Shaira

Hmm... I would have expected the same. But then, I am always a little suspicious when polls run neck-and-neck for so long anyway... Given that it's not too difficult to multiple vote on the poll, I'd be wary of attributing *too* much to the results! :-D Cheers, Sarah

I'd agree with Rust - it's the top end of an average person's ability. Anything above 100% is getting into above average human ability - it's not impossible to do so, but getting there makes the person a specialist - excellent at what they do. Animals in particular with abilities / skills far exceeding human norms can be expected to have skills in excess of 100%. So can Heroes. BRP gives you the option of capping skills at 100% or going above that. Personally I've always found one of the most interesting parts of BRP gaming to be roleplaying & exploring these high levels of ability, so for me having 100%+ skills is a must. Of course, *how much* you see skills going above 100% is a moot point. In my games they've never gone above 250% - I know in Simon's (soltakss) case they often went as high at 1000%. That's where GM preference comes in, I guess, as BRP doesn't offer too many markers there, except that the RAW don't (currently!) offer as many skill power-ups as old RQ3. Cheers, Sarah

I know Dustin's doing some work on the PDF download stuff this week, so that probably accounts for some of the stuff going wibble from time to time. All being well he'll have it ironed out soon. Champing at the bit also... Cheers, Sarah

Great photos Darran - cheers for putting those up. You've convinced me I really need to get my sorry self off to Tentacles next time - that is such a cool venue! Cheers, Sarah

I've found the BRP psychic powers (psionics) to be very smooth to incorporate. As everyone's said, they're basically treated as skills, with PP cost, sometimes resistance rolls as required, and are loosely (and informally) divided into telepathy-type and telekinesis-type powers. They're very flexible, and it's easy to incorporate new powers. Having said that, my gut feeling is to treat these much more as "special abilities" rather than spell powers, with characters having probably fewer of them than they would spells - sort of viewing them almost as skills. I've created a couple of psychic characters, and it's worked best when you start with a concept - IE this guy is a powerful telepath - and then choose the abilities to fit. As far as usefulness is concerned, that depends on your own choices. Are they interoperable with magic, for example? IE, would Pyrokinesis be resisted by a Resist Fire type spell? Personally, if you don't let the other power systems (esp. sorcery and magic) get too overblown, psychic powers (telepathy, emotion control, mind blast, telekinesis, etc) stand to give character's very special powers. The big thing is not to think of D&D psionics. They're nothing like - if anything they're maybe more comparable to the old Traveller psionics, or maybe even Space Opera (now that *was* a psionics system!). Cheers, Sarah

That's great news Charles - time for a well-earned breather and perhaps a couple of flagons of Foggle's Old Strengthener! Well done, sir! :happy:

I think the Sorcery POW storage techniques are very cool - not only the "Brazier of Power" but also the "Chain of Being" which allows multiple sorcerers to pool their resources. Agreed they're more likely for ritual summonings, etc, but still cool. And of course there's the item creation rules in the Equipment chapter - another way of getting dedicated POW for specific magical items (Wand of Fireballs, Flying Carpet type stuff). Cheers, Sarah

BRP has spell resistance using both permanent POW and temporary Power Points, depending on particular spell, magic system, etc. It's pretty flexible. There are even instances of spells using other characteristics - INT, STR, and CON spring to mind - for resistance rolls. Additionally, you can temporarily (for about 24 hours or so) increase your PP (what RQ3 called MP) above your POW score, up to double normal. This does give you the ability to punch through "normal" levels of spell resistance very effectively for certain spells, and reduces the mechanical dependence on things like POW crystals, which IMHO is a good thing. Also, the "Magic" system (as opposed to "Sorcery", etc) provides rules for Wizard's Staves, which are effectively POW crystals built directly into the rule system - they store POW points equal to the Wizard's POW at the time of creating the Staff. Again, this allows spell casting without reducing PP (although it doesn't effectively increase your PP score for spell resistance rolls). Finally, one key difference is that POW and INT no longer have species' maximums for human characters. This puts another level of strategic variation into magic use and conflicts - you really don't know how much POW that sorceror guy *might* have! All in all, the BRP magic powering and resistance rules are pretty modular, and very flexible. They allow you to create different types of spell-casters, which should actually be quite cool in play - you won't necessarily be able to say "hey, I'm a POW 18 Rune Priest with 100 points of stored PP, I can wipe the floor with this other spellcasting guy". Takes some of the predictability out of spellcaster vs spellcaster. Cheers, Sarah

