SDLeary

OK... someone ready the firing squad! SDLeary

No no no... ya all have it wrong!!! A failure is still a failure! And a fumble... well... You tie that to Sanity. And the magician looses SAN equal to the PP in the spell! >:-> There has to be a reason for all those, um, esoteric magicians hiding in their towers and the periodic "witch" hunts conducted by the peasants! SDLeary

Yes, but Stormbringer didn't have to drain, it could choose. This would explain why some foes survived. SDLeary

This is something that changed with Elric/SB 5e. Before this, he was in the 100% range. Also, Stormbringer was 2d8 + 3d6 + 1d6 in Elrics hands. In addition it could drain 1d100 POW. Every 10 points of POW drained increased its own skill by 2% or Elric's STR or CON. I'm not sure why the change was made, but a guess would be to enable the "cinematic" sequences. But today it does seem odd rather than introducing a mook rule. SDLeary

Speaking of Pendragon, I understand that there is a Glorantha Pendragon adaptation floating around that is NOT Dave Dunham's PendragonPass. It supposedly shoehorns Glorantha into the game to the point were Pendragon 4e's Magic system is used... Anyone heard about this? SDLeary

I posted a homebrew one, but it didn't end up with the rest of the character sheets in the download section. Its in "//Downloads/Systems & Settings/Runequest". Its "Runequest CS rev2" SDLeary

Without some sort of off screen time mechanic, like Pendragon Winter Phases, I'm not really sure how to handle this. Time and distance, not having to interact with object of said passion. This would be a GM/Player interaction type thing, of course. Perhaps if the SAN loss actually causes Temporary Insanity, one of the effects would be to lower the Passion. Kind of a hardening against the person/thing that they perceive harmed them. SDLeary

I've been toying with this idea, and here is what I've come up with so far... [WARNING... this is not on paper, so I'm pulling this out of... well you get the idea.] Passions are a percentage (of course). Passions can be used to augment skills (as can Traits if you use them) at the rate of 1/10th percentage provided the player can convince the GM that the passion is valid in the situation. The player may choose to roll the passion to become Inspired. A success yields a +40%, a critical +60% for the chosen skill. If the character fails in the task that they were Inspired for, then they suffer shock... 1d3 SAN loss. If they fail their inspiration roll, then they become Disheartened... 1d6 SAN loss. If they fumble their roll, they are Maddened... 1d10 SAN loss. Because of the nature of the shocks, I would also adjust the Short and Long Temporary tables, but haven't done anything there yet. SDLeary

No, not a full out match, but people of differing schools/styles who appear to have not sparred much if at all before, and thus don't know the others capabilities. Still no chance of serious injury or death, and I have to imagine that if their weapons were real that their dance between strikes would have been longer. Similar to the third video you listed... the Kendo vs Escrima. The first I've seen before, again a sparring match with people apparently of the same art/school, equipped the same, probably sparred before and have a decent understanding of the others capabilities. The second... well that looks like me and my friends back in High School when we were playing with Shinai. ;-) I'm not saying that 6 seconds in unreasonable for a combat round, but I can see why it might be as much as 12 seconds as well. Especially if the combatants are not familiar, with all the dancing and ranging taps to weapons and shields between actual strikes, and with the real stakes of serious injury or death ensuing. SDLeary

Overall, six seconds in probably more realistic, but one thing keeps me in check on this. Everything shown in the vids is either brawls, or martial artists in sparring situations. Presumably with opponents knowing each other and knowing something of the capability of their opponents, and with little chance of serious injury or death ensuing. Would people who didn't know the other, or who didn't have a clue as to the style of their opponent really react in such a manner? To me, this video looks a bit more realistic. Still not necessarily a full 12 seconds, but certainly with much longer pauses between strikes (looking for an opening?) Now, as to Jasons army/cop friend, an importation and modification of the shooting rules from Ringworld, which stated that you could shoot on each impluse after your initial dex rank. SDLeary Optional Rule Follows... Firearms (Optional) Most modern firearms are capable of fire at much higher rates than muscle powered missile weapons or early single shot firearms. In order to simulate this you might want to use the following. Mulit-Barrel,Semi-Auto, and Automatic firearms in burst operation are initially shot at the characters DEX rank (or Strike Rank), and my be fired on each subsequent DEX rank (or strike rank) as long as all shots are at the same target and the weapon still has ammunition. If the target changes, they must wait till their next normal action (DEX rank or Strike Rank). Each shot or burst after the first incurs a penalty of -15% (cumulative) to the chance to hit. If at any point the weapon runs out of ammunition and needs to be reloaded, the target is changed, or the end of the Combat Round is reached, the sequence is broken and the character resumes the normal combat sequence. Bolt Action and Lever Action firearms with internal magazines may shoot at the characters DEX rank (or Strike Rank), then again on the characters DEX rank -10 (or DEX SR + 3 + DEX SR if using Strike Ranks) as long as all shots are at the same target and the weapon still has ammunition. Each shot after the first incurs a penalty of -20% (cumulative) to the chance to hit. If at any point the weapon runs out of ammunition and needs to be reloaded, the target is changed, or the end of the Combat Round is reached, the sequence is broken and the character resumes the normal combat sequence. Single Shot and Muzzle Loading firearms always shoot at their listed Attk value as the reload sequence is long enough and visual enough to disrupt any reasonable chance of being able to recover without having to reacquire the target. For those who wish to lay down suppressive fire or simply shoot without aiming, please consult the Volley Fire spot rule.

