BRP Conversions

[sladethesniper]

Wow, a lot of traffic.

Going from post to post…

I will be writing up the basics for BRP Star Wars, if anyone is interested. It seems a lot of people are. Of course, I still have my BRP Sharpe scenarios sitting on my hard drive. They need working on too! I'll post up the files on PDF, once I've worked on them.

Please do.

Yes! And hopefully there'll be a big demand for this particular conversion very soon.

I feel like I've been doing not much else for the last 10 years or so and would like to hear more details. Is your D20>BRP conversion theoretical, or have you actually been using/living/breathing it?

I am hoping that 4th Edition will have a huge effect with people finally seeing that BRP is far superior to 2nd, 3rd for 4th Edition of D&D.

As for using it…I made this conversion for my BRP game so that all those folks who played D20 and didn’t want to “learn a new system” could “easily convert” their prize characters to my setting. They all said that it was easy, and made them all “respect combat” again, which seemed high praise considering a 24th level Dwarf Fighter Barbarian (or as he called him, a Berserker) who had killed dragons before was now quite thrilled with simply fighting a NecroTech squad (think techno zombies)…the wizard characters weren’t too happy that magic wasn’t 100% reliable, but it made them use weapons and tactics in addition to magic, so I was pleased the standard mage action of “stay back and lob spells” changed to “be useful and use magic for big effects”.

The Allegiance system is a nice replacement for alignment.

I am not familiar with that system…I have been using CoC 3rd-5th Edition and MRQ for conversions. I want Zero Edition, but I’ll probably just wait till 1st Edition comes out…I have no more room for games…

Be careful of that one - Palladium tends to get system conversions pulled off the Internet.

I know and I’ll probably call it the Platinum Conversion…for RIPS or something…

EDU should be modified by level. This would help represent characters who have higher levels having more general knowledge, keep the max at 18 or whatever, but it should be worked into the equation.

I like that idea… I’d still use INT+WIS/2 as the base score modified as shown.

level	EDUcation bonus
1-4	+0
5-9	+1
10-14	+2
15-19	+3
20-24	+4

But it does have professions. Classes should deteremine what skills are available for starting characters, much like professions. I have been looking at Fading Suns D20 and doing just that, using the SRD and OGL to translate those D20 skills to BRP.

As for professions, using them for initial skill selection is how I would do it, but since professions are only covered in the MSRD, some people may not have them, although they could use the Class Skills as an analogue. So Class Skills or Professions, it is.

Seems kind of low %, by that logic most fighters will have two skills at 20% to start with. Seems weak and boring. Try x10% and leave ability score modifiers in the game at +3% or +5% per +1.

I got around that with 2 rationalizations…for fighters, their BAB counts as their “weapons skill” and since they get ALL simple and martial weapons AND all armor and shields…they come out of it with several hundred % worth of weapons skills.

The second rationalization is that I count “levels” beginning from the age of *ahem* 16… Basically, your age is coincidental with your “level”…if you didn’t do anything…So I basically said a 1st level fighter, commoner, thief are 16 years old…both to account for the “average” adventurer of 20 years old being 5th level (with the attendant skills built up to an appropriate level) and to account for the fact that in medieval times, people became “adults” much earlier…with the attendant shorter lifespan.

would use SIZ+CON and leave it at that. Perhaps (SIZ+CON)/2 for non-consequential NPCs and thugs, but named characters should get an edge. Reduce damage accordingly for spells and what not, afterall with no real level system in BRP the best a character really does is crits and impales, so the higher the spell ability the better the chance of crit or impale.

The reason I went with that is so combat is deadly…if a melee combat lasts longer than 10 rounds, I tend to get bored…it’s a peccadillo of mine.

This implies a 1st level caster could never cast a 1st level spell.

Yeah, that ties into the whole age thing. When converting pre-existing characters, they were usually 5-15th level, and it wasn’t really a problem, but if you are converting a 1st level character…I would say that is what 0 level spells (cantrips) are for.

I have a big conversion/kit bash for magic, but I was trying to keep the conversion simple…I’ll post up here in a bit.

I would look at the d20 character concept and transfer it to brp. That means a high level fighter who uses a longsword and spends nearly all of his feats to be better at combat would be something similar in brp. Just make a really good fighter and round him out with some background skills that seem to fit. It's faster and you get better results - the systems are too different for an 1:1 approach.

I agree, but I initially made the rules to convert based upon D20 fanatics not wanting to learn a “new complex system”…so I made the conversions simple and formulaic so that I could get them playing BRP without them having to “make a new character”.

