Lloyd Dupont

Learn French! This is the way!  

indeed!

all D100 rule are very similar so it would work fine...

Compared to Cthulhu, in BRP/MagicWorld/Elric/Runequest, you got much more developed magic system(s?!) and fantasy bestiary.... but it's otherwise quite similar with some subtle difference here and there... (mostly combat I reckon)

as a side note I despise most variation of elemental magic (i.e. fire/cold/stone attacks) I found in all those rule set.. 😕  but I quite like the rest!  

Reading the "Demon Princes" just now....

The writing aged.. And the settings seems somewhat "unrealistic" (using quote here, we are talking about the far future here, it's obviously subjective).
Anyway, regardless, there is a story in there that keep me reading  
But I am not buying the whole thing....

15 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

None of my feelings have been hurt. It's all part of the job.

Such professionalism!

also... I am going very slowly.. but in a few month I'll be ready to share my Master of Orion setting, rule set and adventure hooks!

Jack Vance hey?
I used to like that when I was a kid.. But I totally forgot what I read... Might try again!

Hi all..

After a break back into working o my Master of Orion adventure settings (might be starting to play it in a few months now! 😮 ) 

Anyway I got 2 blockers....

1. Material Rewards: in fantasy setting every now and then players can find magical items.. In this scifi heavily industrialized setting I don't see a place for unique items... And even luxury items.. when one can afford to maintain a spaceship, one can buy any luxury gun if they really want to... not sure what to do there... Apart from credits (spaceship are costly hey!) not sure what material / physical rewards I could give...

EDIT scratch that, I know what to do here. I got big equipment table cross referenced by tech level. I can offer elusive item from more advanced neighboring empire! These are both better and hard to come by!

2. "Encouters", the life of an adventurer is often akin to a gunslinger of thief... but I don't see how could that work in the information age... My vision of the future (ideally, if I can make that work) is noting like Star Wars (where it really seems space tech and tech in general is kind of .. lost? and most place are almost medieval or borderland) here most place are heavily developed. (if you play Master of Orion before, it should make sense ^^)

So.. any tips on those?
Thanks yall!

The Wellerman TikTok Sea Chanty mashup for 3 straight hours (a 3 hour tour) - YouTube

Haha, surprise concert!  

May 2021 be like ...

Well... sometimes you have to make you peace with all those systems (by that I mean the BRP ruleset) being a simplified model to resolve common conflict situation with good enough believability, flexibility, impartiality and expediency...

It's not very good at outlier... Now if your setting is full of outliers you might need to com up with your own extensions, or home rules...

58 minutes ago, DreadDomain said:

Now using that short cut for STR 80 would give a silly result.  That character would have 50% chance to lift 30 tons but could only swim with 80 pounds... hmmm, no. If that situation would ever come up, I woud use 7% of 30 tons (2 tons). If this would come up often in my games (say, for a game set in Atlantis), I would use 10% of their STR capacity on the SIZ chart. It's easy to calculate on the fly.

this particular segment is not silly at all. However strong you are, you buoyancy remains the same, i.e. the weight of water that your body displace minus your own weight!  

Well all the number are not entirely logical or consistent....

But from a comment from Atgxtg in one of my thread, that was the intention for weight/SIZ and, therefore, STR. And some conversion table from weight to SIZ for some supplement follow this doubling of weight with each +8 in SIZ. Work well with Resistance table as someone pointed out.

As for HP and Damage... (and POW) it is, indeed inconsistent since one could imagine that with 16 more SIZ (and CON) one should have 4 times (i.e. 4x) the HP, but it is not the case, one get +16 HP instead.... And same for POW... 

Personally I am not sleepless about it.. but if you want to nitpick, be my guest!

Thinking of which.. about HP (not damage) I got a personal (untested) home rule of mine (inspired by RevolutionD100, but with a twist) I added a Toughness attribute to the game. Toughness = CON/4.
It reduce incoming physical damage (ie. blow, but not poison)a bit like armour, but down to 1 instead of 0, it does not negate damage, just reduced it.

