Redge

Most MERP campaign and adventure books have a section on stat and abilities conversion to D20 and 3d6 based games IIRC. I assume that was to support D&D and Runequest folks in the 80's.

Thanks everyone :-) I would have liked a set of 'ready to run' linked scenarios in a modern but not futuristic setting. Failing that I'm thinking of using the setting from the S.T.A.L.K.E.R video game - http://stalker.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page and developing stats for the anomalies and artifacts.

Can anyone recommend a modern or near future setting for BRP (or derivative) rules? My group want to do some gaming with firearms.

Yes I thought that looked odd. So the wizard should have more spells?

Cool. I'll check it out. Thanks

Good point about the 'god-like wizards'. If you give your Magic using character high INT they'll be able to memorise plenty of spells (INT/2) and a high POW plus a staff (or some other PP holding device) will give you lots of juice. The high INT will also help with max level of each spell that you can cast (INT/2 again). Then learn broadsword to 75% (like Gandalf) and no one will mess with you ;-)

That's what I'd hoped and I like the bit about the idea roll too :-) Son #1 is running Troll Slayer soon for me and son #2. Happy days! Thanks.

Page 89, Casting Time paragraph says - "Spells each cost a single DEX rank to cast per level of the magic spell and are considered to be an attack action for that combat round" Page 189, Power Use paragraph says - "Most powers require exactly one full combat round to prepare and use, with their effects occurring at the beginning of the next combat round during the powers phase" Does a magic user in melee get to cast one spell per combat round as page 89 seems to suggest or one spell every other combat round as page 189 seems to suggest? Interested to here your thought.

If you don't use the optional hit locations rule another way to house rule shields so that they benefit a character in a one on one combat is to have them work like a helm does (helms add 1 point to the characters armor value). The point costs could be: Small Shield +1 AP Medium Shield +2 AP Large Shield +3 AP This feels more abstract fits in well with the core rules for hit point totals and is certainly easier in play. Realism fans would say that not all blows hit the shield, however the same could be said for the helm +1 AP bonus which IIRC is a core rule.

Really like this one.

That's fair enough, I've ended up house ruling it to get a satisfactory result. See post #112 for the details and the maths! Your house rule didn't affect the chances of parrying the first attack for the fighter who has a shield. That was the crucial point for me, I wanted a shield using character to be better defended than a non-shield using one, even if they were only fighting one opponent.

I really liked this idea initially until I consider that a 50% shield skill will always parry (a normal attack). You others ideas are workable I think and have lead to our house rule which is this: You can attempt to parry an attack with your weapon and if that fails you get a second chance if you have a shield. This way the chance of parrying is increased for the shield using fighter. Those who consider two parries per attack too powerful could make the second parry (the shield one) difficult. This still gives the shield using fighter the edge over the non-shield user. So given the fighter from the original example here's the probabilities. sword parry shield parry chance of both events pass 50% fail 70% 35% pass 50% pass 30% 15% fail 50% pass 30% 15% fail 50% fail 70% 35% Adding up the chance from the first three (cos they all result in a parry) we see that the chance of parrying is 65%, 15% better than if the sam fighter just uses a sword.

Sorry but you have this wrong. As the rules are written the second parry or dodge would be at -30% making the shield parry 0%. So it would still be better to use the sword and once again the shield is of little benefit in BRP.

A warrior with 50% sword skill fighting an orc can parry successful blows with his sword using the 50% sword skill. So on average he'll be successful in parrying half of the orc's successful blows. Now try the same situation but the warrior also has a shield with skill 30%. I can't see anywhere in the rules where the shield increases the defence (i.e. increases the chance to parry) of the warrior and yet intuition tells me that this time he should be able to parry more than half of the orc's successful blows. Any thoughts on the above? Possible options: a) allow one shield parry attempt per round for those PCs and NPCs that have equipped a shield. This is in addition to the parry/dodge action. or Add the skills together when making the parry attempt. i.e. in the example above the parry would be at 80%. This would seem to make shields too effective.

No worries Foen, if you're like me you probably have the rule systems for 50+ RPG an table top games floating around in your head! Thanks for everyones help on this thread. My players are now well into the second adventure in The Trolls of Misty Mountains module and it's going great with the BRP rules with minimal work from myself except for reading the module before hand and converting the major NCPs. We rolled the players (2 of them) up at Heroic level and they're dealing the troll and orc infested mines despite been out numbered. I'd say that the BRP orcs aren't as tough going as the MERP ones though.