The main trouble with any of these methods is the uncertainty they bring to spell-casting. In D20, you try to cast a spell and it happens. Replace that with one of the above systems (where a spell might only have an 80%, or even 50%, chance of working in the face of an onrushing enemy) and quite soon the wizards are dead.

I prefer magic to be a skill with a percentage for one simple reason…if magic was that reliable…why is everyone NOT a spellcaster? Magic would simply have replaced technology and with fantasy timelines extending thousands of years…why is magic not the overwhelming choice for everyone and everything??? If it was that reliable, it would be better than swords (which break) or anything natural (which degrades over time). I prefer magic to be powerful, but all in all, just another way to do something…
If you want magic to be certain…then I’d say just convert the spells to skills with a 99% base chance.

Now some things are more tricky as said above, spells dont convert 100%. Are they skills? If so, dont they have skill % for success? Actually Id just make the margin you fail by the bonus the victim gets to resist the spell.

I say spells are skills and on a failed roll, it just doesn’t work right or misses the target, etc. For a crit failure (a 00%) then you can let your imagination fly…I’m fond of magical mutations myself.

Sorry, but that's not converting D20 characters to the BRP system - it's the other way around! (Basically, though, I agree with you. Apart from combat modifiers, I use those D20 rules in my own BRP-like system. But we are supposed to be doing D20>BRP here...)

My bad…

should "Saving Throws" be handled this way?

I use ability checks (Ability x 5%) instead of saving throws (since they have this tendency to improve over time…which is odd…in D&D, you would live in absolute terror of your elders)

I understand that you want an easy system as a guideline and it could work pretty well for archetypes and low-level characters. Most of the data in a d20-stat-block can be converted straight forward, the only problems I see are skills, feats (abilities), spells and the attack boni.

For skills I personally would prefer two tables. Table 1 contains the d20-skills and the corresponding brp-skills. Table 2 contains the total d20 skill bonus (including feats and boni) from 0-30 and the percantage in brp. That way you can look at your d20 stat block and have a result by looking in the tables without the need to calculate anything. Additionally you can ignore all feats that give you a bonus to skills.

For weapons you can use a similar table, so that you can ignore feats that give attack boni.

For the remaining feats it is a little more complicated - instead of endless descriptions of feat-conversions you can either make some examples for common feats like power attack or a general guideline that each feat should give the equivalent of a 5% skill bonus (or whatever seems appropriate).

The spell-systems are different in a lot of d20 systems (you could use the skill conversion for star wars d20 for example). I think it would be best to just provide a table with the d20-level and corresponding brp-data like the number of spells, the total percentage to distribute on the spells and the max-percentage per spell.

Ack….I’ll see what I can do…anybody want to help?

Glad to see that this generated some discussion!

Anybody got any other homebrew conversions they want to post?

-STS

[Skunkape]

Originally Posted by sladethesniper

Anybody got any other homebrew conversions they want to post?

-STS

I'll do just that once I get more work done on my conversion! I will actually be able to do more in about a week or so, used Chaosium's April Fools sale to buy both the Zero Edition and also looking at getting Stormbringer. So I'll soon be reading and working toward converting my world, once again!

[frogspawner]

It strikes me Clerics haven't been handled for D20>BRP yet. (Are they in your big magic conversion/kit bash, STS?). Presumably they wouldn't have their spells as skills - since they just call 'em from on high (or low). This might be useful as a basis for priestly-types...

Originally Posted by Shaira

Some people love the Allegiance System, some seem to hate it... You have to keep an eye on it, 'cos it can get out of hand quite easily. Basically, you can create an Allegiance to a particular god, principle, moral code, etc, and if you do something significant which embodies that Allegiance you get an increase. So, you could have Allegiance (God of Death) 12, for example. You can then compare that to any other Allegiances you or someone else might have to see how relatively strong it is.

It starts getting interesting when you start allowing special effects from Allegiance. As Nick said, you could even allow "inspiring" from Allegiance; even with the BRP rules, you could conceivably use it to augment another skill roll at an appropriate juncture. Also, the Allegiance rules suggest things like getting extra temporary PP or skill points, etc, from your Allegiance, and even becoming a "champion" of a cause or deity. It can be very flexible.

I'm toying with Allegiance Powers in my game, wondering frex whether to require a certain degree of Allegiance to a deity before you can use certain divine powers. Kind of like the Rune Priest type distinction. The problem is that quite easily you can make Allegiance a *very* powerful stat, and I'm not sure about the unbalancing effect of that. I get the feeling you'd have to keep a tight lid on Allegiance score increases.

