Lloyd Dupont

lol, that's the problem.. love the fantasy of elementalist, as seen in somewhat D&D... (badly , all Wizard really being generalist in D&D) Anyway, I found some nice damage scaling issue in Classic Fantasy - Mythras Edition!

+7 capped at weapno max. So a broadsword would cap out a 9 points plus db. Really? Reading carefully the new one (2023 edition) there is a brief (but important!) line to that effect indeed! But the BGB (2011) doesn't say so!

Lol... are you being passive aggressive here? so uncharacteristic you I believe! Mondays! Am I right? Anyway 3~1 year ago I tried many rules in a row (I mean many D100 system).. and I realize I didn't like any of them. For various reason 😛 And I kept "cheating" (or fudging the rolls as GMs say) as we played... But anyway, I will use them over D&D anytime. I hate humongous HP and classes. And I like skill-based RPG, so here you go. Anyway, I confess, I totally missed all along that localized HP in BRP did not work as I thought they did, but didn't play BRP specifically that long. Regardless it was mostly damage spell that bothered me the most (like Blast or Sharpen) but I have a fresh perspective now and I hope I can make it work. Sharpen is too good, and Blast is unsatisfactory for everyone, too expensive, too much damage, too easy to dodge. True I was slightly annoyed how it was either too easy to cut heads (with a +7 sword hey!) or an hallberd, or too hard (a normal sword, again, against a full plate does shite, fair but I was stupidly populating the world with mostly swords), or alternatively, I was also slightly annoyed how 3 punches on an unarmored human are deadly. But, to repeat myself, that is not really my major concern (which is damage spell as mentionned above). Anyway, I already perfectly realize now, just what you mentioned in the quoted text, the subtle different damage number, armor number, etc.. add up for a big difference between each of those games... But just saying it make a big difference while being vague on what is the difference is not being helpful, is it? Anyway, the rest of this thread has plenty of both historical information and helpful hints, if needed.

Nah it's fine. It's entertaining and informative.. so a win-win! 🙂

After consideration, and at the risk of being pedantic, I'll go with (CON+SIZ)*0.75 😛 This way any human can still be beheaded with one stoke critical of 2H Sword. Otherwise, thanks for this long and informative food for thoughts thread...

It should be for everyone, right? PC, NPC, Monsters?

Uh, why? Nothing personal but I don't think you understand how combat in BRP is supposed to work. It is supposed to be brutal and nasty with people taking major wounds, losing limbs, getting run through by spears and such. Most of those injuries aren't things that characters are expected to shrug off and walk away from. It's just that such injuries should be happening to the NPCs far more often than to the PCs, thanks to the PCs being more highly skilled (better parry & dodge), better equipped (armor soaks more damage) and better magicked (protection/sorceror's armor, magical healing). confused... why why not? I mean initially I was thinking simply reduce AP by 1 (if overcome). But if enemy armor is really annoying taking it down might become a priority....

What is the UGE thing I see people talking about a lot recently?! 😮 Anyway I got the BGB2011 and the BGB2023 and.... mm.. checking the cover page... UGE is Universal Game Engine subtitle on the front page is it? And BGB is the 2011 edition, because it's golden. Oh, I think I got it!! 😄 Well.... if we correct this error in transcription, that really edges me towards single HP pool! 😄 Although SDLeary's suggestion, which more or less run along the alternative idea I had seems fine. Might ask my players what they think and go with that hey! ^_^ Still undecided about the heroic HP though...

Do you mean that, say chest, is 4/10 of (CON+SIZ)/2 or (CON+SIZ) when using heroic HP? Perhaps I should use heoric HP.. dying from just a short fist fight is way too easy in BRP ^^ Anyway, with the suggestion outlined.. it seemed to me to go with the latest idea I had but was unsure about, i.e. So, I take it, this is not just my idea. It's a common one. And obviously a reasonable one. Perhaps even good hey? 🙂 I might use that after all then....

I am glad you ask. I do prefer location HP but I am becoming increasingly convinced that location HP don't work very well with BRP. - first there is the ridiculously high weapon damage. even though this could be overlook. - but all sort of area damage got broken. Dragon does 4D6, it's super deadly. Now with location I divide by 7. 24 becomes 3 or 4, almost but a scratch? and should I subtract armor from that? Classic Fantasy - Mythras is better written for area damage + localized HP in my mind, but I was planning to use BGB monster and the Big Book of Monsters (written for BGB as well) - what about poison? All of that to say.. got any advice for smoothly using localized HP? BTW, those characteristic penalty on the major wound table, like -D6 CON.. are they permanent? Anyway an idea that crossed my mind but feels gimmicky is to use General HP but location wound. i.e. all damage is general but if a single attack's damage is high enough for a wound, I'll inflict it, and also limit damage to twice the limb HP. That said, area attack and poison will always be without location and cap and perhaps use the major wound table? I was thinking, if the damage exceeds the armor, the damage can be applied to the armor instead of the target. On a crit when armor doesn't count, the armor might even be destroyed in 1 hit...

