MERP to BRP

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, Mugen said:

And what about lists which have elemental attacks at lower levels ?

IIRC, Light Laws has a bolt spell which has a lower level than Fire Bolt, but can deal less damage.

No both deals the same damage. Both use Attack Table AT-7., and both add the Base Spell OB. Fire Bolt costs more PP and has a higher Risk Factor, but that's in MERP. 

4 hours ago, Mugen said:

If both those spells deal 1d6 damage, that means Fire Law is going to be a poor choice for attack spells. Which is strange.

Not really , it's not just comparing Shock Bolt (Lvl2) to Fire Bolt (Lvl6) but comparing the entire Light Law List to Fire Law. List. . A mage who picks up Light Law gets a bolt attack at level two while one who takes Fire Law won't get that bolt attack until level 6. But they will get Boil Liquid and Warn Solid. So someone who takes the Fire LAw list is getting more that just Fire Bolt but a bunch of other ifre and heat related spells. 

So it's not a system conversion thing it's one list vs. the other, MERP or BRP.

 

 

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, g33k said:

Also worth noting (for purposes of genre-emulation) is that most of the Greats of LOTR had nontrivial magic.

There is plenty of that in MERP. In fact, I'd say there is a bit too much of it. You don't see anyone in LotR throwing around fire ball spells, raising walls of flame or teleporting. MERP/RM pretty much adds D&D levels of magic to Middle Earth. In the character writueups pretty much everybody has a +20 something or other and a x3 spell multiplier somewhere on their person. 

[Richard S.]

I guess my question is if you're going to be playing a middle earth campaign, why do you need a spellcasting system? Only the elves and ainur (plus a few non-elf relatives) have real magic, and very little of what Tolkien described is anything like the flashy spells of most FRPGs.

[Sam E.]

59 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

I guess my question is if you're going to be playing a middle earth campaign, why do you need a spellcasting system? Only the elves and ainur (plus a few non-elf relatives) have real magic, and very little of what Tolkien described is anything like the flashy spells of most FRPGs.

Some folks, myself included, were interested in playing a FRPG in ME without feeling like we were limited to canon, and were happy to take some liberties in the name of fun.

[g33k]

19 minutes ago, Sam E. said:

Some folks, myself included, were interested in playing a FRPG in ME without feeling like we were limited to canon, and were happy to take some liberties in the name of fun.

It's only a problem when different people want to draw the "some liberties" line in different places.

I don't need the line in the same place you do, and vice versa... unless we play in the same campaign, at which point we risk ruining one anothers' fun.

 

[Richard S.]

16 minutes ago, Sam E. said:

Some folks, myself included, were interested in playing a FRPG in ME without feeling like we were limited to canon, and were happy to take some liberties in the name of fun.

I can understand that, I asked because Barak earlier mentioned that he felt a skill-based system was "a better fit for talkien's middle earth", which to me implied he wanted to stick to canon, though if he wants to be more lax with magic then all power to him.

I would like to know though, if you don't mind, what the appeal of middle earth is to you once you add in regular FRPG trappings? To me, the subtlety of its magic is one of the major differences between it and much of modern fantasy, and if you make spellcasters who can fireball and heal and so on a regular thing it removes a lot of the charm.

[Sam E.]

36 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

I can understand that, I asked because Barak earlier mentioned that he felt a skill-based system was "a better fit for talkien's middle earth", which to me implied he wanted to stick to canon, though if he wants to be more lax with magic then all power to him.

I would like to know though, if you don't mind, what the appeal of middle earth is to you once you add in regular FRPG trappings? To me, the subtlety of its magic is one of the major differences between it and much of modern fantasy, and if you make spellcasters who can fireball and heal and so on a regular thing it removes a lot of the charm.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to explain why I find some things fun.  🙂.  I liked ME, but I had no desire to recreate the books for the purposes of gaming.  I liked the idea of gaming in ME, but wanted higher action and magic.  MERP fit the bill.  Sorry: that's the best I can do.

[g33k]

2 hours ago, Sam E. said:

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to explain ...  Sorry: that's the best I can do.

Personal tastes are personal tastes.
It can be really hard to put them into words.

 

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, g33k said:

It's only a problem when different people want to draw the "some liberties" line in different places.

