Thread: Classic Fantasy 2nd Edition Notes

Like many on this forum, I have been playing BRP for a long time. I think it was 1979 to be exact. Due to this fact there are some things that I just can't bring myself to change or drop just becouse I'm using one of the D100 licences. Things that were in the first edition of CF and I want to keep.

There will be hit locations. I like my combat lethal.

Total hit points with hit points per location: I'm not sure about this one. Not having the seperate set of hit points to keep track of along with the hit points in each location may be easier on the book keeping, but do you guys find it less lethal? Not really sure. Then again, In the last edition of CF, I assumed the use of double hit points for the player characters and was thinking against it this time through. So maybe...

There will be skill check boxes and the "use a skill to improve a skill" system. Due respect to the writers that have decided to change it to "skill improvements" handed out at the end of the game, but the skill system was one of the things that made BRP different than every other game out there. I can't part with it. I will be including it again, in "my own words" of course.

Here is the new layout, along with what has been completly rewritten so far.

Chapter 1: Introduction. Done, just need to finish the "example" script.

Chapter 2: Character Generation. Done.

Chapter 3: Races. Done.

Chapter 4: Classes. Done. Two new classes added, the Cavalier and Thief-Acrobat. These two along with the Barbarian from CF1 have finished the 1st ed. Unearthed Arcana classes.

Chapter 5: Skills. Done

Chapter 6: Equipment. Done

Chapter 7: Spells. I have not yet started converting the CF1 spells chapter yet. I'll need to rewrite all the spells that CF1 simply refered the reader to in BRP. For example all the "see BRP page XX" stuff. I also plan to add at least 100 more spells to the 150 I already wrote for CF1. I will be using pretty much the same system as before except rewritten. I will now have spells seperated into Magnitude 1 through 9 instead of Uncommon, Common, and Rare. Before I can begin the spell chapter I need to finish the combat chapter so I don't have to go back after and change all the spells when I realise I changed the combat system and now they don't work. Second book, lessons learned.

Chapter 8: Combat. 70% done. Will be finished this weekend.

Chapter 9: Adventuring. Will contain much that was in the CF Spot Rules chapter before. Not yet converted.

Chapter 10: Adventuring at Sea. Nothing yet, may just be subsumed into chapter 9.

Chapter 11: Between Adventures. Not yet converted. Will contain stuff that was in the Spot Rules chapter plus new stuff that was chopped for space reasons before.

Chapter 12: Experiance. Check the skill box. Use a skill to improve a skill. Training etc. Nothing done.

Chapter 13: NPCs. Finished for what was to be CFII (2nd book of first ed.) Just need to convert. Contains NPC classes like the assassin, anti-paladin, witch, and necromancer, as well as rules for the mundane masses. They are written but need conversion.

Chapter 14: Encounters. Finished for what was to be CFIII (3rd book of first ed.) Just need to convert.

Chapter 15: Monsters. 50% finished for what was to be CFIII (3rd book of first ed.) Just need to convert and fill in gaps.

Chapter 16: Treasure. 80% finished for what was to be CFII (2nd book of first ed.) Just need to convert and fill in gaps.

Chapter 17: The Realm. Maybe. Only about 20% done. My own setting for about 15 years, most is in my head.

Appendix 1: Deities and Demi-Gods of the Realm. Done. Just need to expand and reformat.

Appendix 2: Psionics. Maybe. If not for player characters, for monsters.

Appendix 3: Spell list. Have to finish spell chapter first.

Anyway, there it is. I cant give any idea as to when it will be ready. It will take time. I want to do a really complete playtest when more of the book is complete, but not yet. It least chapters 1 through 8.

It looks like it will be a BIG book. This may not be possible depending upon the publisher. I'll know better as I get closer to done and we have had a chance to really talk.

Rod

I know I've probably missed this somewhere but if it's not gonna be BRP what is it going to be ? OpenQuest ? Legend ?

Originally Posted by Agentorange

I know I've probably missed this somewhere but if it's not gonna be BRP what is it going to be ? OpenQuest ? Legend ?

I don't want to say at this point until things are finalized. But I will say... yes, yes it will.

Rod

good, excellent, I'm glad we cleared that up then

I must say I really can't fathom Chaosium out on this one. Maybe they don't want competition for magic world, but I would have bought both and I suspect lots of other people would to. So instead of making money from Classic Fantasy they're......going to let somebody else make money from it.

Chaosium has limited resources, so they cannot do _all_ things that customers will buy. This should explain everything I suppose.

Originally Posted by threedeesix

Total hit points with hit points per location: I'm not sure about this one. Not having the seperate set of hit points to keep track of along with the hit points in each location may be easier on the book keeping, but do you guys find it less lethal? Not really sure. Then again, In the last edition of CF, I assumed the use of double hit points for the player characters and was thinking against it this time through. So maybe...

This has worked for RQ up until 4th edition, and I cannot see any reason why it should not work for CF. Someone will not appreciate it, but they have RQ6 and Magic World that they can play if they don't. Having a third solid fantasy ruleset that goest "the other way" is an opportunity, not a blind alley.

