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Atgxtg

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I don't think it's really necessary to scale Amberite stats to ~30 or so. What is the thought process that's leading you to set it at 30?

In practice Amberites are significantly superior to regular humans, but they're not quite superman. Batman and a bit perhaps. I think you can get away with it being maybe 2D6+12 without too much trouble. Even in the ADRPG Amberites can sell down their Strength to Chaos or Human level. Only the strongest characters would have +2D6 DB and they'd need to have decent SIZ.

I'd seriously suggest going with a general hit point and major wound model, not hit locations. I think it will suit the heroic feel a lot better, but major wounds still keep it 'real'.

Edited by simonh

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25 minutes ago, simonh said:

I don't think it's really necessary to scale Amberite stats to ~30 or so. What is the thought process that's leading you to set it at 30?

Corwin and Random can lift and carry a car; Corwin can cut through a 2 inch thick sapling with one stroke; Corwin can throw an overstuffed chair 30 feet with enough force to break someone's back; Benedict can cut through a 3 inch thich sapling with one blow and take down effortless do the same over and over.

Plus there is the scale presented in the Amber Diceless RPG.Amber Rank is supposed to be better than the best human, which means it needs to be higher than 18 or 21 depending on what variation of BRP I use and what the human max is.  

 

25 minutes ago, simonh said:

In practice Amberites are significantly superior to regular humans, but they're not quite superman. Batman and a bit perhaps.

I don't know any humans, Batman included who can regrow eyes or fight for 26 hours. Besides Superman has a STR score much higher than 30 (I got him pegged at around 200 for post-crisis and 400 for pre crisis, but that's using Superworld) 

25 minutes ago, simonh said:

 I think you can get away with it being maybe 2D6+12 without too much trouble.

A 21 is more Chaos Rank than Amber Rank. But I could probably shift Amber Rank down to 25-26 or so. 

25 minutes ago, simonh said:

Even in the ADRPG Amberites can sell down their Strength the Chaos or Human level. 

Sure. And I'm very much inclined to start the PCs off at Chaos Rank (say +8 to their stats), since all the "next generation" Amberites (Martin, Merlin) seem to be at that level.

Oh, and keep in mind that when I start the game the PCs will all have normal 3-18 stats, since they will be on a shadow designed to make them the norm. The idea being that they won't know or suspect that they are any more powerful than a normal person until they go somewhere else. 

25 minutes ago, simonh said:

Only the strongest characters would have +2D6 DB and they'd need to have high SIZ.

Not based on the books. Corwin is pretty much a given at at least +3D6. And even at +2D6 would seriously affect how all the fights go in the books. I find it hard to believe that every time Corwin, Eric or someone else gets hit in the books the attacker gets a bad damage roll.

 

The problem, IMO is that db is completely separate from success level (other than the fact that you have to hit) in the game, but not in real swordfighting or in the novels. It's not that big a deal for normal characters but it becomes one when the db gets up there. What I'd like to do is scale the db with the success level so that a character needs a good hit to get his full db, and that nicks and scratches are still possible. 

25 minutes ago, simonh said:

I'd seriously suggest going with a general hit point and major wound model, not hit locations. I think it will suit the heroic feel a lot better, but major wounds still keep it 'real'.

Yeah, I think you're right. It will help the PCs soak hits better, although it does eliminate the possibility of losing a arm like Benedict. But I do think fixed armor is a must, or at least some sort of dice curve. Variable armor is one of the things that made SB such a meat grinder. 

I'm going to check the Fate Point rules in the BGB. They might give me the "out" I'm looking for. 

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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Corwin and Random are pretty tough dudes, in fact Corwin is probably the most resilient of all the Amberites, but I don't think every Amberite is at that level.

Anyway, I think this is easy to work around. As you say, you can start them off on a shadow where Amber level stats are the norm, so what that means is that these stat levels (STR in particular) are relative to the shadow. So we could say that each shadow gives a STR modifier relative to Amber level. On our Earth it might be +15, on another shadow it might be +0, on a high gravity shadow it might be -10.

You wouldn't do this for every stats, in fact you can probably do it just for STR. Also things like regeneration can simply be a power rather than super-high CON, or on top of less spectacularly high CON.

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1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

 

(snip)

 

The problem, IMO is that db is completely separate from success level (other than the fact that you have to hit) in the game, but not in real swordfighting or in the novels. It's not that big a deal for normal characters but it becomes one when the db gets up there. What I'd like to do is scale the db with the success level so that a character needs a good hit to get his full db, and that nicks and scratches are still possible. 

Yeah, I think you're right. It will help the PCs soak hits better, although it does eliminate the possibility of losing a arm like Benedict. But I do think fixed armor is a must, or at least some sort of dice curve. Variable armor is one of the things that made SB such a meat grinder. 

I'm going to check the Fate Point rules in the BGB. They might give me the "out" I'm looking for. 

Crit Success = Full DB

Special Success = DB -1 level

Hard Success (50% or less) = DB -2 levels

Success = DB -3 levels

I use "Hard Success" all the time to provide a bit more to the system with a "Hard" counting above a "Success" (so a Hard hit requires a Hard (or better) parry or dodge).

The problem being this is a "piling on" type of system because it just gets nastier and nastier....unless you tone down the game mechanics for Crit and Special Successes with the application of the damage bonus being the reward for higher success rates.  Of course, the most lethal tends to be Impaling since x2 damage rules the roost....and amusingly enough, dealing with things that are immune to impaling damage with firearms cuts them down quite nicely.  Perhaps consider Impaling to be a variation of Bleeding that goes at double rate?  Or requires something more than a quick First Aid wound binding?  Or simply toss out all of the excess verbiage and flat out consider the DB bonus to be the reward for better hits.

One thing to remember is that it seems that BRP uses the DB mechanic to simulate stronger and bigger creatures damage.  Giant with Club, does a d6ish like everyone else....except with his STR + SIZ, he does +?d6 that isn't changed by any critical or special roll, but that may not be too bad given that if it has +5-6d6 DB, then any hit will still be 3-4d6 which isn't too shabby.

Another consideration would be Martial Arts with any weapon, because of the automatic 2x damage (only 3x if combined with Impaling hit), it is that doubling of damage that starts taking things off the chart with higher damage weapons.  Right now, I'm provisionally limiting it to half of the weapon skill, which is actually working out quite well, but with a primary shooting game, nobody is pushing hard at it.

Special shots can be either major wounds, cinematic or allowing targeting of a body part by halving the hit chance (or simply bypassing all but minimum armor, which increases the chance for a major hit).

Fate points work quite well in my game to avoid an untimely crit or bad skill roll, but most characters with normal stats only can do about two of the better ones and even high POW characters only get three.

