filbanto

This one could be pretty icky. If I was running this I'd rule the PC broo can control their lust. No die rolls. They will be lusting in their mind, but are smart enough to realize they'll be killed by the chief if they defile the sacrifice. I'd have plenty of NPC broo who are not that bright and are constantly trying to get at the girl. The PCs need to keep them under control and get out of enemy territory alive. You could steal from "The Outlaw Josie Wales" when the commanchero's raid the settlers wagon...

Thanks for the answer. Guess I'll pass on that and whatever Pirates & Dragons is. I don't go for " fantasy" much, but even less in historical settings like the age of sail, the Old West, 3 Musketeers, etc.

Threadjack warning... Matt, you might want to take a look at Flashing Blades and picking up The High Seas supplement. This is a great game and is pretty close to BRP: skill based system, fun fencing rules, you use a d20 instead of percentages, but it plays very close to BRP.

How much work would it be to take out all the magic/elves/fantasy stuff and use for a pirates game?

Not much work to get rid of the fantasy races. My recollection is that they gave suggestions for how to do it in one of the setting books. Nuking the magic would be harder and I guess I'd suggest not bothering. If you're doing a historical pirate setting use Tortuga or Port Royale another similar pirate haunt instead.

I'll also suggest C&W's new Pirates & Dragons game when it comes out. Sounds like a perfect fit for Freeport.

Hmmm. Seems like there's a setting idea there. Post apocalyptic game play in 1655! A Europe devastated by Philosopher-Stone powered weapons! Rampaging clock-work murder-dolls, alchemical abominations, and the dread Wormwood Legions...

By Hastur, that's brilliant! Add alchemical mutants and clockwork cyborgs and you've got 17th Century Gamma World. I want to play this now!

My favorite phaser setting is "turn rocks red".

I always wondered just what kind of energy output one of those pistols had to have in order to completely incinerate a Klingon or turn a 2-ton rock practically into lava. Makes a .44 magnum look like a pop-gun;)

1) Opposed rolls do not go to the person with the highest level of success but to the person with the highest roll which is still a success.

E.g. 80% attack vs 60% dodge. Attacker rolls 61%, dodger rolls 10%, attacker gets higher roll and hits. This ignores special rolls, levels of success etc on contested rolls.

This is the mechanic used in Pendragon - you're just using a d100 instead of a d20. It works great! Here are some things to think about:

• It is hard to include a mechanism for catastrophic failure (a fumble).
  
• You will still have ties when two players roll the same number on a success. Chances are this won't happen often.
  
• You can include a Critical success mechanism when you exactly equal your roll or perhaps come within a certain (5?) percentage of your skill.
  

Hi!

I've got a question about opponents with weapons with different weapon length. I read the rules on p. 92, but I am not sure how it works.

It states "Armed with a medium or short hand-to-hand weapon [...] he cannot attack until successfully dodging."

What if the attacker with the long weapon doesn't succeed in his attack roll? The defender with the short weapon wouldn't have to make a dodge roll, so he can't attack on his turn? Or can he automatically slip inside the guard of the long-weapon user?

Think of it this way - I've got a 6 foot long pointy stick and you have a 1 foot long pointy stick. If I have room to manuever, I control the distance we fight at. Even if I miss my attack, you need to slip by the pointy end of my weapon before you can hit me. The rules require you to use an "attack action" and roll Dodge to move into position where you can attack. Once you are inside my guard, I'm the one at a disadvantage since I cannot easily stab you and I need to use an action to back out to my ideal range.

In addition I fear with these rules there will be lots of attacking and dodging just to change who of the opponents is possible to attack the other.

I don't like forcing a dodge skill for closing the distance. I allow players to roll the best of their dodge or current weapon skill to close. If they crit, they get a "normal" attack while doing it. If the defender ever fumbles they can close the gap if they wish as well. I usually have miniatures on the table when we game. One square between figures = long, adjacent squares = medium, sharing a square = short. It's a great visual queue.

I tried to use the rule once but when it didn't work out (the short-weapon user practically unable to attack the long-weapon user), I skipped it and now I am working on some house rules. But maybe I just didn't got how the rule is supposed to work.

The rule allows a dgree of verisimilitude. A guy armed with a spear and room to manuever can easily fend off a person with a shorter weapon. It's not a lot of fun if you're the player armed with a dagger though:) If your players don't like the rule as written and if you think it slows down the combat dump it! An easy way around it is to give a DEX rank bonus for using a long weapon and a penalty for a short. You could also rule that long weapons go first, then medium, then short and have Dex rank within each "length".

Really wish you would have put out more for the BRP system that was hinted at in the book before jumping to something else entirely first.

Seemed like that was always the intent. Chaosium was not interested in publishing. It's explained in this thread.

I'm sorry to see it go to Legend because the quality of the stuff Mongoose puts out is hit or miss and I don't like some of the design choices (oh dear departed resistance table). I will pick up this one as the BRP version was great and I'll happily mine it for ideas.

And my next BRP Mecha campaign will end up including Eva style mecha part way through it, being a BRP hack of CthulhuTech.

I'd be quite interested in any info/notes on BRP CthulhuTech. The setting had a great deal of potential. The rules are not that good (and kind of broken if I am not mistaken), but a BRP conversion would take care of that!

I've never cared for the weapon size and parry rules in OQ,RQ6 or Legend. Historical fencing manuals showed how to parry polearms using a rapier and modern reenactors have shown it can be done: link.

Now I doubt you can parry a giant's club with a penknife either, so I'd just compare the character's SIZ to his opponent. If one guy has a 10 point advantage you cannot Parry his attack and must Dodge instead.

