BRP Conan

[Al.]

SBIII is NOT one of the worst BRP roleplaying games ever. It is a work of flawed genius (nothing to do with me looking back at it with indulgent nostalgia and rose-tinted glasses and forgetting all the little bits which REALLY annoyed when I ran and played it!)

Of course I don't mind you commenting on my comments, that would be insane and grossly hypocritical.

But I do mind you apologising about translation from French. You are doing us all the enormous courtesy of translating your ideas and posting them here. I can see nothing for you to apologise about. I only raised the FOR/STR issue as I wanted to make sure that it meant what I thought it meant.

Will have a proper look through your post and get back to you in more detail tonight.

Al

[Vorax Transtellaris]

(...)I will have to consider opening a OpenQuest category in the Review Section then! :cool:

SGL.

It would also be nice if OQ releases-to-come could be anounced on the frontpage as is done with BRP supplements.

[SDLeary]

Well, damage in BRP is one of the things that always annoyed me. I always found rolling 1D8+1d4+1 rather clunky (and I don’t even speak about MRQ half dice bonuses !), that why I went for an OGL style fixed damage bonus. The less dice you roll, the fastest your game flows.

I also find pretty ridiculous that a mace a sword or an axe could do different damage. It’s an “old school” heritage from early D&D. How did the game designers rule that? Do they test weapons on dummies before assigning damage dices? Different weapon damage ratings inevitably to minimaxing and munchkinisation, as players will invariably go for the better ones. I prefer the Warhammer RPG approach, where all weapons of a same category do the same amount of damage. It’s not the sword that kills, it the warrior wielding it. This method allows players to choose the weapon that would fit their character instead of only looking at the stats.

You could develop a formula where the damage was based on STR and SIZ, ala Pendragon. Some people might find that not granular enough though if you keep it as multiples of d6.

Another thing that annoys me in BRP is that shields are rather unuseful, as you can easily dodge or parry with a weapon with little difference. Anyone that went into an armed fight (even in a LARP) could say that a shield makes a HUGE difference in combat. Do you have any idea on how I could rules that? For now, I only gave shields a better basic chance…

I put an alternate/optional rule into the wiki a while ago. The gist was that weapons parry based on the rules from RQIII; that is that the remove damage from the roll rather than block it wholesale. I rationalize this as weapons not covering any appreciable part of the body and a forceful blow still landing, but significantly reduced. Shields would still block as BRP RAW.

I suppose you could also distinguish as weapon parries actually being dodges, because you are generally moving your body out of the way as you move the weapon into place. Perhaps saying weapon parries are dodges modified by a weapon bonus?

SDLeary

[Mugen]

DAMAGE BONUS

Average of

STR & SIZ (RD) BONUS

01-02 / -5

02-03 / -4

04-05 / -3

06-07 / -2

08-09 / -1

10-11 / 0

12-13 / +1

14-15 / +2

16-17 / +3

17-18 / +4

19-20 / +5

What is the point of averaging the STR+SIZ total here ?

Using the sum and increasing the bonus by one every 4 will be as good

-Criticals Hits: 10% of hit chance.

(...)

LOCATION (optional) :

Reverse D100 Attack Roll

There is a big problem when using both rules together.

A critical hit from an experienced swordman (90%+ skill) will hit randomly any body part.

A critical hit from somebody that never learned how to use a sword (say, 25% skill) will hit either the head or an arm of its opponent.

As is, it doesn't make sense.

[Al.]

Agility often relates to Dexterity in most players minds. Prowess was a skill category used in the old TSR Conan.

That one is purely a matter of personal taste. My first BRP systems had Agility as a category so that is something which I am comfortable with. I know on in the BRP playtest Jason stated that he had changed 'Agility' to 'Physical' as he had already used the label 'Agility' for the DEX x5% roll. And he had done this as it made more sense to him to have high DEX characters as being more agile with gross-motor rather than fine-motor skills. So you are certainly in good company here.