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I worry a bit about the Law of Unintended Consequences...  What happens when they figure Amber-ish stuff out, and suddenly there's a known Shadow where "everyone" is stat'ed like Amber royalty?  What happens if someone raises an army of 10,000 there?  Or 100,000?

If these neo-Amberites' STR &c is a problem, instead create some fix unique to them... put some sort of a STR-limiting Curse on them, that breaks when they leave that Shadow, or have their "faithful steward" slipping them some STR/2 drug weekly, or even declare the specific Shadow to be "malign to the Blood of Amber" such that they are always a bit weaker than they "should" be (i.e. stronger than usual, but not superhuman:  unusual not impossible), or etc etc etc...

 

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1 hour ago, g33k said:

I worry a bit about the Law of Unintended Consequences...  What happens when they figure Amber-ish stuff out, and suddenly there's a known Shadow where "everyone" is stat'ed like Amber royalty? 

Well for starters they are not stat'ed like Amber royalty, they are stat'ed like the normal inhabitants of Amber. The royals are ranked. 

1 hour ago, g33k said:

What happens if someone raises an army of 10,000 there?  Or 100,000?

The same thing that happens every other time someone raises an army of creatures with Amber Rank stats. There is obviously a lot of stuff out there that has stats comparable to an Amberite. Just look at those Cat stats I posted earlier. There is really no reason why someone couldn't go shadow walking to a place where they could raise an army or dragons or some such. 

In the Amber diceless RPG any player character could easily build a species with Amber Vitality (2 points), Amber Stamina (2 points), Combat Mastery (4 Points) for a total of  8 points, and either use a Quantity Multiplier, or just go out in Shadow and find someplace where they can recruit as many as they want for free. So that Pandora's box is already open. 


Frankly, I'd be more concerned about someone decided to walk to "the Shadow where Corwin got the gunpowder that works in Amber". Technically, the way shadow walking is described, just about any Amberite could take one of Corwin's bullets and go off to find where the primer and propellant came from.  That shouldn't be all that hard to backtrack, although I suspect Benedict has already worked most of it out and has made some sort of preparations.

1 hour ago, g33k said:

If these neo-Ambergris' STR &c is a problem,

Their STR isn't a problem, their Amberite heritage is. If they are walking around with ultra high stats then it it going to be impossible for them to be taken as normal people. Worse still, if the players wind up with all stats at 18 or so, they are going to suspect something is going on.

1 hour ago, g33k said:

instead create some fix unique to them... put some sort of a STR-limiting Curse on them, that breaks when they leave that Shadow, or have their "faithful steward" slipping them some STR/2 drug weekly,

Uh, why? From an in game perspective it doesn't make much sense. 

1 hour ago, g33k said:

or even declare the specific Shadow to be "malign to the Blood of Amber" such that they are always a bit weaker than they "should" be (i.e. stronger than usual, but not superhuman:  unusual not impossible), or etc etc etc...

Better. That seems like something Oberon could do and might make sense if he wanted to keep the MCGuffin out of the hands of his children. In fact, the effect could even be stronger the more pure the bloodline is, so that Elder Amberites would be even weaker here (Oberon, being Oberon had an "out" of some sort).

I like it. The only problem with it is that I was planning on nerfing (maybe I should call it Shadow Nerf?) any Chaos nasties that the PCs encounter early on the same way I did the PCs. I suppose I could have the effect tied to Chaos, and Amberites, being from Chaos are also affected. 

 

Yeah, that would work out better. The stronger the ties to Chaos the greater the "Nerf effect". So creatures of Chaos get hit with the full "curse". Those with weaker blood ties (Elder Amberites, and then the PCs) get a partial curse. Pattern probably helps too. Yeah, that would work out much, much better. Now I can throw some really nasty Chaos beasties at them and see how they react whenthey turn out to be a paper tigers.

-Thanks!

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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1 hour ago, Algesan said:

Crit Success = Full DB

Special Success = DB -1 level

Hard Success (50% or less) = DB -2 levels

Success = DB -3 levels

Yeah, something like that, although I think I might just mess with the db die. Full db is d6, Special d4, Hard d3, Success d2. 

 

I think I still want to up the "soak" values for weapons and armor from Amber though. 

1 hour ago, Algesan said:

One thing to remember is that it seems that BRP uses the DB mechanic to simulate stronger and bigger creatures damage.  Giant with Club, does a d6ish like everyone else....except with his STR + SIZ, he does +?d6 that isn't changed by any critical or special roll, but that may not be too bad given that if it has +5-6d6 DB, then any hit will still be 3-4d6 which isn't too shabby.

Yeah, and it doesn't always work out all that great. For instance, in game Bears and Lions have great dbs, and, that's to bell curves and minimum rolls, are pretty much guaranteed to kill/incapacitate a man every time. Yet in the real world unarmored people do survive such attacks. Scaling the db helps with that. 

1 hour ago, Algesan said:

Another consideration would be Martial Arts with any weapon, because of the automatic 2x damage (only 3x if combined with Impaling hit), it is that doubling of damage that starts taking things off the chart with higher damage weapons.  Right now, I'm provisionally limiting it to half of the weapon skill, which is actually working out quite well, but with a primary shooting game, nobody is pushing hard at it.

ooh, good point. IMO Martial Arts doubling shouldn't really apply with weapons. I find it hard to believe that master swordsmen do know how to use their blades effectively. Frankly, I don't buy it with unarmed attacks either. A 1D3+1D4 punch is a bit overboad. Fortunatly I don't have to cross that bridge yet. 

1 hour ago, Algesan said:

Special shots can be either major wounds, cinematic or allowing targeting of a body part by halving the hit chance (or simply bypassing all but minimum armor, which increases the chance for a major hit).

Not sure If I follow you here. Do you mean special shot as in special success (1/5th chance) or that they make a call shot that automatically becomes a mahjor wound, targets a body part, or bypasses armor? 

1 hour ago, Algesan said:

Fate points work quite well in my game to avoid an untimely crit or bad skill roll, but most characters with normal stats only can do about two of the better ones and even high POW characters only get three.

Yeah. After looking them over I think they could work nice for this. especially since I expect the PC Amberites to have high POW scores. I'd also expect that this is some form of shadow manipulation, and that Pattern probably helps, so I might gie the PCs a discount on this. Maybe only 2:1 for damage reduction instead of 3:1?

