frogspawner

Standard magic/sorcery systems should reward character skill with greater control over the magics they release.

Having played around with this sort of thing for ages, I'm currently using a system like this:

Critical: No PP cost, one effect doubled (caster's choice [if damage, it should just be maximized])

Special: No PP cost, normal effect

Success: Normal PP cost, normal effect

Failure: Normal PP cost, half effect [though I'm toying with full effect, double cost]

Fumble: Roll on fumble table (and unless it says otherwise the spell fails and is lost from memory, at normal PP cost)

Modifying the PP cost by another roll would slow down play. Unreliable/unpredictable effects can be dangerous to spell-casters anyway, even without causing damage directly, so that seems a bit severe to me (although I do take a similar approach with excessive PP cost due to fumbles).

How about having a magic fumbles table...?

Or even (modest cough), how about the Magic Fumbles table already in the Wiki?

Please do. It could be useful to quite a few people out there (I hope!).

We should have conversions to BRP (from as many systems as possible!) in the Wiki. Would the Characters section be most suitable?

I'm not familiar with either of those. How do they work?

I'm using a system where there's only one skill for magic/psi (rather than one skill for each individual spell/ability) and if the roll fails then they have half effect (rather than none). Is that the sort of thing you mean?

I definitely created a terrible monster...

Be proud, it's a useful monster. It's helped make the point that Swim can be so contentious that it should always be on the character sheet, to avoid such disputes in play. Right?

:focus:

...so, we now have proof that inherent ability to swim (or lack of it) could cause arguments!

That's why Swim should be printed on the sheet, so everyone can see what their character can do (or can't)...

First of all, anyone having played BRP games long enough knows that player characters end up having wagonloads of power batteries.

Not necessarily. Whether such things exist at all is a GM's campaign decision. The new BRP doesn't really mention them, aside from Magicians Familiars/Staffs and the dedicated power point reservoirs for magic items (with the implication they'd only be for powering the item function).

I myself am coming to the conclusion that power-point 'battery' items should be very rare indeed (for balance) - making them even more special.

Remember, we were writing about that desert nomad setting without any opportunity to learn or use swimming.

I think the discussion was more general than that. But even so, it would be a failure of imagination to think a character originating in such a setting could never find themselves in a situation where Swim might be relevant. (The space-farers might have to flush-out an alien from the station's water tanks or the GM might see it as relevant to Zero-G manouevering; the nomads might suffer flash-floods or raid a decadent imperialists bath-house...). And so it should be listed on the character sheet, if only to draw the players' attention to the fact they can't do it - so they've had fair warning.

Well, I'm going to bother with it simply because I want to stick close to the BRP RAW!

I presume it's there because it's "traditional" to have some such constraints in these games. Yes, probably Vancian in origin. It is quite limiting, but I'm hoping it won't prove too severe. At least it's not spell-levels! And remember that spells can be cast almost as fast (1r/lvl) from your 'grimoire' (which needn't be a book, if you take the option from Sorcery, but could be a staff or whatever...). It's these sort of difficulties that give characters interesting choices, and make life interesting.

Sorcery is more generous (INT rather than INT/2). Perhaps that's to make up for Sorcery spells being slower to cast.

Well, we handle it the other way, what is not listed is not there...

Which is perfectly fine, except for Swim. That's the one skill that is so fundamental (and potentially life-saving) that players really should have to "contract out" of spending any skill points on at character creation, if they dare. Then they've only themselves to blame.

All are sensible solutions - though using all at once may be over-complex. 1 probably doesn't work so well in BRP as under RQ, unless using the SR option since DEX-ranks won't produce ties so often; 2 leaves you needing to define "sensible" (and what constitutes a rhino); 3 I prefer, since halving non-shield AP isn't too much work.

I fail to see any practical difference between a skill listed at 0 % and a skill not listed at all.

Ah, with it listed at 0% the player knows he can't swim. (And so can't say "oh that's silly, of course I can swim" - and try to wangle more skills than he cared to spend his points on).

Add the rules from old RQ, and they become more worthwhile. But only if you use hit-locations.

How do you mean?

I'd only print a very limited list of skills on the character sheet, and let others be filled-in manually. The vital ones (though as stated this could vary by setting) would be:

Weapons (space for several)

Dodge

Speak & R/W Own Language

Swim

First Aid

Climb

Ride

Spot

Listen

Others are better left off, because attention should be drawn to these when choosing skills.

