Barak Shathur

5 hours ago, Mugen said:

Skills in MERP are subject to diminishing returns : while you can get 10% every level when your skill rank is low, you won't be able to gain more than 1 or 2% once you reach rank 20 (which happens at level 10 for your best skills).

BRP skills also suffer diminishing returns after 95%, so that functions as a reasonable equivalent for me. 
 

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

BTW, it might not be a bad idea to just run MERP!

No. Just no. I spent way too much time flipping through MERP/RM tables back in the day, and besides I feel that a skill-based system like BRP is a much better fit for Tolkien’s Middle Earth than a level based one. 
 

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Someone with Fire Law at 250% would get a special half the time and only pay half the normal PP costs, and so be able to cast twice as many spells. 

Also, maybe offensive spells over 100% could be split into several spells per round, like physical attacks. 

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Again the OP was looking for a easy way on converting the magic.

Correct. I know how to convert the skills. 
 

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

 

5 hours ago, Mugen said:

I don't think @Atgxtg had rolls under spell lists in mind.

No and I'm not sure if it makes much of a different. I mean what do you get for a crtical a spell list roll? If you get something (like a discount on the PP cost) then yeah it could be an issue. Otherwise not.

I expected character to be rolling under base Spll OB and such .

 

I don’t know what @Atgxtg had in mind, but my idea is based on a skill for each spell list, which applies for all spells on that list. What would specials and criticals confer? Yeah, maybe reduced magic point cost, maybe maximum damage for offensive spells, maybe increased range/duration/spell effect for others. 
 

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Most of the attack spells do damage on a table, based on the die roll and their OB, much like weapons, so I'd look at the MERP spell tables, compare them to the MERP weapon tables and try to find an equivalent die for the spell tables.  Let's see:

Here I would probably follow BRP/RQ, where offensive spells tend to do 1d6 per spell level. Might have to figure out a way to implement BRP spell levels vis-à-vis MERP spell levels to enable more powerful offensive spells.
 

3 minutes ago, Mugen said:

That's also how I would do to use MERP spell lists in BRP.

You'll need some rules to adapt attack spells, though.

Problem is that NPCs are usually statted for RoleMaster, and often have level above 10. Also, their Power Point total is based on their level and either Intelligence or Intuition.

PCs are very likely to start as équivalent to level 5 to 8 NPCs, and remain so.

If you use POW as the maximum total for PP, you'll end up with low level spellcasters able to cast far more spells, but high level ones not able to cast their best one.

Perhaps a Power Development skill would be useful, which would be used to determine PP maximum, along with POW.

 

I think under the above system, I would give NPC’s 10% skill in their spell list skills per character level, so a 25th level character would have 250%, giving higher chance of critical and special successes, and able to absorb considerable negative modifiers without difficulty. Maybe every 10% over 100 could give 1 extra magic point too, allowing them to cast the more powerful spells. 

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

But in BRP INT doesn't increase, so Essence users will always have access to the same level  of spells, and never get the higher level spells.. Channeling users are better off since POW can be increased.  

Good point. I was thinking in terms of conversion, since Essence using characters in MERP typically have high IG but not necessarily high IT (which would be the equivalent to POW). This creates a problem. Either I’m going to have to let Essence users increase INT instead of POW, or give Essence users higher POW than what their IT would be equivalent to. Or switch INT and POW stats for them. None of which feels particularly satisfactory. Thinking out loud here. 

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

I think so, but I also think it makes them too weak later on, and favors channeling based casters over essence based ones. In MERP characters gain levels and spellcasters not only get more power points for spells but get access to higher level spells off of the list. But in BRP INT doesn't increase, so Essence users will always have access to the same level  of spells, and never get the higher level spells.. Channeling users are better off since POW can be increased.  

I think what might be closer to MERP and work out better if you gave caster access to spells on a list of up 1/10th their skill in that list. For example a character with Protections (Open Channeling)  at 30% could cast the first three spells off of the Protections list (Prayer, Bless and Resistance)  but would need to reach 40% with the list to learn the fourth level spell (Resist Elements). Character with less than 10% in a list wouldn't know that list, similar to how character can have a % to know  list in MERP carry over.

