Bilharzia

You could start with base Mythras, which has a fully-fledged character sheet in Roll20, and add any BRP stuff you like. Mythras is closer to older BRP games than CoC7e, it also has a large number of supplements.

Mythras (RuneQuest 6) does weapon Reach very well because it both provides an advantage for the long reach weapon Vs the short reach weapon when the long weapon fighter is at their preferred Reach, *and* the same mechanism provides a disadvantage for the long reach weapon if the short weapon fighter can close to their preferred Reach, the long weapon fighter is in trouble - they can't use the long weapon to parry at all, and any attack they make is severely gimped. This makes a spear + shield combination quite potent, because the spear allows attacking at a long reach, and will force short weapon opponents to close in, which if they do, the spear & shield fighter defends perfectly well because they can parry with their shield, and in fact they can attack with their shield at full effectiveness. The terminology used for weapons is weapon Size, and weapon Reach. Each has different effects. The only downside is being careful to track "at what Reach is XYZ character and NPC engaged at?" because it can change with every combat action.

I am always going to say "Monster Island", but I voted "Mythic Babylon" because it deserves more attention. I recommend Chris' blog with more info, background, inspirations, play examples https://egunnu.blogspot.com/

There's "Ships and Shieldwalls" from TDM. It is abstracted enough that it would work with any BRP game.

Mythras and the Monster Island supplement will get you a good foundation for a S&S campaign. Mythras is pretty easy to cut down and also borrow any bits you need from other RQ/BRP editions & supplements as well.

If you disregard the fact that the armour is being destroyed, sure it "has no impact". Ancient weapons aren't exploding laser beams, sorry, not even battle axes. I can't see you are interested in anything but hyperbole.

A dagger at maximum damage for the weapon and maximum damage bonus can penetrate plate, for a damage of 1 point. If you remove all the important detail from your thinking, you can make a case for anything. Well of course a hit from a marshmellow can penetrate plate. (with a critical hit).

Err, whut? Sunder will rip the armour up when it exceeds the AP A strong fighter (1d4 damage bonus) will on average hit for 7 points of damage using a battle axe. If the top tier armour did *not* protect against that kind of hit, I would wonder about it. One point above the average will get through plated mail.

The Battle axe is one of the few 1h weapons which can use the special effect Sunder. The only others are Lance and Military Pick, so that effect is quite rare and can be very useful. It also has Bleed, another potentially lethal SE which can kill with a single point of damage. As an aside, spears have neither of these SEs. You may be a bit fixated on damage only, if you are using that as your only metric. Mythras' combat system is a significant advance from RQ3, and that part of the rules is the most radical departure from older RQ. For contemporary fans of Mythras, it's a big deal that changes BRP combat for the better. I can tell you have a bit of an axe-bromance going on, but your complaint is the first I have seen in about 10 years of RQ6/Mythras. You might be pleased to know that the Mythras 2H axe (Dane Axe, Great Axe) maintains it's damage from RQ3 (2d6+2) but also has Sunder and Bleed. Considering armour values and weapon damages were re-thought for RQ6, this makes the Mythras Great Axe more powerful than the RQ3 equivalent. Armour piercing - yes this is a trait represented in Mythic Constantinople (puncturing trait) for certain weapons. I would not use it earlier than late-medieval or Renaissance periods as it will make a nonsense of armour & weapons as a whole.

Oh Christ

Methinks you are protesting too much. A spear is +1 more than a broadsword, +1 more than a longsword, +1 more than a mace, and so on ... it's a long hafted weapon. Note though that the difference is slight. Don't take any of my references as definitive anything. They are arbitrary links I found in less than a minute, but they refute your claims that there are "no illuminations of medieval knights with short spears" - there are clearly plenty, on horseback or on foot. If you know the Norse sagas you know how much spears were used - a lot, and not just because they were cheap, they were a favoured and potent weapon, and not just in pitched battles. A lance is just a spear, it doesn't have to be just the poncy high medieval jousting lances, it's also a spear, and typically, one-handed. Although I don't use it much in my games, Reach is modelled by Mythras and supports the differences in weapon reach where a short sword fighter will have an advantage if they get under a spear fighter's reach. In terms of SCA experience Pete Nash, who is responsible for most of the RQ6/Mythras combat rules, is a SCA knight of many years. Try the Mythras Discord if you want a wider discussion. Plenty of HEMA and other martial arts guys as well as physicists, doctors, historians, military guys, rocket scientists and others with a lot of experience who will be happy to argue about nerfing spears or not until the aurochs come home.