I don't think so (note: I don't own all the Legend books so I'm very likely wrong). Here's what I'd do:

Come up with a table for your basic NPC reactions. Example:

01-05 - Excellent

06-20 - Very Good

21-40 - Good

41-60 - Neutral

61-80 - Poor

81-95 - Bad

96-00 - Very Bad

Roll for the reaction when the encounter takes place. Now the party spokesperson makes an appropriate skill roll. Modify the reaction based on the level of success. Example:

Critical Succsess: Move up 2 levels, minimum reaction is Neutral

Success: Move up 1 level, minimum reaction is Bad

Failure: No change, maximum reaction is Very Good

Fumble: Move down 2 levels, maximum reaction is Neutral

Maybe some nasty creatures like Broo or orcs have a maximum reaction level no matter flattering the characters are?

The thought that this intriguing game is probably sitting around 99% complete apart from the art (as I understand it?), right now on people's hard drives, makes me want to cry.

I'd bet Newt's not just sitting around twiddling his thumbs. I ponied up for the Demi-god level for OQ2 and Savage North, Life & Death and Here Be Dragons were all part of the bundle. As eager as I am for River of Heaven I've decided to not pitch in for kickstarters until the prior stuff is fufilled. No offence Newt - I fully trust you - only way I can keep money for food these days:)

I agree! However I think there might be a problem with spells that affect HPs and other such subsystems, that would prevent this alternative mechanics from being "plug and play" in BRP. Actually my starting idea was, similarly to what you wrote, about STR+SIZ and CON+SIZ being percentile stats/skills (modified by flat weapon and armor bonuses) that are rolled under when an attack is successful, and whose results are compared to determine the condition of the defender.

I think it will impact healing. Level the playing field for the big guys if you follow me.

Frito the halfling has 9 HP. He takes a 3 point wound and is at 1/3 HP. A lucky first aid roll and he is right as rain. Crozan the barbarian has 18 HP. He takes a 6 point wound and is at 1/3 HP. He's still wounded if he gets the same level of treatment. If both characters have a fixed HP, but the halfling "soaks" less with each blow bigger guys will heal up faster instead of the other way around.

I like the idea on the surface. It's similar to the Toughness bonus in Warhammer FRP 2nd edition in that it basically stacks with armor.

Backed! They're closing in on that bestiary - £170 or so to go.

Page 31 "Accepting apotheosis or not, the benefits of Allegiance continue so long as Allegiance exists."

So once you get 100+ more Allegiance, you get the applicable benefits regardless?

I don't have Magic World & it's been ages since I played Elric so please keep that in mind... In Elric you got "allegiance" benefits once you had X points higher than anything else. They were nice perks - extra magic points or hit points or stuff like that. If your level went high enough you could become a champion and things went to the next level. For example, I think champions of chaos were automattically resurrected if they were killed.

I'd read this as if you don't accept Apotheosis you could still keep the lower Allegiance benefits you were entitled to.

Although I'd like to see Aztec/Inca/Maya/Olmec sourcebooks, another role-playing challenge is that the Aztecs, at least, weren't nice people. The Aztec Empire was so oppressive that conquered rival nations flocked to the Spanish Conquistadors as the kinder, gentler alternative.

The Aztecs take the place of your fantasy "Evil Empire". Players are members of smaller kingdoms and tribes fighting against Aztec hegemony.

Related topic - the New Fire RPG just went on sale today. I don't much about this one apart from some pretty cool art and Aztec influence.

+1 to everything tzunder said - especially the bit about OQ powering other games. I bought into OQ2 after seeing the fantastic job Cakebread & Walton did on Clockwork & Chivalry - was very happy they were involved with the OQ2 product as well!

I'd allow them to ignore armour when using as a coup de grace. Daggers and dirks might be too wide or unwieldy to do so.

I take back my previous comment. This is a much better idea:)

So my homebrew scifi fantasy setting has long had giant monsters as well as enormous constructs (war golems) to keep them at bay. <snip>

Also, some of them are odd compared to traditional mecha, only a few are humanoid at all... instead, they're a giant floating head, a clouds of swords, a trio of huge spinning pillars covered in weighted chains, a temple fortress on spidery legs.

I just wanted to pop in here and say this is really cool. I used to really dig the Iron Kingdoms/Warmachine stuff, but this is far more intriguing.

They're thrusting daggers with a square or triangular cross section. I thought the idea was to poke them through the eye slit of your opponent's helm once you had the poor guy knocked on his back. I wouldn't treat them any different from a knife or a dagger depending on size.

Oh, go on then, they sound just the part!

They need a better name though... Hungry Howlers? Howling Hunger?

There are already monkey bats...but you're persuading me that maybe we need to stat monkeys as well...

Monkey Cannibals

Groups of Howler Monkeys living in close proximity to dragons are, over the generations warped by draconic influence into terrible beasts that crave human flesh.

STR 2D6

CON 1D6+2

SIZ 1D4+2

INT 1D4

POW 1D6

DEX 3D6+6

Grapple 30%

Bite 25% (+20% if they have grappled) 1D6+DB

Athletics 75%

Perception (Smell) 60%

I'm really pleased you had Cakebread & Walton do the layout and proofing of this Newt. Their stuff is top notch and I'm sure it will make OQ2 a much better read:)

This is awesome news Christian. Happy to hear you finally got paid for your hard work. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with next!

I take it the Toad in question isn't Mr. Toad of Toad Hall ...

Obviously the guardians of the Toad are Mole, Badger and Ratty. How can we expect Toad to guard himself?