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Limited Range of Psychic Powers


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2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Generally you wouldn't. Part of  the fun of the BRP system is that  players get to see their characters improve a little after each adventure or game session. So rather than adventuring for a cmonth or two and then leveling up and getting a bunch of bonuses at once, like in D&D,   n BRP the characters improve  a couple of skills after each adventure and overtime wind up in the same spot.

In fact, advancement in BRP tends to be a bit quicker than in D&D, since each level is usually only a 5%  increase to attack  and possibly skill scores, so a BRP character can get the equivalent of 2 or 3 levels worth of improvement with a weapon in under a month. 

 
 

It also depends a bit on which system you use. In BRP, skills increase by 1D6% if you succeed in a skill check. In Elric! it's 1D10%! I suppose characters in Elric! need to develop quickly before the End of the Young Kingdoms. In Fire and Sword I think it's 1 point on  a d20, which translates to 5%. However Fire and Sword is like Mythras in that you get 'improvement points' to improve a number of skills, not limited to the ones you used in the adventure (though maybe guided by those). This is supposedly to avoid adventurers becoming too alike over time (eg, search, sneak, hide, combat skills etc.)

I also use the house rule of an automatic on-the-spot increase of 1% if you get a critical success or a fumble.

Edited by Questbird
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35 minutes ago, Questbird said:

It also depends a bit on which system you use. In BRP, skills increase by 1D6% if you succeed in a skill check. In Elric! it's 1D10%! I suppose characters in Elric! need to develop quickly before the End of the Young Kingdoms.

I think it is more a case of Stormbringer being the first Chaosium RPG to break from the 5%  increments of RQ2. So 5% became 1D10%, which was  later changed to 1D6% in RQ3.

Even so advancement tends  to be quicker than  in D&D, and more broad as well. Rather than narrowly focusing on a handful of abilities related to class, characters can  improve in the various thing they do during an adventure. 

 

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11 hours ago, Old Man Henerson said:

I will have to look in to it. Thanks for the tip. Perhaps the character's power level could be related to how high their POW score is?

To be clear, a GURPS character has as not one Power Level, but one per broad Psionic category.

That is, a character with ESP, Psychokinetic and Telepathic powers will have 3 different PLs. Also, PL tend to be exponential, and PL 10 is already very strong.
If anything, POW could be used as a limit to the total PLs of a character.

Trinity can be more directly translated into BRP, as it has a single Psi attribute, which can be set equal to POW.
Each Psionic ability can be treated as a skill.

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On 12/18/2019 at 1:31 AM, Mugen said:

To be clear, a GURPS character has as not one Power Level, but one per broad Psionic category.

That is, a character with ESP, Psychokinetic and Telepathic powers will have 3 different PLs. Also, PL tend to be exponential, and PL 10 is already very strong.
If anything, POW could be used as a limit to the total PLs of a character.

Trinity can be more directly translated into BRP, as it has a single Psi attribute, which can be set equal to POW.
Each Psionic ability can be treated as a skill.

Would power levels like this be like changing the campaign level for a character and letting them start out with more powers or just making their current powers more potent?

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On 12/17/2019 at 7:59 PM, g33k said:

The Mongoose edition of Runequest (a BRP game (that is to say, RuneQuest begat BRP at Chaosium, but then RQ got licensed to Mongoose, who begat a variant (but similar, and easily translated) system as THEIR game) had an Eastern setting, with Land of the Samurai & Land of the Ninja.  These had Ki Powers.

That branch of the "family tree" isn't really pursuing the "eastern" line at the moment, but TDM's Mythras is a linear descendant (mechanically speaking), and typically in Mythras you'd implement the "Mystic Warrior" idea -- whether Shaolin Monk or Jedi Knight -- using the mechanics called "Mysticism."

Yeah. I was looking for something more like Jedi powers, plus the power of a raw chi attack, and the usual psychic powers of cryokineses and pyrokineses.

 

On 12/17/2019 at 7:59 PM, g33k said:

The BRP mechanism is good as written, as @Atgxtg says!  The organic character-growth (getting better at the stuff you actually DO, needing to specially-train to improve stuff you haven't done) works really well.  There's no "moment" of level-up where you're suddenly better-at-everything (even stuff you've never done?!), but getting a little bit better (much more often) has its own satisfactions.

That said, there's several ways to speed up BRP progression if you want to.  I have seen: give bigger improvements on any skill-check for improvement; or make it be automatic bump, instead of a "check;" or allow the improvement-rolls more frequently.

I actualy like the organic growth approtch of BRP, much more realistic than D&D, I will just have to figure out if I need to have the higher experience rolls like the others were talking about or not.

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On 12/13/2019 at 9:53 AM, Atgxtg said:

Well it's  not too hard to come up with something, depending on what you want to do. What size vehicles do you need for the game? There are some basic formulas I can give you that can be used  to help stat up vehicles.  

I actually found BRP Mecha on the internet just now so I will have to give it a good look through over the next few weeks to see how everything works. I will probably end up using your character scale system too since the first class of Mecha is just a few feet too high for what I was thinking.

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11 hours ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Would power levels like this be like changing the campaign level for a character and letting them start out with more powers or just making their current powers more potent?

Sorry, I don't understand your question.

Do you mean, for instance, giving each character a number of PL equal to their POW ?