That was basically my idea. But it tends to lead to all characters looking the same, at least on paper, so I kept it at reasonable length.

There is certainly a tension between avoiding excessive book keeping and allowing characters to be different. And having too limited a skillset can lead to very samey characters. Or to one's which are too specialised. With a bigger skillset a charcater can be highly skilled at Bargain but not Orate and likewise with a Rapier but not a Great Axe; whilst with a more limited set they are more likely to be EITHER a fighter OR a communicator.

A shortened skill list and higher basic chances would probably lead to get fewer points to distrubute.

Indeed, and you know the needs of you and your players best. I have in the past had a short skill list AND lots of skill points to distribute and to be honest I might as well have given the players all XD&D multi-classed Fighter-Mage-Thieves to play as they all had high values for all possible skills.

Why so? Would you cap other stats at 18 or let them uncapped?

I chose 21 as the maximum for human scale in BRP (a roll of 18 and then swapping 3 points across from another characteristic).

I chose to cap CON as MOST other charcateristics are capped at 21 for MOST species. And some of the uses for the CON roll put in the 'how generally healthy is my character' bracket. The huge escalation of CON values for big beasties just does not sit well with me. And certainly it didn't make sense to ME for CON rolls for normal, mortal beings to not follow the same pattern as most other characteristics (I am quite happy for a Gigantosaur to have a much higher STR and SIZ than a human though!)

And that leads me to.....

I stayed in the BRP old fashion that HP are related to CON and SIZ.

STR includes how much muscle a charcater has and one of the reasons that boxers (other martial arts are available) put on extra muscle mass is to absorb the impact of punches. I wanted to reflect that. I weigh more than many Cruiserweights but I don't kid myself that this mass is anyway near as good at absorbing impact!

Putting STR into the HP calculation also stops big beasties losing out over my 'capping CON' rule. If you don't use that rule and if STR and SIZ values are similar then your probably have no use for this one.

STR already has an impact on combat ability and damage, I feared including it in HP calculation would perhaps make an ‘uber’ stat.

A fair point. STR already has a massive impact on how much of a combat monster a monster is.

On the other hand, POW could also be included in HP calculation, representing resistance to pain and sheer will to stay alive.

I am fairly sure that RQII did just that (POW appeared in most other calculations after all!)

As I wanted the characters to be less vulnerable than in standard BRP, I gave them twice the normal HPs, allowing them to really stand out in battle.

I know a few people use this, and it seems like a good rule if you are sticking to BRP's quite simulationist rules AND want PCs to survive (especially given Hyboria's low level of magical healing!)

I'm liking Charles Green's 'Mook' Rules and so may not double PCs Hit Points as this combination would seem to favour them rather TOO much.

You mean rolling 3d6 for each stat and splitting 40 points between them? I’ll give it a try. It seems to be a good compromise between random rolls and point buy.

That's not quite what I meant. But I may well nick your translation anyway!

Steve posted a suggestion that rather than human characteristics being in the 3d6 range (nominal 'average' of 10) they be in the 3d6+40 range (nominal 'average' of 50) as this would give more room for smaller than human beasties.

I like the IDEA (but haven't actually tested it) as it also removes the need to have a characteristic roll.

It’s not very clear to me, here… I guess it’s the “choose one” option… The idea of having 300 points in profession skills and 150 freebie points is basically inspired of CoC character generation, allowing characters of a same profession to be more than clones.

No I wasn't clear was I?

I like PCs to have a reasonable chance of success (high skill) rather a low chance of success (low skill) and thus as well as liking higher base skills like to allow more skill points to distribute. I also like to find ways to encourage players to boost skills which are not immediately and obviously useful in an adventure without penalising them.

If my players KNOW that there will be a fight scene then its pointless of me to moan that they've all chosen to raise weapon skills. But if they have ONLy raised weapon skills then that does tend to limit the range of their likely responses.