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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The other day I thought that it might be a cool idea if some ship wanted into the area during a storm and that the PCs go out to ship only to find the crew dead and a monstrous animal on board. But, Bram Stoker beat me to the idea by over 100 year. Still, I think it might be a good way to open up the campaign world. The PCs get onto the ship and encounter a couple of the big cats (that speak and then attack). The idea being that the cats used the ship to get to this shadow (I'm thinking that is one of the restrictions to entering/leaving this shadow) to search for the McGuffin. In light of recent events, I think I'll name the ship the Ernalda

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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Hey, since some of you think 30 is too high for Amber Rank, how would this scale look?     Human (10.5), Chaos (18), Amber (23)

 

Corwin and the other elder Amberites would still have higher stats, but then they are ranked above Amber Rank. But it would bring most characters down closer to the human scale, while still giving the Amberites a definite advantage in stats-especially in opposed STR rolls. 

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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Interests & Hobbies: Since the PCs will be wards of the Estate, they won't have to work for a living, which can make for some interesting chargen. I don't want to just give them all a Noble Occupation to put points in, as in Magic World, as that might make all the characters too similar, skill wise. Nor do I want to just let them dump a bunch of points wherever, as can happen in BRP. What I was thinking of was to let the PCs pick interests & hobbies, as skill packages. For instance, they could pick Sailing or Hunting, or Courtly Graces, the Occult , and get a number of points (20%-25%) to break up among a handful of skills (i.e. the Sailing interest could including Boating, Shiphanding, Swimming, Climbing and Rope Use). Picking an interest could also include a few bits of gear appropriate towards that interest (spyglass, sextant, oilskin coat, skiff, cutlass, tattoo, scrimshaw: pick any three).

 

One of the hidden benefits of this approach would be that it could help to tip the GM (me) as to what sort of challenges and adventures they players want. For instance, if someone takes Fencing, then they probably want (or at least want to be prepared for) some swordfighting, and if all the players take it, then they probably expect a lot of melee combat in the campaign. It would also a kinda of backdoor method of putting in items or animals of exceptional ability, similar to what PCs can buy in the Amber Diceless RPG. 

 

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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On 7/10/2018 at 2:26 PM, Atgxtg said:

Uh, why? From an in game perspective it doesn't make much sense. 

Q -- who put them on The Estate, and why?  Oberon?  A cabal of their parents, all stashing them "safely" away from Court Politics?  Some Machiavellian 3rd party, maybe kidnapping babies and/or having catspaw seductrsses get pregnant then run back to said 3rd party to raise the child?  How badly are they AmberKids wanted to stay?  If they make a serious attempt to leave, will they be put under 24/7 eyes-on guard?  Imprisoned?  Restrained?  Even killed (as a last resort, presumably)?

Are the answers to all these the same for every one of them?

Did whoever put them there succeed in the secrecy?  Or is there a spy or double-agent on The Estate?  Or even among the kids?  Maybe one of them is from the Courts of Chaos (their shapeshifters could presumably take a child's form)?

There are many motives I could see where someone (even someone with their best interests at heart) might use magic/medicine/etc to Nerf their Amber / AmberRoyal potentials.  Hence the ideas of a "curse," or of drugs from a steward, or other looks-villainous methods...

It also "feels" very Amber-flavored to me:  A basically happy but occasionally spooky/wierd childhood, an affectionate-seeming "Auntie Chatelaine" &c.  Then they are annoyed at how over-protective she seems... Then she begins to seem almost like a jailer (but then again, MANY teens have that phase about parents, school, etc)  Then they discover she's drugging them, or has lead-encased voodoo-dolls of them, and they decide she's an Enemy... And (eventually) it all circles back to Amber-arrogant overprotectiveness, all "for their own good".

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1 hour ago, g33k said:

Q -- who put them on The Estate, and why?  Oberon? 

Yes. Orginally the place was set up to hide the important artifact/McGuffin

Quote

  How badly are they AmberKids wanted to stay? 

Stay at the manor or in the shadow? At the start of the campaign the characters will have no knowledge of other shadows, so they won't have any reason to want to leave the one they are in, or know that they can. Thety might want to leave the manor and go find the way in the world they are on, and that's perfectly okay. 

 

Quote

If they make a serious attempt to leave, will they be put under 24/7 eyes-on guard?  Imprisoned?  Restrained?  Even killed (as a last resort, presumably)?

No, for the most part they have free reign. They were brought here when they were very young chidren, perhaps infants, and were only supposed to be kept here until Oberon returned. But Oberon died during the War and never returned, leaving the children in the care of retainers. Now that the children have reached adulthood

Quote

Are the answers to all these the same for every one of them?

Did whoever put them there succeed in the secrecy?  Or is there a spy or double-agent on The Estate?  Or even among the kids?  Maybe one of them is from the Courts of Chaos (their shapeshifters could presumably take a child's form)?

All possibilities. Considering that the shadow was set up primarily to hid the McGuffin, and that the characters have been here for a very long time, it seems unlikely that anyone from the Courts know about them, or that they would have waited this long to act, but...this is an Amber campaign, and people do play the long game.

AFAIK (meaning this is how I have set things up so far, but like any good Amber GM I'm perfectly willing to recton this if becomes necessary, convenient, or just plain appealing to do so) no one off shadow knows of the characters, their parents being dead (I was thinking of using Deidre or Eric for the Amber family connection). Some members of the Courts are looking for the McGuffin and sent minons off to find it, but between the difficulty in entering this shadow, the nerfing of those with Chaos blood (thank you) and the rate that time flows on differernt shadows, nothnig has happened until now, when the PC reach adulthood. I also have it set up so that some of the Amberites, probably Fiona get some clue as to the McGuffin and possibly the characters and can show up just when the baddies at the Courts get the location and can make a real effort to get here, when things start to go crazy.

Quote

There are many motives I could see where someone (even someone with their best interests at heart) might use magic/medicine/etc to Nerf their Amber / AmberRoyal potentials.  Hence the ideas of a "curse," or of drugs from a steward, or other looks-villainous methods...

Sure, if that was the set up that I had chosen to use. Since I wanted to use this as a "backdoor" Amber campaign, and since my players are not familiar with Amber or how things can work, I set things up so they don't have many strings attached to them. If I had wanted to I could have flipped the whole thing around and have them kidnapped by someone at the Courts and kept here as hostages (unknowingly) to use against Amber. Probably be a better story that way too. But I don't want to start this off by completely screwing over the PCs. 

Quote

It also "feels" very Amber-flavored to me:  A basically happy but occasionally spooky/wierd childhood, an affectionate-seeming "Auntie Chatelaine" &c.  Then they are annoyed at how over-protective she seems... Then she begins to seem almost like a jailer (but then again, MANY teens have that phase about parents, school, etc)  Then they discover she's drugging them, or has lead-encased voodoo-dolls of them, and they decide she's an Enemy... And (eventually) it all circles back to Amber-arrogant overprotectiveness, all "for their own good".

