If you wanted a bit more sophistication I would then say that any time a Heroic Ability is gained then to gain a new Heroic Ability using the same skill or characteristic, then skill has to be increased by 20% and the characteristic has to be increased by 1. E.g. Say you get "swashbuckling swordsma...

Because he doesn't have to worry (so much) about keeping his sword available to parry, freeing it up to make more attacks without leaving himself open. And my system does that too, as if the S+S user can parry effectively with his offhand CA. If the 1H fighter wants to reserve the ability to parry ...

All else being equal, I'd expect a fighter with sword & shield to have a huge advantage over a fighter with just a sword. Can I just point out that under my system, this is still the case. The 'sword and shield' fighter has, probably, a size L parry (or a damaging bash) as his 'offhand' CA. The '1H...

Think of ancient Sparta, where you had a sword put into your hand as soon as you could feasibly lift it. Look at 'Game of Thrones' with Dickon and Arya being taught combat skills whilst still very young. [...] By the time you're 19, you should be very skilled. But Spartans and pseudo-medieval noble...

I don't think that there's anything powergamey about asking for the extra CA for fighting unarmed with one hand. He'll still be at a disadvantage compared to a weapon and shield fighter. On top of that, we house rule that the extra CA has to be spent using the source of the extra CA (or on evade, we...

I have a bunch (well, boxes) of (A)D&D modules. I've been thinking of running a few of the B/X series with Legend - Night's Dark Terror, the Veiled Society, the Isle of Dread...

Oh, yes please.

Something like Dynasties for Traveller ? Perhaps, although it's unclear how much mileage it is possible to make from the subject. Pendragon style inter-generational epic campaigns? Combined with the old Runequest: Empires... Having characters and campaign events have a long-term effect on the game ...

It's a lot more complicated than [...] But, surely that applies to everything in a game. Physical trauma is a lot more complicated than, 'you take a major wound, make a resilience roll'. Finding a fence in a busy port city is a lot more complicated than, 'tell me what you want to do and make a stre...

Aside from still wondering whether there is a difference between a character being unable to act because he is surprised and a character unable to act because he is terrified, I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on the fear and madness rules in Necromantic Arts. 'I don't believe in rules for fear an...

I think my players would have to take exception to having control of their characters removed from their hands and placed in mine as a result of a poor dice roll. They'd kind of object vehemently to their characters either suddenly fawning over the Lamia or running away screaming from some slouchy ...

Players lose control of their characters all the time.

"My character hits the goblin with his axe."

"Roll the dice."

"I've rolled a '0' and a '0'"

"No, he doesn't. Not only that, but...."

The player of the character who ran away should maybe have put a few more points into Persistence then

As for 'aplomb' - has that made it into any English language version of CoC? What a great idea.

The Necromantic Arts fear and madness rules are a bit more simple that CoC (insanity is the point of CoC, isn't it?) - revolving around a Persistence test opposed by the 'fear rating' of the monster/situation. A goblin might have a fear rating of 10, while a zombie might have a fear rating of 50. Al...

I searched the forum, perhaps ineffectively, and couldn't see a thread discussing the topic, so: do any of you use the fear and madness system from Necromantic Arts? Have you tried it? How did it go? As a WFRP veteran, I'm thinking that the rules could add something to the game, and can't see a prob...

Ah, yes, you're right - we've been playing it wrong. I thought that there must be some utility in choosing to prepare a parry, but had got the rules for 'delay' stuck in my head every time.

D'oh.

If you're acting after him then you should consider carefully after missed attack if you use the parry anyway to gain defensive manoeuvre or if you want to save the CA for later parry [...] One problem with this is that the same statistic combination is used to work out the number of CA *and* Strik...

In Pendragon (a BRP game, really, just multiply the skills by 5 to get percentiles), a character can be inspired by their Passions, if they apply to the situation. So they might attempt to be inspired by Love (Family) to fight for their honour, and if the Passion roll is a success, they will gain (q...

The latest episode of Horrible Histories has a spoof of the Go Compare opera singer, instead advertising God Compare, to help some Gauls choose the object of their devotion.

Of course, the other way to do something like this is to use a variant of the Pendragon/BRP/Dragonnewt personality trait system. This would involve a series of opposed 'skills', so a character with 80% in 'Generous' has 20% in 'Selfish' (or whatever). How this works in the context of a religion is t...