Barak Shathur

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.

I’d say if you go with all weapons doing double damage on crits/specials, you should probably have equivalent weapons do the same damage, for example dropping the +1 and +2 modifiers so that broadsword, battle axe, mace and spear all do 1d8, so that you don’t get weapon choices that are obviously superior that shouldn’t be so. You could take a look at RQIV:AiG if you can get a hold of it, it has that kind of structure.

I agree here, I think the cumulative -30% only applies to the active parrying of melee attacks.

You are entitled to your opinion, and I am perfectly fine with it, but I don't see myself wagging any dogs here. In fact, I don't really expect anyone to change anything based on my views. I come here to argue about aspects of a game I love, have interesting discussions with others, and I thought this was part of what this forum was for? In the Errors thread, they specifically mentioned taking comments and suggestions to another thread, so that's what I did. Anyway, I'm certainly not a game designer, and most of my suggestions come from other Chaosium publications (RQII and III mainly), so I don't see how it could insult anyone. Rather they seem like tried and tested solutions to what it is I see BRP trying to do. If anyone's toes are hurting, it seems to be yours. I don't really understand why. You're getting the game you want, I'm not.

One idea I’ve toyed with is switching out every d6 for 2d3. So 6d3 for all human stats, 6-18 range, 10-11 average (right?). Perfect IMO.

I think that just goes with suggesting any change. Basically you have to justify why said change is better for BRP compared to the existing rule, and why it would be better for the majority of BRP players, as opposed to being a houserule (which only has to justify the change from one GM's own point of view). That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do. So far I seem to have convinced exactly zero persons.

Well yes. I certainly am one who has engaged in lengthy discussions over the years trying to square BRP with reality. Maybe for that reason I can feel that is sometimes goes too far. The quibbling can drag a thread down some real rabbit holes, which in themselves can be quite entertaining. But to my mind, the beauty of BRP is that it doesn't micromanage too much, it's like it regulates gross motor skills but not fine motor skills. Or something like that. Realism combined with playability, that's BRP for me. So my suggestions are about fine tuning what's already there, rather than adding realism through complexity.

You sent me your RQ -> MERP conversion system a while ago, and I like it a lot. However, I personally prefer keeping the stats as close as possible to the original BRP range. But yours is a very good take.

Interestingly, in the beginning, RQ conceived the size relationship between dwarves and humans as in other games, humans SIZ 3d6 (11) vs dwarves SIZ 2d6 (7). The original sin was when humans were enlarged to 2d6+6, in order to avoid absurdly small characters. It seems to me like an awkward solution, since suddenly the average human is now only one point away from getting damage bonus, which is not how the rules were structured originally. Of course, it's been rationalised post facto, "humans are big", but it always sounds a bit forced to me. The same was not done for the dwarves. But how is a STR 24 SIZ 2 dwarf less absurd than a STR 18 SIZ 3 human? Presumably, RQ dwarves were overlooked because they were mostly NPCs, so it didn't seem like an issue since GMs could set whatever stats they wanted anyway. But I'm talking about BRP here, a generic system, not RQ which is more idiosyncratic, and where it has been argued dwarves can be tiny "since the Machine is broken" (more or less). BRP changed the SIZ for dwarves to 1d4+4, avoiding tiny dwarf syndrom but retaining the now outsized difference between the two species. A couple of years ago I asked one of the original writers for the Swedish BRP clone Drakar och Demoner (1982) about the dwarf size issue, and he agreed completely with me. In fact, he said if he was to do it over he would have set dwarf SIZ at 2d6+2. Again, I would say that Tolkien is arguably the gold standard for dwarves and hobbits, that's why I think a generic fantasy system should hew close to that. Like almost all of the others did. In BRP systems you have to factor in SIZ when you talk about relative strength. A high STR score without some SIZ to back it up gets you a few extra percentage points to weapon and manipulation skills, which in BRP doesn't amount to much since you can bump the skills you need to 75% anyway. Maybe a little higher carrying capacity, if you use ENC and fatigue rules. With enough SIZ however, you get damage bonus which makes all the difference in melee combat. In the context of BGB, weapon and shield AP are almost meaningless since parry deflects all damage. The only exception is for slung shields, where yes, BGB shields would absorb most regular sized attacks, but again, the way it is written it is only allowed when the shield is 'not actively used in combat', so it seems to rule it out for a weapon and shield fighter who's holding the shield, but allow it for a great weapon fighter who carries it 'slung' over the locations covered. Which again obviates the purpose of learning to fight with shields. Just sling it across your arm, chest and abdomen and parry with your sword instead.