I don't need the line in the same place you do, and vice versa... unless we play in the same campaign, at which point we risk ruining one anothers' fun.

 

Yup! That's also the reason why crossovers are so tricky, as that means two sets or parameters to be balanced off against each other, and we have to hope it was done so in a way that fans of both properties can agree on. 

[g33k]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

... in a way that fans of both properties can agree on. 

Borg Cube vs. Death Star?

Voldemort vs. Sauruman?

Wakboth vs Cthulhu?

😁

[SDLeary]

7 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

... You don't see anyone in LotR throwing around fire ball spells, ...

Unless there is a spell fetish to hand, such as pine cones. 😉

SDLeary

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, SDLeary said:

Unless there is a spell fetish to hand, such as pine cones. 😉

SDLeary

LOL! But it wasn't like Gandalf took out all the goblins and wolves with it. IN MERP, with his stats, he'd flash fry the lot of them. You can say that he was holding back but in MERP every 8 spellcaster with Fire Law can do stuff like that.

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, g33k said:

Borg Cube vs. Death Star?

Voldemort vs. Sauruman?

Wakboth vs Cthulhu?

😁

Exactly. 

I have a friend who is really big on crossover ideas, but most of his ideas depend on accepting his interpretation of the relative abilities of the characters., or forces a character into doing something in  a situation that is out of character in order to make the idea work. Often the idea isn't all that interesting except for the crossover bit.

IMO the best crossover stories are those where you already felt like the characters lived in the same world. 

 

But this really happens when you deal with anyone else's fictional setting. Your Game May (or MUST) Vary stems from this. 

[Barak Shathur]

18 hours ago, Mugen said:

For comparison sake, MERP had only 4 weapon tables, and (IIRC) 2 spell attack tables (bolts and balls).

I don't think the change to crit tables was a good idea, though. I prefered the separated A, B, C... collumns from RM.

I’m of two minds here. On the one hand, reducing the number of critical tables shrinks the number of possible outcomes of individual attacks, which becomes a bit absurd once you’ve driven the orc’s jawbone into his skull with your warhammer for the umpteenth time. On the other hand, scanning 20+ columns of small, tightly hand written text late at night burns brain cells at an alarming rate. 
 

I think the solution came in the form of the Rolemaster Combat Minion program, 25 years too late though. 

[Barak Shathur]

16 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I thought you were going to follow MERP more cloesly. That is Since Fire Ball is an 8th level spell it cost 8 magic points and did 1d6 damage per magic point. If you make the spell variable then it obviously not so powerful, but that also sort of downplays the higher level spells, as any damage spell can be pumped in in BRP.

Ideally, spells would function as close to BRP/RQ equivalents as possible. But 8 MP for 1d6 damage seems absurd. Maybe MP cost should follow BRP here, so in effect 1 MP for a basic Fireball, which however you can only cast if you have 80% or higher skill. 

 

 

[Barak Shathur]

16 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Now would that be 2d6 per magic point? 

No, that would be overpowered. Probably start it at 2d6 in that case, plus 1d6 per added level. 

[Barak Shathur]

16 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

You might consider reducing the magic point cost and  the casting time. So a animist who has Healing Ways at 100% can cast a healing spell at 1 magic point less and 1 SR/DEX rank faster. THis would allow experienced caster to toss off minor magicss more quickly and often. Makes sense for a master spellcaster.

Either this, or the improved basic spell effect. Gonna think about this and select whatever is simpler. 

[Barak Shathur]

16 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

BTW, What are you going to do about the MERP criticals? Some of the spells simply cause a "Type C" crtical or some such. Are those going to be converted to damage, a roll on the BRP critical table (say -A: 30%, B:-20%, C:-10%, D: +0%, F: +10%, E: +20%), or what?

I’ll probably convert to BRP damage. 1d3 for A, 1d4 for B, 1d6 for C, 2d6 for D, 3d6 for E maybe. The reason for the steep progression at the end is that D and E criticals are usually incapacitating. 

[Barak Shathur]

16 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

You could assume a slowdown of skills past 75% or 100%, Something like 10% up to Level 10 and then 5% or even 2%. That way a Lvl 25 wizard would have 10x10%+15x2% for 130%, much closer to the 125% warrior. IMO it really depends on just what perks come with a higher spell list skill. Originally I was thinking it was just going to be what spells you know and maybe the cast chance. But if there are other perks it could be an issue.