That would be simple as you are already treating spell lists as skills, make improving the lists more important, work the same for both eseence and channeling, grant a smother progression similar to MERP, make converting NPCs easier as spell list skills would equal character level x10%, and grant higher lvel character access to their full spell lists.  

 

These are some excellent suggestions. I think I’ll run with this. 

42 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

Take a look HERE, in the downloads section of this site. You might want to expand your search a bit further, it appears that only about half the files were there. At one point they were taken down, IIRC because of imagery.

SDLeary

Yeah, I’ve been using this mod for a couple of years but since the magic lists only vaguely correspond to MERP’s spell lists, and also are arranged alphabetically instead of by list, it turned out to to be a real pain to convert. 

So I have this campaign where I’m converting old MERP modules to my RQ3/BRP hack. I’m trying to come up with a good way to adapt the MERP magic system for BRP, with a minimum of headaches for me as GM when converting NPCs. I have this idea and am looking for comments:

Magic using characters learn spell lists as skills. You can cast spells at levels up to half INT for Essence users and half POW for Channeling. Each spell level costs 1 PP (Essence users use INT for PP instead of POW). Question: does this make magic using PCs too powerful from the start? I’m thinking of adding a penalty of 5% for every spell level above 1 to mitigate this (also to make a meaningful difference between magic users of higher and lower MERP levels).

I want to keep as close to MERP as Thoughts?

2 hours ago, MOB said:

The most current PDF file is v1.02.

That’s the one I have then. Thanks!

Got to say it again, the layout and illustrations are beautiful. 

Will there be a new pdf available with the second round of corrections implemented before release of the hardback?

@Jason D clarified in the BRP discord channel last night: armour ENC does not count when worn. 

45 minutes ago, RosenMcStern said:

What's the status of the Fantasy Grounds version? I have not checked it for maybe 10 years, but it should be working fine. I have played several games and campaigns with it. Is anyone, apart from Smiteworks, working on it? The effort to convert it to the UGE version should be trivial, but there might be other issues.

I’m currently playing with it (as a player). It seems to work mostly fine, though there was some bug with some dice rolls. 

2 hours ago, Jason D said:

Right now we don't have any plans to implement BRP into Roll20.

This isn't because it's not on our wish-list, but because it's something we - independently - just can't throw effort at and get done. 

If we could get a toe in the door of Roll20 implementation, BRP would probably be low on our list of games to implement, just because there's much less, content-wise, than for our other lines. 

 

I must have misunderstood something I read somewhere. I don’t even remember where. Thanks for clearing that up for me!

There is actually a functional, if a bit rudimentary and incomplete (and somewhat buggy) fan made character sheet for BRP in Roll20. But an officially supported one would be gold. 

I read somewhere there would be support for Roll20 in connection with the new BRP. This is really exciting. Is there a possible guesstimate for when this may transpire, if so?

Thanks. 

59 minutes ago, Mugen said:

It seems that's the part of the errata I had in mind.

Keep in mind that this sentence is supposed to be added at the end of a paragraph, and is not supposed to make sense out of context. You need the whole section to understand it completely.

Although the title is "Two weapon use", the section surely also covers the case where one of the weapons is a fist....

Edit : note that i'm not a huge fan of this specific errata...

Reading it in the context of the whole paragraph does not indicate it applies to single weapon use. However, now I saw there’s an errata for parrying in general, that changes the general parrying rule to you can’t “attack and parry with the same weapon on a single strike rank”. 
 

I have to agree on your assessment of this set of errata. The one thing I really like is that it makes blunt weapons halve the protection of flexible armour. 

The way I handled skills during chargen was I gave PCs 7 years in their background occupation, and then 1d3+3 years of freelancing on top of that, where they could allocate 30% freely each year but with the hard limit of 75% as per BRP. 