Actually, no - thanks for the reminder! I've been sidetracked into Other Things since my last post, but happily have managed to find a way to work a "School of Alchemy" pretty smoothly into my Chronicles campaign. I'll get to work on it right away! Cheers, Sarah

Woot! That's cool - back up and running with good news and character sheet! The site actually seems a fair bit faster, too. Must've been quite a crunch it took. And BRP is at the printer! *solo mexican wave* :thumb:

Although there isn't a "Divine Magic" system in the BRP core book per se, from your description you probably want the Sorcery rules. It's basically the spell system from Stormbringer 5: it's similar in many respects to old RQ2 Battle Magic, and in general is less powerful than BRP "Magic World" magic, and much more reliable to cast (basically, it always works, although many spells can be resisted). There's even an entry in the Sorcery rules which states that Sorcery spells may either be "learned through study", or gifted to the caster by some divine or supernatural agent. It should work fine as a divine magic system, and it's very easy to plug in new spells as and when you need them. Cheers, Sarah

We used to call it an "Unresolved Programming Opportunity"...

Hi Bander! That sounds one COOL campaign! Welcome aboard - I'm pretty sure that BRP is keeping all the rules you mention, although there are no specific priest or shaman rules in the first release (no divine magic per se). We're all expecting magic systems to be a pretty high priority for upcoming releases following the core book, plus of course your RQ3 / Stormbringer stuff will still work fine with the new rules! Cheers, Sarah

Here ya go (these are from the BRP rulesbook, not Pendragon): Aggressive/Passive Impulsive/Cautious Extrovert/Introvert Optimistic/Pessimistic Stubborn/Receptive Physical/Mental Patient/Nervous Emotional/Calm Trusting/Suspicious Leader/Follower Greedy/Generous Energetic/Lazy Honorable/Dishonorable Brave/Cowardly Curious/Incurious Dependable/Unreliable Pious/Irreligious Honest/Dishonest Clever/Dull Humorous/Dour Innovative/Conservative I think I'd probably go with a Cruel / Merciful and maybe a couple of others too. Hope that helps! Cheers, Sarah

Actually that's not too much of a problem - they've probably had to fiddle with the IP address hookup, causing the security certificate to go wibble. It's fine to press "OK" and carry on to the site. They'll probably fix that when they're sure everything's working - it happens a lot when sites explode. It does sound like the underlying issue that started things off might have been quite significant though (although likely nothing to do with Chaosium, unless they run their own webservers...). BTW - I'm still getting the maintenance page at Construction Banner. Are you guys going in via direct URL to specific pages? Cheers, Sarah

Excellent stuff Charles! Looking forwards to seeing this one hit the shelves!

It's definitely an option. We've discussed it (somewhere!) on this board already, and I've put together some very rough notes for myself on the subject, but to be honest right now I'm inclined to see how RAW BRP plays out, especially with things like opposed rolls, super powers, and martial arts. But it's certainly an option worth exploring. Cheers, Sarah

Good luck with the move, Sverre! Don't forget to buy an extra big bookshelf for all the games... Cheers, Sarah