Yup, it does. Kinda like how Corwin starts off in a hospital bed that isn't all that good for his heath. Its probably a better Amber-ish start too. But I think if I did things that way I'd probably lose the players and they would feel like I was messing with them instead of the NPCs messing with them. I thinks it's better if I keep their guardians benevolent. That probably gives thing more impact when Chaos intrudes. I can always swap out an NPC with a Shapeshifter later, once everybody is up to speed. My players have been playing in a fairly easy D&D campaign, and haven't played a D100 based RPG, or really had to think at the gaming table in years.  I got to give them time to get familiar with the game system and stretch their mental muscles before I can pull something like that on them. As it stands now it's going to be a bit tricky to run. But if I can pull it off, it should be epic.  

 

Thanks for the posts. I've got a few good ideas from them, and have started to get suspicious of my NPCs, which is the right frame of mind to write something like this. Maybe there is something more to one or two of those retainers after all? I think I might just want to pull a Unicorn in here somewhere...

Edited by Atgxtg

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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On 7/10/2018 at 4:44 PM, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, something like that, although I think I might just mess with the db die. Full db is d6, Special d4, Hard d3, Success d2. 

 

I think I still want to up the "soak" values for weapons and armor from Amber though. 

Yeah, and it doesn't always work out all that great. For instance, in game Bears and Lions have great dbs, and, that's to bell curves and minimum rolls, are pretty much guaranteed to kill/incapacitate a man every time. Yet in the real world unarmored people do survive such attacks. Scaling the db helps with that. 

ooh, good point. IMO Martial Arts doubling shouldn't really apply with weapons. I find it hard to believe that master swordsmen do know how to use their blades effectively. Frankly, I don't buy it with unarmed attacks either. A 1D3+1D4 punch is a bit overboad. Fortunatly I don't have to cross that bridge yet. 

Not sure If I follow you here. Do you mean special shot as in special success (1/5th chance) or that they make a call shot that automatically becomes a mahjor wound, targets a body part, or bypasses armor? 

Yeah. After looking them over I think they could work nice for this. especially since I expect the PC Amberites to have high POW scores. I'd also expect that this is some form of shadow manipulation, and that Pattern probably helps, so I might gie the PCs a discount on this. Maybe only 2:1 for damage reduction instead of 3:1?

Okay, altering the dice like you suggested would work as well and perhaps better.

EDIT:  Heh, you know this is only a problem for melee combat, which makes it really funny when one of the things in the Amber books was finding and formulating a gunpowder that would work in Amber itself.  Or how looking at the history of swords, polearms and armor, you can see the gun driving their evolution.

Which is why I have a problem with the straight db rules outside of fantasy campaigns where quick healing, parrying, dodging, etc. all work better.  Right now, my players are wearing d4/d8+4 armor (melee/ranged), which works real well against d10 or 2d6+2 base firearms and d3 (punch) or d6 (knife/bayonet/e-tool) melee, until they run into one of the Axis modified gorillas with +3d6 db to their punch.  Either of our solutions using quality of hit to affect db would help with that one.

Martial arts needs a justification.  Your standard master swordsman is very good, but one with MA had done an extra study...think Samurai vs Kensai, or Boxer vs Shao-lin monk.  I don't have an issue with the mechanic, especially with unarmed combat since the MA character simply knows where to hit, grapple, etc. to do extra damage using nerve points or knowledge of the body structure and similar effects work with weapons, especially since many people don't realize that there are a LOT of moves in the old martial arts books (Western and Eastern) that include punches, kicks, throws and holds in weapon training.    That is one example, there are others (including the infamous knee to the groin in the bind)...to the point where at least one scholar in the HEMA world has posited the position that all fencing is derived from wrestling (which includes what we would call boxing). 

The biggest issue with the MA skill comes from the way players can level it up.  If it is just the regular raising of the skill, it can become problematic.  I'm working on that one for when I do get a fantasy campaign going, but the fact of parries and dodges mitigates a lot of the issues. I have several alternates in mind besides just double damage including using it to raise the success of the hit, raising the success only vs dodge/parry, making possible to ignore dodge and/or parry, etc.   In a multi-race campaign you could even make it a Difficult skill to use vs. other races because the body structures are different enough that the patented punch to the solar plexus is just a hair off or ineffective  (Yep, you just bounced your fist off that lizard man's belly scales). 

Yes, use the special/critical hits to give some bonus but not a damage multiplier.  Ignoring armor, halving armor, automatic major hit regardless of damage, stun, bleeding, etc.  Although, again, I may be letting my current primary firearms bias be showing here because with a gun, you don't give a crap if the bullet gets "stuck in" the body of the enemy, but with melee impaling weapons, there is that issue with having to pull the weapon out of the body after an impaling spec/crit.

Main thing for that is: how hard do you want to run the game?  Lethal?  Don't change it.  Occasionally lethal?  I'd start it as it stands, but inform my players that change may be needed and it is always easier to enhance than to nerf (although don't be afraid to do that).  The fate system works great for a no magic system based on firearms and I think would also be good for a low fantasy game with little or no magic....but then Sorcery would be more appropriate for that kind of game.

Since I want to run a high fantasy game next myself (and have a player who always likes to run a glass cannon caster), I'm actually struggling a bit over POW myself since 1POW = 1 mana, but without using the Classic Fantasy Spell Lore mechanic (which reduces the mana cost of spells so at high Spell Lore skill you get "free mana" to simulate the old school high level fireball while using 1 mana) or otherwise OP starting casters by giving them a multiplier to increase mana (which if you don't technically under powers the skilled characters or turns them into some kind of warrior with some nifty casting tricks)....although technically D&D uses a "Vancian" magic system and using POW straight actually makes it more like the original Dying Earth magic system Jack Vance used with casters mainly using stored POW in scrolls, items, etc because they could only cast a few spells each day.

Edited by Algesan
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26 minutes ago, Algesan said:

Okay, altering the dice like you suggested would work as well and perhaps better.

Except for the high minimums. Someone with a two dice db is still going to do at least 4 points of a sword hit. 

26 minutes ago, Algesan said:

EDIT:  Heh, you know this is only a problem for melee combat, which makes it really funny when one of the things in the Amber books was finding and formulating a gunpowder that would work in Amber itself.  Or how looking at the history of swords, polearms and armor, you can see the gun driving their evolution.

Yes. And it's really only a BRP/CoC problem, too. What happens is that, thanks to db, strong characters, animals and monsters end up doing more damage in melee than a firearm can do, making firearms less desirable in game terms. Realistically, the big advantages of firearms were shock value (which doesn't translate into game terms), ability to penetrate armor (which is moot when you got a really high db),  how easy it is to use (it's not much different than other missile weapons) and how much eaiser it is to improve compared to a bow (the same in BRP).

