NickMiddleton

Found a transcription from “the Web of Chaos” chapter in Rogue Mistress in my files:

There are some brief SB rules for fire arms in Rogue Mistress which iirc cover both black powered and Maria’s six guns. Iirc there’s some stuff in the introduction and in one of the specific adventures (the “Albyon” one I think?)

Um, you are aware that Magic World is just Elric! with a couple of ideas and some creature stats from prior editions of Stormbringer and RQ3 and without the Moorcock IP, right?

You could pick up either of these: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/128323/Magic-World?cPath=74_5621 https://www.chaosium.com/basic-creatures-pdf/ They contain a bunch of monster / creature stats including stuff like more WFRP Elves and Dwarves. Magic World is also basically Elric! with a few tweaks, so highly compatible with the rule set you are using. And the PDF is $3 currently. Basic Creatures is closer to RQ (it is a reworking of the RQ3 Creatures Book), so a bit less useful, and IIRC pretty much everything from it is in Magic World - but it is ALSO just a creatures.

I do both: broad assessment of challenge is a multiplier (Trivial / Easy / Routine / Hard / Improbable map to x5, x2, x1, x0.5 and x0.05); Impairments / Benefits are minor adjustments as a result of specific circumstances independent of broad difficulty that penalise or add to final target: minor / moderate / major (10 / 20 / 40). A Sniper attempts a shot: overall, it’s hard ( skill x 0.5) but player decides to spend 15 DEX ranks Careful Aim spot rule: so gets a +40 benefit. (I’ve largely collapsed all the small adds / maluses into three step impairments / benefits. No, before anyone asks. There is no rigid universal schema that distinguishes what gets assessed via difficulty and what as an impairment or benefit: they are as much as anything aesthetic judgements that help me and the player communicate what’s key in a particular resolution.

Yup, page 108 mentions both. Given the list of gods mentioned, Gods of Dorastor is just another name for Lords of Terror I think.

Kinda related: was Risklands: Further adventures in Dorastor every anything more than a title?

Sea King's of the Purple Towns; Perils of the Young Kingdoms; Unknown East. That’s what I picked instinctively as the three to recommend, but as Marcus says, pretty much everything published for 4th edition onward is really good.

Given your use of the word “legally”: consult a lawyer, or other suitably qualified legal professional. Do not rely on opinions on internet fora.

One could adapt this: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/340976/Through-Sunken-Lands-and-Other-Adventures to Mythras?

Yeah: there’s a natural weapon attack & parry fumble table in the BGB (Big Gold Book) whic derives originally from RQ3 I think, but Elric! / SB5 just threw that phrase out there and assumed GMs would improvise suitable details I think.

The ONE thing I think was a mistake in Elric! was that weird change in terminology / definitions - In SB1-4 the only critical successes were 1/10th of skill... In Call of Cthulu 1-5 "impales" were 1/5th of skill... Having a specific special effect for impaling weapons has long been a thing in BRP / RQ derived games, but can be handled by rules exceptions for that category of weapon, rather than revising success category calculations and or naming conventions that at least some of the player base will know from other games... AIR I lobbied Ben quite hard to revise those in MW to be in line with the BGB terminology - I was thus really annoyed that the printed version and first PDF kept the Elric! / SB5 versions, despite Ben having agreed to revise them. The Revised PDF corrects them, thankfully. It is one of those, how much detail do you want to havequestions? When I was steel weapon re-enacting, a friend made a double canvas layered rag stuffed "padded jack" armour. So entirely composed of cloth, not even stiff leather facing material. It was in use for ~ 5 years, admittedly in re-enactment combats (not full melees, rebated steel weapons etc). I borrowed it several times and it was the most effective armour I ever used. Better coverage than most of the plate harness I ever got near (it was long skirted so in one piece did what otherwise required multiple pieces - back, breast, plaquette and tassets) and nearly as good as well padded plate in dealing with either point attacks or blunt trauma. I doubt it would have lasted against real sharpened weapons particularly well, but at least initially I suspect its performance would have been pretty good - given its construction effectively presented multiple cross-laminated and tightly interlocked compressible fibre layers, I think it would have impeded sharp thrusts and spread force from real weapons pretty well, but would have degraded quickly. It was also bloody heavy and a nightmare in remotely warm weather as it appeared to trap ALL heat inside... 😄 So the question is, does one care enough about evoking these details in game play? If one does, then one needs a more nuanced approach than RQ3's; for me, RQ3's approach captures "enough" of the feel of hand to hand combat as I have read about it and approximated in my HEMA / re-enactment days for me to be happy with it. Cheers, Nick

