Questbird

I've downloaded it and I'll check it out

I've talked about a hitpointless combat system (derived from Fire and Sword) elsewhere on this forum which is an extreme version of this: a hit either knocks you out of the fight (whether through concussion, shock, terror, or serious injury is only relevant later), or not, in which case you can keep fighting with no penalty. There's no Death Spiral and no death from a thousand cuts; conversely each hit could be the end of you -- for this fight.

I bought Clockwork and Chivalry for the period details -- and their difference from 'standard' medieval fantasy, the firearms rules and the existing campaign. I found it pleasantly reminiscent of a blend of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Maelstrom. I'd love for it to have more campaigns or adventures.

The problem is not that they change, it's that the published sources -- which players and GMs use during the game -- don't. I guess you could print out a revised datasheet or something to overcome that though.

You can increase the speed of skill advancement by increasing the die roll. BGB generally has 1D6 per successful skill roll, but Elric! uses 1D10 by default (I think the impending end of the world hurries everything along). I use a house rule that if you get a critical success or a fumble you immediately get a 1 point skill increase (you also get a tick for an experience check if the skill succeeded). That way you don't have to keep track of individual rolls.

Hmm. I don't use hit locations so this is not a problem for me. However I see your point (so to speak). The main problem is that any change which overrides published damage ratings for weapons becomes a royal pain to use in play, when you want to quickly look something up.

I allow experience rolls once per session, at the end, regardless of whether the adventure is finished. I also allow checks if a couple of weeks of game time go by in a session (I think the rules support this one). At the moment I play an RPG session only once per month, so it's a long time between drinks if you only get experience checks at the end of a whole adventure.

So you have an issue with the pluses on damage dice for all weapons? Why are they such a problem? I can see that with bullet wounds it's possible to have light or heavy wounds. But melee weapons ARE stopped by armour, so is their damage still a problem with the adds?

Well, this is a BRP thread.

This seems like another simple fix. I mean that in a good way. To summarise: 1.) Increase the variability in gunshot damage to allow for grazes and clean punctures as well as lethal shots. 2.) Make armour worthless (or half worthless as in Swords of Cydoria) vs. firearms. 3.) If you take any damage, make a CONx5 roll to avoid bleeding 1hp per hour/minute/combat round depending on normal/special/critical success until staunched by a successful First Aid roll (perhaps difficult if self-applied).

Swords of Cydoria, which is admittedly a pulpy swords and blasters game rather than a realistic firearm simulation, simply halves the rating of armour vs. firearms. It makes armour ineffective and makes the weapon damage for firearms more important.

'Twas me. Tékumel is a super-detailed and beloved game world without a live game system (well, except for small systems like Béthorm and Tirikelu). Mythras Imperative is a flexible game system which can cope with different worlds.

