CRs for RQ/BRP

[pachristian]

All -

This was an essay I developed for my own use: I'd been running D&D 3.5 for several years, and quite enjoyed it. But I wanted to get back to BRP, and my old friend Runequest. I was curious about how to convert characters from an existing campaign to BRP, as there is really little in the way of direct correlation.

In the end I developed a spreadsheet for calculating how long it would take an opponent of a give skill, damage-delivering capability, and armor to overcome another foe. By using those numbers, I could achieve parity, and establish what skill and magic levels could correspond to D&D levels.

The results are here, in a somewhat legible essay. I'd like to hear other people's comments on this work - was it a total waste of time? or does this add value to the game by allowing the adoption of D&D monsters into a BRP system.

Thanks in advance!

CRs for RQ.pdf

[Nightshade]

Combat balancing tools are potentially useful in any game with significant amounts of combat; you just have to remember its very hard for them to tell the whole story because there are almost always special cases you're not accounting for (for example, missile weapons in BRP style systems tend to have greater efficiency than they appear on the surface to for various reasons), and these sometimes come up more than people give them credit for (its one of the limitations on Mutants and Mastermind's PL system, for example).

[pachristian]

Your point about missile weapons is a good one.

As I remark in the essay, D&D (3.5) combat is fairly predictable. In BRP, one lucky die combination ends the fight - and it can happen on the first round.

Another issue is that many D&D creatures have a CR based on their special or supernatural abilities, not simply their melee abilities.

My system here is, honestly, little more than a guideline, to help a GM figure out what power level he should apply to a monster converted from D&D.

But it was fun to do!