In my reading SIZ is all about mass and not at all about volume. How could volume have any impact on things like damage bonus and hit points? In BRP, it’s all about greater mass having greater ability to generate and resist force. ADDED: Look, we can quibble about physics all day, after a certain point it gets pretty tedious. At the end of the day it boils down to how the system plays out in practice. Do we want a generic system where dwarves are considerably weaker warriors than humans? I don't. I think they should be more or less equal in combat ability, but with more HP and lower DEX. In the BRP family, Legend does it best IMO. Do we want shields to be mostly an aesthetic choice, and two handed weapons to be all round the best weapons? I want shields to provide better defense, and two handed weapons to be more offensive but less good at defense, because it's both more realistic and it allows players to make more meaningful choices.

I actually think mass is more relevant than height, since it is primarily used to calculate HP and DB. Given that dwarves are in most games described as being of heavier build than most humans, I believe my position is supported even further by this. Since BRP is supposed to be a generic system that is relatively applicable to what's already out there, as I understand it, let's take a few examples from some classic games. Dwarves in MERP 2nd Edition clock in at 4'9", 150 lbs on average. A bit large, maybe. BECMI D&D has them at 4' and 150 lbs, quite extreme! I think Rolemaster gets it more or less right with 4'5", 130 lbs. I think these are representative of the genre as a whole, and we see dwarves weighing from around 2/3 to 3/4 of a human. In BRP (and RQIII+), they're at 1/2, which makes them much weaker here relative to other relevant games. In the context of BRP's parry rules, it is not reality. The way the system is written, using a slung shield with a two handed weapon is a no brainer if you're so inclined, and one handed weapons used with shields is not a particularly effective combination, comparatively. In reality, a hand weapon with a shield should be the most defensive option in most ancient/medieval settings, which is one reason why it was so widespread. And wielders of polearms with shields tended to use rather smaller shields (compare the hoplites of Iphicrates with the earlier, 'classical' hoplites, not to mention the Macedonian phalangites). But zweihänder wielding landsknechtes no, and vikings or saxons with longaxes might have had a kite shield on their backs, since otherwise would have interfered greatly with their weapons. No way it would protect the arm or torso from the front (at least not without a hefty penalty).

If a weapon is used both for attacking and parrying in the same round, it incurs the cumulative -30% penalty for each of those actions beyond the first, not just for parrying. In melee, a shield can be used to cover the locations given in the Shields table if it is not used to parry actively with, as per the rules for slung shields.

Except in BRP BGB (and UGE by the looks of it). Rules-as-written the only thing it is particularly good at is parrying missiles. 30% for medium shields and 60% for large. In melee, the only benefit is that if you fumble your parry with your shield (which should be a 1 in a 100 chance for most warrior types) and drop it you still have your hand weapon (which parries just as well). Might as well have a backup hand weapon instead. Even better if you have a twohander for the extra damage. Shields are really just extra encumbrance. I have to houserule them to make them at all useful. Either I penalise parrying with a weapon that you also attack with in the same round, and/or I use the ‘slung shield’ rule so that they can be used simply as extra armour. Preferably both, they were popular historically for a reason.

I'm coming at it from a somewhat gamist perspective in this case. What you say here is also true of what in BRP is called Broadsword. However, unlike in e.g. RQ, weapons have only a single special effect, so it makes sense to me to give something described as a more slender sword Impale, both in order to differentiate it from Broadsword and to turn it into something more interesting than simply an inferior broadsword. No, what was literally called a "Broadsword" seems to have appeared sometime in the 16th century. Neither e.g. the Roman Spatha, the Iron age "Viking sword", nor the Medieval Arming sword were contemporaneously known under this term, although it seems early RPGs like AD&D applied it to all of these sword types, and that has stuck. AFAIK "Longsword" historically refers to what in BRP and other RPGs is called "Bastard Sword" and originated in the 15th century. But I'm fine with BRP's categorizations, it's what's conventional for most RPGs. But this is exactly what the Historic Melee Weapons table attempts to do! It tries to represent weapons from, say 1200 BCE to approximately 1800 AD. Again, BRP's Bastard Sword corresponds better to the historic "Longsword" you're referring to here. But if, as you seem to suggest, we are to have BRP's Longsword align with the historic Longsword, it should also certainly do more damage, not less, than a broadsword, at least when wielded two handed. This is all highly subjective. During my SCA fighting days, I never fought with a shield strapped to my back, but there are representations of historic warriors fighting with e.g. battle axes with round shields on their backs. So I don't think its as hard as you suggest if it is strapped correctly. But if in your world it is, I'm fine with you house ruling this. That turns the whole concept of Rules-as-Written on its head and makes it utterly meaningless. RAW means playing strictly according to the rules as written for all situations to which they apply, and while as a GM you have every right to alter the rules as you see fit, that is certainly not RAW. I daresay that the Tolkienesque dwarves are pretty much the conventional kind of dwarf you find in most standard fantasy RPGs (D&D, MERP/RM, WFRP, Palladium, Drakar och Demoner etc). Your interpretation makes me wonder why you would even use the term "dwarf" for that creature, since it is so far removed from what is usually meant by that word. Maybe 'gnome' or 'gremlin' would be more suitable, I dunno. And since BRP presents itself as a generic game system that should be easily adaptable to a wide range of RPG settings, it makes sense to me that the standard creatures it comes with are as similar to the average representation of them as possible. And also, please explain to me why most games subsequently derived from the BRP family, like OpenQuest, Legend, Mythras, and others, have changed dwarves' SIZ to 1d6+6, while retaining most of their other attributes and not altering humans at all. I agree with most of this, and I want to emphasize that the points I raise are wrinkles that it would be nice if they could be ironed out, but they don't make or break the game in any way. I would argue that they have some objectivity to them, but it's no great matter. BRP as a whole is fantastic, it's probably the most playable of my favourite games, and I'm more than pleased that it's getting an update. And it doesn't hurt that it's so easy on the eye, too.

