Firearm-rules in BRP

[Joseph Paul]

Nightshade- Yep those are problems. But I think that the science of wound ballistics is getting better. We may have a better understanding - I just need to find it.

Enpeze- Hmm, I admit that could have been written better. In short it has all of the sense in the world wrapped up in it. BRP has a gritty realistic feel to it. Creating rules sets that keep with that should be a primary consideration. However, any system in BRP will need to be able to function at the gritty level and at the heroic and cinematic level also with minimal differences. It is easier to simplify and distort a realistic system to those purposes than it is to try to get realistic results out of a system designed to be cinematic for instance. Realistic systems should be the default condition. I could see firearms in a cinematic system being reduced to just a couple of different types of weapons and damage resolution changed to fit the needs of the campaign. It was not a munchkin dream at all.

Badcat- You have missed the boat again. Since the BRPCore rules are already in place you must realize that it is too late for any changes. At best there may be some possibility of a more realistic set of firearms rules added as an option in a future release or for such to be posted and used by whoever agrees with them much the same way that the Perrin Conventions came into use for D&D. Since you are not interested in such changes wouldn't it be more productive for you to post on positive aspects of the game rather than complain about people having different visions of what BRP can encompass?

[Atgxtg]

Actually, I just had a prety radical idea on weapon damage. What if the Damage die was based on Skill (or adjusted to hit chance) and then adjusted up or down based on the weapon/round used. This would account for placement by having higher percentage shots likely to do more damage.

It might work best with exploding damage dice, so even low percentage shots could kill. Or have specials and criticals boost the damage die a number of steps (3 on a Special, 5 on a Crit for example).

Something like:

01-20% 1d4

21-40% 1d6

41-60% 1d8

61-75% 1d10

75-90% 2d6

91-100% 2d8

100%+ 2d10

That scale is for example, it needs work (more possible results).

I was thinking of something where either the number of dice varied by skill and or success level. So a good hit might be doing 3 or 4 dice damage, making a light weapon effective in skilled hands.

BTW, MAthematically it lloks like you are using about 1/10th the skill as the average damage modifer. THat matched up pretty well with the old chart from Strombringer, so you could use:

1D2

1D4

1D6

1D8

1D10

1D10+1D2 (or 2D6)

1D10+1D4 (or 1D8+1D6)

1D10+1D6 (or 2D8)

1D10+1D8

2D10

etc.

[Rurik]

So if skill is the prime factor in damage... would some weapons give a negative modifier... like attacking someone with a pellet gun?

Absolutely. Something like:

Light Handgun, -2 steps

Medium Handgun, -1 step

Heavy Handgun, No change

Very Light Rifle (22LR) -1 (or 2, it's pretty damned weak)

Light Rifle, No Change

Medium Rifle +1 Step

Heavy Rifle +2 Steps

I used weapon classes for simplicity's sake. You could assign a value per round, or weapon, etc.

[Simlasa]

Sounds like an intriguing idea to me... makes me want to try it out!

[Atgxtg]

Strangely, this idea matches well with a BRP variant I am working on.

I was thinking of setting the damage bonus by Damage Class (DC) set atv (STR+SIZ)/5, and then adjusted by weapon. The damade die being about twice the DC, so a DC 5 attack does 1D10 and so on.

Weapons would give a shift up or down.

While my variant was using special and critical success to kick up the damage, there is nothing to prevent this for working with Rurik's idea. Basically for each 20% of skill or so could be worth a damage die shift.

IF we wanted more room to bounce up the damage dice, we could even go with HP=STR+SIZ instead of the average, allowing us to double most of the damages.

So if we wanted a broasdword that did 1D8+1 in RQ3, and we wanted to incoprate skill (with double normal HP), we could use:

[sTR(10)+SIZ(13)]/5 =DC 5 (1D10)

Broadsword +0

50% Skill =+3 DC

=DC 8 for 1D10+1D6 or 2D8

Just an idea....

[Atgxtg]

I was looking at HARNMASTER last night and had another idea how to haandle damage.

What if you compared the levels of success and did the following:

Sucess vs. Success= Normal RQ damage

For each level of success the attack is above the parry roll another damage die.

If the defense exceeds the attack then the attack was parried, for no damage.

If the defense is 2 levels above the attack the defender can riposte.

That's the basic idea. I did up a little maxtrix with that and a few things like damaged attacker's weapon when parriny a miss, and increasing the damage as the defender's parry gets bewtter, fumbles, etc.

Anyone interested?

[Sorloc]

I was looking at HARNMASTER last night and had another idea how to haandle damage.

What if you compared the levels of success and did the following:

Sucess vs. Success= Normal RQ damage

For each level of success the attack is above the parry roll another damage die.

If the defense exceeds the attack then the attack was parried, for no damage.

If the defense is 2 levels above the attack the defender can riposte.

That's the basic idea. I did up a little maxtrix with that and a few things like damaged attacker's weapon when parriny a miss, and increasing the damage as the defender's parry gets bewtter, fumbles, etc.

Anyone interested?

Keep going with that thought, then make the damage and damage types weapon-specific (slashing versus piercing versus crushing, etc), and you'll have RoleMaster.

In RM, the better your attack roll, the better the result. No roll of 65 on a 66% attack then roll max damage, nor is there a "Woo! I special impale! Double damage of... <roll> 1. Crap."