It has been argued that parries, even with shields, are not necessarily a full block but can be just deflection. Deflecting a charging rhino seems unlikely, though - so in that case, even if the damage were stopped, the shield-user could still suffer knockback...

I must admit I'm not a fan of the "all-or-nothing" approach to parries given in the new book, either (which is what gives rise to this problem).

If you're going to houserule it, might I suggest you try something like this...?

Parries only block damage up to the AP of the parrying weapon/shield (the rest gets through); and non-shields only have half the listed AP.

Alternatively, just remember that Magic spells are all POW v POW, but Sorcery spells are all PP v PP (except "Curse of Sorcery" and "Summon Demon"). Hmmm...

Certainly you could make it more complicated for yourself by giving mooks patchwork armor, but why?

Well personally, I'm hoping it'll give players a tactical aim-for-the-legs (or whatever) option. (As well as let players customize their own armour, if they wish - but still have "interesting" armour if they don't).

I am rather fond of having two versions of chainmail, the long sleeved one and the short sleeved one, with the additional variation of not using trews under the skirt, thus leaving the distal part of the limbs covered by cloth or leather only. According to various history sourcebooks, as well as the armor crafters for LARPs, the short-sleeved, trew-less versions were fairly common. The stats for these variants, that made up most armors used in Europe till the 13th century, are present in Stupor Mundi.

I'm hoping to model just that sort of thing. (No, not in the catwalk sense!)

I also saw a reference (C&S) saying there were different qualities of chainmail (perhaps layering), but I wasn't going to worry about that.

Of course you have a problem there, because the hit location system does not allw you to determine if you have hit, say, the leg or the thigh, you do not know whether the target is protected by mail or by leather. Not wanting to make an additional roll, in this case I use the average system suggested above, for a total protection of 3 on limbs instead of 5 (would be 5 instead of 7 in BRP which has higher armor values).

Well, I'm not intending to use hit location rolls most of the time. But if someone aimed for a location, hit it, and that location has different armours (like mailed thigh but leathered knee/calf) then I'd roll for sub-location - but it would still be just one location roll.

RQ3 also had locational armour with ENC and cost for each type of armour for locations. So it had the best of both worlds - an easy to use/buy set of armour and crunchier location armour rules.

I didn't find RQ3's approach as satisfying, because you could get any armour for any location. In RQ2 it was more restricted - notably, you couldn't get plate for the abdomen.

It also makes it harder to work out what the AP should be if you are not using hit locations. Should somebody wearing a full suit of armour have the same protection as someone wearing half a suit of armour?

Yes, hence the idea to work out some "standard" heterogeneous suits. And before doing that work, I thought I'd ask here! (Hmmm... I hadn't considered the front half only before, though...)

As to weak spots, I wonder how the rules deal with armour that has been damaged, by acid for example. With locations, acid only affected one location, leaving the rest on full APs. Without locations it should affect the whole suit.

Two ways, it seems. Under the Acid spot rule, armour becomes useless after d6 rounds; under Armour Destroyed, which includes by acid, AP is halved... :ohwell:

To come up with weighted averages that produce reasonable-seeming suits (e.g. "chainmail" that consists mainly of a chainmail hauberk, plus minor extras), I think I'd have to take liberties with the hit locations table(s) - increasing chest to about 15%, say.

:focus: Going back to hit locations...

RQ2 armour came in a hotch-potch of different pieces, covering various locations, rather than complete "suits" assumed to be uniform all over the body like BRP/RQ3. It felt realistic, and was fun to work out in a way.

But same-AP-all-over suits lose some of the realism, and much of the point of having locations.

Therefore I intend to define some non-homoeneous suits. But I don't want the hassle of rolling location all the time, so I'll use the weighted average AP, and only use locations if someone aims (see the spot rule) for a specific loation - which I expect will be more frequent, given the opportunity to hit weak spots in opponents' armour.

Anyone know any pitfalls with this? Or has anyone already done it? (And could I see your armour-suit deinitions, please? )

Couldn't you just put a 'P' or a 'PP' next to the power on the character sheet to delineate which measurement to use?

Good idea. Cheers!

The gist of the advice I provided was for the GM in coming up with new powers, not letting players decide how those powers worked on a case-by-case basis.

Granted, and thanks for it. It makes perfect sense. I just mean, when we're trying to remember which (POW/PP) applies to an existing power.

I think Jason is saying something more along the lines of, "Trust your gut," not "Look something up."

And now we know the principle, we can. But I just worry that player's "gut feel" will often be for whichever is most advantageous to them, leading to disputes, leading to looking things up anyway...