NickMiddleton

It has been mooted before - and you forgot to include magic from Nephilim and the system from the Unknown East for Elric!. If you feel up to putting a solid proposal in front of Dustin, go for it. Personally, I'd pitch it as a full distribution book rather than a monograph, and it probably needs to take account of some of the other monographs (Witchcraft, the Grimoire, the Green) that have been released as well. Personally however whilst I agree the errata should have been applied to the former RQIII material, I'm quite happy that they remain available as-is, provided it's made clearer in the catalogue that they are basically elements of an earlier version of the system made available for convenience. Cheers, Nick

Can't think of any pitfalls other than you might want to look at how magic will interact. I'm currently running a heroic fantasy BRP game that's largely SB5 / BRP core (the core elements of the BRP Big Gold Book most resemble SB5) and it's working fine. Funnily enough, I'm using RQIII magic... Nick

I think, if you have the spare cash, the PDF's are well worth picking up: you get all the content of the GW books in decent OEF PDF, not scans, so whatever happens to you GW books you have the game. AND you can print out extracts etc as you wish - and with a decent PDF reader you can cut and paste the extracts in to other documents (for you personal use only, obviously)... Obviously, they aren't essential purchases, and I'm clearly biased# but they are quite useful. Cheers, Nick # I own the GW three hard backs edition of RQIII (plus supplements), the AH Standard Edition and Deluxe boxed sets, the AH Deluxe Soft back book, the original 2004 BRP b&w card cover tape bound monographs AND the more recent PDF's... plus I have photocpoies of the Players, magic and Gamemasters books from the AH Deluxe set.

Yes. All references to Glorantha and RuneQuest have been removed, but otherwise they are the same text as was in the AH Deluxe RQ boxed set - irritatingly, this means they DON'T include the errata... Depending on the PDF viewer you use, the layout seems to have been tidied up a bit from the "BRP Monograph" versions that were published back in '04 in the original b&w tape-bound monograph format. Cheers, Nick

Love SB1 - my brother and I ran it a LOT in the early to mid eighties and it is the reason BRP is my go to system of choice. Not sure I'd run it as is now - I actually really like SB5 / Elric!, or the baseline BRP of the Big Gold Book. But SB is the only game (besides Chaosium's RQII/III) which I have "collected" to the point of having a copy of every edition - and only Elric! and SB1 did I bother to get multiple copies to make sure I had a good / complete set, as it were. And the SB1 version of the Young Kingdoms / Elric saga is still the one I prefer (none of the later eighties / nineties additions to the saga, Bakshaan is a seaport etc etc...) Nick

Per the stats on page 355+ they are not "nearly unstoppable" - and the Magician only gets the elemental for 10 combat rounds and CANNOT do anything else during those ten rounds ("For the duration of the spell, the elemental must be directed with your character’s full attention.") - and I'd argue that said elemental can't go further than 12 meters from the Magician either... Generally, the spell descriptions tell you, but Conjure Elemental doesn't - so logically extrapolating on that basis from other spell descriptions I'd say each additional level over 1 for a Conjure Elemental spell would add EITHER 10 rounds to the duration OR 12m to the distance the elemental can travel away from the conjuring Magician. See the above line I quoted from the spell description - yes, but it takes ALL the Magician's concentration whilst the elemental is present. Cheers, Nick

It's a (very) long time since I read any ERB, but I currently running The Savage North as a Heroic fantasy setting with BRP - and the PC's and major NPC's are using THP=SIZ+CON, but the rank and file spods are all THP=(SIZ+CON)/2 which works well for that sort of feel. For Barsoom I'd probably go further - Charles Green's excellent "mook" rules are IIRC summarised somwehere on this board, and are also in Dragon Lines ("Lesser Foes" in the combat chapter), and would work well for this sort of thing. Stat Green Martians as traditional BRP creatures for when on needs one that will be a full character in the game (PC or NPC), but for cannon fodder, simply apply one's preferred version of mook rules. Cheers, Nick

Not sure - my guess would be that the matrix is encapsulating how the degrees of success of defence and offence interact, not defining the actual damage roll. page 194 "A critical attack means that the weapon does the maximum possible damage for the weapon used (6 for 1D6, 9 for 1D8+1, etc.) plus the normal rolled damage bonus. Unless countered with a spectacular parry, a critical attack result always ignores armor, even if that armor is all-encompassing." In the Gold Book, RAW, Specials do NOT stack with criticals. So criticals always do critical damage as described, and specials do the appropriate special damage. Hmm - that's a special case. I'd say that if the net result of the offence and defence rolls is a special or better for the crushing weapon against a parry that was at least a normal success then yes, the parrying weapon breakage rule should be applied. Cheers, Nick thanks

http://basicroleplaying.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=341 should help. Not aware of anything more detailed per se, and don't think the recent "2013" reworking was that well received. Cheers, Nick

