeffs (Richards?) distributed a Gloranthan Pendragon at Tentacles 08, which doesn't seem to have made it to the states. <sniffle> You might want to see if you can borrow a copy of that to see how Traits are handled in a less literary setting. SDLeary

Actually, if you use the pairings from Pendragon, its almost a perfect fit. SDLeary

Of course. I remember when we playtested this, or to be more precise, when the change was sprung on us... because my character was in soft armor. And its not an optional rule. It was an addition through errata. I was more answering your question about the effectiveness of maces vs. plate. SDLeary

IIRC, plate actually became more common BECAUSE of maces. Then the ante was upped with war hammers and picks and estocs. What I can see happening with plate and maces is more of a knock back effect... more energy transfered to the plate rather than absorbed by the spongy mass of the body. Also, if the head is hit inside a greathelm, I can see some issues from concussive effect rather than direct damage that might KO the occupant. SDLeary

I'm not sure the difference really matters; or to be more precise can be explained by the way parrying actually works in the game. Keep in mind that if you parry, the whole blow is knocked aside, deflected. The only time the parrying weapon is damaged is if the level of success is higher than that of the defender. When this occurs some damage is taken by the shield, absorbed. Now, this isn't ideal... the "absorbed" blows are still mostly deflected, adjusting the amount of damage done rather than absorbing them directly to the shield. Now, what I have attempted to do with the Optional rule above is to accentuate the absorption type of parry (I will re-read later and see if it actually reads as I intended), and to better differentiate between weapons and shields. I might adjust the amount of damage taken by the shields, but I honestly think that a powerful blow (one that exceeds the HP of the shield) would do some damage to the item regardless of the blow being deflected or absorbed. Now... someone earlier mentioned a metal buckler... something from the late medieval period or the renaissance (though there are a few earlier examples). Such an item I would use version of the rule for metal weapons. Hmmm... ok. I misunderstood you then. It sounded like you were asking why the system didn't differentiate between the types of blows taken by differing parrying devices. The system as written has all parries be deflection type. The only time damage is inflicted upon weapon or shield is when the level of success is higher, or when the amount of damage exceeds the HP of the parrying device in a single blow. No... my method still maintains deflection parries, but only if the amount of damage is below the HP value of the parrying device in a single blow, or if the level of success of the parry is higher than that of the attack. What I have done is introduce damage to the parrying device if the blow is strong enough (exceeds devices HP in one blow). Also note that all damage talked about is TO THE DEVICE, not absorbed by the device with the remainder passed through to the defender. WOW... OK.... looks like I misunderstood you totally then. It sounded like you were making the opposite argument; that it wasn't more accurate. I was just giving an option. SDLeary

In a way the RAW BRP system does. The larger the shield, the more strength is needed to use it properly. If the characters strength is below the threshold, they can still use it, but at a disadvantage. They also have a dexterity threshold. In RQ3, iirc (no book handy), each point under these thresholds imposed a 5% penalty. In BRP, under either threshold and the attempt is Difficult. Actually, the use and design of shields depends on tactics. The Hoplites Aspis (Hoplon) was strapped on because the goal was to impose a regimentation that discouraged individual combat. Strapped on it does an excellent job in a disciplined shield wall. Thus it is more of a piece of armor than proper shield. Scutii, Celtic, Germanic,Viking, and even early Kite type shields used a hand hold behind a central boss, and were used to push opponents away and punch them when the opportunity arose. This also means that they are much easier to use in single combat because they are much more nimble devices. [pedantic]Oh, also, bucklers are not necessarily metal. The Iberians used small wood and leather shields with a metal boss, about the size of the buckler, as apparently did Roman Gladiators! [/pedantic] See above This has been brought up before, while things were still in playtest IIRC. IMO, a metal weapon like a sword should have fewer HP, or more precisely AP (Armour Points) like in RQ. A successful parry at the same level of success should still deflect all the damage of the attack, but if the rolled damage exceeds the AP of the weapon in a single blow, then it has been damaged and the AP should be reduced by one point. If the level of success is one higher, then the parry would only stop the amount of damage equivalent to the AP of the weapon; if AP exceeded, then reduced by one. If two levels of success higher, as above, but AP reduced by half the value that makes it through. A critical attack vs. a fumbled parry results in the weapon breaking. You will note that I said metal weapons. Hafted weapons, while they can parry, are not designed to. They should always take one point of damage if they successfully parry an equal attack, half the excess on an attack one level higher, and break if they parry an attack two higher. Shields absorb more, but once damaged tend to degrade faster. On a normal success, if the HP of the shield are exceeded in a single blow, then the shield takes half the excess damage directly to its HP. If one level of success higher, the shields HP are reduced by the full excess amount of of the blow. Two levels higher, twice the excess of the blow. This is just off the top, and does complicate things quite a bit for what could be little "realism" in return. Yes. In the eyes of many, a necessary level of abstraction to keep things moving. You CAN get bogged down by the realism. And, just for reference, I do prefer the RQ III methods for figuring all this out. SDLeary

