frogspawner

I've not had occasion to convert from 3.x in practice. Base should definitely be in the formula, and you may well be right about Rank x5 coming out too low. Does Base + Rank x10% seem better?

I suspect being ganged up on is bad enough that you don't really need any other penalty! But infinite dodges is almost certainly too good. The -30% rule, as a side-effect, limits the number of parries/dodges per round, so I'd advise keeping that aspect of it (i.e. once per 30% skill).

If your heart's not in the system, forget it. I limped along for many unsatisfying years tweaking D&D - all to no avail. Only making the break to RQ/BRP finally did the trick. Maybe you could run the converted characters as a "taster session" (or adventure, or campaign...). Perhaps on some strange (and perhaps impermanent) "otherworld". Might they stray, briefly, into the Land of Faerie? If they're ok with it, they'll find the whole world oddly 'different' when they get back... (Otherwise, I guess you'd have to revert to 4E. Sigh. If you can afford it...)

Characters will always be more vulnerable in BRP than in D&D. A lot will depend on what magic you make available to patch them up after any "accidents". As a very rough rule of thumb, I'd say 5th level would be about 70% in main skills, i.e. 10% per level + 20%, perhaps? Improvement over a campaign? How long is a piece of string? You're on the frontier of knowledge with this though, so... Good Luck!

I limit the number of ticks to INT. (It's not such an admin overhead, since you only have to assess it when increase-rolls are done, erasing excess ones then). Depending on how many ticks your players tend to amass, that may or may not be a benefit to you. Also, I don't give the '+1/2 INT' bonus on increase-rolls. Instead I have a threshold of '100-INT', rolling over which always gives an increase no matter how high the skill. This slows down increases at lower skills but speeds it up for higher skills, so it may or may not help your situation. Thirdly, if your players seem to be rolling more 6's than are statistically likely , you might consider changing to give a flat +3% per increase instead. (I also rate some skills as harder than normal and give them just +2 or +1 per increase, in fact).

Relevant skills increase by +d8 (or +d10?) instead of the normal +d6?

1) IrfanView seems up to it. 2) "BRP p.XYZ" would do, wouldn't it? 3) Dunno - soz! 4) Or was it something someone else said around here recently?

Alternatively, there's this thread over on the Order of The Stick site (heavily D&D oriented), bemoaning the unrealism of that system's Hit Points mechanism... How Hit Points Ruin SoD - Giant in the Playground Forums So is there hope the tables may yet be turned, one day?

Heretic! :mad: ...There, now that's out of the way, you might as well tell us.

Glad to be of service! :cool:

How about a "Twisted Tolkien" campaign? You're welcome to try an idea I had, when watching the LotR films: What if Elrond had got hold of The Ring when Sauron was (physically) slain? He'd have just chucked it straight in the Cracks of Doom, like he told Isildur, and that would've been that, right? Wrong! IMHO, the power of The Ring should stop anyone being able to do that. So Elrond and his kin would be slowly corrupted over the millenia... Do the possibilities of that fire your imagination at all? I see the Dark Vale of Rivendell populated by monstrous wraith-elves with glowing green eyes, centre of an empire of enslaved sub-races (e.g. gollum-like twisted hobbits), amid shattered remnants of once-allied-then-betrayed human/elven nations, with black magic abounding, Sauron's jealous shade inspiring weird cults... and somewhere Isildur's ghost saying to an old man "I was there Gandalf, three thousand years ago, when the strength of elves failed...".

Well, there's Old - and then there's Venerable...

White Dwarf #25. That's definitely Old School!

I can't review it before it arrives, and don't include me in that round of drinks either - neither of those wouldn't be ethical. :innocent:

Ditto all that. Soz. Yes, I felt exactly the same about the copy in TM Leeds a while back...

Ah, I'd only overlook some vital detail... :ohwell: I'd say, not wanting to re-invent the wheel, the Red Mist should use mechanics like a Fanaticism-type spell and/or Barbarian Berserking. Which I hope to see soon in my hard copies of Tywyll's BRP Magic Monograph and Threedeesix's Sword & Spell, respectively... obtained for reasonable postage and without having to pay twice!

I was mistaken. Thanks for pointing out that PS and putting me right. If the Red Mist hadn't descended first at Dustin's pay twice 'joke'(?), and then Nick's sighing, maybe I would've spotted it for myself. Fingers crossed that does actually lead to wider availability...

That'll be great - if true. But I suspect it's just wishful thinking on your part to believe In Search of the Trollslayer and the other upcoming supplements are in an entirely different business model from BRP Adventures etc. I believe otherwise - that monographs are Chaosium's 'normal print and distribution' method for all things BRP. (Because, amongst other reasons, it says "monograph" on the cover, see? BTW, is it my turn to sigh patronisingly now?)

Yes, really - because MM was just an example of a similar-sized book from Chaosium (I don't actually want MM). So thanks for those links but, unless Patriot/IGUK will also sell stuff like BRP Adventures and the upcoming supplements, then it doesn't help - and, from a quick look, I could only find the BRP core book (£21.99!).

Grind that hope out of yourself, Al - that ain't never gonna happen. (PS: 'soild foundation' didn't annoy me at all. Very apt in the context of Opposed-Roll-Only combat. Thanks for that one!) The mathematics and subtraction are the same, aren't they? And Vorax has already said he's ok with that. But that still leaves unanswered... Disadvantages: you lose criticals and specials (and fumbles?)

Er, these circumstances exist now. Frex, BRP Adventures is currently PDF-only, as are others I believe. I'm talking about books they've already produced - so that's a point in favour of selling it any and every way available! I just calculated this and the "in my hand" price for Malleus Monstrorum would be £34.44. Because for me, there's a large shipping cost to consider - with POD, that would be dramatically reduced. So what are Chaosium doing wrong, that means - even though they're such 'experienced/established' publishers - they don't offer such good service to their customers? :confused: That's not really relevant, since I'm talking about new and upcoming stuff. "Out of Print" only in the sense that Chaosium is unwilling to print the hard-copies to go with the PDFs. Since Chaosium use POD already (when it benefits themselves), there should be no issue over print quality. No need to be defeatist. Just because one idea didn't live up to expectations once, doesn't mean a new idea won't!

Yes, I actually agree with you on that. And the "feel" is very important, imho. (Thought I'd mention the possibility, though, since you might have thought the 'feel' of having to do subtraction was weirder.) Now that's contradictory. Can you please clarify: Are you proposing an On/Off Success/Fail system, or one with some form of Criticals/Specials/Fumbles? How "better"?

It's a bit fiddly. If you're really ignoring Degrees Of Success (special, critical etc), then why not just say the higher roll - that's equal to or under the skill - wins? Also, there'd be no way to get better-than-normal results. So things'd be a bit 'samey'. Related to that, would you still have fumbles? If so, it seems unfair you could do worse than normal, but never better. If not - shame on you! Fumbles are Fun!

So... the reason against Chaosium making their PDF-only items available via POD is to encourage/force customers who actually want printed versions into making-do with PDFs? I can't say I'm terribly sympathetic to that attitude. It seems odd to me they call these promised upcoming BRP supplements "monographs". Aren't they commissioned by Chaosium itself? They seem more like core products. I guess I'll just have to hope Chaosium have sufficient commitment that printed copies will be available, and for long enough so I can get 'em all in one go - and thus afford the postage!

That's a rather different proposal, and would cut Chaosium's margins further - which they obviously wouldn't like. What I'm suggesting is, when they're not printing a book themselves, they make it available via a 3rd-party print-on-demand service. That'd cost them nothing as far as I'm aware, and might even get them a little bit more money...