Third reading reactions

[Lloyd Dupont]

There are few things that strikes me as great additions over BRP that I want to use. Few things I still want and need to clarify. Few thing that I want to use but tweaks...
I guess when people start "changing things" it mostly bring negative adversarial reactions.... Please enlighten me if I am "stupid" but I'll try to explain my reasons.

 

Skill and Traits
That one is an obvious good thing. you don't have 95% in sword, but, uh, 25% in mace... also you can only have skill%/10 traits so you gotta chose those point. love it.
Might make trait cost 5xp instead of 1. Not that in matter much, this game requires lots of xp anyway, and the main limiting factor (as I understand it) is training time and teacher availability. It's just 5xp feel right to me... but hey pitch in if you disagree.

However... as you will see below I am (probably, likely) going to drop SR counting (i.e. multiple actions). However I like the BRP rule of skill above 100%, above 150% (increase efficacy, more attacks, etc...). So I am thinking to enable double specialisation of some sort. Any idea? My initial current naive thought is Trait 1 (+30%), Trait 2 (+20%)

Toughness
Love it! But obviously to exploit toughness I need size class, might, combat effects, advanced combat, updated monster characteristics, it has huge impact on the game and mechanics. Alright it's doable. Hell even armour coverage is just as neat and must have too.
Also it's gonna makes me switch back to localised HP, I feel it's much more bearable with toughness (localised HP is usually tougher, except it was terrible against elemental and area attack)

After like 5 readings of the advanced section I believe that most of it gonna run pretty smoothly after all!
I would have written about the effect after combat action though, in the book.

Strike Rank counting (ie. multiple actions)
Alright this one is going to be controversial but bear with me a second please. The short version is I prefer the default 1 (proactive) action per round of BRP.
When I switched from Mythras to BRP dropping action points to 1 action per round, it was a huge relief and workflow improvement for combat session. Everybody loved it.
While SR is totally a very neat way to grad attack speed (hey maybe many punches but only 1 or 2 sword attacks), also much simpler and logical than Mythras, and enable "fast enemy" in a very seamless fashion... it taxed our cognitive abilities (me and my players) a bit much, particularly when I got 3 players and 7 NPC... (maybe I am suffering from a bad case of old age?)
Might try it a bit though, just to check, but probably going to drop it.

Additionally, on a tangent topic, what if I want to use spell and sword in the same melee round. Sword would use melee SR and but spell INT SR, what about that?

Exertion Point
Gone are the magic point, enter Exertion points!
But it's more than just a new fancy face! You got twice as much of them and they can go into negative numbers. Effectively the spell casters have 4 times more casting power. And for fighter it doesn't seem to matter much, until you take a major wound of course, in which case it starts hurting.
I guess I am still unsure what to make of them. And their newness (to me) make them less appealing than magic point (which, in BRP, are used for everything!).

Also thinking to inflict exertion point penalty on minor wound (pdf seems unclear to me here, minor wounds seem to only affect EP of next combat as far as I could see)

Magic Strength
In fact this is probably a moot comment, no real question here.
Many GM, depending on their background, would have a different opinion. Me I like short duration, short fixed range and excessive spell casting cost like BRP. One reason is that doing extraordinary feat is good enough for me as a GM and my creature and players. I don't want them to be superextracagifragilistic! 
Most importantly I don't want to make the fighter type of character redundant or weak by comparison (in the killing business).

Also I liked how one could spend (lots) of permanent POW to enchant in BRP. Won't work here though, or maybe it could, mmm..... But there is some interesting novel idea for Enchantment in the Revolution book, and I can also use XP.

INT, CHA
Those characteristics don't seem as impactful as the other on the game mechanics. I guess CHA is used for communication conflict pools. But what of INT?
I am sure I am missing something...

Paperback book
I know some rule updates are coming. What if I want to buy the hardcover version of the book. Is a new update coming soon as well, i.e. better hold off or doesn't matter?

 

Bonus Question
If 2 average human fight with fist (toughness 6, might 0, fist damage d2), how do they eventually knock each other out?

Edited August 28, 2019 by Lloyd Dupont

[RosenMcStern]

Lotsa interesting points...

16 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Not that in matter much, this game requires lots of xp anyway, and the main limiting factor (as I understand it) is training time and teacher availability. It's just 5xp feel right to me... but hey pitch in if you disagree.

Playtest definitely says that 1 xp is ok. There are already exceptions for very broad-use Traits. 5 xp is way too much, it would hinder character evolution a lot.

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While SR is totally a very neat way to grad attack speed (hey maybe many punches but only 1 or 2 sword attacks), also much simpler and logical than Mythras, and enable "fast enemy" in a very seamless fashion... it taxed our cognitive abilities (me and my players) a bit much, particularly when I got 3 players and 7 NPC... (maybe I am suffering from a bad case of old age?)