26 minutes ago, Algesan said:

Which is why I have a problem with the straight db rules outside of fantasy campaigns where quick healing, parrying, dodging, etc. all work better.  Right now, my players are wearing d4/d8+4 armor (melee/ranged), which works real well against d10 or 2d6+2 base firearms and d3 (punch) or d6 (knife/bayonet/e-tool) melee,

I think variable armor is part of your problem. You just can't rely on it. I think you need fixed armor, or at least some sort of bell curve. 2d3 instead of 1d6, 2D6 instead of 1D10+2. It makes the armor more reliable. 

26 minutes ago, Algesan said:

until they run into one of the Axis modified gorillas with +3d6 db to their punch.

Okay, I'll bite. Tell me about the Axis modified Gorillas. I must of missed that episode of Nazi Mega Weapons on the History Channel. 

26 minutes ago, Algesan said:

Either of our solutions using quality of hit to affect db would help with that one.

I think the problems are due to:

1) The db is a flat mod, and so applies to all weapons equally (so a penknife wielded by a troll hits like a Greatsword)

2) That the db is independent of success levels (turns a graze into a kill, and  minimized the value of skill.) 

3) The db is multiple of d6s ( that gives  a high minimum, so you can never get a light hit, a bell curve, and 3.5 point increments.

4) The game only has lethal damage (so getting punched is just as bad as getting stabbed with a weapon)

5) That everyone always uses their full db (not realistic-especially with animals. While the random roll helps, the bell curve starts to flatten out just when you need more variance). 

6) The weapons can actually take a full db (i.e Superman might have a +13d6 db, but I doubt there is a sword that could withstand the force of the blow)

 

I think the reason why no ones done much about it, or even cared is that the problems don't really start until you get past the normal stat range for characters. With the db at +1D6 or less things work out. Monsters are supposed to be monstrous, and big tough animals aren't too bad if you are smart about it (ranged weapons, shields, battle magic), so it's still okay. 

To really "fix" the problem, I think we need a smoother db progression, and to integrate the db into the weapon damage. That way it also gets tied to success level. Something along the lines of what they did in the Bushido RPG. Basically you shift the weapon's damage die up. 

Another option, I'm considering (from another RPG) is to assume that stronger, larger creatures have more muscle to cut through, and thicker bonus to support their weight, and tend to get better partial parries, and to have dbs cancel out. Sandy Peterson did this to some extent in Gateway Bestiary, by linking most creatures armor to db, and they kept that in RQ3. But if db just canceled out, then most of my problems for Amber would disappear. Cowin's and Eric's db's would cancel out and the'd just being doing their normal weapon damage. Factor in a high CON and more hit points and it all seems to work. 

 

26 minutes ago, Algesan said:

Martial arts needs a justification.  Your standard master swordsman is very good, but one with MA had done an extra study...think Samurai vs Kensai, or Boxer vs Shao-lin monk.

Except that high skill handles that. And if you got Land of the Ninja, you got Ki skills, which solve the problem nicely.

Add to that the fact that unarmed attacks in BRP are already doing too much damage (a kick does the same damage as a club), and the lack of non-lethal damage, and it's just overkill. 

26 minutes ago, Algesan said:

Main thing for that is: how hard do you want to run the game?  Lethal?  Don't change it.  Occasionally lethal?  I'd start it as it stands, but inform my players that change may be needed and it is always easier to enhance than to nerf (although don't be afraid to do that). 

Yeah, and BRP is pretty much lethal. It takes some work to scale it down. 

26 minutes ago, Algesan said:

The fate system works great for a no magic system based on firearms and I think would also be good for a low fantasy game with little or no magic....but then Sorcery would be more appropriate for that kind of game.

Funny you should mention that. I've been looking at The Princess Bride RPG Quickstart. It's written for Fudge (where Fate came from, and mostly the same system), and where I got the idea of DBs canceling out. I was thinking that PB might be a good fit for Amber. It's got enough to pull of the fencing, the attribute ladder and scaling would handle Amberites easily enough ( I'm thinking Human +0, Chaos +4,  Amber Rank +6), automatically factoring in for the Amberite's STR and toughness without warping things, and, IMO it's easier to port stuff from the Amber Diceless RPG to Fudge than to BRP.  But I'm a big RQ/BRP fan, so I'll probably stick with BRP and maybe port over a few things from PB.

26 minutes ago, Algesan said:

Since I want to run a high fantasy game next myself (and have a player who always likes to run a glass cannon caster), I'm actually struggling a bit over POW myself since 1POW = 1 mana, but without using the Classic Fantasy Spell Lore mechanic (which reduces the mana cost of spells so at high Spell Lore skill you get "free mana" to simulate the old school high level fireball while using 1 mana) or otherwise OP starting casters by giving them a multiplier to increase mana (which if you don't technically under powers the skilled characters or turns them into some kind of warrior with some nifty casting tricks)....although technically D&D uses a "Vancian" magic system and using POW straight actually makes it more like the original Dying Earth magic system Jack Vance used with casters mainly using stored POW in scrolls, items, etc because they could only cast a few spells each day.

Tricky. I think it depends on how much you want the characters to pull off. Both in terms of quantity and quality. Here are some options off the top of my head, maybe some of it will help:

1) Most Power casters characters in BRP/RQ/MW  have some sort of way to store some extra power (Fetch, Aliied Spiriit, Familiar, Staff). 

2) You could let them use something else other than/or in addition to POW to pay for the spell cost. For instance is spells made the casters tired you could use Fatigue Points to power them or give the caster the option of using Fatigue and/or POW in some combination.

3) You could just double the effectiveness of spells (1 POW in= 2 POW out)

4) You could give extra POW for high magical skills. This is like the "free mana" approach, only more limited. So if someone got a magical skill up to a certain point (50%), he'd raise his POW by 1.

 

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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On 7/13/2018 at 2:46 PM, Atgxtg said:

Funny you should mention that. I've been looking at The Princess Bride RPG Quickstart. It's written for Fudge (where Fate came from, and mostly the same system), and where I got the idea of DBs canceling out.

Very late to the discussion here, but this seems to be the best way to model fencing duels, as it is the overall difference in mastery (skill) and natural ability (strength) that should matter. I've never seen the DB-canceling option before, but it makes sense to me.

Also liking the whole game concept, I hope you keep us posted on how this turns out.

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5 hours ago, Rhialto the Marvellous said:

Very late to the discussion here, but this seems to be the best way to model fencing duels, as it is the overall difference in mastery (skill) and natural ability (strength) that should matter. I've never seen the DB-canceling option before, but it makes sense to me.