In that case I think there should be a slightly different system for superheroes. Probably with more points and fewer limitations. After all, they are supposed to be way beyond the ability of normal creatures.

I don’t have a problem with rolling characteristics as the default, after all that’s pretty much core BRP. I wish however the point buy system would be a little more geared towards avoiding min-maxing, say with diminishing returns at the higher end and a minimum stat of e.g. 6 or so (for 3-18 stats)

Here’s another one: longsword. A weaker broadsword and a rather pointless weapon (no pun intended). If it’s long and slender, why not give it impale as a special effect instead of bleeding? Btw, I just want to add that 90% of the GMs I have played with go strictly by the book and are very loathe to house rule anything.

Agree. Still, it feels like the sections make slightly more sense in the new edition. Don’t you mean the LW can attempt to disengage using dodge? Another question that arises is whether it’s only short weapons, not medium weapons, that are subject to being kept at bay and can enter close combat with long weapons. It’s confusing, because ‘short weapon’ is a category, but can also simply mean ‘shorter than the long weapon’ . This is another reason why I think it would be nice if they dropped the weapon lengthened categories and just used SIZ. Another grammatical confusion is the wording around ‘closing’ and ‘close combat’. Sometimes closing seems to mean entering melee distance, sometimes it seems to mean entering close combat. Every time I read those paragraphs my head spins. If they could just put it all in one single section a lot would probably be cleared up.

I prefer games that are more functional, not less, if that can be easily achieved without adding lots of overhead and crunch. None of the points I raise require anything more than a simple fix in some spots, and I dare you or anyone to prove me wrong regarding the validity of any of them. Sure, I can house rule as much as I like, but I'd rather have a product where I have to do this as little as possible. And if I come to a game as a gamer, not GM, I would rather have a good system in place than have to be in the odious position of having to argue my points with the GM and other players. And anyway, why leave things that are half baked, when they can be tweaked to function better? Exactly. The way it is written, a shield can hang passively on the arm/shoulder of a two handed sword wielder, providing half its AP as protection while not actually being used, while he/she can fight happily with no drawbacks except that of the weight of the shield. Probably worth it for around 10 extra AP. This ought to be fixed. Like I said, a good solution would be for a single weapon fighter to be able cover the locations with a shield passively, while anyone else can only sling it on the back. Again, if I come to a game as a player, I would prefer it if my dwarf character isn't penalised in relation to how they are supposed to function. Remember that BRP claims to be representative of various standard genres. If you want a game where dwarves are more like garden gnomes, then you should be the one who has to house rule. So you don't use the weapon stats as written at all, of course it doesn't matter to you if they are off. That's hardly an argument against my proposals, and not a valid dismissal of them. One extra point of damage makes a huge difference where limbs have 3-5 HP and are incapacitated at zero. It's not a relic of the past at all, it's the most up to date version of BRP we're talking about here. I don't want to go crazy house ruling, I want functional rules (and most of the solutions I propose already exist in other games in the BRP family and are thus proven to work, and can be easily incorporated here too). I'd rather have a toolbox full of useful tools than ones I have to fix myself. That said, most of the tools in BRP are excellent. It's just these that don't work so well IMO.