19 minutes ago, Mugen said:

An errata changed things a bit. If you had one one-handed weapon and an empty hand, you could attack and parry with that weapon in the same turn.

Hm. Was there more than one set of errata? I can find nothing on that. Though in the one I have it says under “Two weapon use” that he can use the same weapon to attack and parry as long as he doesn’t do it on the same strike rank. Which is a bit weird, since you can’t do it with a single one handed weapon.  Not all of the errata are great in my opinion. For example, I ignore the one about the inner layer of overlapping armour doubling its ENC instead of tripling it, since that makes for some absurd exploits. 

2 hours ago, Mugen said:

Concerning parry in older BRP games, a typical weapon entry looked like that : Broadsword, Attack : 67%, Damage : 1d8+1+1d4, Parry : 53%. Attack and Parry were distinct skills that evolved separately. That's actually a good incentive to make people parry with their shield instead of their main weapon. If you have Attack/Parry 75/25 with your sword and Attack/Parry 15/65 with your shield, you won't use your sword to parry as long as you have a shield.

Another reason is that in RQ3, you can only use a one handed weapon to either parry or attack with in the same round, not both as in RQG and BRP. Two handed weapons can do both though (which makes sense since you two hands to switch the weapon’s direction with).

I use a combination of RQ3 and BRP (the previous version) and it works like a charm. RQ3 I find to be a very well structured game, and all I have to do is add some modernisations from BRP such as multiple parries/dodges, the weapon specials, and fate points which I feel is necessary to balance the BRP systems' extreme deadliness (unless your PCs are constantly souped up with magic as per RQG). If you want you can use the same skill for parrying as well as attacking as per BRP, I wound up doing that after a while. The new BRP has Passions as well as Allegiances from the old version, so you don't really need that from RQG, which although terrific in itself I find much too keyed into Glorantha to be great for a generic system. Overall, I can't recommend RQ3 highly enough for what you are describing you want to do.

On 4/21/2023 at 7:15 PM, devinlc said:

I am confused about encumbrance in the new BRP version.

Page 118:

"Your character can only easily carry as many points of ENC as they have points in STR and can only maneuver normally for any length of time carrying ENC equal to or less than their average of STR+CON (round up)."

So, if my CON is higher than my STR, then I can maneuver for a long time with more ENC than I can easily lift? Seems like the STR + CON should be limited by STR. Not a huge deal, but a little confusing.

"ENC Penalties
Every point of ENC your character carries over their maximum ENC causes them to suffer the following modifiers:

• –1 to Movement (MOV)
• –5% to the Agility characteristic roll
• –5% to all Agility, Manipulation, Stealth, Dodge, and weapon skills"

Wait. So, if I have decent STR and CON of 15, I can carry a total of 15 ENC without penalty, right? If this pretty robust individual wants to be a warrior and wear chain armor (20 ENC) a light helm (1.5 ENC) and carry a longsword (1.5 ENC) and a full shield (5 ENC) his total ENC is 28, so he gets -13 to MOV (i.e., basically paralyzed) and, amongst other things -65% to weapon skills and -80% to Dodge (because chain also gives -20% to physical skills on its own)?

How is one supposed to play a warrior in this game? And the above is only with those 4 pieces of basic equipment!

I note that the BGB version said armor does not count towards ENC if worn (because they have their own built-in penalties).

"Additionally, your character loses 1 fatigue point per turn per additional ENC above their maximum while exerting themselves (marching, combat, strenuous activity, etc. in addition to any other fatigue point losses"

Per turn seems like no penalty whatsoever in combat. Maybe something like +1 FP per combat round for every 5 ENC (or fraction thereof) above the normal limit....

SIDE NOTE: No such thing as Agility skills. also "weapon skills" seems a bit vague. Should probably just be all Physical and Combat skills.

One solution to the problem of over-heavy armour could be to have its ENC count for half when worn. If the warrior in the first example ditches the helm (mail protects almost twice as well anyway) and switches his full shield to a heater, he would be down to 14.5 ENC, netting him -1 MOV and -5% to Agility and said skills. Not unreasonable for someone moving about in full battle gear. If he carries other equipment, he had better drop it before entering combat, which is also realistic. 
 