My idea is to have 300 points to distribute amongst skills for a profession (as standard)

And 300 points to distribute amongst any skills they like (so doubling the CoC standard and for very much the same reasons you stated I don't want all members of a profession to be clones and I don't want a hackneyed mix of character professions in order to have a decent range of competence)

And finally 300 points to be spent on non-combat-type skills as I say I want PCs to have a reasonable skill level in Art (Gourmet) or Etiquette (Ewok) without them having to have had sacrificed any chance of surviving a fight to do so

I went for the simplest way: criticals at 1/10th skill and no Special at all.

That is undoubtedly THE simplest implementation. And one which I used for a while until Rosen's constant reminders of the value of Specials in making combats more interesting sank in. No reason why you should share my late conversion though!

It was the case in the early versions of Stormbringer (which was, I must admit, one of the worst version of the BRP!).

You take that back this instant!

Well, damage in BRP is one of the things that always annoyed me. I always found rolling 1D8+1d4+1 rather clunky (and I don’t even speak about MRQ half dice bonuses !), that why I went for an OGL style fixed damage bonus. The less dice you roll, the fastest your game flows.

I agree with a lot of that. For the sake of completeness I have to point out that of course RQIII had half dice to roll as damage bonuses for thrown and missile weapons as well.

Some players do of course just LOVE to roll buckets of dice

I also find pretty ridiculous that a mace a sword or an axe could do different damage. It’s an “old school” heritage from early D&D. How did the game designers rule that? Do they test weapons on dummies before assigning damage dices? Different weapon damage ratings inevitably to minimaxing and munchkinisation, as players will invariably go for the better ones. I prefer the Warhammer RPG approach, where all weapons of a same category do the same amount of damage. It’s not the sword that kills, it the warrior wielding it. This method allows players to choose the weapon that would fit their character instead of only looking at the stats.

There is much sense in that. I like to differentiate weapons by their damage on a special and the fiddly differences between weapons can be a bit silly. My comment was really laziness for all of their faults I have (rather sadly) internalised most BRP weapon damage and can pull them out my brain at a moments notice. Using another set of values require some effort!

Another thing that annoys me in BRP is that shields are rather unuseful, as you can easily dodge or parry with a weapon with little difference. Anyone that went into an armed fight (even in a LARP) could say that a shield makes a HUGE difference in combat. Do you have any idea on how I could rules that? For now, I only gave shields a better basic chance…

The one I nicked (again from a translated French language set of rules for Conan BRP somewhere on t'internet) is to allow anyone with a Shield a free riposte upon a successful parry (whilst someone with two 1 handed weapons needs to roll a Special parry and one armed with but a single weapon requires a Critical parry - to really complicate things I occasionally allow a weapon master to riposte on any parry regardless of weapon a la SBIII)

Or simple allow anyone with a Shield a free extra Parry at full skill.

I've never fully modelled the difference between Blocks (shields) and Parrys (weapons and body movement)

I don’t have any fixed magic rules for now, as none of my players is playing a sorceror (who are most of the time the bad guys of S&S stories). I’m adapting so far case by case spells or rituals from the D20 Conan game. However, I agree that magic in a S&S should evil, corrupting, costly and dangerous (both for the user and the target).

That's actually even better. If no PC Sorcerers then you are free to do what you want with NPC magic and make it as nasty as you want without worrying about any numbers to back it up. Atmosphere can be king.

One last question. Would you cap skills at character creation (let say around 70%) or let players go as high as desired?

Don't know. I am very ambivalent about capping skills (probably my experience with Elric! showing)

My most common middle ground is that

Every Profession has a most important skill, and this is not a weapon skill*. Players may boost that as high as they have skill points to allocate.

However all others are capped at 75% if they can be raised by experience or 100% if they can only be raised by study.

Cheers

Hervé

Likewise

Al

* Ride for a Cavalryman, Tactics for a Soldier, Credit for a Noble, Animal Lore for a Hunter and so on

Edited June 26, 2009 by Al.
sausage fingered typing

[Mugen]

Personnally, I always modelled Shields as weapons with a low damage and high Armour Point value, and parry as a reduction of damage done by the attack.