Don't see a problem with that and as you noted, lines up with how I interpret things. In the Arete rules I wrote for Advanced Sorcery, masters of Brawl / Wrestle (skills of 101 or more) can effectively have "hit points" for their parries, so even if they DON'T get a whole degree success over their opponent, their successful unarmed defence can block some damage.

OK, what follows are my readings of the rules. 1)If the opponent chooses to parry the wrestling attempt, for example with his sword, how would you handle damage to the wrestler, if the parry succeeds? The opponent is on the defensive: they can thus attempt to parry with Brawl, Wrestle OR a hand held weapon - per the combat results table, any result where the difference in degrees of success would result in damage to "Attacking weapon" I'd say the parrying weapon can roll damage against the character attempting the Wrestle manoeuvre. 2) With which weapon are you allowed to counterattack? Only with other hand? The same weapon that was just grabbed? Here I think the wording is unhelpful: the phrase "counter-attack" actually should be read as "parry with a weapon". To quote the whole first paragraph: So, if the attack makes a Wrestle attack and succeeds (see below), they have a hold of the target and the target's options are now restricted to basically breaking that hold (STR vs STR, see below). 3) When is the attempt broken off from? After a successful counterattack? Per above, I think the only "counter-attack" is actually a parry with a weapon against the initial Wrestle attack. If the Wrestle in the first round succeeds, the opponents ONLY option is to attempt to "break free" on their action in that round (and subsequent rounds) by winning a STR vs STR contest (per penultimate paragraph of the the Wrestle entry in the Skills chapter). If the first Wrestle succeeded, and the opponent did not break free (STR vs STR) then if the Wrestle in the second round ALSO succeeds, the Wrestler has seized the weapon and the opponent is no longer "Wrestled" but has lost the weapon. If the Wrestle in the SECOND round fails, the attacker still has hold, but has not succeeded in taking the weapon away. The opponent can attempt to break free on their action (STR vs STR). 4) Could the wrestler use his wrestling skill to parry the counterattack, effectively rolling twice for wrestling in the same round? First paragraph of the Wrestle skill: "If a Wrestle attack succeeds and it is not parried or broken off from, then the attacker holds and has subdued the target." If the opponent did NOT successfully defend against the initial Wrestle attack, the attacker "holds and has subdued the target" and no counterattack is possible, only an attempt to escape the hold via STR vs STR: so there is nothing for the Wrestler to Parry, per se, and they certainly logically can't Wrestle someone else.# If that first Wrestle DID fail, then (subject to existing caveats regarding parrying with Wrestle) yes, Wrestle (like any other Combat skill) can be used a second time in a round. Just as you could attack and parry with a sword in the same round, one can do the same with Wrestle and Brawl I believe. Now, there is the question of if both attacker and opponent roll successes in that first round, does ANY Wrestle success start the whole process, or does any successful defence "block" the Wrestle sequence from beginning? My opinion is that any combination of Wrestle attack and Defensive roll (Brawl, Weapon Parry or Wrestle) results on the Attack and Defence Matrix that mentions "attacker's weapon takes damage" or "Damage MAY get through parry" ALSO means that the Wrestle is NOT established. Any combination of results that says "roll damage normally" or "double weapon damage" means the Wrestle IS Established. Does that make sense? And side rhetorical quesiton: why are Wrestling / grappling rules always such a problem?!? 😄 #we will for the moment exclude weird multi-arm demons and Octopi / Squid etc... 😛