In Fudge terms it's not so much canceling. It's just that damage is shifted up or down in the attacker has a Body score at least 2 points higher or lower than the defender. Not sure if this would be doubled if there was a 4 point difference, but I'd probably consider than for Amber. The nice bit is that it keeps swordfight damage between two strong Amberites down to what we see in the books. I'm still trying to get a good solution for BRP. The canceling might cause other problems- a big armored creature can become invulnerable.

Probably scaling the db with success level and maybe smoothing out the progression will do it. It's just that once the db becomes a big or greater than the weapon's normal damage it becomes the dominant factor, and combined with a bell curve and fixed hit points, turns things into a one hit fight. 

Quote

Also liking the whole game concept, I hope you keep us posted on how this turns out.

Sure, love too. Thanks for the input. Oh, I also have been working on some stuff for sailing ships for this campaign, and worked up and revised some stats for cannon over in the Seafaring thread in the Stormbringer forum (because I'll be using the ship rules from Stormbringer/Elric/RQ3). If you are interested take a peek. I think I've worked out a way for ships to be able to withstand a few broadsides. 

Edited by Atgxtg

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On 7/10/2018 at 9:41 AM, Atgxtg said:

Okay, I got a bit of a problem and would love to hear of some possible solutions. My problem is that, since Amberites have high STR scores (Amber level STR is about STR 30 AFAIK) they will also have corresponding high damage bonuses (+2D6 for a STR 30, SIZ 13 PC), which is going to take most of the tension and drama out of swordfights. Instead of an attack nicking an opponent, it will probably end up lopping off a body part. Yes, Amberites have a high CON, but the extra Hit points aren't enough to offset the extra damage. And it gets worse with Elder Amberites.

What I think I need to do is scale back the damage bonus a bit, and possibly limit by the success level somehow, so that someone doesn't get decapitated by a 1 point hit that gets backed up by a high db.

 

Currently, I'm thinking of adding in a marginal success level (over 1/2 success chance, i.e. if someone has Sword 80%, then Crit 0-4, Special 5-16, Sucess 17-40, Marginal Success 41-80) and  not allowing db on marginal hits.

 I couldalso  reduce the damage die for a weapon and combine the db in the weapon damage. Something along the lines of a Sword doing 1D4  on a marginal success, 2D4 on a success, 4D4 on an impale, and 8D4 (or 4D4 maxed or some such)  for a critical. A high damage bonus could shift the damage die from a d4 to a d6 or a d8 and so on. This way, even someone like Corwin (probably around +3d6 db) might have a d12 (2d6) damage die, and on a  bad roll and only do a point or two of damage, instead of virtually automatically taking out a hit location or causing a major wound (1D8+1+3D6 is a minimum of 5 points, and an average of 16) .

 

Anybody got any other ideas of how to handle this in a D100 based game?

 

 

 

You could try a hitpointless system.

In the system I use for Swords of Cydoria you use the Resistance table to stay conscious and able to fight after a blow; only after the fight do you see how badly wounded you actually are.

For a couple of Amberites with high stats, say STR 30, SIZ 13, CON 30 POW ??* armed with rapiers (1d6+2)  and 2d6 damage bonus it would work like this:

Eric hits Corwin and he fails to parry.

Corwin must make a resistance roll

50% + ((Resilience – damage) x 5%)

where Resilience = Corwin's HP* and damage = (max. weapon damage + max. damage bonus - Corwin's armour rating)

That is (to summarise the resistance table result):

50% +((22 - (8+12)) x5%) = 60% to keep on fighting. Corwin definitely got a 'nick' though.

The resistance table approach works well for similarly sized opponents, so would scale for your superpowered Amberites. We've already discussed fighting oversized opponents with this system.

* My system uses a new stat called Resilience which is average of (STR, CON, and POW) instead of HP (avg of STR and CON) but the HP number works OK too, especially for NPCs.  I imagine the Amberites would be well endowed with POW.

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On 7/15/2018 at 12:30 PM, Atgxtg said:

In Fudge terms it's not so much canceling. It's just that damage is shifted up or down in the attacker has a Body score at least 2 points higher or lower than the defender. Not sure if this would be doubled if there was a 4 point difference, but I'd probably consider than for Amber. The nice bit is that it keeps swordfight damage between two strong Amberites down to what we see in the books. I'm still trying to get a good solution for BRP. The canceling might cause other problems- a big armored creature can become invulnerable.

Probably scaling the db with success level and maybe smoothing out the progression will do it. It's just that once the db becomes a big or greater than the weapon's normal damage it becomes the dominant factor, and combined with a bell curve and fixed hit points, turns things into a one hit fight. 

Sure, love too. Thanks for the input. Oh, I also have been working on some stuff for sailing ships for this campaign, and worked up and revised some stats for cannon over in the Seafaring thread in the Stormbringer forum (because I'll be using the ship rules from Stormbringer/Elric/RQ3). If you are interested take a peek. I think I've worked out a way for ships to be able to withstand a few broadsides. 

Ah, yes: I guess I was literally thinking in terms of fencing, where one degree of success could justify canceling the damage bonus based on the parrying party's bonus. And it wouldn't have the problem of big armored creatures you note, since they'd only get the cancelling if actually parrying with a weapon.

I saw the Seafaring thread, but will take a second look, thanks.

"This is preposterous! Must we welcome each scoundrel of time into our midst, to satiate himself on our good things, meanwhile perverting our customs?"
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56 minutes ago, Rhialto the Marvellous said:

 And it wouldn't have the problem of big armored creatures you note, since they'd only get the cancelling if actually parrying with a weapon.

Brilliant! I didn't even think of doing it that way. That would solve the problem nicely. All those minor hits in the books could have been parries where some damage got through. Considering that Eric, Corwin and Benedict are among the best swordsmen, period, that seems much more likely. 

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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18 hours ago, Questbird said:

You could try a hitpointless system.

Yeah I could, although I think I'd like a little more granularity than  just. "still fighting"/defeated.  I think I'd want some sort of wound track so someone could be impaired. Much like how Eric was bleeding and Corwin considered trying to just wear him down and let him bleed out. Maybe some sort of opposed roll where I could get different levels of success and different results. Come to think of it I wrote up a hit point less system for BRP a decade ago. I think I still have a version of in in the downloads section. maybe I should DL it and check it out.😳

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On 7/13/2018 at 1:46 PM, Atgxtg said:

Except for the high minimums. Someone with a two dice db is still going to do at least 4 points of a sword hit. 

Yes. And it's really only a BRP/CoC problem, too. What happens is that, thanks to db, strong characters, animals and monsters end up doing more damage in melee than a firearm can do, making firearms less desirable in game terms. Realistically, the big advantages of firearms were shock value (which doesn't translate into game terms), ability to penetrate armor (which is moot when you got a really high db),  how easy it is to use (it's not much different than other missile weapons) and how much eaiser it is to improve compared to a bow (the same in BRP).