If you also use the Status Skill from BRP (which seems to track your relative standing in your peer group(s)) together with Allegiance, you have the makings of quite a sophisticated "relationship" system. As it's presented in the BRP core book, it's very generic, and you'd have to "roll your own" to quite a large extent to determine actual game effects, but it certainly bears thinking about more. I'm definitely going to be testing both out in-game.

Sounds good. I've been trying out personality-trait 'skills' (like Pendragon) but I'm not quite happy with how it's going - Allegiance/Status might work out better. For "inspiring" I've been allowing rolls against personality trait %s, once per session each, to double a skill for one use in a suitable situation (or halving if it fails). That works well, but my trait-skill increase/progression doesn't. Maybe Allegiance/Status will do the trick. (Is BRP's Status the same thing as S5/Elric's Allegiance? Do traits fit the usage of either?)

If you could have Allegiances to several different traits, that might dilute the unbalancing effect of a single, over-powerful Allegiance. Rather than Allegiance(Babisiya) or whatever deity, giving access to more powerful spells at certain percentages, you could have several "Trait-Allegiances" required of the god's priests (perhaps Pious, Cruel, Cunning, Vengeful, Cowardly in her case?). Presumably there'd be some normal skill requirements too, RQ-style - all to the good, I already use that approach in my converted campaign. Trait-skills would fit nicely.


For Conversion from D20 you could have Allegiance(Law) or (Chaos), but presumably not both, and a separate Allegiance (Good) (or Evil) as well. Simplistic, but opens the door for other characterful loyalties/traits, breaking-in the D&D-ers gently. What percentages? Dunno.

[Shaira]

Originally Posted by frogspawner

It strikes me Clerics haven't been handled for D20>BRP yet.
[SNIP]
Is BRP's Status the same thing as S5/Elric's Allegiance? Do traits fit the usage of either?
[SNIP]
If you could have Allegiances to several different traits, that might dilute the unbalancing effect of a single, over-powerful Allegiance. Rather than Allegiance(Babisiya) or whatever deity, giving access to more powerful spells at certain percentages, you could have several "Trait-Allegiances" required of the god's priests (perhaps Pious, Cruel, Cunning, Vengeful, Cowardly in her case?). Presumably there'd be some normal skill requirements too, RQ-style - all to the good, I already use that approach in my converted campaign. Trait-skills would fit nicely.

The more I think about it, the more I think there's a really cool "relationships" system hiding somewhere in here, struggling to get out.

First, no - Status skill is *not* the same as SB5 Allegiance. It's actually a skill, and it has two quite different suggested uses. The first of these is a completely linear, absolute magnitude measurement of a character's overall social standing - depending on milieu, Status 10% could mean "peasant", Status 50% "merchant", Status 100% "king". I'll admit I don't like this system - it seems to try to codify something which in game terms probably should be quite woolly ("hey - you get 3 extra Status as a reward for killing the dragon - you're a knight now!"). It could work for games where the social milieu is very abstracted, but personally I deal with social strata differently.

The second use of the Status skill is much more cool! Basically, it measures your relative standing within your peer group. Say you're a peasant (chorus: "I'm a peasant..." ) - you want to go to the local lord and get some protection against the BEM that's plaguing your farm. Does he listen? How influential a peasant are you? That's where the Status score comes in - Status (Peasant) 10% is some antisocial shepherd who nobody really knows that well - Status (Peasant) 90% is Sheriff Jarndyke who always buys everyone drinks at the tavern.

So then you can have Status (Temple), Status (Legion), whatever, which can act as Opposed Skills, augment other skill attempts, and so on. I think there's a fair bit of mileage here.

Regarding Traits, I've shied away just for now, wanting to avoid the "quantify everything" approach of Pendragon, but I'm tempted by the Heroquest approach of just identifying major traits - maybe "Hate (Lunars) 75%" or some such. I think as one-off abilities, particularly gained through play, they could be useful. I'm a *little* wary of getting down to too much prescriptive stuff for "Rune-level entry" type mechanics just for now, though. So, the "Allegiance (Babisiya)" stat would represent all of the Cruel, Cunning, Vengeful traits rolled into one (nice definition of Babisiya's traits, BTW - you been reading over my shoulder? ). There's a lot of scope for customisation and flexibility here, though - my opinions are subject to change at the drop of a hat!

Interesting topic - worthy of its own thread?