An alternative might be to make STR + CON the carrying capacity (as per RQIII) rather than the average of the two. Then the above warrior would be completely untroubled by his equipment, which is perhaps realistic for someone with such good stats. 
 

It would be nice with a simplified fatigue system that uses the burden stat from the shield and armour tables. For example, instead of using fatigue points you do a CON roll every minute or so of strenuous activity, where “Burden” affects the multiple of the roll. Failure would indicate a penalty, say a cumulative -10% to all skills or so. 
 

Added: I support anything that makes CON a bit more important. 

The way I understood it under the old rules, the base chance to parry missiles functioned more like cover than an active parry, i.e. the shield is simply in the way, rather than being used to parry actively with. If the penalty for multiple parries is applied, most shields will only be able to block one, or at most two missiles, greatly reducing one of the few benefits they have under BRP’s system. And it is particularly true if you don’t use hit locations. This is the way it makes sense to me, but I admit the wording is a bit ambiguous. Maybe there will be a Q&A eventually to clear things up. 
 

I absolutely love that they added the rule for cover as protecting hit locations (as in RQ), it’s an incredibly elegant solution. And it dovetails nicely with the rule for slung shields, which seems to me to be the best use for shields in melee as the rules stand. But that’s just me. 
 

10 hours ago, g33k said:

Very often, the "better" weapon is simply not clear from an in-character POV; I will assert that a mere "+1" on a 1d8-ish weapon is almost undetectable in-character:  1d8+1 is really hard to tell apart from "just" 1d8; add in a variable "damage bonus" like +1d4 and it's even harder to spot.

In a world where the game system represents the laws of physics, a PC will observe that fighters using x weapon will statistically be more successful than fighters using y. In game technical terms, +1 or +2 bonus will translate to incapacitated hit locations or major wounds that more often, especially if this is doubled for specials. Only a deeply irrational individual will choose anything but the best tool available in a life or death situation. 
 

A balanced system still doesn’t preclude players making sub-optimal choices for RP reasons. And I’ll posit it’s also a better selling point than an unbalanced one. 

54 minutes ago, g33k said:

Ummm... no.
I was specifically citing:

where those little +1's on some weapons but not others has long been a feature of the line.

And in RQ, where you could play as a Human, a Baboon, a Dark-Troll, a Duck, etc... none of which are "balanced" against each other.

Ummm yes. In RQIII, the +1s and +2s were balanced in various ways, like for example battle axe (1d8+2) and bastard sword (1d10+1) did the most damage of all one handed weapons but could not impale, and also required STR 13+ (ball and chain also did 1d10+1 but had a really low base chance, and no one had it as a cultural weapon). Heavy mace (1d10) had a high STR requirement while war hammer (“only” 1d6+2) could impale. Remember that in pre-RQG, only the impale did double damage, but it also had a high likelihood of getting your weapon stuck. And while blunt weapons tended to do slightly less damage than edged or pointed weapons, with the errata they halved the AP of flexible armour. And so on. This weapon table was highly internally correlated and balanced, and if you take out these subtleties and simply have all these weapons do double damage on specials, the structure collapses and the weapons with the highest damage dice are simply best all round, which makes the other choices redundant and thus bloat. 

Oh and as I made clear, I was talking about the weapon systems specifically.

1 hour ago, Mugen said:

That was definitely not the case for early editions of StormBringer, where the nationality table could let you roll a crippled beggar from Nadsokor, or a fighter-priest-sorcerer from Melniboné, with demon armor, demon weapon and skills above anyone else thanks to very high INT and POW. 🙂

I willingly confess I am blissfully ignorant of Stormbringer 🙂

9 hours ago, g33k said:

Except that such considerations of "balance" have never really been a core feature of BRP.

On the contrary, the earlier iterations of BRP games (thinking RQI-VI) were highly structured in this regard. The balancing of parts was integral to them and, I believe, the reason why they were so robust and long lived.