Chivalry & Sorcery has an interesting method involving a flat base damage for each weapon, then you modify that with defense and attack rolls.

Thus, with no defense, a broadsword will always do at least 6 damage, a knife will always do at least 4, etc. Your strength and weapon quality and roll and stuff can increase it, certain armors can reduce it, but a lot of the randomness is gone.

[drohem]

Chivalry & Sorcery has an interesting method involving a flat base damage for each weapon, then you modify that with defense and attack rolls.

Thus, with no defense, a broadsword will always do at least 6 damage, a knife will always do at least 4, etc. Your strength and weapon quality and roll and stuff can increase it, certain armors can reduce it, but a lot of the randomness is gone.

4th edition Talislanta does this as well. Weapons do a fixed damage amount and this modified by the success of the attack, strength, weapon quality, or magic.

[Nightshade]

That's also more or less what True20 does, though there its tied with their "Toughness Save" concept.

[Atgxtg]

Sorloc,

I've got Rolemaster and C&S. While RM is interesting, I usually preferred the MERP version of the rules with simplified damage charts. There are actually quite a few RPGs that use the mnargin of success in determining the damage.

One of my favorites, was the method used in the Usagi Yojimbo RPG (Sanguine version). In that game combatants roll multiple dice (a die for stat, plus one or more dice for skill, and maybe some bonus dice). and compare results. High roll wins, but each additional die that beat the opponent's best die results in a critical. hHe winner can then pick critical effects, such as slash, stab, crush, disarm, impale, etc. that are determined mostly by weapon being used.

I am working on adapting this idea to RQ/BRP, with characters picking their critical from a list available to the weapon. For instance a sword could get slash and/or stab criticals. Mastery with a weapon will open up another possible critical or two.

[badcat]

That sounds a bit like Savage Worlds, as well. You roll damage and it takes a certain amount compared to the targets 'toughness' to wound or kill, usually one or two 'raises'...each +4 over the target number, using 'exploding' dice. The new version of the rules use full dice for weapons so the deadliness (for the ordinary npcs, at least) looks like it is getting up in BRP territory. There are several rules for keeping the hides of PCs intact, however. I recommend the newest Savage Worlds books, Pirates and Solomon Kane, unreservedly to any BRP fan. They are loaded with good stuff and have a very agreeable level of detail vs. playability. There is a definite air about the books that reminds me of the best BRP stuff even though the mechanics are essentially quite different.

[Atgxtg]

Some similarities, at least with the basic task resolution system, but UY has a lot more.

Damage in UY works as follows:

Roll weapon damage dice (from 1-3 dice, always in d20s), plus any critical effects against the target's soak number. Each die that isn't soaked inflicts a wound level. There are four wound levels (something like wounded, injured, incapacitated, and devastated/killed). Wounds don't accumulate (so four wounds don't kill you), but being wounded means you roll an extra damage die when hit.

Critical effects modify damage. For example a slash critical adds 2d20 damage, but a stab crtical automatically inflicts a wound level UNLESS the target retreats.

Where things get interesting is that characters have abilities called Gifts that give them more options. For instance anyone in the game can do an unarmed attack with the Empty Hand skill (or even without it, relying on their default ability),, but someone with the Empty Hand Master gift gets a couple more critical types (such as Trip), and can treat thier hands as weapons, allowing them to use Gifts that work for weapons (like Improved Parry) with their hands.

I figured that some of the "mastery" gifts would translate well to an RQ/BRP format.

[badcat]

It may be more comparable now. There are many more options in Pirates and Solomon Kane than previously (and I assume the same for the new Explorer edition). Also of interest, the magic system in Solomon Kane is just about a perfect match for a Conan game. Like UY, if someone wanted to go to the trouble of conversion, SK has much to offer a REH/BRP fan.

[Atgxtg]

It may be more comparable now. There are many more options in Pirates and Solomon Kane than previously (and I assume the same for the new Explorer edition). Also of interest, the magic system in Solomon Kane is just about a perfect match for a Conan game. Like UY, if someone wanted to go to the trouble of conversion, SK has much to offer a REH/BRP fan.

Perhaps, I'm not too familiar with SW.

I adapted the crit rules from UY for a few of reasons:

1) Giving weapons different critical choices helps to make all the different weapon types useful.

2)Adding another crit for mastery seemed neat

3) By allowing things like disarms in as critical options that get picked after the roll, it makes combat much more dynamic. Many RPGs have all sorts of special maneuvers that rarely get used ecuase of the difficulty in pulling them off. If it is easier to kill someone that to give them a crippling inury or disarm them, then those maneuver become sort of pointless. With Usagi, it is a lot more fun and common. If someone is wielding a sai, they are going to get the option of a disarm as a critical, making the maneuver more common.

[badcat]

Reading through Solomon Kane, I'd say it has that in common, yes. Easy to play and understand, very rich in tactical options.

And very deadly to the mooks...

[Atgxtg]

Reading through Solomon Kane, I'd say it has that in common, yes. Easy to play and understand, very rich in tactical options.

And very deadly to the mooks...

Yeah, UY is deadly to the mooks, too, since damage is somewhat skill based (mooks take more criticals).

I wish I could swipe UY7s wackly focus system for initiative. It is a bit counterintuitive for experienced gamers. Basically the side that attacks goes first, otherwise roll off. It works though because there are rules that let character do things like interrupt the acting character or counterattack, so having the first attack ins't quite so significant.