Questbird

Nice to know. I think there's a difference between a Successful Parry vs. Failed Attack and Successful Attack vs. Failed Parry. I've done a rework of the attack/parry matrix incorporating the minor parry rule at: Revised attack parry matrix.

I think I've killed two threads now by mentioning the Tirileku riposte idea. I'm going for a record!

If you like ripostes, think they should be more accessible to the less-skilled masses and don't mind a bit of extra dice rolling: Allow a 'minor' riposte on a successful parry vs a failed attack roll. (The attacker has left an opening which the defender may exploit) The riposter needs to roll less than the score he rolled to parry. He has to use the parrying shield or weapon. The riposte can be dodged, or parried by the attacker's off-hand weapon only. Performing a minor riposte gives the riposter a 10% additional penalty to Parry rolls for the rest of the round. The extra dice rolling comes because you roll Parry dice even if an attack misses. Normal ripostes as described in the rules and above in this thread are unaffected by the addition of minor ripostes. (I got this idea from Dave Morris' free Tirikélu Tékumel game.)

The old Flying Buffalo Citybooks had a pretty good rough guide for strength of NPCs, dividing fighting prowess and magic ability into five grades: Poor -- (01-40%) unfamilar with combat, easily wounded or killed Average (41-59%) run of the mill type, no hero Fair -- (60-74%) better than average and will acquit himself adequately Good -- (75-84%) can go one-on-one with seasoned fighters V. Good (85-95%) this person can cause a lot of trouble in combat Excellent (96-100%) if blood is spilled, it's not likely to come from this character and of course, for those who play Elric! I can add: Master (101%+) champion level So, in answer to the original post, you can judge both your characters and the opposition according to this scale (bearing in mind that most bad guys will probably be in the lower part of the chart). Works for magic ability too.

I agree. The current 'monster manuals' available for BRP are heavily slanted towards Runequest or Call of Cthulhu. An alternative 'monster manual' might sell independently of CF. I also second the desire for a small rulebook. For me, Elric! was perfect but the BGB was unwieldy.

Cthulhu Rising is a great hard science fiction game, very ALIENS like and it is posible to completely ignore the Cthulhu mythos stuff. It has good psionics rules too.

The Lucky Trinkets article is great thanks, Chaot! The Bronze Grimoire isn't so much a new magic system (except for the rune magic), but it has a lot of cool spells. It's worth getting. Corum is really well-put together thing, though I haven't really used it in my campaign. I haven't tried the Green yet. If you just want spell lists, Call of Cthulhu's Dreamlands supplement is also a good source.

There are lots I'd like to use. Those I actually use (none of which are technically 'BRP'): Cthulhu Rising for the psychic powers Runequest 3, Call of Cthulhu, Dreamlands, Bronze Grimoire for spells (also ICE Spell Law) Elric! for rules, and Sailing on the Seas of Fate for maritime

Hmm, a quite valid interpretation and fewer dice rolls required. Let's run those numbers with Aldo the Subnificent (POW 15): First your method: grade 1 - 75% grade 2 - 60% grade 3 - 45% grade 4 - 30% grade 5 - 15% And then mine: grade 1 - 75% grade 2 - 75% x 75% = 56.25% grade 3 - 75% x 75% x 75% = 42.19% grade 4 - 75% x 75% x 75% x 75% = 31.64% grade 5 - 75% x 75% x 75% x 75% x 75% = 23.73% Interesting. Yours is slightly easier for the lower grade spells and mine is slightly easier for the higher grades. One advantage of the multi-roll system is the unknown and variable Magic Point cost (1D6 for successful, 1 point for failure) so the sorcerer never quite knows how draining a spell attempt will be. It's less mathematics but more dice rolling. You also feel like more of a champion if you get five Luck rolls in a row ;-)

I think the un-Moorcockian part of the Maelstrom system is its emphasis on natural effects. Moorcock was more in favour of flashy scintillating protoplasms of Chaos and bizarre summoned beings.

I didn't even know about it. My reference all these years has been my dog-eared 1984 paperback edition of the game.