There will be skill check boxes and the "use a skill to improve a skill" system. Due respect to the writers that have decided to change it to "skill improvements" handed out at the end of the game, but the skill system was one of the things that made BRP different than every other game out there. I can't part with it. I will be including it again, in "my own words" of course.

With "due respect" already tributed, I disagree with the writers who think the experience check system is flawed. The skill tick system is prone to abuses, but we all know which techniques to use to avoid these abuses. Just write down these techniques very clearly in Classic Fantasy and you are okay. For instance:

- give out checks only for significant rolls; if a roll was called for explicitly for "skill improvement reasons", do not award the check

- when multiple characters can attempt a roll, a subsequent attempt cannot be made at a higher percentile than the previous oens [this prevents the "Professor Ross already made his Library Use roll this session, let us allow Bill the Muscleman to try first" issue, and also ensures that only characters who devote to a niche skill become competent in it, negating the "all characters become equal in the long run" syndrome]

... and so on.

Good luck with this new book. I am sure many gamers will like it.

Originally Posted by threedeesix

There will be hit locations. I like my combat lethal.

Total hit points with hit points per location: I'm not sure about this one. Not having the seperate set of hit points to keep track of along with the hit points in each location may be easier on the book keeping, but do you guys find it less lethal? Not really sure. Then again, In the last edition of CF, I assumed the use of double hit points for the player characters and was thinking against it this time through. So maybe...

What about the "Location values as Major Wound thresholds" idea that many have floated? This way you can still have locations and locational effects, Major Wounds, and only manage a single set of points. The downside, is if you want more colorful results you have to create a small Major Wounds table for each location type.

OH! Have you moved to the 1HP/day of rest healing in your campaign?

SDLeary

Originally Posted by SDLeary

What about the "Location values as Major Wound thresholds" idea that many have floated? This way you can still have locations and locational effects, Major Wounds, and only manage a single set of points. The downside, is if you want more colorful results you have to create a small Major Wounds table for each location type.

I used that idea in my home game for a few sessions and it worked nicely. I wouldn't include it as a core part of CF however as I feel it best to go with one of the established systems rather than add another one, if only to not further divide the D100 fan base. I may still house rule it in my own games however, at least from time to time.

OH! Have you moved to the 1HP/day of rest healing in your campaign?

I did that with the original CF as I used Total Hit Points (SIZ+CON) and it gave a more reasonable healing rate. I have yet to decide if hit points will be (SIZ+CON) or (SIZ+CON/2) yet. That will influence my decision.

I do know I am using locations with seperate hit points. I don't know if I also want a separate hit point total to keep track of or not. I have only played BRP with both sets of hit points.

It seems like it would be less lethal getting rid of the total hit points and just going with location hit points. After all, peppering a character with 2 points of damage to each location will kill a character with a separate hit point score (14 total damage), but not kill a character with only hit location damage to keep track of.

Im not saying that the latter wouldnt be better for a CF campaign. Just wondering the opinion of people that may have been using it for a bit.

Rod

I've been using the Hit Location HP as a 'Major Wound Threshold' for years now and it seems to work well. We don't reduce the Location HP at all, we just use it as an 'unlock' to see whether a character's actions become difficult or otherwise impaired. It's simple, as we only mark off Total HP, and I guess the characters are a bit more resilient than they would be if we marked off both Location and Total HP. The overall lethality is reduced, but not enough to become like mini-tanks. The idea of marking off both Location and Total HP is a bit too fiddly and too much book keeping for us anyway.

In some ways this approach also reduces the need for using SIZ+CON as HP as opposed to keeping it as (SIZ+CON)/2, due to the little extra resilience. This makes the stat block compatible with all the other BRP stat blocks, which is a good thing for versatility. I guess the Healing rate should be quicker than usual BRP if you want to emulate an old school classic fantasy setting, perhaps daily CON x 5% for a gain of 1 HP, or just grant 1 HP a day. A little bit too munchkin for my liking, but it would get rid of the gritty part of BRP where a character is injured for weeks after being wounded (thus making classic dungeon crawls in the D&D mold far too dangerous to complete). Perhaps there is some scope for a Morale mechanic to boost the healing rate...just a thought.

As a GM I did run a game once when I wanted the characters to have a greater chance of combat survival. The mechanic I used was that every time a player-character sustained damage they could expend a Power Point and make a 'Toughness Roll' on the Resistance Table, their CON versus the opponent's rolled Damage. If the character succeeded then they only sustained half the rolled damage, whereas upon a failure they sustained the full rolled damage as usual. The interesting part of this was that there was also room for Specials, and Criticals, as well as Fumbles. Specialing the roll meant they could make a Natural Healing CONx5% roll at the start of the next combat round and recover 1D3 HP, whereas a Critical meant the character actually recovered all those HP automatically at the start of the next combat round. A Fumble indicated that the character took double damage however, so it wasn't all peaches n cream.

It was an interesting mechanic for our RQ3/BRP game, it kept the stat block consistent with the opponents in regards to HP, yet it allowed the player characters to survive a little better. The option was only for player-characters from memory, although I think I may have gave the principle villain the same option in regards to the Toughness Roll. We were actually playing a version of an old D&D scenario that I had been using as a plot guide, it was a bit of a dungeon crawl, and this Toughness Roll mechanic seemed to work well.

