Why is BRP not that popular?

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by RMS

You lost me in your logic above, but I'll try to answer what I understand. Severe Spirit is the spell you're looking for and it's hard to imagine anything much more powerful. A single POW vs. POW roll leads to automatic death for someone at a range outside of any physical attack. Even if the caster fails to overcome POW, the target takes 1d6 damage, enough to drop human sized creatures.

Easy. Have a spell that does the same thing but removes objects (such as D&D Disintegrate) or does it in an area. That's more power than some people want in their game, but its still a higher level and what some people expect.

Sunspear and Thunderbolt have tremendous power. You don't even get a Saving Throw in RQ. A Thunderbolt can be stacked, there's no armor

I'm pretty sure you're confusing Thunderbolt and the Lightning spell here.

protection, no magical protection that works against it. It can be use on one target or split between multiple targets. There's no upper limit on it. I don't recall if Sunspear has the same ability.

Nope. Both it and Thunderbolt are small area single value 3 point spells. I'm now sure you're confusing the latter with Lightning, which is a stackable spell (which I specifically was not talking about). Stackable spells can gust a bit more in power than 3 point fixed spells, but, then, they also typically end up tying up a _lot_ of PC resource by the time you're done.

If you want large area effect, there are Earthquake spells, Cloud Call, etc. They're hard to build to enough power to have large scale effects, but it can be done.

I'm not talking about strategic spells, but large scale tactical ones. And as you note, those take a long time (and in the case of Cloudcall aren't that meaningful by themselves, as they're unpredictable and not very precise).

I understand how someone can mistake those as lacking in power, but I don't buy that they actually are lacking power. In many ways they're more

Then we frankly, just disagree. Its not like I haven't run a lot of RQ over the years, but its magic system is clearly _not_ up to handling the upper range of power that a game system like D&D or some others do. That doesn't mean you couldn't make a magic system that would, but the extent one used in RQ isn't it.

powerful than most D&D spells because there's no ability for the target to resist the spell at all in many cases. In D&D you always get some sort of Saving Throw and it's not reduced by the caster's power.

That's not true of most of them, however, which either make power rolls or are effected by armor, and in most cases you're only talking about the top end effects; even those are narrower in scope and cost more character resource to have them available.

I think the biggest problem is just that the divine magic is spread out and is a very different take on magic than learning a bunch of discrete spells ala D&D. Also, I don't necessarily expect everyone to prefer to RQ take on magic either, but I don't buy that it's less powerful, especially in regard to the physical power level of PCs and NPCs in the game.

Then again, we just disagree. I'm still not seeing much that really even compares to a D&D Fireball (which isn't particularly any less likely to kill someone when first acquired than a Thunderbolt, which wouldn't expect to kill a typical RQ3 PC either (though it'd probably set him up for someone to finish him off)), let alone to things like Chain Lightning, Disintegrate, Meteor Storm and so on. To be honest, I'm a little baffled at your position on it.

Edit: Went back and looked, and you're part right: Thunderbolt can be stacked to hit multiple targets (it in fact appears to be essentially unique in that regard for 3 point spells). However, at that point you're still tying up an _enormous_ amount of Divine Magic points to be able to effect more than 2-3 targets.

[Simlasa]

I'm glad they're 'only' an option too...
I can see their usefulness for certain, limited, situation... but most of the time I think they are way to 'gamey'.

[Jason Durall]

Originally Posted by badcat

Interesting. I'll think about it, but my way to simulate 'fate points' has always been using the Luck roll. Did that come out of one of the previously published Chaosium games, or is it new for this book?

New.

Many people in the playtest remarked on the need for such a system, and I've been using them unofficially for a while.

I chose not to make it a new value (like Fate Points, etc.) because I'm not fond of adding arbitrary new systems when an existing system will work, and liked them as an expansion of power points - now every character can use them, but a character with powers must manage them a bit more carefully and make difficult choices as to which way to spend them.

[Jason Durall]

Originally Posted by Enpeze

Yes. But Fortune and Fate points are linked together. So if you use a Fate point as life safer you loose a Fortune point too. And if you gain one point through gaming you can use it for both things. Thats why I used the same name.

I was just trying to clarify for the people who weren't familiar with the system.