The most common weapon of the Vikings was ... the spear. https://www.vikingmartialarts.com/viking-warfare/2017/3/6/the-viking-spear Mounted knights used a 1h spear in the form of a lance. Spears have disadvantages along with their advantages - reach is one. If someone gets inside your reach when you have a spear, your attack advantage is gimped, this is when a sword or axe becomes useful - it is still potent in a close range fight especially if you are armoured, a spear, not so much. Spears can also be broken more easily. Swords also have a symbolic value which is a bit higher than spears so they tend to get depicted more. You can see the "sword on a stick" principle clearly here. Bronze age sword (top) Bronze age spear head (bottom). The spear is going to be more potent, it is basic physics that a toddler finds out waving a stick around. The main weapon of the period was the spear, not only for the peasant but also for the professional soldier and even the nobility. It was the traditional weapon that Woden used and remained the weapon par excellence among the Germanic peoples even during the tenth and eleventh centuries https://regia.org/research/warfare/spear.htm https://www.pinterest.com.au/greek_hero1/medieval-spears-manuscript-images/ https://manuscriptminiatures.com/search?tag=127 Do more research 🙂

That's the 10,000 year weapons table, so you could tweak the damage for different eras, but it is perhaps the most potent 1h weapon you can use.

Thanks, we enjoyed doing them.

No, the various Legend conversions do not touch the Player's guide to Xoth. I did some of my own conversion when I ran a RQ6/Mythras campaign using Spider God's Bride, and even got permission to go ahead and write a conversion of the Player's Guide for Mythras (from Morten and TDM). In the end though I got caught in a dilemma between creating a version for a system that I liked and played, RQ6 later Mythras, versus the shoddy Legend conversion of Spider God's Bride, which I *hated* at the time of release and that opinion has not changed much. It seemed pointless to continue doing a full conversion for the guide when all the adventures were bad conversions, and which used Legend at that. You can still read my thoughts about the Legend version here - http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?t=55333#p751331 Other Mythras GMs are more charitable and have found the Legend SGB useable. It did get some corrections but those are frankly still pretty weak. If you use it I would recommend picking up the PDF of the original, XP1, from xoth.net. It is cheaper and has more detail than the conversion. Incredibly, quite a bit of the detail, especially when it comes to NPCs (and some of the background) was cut in the Legend version. Some of the Legend NPCs look ridiculous (and certainly weak) when compared with the originals. The Legend authors did not have a good grasp of the system, and it shows. Xoth remains a decent (if highly derivative of Hyboria) S&S campaign setting and series of adventures, SGB being the best. I wrote some capsule reviews for the other adventures for the Mythras Discord, I repeat here:

We have just published 3 interviews for the Opposed Roles podcast. Kristin's Sami-Norse campaign: (Animism part 2) This is an interview with Kristin about her 11th Century Sami & Norse campaign set in the far north of Norway. Kristin's Sami-Norse Campaign Raleel's Shadowpunk: (Animism part 3) Raleel talks about his rules adapting Shadowrun and Cyberpunk into the Mythras rules. Shadowpunk - hacking cyberspace into Mythras Dan True on Mythras Combat Dan is a martial arts practitioner, teacher, and the writer of Mythras' combat modules. The upcoming "Book of Schemes" for Mythras is due for release sometime in 2022. There is a follow-up interview with Dan about his new book, but that episode will be released closer to the publication date. Dan True on Combat

Not sure what you mean. As I said, again, it is a preference of abstraction Vs book-keeping. The older RQ style of tracking every single attack/parry clash with AP attrition I found was tedious, but you do you. Mythras still allows weapon and armour damage, but you have to call it out by using Sunder. That's not irony, that's expected, but relying on clichés about Mythras does yourself and others a disservice. Mythras is detailed, adaptable and consistent, and with that it does demand more from a GM than most BRP games or the BGB. The BGB itself is all over the place since it was never re-written from scratch as a consistent ruleset, it was and remains a compilation of rules from different games.