I like the way you are emulating the classic old school archetypes. It's a little limiting for myself personally, however I can see the merits for using it to get new players to BRP who are coming over from classic fantasy systems, and I will probably buy this edition for that exact purpose actually.

Good luck with this

Rod,

I can't wait to see the second edition!

Originally Posted by threedeesix

Like many on this forum, I have been playing BRP for a long time. I think it was 1979 to be exact. Due to this fact there are some things that I just can't bring myself to change or drop just becouse I'm using one of the D100 licences. Things that were in the first edition of CF and I want to keep.

There will be hit locations. I like my combat lethal.

Total hit points with hit points per location: I'm not sure about this one. Not having the seperate set of hit points to keep track of along with the hit points in each location may be easier on the book keeping, but do you guys find it less lethal? Not really sure. Then again, In the last edition of CF, I assumed the use of double hit points for the player characters and was thinking against it this time through. So maybe...

There will be skill check boxes and the "use a skill to improve a skill" system. Due respect to the writers that have decided to change it to "skill improvements" handed out at the end of the game, but the skill system was one of the things that made BRP different than every other game out there. I can't part with it. I will be including it again, in "my own words" of course.

Here is the new layout, along with what has been completly rewritten so far.

Chapter 1: Introduction. Done, just need to finish the "example" script.

Chapter 2: Character Generation. Done.

Chapter 3: Races. Done.

Chapter 4: Classes. Done. Two new classes added, the Cavalier and Thief-Acrobat. These two along with the Barbarian from CF1 have finished the 1st ed. Unearthed Arcana classes.

Chapter 5: Skills. Done

Chapter 6: Equipment. Done

Chapter 7: Spells. I have not yet started converting the CF1 spells chapter yet. I'll need to rewrite all the spells that CF1 simply refered the reader to in BRP. For example all the "see BRP page XX" stuff. I also plan to add at least 100 more spells to the 150 I already wrote for CF1. I will be using pretty much the same system as before except rewritten. I will now have spells seperated into Magnitude 1 through 9 instead of Uncommon, Common, and Rare. Before I can begin the spell chapter I need to finish the combat chapter so I don't have to go back after and change all the spells when I realise I changed the combat system and now they don't work. Second book, lessons learned.

Chapter 8: Combat. 70% done. Will be finished this weekend.

Chapter 9: Adventuring. Will contain much that was in the CF Spot Rules chapter before. Not yet converted.

Chapter 10: Adventuring at Sea. Nothing yet, may just be subsumed into chapter 9.

Chapter 11: Between Adventures. Not yet converted. Will contain stuff that was in the Spot Rules chapter plus new stuff that was chopped for space reasons before.

Chapter 12: Experiance. Check the skill box. Use a skill to improve a skill. Training etc. Nothing done.

Chapter 13: NPCs. Finished for what was to be CFII (2nd book of first ed.) Just need to convert. Contains NPC classes like the assassin, anti-paladin, witch, and necromancer, as well as rules for the mundane masses. They are written but need conversion.

Chapter 14: Encounters. Finished for what was to be CFIII (3rd book of first ed.) Just need to convert.

Chapter 15: Monsters. 50% finished for what was to be CFIII (3rd book of first ed.) Just need to convert and fill in gaps.

Chapter 16: Treasure. 80% finished for what was to be CFII (2nd book of first ed.) Just need to convert and fill in gaps.

Chapter 17: The Realm. Maybe. Only about 20% done. My own setting for about 15 years, most is in my head.

Appendix 1: Deities and Demi-Gods of the Realm. Done. Just need to expand and reformat.

Appendix 2: Psionics. Maybe. If not for player characters, for monsters.

Appendix 3: Spell list. Have to finish spell chapter first.

Anyway, there it is. I cant give any idea as to when it will be ready. It will take time. I want to do a really complete playtest when more of the book is complete, but not yet. It least chapters 1 through 8.

It looks like it will be a BIG book. This may not be possible depending upon the publisher. I'll know better as I get closer to done and we have had a chance to really talk.

Rod

Originally Posted by threedeesix

Total hit points with hit points per location: I'm not sure about this one.

I would be okay with either approach. I think it depends on which system you're going for - I would tend to go with that. If it's Legend or RQ6, hit location points only; if it's d20, whatever your preference; if you'd care to go for the D100IISRD, total hit points plus hit location points. All the systems work, so it's more a matter of personal choice.

Originally Posted by threedeesix

It looks like it will be a BIG book.

I hope you can keep it to 300 pages or less (250 is even better). I find modern-day rulebooks very difficult to use at the table compared to the 50-150 page books of yore.

I hope you'll soon be able to spill the beans on what publisher and system you are going with. I didn't spring for CF1 because I was working on something much too similar (B/X + D100SRDII) but my new angle of AEONS + BLUEHOLME is so different that I'm no longer worried about unintentionally stealing your ideas. Er, in other words, I'm really looking forward to CF2!