BRP Talislanta?

[Atgxtg]

I'm drawing a blank. What's HM in regards to Talislanta?

HM also uses the Omni system. Talents were sort of like feats in D&D. Depending on what you did during character creation you could start learning certain talent trees.

[drohem]

Oh...you mean the game High Medieval. I don't own a copy of that game. I just own the Omni System, and, of course, Tal4. My next purchase in the Omni/Morrigan Press line will probably be Atlantis: The Second Age.

HM looks interesting, and it's on my list to purchase; albeit on the backburner category.

What medieval cultures does it focus on? What historical time period(s) does it cover?

It says it's an alternate earth; is there a specific date or event of diverenge from our real history?

[badcat]

A small clarification; Tal 4 is not Omni, Omni was derived from Tal 4, which was derived from, but similar to, the Bard Games house system, which powered the original 3 editions of Talislanta. Personally I prefer the 3rd ed. and earlier. Even though I think Tal 4 is one of the most beautiful rpg books ever printed, even if it is black and white.

[drohem]

I have always enjoyed the mechanics, and found them innovative. The Omni System, a universal RPG by Morrigan Press, is based off the Tal4 rules.

Morrigan Press -Games

Way ahead of you Badcat!

I prefer the 3rd edition myself. It is a refinement of the 1st and 2nd editions. Although, I was disappointed that the 3rd edition didn't have the Mass Combat rules from the 2nd edition.

I agree about Tal4 being a beautiful book. The only real gripe I have about Tal4 is fixed damage and that the Combat Rating and Magic Rating are no longer derived from an Attribute formula, but are assigned based upon archtype and race/culture. Other than that, Tal4 is awsome; especially the innovative and free-form magic system.

[Atgxtg]

A small clarification; Tal 4 is not Omni, Omni was derived from Tal 4, which was derived from, but similar to, the Bard Games house system, which powered the original 3 editions of Talislanta. Personally I prefer the 3rd ed. and earlier. Even though I think Tal 4 is one of the most beautiful rpg books ever printed, even if it is black and white.

The sampler says that it is the Omni system. Perhaps the did what R Talsorian did and named the system before porting it over to other RPGs?

[drohem]

The sampler says that it is the Omni system. Perhaps the did what R Talsorian did and named the system before porting it over to other RPGs?

Interesting. Maybe Morrigan Press altered the Tal4 Sampler to add that because the original sampler I have from Shooting Iron doesn't mention Omni System.

[Atgxtg]

Oh...you mean the game High Medieval. I don't own a copy of that game. I just own the Omni System, and, of course, Tal4. My next purchase in the Omni/Morrigan Press line will probably be Atlantis: The Second Age.

HM looks interesting, and it's on my list to purchase; albeit on the backburner category.

What medieval cultures does it focus on? What historical time period(s) does it cover?

It says it's an alternate earth; is there a specific date or event of diverenge from our real history?

High Medieval is sort of like the Middle Ages as the people viewed them, with working magic and fantasy races. It doesn't quite ring true to the Medieval bit, since it tends to remake elves and dwarves a bit rather than going back entirely to their roots. But that why they call it High Medieval. It is a cross of historical setting and high fantasy. Think historical as done by Hollywood.

The year is 1250AD, with a history similar to ours, save for the inclusion of magic and mythical beings.

Sime differences between in and Tal4 seem to be the inclusion of a character creation system, Callings (sort of like professions), and Talents.

Hey, DBC's name is on the credits ,too.

[badcat]

Oh, sorry, Drohem. I somehow missed that line when I scanned the posts...just trying to help.

[drohem]

Oh, sorry, Drohem. I somehow missed that line when I scanned the posts...just trying to help.

hehehe...no problem here, that's what I figured.

[Ars Mysteriorum]

Don't get me wrong. Tal4 has a nice, flexible system, especially regarding magic after you get high enough levels.

I just like BRP a LOT more.

[Ars Mysteriorum]

Quick question... people have mentioned that RQ has some detailed rules that may make Talislanta difficult to modify.

Anyone have any examples so I know just how ridiculously huge this undertaking will be?

[Atgxtg]

Quick question... people have mentioned that RQ has some detailed rules that may make Talislanta difficult to modify.

Anyone have any examples so I know just how ridiculously huge this undertaking will be?

Well with RQ, the stat ranges for each race is differernt. Where a Human might roll 3d6 for STR and Elf would roll2D6+2 and a Orc 4D6. THat is differernt from the statight +2, -3 approach.

So no big deal, justt add the racial mod to 3D6 like in D&D, right? Well, yeas & no. Here is where the detailed rules come in. In RQ so things can be trained up or improved through play. Some of those traits, like POW has a max equal to the min roll plus max roll. So If a Talanta race has +4 POW, and you roll 3D6, his min roll is 7 and his max roll is 22, allowing the race to get a max POW of 29!

There are a few other things like that in the rules.

[drohem]

I don't see any difficulty in modifying Talislanta races into BRP or RQ3 characteristics. Talislanta has a benchmark range for normal Attributes, which is -5 to +5. Any Attribute above +5 is considered superhuman. With this benchmark, it will be easy to define the characteristic ranges for Talislantan races.

[Ars Mysteriorum]

In BRP, what statistic would be considered superhuman? Anything above 18?

[drohem]

In BRP, what statistic would be considered superhuman? Anything above 18?

I would consider anything over 24 in the superhuman range. STR, CON, and SIZ for humans have a maximum of 18, but DEX and APP (or CHA) can be trained up to a human maximum of 27. The maximum POW for humans is 21. SIZ and INT can only be improved through magical means.

[Atgxtg]

I would consider anything over 24 in the superhuman range. STR, CON, and SIZ for humans have a maximum of 18, but DEX and APP (or CHA) can be trained up to a human maximum of 27. The maximum POW for humans is 21. SIZ and INT can only be improved through magical means.