I think variable armor is part of your problem. You just can't rely on it. I think you need fixed armor, or at least some sort of bell curve. 2d3 instead of 1d6, 2D6 instead of 1D10+2. It makes the armor more reliable. 

Okay, I'll bite. Tell me about the Axis modified Gorillas. I must of missed that episode of Nazi Mega Weapons on the History Channel. 

I think the problems are due to:

1) The db is a flat mod, and so applies to all weapons equally (so a penknife wielded by a troll hits like a Greatsword)

2) That the db is independent of success levels (turns a graze into a kill, and  minimized the value of skill.) 

3) The db is multiple of d6s ( that gives  a high minimum, so you can never get a light hit, a bell curve, and 3.5 point increments.

4) The game only has lethal damage (so getting punched is just as bad as getting stabbed with a weapon)

5) That everyone always uses their full db (not realistic-especially with animals. While the random roll helps, the bell curve starts to flatten out just when you need more variance). 

6) The weapons can actually take a full db (i.e Superman might have a +13d6 db, but I doubt there is a sword that could withstand the force of the blow)

 

I think the reason why no ones done much about it, or even cared is that the problems don't really start until you get past the normal stat range for characters. With the db at +1D6 or less things work out. Monsters are supposed to be monstrous, and big tough animals aren't too bad if you are smart about it (ranged weapons, shields, battle magic), so it's still okay. 

To really "fix" the problem, I think we need a smoother db progression, and to integrate the db into the weapon damage. That way it also gets tied to success level. Something along the lines of what they did in the Bushido RPG. Basically you shift the weapon's damage die up. 

Another option, I'm considering (from another RPG) is to assume that stronger, larger creatures have more muscle to cut through, and thicker bonus to support their weight, and tend to get better partial parries, and to have dbs cancel out. Sandy Peterson did this to some extent in Gateway Bestiary, by linking most creatures armor to db, and they kept that in RQ3. But if db just canceled out, then most of my problems for Amber would disappear. Cowin's and Eric's db's would cancel out and the'd just being doing their normal weapon damage. Factor in a high CON and more hit points and it all seems to work. 

 

Except that high skill handles that. And if you got Land of the Ninja, you got Ki skills, which solve the problem nicely.

Add to that the fact that unarmed attacks in BRP are already doing too much damage (a kick does the same damage as a club), and the lack of non-lethal damage, and it's just overkill. 

Yeah, and BRP is pretty much lethal. It takes some work to scale it down. 

Funny you should mention that. I've been looking at The Princess Bride RPG Quickstart. It's written for Fudge (where Fate came from, and mostly the same system), and where I got the idea of DBs canceling out. I was thinking that PB might be a good fit for Amber. It's got enough to pull of the fencing, the attribute ladder and scaling would handle Amberites easily enough ( I'm thinking Human +0, Chaos +4,  Amber Rank +6), automatically factoring in for the Amberite's STR and toughness without warping things, and, IMO it's easier to port stuff from the Amber Diceless RPG to Fudge than to BRP.  But I'm a big RQ/BRP fan, so I'll probably stick with BRP and maybe port over a few things from PB.

Tricky. I think it depends on how much you want the characters to pull off. Both in terms of quantity and quality. Here are some options off the top of my head, maybe some of it will help:

1) Most Power casters characters in BRP/RQ/MW  have some sort of way to store some extra power (Fetch, Aliied Spiriit, Familiar, Staff). 

2) You could let them use something else other than/or in addition to POW to pay for the spell cost. For instance is spells made the casters tired you could use Fatigue Points to power them or give the caster the option of using Fatigue and/or POW in some combination.

3) You could just double the effectiveness of spells (1 POW in= 2 POW out)

4) You could give extra POW for high magical skills. This is like the "free mana" approach, only more limited. So if someone got a magical skill up to a certain point (50%), he'd raise his POW by 1.

 

I'm not worried as much about minimums in general, because Big Axis Gorilla SMASH rolling all 1s would = no damage to the characters.  Average damage at 10.5 and 14 (named NPC) are more of a problem, but appropriate to the game with 4.5 or 5.5 average AR.  It means in that case, each hit (if it lands, my guys have been doing some dodging and using fate points on the occasional crit vs them to force a reroll) will slowly chip away at their hit points on average.  Not that big hits don't happen, one of the guys had to run a red-shirt for a couple of sessions while his character was hospitalized for a few weeks after eating a major wound.  I balanced his "time out" by giving him some free d6 rolls to simulate some reading in some of his mental skills.  If you are worried about the minimum damage, then go with my solution because it reduces the minimum by removing the dice.

Heh, missile weapons pretty much always end up getting the short end of the stick in the vast majority of RP games because of the one great advantage, missile fire doesn't allow you to get beat to death.  The gorillas or melee zombies would plaster the squad (party) except the squad always guns down most if not all of them on the way and the one that gets through is met by the shotgun wielding CC specialist who gives them a fast 4d6+1 blast before simply surviving while one of the others closes to point blank and unloads.  One big solution I've applied since D&D days..."old" armors are at 1/2 effect vs firearms as short & medium ranges.

Actually, I'm using the variable armor because both my players and I dislike adding the step of hit location to combat in our games regardless of system.  So, the variable armor works to ignore if it is a shot right to the thickest part of the armor or to where it is basically unarmored.  In this case, the balance of weapons vs armor on the average damage side works our fairly well with the most common hits being for 0-2 points of damage.  Assault rifle average = 9 pts, armor average = 7.5, so lots of nicks mostly.  In general, it works for melee because it is 5.5 armor vs 5-7 attacks.  Of course, getting hit with explosives, shotguns at point blank, heavy weapons, etc. cause problems, but they are used to doing the tactical thing in this kind of game.

Heh....Dust 1947 = Weird War 2...ignore the prices, the links are for the professional painted kits, much cheaper primed

Gorillas 1       Gorillas 2   Zombies 1    Zombies 2   Zombies 3   Cthulhu 1   Cthulhu 2

Yep, converting a tabletop wargame into a RPG setting for some fun with my friends.

Another solution to some of the high damage, especially for animals (I stole this from Hero) is giving them double hits (2x claws) with 2x base damage + 1x db and divide by two before applying vs armor.  Although, virtually all of the animals I run have relatively low to hit chances generally, so it is fairly easy to dodge or parry their attacks.  Again, this isn't a direct issue for me because pretty much the only time an OP db shows up is against a something rare like the gorillas.  I'm really not running a melee oriented game where db becomes an issue, although I am looking at it for when I run my fantasy campaign.  For the giant sized threats, I use the simplified spot rule for Big and Little Targets, 2xSIZ = +20% to hit and 1/2xSIZ = -20% to hit.