I am trying to go with rule as written as much as possible here... so BGB... The big part of the rule changes will be Perks (stunt, whatever you called them) and Magic (1. both Spell and Perk use INT slot, 2. Spell have 'branches' - spatial, soul, elementalism, nature, etc... - and 3. Spells have rank/level -1 to 3 or 5 TBD), beyond that I only tweaks things here and there that tickles me, and I try to keep it to a minimum... And this unexpectedly great discussion has convinced me to go all in with the BRP combat as is.... though I am still adding a Sunder and a Hooking specials And Iast, as I woke up, I realize, many monster special might be Bleeding instead of Crushing in fact..

Double damage after armor! that is great! Loving it! 🙂 Don't most monster do crushing specials?

With impale doing double weapon damage, impaling weapoon seems the absolute king of the battle field, ain't they? And with double bonus damage on blunt weapons.. those monster paw are deadly!! Poor bleeding weapons.. they are so weak! 😞

Easily, lol, just crit hey?! Speaking of which, me think to add another special for blunt weapon (you don;'t have both special, chose one) which is... divide enemy AP by 2 for damage calculation. A sort of bypass armor. Because concussion get you despite the armor! What about that hey?

Added more addendum to my dodge rule which I kind of forgot about, but they just came back. I think... it might make dodge an ok skill, after all the overall negative comments, could it? I know, I know, realistically one does not move a square / 5 feet when dodging. But also realistically, one cannot really dodge when in the thick of the melee.

yes awesome interesting

How do they do that with BRP? Granted I also do Mythras. But this time my players have expressed their desire to go my custom BRP which will introduce only minimal custom effect. i.e. almost no ByPass armor. Anyway, I just checked. Dragon have only 12AP. I guess it's doable...

Well.. hello Atgxtg! I am still unsure whether I care about the only either of Dodge or Parry in a round rule. SDLeary makes a good point. But that gives free success to spell casters. Ok damaging spell are over the top expensive but still. Or people only Dodge and.. meh... Probably will not really limit options. In related remark. A big part of this set of custom BRP rules I am working on is that I am redoing magic extensively. Although I am unsure what to do with big damage spells... But hey, as someone once told me, how do you damage the damn dragon otherwise? As it is the current iteration, in the barest of draft format, will have big damage spell still exists, be cheaper (in MP) but take up a few rounds to cast. Still very much work in progress and who knows I might change it once I start the campaign! 😮 😅 Anyway, for now I made the following amendment to Dodge in my iteration of current custom BRP rules, I like it Also I am preparing some weapon and combat perk and move that cost FP... Never done it before, but I reckon that if sorcerer can have a MP economy to do stuff, surely it wouldn't be too hard to have an FP economy for combatants... Although now that I think of it.. do I need to have an FP economy for all my monsters? As a GM I might probably cheat... monsters won't live enough rounds for that to matter, nor will they do expensive FP maneuverer... Oh and I plan to give a parry bonus to shield, on top of your skill value. But I want to think on how weapon and shield get damaged as well. A wooden shield should get damaged by a big monster attack, even when the parry succeeded.

I like that. I considered it and forgot it. Now that you reminded me of it and after that whole discussion, I think this ties up all together nicely.

This makes sense.... But where is it stated within the rules as written?! 😮

So... using Evade could have the other disadvantage that you cannot reduce the distance, or maybe worse, always increase the distance between players? I am not sure if it's what you suggested, but I have wondered about that sometimes...

I understand your argument, and it makes sense, and I am sure the player could learn to appreciate and game the fine nuance of BRP combat. What really bothers me here is, as I mentioned in my last paragraph, it really makes Evade the single best defensive option in the game. (Perhaps it was the intention too, you have to develop a separate skill after all, and Shields, the other separate skill have their own advantage, in that light perhaps I should just call it "Defence" and be done with it) Although, to be fair, I might already have a solution to that. As I am preparing a set of custom BRP rule (long story short, after polling my players, I have to customize the game), I was thinking to add a fatigue cost to Evade. And also add some combat perk costing fatigue. But I was thinking to add a perk to remove the fatigue cost of a simple evade, so back to square one.

I mean I always allow multiple reaction to my player. But this rule states that if you parry the enemy fighter, you can now longer evade the fire spell throw at you (or the dragon firebreath). I personally find it excessive and I am happy with the -30%. I guess it's my table my rule. But I am curious to know if some people feel strongly that indeed, once they parry an enemy fighter they can no longer evade an incoming spell. And why, if this "feeling" could be explained beyond personal preference. I get that BRP rules re really there to savagely kill everyone fighting but.. mm... I am tempering down damage in general... Plus if one simply evade everything, which as far as I know doesn't penalize in any way (except, perhaps, one can't parry missile), then it's a win for them, making evade a bit too good an option, which should really be the weakest defence option in my book. Because it's much harder to do in real life, whereas parrying with a shield, nothing could be easier.

Page 126 "Parries and Dodge", and I quote and underline: "Parries and Dodges Parries and dodges cannot be combined in a round unless your character is in a completely defensive state. In this case, the –30% modifiers for successive defensive actions include both parries and dodges."

Why can't we both parry and dodge in the same round? Is it because it's more "realistic" or to be able to engineer an automatic fail save/evade for a damage spell? Any other reasons? The former reasons are not really needed, the cumulative -30% to multiple reactions is good enough in my book...