I think it can be added just as is, but might need to adjust the AP of large creature or creature with high CON/high AP (like Angel, they are not large, but with their high CON and natural radiant AP, it's a bit much)

One thing where it is inconsistent... Magic Point should grow exponentially as well hey, shouldn't they?
But now they are linear function of POW....

Anyway, just nitpicking.. high POW is not that common in BRP anyway....

STR and SIZ are supposed to be exponential, i.e. every +8SIZ is supposed to be x in weight.. kinda, doesn't quite work with low value (i.e. below 16)

I dont like the *must duck* I rather say, if you leave cover you are automatically hit.... (before you can do anything!)

here is how I plan to use it (we shall see how it goes) if one is doing suppressive fire. It should have been declared in an earlier round. The first round it's like normal fire.
whoeer is doing suppressive fire is targeting a zone (where suspected enemy might be behind cover) and roll their attack (and spend their ammo) normally, maybe using burst fire if they have it...

If anyone is in the zone and leave cover, they are automatically subject of the attack

I guess they should be able to peek.. mm.. not sure.. .maybe it's a hard combine evade and perception or attack roll... mmm....

Yes, as you noticed.. I was using Mythras for a short while. but no longer.

A few correction, at 70% you have 70% of shaping... each new component cost 1 MP but, for the exception of combine, additional level in the extra components are free...

So Shaping range & target of wrack cost 3 MP overall. With 3 range point the range is POWx10m, say 150 meters, that leave you 4 point for 5 targets (at 150 m) for 3mp. 3mp is 1 round if you have 16 in DEX. or 1.5 round for most people.
You can not do that in a Dungeon, but in the wilderness you can safely target anyone beyond even missile weapon range. They do have a save (evade, that leave them prone) but nothing else (not even a shield) will help. After that they are dead man walking... (free damage every round, that ignore armor) If the wizard had protection on top of that...

So I wanted to have a wizard school of elementalism.. and I added my favorite spell (wrack, protection, enhance damage) but phew.. obviously I should give them to everyone or make it a turbulent time of conquest by the few nations that have it.... But meanwhile the party is not as balanced that I wanted it to be... (one was exceptionally schooled by those sorcery master, but the other were local with no magic of folk magic) I cant just give more XP to the other players, nor I am sure what I could give them that would be both in character and balanced...

But more that that, while I unreservedly like the flexible casting (combine spell like you want, tweak them too) the result is too overpowered to my liking, I do not like super heroes. And to my surprise, I think Mythras magic is more OP than D&D.

On the other hand BRP is much more limited and safe...but I still couldn't make a fireball that feel right 😕 
My latest iteration (described above, but untested as I said) might do it.
And yes, I also added a spell a bit like Disruption, but is an elemental bolt (because, I do like those ) 

It's getting there... 

to repeat myself..

the problem is 2 fold, not so much in BRP, but obvious in Mythras and RD100, a starting Wizard is way too powerful compare to a starting any other thing (To my taste) (unless you give the wizard purposely weak spell, which is not my choice either) (the Mythras version of CF is OK, but it has classes and levels)

Then one an do from 1D6 to 9D6 (unavoidable, if it's a fireball damage) so really unbalanced.. but the price is crazy high.. nobody is happy there...

in a short Mythras stint, I gave protection and wrack to the starting Wizard. It had permanent Protection 5 and Wrack 5 enemy every round until they were dead, then next... Meanwhile the other character were struggling with hitting the enemy, bypassing the armor, and not taking too much damage... that was a failure... ON the Mythras forum they were advising me very strongly to make Wrack rare, as the one and only solution. That went totally against my intention, why can't I have a non OP wrack instead... 

Anyway, long story short... Yea a solution (which requires lot of homework) is to redo the costing of many spell and also change to cost limits... I already write my plan a few post prior..

Your cost reduction is close to mine (mine is automatic at 100+%, your suggestion is more of a gamble)...

your second idea is interesting but.. only for very long spell taking multiple rounds... round to round casting requires tons of roll is drag on the game... there is already something like that but instant 1 roll, one can combine spell at will in BRP (and Mythras, and RD100), just being limited by the total level...

2 hours ago, Mugen said:

You can even prepare them in advance with the Hold art.