That would make a huge difference between a character with POW 10 and POW 18, even if the second one doesn't put all his points in one power.
For instance, the first one could have one power with PL 10, and the second one would have the same power at same PL, but also a second one at PL 8.

Note that this is something that is also completely possible in GURPS, but the one with only one power gets points to spend on other skills and advantages.

The game also allows for characters with very small power levels, less than 5.

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13 hours ago, Mugen said:

Sorry, I don't understand your question.

Do you mean, for instance, giving each character a number of PL equal to their POW ?

That would make a huge difference between a character with POW 10 and POW 18, even if the second one doesn't put all his points in one power.
For instance, the first one could have one power with PL 10, and the second one would have the same power at same PL, but also a second one at PL 8.

Note that this is something that is also completely possible in GURPS, but the one with only one power gets points to spend on other skills and advantages.

The game also allows for characters with very small power levels, less than 5.

Sorry for the confusion, I was talking about the setting the campaign's power level like Normal, Heroic, Epic, and Superhuman, that the Big Golden Book talks about, and how people can start with more powers and more mastery over their powers. I was wondering if people with higher power levels would have the benefits given by the higher campaign levels.

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3 hours ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Sorry for the confusion, I was talking about the setting the campaign's power level like Normal, Heroic, Epic, and Superhuman, that the Big Golden Book talks about, and how people can start with more powers and more mastery over their powers. I was wondering if people with higher power levels would have the benefits given by the higher campaign levels.

The do, indirectly, because they are more powerful, have better stats and are more skilled. But, on the other hand, that typically means their opponents are tougher and more skilled too, so it might actually get harder on the players! Cricals and specials in BRP can take down most experienced characters, and there often isn't much a player can do if some  NPC gets a lucky critical hit and  does a dozen points through armor to a vital location. That's the kind of thing that might even drop an elephant.                       

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On 12/17/2019 at 10:19 PM, Atgxtg said:

I think it is more a case of Stormbringer being the first Chaosium RPG to break from the 5%  increments of RQ2. So 5% became 1D10%, which was  later changed to 1D6% in RQ3.

I'm about to add HR's on skill checks, myself...

  • Gain 2d4% on a successful check.  Avg is 5%, usually within 4-6, occasionally lower or higher.
  • On a fumble, gain a special check worth 3d4%
  • On a Critical, gain 3d4% as a flat gain (no need to check, but only gained when otherwise making checks, i.e. you have time to consider the learning, practice and reinforce it), taking rolls of 3% or 4% as if they were 5%

I don't expect this to break anything.  I note that Crit's get a bit more common at higher skill levels, and may revert Crits to 2d4% as a rolled check, for skills over 100... Or I may not, I'm actually rather interested in seeing the upper tiers of play, skills over 100% ... over 200% ...

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6 hours ago, g33k said:

I don't expect this to break anything.  I note that Crit's get a bit more common at higher skill levels, and may revert Crits to 2d4% as a rolled check, for skills over 100... Or I may not, I'm actually rather interested in seeing the upper tiers of play, skills over 100% ... over 200% ...

No it won't break anything. Play at high skill levels is fine. The only worries tend to be the increased chances of NPCs getting a lucky critical and some fights where it can take time  to get past each other's defenses.

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On 12/20/2019 at 9:57 PM, Atgxtg said:

The do, indirectly, because they are more powerful, have better stats and are more skilled. But, on the other hand, that typically means their opponents are tougher and more skilled too, so it might actually get harder on the players! Cricals and specials in BRP can take down most experienced characters, and there often isn't much a player can do if some  NPC gets a lucky critical hit and  does a dozen points through armor to a vital location. That's the kind of thing that might even drop an elephant.                       

On 12/20/2019 at 11:46 PM, g33k said:

I'm about to add HR's on skill checks, myself...

  • Gain 2d4% on a successful check.  Avg is 5%, usually within 4-6, occasionally lower or higher.
  • On a fumble, gain a special check worth 3d4%
  • On a Critical, gain 3d4% as a flat gain (no need to check, but only gained when otherwise making checks, i.e. you have time to consider the learning, practice and reinforce it), taking rolls of 3% or 4% as if they were 5%

I don't expect this to break anything.  I note that Crit's get a bit more common at higher skill levels, and may revert Crits to 2d4% as a rolled check, for skills over 100... Or I may not, I'm actually rather interested in seeing the upper tiers of play, skills over 100% ... over 200% ...

On 12/21/2019 at 6:00 AM, Atgxtg said:

No it won't break anything. Play at high skill levels is fine. The only worries tend to be the increased chances of NPCs getting a lucky critical and some fights where it can take time  to get past each other's defenses.

Thanks for the advice, I think I could use the fate points system to off set some of these critical hits at least until the PCs are powerful enough to take it.

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16 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Thanks for the advice, I think I could use the fate points system to off set some of these critical hits at least until the PCs are powerful enough to take it.

That's the thing. Unlike in D&D the PCs never really become powerful enough to "take it". THat is one of the primary differences between the game systems.In D&D high level characters have a lot of hit points and can take a critical hit or two. In BRP hit points generally don't increase much if at all, and a critical hit is still likely to drop or kill them, especially from missile weapons and/or impaling weapons.

You can test this out with a mock fight, where you have two archers at 60-75% skill shoot at each  PC. THe odds are pretty good that a PC will drop in the first couple of rounds, especially if the PCs are caught unprepared. That's why ambushes are so deadly.

 

 

 

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