It makes sense however to say that it is easier to put a Hoplite Shield between you and your opponent's weapon than a dagger.

The solution of giving a free attack after a parry by a shield is not satisfying to me. I mean, this would fit very well in a "Swashbuckling" setting where Main gauche are used instead of shields

[bighara]

Personnally, I always modelled Shields as weapons with a low damage and high Armour Point value, and parry as a reduction of damage done by the attack.

It makes sense however to say that it is easier to put a Hoplite Shield between you and your opponent's weapon than a dagger.

The solution of giving a free attack after a parry by a shield is not satisfying to me. I mean, this would fit very well in a "Swashbuckling" setting where Main gauche are used instead of shields

Hi all, new to this forum and thread, but the shield topic is one I'm currently pondering as well. I was thinking of having Shield as a separate skill with a parry "bonus"/higher basic skill for parries (not bashing). The riposte rules would still apply (Critical parry allows free riposte). Also, based on BRP page 234, other weapons (besides shield and dagger) parry at a Difficult skill roll in the off-hand.

My thinking is 1) The shield is designed for parrying, so it's easier to use in that capacity and in your off hand. 2) It can allow a riposte under certain circumstances. 3) It's very hard to "disarm" a shield, and 3) it at least gives you at least a chance to block an arrow or other missile.

[vagabond]

Hmm, some thoughts:

Why CON + POW for Perception? What does CON have to do with it?

I'd stick with INT + POW personally.

As far as Shield vs. Weapon Parry vs. Dodge, I would go with:

Dodge pulls you completely out of harm's way, but also completely out

of position. So, while a successful Dodge avoids all damage, I would assign

some penalty on the next round.

Shields absorb more damage and can take a beating. Also, use the Shield

Bash rules. Maybe allow for a "riposte" using the Shield Bash. Gives a better

bonus when fighting defensively.

Weapons give ripostes, free attacks if you are an expert swordsman (as an

example) and/or have two weapons. Use the old Stormbringer rule for multiple

parries and ripostes. Very S&S.

I am torn on using STR to modify HP. SIZ is the measure of Mass, and even

lightweights/welterweights have more mass as a result of more muscle. I

really think SIZ as a whole needs some retooling to reflect STR. But, if using

the stats RAW, I would probably make HP = CON + SIZ + STR over 12,

-1 per STR under 9. That mitigates the STR as an uberstat issue somewhat,

since it limits the bonus conferred. For example:

STR 15

CON 16

SIZ 13

HP = 16 + 13 + (15 - 12) = 32 HP.

Or, if you wanted to tie STR and SIZ together to give a more reasonable

interpretation of muscle mass vs. body fat, HP = CON + (STR + SIZ)/2.

Using the same example:

HP = 16 + (15 + 13)/2 = 30 HP.

I'll mull over other details later.

Ian

[Al.]

Hmm, some thoughts:

Why CON + POW for Perception? What does CON have to do with it?

I'd stick with INT + POW personally.

The rationale for Int+Pow is certainly sound enough; 'if you are bright enough then you' ll look in the right places and if you're luck enough then you'll be drawn there anyway' or some such.

I like Con+Pow partly coz in Ringworld the <word I can't remember but had to do with how high skills could go before specialising> for Perception skills was Con+Pow and partly coz a combination of physical health and spirit seems right to me.

Int+Pow means that Wolves (for ex) have worse BASE Perception than humans, which is silly IMMOO. I know any number of very bright people who regularly fail to notice things. Remaining within species one could obviously argue that this is due to them concentrating on acquiring knowledge rather than developing their senses ('allocating skill points to Lores not Perception skills in gamespeak)'.

Also (and again of value or not as you see fit) Magic Skills easily fit to a base of Int+Pow in my view and I don't want two categories using the same combination of characteristics.