The basic rule is that where it's a direct contest of wills / personal magical force it requires a POW vs. POW (or power point vs. power point) contest, but where the spell creates a physical effect that then damages an opponent, there is no POW vs. POW. No, because the physical effect is what does the damage, and all those effects can (to varying degrees) be affected by other physical effects (Blast for example can be Dodged, or or even parried with a Shield...). Cheers, Nick

There was some talk that Horizon's (the B7 fan club) were told to STOP selling it a few years back because the RPG license had been picked up by someone - there were a few cryptic posts at RPGNet and the like, but like the new TV / film versions, nothing came of it. www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12260.phtml http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12835.phtml The current rights holder has done some interesting stuff with new audio dramas, but alas as yet they've not succeeded in bringing the property back to TV - http://www.blakes7.com/ Cheers, Nick

That was largely the intent with Outpost 19 - I've been struggling to expand some of the background details from it into something worth showing Dustin but real life alas has intervened rather heavily... If I win the lottery, that's what I'd like to expand the the O19 setting to - Full gazetteer, Human, Pilot and Gate warden cultures (plus sub-cultures, multi-world powers and weird off shoots like the Instrumentality, the Logopolitan Orders, the Multi-corps and UOGC), the Sauriki and Bug societies (plus the Rumahl, what's back on Earth behind the Curtain and the Precursors) and a sampling of worlds in the Outer Dark (human and otherwise). See above - but let me also point out that whilst I'm very proud of O19 (and painfully aware of it's many flaws as well), I don't regard it as strictly mine: it is an elaboration of many elements of Chaosium's Future*World and an admixture of other ideas I had culled from other SF sources. So if I do seriously undertake another visit, I'd want to do it with Chaosium's blessing as it were. If I can get enough free time to finish UW #2 I will then be turning my attention back to the Gate Warden Universe - but I can't say anything definite until I know I've got the time and that's been a scarce and precious commodity this last year and a bit. IFF I do go back, my broad thinking at present is to do something larger, more like a "regional sourcebook plus scenarios" - probably focused on the new Territories and Tripoint Facility with a few short scenarios / scenario outlines set on the facility / in that area of the Human Sphere. Would that be of interest to folks? Bearing in mind that I've got a few sides of sketchy notes and no free time at present, or for the foreseeable future? Cheers, Nick

Bear in mind that the BASIC Creatures monograph contains no illustrations and is a monograph. The Call of Cthulhu sourcebook Malleus Monstrorum (also available in PDF format is entirely numbers compatible with BRP and whilst the contents is obviously intended for CoC it can easily be adapted for other genres / styles. If you don't already have the BASIC Creatures monograph in some form it is well worth getting as primarily fantasy bestiary IMO, especially as its only $11.95 (and the PDF is only $8.95). Cheers, Nick

Depends - which version of RQ? In RQII iff the target wore armour AND did NOT parry, a crit ignored armour. When the target had no armour OR they DID parry, weapon damage was doubled. The RAW were unclear on what happened with a impale that was also a critical - but one may infer that it merely ignored the armour on top of increasing damage (RQII impales did max weapon damage + rolled weapon damage + db), which was plenty bad enough... In RQIII, criticals and impales explicitly DID stack - and since an impale did twice weapon damage + db already, a critical impale did twice maximum weapon damage + db and was devastating... If you stacked them a la RQIII you would - and a critical short sword (1D6+1) blow from an average man would sever the limb of a character with 29 total hit points... My recollection from the play test is that, despite some misgivings about the elegance of it, Jason's decision was in the end to NOT stack them and that's certainly how I've been interpreting the gold book rules. We did debate it back and forth a fair bit - the problem is that there are some anomalous outcomes that seem more common in play than some play testers were happy with. CHeers, Nick

I'm afraid this is incorrect. Weapons (and Shields) in combat in the Gold book work the way I described previously, by the rules-as-written at least. The rules on p277 are for breaking objects and are distinct from combat - they are in fact pretty much the rules from RQIII and haven't been edited to bring them in line with the core BRP rules in the gold book. Damage to parrying weapons in RQIII worked pretty much as you described but that's not how the baseline rules are in BRP. This might help - http://basicroleplaying.com/showthread.php/1519-BASIC-ROLEPLAYING-The-Chaosium-Roleplaying-System?p=24749#post24749 Cheers, Nick