Hi Chaot. I've added a brief summary of the Maelstrom magic system in response to the BRP on Hârn thread (http://basicroleplaying.com/basic-roleplaying/brp-h-rn-magic-system-use-2882/, response #5). We talked about it years ago on another forum. It's not very Moorcockian at all but it's a great system so you can add it to your list.

Okay I have to respond to this thread. There is an old out-of-print game called Maelstrom (set in 17th century England) which has an excellent magic system which is perfect for Hârn. Since you probably won't find the game around* I'll summarise the system here, including how I adapted it to BRP. I've used it successfully in Hârn and in my own Newhon campaign. The Maelstrom magic system There are no specific spells, just one generic Magic skill. Magic is situational and based on probability of an event occurring. When a mage wishes to cast a spell, the referee gives it a level of difficulty: 1. Probable. Things which might happen normally eg, a person tripping 2. Unlikely. Thing which could happen by accident but which are unlikely 3. Highly unlikely. 4. Wildly improbable. eg, crazy physical feats or strokes of incredible luck 5. Impossible in nature. eg, flying people, talking to dead men etc. The mage rolls against his Magic skill - (10% x grade of spell) If he fails he can't remember the incantation and there is no effect. If he succeeds he makes a POW x5 roll for each grade of the spell. For each one that succeeds he loses 1D6 Magic Points; for each one that fails he loses 1 Magic Point. If all succeed the spell works. That's the basics. This system works well in Hârn or any low-power or historical game for a number of reasons: 1. It is subtle. Did magic *really* happen or was it just a freak of nature/the will of the gods? Spell effects tend to be more 'natural-looking'. 2. It encourages tactical use of spells, and the same spells may vary in their difficulty depending on circumstances. A freak wave washing away your enemies would be Impossible (or at least Wildly Improbable) in the desert, but might be merely Unlikely on a rocky promontory by a stormy ocean. You can vary the system by how expensive magic is to cast. There are also specialist mages who study a particular realm of influence (eg. fire magic) for whom the difficulty grade is reduced by one when casting spells related to their specialty. It is great little system which encourages cleverness, inventiveness and roleplaying (or at least tactics and positioning) from mage players. * Actually it *is* being reprinted; there's a pdf available at Maelstrom - Arion Games | Maelstrom | RPGNow.com)

I still use the Elric! rules in my campaign but I don't use Moorcock's Young Kingdoms (mine is in Leiber's world of Nehwon). It's an excellent set of rules in a slim volume. It's also out of print. But the good news is that Chaosium is reprinting the rules in the form of Magic World (shame about the name though) this year. Chaot is right about the old edition of Stormbringer. It is great fun, random and deadly. I had a copy from Games Workshop (UK) with terrible binding that eventually fell apart.

Cthulhu Rising without the Cthulhu or FTL drives would be my pick, though End Time is also not bad. I too am interested in a Solar System based science fiction BRP game.

I ran a successful campaign based on River of Cradles where I basically plucked the whole region from Glorantha and put it in Nehwon (Greg that!). To me it was just a great campaign setting begging to be used, and I didn't care to use the rest of Glorantha. Plus I've been running games in Nehwon for twenty years and didn't want to change venues. I blogged about the experience here: http://scrollsoflankhmar.com/blog_archive/2010/08/15/challenges-of-using-runequest-glorantha-adventures-in-a-nehwon-setting/ and the campaign notes are here: http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/nehwon/wikis/troubled-waters-campaign-sessions

Venemous Pao's 'step-up' idea might be a good one for skills if you want pure mechanical balance. I think the benefits of being a PSH would be more in the setting than the characters. Ancient technology, especially biotech, biosecurity or medical technology, would be more effective on pure human characters. You could make these things relatively common in the setting, but discarded as useless by non-humans. Vehicles, etc. are made for human sizes and physiology. But as in Rubble and Ruin, it is the transhumans who have the edge when it comes to pure survival.

OpenQuest has The Company coming out soon, a modern setting with a huge list of weaponry. Also possibly of use to you is the excellent Rubble & Ruin Chaosium monograph, which also has an extensive list of modern and post-modern weapons.