Ray Turney's Fire and Sword is a very interesting set of rules which can be downloaded from this forum. Among the various clever rules Ray came up with -- he was very interested in cutting bookkeeping during play -- were some herbalism rules for characters like yours (my campaign has one too). Basically such characters are considered to always be gathering this or that (easier away from cities). Fire and Sword has tables to determine which potions can be made. It doesn't have rules for how much these things weigh, but I guess it comes down to encumbrance rules. Most characters have some equipment which takes care to handle or transport, whether it is keeping flint and tinder dry or keeping your blade sharpened and oiled. So I'd only penalise the character if they were trying to transport way too much. Powders, dried herbs, leaves, pastes, solids; these don't weigh too much, especially if very potent, and could account for many of the preparations. Here's the herbalism/potions rules: Procedure Once per day the herbalist can make a luck roll (Difficult near cities) to find useful herbs for potions. If successful he can roll on the Herbalism table below. A critical result gets three rolls. Preparation time Fresh herbs must be prepared for use in potions. The preparation time is: 1d8-1 x (roll D6: 1 = minutes, 2-4 = days, 5-6 = weeks) Herbalism table Roll Effect Doses 1-3 Cure Specific Disease I potion {which disease is determined by plot, or roll randomly} 1D3 4 Cure Specific Disease II potion {which disease is determined by plot, or roll randomly} 1 5-7 Heal Potion {cures Flesh rot and also has the effect of a normal Heal spell} 1D3 8-9 Greater Heal Potion {as above, but has the effect of a Greater Heal spell} 1D3 10 Heal Body Potion {as above, but has the effect of Heal Body and Cure Flesh Rot II combined 1 11-12 Blade venom – +25% to incapacitate, +25% to lethality, if any damage gets through 1D3 13-14 Bitter plant poison, if you can a person to ingest a dose {usually by forcing it down them}, they will die unless a (Difficult Constitution) roll is made, but people usually won’t east this stuff. Characters who survive a dose are seriously wounded 1D3 15 Tasteless plant poison – victim dies if unless a Constitution roll is made – and is seriously wounded otherwise 1 16 Sleeping draught – tasteless – any character who takes this goes into a natural deep sleep, and will awaken at dawn the day after his or her player makes a constitution roll. 1 17-18 Shamanic skill enhancer – if a treated form of this plant is smoked the smoker is +15% on all shamanic skills rolls, and on Power rolls for purposes of spirit combat 1 19 Berserker plant – the character who eats this plant is affected by an effect which is treated for rules purposes as if it were the Battle Frenzy divine spell 1 20 Roll on Rare Herbalism Table NA Rare Herbalism table Roll Effect Doses 1 Revivify Potion – burn seven doses around a body and it comes back to life 1D3 2-3 Beeswax from rare species of bees, each dose creates 1 candle which can be burnt a rate which releases 5 sorcery magic points per hour, for four hours. 1D3 4-5 Awareness potion – a character that drinks this becomes hyper alert for 12 hours. Character cannot sleep 1D3 6-7 Potion of Dispossession – any character who drinks this will have attacking spirits Banished as if a Banish III spell were cast at them 1 8 Panacea potion {treat as Panacea spell} 1 9-11 Trickster shape shifting potion – roll 1D6 to determine form; 1 is cat, 2 is raven, 3 is turtle, 4 is rabbit, 5 is sheep, 6 is worm. Shape shift lasts for one day. 1 12 Trickster sex change potion – a male character who consumes this becomes female, and vice versa 1 13-14 Shamanic skill enhancer – if a treated form of this plant is smoked the smoker is +25% on all shamanic skills rolls, and on Power rolls for purposes of spirit combat. Discorporation automatically succeeds 1 15-16 Any character who smokes this receives a blessing from his or her deity – all divine spells are regained and a divination {treat as the Divination I spell} is cast on his behalf 1 17 Potion of Magic Resistance – drinker is immune to hostile spells unless the caster rolls a critical 1 18-19 Luck charm – when a character is asked for a luck roll and has time to consume the potion, consuming the potion replaces the luck roll 1 20 Universal antidote. Character who consumes this will find all effects of poisons negated. If drunk, character becomes sober. 1D3 The herbalism tables are from Ray Turney’s Fire and Sword

Now you're getting into hitpoint-less combat territory..

Atgxtg mentioned his formulas helpfully in another thread about fighting huge creatures:

On the topic of comic adaptations, how about the world of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind? Airships, gliders, ceramic swords, giant insects, toxic forests, politics, religion, ancient artifacts from a forgotten apocalyptic war.

One way to think of it is that Combat Styles allow you to purchase two or more combat skills for the price of one (if you choose to learn weapons governed by the Combat Style) during character generation but after that the skills develop separately. That's how I would use the concept In BRP; you would just use normal experience checks to advance in each skill. In Mythras you'd have to spend separate Improvement points on each weapon. Or you could leave it as it is but make sure that reasonably similar weapons were covered by the Combat Style (rather than bow and sword or whatever). Disclaimer: not (yet) a Mythras player.

Heroic hit points are designed to have heroes standing up in a hail of bullets while blazing away and mowing down dozens of bad guys. It works when the bad guys also have very un-heroic hit points. Firearms already have the advantages that they can't be dodged and armour is ineffective against them. There aren't really 'bleed out' rules in BRP except for the slashing weapons special. I guess this thread is expressing dissatisfaction with the current firearm rules?

The map of the town on the front is very pretty.

Thanks! I didn't know about Cthulhu Reborn. I've downloaded those two; they look good.

I don't know which one I got but I was quite pleased. It had a Dreamlands scenario (which I like to collect) and an interesting campaign by Kevin Ross, who also wrote The Dreaming Stone which I cannibalised extensively for a fantasy campaign. As well as a scenario by Oscar Rios who I think did Ripples From Carcosa. And a Cthulhu encyclopedia thing which I haven't really looked at.

I wouldn't do it that way, but I suppose there are more powerful forms of lightning out there. So you could make the spell more unlikely (which would, coincidentally require more POW) to have a super-powerful lightning strike, or one which affected many targets, or particular targets only while sparing others. All of these effects are still 'possible' and therefore less difficult to cast than a grade 5 'impossible' spell.

I always like new Dreamlands scenarios.

A lightning strike called by this system would most likely happen during a natural thunderstorm at a high place, and in such circumstances I would rule it Probable or perhaps Unlikely (I think if the wizard had managed to get to high ground and wait for the storm I would say Probable, to throw him a bone). As for how much damage -- it would be the same as a natural lightning strike, which I don't think is modeled by rules. Some people survive them; some people die instantly. You could say something like 6D6 damage plus 2D6 if they're wearing metal armour. But that's just me ruling as if I were GM'ing it. Also a natural lightning strike could possibly be dangerous to others in the immediate area of the target.

Oh, OK.