I don't like the "barely hit" = massive db, but part of what I'm looking at is that it doesn't really apply so much, at least not more than a few d6.  Exceptions appear like giants, but they will get hit with the negative to hit and as for their weapons, they are oversized ones.  One thing to note, a giant swinging a d8 sword (with +xd6) can only double that base damage, which does limit how deadly it can be.  I'm not going to get into the strength of materials issue on swinging a sword that big, but I will note that the most famous large humanoid weapon is a tree trunk, which will take a lot of abuse...

What you and I are discussing is doing the "shift the die up" to a certain degree. 

Sorry, for me, all Brawling does a d3, I don't care if you punch, kick, headbutt.  You can get bonuses for brass knucks, fist loads, daggers, bucklers, fancy fighting gloves, etc., but they won't be any more than +3.  If I restricted MA to Brawling, I wouldn't even care much about the issue.  I only have a real issue using melee weapons with the way the skill advances.  I'm torn between making it training only, only advances by 1 point, you must beat your weapon skill (NOT your MA skill) to advance it or some combination of those.

Heh, I think part of the issue here is that you are focused on the high Amber stats and I'm looking at the more generic game with more normal stats. 

Yep, I'll probably go with the spell storing solution in some way or manner.  Scrolls, potions, etc for newbies and items for the more experienced crowd.

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5 minutes ago, Algesan said:

 Not that big hits don't happen, one of the guys had to run a red-shirt for a couple of sessions while his character was hospitalized for a few weeks after eating a major wound.

LOL! One memorable d6 Star War game I had a Wookie with 6D6 STR (your stats are a dice code that you roll whenever you use them), and I got caught on the fringes of a grenade (2D6 or 3D6, I forgot which). In that RPG you comapre the damage to your STR roll and if you win you take NO damage (a typical PC has a 3D STR and most attacks do 4D or 5D). But I rolled bad (ended up with a 4 on 6 dice), the GM rolled great damage, and I was mortally wounded and spent the rest of the adventure healing up in a bacta tank. 

5 minutes ago, Algesan said:

 If you are worried about the minimum damage, then go with my solution because it reduces the minimum by removing the dice.

I think your 'dice cancel out" on a parry should handle it nicely. 

5 minutes ago, Algesan said:

Actually, I'm using the variable armor because both my players and I dislike adding the step of hit location to combat in our games regardless of system. 

You can used fixed armor without hit locations. Just go with the normal protection for that tpe. Padding stops 1, leather stops 2, etc. So you could just make you 5.5 armor 6 points.

5 minutes ago, Algesan said:

Another solution to some of the high damage, especially for animals (I stole this from Hero) is giving them double hits (2x claws) with 2x base damage + 1x db and divide by two before applying vs armor. 

Yeah that does make armor much more useful in HERO. But then HERO is a much more forgiving system. 

 

5 minutes ago, Algesan said:

 Again, this isn't a direct issue for me because pretty much the only time an OP db shows up is against a something rare like the gorillas. 

It's not normally an issue for me, but Amber will will require that I have to deal with some things that don't crop often enough to become an issue in a typical BRP campaign. I just ant to try to be ready for anything that could derail the campaign. 

5 minutes ago, Algesan said:

I don't like the "barely hit" = massive db,

Me either, but under normal circumstances it's rare enough that it's not worth the trouble to houserule it. But, in Amber the dbs should be a bit higher-especially if somebody gets some magic).

 

5 minutes ago, Algesan said:

What you and I are discussing is doing the "shift the die up" to a certain degree. 

Simular end result, different application. 

5 minutes ago, Algesan said:

Sorry, for me, all Brawling does a d3, I don't care if you punch, kick, headbutt.  You can get bonuses for brass knucks, fist loads, daggers, bucklers, fancy fighting gloves, etc., but they won't be any more than +3.  If I restricted MA to Brawling, I wouldn't even care much about the issue.  I only have a real issue using melee weapons with the way the skill advances.  I'm torn between making it training only, only advances by 1 point, you must beat your weapon skill (NOT your MA skill) to advance it or some combination of those.

I don't like MA for weapon because I just don't think it's necessary. Besides, I think Ki skills handle that better for weapons any. 

5 minutes ago, Algesan said:

Heh, I think part of the issue here is that you are focused on the high Amber stats and I'm looking at the more generic game with more normal stats. 

Definitely. I'm more focused on adapting the system to the needs of the setting. If I were going to run a different style of campaign, I'd have fewer issues. 

5 minutes ago, Algesan said:

Yep, I'll probably go with the spell storing solution in some way or manner.  Scrolls, potions, etc for newbies and items for the more experienced crowd.

Some variation of the fetch might work. That is something that the player can slowly improve that ups his POW a point at time. You could do that with a wizard's staff or familiar and it could start off weak and grow as the player devotes more POW to it. 

Another option might be not to raise POW at all but simply raise the refresh rate.  A wizard could have an ability or skill tat let's them recharge their power at a faster rate, maybe twice as fast? Say the tap a ley line for POW and their recharge rate is tied to their success level.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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21 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Anyone got any suggestions for a Manor House or Castle to use for Shadow Abalus' answer of Castle Amber? 

Are you looking for something semi-official, or not? There are some illustrated guides to Amber you could consult. Or Dyson Logos has lots of awesome maps for free on his blog.

"This is preposterous! Must we welcome each scoundrel of time into our midst, to satiate himself on our good things, meanwhile perverting our customs?"
Jack Vance, Rhialto the Marvellous
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1 hour ago, Rhialto the Marvellous said:

Are you looking for something semi-official, or not?

Yes. That is to say either. Ideally I want something for Amber proper (I'm using the Visual Guide to Castle Amber for that, unless I can find something better), and something that is similar, but not identical to Abalus. My goal is that when the PCs finally get to Amber, the castle, city and terrain will be eerily similar, but not identical.  I'd love to adapt a real castle for Abalus, if I can find something suitable.Blackrock Castle and Mont St. Michel, Lichtenstein Castle, but so far I think  the Fortress of Guaita in San Marino might be the best. 

1 hour ago, Rhialto the Marvellous said:

There are some illustrated guides to Amber you could consult. Or Dyson Logos has lots of awesome maps for free on his blog.

I know about the Visual Guide to Castle Amberthat the only offical illustrated stuff I'm aware of. , and found a map that Roger Zelazny  drew and that Liz Danforth touched up, but that's the only official stuff I'm aware of. I've seen a few people's Amber campaign stuff on the net.I'll check out Dyson Logos.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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