(from the original post https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/designmechanism/classic-fantasy-2021-2022-line-up-t3637.html ) Rod: Classic Fantasy 2021-2022+ Line-Up This gets asked often, and I actually presented this list during our Design Mechanism Virtual Con last year. However, I figured I would post it here for those that couldn't attend. There are no dates for these, and everything listed is subject to change, but this is what we have planned for at the moment. Also, the list is not arranged in any form of chronological order. Adventures Lost Temple of Set – Darvin Martin (in art direction and editing) Danger at Dunfel – Rodney Leary and Che Webster (pre-editorial pass) Last Gift from Atlan – Ken Seward (first draft turned in) *The Star Prophecy *– Chad Bowser (first draft turned in) Skytower – Ian Fletcher (first draft turned in) War on Twilight Peak – (proposal accepted) Sean Hillman Rulebooks and Supplements* Classic Fantasy: Unearthed Companion – 200-220 pages of new classes (anti-paladin, assassin), over 160 new spells (80+ arcane, 80+divine), new monsters (many of them high rank: demons and devils, beyonders, draco-liches (one of each color) just to name a few. Plus an adult version of each dragon (5 chromatic and 5 metallic) already written up so you only need to alter it with an age template. Finally, a load of Rank 4+ magic items and other surprises. Classic Fantasy: Player's Handbook - 300ish page book designed with Classic Fantasy players in mind. No monsters. No treasure. However, it will include the full rules needed to play Classic Fantasy and no more flipping through multiple books just to create a character. This will also incorporate revised character classes and balance changes brought on from five years of additional playtesting. Classic Fantasy: World of Greymoor – 100+ page setting book detailing the territories in and around the kingdom of Greymyr, including their armies and navies with stats compatible with Ships and Shield Walls for some territorial warfare. Plus, history, calendar, weather tables, overland travel rules, wilderness survival rules, encounter tables according to terrain type, and world map. Mythras Classic Fantasy Revised: As for the Player's Handbook above. Classic Fantasy itself will get a revised release updating the rules and incorporating playtest changes. It's actual release format is still undergoing discussion, so this is the one book that I really can't answer much in the way questions. Classic Fantasy: Witchcraft and Alchemy – 32-page sourcebook including the Witch character class, witchcraft, and rules for the creation of potions and elixirs. Classic Fantasy: Psionics and Psionicists – 32-page sourcebook including the Psionicist class, psionics, and psionic monsters. Including the 5 psionic gem dragons. Classic Fantasy: Chaos and Chaos Hunters– 46-page sourcebook including the Witch Hunter class, rules for horror, creatures of chaos, and mind-shattering elder things from beyond time and space. All given a Classic Fantasy spin. *All page numbers are early estimates and subject to change

Yes they were, as a combination of size and materials. Smaller weapons have fewer AP than larger weapons, in general, but metal is better than wood, in general. So a dagger has AP6, a hoplite shield AP18. Quite a difference, and as I said, Mythras effectively abstracts this. I said nothing about what was better. It is a preference, but I note with some irony that Mythras/RQ6 is often claimed to be more crunchy and fiddly than BRP but the reality is often the reverse.

The CF expert set has changed the table format into a slight light tone which is more readable. I imagine the new CF self-contained book will take a similar approach.

Weapon sizes and parrying in Mythras are largely just an abstraction of RQ3 Armour Points for weapons, it is a faster way of resolving attack and parry clashes. There is less book-keeping doing things the Mythras way. There is no Mythras 2E btw.

These should give you some idea, the types of magic: A spell from Sorcery:

::cough:: splutter, really...I don't miss fatigue, layering armour, armouring enchantments, the escalating damage/magic war, ye gods no thanks. RQ6/Mythras isn't perfect but it's a huge step up from RQ3's many unfortunate mis-steps.

As I said, easy to houserule, and in fact Mythras Imperative fixes action points at 2, which means for example one attack and one parry. Not difficult to track. Personally I got rid of Cycles in my own game as well. Getting hung up on that means you are missing out on a lot. I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense to opine the lack of BRP innovation while at the same time not even trying a game that has done precisely that, and has been successfully publishing a growing range of supplements for nearly 10 years now. I think it's £6 (?) on Drivethrurpg at the moment. On special effects - one is gained with every level of success, eg. a successful attack against a failed parry, you might gain, for example an opportunity to Trip your opponent, if successful you have gained a big advantage. It is typically these moments which prove decisive, not hacking everything up into pieces like most other combat systems, including BRP and RQ3.

If that is your main complaint you might want to look at Mythras. It is approaching a decade since it (RuneQuest 6) was first published (2012) so it might be time to update yourself. There are many more options which Mythras combat introduces, in my mind it radically changes RQ/BRP combat in favour of special effects, and weapon differences count. If you don't like some of the more complicated aspects of Mythras (Action Point differences, Turn cycles, Reach) they are pretty easy to ignore or houserule. On the differences you start with between battle axe and broadsword, you are ignoring a few things. One is milieu - where is your setting? when? which cultures use what and why? cost differences? tactical differences? In Mythras the weapons are similar but have different special effects, both have bleed, but a broadsword also can use impale, and the axe has sunder. An impaling weapon is going to do more damage on average and can severely hamper an opponent's skill (an impaled broadsword will penalise combat skills by 50%). An axe will not impale, but using sunder can damage armour.