SDLeary

Until they started facing Cavalry SDLeary

BUZZ! Thank you for playing! Before the adoption of the pilum (Marian reforms IIRC), Legionaries were spearmen, called Hastati, and used the Hasta (spear). Marius introduced reforms which made the army a more mobile force on the battlefield, and a javelin replacing the spear fit the bill nicely. Enter the Pilum. Once the army began to encounter massed cavalry (Parthians and later Goths, not to mention their own), the Pilum became a lot less effective, and they moved back to being spearmen. Ideally they would still carry 2 javelins, now called a Spiculum, or darts called plumbata. Throughout their entire history, as far as can be told, legionaries carried swords also. Exceptions exist. Early on a legionary had to provide his own equipment... skirmishers could have axes or maces in addition to their missiles. Romans were never primarily swordsmen as we understand it; the gladius being used as a thrusting weapon from within the shield wall. Traditional swordsmen tend to do poorly in a shield wall. Even when they adopted the spatha, it tended to be a thrusting weapon. SDLeary

Not quite so. Once a bullet enters, a crap load internal damage can be done. Take a block of ballistic gel. Shoot it with an arrow, stab it with an epee, and shoot it with both a pistol and rilfe. The patterns for the firearms will probably be much much more violent. Thats what happens inside a body. Now if you wiggle the epee or spear around while inside the wound... :eek: SDLeary

As far as the Falcatta/Kopis is concerned, there are many who think that it is a refinement of what looks to be a sword/axe. The Khopesh (sickle sword) of the New Kingdom in Egypt. Ironically, it appears to have been edged on the outer sweep, not in the concave like a sickle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khopesh Just for reference, I do NOT like Wikipedia as an authority, but it makes for a quick and dirty reference, and it had a pic! SDLeary

The other thread about Cthulhu Rising got me to thinking about CDA. Could it take a similar treatment and survive? Could the mythos creatures become demons? The Mythos and Non-Mythos Grimoires get the WoW/BRP magic treatment? This would give us a gritty low fantasy setting, and would bring this excellent work back from limbo. Call it something along the lines of Torchlight SDLeary

Cthulhu Rising would probably be the best route. Scrubbing the mythos references and calling the beasties aliens would not only be expedient, but would provide the game with a well made setting. Is it Aliens/2300 like? YES! Which means you can run Traveller like games, though a bit low tech for that genre; Aliens/2300 middle tech reach-for-the-stars type games; and if you play on the core world/worlds, you might also be able to due Cyberpunk. Firefly like stuff comes to mind too. How about "Torchlight" as a fantasy setting? A re-edit would have to be done, of course. Cthulhu monsters fit right-in in a fantasy setting as demon types. Fantasy Europe would be gritty enough for BRP. Also, using the powers and magic options, some could do something ala ArsMagica if thats your type of thing. Yes, I'm talking about CDA (it is currently OOP after all), perhaps with the fully revised/completed Pagan Call scenario. SDLeary

Some of the weapon damage has changed for some reason. .375 Magnum: 1d8+1d4 in the current Cthulhu, and 1d8+1d6 in Cthulhu Now. The .38 Automatic is currently 1d10, was 1d8 in CN. Looks like a few others too, but pistols have been mentioned, so there ya go.

Yes and no. At least in Cthulhu. There is a spot rule on p.63, current edition. It is written thus: Unaimed Shots The shots-per-round entries for firearms assume that a shooter has an ernest desire to hit the target, and thus aims with care. As a general guide, unaimed fire allows twice the number of attacks per round listed for the weapon on the Weapons Table. Reduce the shooter's chance to hit to one fifth of normal. ... This is slightly different from the way it appeared in its first iteration in Chtulhu Now: ... some desire to hit the target and takes time to aim. If the character simply wants to blaze away, he can get off 4 shots per round from any pistol or semi-automatic rifle, 3 shots per round from any pump-action or lever-action gun or 1 shot per round from any bolt-action weapon. The chance there is also one fifth. Also in Chtulhu Now, if you used the optional Hit Locations rule, you had another option, Aimed Shots, which applied called location shots from RQ to firearms. SDLeary

He was using the Jane's as a reference when working specifically on Cthulhu Now. I'll have to go back and compare those tables to the current edition. SDLeary

Very true. But for a simple (in terms of combat) game like Cthulhu, it made sense. And it does give a very very good baseline to work from. By enforcing impailing (I would limit this to first round in a burst, as in the rules), and criticals, you enable almost any round to not only take big hulking types down, but to kill them. I've been toying with the idea that criticals are auto death in the head and chest, but for NPCs... kindof a toned down mook rule. Adding special rules for round types, etc., would cover most variation. For example, the 4.6 x 30mm round used in the new MP7 PDW. Its a small and light round (For those of us in the states, the bullet is .177 cal., the same as many air rifles). Because of this the actual standard damage should be low. The round has excellent armor penetration though. On a special, I would allow three rolls of the dice for damage, similar to the way a rapier impales in RQ. Other options might be impaling for jacketed rounds, and nothing special for unjacketed. Not sure about hollow points and the like though. The extremely long winded point being that the current tables can be tweaked for better real world performance, and left alone for the light games. SDLeary

And, FWIW, when Sandy devised the damages for Cthulhu Now, he did use Jane's. IIRC, he based the damage on the amount of pressure at impact. It seems to make more sense, as listed above, to enforce Impale and Critical hits, along with major wound than to rework the whole list. SDLeary