Cheers,

Sarah

[DirkD]

This is my (incomplete) version of a d20/brp conversion guideline. The focus is on converting statblocks (especially npcs) as easy as possible.

Definitions
===========
BRP Base Percentage of a Skill = BP
D20 Skill Bonus = SB

Ability Scores
==============
Strength = Strength
Dexterity = Dexterity
Constitution = Constitution
Size = the effects of Siz are part of Con in d20, I would either simply use Con, or use a formula that allows only a minor variation (like Siz = Con -3+1D6)
Intelligence = Intelligence
Power = Wisdom
Appearance = Charisma
Education = Intelligence + Wisdom / 2

Skills
======
In d20 you usually have a statblock that includes only the total-skill-bonus (at least for NPC). It would be a lot of work to look for all the boni that may be included (Attributes, Feats, class, synergy). I would take the SB as it is (just exclude potential magical boni) and convert it with the following formula:

BRP Skill = BP + 4*SB

for example: Appraise +7 = Appraise 43% (15+4*7), Bluff +7 = Fast Talk 33% (05+4*7), Diplomacy +16 = Persuade 79% (15+4*16) (the table with related brp and d20 skills isn't ready yet).

That way you can ignore everything (except magic) that gives you skill boni because it is already included. Additionally you have converted the skills without ignoring the BRP-system-specific difficulty of a skill. And finally: it is so easy, that you are able to write a small program/or excel table, that does the complete skill conversion automatically without going into d20 rule details (and that would take some programming work). I know that the Attribute-boni to skills are still included and I would do it this way because a) it's easier, b) you often distribute skill points in d20 to get a certain bonus including attributes (and you would get weaker in the area in brp if you don't take that into account), and c) if you take only 4*SB (instead of 5*SB without boni) it doesn't make a lot of difference for the characters with better attributes. I think the resulting percentages (see example) are in an acceptable range, not too high for advanced characters and not too low for beginning characters.

Some d20-skills may have the same converted BRP-skill (spot and search (d20) would both convert to Spot (BRp) for example). In that case I would use the skill with the higher SB as a base and add 1*SB from the lower skill. The formula would be:

BRP Skill = BP + 4*SBhigh + 1*SBlow

for example: Spot +10, Search +8 = Spot 73% (25+40+8)

On the other hand, some d20-skills may convert into more than one brp- skill. If you think that would make them too powerful, you could use the following formula to make each brp skill a little weaker:

BRP Skill = BP + 3*SB

Languages: This is a little more difficult, in d20 it is assumed that you speak a language well, if you have the skill - so it is probably necessary to calculate Language (Other) in another way - maybe Edu*3 or something like that.

Weapons
=======
Same as skills, but you use the attack bonus of each weapon as a base for the calculation. The formula is:

Weapon Skill = BP + 4*(attack bonus with weapon)

for example: ranged+5 and Weapon Group Proficiency (blaster pistols) would convert to blaster pistol 40% (20+4*5)

=====================================
= Example d20 (star wars)-statblock =
=====================================
Male near-Human, Noble 2/Jedi Councilor 5; Init +1; Defense 18 (+7 class, +1 Dex); Spd 10m; VP/WP 49/14; Atk +5 melee (2d8+1/19-20, lightsaber) or +5 ranged; SQ Call in a favor, inspire confidence +l; SV Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +9; SZ M; FP 3; DSP 10; Rep 8; Str 13, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 15. Challenge Code: D.

Equipment: Lightsaber, personal transport

Skills: Appraise +7, Bluff +7, Computer Use +3, Diplomacy +16, Gather Information +9, Intimidate +7, Knowledge (Firrerre) +7, Knowledge (Jedi lore) +4, Knowledge (Sith lore) +6, Profession (merchant) +7, Read/Write Basic, Read/Write Firrerreo, Search +4, Sense Motive +9, Speak Basic, Speak Firrerreo.

Force Skills: Affect Mind +10, Empathy +7, Force Grip +6, Force Stealth +7, Friendship +7, Move Object +7, See Force +8.

Feats: Force-Sensitive, Sharp-Eyed, Trustworthy, Weapon Group Proficiency (blaster pistols, simple weapons).

Force Feats: Alter, Control, Deflect Blasters, Sense.