I ran a huge batch of WFRP (2nd edition) a couple of years ago when the game first came out - and am eagerly awaiting the new WFRP 40K rules to get released.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Simlasa

I'm glad they're 'only' an option too...
I can see their usefulness for certain, limited, situation... but most of the time I think they are way to 'gamey'.

Of course they are; after all, they're almost always an explicitly metagame mechanic to minimize the sometimes anticlimatic effects of random rolls. In particular, many people consider there to be little virtue in walking out and dying or being taken out of a fight outright early on.

[Enpeze]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Of course they are; after all, they're almost always an explicitly metagame mechanic to minimize the sometimes anticlimatic effects of random rolls. In particular, many people consider there to be little virtue in walking out and dying or being taken out of a fight outright early on.

Well many people are often wrong. It depends rather on style of the GM and his group, no? So I can accept a philosophy where heropoints are optional in order to give more choices and I dont like systems at all where they are a integrated part of the core system.

[RMS]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Easy. Have a spell that does the same thing but removes objects (such as D&D Disintegrate) or does it in an area. That's more power than some people want in their game, but its still a higher level and what some people expect.

Except there's always that Saving Throw and it's unaffected by the caster's power. (OK, if I'm wrong there, let me know. That's as I recall D&D from way back. I didn't think the magic system had changed significantly in the latest incarnation.) We've had a character running around in our campaign that can pretty much call in a single kill on the other side's most powerful character with a pretty good chance of succeeding. In D&D, it's generally impossible to instant kill another like-leveled PC. You can do lots of collateral damage, kill off lower level and nonlevel PCs with impunity, but the game is carefully balanced so you specifically can't oneshot other experienced PCs and NPCs.

Then we frankly, just disagree. Its not like I haven't run a lot of RQ over the years, but its magic system is clearly _not_ up to handling the upper range of power that a game system like D&D or some others do. That doesn't mean you couldn't make a magic system that would, but the extent one used in RQ isn't it.

It really depends on the world you run in I suspect. Those of us running Glorantha campaigns with lots of magic floating around everywhere tend to see this possibility where others who've run in lower magic worlds (or lower magic takes on Glorantha even) have a different view. That's all a good thing too because RQ handles both pretty darn well - one of it's charms IMO.

Then again, we just disagree. I'm still not seeing much that really even compares to a D&D Fireball (which isn't particularly any less likely to kill someone when first acquired than a Thunderbolt, which wouldn't expect to kill a typical RQ3 PC either (though it'd probably set him up for someone to finish him off)), let alone to things like Chain Lightning, Disintegrate, Meteor Storm and so on. To be honest, I'm a little baffled at your position on it.

My position is that the differences are cosmetic and appearances rather than actual fact. Everything you mention is very deadly to low level creatures*, but not to powerful characters in D&D. In D&D low level characters are essentially background, so spells like you mention above take lots of those out and look impressive to some people's eyes. However, they have far less chance of taking out powerful adversaries (ie. the meat of the conflict) than RQ spells have of doing similar. That's my position.

* Low level is obviously relative to the level of the campaign here.

Edit: Went back and looked, and you're part right: Thunderbolt can be stacked to hit multiple targets (it in fact appears to be essentially unique in that regard for 3 point spells). However, at that point you're still tying up an _enormous_ amount of Divine Magic points to be able to effect more than 2-3 targets.

Luckily I read your whole post before responding to this part. I do have a PC running around in my game with plenty of divine magic to both fill the skys with clouds and call down multiple Thunderbolts. It's true that he can't send them all on one opponent, but he can easily bring two down per round on one opponent doing an average of 21 hp damage which can't be defended against in any way. Sure it's a lot of points, but as I've pointed out before it's very easy to have RQ3 character with 50, 75, even 100+ points of reusable divine magic floating around. Priests can easily get multiple POW increases per year just from leading services. Add in casting magic, fighting spirits, etc. and they can pick up a lot of divine magic in a hurry. Then add in a few bound spirits and an allied spirit and they can become really deadly. (Also, note that since allied spirits have access to a priests magic, you can double up Sun Spear, Thunderbolt, etc. by having the priest and the allied spirit both use one casting at the same time on the same target. That'll kill pretty much any human to troll sized creature in the game in one shot, normal or very powerful.)

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Enpeze

Well many people are often wrong. It depends rather on style of the GM and his group, no? So I can accept a philosophy where heropoints are optional in order to give more choices and I dont like systems at all where they are a integrated part of the core system.