Toughest situation I encountered was 3 PCs vs 30 NPCs, with the PCs holding position in a corridor while the enemies kept coming. Total duration of the battle 1,5 hours - and it was after midnight, and after much beer. Once you have found a way to keep track of SR on the fly (I recommend d20s besides figures, but Pansophy has also created a neat tabletop combat tracker), combat tends to run much faster than other BRP variants.

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Additionally, on a tangent topic, what if I want to use spell and sword in the same melee round. Sword would use melee SR and but spell INT SR, what about that?

In the published version of the rules you must spend 5 SR to "switch mode". This will be dropped in the next iteration of the rules, with only "engaged/non engaged" considered when determining initial readiness. This will appear in the new quickstart available next week. 

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Exertion Point
Gone are the magic point, enter Exertion points!
But it's more than just a new fancy face! You got twice as much of them and they can go into negative numbers. Effectively the spell casters have 4 times more casting power. And for fighter it doesn't seem to matter much, until you take a major wound of course, in which case it starts hurting.
I guess I am still unsure what to make of them. And their newness (to me) make them less appealing than magic point (which, in BRP, are used for everything!).

Also thinking to inflict exertion point penalty on minor wound (pdf seems unclear to me here, minor wounds seem to only affect EP of next combat as far as I could see)

Exertion points are not a way of limiting magic use as they are in all other versions of BRP. They have this function as a side effect, particularly if you use elemental projection spells and want to limit their effectiveness. In practice, you will see that a magician hardly ever runs out of exertion points because of casting. The issue is for a wounded magician, whereas each power use brings the caster more in the negative.

Moreover, exertion points work well only if you use SR. If you drop SR, then you have to drop exertion points, too, or they will turn into pointless bookkeeping with no real effect.

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Magic Strength
In fact this is probably a moot comment, no real question here.
Many GM, depending on their background, would have a different opinion. Me I like short duration, short fixed range and excessive spell casting cost like BRP. One reason is that doing extraordinary feat is good enough for me as a GM and my creature and players. I don't want them to be superextracagifragilistic! 
Most importantly I don't want to make the fighter type of character redundant or weak by comparison (in the killing business).

Have a look at Rise of the Yokai Koku Buddhism. I suspect it is the right power balance for you. You can be a specialist magician who relies on attack spells, but you will never overshadow a samurai in combat in this way. 

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Also I liked how one could spend (lots) of permanent POW to enchant in BRP. Won't work here though, or maybe it could, mmm..... But there is some interesting novel idea for Enchantment in the Revolution book, and I can also use XP.

Enchanting is a mini-game in itself in Rd100. Once you get a grip of the rules (there is a thread here with revised rules for enchanting rituals, and they are in Rise of the Yokai Koku, too), most players who can enchant will do it all the time: foci, familiars, small magic items, etc. 

The core issue here is that there is no "loss of permanent resources" disincentive to enchanting. It is just a matter of time, and skill necessary to win the Conflict. The drawback is that if you fail the item may have unintended side effects - determined by the GM, who is encouraged to be creative. Much more fun than "You rolled 99 - you wasted your hard-earned POW".

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Paperback book
I know some rule updates are coming. What if I want to buy the hardcover version of the book. Is a new update coming soon as well, i.e. better hold off or doesn't matter?

Hardcover plus the new Quickstart should give you a ruleset which is rather close to the forthcoming International Edition. Which will appear in 2020 - the reasons for this delay will be announced soon.

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onus Question
If 2 average human fight with fist (toughness 6, might 0, fist damage d2), how do they eventually knock each other out?

With the Subdue combat effect. But a fistfight between humans is the typical situation where using Basic Combat is recommended.

Edited August 28, 2019 by RosenMcStern

[Lloyd Dupont]

Thanks for this detailed answer!

The more I read the rule the more I love them. And I think the name "Revolution" is warranted. It is D100, but it has some never seen before stuff! And the character creation process (or class design process for GM) is the easiest of them all! 😮 

Unfortunately rules need many reading to be understood! 😕 

Excellent tip to have D20 next to the figurines, gotta try that!
note to self, unexpectedly for a D100 game, need more D20 😮. BTW why not follow the tradition of using D20 locations?

Oh.. so it seems I need to study basic combat as well and blend both advanced and basic depending on the situation hey?! Oh 😮

After some googling I found "Rise of the Yokai Koku", thanks!

 

Well gotta buy some hard cover book for me an my player then!

[Zit]

5 hours ago, RosenMcStern said:

With the Subdue combat effect. But a fistfight between humans is the typical situation where using Basic Combat is recommended.

To apply the Subdue effect, don't you have to bring the EP to zero with a Sunt effect first. And without Might, the Stunt effect is inoperant. Or did I miss something ? The alternative may be to use grappling, but this is not boxing anymore. And Subdue does not knock out.

I think the best is definitely Basic Combat !

 

[Lloyd Dupont]

24 minutes ago, Zit said:

I think the best is definitely Basic Combat !

In general? Or in the context of the question about fist fight?

It feels like I need to do both... more reading incoming! 

[Zit]

I mean about fist fight. For the rest, it is only a matter of taste.