OK, the full rules text of the Knock-Back spot rule is: So CASE 1: Make a Wrestle attack roll, IF successful, make a STR vs SIZ test on Resistance table IF successful, push target back by (Attackers STR-opponents SIZ) in meters. Bregdan wins, so pushes his opponent back 2m. I would allow bonuses to the attackers effective STR for degrees of success on the Wrestle roll (say x 1.5 for a special and x 2 for a critical): so a relatively weak wrestler (STR 8 ) who is very skilful can have a chance to knock back even a mountain of an opponent (SIZ18). CASE 2: Make an attack roll with the shield IF successful do Shield damage (plus db if applicable) to opponent. Then match attackers STR vs Opponents SIZ on resistance table, and if successful push target back by (Attackers STR-opponents SIZ) in meters. If the attacker gets special or critical results on the Shield attack, I'd give them the choice of EITHER enhancing the damage from the shield strike OR improving their STR for the Resistance table test to push their opponent back. In both cases the skill roll is made first to allow the STR vs SIZ test on the resistance table. Does that help?

I bought a spare hard copy form Chaosium last year, and thus got an official copy of the latest PDF direct from Chaosium, which has the same created time stamp (17/07/2015, 17:48:35). I think, but have not actually done a careful sweep, that there are some further typos and minor omissions that have come to light in the subsequent 6 years. Big Jack Brass collated / saved for posterity Ben's original errata listing, plus some additional items IIRC, and I think most were included in the revised PDF. One genuinely constructive thing those of us with access to the latest PDF (mine is called "magic_world_revised.pdf") could do is to comb our PDFs for all such typographical errors / oversights that other users might appreciated knowing about and compile a further errata list. Such a comprehensive list of typographical errors could also be of use for Chaosium in prepping a PoD version, if that ever happens. It's hard to see they'd want to dedicate the resource to any substantive revision of layout / art, but simple typographical mistakes etc one would hope could be accommodated, and if there's already a robust list to work from it can only make that easier.

These a real great, thank you!

And let’s be honest peeps, excellent though tooley1chris’s work was and is, the flagrant, blatant mis-use of copyright material throughout was a sword of Damocles that was inevitably going to cause a problem. Frankly, I am surprised that it’s taken this long, especially since these forums have been the “official” Chaosium forums for 5+ years.

Kinda surprised there isn't something close in the downloads section, to be honest - there's a load of character sheets in there, in various formats.

Which was he trying to achieve? I generally allow masters of skills to "pick" one improvement to the outcome (better quality, reduced production time, more economic of resources etc), where as "journeyman" (50-100 skill) have to roll a special success or better to get such a thing, and novices (skill < 50 ) don't get this option - it is a "companion" approach to some of the stuff I put in the Arete rules in Advanced Sorcery for Magic World, spun out of house rules I've been using with Elric! since the mid 1990's, which in turn evolved from stuff in the 2nd Keepers Companion (?) I think for Call of Cthulhu and some features of the Skyrealms of Jorune 2nd edition system I really liked.

Looks like some sort of mistake when the revised cover for the quick start was created - there are differences to both 2020 (the softback BGB) AND 2026 (the hard back BGB).

I have a comp copy as a contributor, and it looks like that - iirc they did sell print copies at one point, for those who wanted hard copy.

It wasn't when I was just looking, honest! 😄 But it is now, so I assume some caching snafu or such at my end. MW and AS in PDF for a smidge under $6 is a very good deal...

Is the current PDF price of Magic World ($2.99 marked down from $24.42) as a result of a particular sale? I don't recall it being so heavily discounted previously, and it seems oddly out of kilter with Advanced Sorcery still being $13.17 (with no discount)?