=======
= BRP =
=======
Male near-Human, Noble/Jedi Councilor

Str 13, Con 14, Siz 14, Int 14, Pow 14, Dex 13, App 15, Edu 14

HP 14, Move 10

Weapon: lightsaber 30%/30%, blaster pistol 40%, Grapple 45%, Brawl 45%

Skills: Appraise 43%, Bargain 32%, Bluff 33%, Computer Use 12%, Etiquette 41%, Knowledge (Firrerre) 29%, Knowledge (Jedi lore) 17%, Knowledge (Sith lore) 25%, Language Basic 70%, Language Firrerreo 42%, Persuade 79%, Sense 46%, Spot 41% (Intimidate +7 - maybe a +7% bonus on persuasion)

Force Skills: (can be converted as skills - BP 0% is assumed here) Affect Mind 40%, Empathy 28%, Force Grip 24%, Force Stealth 28%, Friendship 28%, Move Object 28%, See Force 32%

Equipment: Lightsaber, personal transport

=======

Not Converted

everything star wars specific including Weapons; Feats: Force-Sensitive; Force Feats: Alter, Control, Deflect Blasters, Sense.

[Wolverine]

Force Skills: (can be converted as skills - BP 0% is assumed here) Affect Mind 40%, Empathy 28%, Force Grip 24%, Force Stealth 28%, Friendship 28%, Move Object 28%, See Force 32%

The version I worked on, Force Powers don't exist as such. The Force augments existing skills. So, you simply turn your Persuade skill into Force Persuade, or "Mind Trick", by spending Power points. The reason behind this is because Jedi in most mechanics end up spending all their skill points/ranks/whatever on Force powers, and have very left for other skills.

[Fergo113]

G'day everyone,

I have only just come across this web site and joined up. I have been working on a MERP (Middle-earth Role Playing) to BRP conversion for about a year now and have been playtesting with my role-playing buddies on a near weekly basis to see how its panning out.

The arrival of the pre-release BRP rules has put a delay into the rules development however and I have been going through the pre-release BRP rules and re-working my MERP conversion. My hope is to finish this by the end of 2008 but I will try to post the draft rules when I have been able to re-align what I have developed so far with the new BRP ruleset.

My intent is to have a BRP ruleset for playing in Middle-earth and allow for the use of the MERP modules.

FYI for now but will try to start posting draft rules soon for comments and playtesting. I've been lazy in working on this project but I guess I had better get of my backside and finish it. Cheers

[The Last Conformist]

Originally Posted by DirkD

Size = the effects of Siz are part of Con in d20, I would either simply use Con, or use a formula that allows only a minor variation (like Siz = Con -3+1D6)

Since SIZ also helps determine your db, perhaps SIZ=(CON+STR)/2?

[lawrence.whitaker]

[quote]The second use of the Status skill is much more cool! Basically, it measures your relative standing within your peer group. Say you're a peasant

(chorus: "I'm a peasant..." ) - you want to go to the local lord and get some protection against the BEM that's plaguing your farm. Does he listen? How influential a peasant are you? That's where the Status score comes in - Status (Peasant) 10% is some antisocial shepherd who nobody really knows that well - Status (Peasant) 90% is Sheriff Jarndyke who always buys everyone drinks at the tavern.

So then you can have Status (Temple), Status (Legion), whatever, which can act as Opposed Skills, augment other skill attempts, and so on. I think there's a fair bit of mileage here.

Regarding Traits, I've shied away just for now, wanting to avoid the "quantify everything" approach of Pendragon, but I'm tempted by the Heroquest approach of just identifying major traits - maybe "Hate (Lunars) 75%" or some such. I think as one-off abilities, particularly gained through play, they could be useful.

Great minds think alike. I've just developed a system for Mongoose's Elric game which focuses precisely on Love and Hate and uses the skills in almost the same way you intimate here. I think there's extreme amounts of mileage in these social and relationship skills, and they add a layer of extra interest to the game that's been lacking before.

[PK Games]

Originally Posted by Fergo113

G'day everyone,

I have only just come across this web site and joined up. I have been working on a MERP (Middle-earth Role Playing) to BRP conversion for about a year now and have been playtesting with my role-playing buddies on a near weekly basis to see how its panning out.

The arrival of the pre-release BRP rules has put a delay into the rules development however and I have been going through the pre-release BRP rules and re-working my MERP conversion. My hope is to finish this by the end of 2008 but I will try to post the draft rules when I have been able to re-align what I have developed so far with the new BRP ruleset.

My intent is to have a BRP ruleset for playing in Middle-earth and allow for the use of the MERP modules.

FYI for now but will try to start posting draft rules soon for comments and playtesting. I've been lazy in working on this project but I guess I had better get of my backside and finish it. Cheers

Consider the match under you backside lit!