Nah... it was more to the general thought (hope? dream?) of a full color glossy HB. Looks purdy, save when your in the wrong lighting and trying to read it. And to put the art into context... I don't think any of it was ever in color... at least in publication. The only one that comes to mind that might have been colored pencil originally was the superhero group on pg141 of BRP1. That was the house superhero group. IIRC, the guy in the top-hat was Sandy Petersen's character. SDLeary

I have to imagine that GURPS probably had a larger initial print run, reducing the price somewhat. I'm not sure that BRP could reach that level, and thus price. I, for one, am happy the paper isn't glossy. That was the most annoying change in terms of readability, especially if your reading locations are varied... the colored background only exacerbated this. SDLeary

WARNING! Brainstorming ahead! Could be very messy. OK... I was thinking about Sanity, and how to get some of the social effects out of it ala UA by adding values for Violence, Unnatural, Isolation, and Magical. Each would have been a % value that would be used rather than a straight sanity roll, the higher the value, the more resistant you are to that situation, but the more callous you are, effecting social inter..... blah blah blah. Then I found myself reading the Personality Trait optional rules, and that got me to thinking. If both Personality Traits and Sanity are used (for PCs... yes), what about having failed San rolls directly effecting the traits? And, just to give the player a sense of control, the GM only chooses the pairing affected, the player choosing which value to check and potentially increase. Example The investigators stumble onto a horrible scene of all of a bunch of NPCs hanging from nooses from the rafters (Braveheart) or in various states of dismemberment (Beowulf)... A failed Sanity roll would have the normal effects, but rather than simply have the character run away, fall into a mania, or into a stupor, it also had an effect on their personality. A check in Agressive/Passive, Extrovert/Introvert, Emotional/Calm, etc. Potential, or am I taking things a bit too far? SDLeary

I'm not sure they are still there, but several were available at one point on DriveThruRPG. SDLeary

I've actually been thinking about this as a replacement for an animist/theist system. Broadly speaking, you have Talents (read skills: about 19 of them in the core book) that you roll against to see if you succeed. Immediate payment is in Life Force, which can be personal, ambient (drawn from the world around you), or a combination of the two. Longer term "payment" is in the form of prior preparation, sleep, or aging. Religion plays a part. You get bonuses if you have certain Traits at a high value. This aids in magical Defense. "Holy Places" also give you additional access to Ambient Life Force. Being Impassioned (using the Passions system) can also add bonuses. Talents are actually fairly broad in nature, allowing differing effects within the category. For example, Curse allows you to cause someone to be Clumsy (Low magic: 1-40 points of Life Force), Infertile (Common Magic: 41-80 points), or blight a field with Wither Field (High Magic: 81-200 points). If you wanted the full effect of this in BRP, you would need to bring in the Personality Traits option from pp. 294-295. You would then have to define the worlds religions and which traits they value so you could figure religious/faith bonuses*. Expansion of the Allegiance (p.315) or importation of Passions might also be desirable. SDLeary * If you also have access to the Pagan Shore, Beyond the Wall, Saxons, and Land of Giants supplements, the system is expanded (Saxon Rune Magic, Heathen Magic, Bardic Magic all conforming to/adding onto the Talents system) and there are some "cults" defined that can be used as templates to go beyond the Christian, Pagan forms presented in the main book

Not quite... there is much more force at the end of a hafted weapon. Thats where all the weight is concentrated, whereas with a sword, it distributed more throughout. As for modifiers, I wouldn't really have anything universal. A dagger is really a largeish weapon. We are generally talking about something with a 12-16 inch blade. This seems to me to be more an effect of the weight distribution on the attacking weapon rather than the size of the parrying. Perhaps this should be a special effect of axes/maces/mauls. Perhaps a modifier to the parrying party of -10%/size? To offset this advantage, I would probably also reduce the range of battle axes and light and medium maces to short. They are generally not longer than a largish dagger, nowhere near as long as a broadsword or short spear. SDLeary

Many of the rifles used at this time in China would have been musket or single shot rifle class. I would use Rifle, Musket and Rifle, Sporting with attacks of 1/4 and 1/3. Now, that doesn't preclude something revolutionary being there at the time, but I would only give them to major npcs. SDLeary

If you weren't a C++ jockey, I'd suggest RealBASIC... supposed to work across platforms quite nicely. SDLeary

Never mind... didn't read the post sdleary

Only in certain units, and then it was ususally purchased by the trooper themselves. Certain units were outfitted later on with Henry and Spencer lever action (Rifle, sporting??), but by far the Sharps Rifle (single shot, drop breech) and Carbine were the weapon of issue. THe Sharps, because of caliber, I would class with Rifle, Musket in the rule book (yes, even though its a percussion cap), but would adjust the number of attacks to 1/3 or even 1/2, and increase range to 100. SDLeary

If you are starting at the beginning of the century then use the listing for Rifle, Musket. Further in, I would modify this to attacks at 1/3, as cartridges came into use. Around the middle of the century Rifle, Bolt-Action would be a good choice for Europe, but the US didn't adopt these till near the end of the century. SDLeary

I think he was thinking of caplock/percussion lock. SDLeary

This is true. The early models tended to be single shot though, and mainly available in Europe, though some were used as sharp-shooter weapons in the US Civil War. In the states, the drop-breech lever action tended to fill this space, also as a single shot. SDLeary

Just picked up my copy from my FLGS (Endgame). Have pulled off the shrink wrap, and begun the trek thru the pages SDLeary

And this is the reason to always include a Troll in the party! SDLeary