A thread for people to opine! First off, beautiful job Chaosium. The pdf is gorgeous, illustrations fantastic (especially the Vitruvian header figures) and the layout pleasant. That said, if you’re doing an update, here are some things I would like looked into. I’m not going to pay a lot for this muffler if the changes are mostly cosmetic: SIZ for dwarves and halflings: they are too small. I feel that even if SIZ doesn’t scale linearly for huge creatures like elephants, on the humanoid scale it should be proportional,. A halfling (3’) is about half the size of a human (6’), while a dwarf (4’) is two-thirds. This is standard for most mainstream fantasy RPGs (D&D, MERP/RM, HarnMaster etc). If BRP aspires to be a generic game engine, their SIZ values should reflect this better. As it stands, dwarves in BRP are on average half as big as humans (SIZ 6-7 vs SIZ 13) and halflings (SIZ 4-5) are closer to a third in terms of SIZ. This matters since it weakens halflings and dwarves inordinately. In the beginning of BRP, e.g. RQ1, dwarves had SIZ 2d6 (7) and humans 3d6 (11).That’s the correct relationship IMO. When humans were upgraded to 2d6+6 SIZ in order to avoid absurdly small human characters, dwarves were left behind so to speak. In later BRP iterations dwarves were changed to 1d4+4, but a better choice would have been 1d6+6, and many post BRP games like Legend, Mythras and OpenQuest have settled on this stat. I think it’s time for BRP to catch up. Shields. They way the section on Slung Shields (p.178) is written, it opens up an exploit for wielders of two handed weapons to simply sling a shield on their arm or shoulder and get the shield’s protection for free. I recommend two changes. First, only allow shields to be slung on the back. If you have a shield hanging on your shoulder and arm, you can’t really use a two handed weapon effectively. Second, allow weapon and shield users to hold the shield over the ‘locations covered’ like a slung shield, if they don’t use them to parry with actively (parrying with their weapon instead). This would make shields a little more differentiated and useful for melee defense. Weapon stats. While I like the weapons tables overall, there are some things I find incongruous and I would like to see some alterations: Heavy mace for example. Why is it two handed? It does as much damage as one handed weapons like broadsword and battle axe, and if you want a two handed crushing weapon, maul or great hammer is a much better choice. Change it to one handed, reduce it’s weight/SIZ, but keep the high STR requirement. And while you’re at it, bump the STR requirement for battle axe. Warhammer is another one. In BRP as it stands, it’s basically a light mace that weighs twice as much. The description says that some war hammers have a spike, “ideal for punching through armor”. If so, let this be reflected in the rules. Either allow impale as an option for such hammers, or make it armor piercing somehow (maybe it reduces AP by two?) Scimitar. Currently, it’s a slightly fragile broadsword. If the damage is changed to 1d6+2, it becomes a bit more unique (there are no other slashing weapons that do 1d6+2) and also a bit more like a real scimitar, i.e. better at cutting through lighter armours but worse against plate. Streamline weapon SIZ better with Range, so that Short weapons have SIZ 0.1-1, Medium weapons have SIZ 1.5-2, and Long weapons have SIZ 2.1 +. Even better, remove Range for melee weapons and use these three SIZ categories instead. If some things like these above are looked at and fixed, I would definitely be willing to shell out for the hardcover copy.

Copy out the chart for success levels and make sure everyone has access to one.

Ah, but here is where confusion arises. Under 'Close Combat', it sounds like what you're saying here. But at the end of 'Closing' it says "As noted in Close Combat, a short weapon-user can close on a long weapon with a successful Dodge or parry." So here it doesn't mention being kept at bay, it sounds like the short weapon-user needs to dodge or parry in order to attack at all. Perhaps Chaosium can add "being kept at bay" if this is how it's supposed to work. Also, it would be helpful if Chaosium could clarify throughout these three passages when they're talking about 'short' weapons (in contrast to 'medium' weapons) and when they mean 'shorter-than-long'' weapons, i.e. both medium and short weapons.

Since DreadDomain mentioned it in the errors thread, I'll add my bit here since it's not really an error per se. It would be helpful with more clarification regarding Close Combat, Closing and Weapon Length. Perhaps combat examples that exemplify how these are supposed to work in practice. Combat movement: it might be helpful if it was mentioned under "Move" on p. 125 that a human can sprint 50 m if not performing any other actions, including parry or dodge. First Aid: can further attempts be made after a fumble? One might infer no, since failure has that effect, but it could be stated clearly if this is the case for fumbles too. Damage and hit locations p. 133. Damage equal to or more than HP in Abdomen or Chest: does the character start bleeding 1 hp per round only after ten minutes (two turns) have passed?

Moustachioed is coming from a good place. However, I just want to say (and I hope I’m not sounding like a useful idiot) that one of the things I appreciate Chaosium for is their willingness to engage in dialogue with us, their fans (and we are a vociferously opinionated bunch). We’ve been nitpicking at BRP and other games of theirs pretty much since they came out, and sometimes our suggestions even make it into the rules! When it comes to offering corrections, I for one gladly will do it for free, since if nothing else it leads to a better product for me. And hey, the proofreaders are still going to have to proofread the corrections!

Everything except the part about attacking with a shield is identical in both versions.