Err, that's not quite correct. Check the table on page197. Weapons and shields only take damage when both attack AND parry succeed but are unequal in degree of success. If the attack and parry are equally successful the attack is stopped completely and no damage is dealt, either to the defender or either object. But if both attack and parry succeed AND one was a greater success than the other, then one of the objects will also be slightly damaged. Which one depends on the specific circumstances: IIRC the worst outcome (for a Parrying object) is a normal Parry against a critical hit, the parrying object deflects the blow enough to reduce it to a Special hit only but takes 4 points of damage itself. The worst that can happen to an attacking weapon is a normal success against a critical parry, which completely blocks the attack AND does two points of damage to the attacking weapon. Without maintenance most archaic melee weapons did break pretty frequently (and some of them did even with it). The Repair skill will let things be fixed, and GM's could also reasonably allow characters to use their existing Weapon skill as a specific Repair [Weapon], on the basis that in almost all cases if you know how to wield a weapon you know how to effect at least minor running repairs. Bear in mind also that a weapon at 0HP is not destroyed, just broken beyond use as a weapon - again, appropriate Repair (or perhaps Craft) skill might allow it to be reconstituted... Cheers, Nick

My first impression was Lin Carter's Giant of World's End - but that's probably because that was the first such "dying earth" story I ever read. The "cultures of the end times" motif is an old one - in the SF genre alone it goes back to at least Wells - that has frequently been visited by various different authors. Shame about the delay. Nick

Because in the vast majority of real world combat situations, the archer's won't politely wait whilst you nip back and get your shield, and (huge generalisation coming up) "most" shields are too large to be carried casually "out of the way" - and if they are small enough to do so they are of negligible use for missile defence... Nick

Against every arrow in a round my large shield gives me 60% chance of blocking, and in general shields tend to have more hit points than melee weapons (not universally true, but a quick scan of the weapon tables suggests the basic generalisation is sound). I get a blanket 60% protection against all twenty archers on the walls PLUS I get to Parry some melee attacks with it each round (several, if I have a decent skill with it) and even if it takes damage it's likely to take longer to break it than my longsword - and if it DOES break, my longsword is still available for offensive use AND Parrying... And whilst the halberd is a mighty fearsome weapon, it's poorly suited to general skirmish combat (it has a long melee range, making it vulnerable to closing). In Gold Edition BRP RAW as written I think there are reasonably grounds for preferring a shield over exclusively using a big two handed weapon or relying on dodge - mostly in circumstances where you expect to take missile fire. However it certainly doesn't bias things in favour of shields as much as previous iterations of BRP did (in RQIII Dodging was a fools game, RAW, for example and weapons were noticeably more fragile than they are in BRP), especially as it retains the rather beefy Elric!/SBV hit points for weapons. Cheers, Nick

Page 204 onwards is the crucial section on Shields. Basically . So if you are (for example) marching up slope towards the battlements, better have a large shield, especially as Dodge is only any use agains the FIRST arrow and only then if the shooter is visible... Cheers, Nick

The standard definition of a "professional" in BRP is a skill of 51%+ - which is someone who will under all normal circumstances (i.e. excepting fumbles) always make an easy skill roll. Plus, as Thalaba points out, the challenge in crafting straightforward item like a horse shoe is not simply making it - given enough time and raw materials to allow endless retries, even the most incompetent smith will eventually produce a serviceable horseshoe. The challenge is more often something else - doing it with limited resources, or completing the work in a timely fashion. Complex items should require a skill threshold as the will require reasonable command of techniques before they can be attempted - the most fumble fisted apprentice can attempt to make nails but a scythe blade requires more technique. In certain settings as well there may be "secret" knowledges and the like - the cliche is folding steel to make samurai swords, but every craft will have it's advanced and complex techniques... If you can see it, Monty Don's recent series of Mastercrafts is revealing, as would the accompanying book (Mastercrafts: Rediscover British Craftsmanship by Thomas Quin). I created an "extended projects" for BRP (that write up is aimed at Eternal Champion settings, but it's not setting specific) years ago, based on dim and distant memories of the "Task system" from FGU's Bushido. Cheers, Nick

Err, did no one else notice Dustin's Tweet yesterday? The Green is now available in hard copy - http://catalog.chaosium.com/product_info.php?products_id=5085 Cheers, Nick

Still waiting for a Mac OS X version... Nick

It is here - which I struggled to find until I noticed there's a "Search downloads" facility... Cheers, Nick