Another cool idea!

yeah Mythras damage is like that and is fine.... but it has other problem (for my taste)...
also cannot do that with BRP very well if I keep the option to empower it...

although.. the idea of NOT empowering it crossed my mind a few times... then I could start with a flat damage dice (depending on skill) and make it 1MP... mmm... might be the best way...

3 hours ago, fulk said:

Fireball is just Wrack with the fire damage and Shaping spent on range and # of targets. Many of the spells can just be re-skinned this way. Ray of Frost is just Wrack with ice damage and one target.  However, I understand your comment.  There is a certain flavor provided by having the spell description in the book. 

It's not quite what displeased me...

I have no problem with the reskinning, in fact I do prefer more flexible spell combination!
On that topic I quite like my new combination spell "Ball" that turn spells (even other spell like.. Change hey?!) into are area spell! 😛 

No I am displeased with the combination of casting cost / damage. And each system has various thing that displeased me. Some of them might be bad handling of the rules by me, or me not giving enough counter spell to enemy... I will concede... (I do have a lot of non caster in a magic heavy world... might not just work with such systems)
But to focus on my current rule set of interest I will comment on BRP below.

I am using BRP and general HP (no localisation).
Fire does 1D6 per 3MP. Can be Evaded. (i.e. it' not POW resistance table it's Evade roll)
Area attack can be avoid with Evade for half damage.

First problem to make it vaguely deadly one has to spend 12MP. Unlike other spell that usually work for 3~5MP. Then it uses Evade instead of resistance table that is either too easy or too hard (it can be gamed by using henchman attacking first) and finally, if I make it a Ball spell (by increasing the cost further by, say +3) now it become totally unavoidable damage (area spell do half damage in case of successful Evade) for... 21MP... 

Anyway to summarize I have 3 problems
1. excessive casting cost
2. excessive damage
3. (bonus problem) I still want some sort of leveling up with magic, without resorting to spell being rare or more or less powerful version of spells

So in my alternative magic system, it look very much like the Magic power with a few core changes...
1. spell are not limited by INT/2 level but by MIN(INT/2, "Arcane Knowledge skill/10%") MP cost
2. spell no longer have level, but arbitrary cost, that can be just like Magic or maybe like 1MP Cantrip/FolkMagic, 
3. Fire and the like is NOT costed 3MP / 1D6 anymore, but instead 1MP for 1D6 + 2MP per extra D6 (so it's cheaper,  but limited to 5D6 at best)
4. Ball cost 3MP (so Area spell have to be less powerful by 3MP)
5. Arcane Knowledge give a bonus to MP pool, equal Skill/10% (leveling part 1)
6. Arcane Knowledge at 100% give a one time 1MP cost reduction (leveling part 2)
7. when a spell skill reach 100% every 10% above 100% give a 1MP reduction to that specific spell (levelling part 3)
8. Cost reduction also play into the spell casting limit, enabling higher level spell casting
9. "Ritual Casting" skill is slow (1 round per MP) but applied to all spell... and is limited only by skill/10% not by INT/2. can be used for all "cantrip" or for more powerful casting out of combat 

It's not a story the Jedi like to tell.... 😛 

I am personally displeased with elemental magic in all BRP/D100 systems... you know, fireball and the like of it!

And also I have another small frustration with a the "power curve", by that I mean, in many variation (Mythras, Revolution D100), when one create a new character, or as a noble train their followers, one will be better off training Wizard army in term of bang for your buck! They requires 0 tools (i.e. once you get the book, no need to buy sword and armor, save a lot of money) and do much much more damage...
(I was often suggested to make "some spell" rare, like, fire, wrack, protection, sharpen, but what I wanted instead is a common yet reasonable version)

I made some magic tweak that try to fix both "problems" (at least they are problem to me, I'll confess many other do not seem to find that problematic)... But then.. at the moment I am not GMing and my next game / campaign is not going to have any magic... so I dunno if my fixes are good!  😅

One other thing I haven't really tested, since I played mostly Mythras and RevolutionD100 in which one can have any spell last all day long, whereas next I want to use raw BRP, which have most spell only last a short while.... so the dynamic will be very different.... haven't tested it yet either... 
And I added my own way to make long lasting spell...