Actually, in all honesty from what I'm hearing it does sound like MRQ sorcery might be quite a good system when it's fixed. I'm quietly keeping an eye on it from the sidelines - it's clear it does need some pretty extensive rewriting in places, but it does seem like it's a considered and progressive forward step from the RQ3 Sorcery system. You never know! :happy: I appreciate BRP Sorcery is not in the same continuum as the RQ Sorcery systems, but IMHO it's a simple, elegant, and very scalable magic system with some cool summoning rules, and one which I'll be using as my principal BRP magic system. Comparing apples and pears, really, but it's definitely *not* like RQ3 Divine Magic! Cheers, Sarah

You forgot to mention that MRQ sorcery allows you to cast un-Manipulated sorcery spells for ZERO power points. So, after every battle the sorceror can completely heal everybody's wounds, for free! Now that's POWER! >:-> (Sorry, couldn't resist )

Erm... how, exactly? As far as I can see it's nothing like it! i.) You don't sacrifice permanent POW for BRP Sorcery ii.) BRP Sorcery spells aren't one-use / need to be prayed for to get back at a temple iii.) You pay power points to cast a BRP sorcery spell iv.) You can only have a certain number of BRP sorcery spells in memory v.) You can cast BRP sorcery spells from a Grimoire How is that the "equivalent" of RQ Divine Magic? Cheers, Sarah

The MagicWorld stuff has made it into BRP as "Magic"; the "Sorcery" stuff is actually the Sorcery from Stormbringer 5th Edition, and has nothing to do with any of the RuneQuest version.s BRP Sorcery is actually a very simple and tidy system - basically anyone with POW 16+ can use sorcery, sorcery spells can have 1-4 "levels" (though most just have 1), and you can hold in your memory as many levels of sorcery as your INT. You can store all other sorcery spells you own in your Grimoire, and swap them in and out of memory as required. Casting Sorcery spells costs 1PP per level of spell. They always work (ie no % roll like Magic), but may require a Resistance Roll (usually PP vs PP) to take effect against a resisting target. That's pretty much it. BRP gives you a basic list of spells, but the system is very modular and its easy to plug in new ones. For ease of use it's reminiscent of RQ2 Battle Magic, but includes some cool stuff like group sorcery workings, summonings, and so on. Hope that helps, Sarah

I like it - very elegant. Sort of like RQ2 only neater. :thumb: Sarah

Hi Loz, I think you took me a bit too literally there . Brontosaur is a reductio ad absurdum just to ram the point home (in case it needed it... ). The point being, if you have a judgement call - ie "well, of course you CAN'T parry a brontosaur, that's absurd", then at some point you enter the fuzzy ground where it's more "hmm... well you *might* be able to parry that great troll maul / griffin claw / elephant tusk, but I'm not completely sure". Your judgement then, in the current case of parry-blocks-all-damage, is that you have to somehow imagine that a weapon parry could conceivably block all the damage / knockback / whatever before you can allow a parry to happen, ie a relatively arbitrary GM decision - and before you know it you're houseruling so you don't have to be quite so arbitrary. Whilst my point is, if you go with the old "parrying-weapons-absorb-a-certain-amount-of-damage-but-let-the-rest-through", then you have a watertight rule with no arbitrariness and you no longer have the problem of trying to decide whether the attack can actually be parried or not. Sure, you can *try* and parry that brontosaur / troll maul / griffin claw / elephant tusk / whatever, but you're probably gonna get squished unless you're sewn into your armor real good! Anyway, it's an old argument, and I'm completely happy with the new BRP paradigm as long as you *don't* separate Attacks & Parries - it's just that in my campaign we *do*, so I think I'll be houseruling. No big deal. Mind that bronto! Cheers, Sarah

Nick - you're a genius, sir! That's the method I use! Well, mostly. I ended up rewriting the Attack Matrix with an entirely new Parry column, which is more or less the "common sense" version of RQ3. I've just uploaded it to the Downloads section (Game Aids). It means that parrying weapons and shields will stop a certain amount of damage but that with high levels of damage some will get through. It looks horribly complex, but isn't actually. Anyhow, just a bit of fun! Cheers, Sarah