Woo... ME Magic.... Hmmm... An adaption of the Pendragon 4e would be interesting. SDLeary

An excellent addition! Thank much!! SDLeary

I don't see the issue. You have two skills. One for right hand, one for left hand. Two handed technique possible. Just as you have two skills for sword and shield, spear and shield, axe and shield, and so on. Now, there is nothing precluding you from creating a new skill that is a two weapon technique... but this sounds a bit odd. Does your skill automatically halve when you loose one of the two weapons? When you loose your shield with "Sword and Shield Technique"? In fact these sound like skills (Skills or Aspects or Abilities) that you might have in SotC or HQ. BRP has always been much finer grained. SDLeary EDIT: SIGH... Never mind. Thats what I get when I reply before the coffee has taken effect.

Hence the above suggestion. Its not that they don't take damage, but take it in a different way or under different circumstances. As for Axes, perhaps a special effect, ala Pendragon... On a Special result, half the damage rolled is automatically transfered to a Parrying, shield, if one is being used, or one quarter the damage if a weapon is being parried with. SDLeary

One thing which I noticed is that there is a difference in the way are listed. Weapons are listed as having Hit Points. Shields as Armor Points/Hit Points. This tells me that at one point there was probably a difference in the way these two devices took damage. Also, looking at the Attack and Parry Matrix in Stormbringer 5e (p113), it appears as if ONLY weapons took damage from differences in Level Of Success. Shields only took damage if their HP were exceeded in a single blow. This makes Shields much more useful. I'm wondering if the way the HP and AP/HP things are listed in BRP means that this is the original intent of how Shields were supposed to work. In any event, this is how I'm going to interpret/use the rules. SDLeary

I think they would have done so already if they could or intended to. Superworld is up there for example. As Lawrence said above, it is probably licensing. That being said, there are fan efforts. This site is a good start: Larry Niven's Ringworld ...and if your looking for something harder or to add harder elements to your vision of the Ringworld, I'd encourage you to check out the Cthulhu Rising monograph, and the associate web site: [ CTHULHU RISING: CALL OF CTHULHU ROLEPLAYING IN THE 23RD CENTURY ] SDLeary

Or rather a new version of one of the older ones. I've uploaded a Fillable Form version of my 1.1e sheet. It is fillable only at the moment. No calculations are made. Thats next on the list. Happy Turkey Day to everyone here in the US!! SDLeary

No no no... not needed. More a suggestion for the final product or future product, no need to upload another version. For some reason, serif fonts don't fatigue the reader as much as sans. SDLeary

Looks excellent!! I have one request though... in the name of readability. Please change the body text to a serif font!!! Please please please!!! SDLeary

I would like to suggest the following change to the above spot rule... Spot Rule When the attacker achieves a higher level of success against a defender who is parrying (blocking) with a shield, the damage does not affect the target but the shield. If the damage is greater than the shield AP/HP, the shield is reduced by the amount in excess. If the attacker achieves two levels of success more than the defender, the shield breaks and the excess damage affects the defender. This would somewhat soften the stark "parry or not" and allow something of a whittling effect, similar to what was in RQ 3. And the breakage of the shield is a much more dramatic effect than simple halving of AP/HP when a critical is achieved. SDLeary

Happy Halloween! Happy New Year! And for this bestest of holidays, some intense geekery! The Call of Cthubuntu SDLeary

This assumes of course that you need a fetch, or that the spirits need to be bound to it. Why not bound to charms and fetishes? Tattoos? The RQ concept of the fetch or helper spirit as container for all things spiritual need not be the only one (and I've always seen it as a particularly Gloranthan thing). Binding could also simply create a link to the spirit, having them appear from the aether when "summoned to do bidding". That brings up another point. Did anyone else ever find the concept of an INT spirit or a Spell sprit, or any of the other non-ghosty type spirits a bit mechanical? SDLeary