The solution of giving a free attack after a parry by a shield is not satisfying to me. I mean, this would fit very well in a "Swashbuckling" setting where Main gauche are used instead of shields

Fair comment I'm not sure that I'd have plucked that out of the ether or tried it if I had not seen it written by someone else! It does WORK quite well as a rule in play though (which is why I kept it) and can be narrated in all kinds of ways. Perhaps the term riposte makes it sound all rather too elegant and lithe but it does get across the game effect.

Al

[vagabond]

The rationale for Int+Pow is certainly sound enough; 'if you are bright enough then you' ll look in the right places and if you're luck enough then you'll be drawn there anyway' or some such.

I like Con+Pow partly coz in Ringworld the <word I can't remember but had to do with how high skills could go before specialising> for Perception skills was Con+Pow and partly coz a combination of physical health and spirit seems right to me.

Int+Pow means that Wolves (for ex) have worse BASE Perception than humans, which is silly IMMOO. I know any number of very bright people who regularly fail to notice things. Remaining within species one could obviously argue that this is due to them concentrating on acquiring knowledge rather than developing their senses ('allocating skill points to Lores not Perception skills in gamespeak)'.

True, but that assumes both wolves and humans have the same base

perception. No reason you cannot say that humans have a base of

INT + POW, but wolves have a base of INT + POW + 25 to cover superior

hearing and scent

And, very bright people with poor perception - well, a high INT and low POW

would fit, no?

Ian

[Al.]

Yeah either of those could well apply if you wanted! This one's a matter of gut instinct I reckon. Nowt wrong with your logic, just doesn't quite fit for me.

Al

[Mugen]

Fair comment I'm not sure that I'd have plucked that out of the ether or tried it if I had not seen it written by someone else! It does WORK quite well as a rule in play though (which is why I kept it) and can be narrated in all kinds of ways. Perhaps the term riposte makes it sound all rather too elegant and lithe but it does get across the game effect.

Al

I'm not saying it is a bad rule : I use it with every weapon

And, as a matter of fact, Riposte doesn't sound so elegant to me, as french is my native language.

[SDLeary]

I put an alternate/optional rule into the wiki a while ago. The gist was that weapons parry based on the rules from RQIII; that is that the remove damage from the roll rather than block it wholesale. I rationalize this as weapons not covering any appreciable part of the body and a forceful blow still landing, but significantly reduced. Shields would still block as BRP RAW.

Apparently I didn't... or it got swallowed... or something. I'll see if I can find the original text and post it here and the wiki.

SDLeary

[Varulv]

I really look forward to the day when a Conan/Hyborian game would be released that was based in BRP-ish system. I sold my Conan 2ed stuff since I never had any will to play it with d20 (regret it now though since I miss the campaign material). Sure one could always run an houserule campagin but it´s still not the same...maybe I´ve grown to dependant on the industri than my own creativity ;( , but non the less it is really sad that Mongoose did not make an RQ version of Conan. As I understand it was Paradox Entertainment that pulled the plugg.

[Bygoneyrs]

Yes it was, I too collected all of the Conan materials but I still have all of mine. I have all the 1st edition materials as well and it is a bummer that most likely that line is dead for Mongoose!

Penn

[Thalaba]

Both the RQ and Stormbringer variants of BRP are ideally suited to run Conan. All you need are the three books containing the Conan stories (complete with maps) and you're done. I'm not sure why you need to wait for someone to publish an 'official' version. I also don't understand how Lovecraft could be public domain due to its age, but Conan and Hyboria not be. Howard died in '36, Lovecraft in '37. Why does Mongoose, or anyone else, need anybody's permission to write up a Conan game?

[Bygoneyrs]

The reason is that someone owns the rights to Conan plain and simple and they are calling the shots. They pulled the plug on alot of Conan material, and there is talk of new Conan movie as well too. Honestly I always thought Conan magic was a little lame myself, being a D&D fan for so many years I like alot more powerful mages myself or magic system in my own fantasy campaign. Now that doesn't mean I want the gobbs of Monte Hall magic that D&D seems to always have, but a much more indepth and slightly stronger version than is normally in Conan. Also I like to have more than just Humans, I like Dwarves and Halflings as PC races too. In my game Elves are Fae...and are NPCs only.