I've seen it too. Someone called Mark from Oxford (username 'd(sqrt(-1))') had been in contact with Sandy Petersen in 2009 about revising the BRP Tekumel rules: http://www.gamingtavern.eu/tav/viewtopic.php?p=20314 and http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?455666-Tekumel-Calling-out/page9 Nothing much seems to have come of it, though there was this tantalising fragment from the author in July 2010: Ok, in 3 sessions we've gone from players who knew nothing, to now being quite ok with clan-structures, the importance of etiquette and how you present things to people, Chlen-hide weapons and armour, low levels of metal and no stars in the sky. They have met and interacted with Shen, Pe Choi, Ayhogga, Mrur, Vorodla, Ru'un and Hra - re the last two particularly they were very lucky both times and managed to escape with no casualties. They've also had contact with Temples of Thumis, Ksarul, Hrihayal, Sarku and probably soon Belkhanu. They've picked up an Eye (but don't yet know what it does as it is labelled in Ancient Llyani), a Golden Disc of Advancing to Glory (ditto), and the shaman has "acquired" an android (Yeleth) lover (although they don't know that, and think she might be undead instead) - she was found inert in one of a pair of crystal caskets and they woke her up (at a cost in permanent POW). They've also seen a Hrihayal party of priestesses and Temple guards depart on a mission in a tubeway car, have accidentally run into a patch of Food of the Ssu, and spent some time in tunnels worried about what might be round the next corner. They currently have plans to rent a clanhouse in the Foreigner's Quarter, develop some trade so they can get the rest of their tribe over, and want to form their own clan with a view to getting it eventually accepted by the Empire. So far no-one has said it's too complicated, too weird or there's too much info...

I know it's BRP/CoC but John Ossoway's psionics rules in 'Cthulhu Rising' are pretty good, and come in a roundabout way from original Traveller, so they might be usable with his permission.

I understand where Chaot is coming from. Sure you can write a setting yourself, but that also takes quite a bit of grey matter storage and time. The advantage of a published setting which is internally consistent is that the GM can have some clue if players say "What's over there?" while pointing to some obscure bit of the map.

I still play Elric! in the world of Nehwon (by Fritz Leiber) and various intersecting planes (most recently a stint in HP Lovecraft's Dreamlands). Elric!'s elegant combat system and mechanics, slim rulebook and dark-tinged play cannot be beaten. The magic system left a little to be desired, and needed tweaking for my campaign (a topic Chaot and I have discussed at length in different forums over the years). Even if you don't use the Young Kingdoms setting (as I did not) the Digest of generic NPCs was also very useful -- I wish more BRP supplements did the same. I have Darcsyde's Corum book (I think that was a Chaot recommendation too -- thanks) and it's very interesting. I use it for some of the elder races.

Gianni Vacca´s excellent Celestial Empire not only states that ¨in Asia, magic and religion are inseparable¨, but it also lists 13 religious allegiances (drawn from real-world religions) and how to gain/lose allegiance points from each. I´ve only briefly played with Glorantha and RQ3 (the River of Cradles campaign) but I reckon you could do the same, maybe not for every cult and subcult, but for groups of deities like the Lunar Pantheon or the Praxian Storm gods or something. Maybe you could come up with particular allegiance rules for gods which your players actually follow too.

Since there hasn't been much response to this angle in the thread (sorry, only just noticed your post Rodney418), I will agree. I also came at it from an Elric! point of view. I use a similar system. With a successful (normal) parry vs. a critical attack I apply damage to the weapon (the parry was successful after all!) If the damage exceeds the weapon's hit points it breaks and any excess is applied to the defender. However if a shield is used to parry, only damage above the shield's hit points damage it. Examples: Critical hit does 22 points of damage vs. normal parry with sword (18HP) -- sword broken and 4 points of damage to defender same hit vs. normal success shield parry (shield 20HP) -- shield split, loses 2HP permanently, defender safe for now This is similar to the effect of fighting with weapons not designed to parry; every hit damages them. For weapons made to parry, only criticals do. This rule makes shields slightly better protection against criticals and more durable as a parrying device, without increasing a user's skill with them or otherwise messing with the -30% per parry/dodge rule.