Of course it depends on group style, but its still something many people dislike to the point of it ruining the game for them; even I don't much like some of the sudden-death aspects of BRP anymore, and I was a very early adopter.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by RMS

Except there's always that Saving Throw and it's unaffected by the caster's power. (OK, if I'm wrong there, let me know.

Depends on what you mean by the caster's power (among other things there's a big difference here between 3.0 and prior editions); and honestly if it works (and it often does if you pick the target right) most people simply don't care whether the caster's power matters or not.

That's as I recall D&D from way back. I didn't think the magic system had changed significantly in the latest incarnation.) We've had a character running around in our campaign that can pretty much call in a single kill on the other side's most powerful character with a pretty good chance of succeeding. In D&D, it's generally impossible to instant kill another like-leveled PC. You can do lots of collateral damage, kill off lower level and

Not that hard, honestly; there's some issues with save gusting and so forth, but there's also ways to ramp up save difficulty pretty obnoxiously. Its not certain, certainly, but then, if you're up against a target with a high POW, you can't reliably do it in RQ either, usually.

nonlevel PCs with impunity, but the game is carefully balanced so you specifically can't oneshot other experienced PCs and NPCs.

Well, as of 3.5 that's true to some extent because its also damage capped, but the numbers are high enough that's only safe for some classes of opponents (enemy mages are still quite vulnerable to things like Disintegrate, for example).

It really depends on the world you run in I suspect. Those of us running Glorantha campaigns with lots of magic floating around everywhere tend to see this possibility where others who've run in lower magic worlds (or lower magic takes on Glorantha even) have a different view. That's all a good thing too because RQ handles both pretty darn well - one of it's charms IMO.

I really have trouble picturing any but pretty extreme campaigns providing more magic than mine did; if nothing else, the simple mechanics of power gain are a limiting factor here.

My position is that the differences are cosmetic and appearances rather than actual fact. Everything you mention is very deadly to low level creatures*, but not to powerful characters in D&D. In D&D low level characters are

Fireballs are not harmless to compareable characters when you get them; in fact, its not particularly hard for a given arcane spellcaster to be killed by a fireball equivelent to his own. That's true of most of the others, too. There are, obviously, some issues created by the durability differences present in D&D classes as compared to RQ and other BRP characters, but even when accounting for that, there are simply areas where the magic does better; there are very few things that _do_ deal with slightly weaker opponents en masse in RQ for example, but that's certainly not true in D&D (and not the emphasis on _slightly_ here).

essentially background, so spells like you mention above take lots of those out and look impressive to some people's eyes. However, they have far less

They'll also take out quite a few only slightly weaker characters, however. A large number of 3rd level D&D fighters is normally still a significant problem to a party of 6th level D&D characters, and a Fireball will likely take out most of them; there's no equivelent I can think of that will effect a group of somewhat weaker, but still threatening opponents in RQ.

[quote]


chance of taking out powerful adversaries (ie. the meat of the conflict) than RQ spells have of doing similar. That's my position.

* Low level is obviously relative to the level of the campaign here.

Luckily I read your whole post before responding to this part. I do have a PC running around in my game with plenty of divine magic to both fill the skys with clouds and call down multiple Thunderbolts. It's true that he can't send them all on one opponent, but he can easily bring two down per round on one opponent doing an average of 21 hp damage which can't be defended against in any way. Sure it's a lot of points, but as I've pointed out before it's very easy to have RQ3 character with 50, 75, even 100+ points of reusable divine magic floating around. Priests can easily get multiple POW increases per year

I have to conclude our experiences are far too different to have this discussion then, because I don't recall _ever_ seeing an RQ character with more than about 40 points of reusable divine magic. I'm puzzled how it can even occur unless one is running campaigns of _particularly_ long duration, given the manditory minimum POW priests must maintain and the mechanics of power gain. Even with multiple checks, at 25-30% chances per check, the gain isn't particularly speedy.

[Simlasa]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Of course it depends on group style, but its still something many people dislike to the point of it ruining the game for them; even I don't much like some of the sudden-death aspects of BRP anymore, and I was a very early adopter.

There are plenty of games out there with 'cinematic' rules where the precious PC doesn't have to worry about getting wacked... but for me BRP is my game of choice for rules where the default is a reasonable likelihood of character death as a penalty for doing something stupid.
But then our group like games where you're not guaranteed the starring role... just for showing up.