Penn

Edited March 6, 2010 by Bygoneyrs

[Thalaba]

In the United States and in Europe, Australia, and others, a copyright can only be held for the duration of the life of the author of the work + 70 years. Since Howard and Lovecraft both died more than 70 years ago, their work has become public domain - nobody can hold the 'rights' to it. They could hold the right to Hyborian material that was produced by other, later authors, though. But if someone wanted to produce a strictly Howardian Hyboria, there should be no impediment. This is why we've seen a proliferation of Lovecraft material in the last few years - his work has became public domain in 2007. I suspect that if Mongoose is letting someone else pull the strings on Conan, it's because they want to include a lot of additions to Hyboria that were added by later authors. And this makes some sense, since a setting book from Howard's work alone would leave a lot of holes to be filled in.

[Bygoneyrs]

I need to go to the Mongoose Conan forum and find the link that expalins what and why Mongoose had to drop and stop their further support of Conan. Once I have the time to look for it and post the link here you can all have a read and see for yourself. There is a "Owner" other than Mongoose and basically they are calling the shots...sorry to disagree with you, but once I find the posts you can read for yourselves.

Penn

[Thalaba]

sorry to disagree with you, but once I find the posts you can read for yourselves.

Penn

Disagreeing is allowed, and healthy!:thumb: If my facts are wrong I'm happy if someone can lead me to the truth.

[RosenMcStern]

I think the problem is that the word "Conan" is trademarked. REH's and HPL's works are public domain and you can publish them without any royalties or permission, but if you put "Conan" in the title of your game you are infringing something.

That said, if Mongoose uses the resources it wanted to use on Conan to make a new Star Wars RPG (which could be a mix of Traveller and RuneQuest), I will be much happier than with a RQ/BRP Conan.

[rust]

That said, if Mongoose uses the resources it wanted to use on Conan to make a new Star Wars RPG (which could be a mix of Traveller and RuneQuest), I will be much happier than with a RQ/BRP Conan.

Matt Sprange of Mongoose has mentioned the idea several times and seems to be very interes-

ted in it, but at the same time very sceptical:

"There has been a lot of speculation about Star Wars and the Mongoose, on at least two RPG

forums. We have never made any secret about our love for the property (they are, frankly, the

finest six films ever produced) but as I said on our own forums, don't hold your breath. We

would want to do far more than just an RPG, and there are serious time constraints involved in

the licence that may make our plans impossible."

(From the latest "Planet Mongoose" blog)

[Thalaba]

Is Star Wars their mythical 'Holy Grail' then?

I can't believe someone thinks they were the 'six finest films ever produced'. I mean, did they see episodes 1-3?

I think the problem is that the word "Conan" is trademarked. REH's and HPL's works are public domain and you can publish them without any royalties or permission, but if you put "Conan" in the title of your game you are infringing something.

How could all of REH's work be public domain except for one word, a word which happens to be a common Irish name?

[Bygoneyrs]

Ok folks here is the Link to the Mongoose - Conan forum about what happened:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/forum.php

Ok then select "Conan" forum, then go to page 2 and look at the Locked topic of:

Conan Plans Unveiled - Deepest Apologies

You can start with Post (1) from Mongoose Site Admin himself explaining what happen and read the next 25 pages of comments. It is all explain in there...folks.

Penn

Edited March 6, 2010 by Bygoneyrs

[rust]

Is Star Wars their mythical 'Holy Grail' then?

I am not sure, but I very much think so.

How could all of REH's work be public domain except for one word, a word which happens to be a common Irish name?

"Conan" could not be protected, but "Conan the Barbarian" could be a trademark, although

I have doubts that this would hold water in a court over here.