BTW, what you could do is apadt a bit from RQ sorcery and Myhtras criticals. What if there were a list of special effects that a caster could choose from on a special success roll. Things like reduced magic point cost, increased spell level, increased range, increased duration,reduced casting time (Say DEX SR or 5 DEX ranks), multispell, mulittarget, etc. A crtical would let the cast pick two special effects. That would be simple yet give the telecasters a bit more flexibility.

 

Again, simplicity is my goal. I’ll probably go with a flat 10% magic skill per level, affecting spell level known, casting chance of success, and perks like increased spell effects at cutoffs like 200% and 300%. Level 20+ casters are extremely rare in MERP, but they are powerful so I think this could fit the structure. 
 

Thinking more about this ‘magic skill’, I now think it should be one skill that applies to all spell lists known, rather than a separate skill for each list. This is mainly for simplifying NPC conversion. 

[Barak Shathur]

16 hours ago, Mugen said:

And what about lists which have elemental attacks at lower levels ?

IIRC, Light Laws has a bolt spell which has a lower level than Fire Bolt, but can deal less damage.

If both those spells deal 1d6 damage, that means Fire Law is going to be a poor choice for attack spells. Which is strange.

IIRC (don’t have the books at hand) lower level spells were limited with regard to how high a result they could achieve on the ‘Bolt’ and ‘Ball’ attack tables, respectively. So in conversion, the spell damage could follow the critical damage equivalent I gave above. 

[Barak Shathur]

11 hours ago, Richard S. said:

I guess my question is if you're going to be playing a middle earth campaign, why do you need a spellcasting system? Only the elves and ainur (plus a few non-elf relatives) have real magic, and very little of what Tolkien described is anything like the flashy spells of most FRPGs.

Because I want to play through my MERP modules using a BRP system. I agree that MERP is over saturated with magic. Sometimes this has been rationalised as representing more the supernatural abilities of some special individuals, rather than D&D type pyrotechnics. But when everyone starts out with a +15 sword it cheapens it a bit. So yeah, MERP is in some ways a flawed implementation. However, a big part of this for me is also simply nostalgia. 
 

In my campaign so far though, the PCs have run in to exceedingly few spell casters, and so it will remain. 

Edited June 30, 2023 by Barak Shathur

[Barak Shathur]

3 minutes ago, Mugen said:

My understanding was that you intended to use the same damage value in BRP for both spells, despite the level difference.

Sorry if I was wrong.

You were not wrong. I’m thinking this out as I go along, with the help of the excellent feedback in this thread. 

[Barak Shathur]

7 minutes ago, Mugen said:

They use the same attack table, yes, but that table lists Maximum results for spells other than Fire and Lightning.

As a result, Shock bolts can't do more than 14B on a character with no armor, while Fire bolts can deal 36E with an attack roll of 150+ (even though it deals the same 14B on a roll of 90).

So according to my system currently, Shock bolt would do 1d4 damage at spell level 1, and Fire ball 3d6.  Each extra spell level adds one damage die. 

[Susimetsa]

8 minutes ago, Mugen said:

Also, what do you dislike so much in MERP ?

I come from a bit of a different angle to this, but I just think it is worth noting that MERP and BRP are not so dissimiliar in the end. BRP is a more pure skill-based system, while MERP handles some facets of the system based on character levels. BRP's strength is the levelless, down-to-earth design which I also think would be a perfect fit of a Middle-Earth setting. Rather than a direct translation of spell lists, I would pick and choose what BRP/Runequest etc. already offer and work them into separate sets for ranger type characters and animist type characters etc. Perhaps also adapt some iconic MERP spells to BRP. It would require a relatively big reimagination of the published campaigns and adventures, though... 😕

 

[Barak Shathur]

53 minutes ago, Mugen said:

I think you need very different guidelines to convert NPCs if you want this to work.

Your PCs will never be really equivalent to MERP characters of a given level. Even if they have quite a number of skills that stays very low like in BRP, they are also far more constrained by their level.

Also, what do you dislike so much in MERP ? If it's the massive number of tables, a solution could be to replace most of them with a single one, with less possible results.

The static maneuver table could work for this.

I don’t hate MERP, I just want to play MERP modules with BRP. Why does this seem to irk you so much?