The problem is the POW. If you add the nubed to the stats, a Race with +5 POW woukld end up adding 10 to it's MAX power, for a 31.

STR & CON could only be trained up to the highest of their original STR, CON or SIZ. So in RQ3 the 18s were rare.

But BRP isn't RQ3. It seems to be closer to CoC, and even RQ2, where the training formulas are a bit different. With RQ2, the max was 21 for humans.

[Enpeze]

I would consider anything over 24 in the superhuman range. STR, CON, and SIZ for humans have a maximum of 18, but DEX and APP (or CHA) can be trained up to a human maximum of 27. The maximum POW for humans is 21. SIZ and INT can only be improved through magical means.

Well all these ATT ranges are just rough recommendations for a human standard. Even in our world there are exceptions to this standard. Eg. a 800 pound fat man has surely more than SIZ 18. And strong men which can deadlift up to 1000 pound are surely stronger than STR 18.

So the term "superhuman" is just for convenience but I would not take it literally. I would rather use data from the BRP bestiary to have an idea which attributes a Talislanta beast/race can have.

[drohem]

The problem is the POW. If you add the nubed to the stats, a Race with +5 POW woukld end up adding 10 to it's MAX power, for a 31.

STR & CON could only be trained up to the highest of their original STR, CON or SIZ. So in RQ3 the 18s were rare.

But BRP isn't RQ3. It seems to be closer to CoC, and even RQ2, where the training formulas are a bit different. With RQ2, the max was 21 for humans.

I have no problem with the POW characteristic. The range for the charactersitic determines the maximum possible, which could be greater than the human maximum of 21. If that's were the chips fall, then I'm cool with it.

Yes, an '18' was rare for STR, CON, and, to a lesser degree, SIZ.

Yes, BRP is different than RQ3, and it's variants. In RQ, some humanoid similiar to human have a characteristic range of 4-24. That's why I consider anything over 24 as superhuman.

It's a matter of taste and personal interruptation. I am fond of the RQ3 (and The Chaoisum System monograph ) rules.

I think I'll take up this conversion, and the Arcanum conversion, using the BRP monograph (RQ3, shhh!!) rules.

This can give us several angles to the conversion. This could spark a flow of ideas, or a heated debate. I am cool with both.

[Atgxtg]

Well all these ATT ranges are just rough recommendations for a human standard. Even in our world there are exceptions to this standard. Eg. a 800 pound fat man has surely more than SIZ 18. And strong men which can deadlift up to 1000 pound are surely stronger than STR 18.

So the term "superhuman" is just for convenience but I would not take it literally. I would rather use data from the BRP bestiary to have a rough idea which attributes a Talislanta beast/race can have.

True, although I think part of the problem with RQ is that lifting is STR based rather than STR+SIZ based. If you added the two together for lifting you would get results closer to the real world record holders.

But we were just consider what surprise pitfall could exsist from coverting systems.

[RMS]

I find your new avatar strangely disturbing btw.

Well all these ATT ranges are just rough recommendations for a human standard. Even in our world there are exceptions to this standard. Eg. a 800 pound fat man has surely more than SIZ 18. And strong men which can deadlift up to 1000 pound are surely stronger than STR 18.

I've always considered SIZ to be lean mass, rather than gross mass. So an 800 lb man still has the same size as he would as 250 lb (or less) fit man. I agree that deadlifting such a weight would definitely be SIZ+STR. Of course, there are those characters with a 19 or 20 SIZ in RQ and they could train up to an equivalent STR, so I partially agree and partially disagree with you...hey, I'm a politician!

[Enpeze]

I find your new avatar strangely disturbing btw.

Sorry for this, but you know its one of the 1000 masks of my master. >:->

I've always considered SIZ to be lean mass, rather than gross mass.

For me its just mass measured in pounds/kg as in the SB rulebook mentioned. Maybe in RQ its a little bit different, because high SIZ is also length and improves the SR.

[RMS]

For me its just mass measured in pounds/kg as in the SB rulebook mentioned. Maybe in RQ its a little bit different, because high SIZ is also length and improves the SR.

There was a long discussion on this way back on the RQ discussion group (early 90s???) that lead to a Tales of the Reaching Moon article on it that I remember liking. It pretty much ended up at my position, and in it they discusses allowing SIZ to increase for fat characters, but then adding to ENC too to represent the excess weight as negative. I think they also talked about having a 1-for-1 decrease in DEX rank (in SB) for increase due to fat in SIZ, which I liked.

I just don't like the idea of someone getting fat, getting all the hp and damage related bonuses for the extra SIZ, but not paying a penalty anywhere for it.

[drohem]

There was a long discussion on this way back on the RQ discussion group (early 90s???) that lead to a Tales of the Reaching Moon article on it that I remember liking. It pretty much ended up at my position, and in it they discusses allowing SIZ to increase for fat characters, but then adding to ENC too to represent the excess weight as negative. I think they also talked about having a 1-for-1 decrease in DEX rank (in SB) for increase due to fat in SIZ, which I liked.

I just don't like the idea of someone getting fat, getting all the hp and damage related bonuses for the extra SIZ, but not paying a penalty anywhere for it.

We did the same thing in our group. My friend made up a fat sailor that was hilarious. He was fatigued often and had to stop and rest.

[punc_e]

I had something similar happen in my Cthulhu game. A character decided to learn how to make pies, ate every pie he made as practice, and gained a point of SIZ. When I called for COnx5 checks for endurance running, he took a -10% penalty.

[badcat]

In the Deadlands Edges/Hindrances there was a Hindrance called Fat or whatever and the blurb in the description started with 'your hoss hates to see you coming'...