Let's Talk Blue Rose

[TerraDave]

Magic isn't tied to the setting (actually besides the races nothing mechanically is tied to the setting). Magic is based around 6 different areas - Animism, Healing, Meditative, Psychic, Shaping, Visionary. Magic which is particularly offence or controlling is called Sorcery and cause corruption and degeneration.

Overall the magic is a ideas cherry picked from SWd20, the Psychic's Handbook and others. These are then then streamlined and improved (especially the SWd20 stuff) .

Best of all things are very flexible. Want to restrict magic then just restrict access to the Adept Class or change one or two Feats. Want to create psychic, arcane and divine distinctions. Just choose which three areas fall into which three catergories and simply restrict people to cross over.

Cool indeed...and it does look this could used for very different kinds of fantasy

 

[Benben]

A few of my favorite things.

I'm still digesting this pdf but I'm seeing a lot of things that I like.

• Expanding the uses of the social skills. Gather Information and Intimidate get the best treatment too. It's very interesting that the more active skills: listen and spot, hide and move silently, were folded into more generalized skills while the social skills were not. I've been wanting to have notice and sneak for a long time, but after looking at the skill in BR I want to merge bluff and diplomacy into one skill.
• It's nice to have a new, weaker level in the Exhaustion and Fatigue conditions: Winded. I had added that into a homebrew game a few months ago and was wondering if anybody else thought there needed to be another level of being tired.
• The magic system does a good job of merging arcane and psychic skills into a coherent whole, and it avoids the Greek names (eg telepathy). It does a good job of capturing the feel of magic in the Mercedes Lackey books.
• Mechanically this feels like the "Best of D20" with a nice customizable setting.

I'm really excited to see how this plays.

 

[Benben]

This would also be the perfect system to handle an Elfquest game.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I've never quite been able to decide if this genre is more stomach-turning or offensive.

Blue Rose itself, however, seems like a very nice package of rules that would be worth porting to other genres. I'm always glad to see social skills expanded upon and non-D&D magic systems introduced. And removing the completely outmoded ability score system in favor of a ability modifier system can only be a good thing.

I and my players would hate to give up class (or combat) options, but I'd sure like a robust social skill system, balanced and rare magic and faster skill levelling. Maybe damage saves, too, but I doubt it.

How well do you think Blue Rose would work with standard d20 classes? A rules mix of, say, 20% Blue Rose (skills and social), 20% Conan the RPG (combat, armor and weapons), 10% d20 Modern (class defense), 30% D&D and Arcana Unearthed (classes) and 10% homebrew (action structure)?

 

[Crothian]

wow, that's something else. Not knowing what the action structure of the homebrew is, I'll say the rest is actually really easy.

Since we are using AU for classes and magic it seems since you don't list magic anywhere, that is our base. Class defense is actually found in a lot of books and should be really easy to use. It is just assigning the right progression to the right classes.

Now, combat from conan, is that also going to have their dodge and parry rules? THat seems redunat with class defense. But using their armor and weapons should be easy enough.

Using the skills and social rules from BR will also be easy, but you might get in some trouble since AU assumes more skills. I don't recall any big trouble areas but there might be some.

So, ya this can work. It might take some time pairing everything up into the AU classes, but other then that sounds good.

 

[Skywalker]

I and my players would hate to give up class (or combat) options, but I'd sure like a robust social skill system, balanced and rare magic and faster skill levelling. Maybe damage saves, too, but I doubt it.

A few comments:

1. BR has all the combat options of D&D as far as I can see except AoO (if you consider that an option). The simplifications in BR revolve around making the systems faster not less of them.
2. In BR, magic is actually very common. Non-Adept roles can learn magic through the Wild Talent and Arcanum feat. Again the main difference is that BR magic is a faster system than D&D and probably does not increase at the same rate.
3. Skills don't increase any faster than standard D20. The Skill system is identical to D&D except that rather than using Skill Points, it is assumed that max ranks are taken.

How well do you think Blue Rose would work with standard d20 classes? A rules mix of, say, 20% Blue Rose (skills and social), 20% Conan the RPG (combat, armor and weapons), 10% d20 Modern (class defense), 30% D&D and Arcana Unearthed (classes) and 10% homebrew (action structure)?

To be honest that sounds like a crazy mish mash BR presents a nice streamlined package of the d20 system. It adds and takes away very little. Instead it focusses on improving simplification and speed.

BR comes with a nice 3 pages D20 appendix that makes it easy to convert over. However, if all you want from BR is the skills and social then the actually book isn't going to add much at all. The skills are the same, even the social ones. It is just the emphasis put on them is different. No reason why you couldn't do that with existing D&D or just download the social interaction pdf off the Blue Rose site. I would recommend looking at Dynasties and Demagogues by Atlas than BR.

Also, looking at your selections of games it would appear that Conan would cover it all. Rare magic, class defence, combat. Just give more emphasis to the social skills and it is almost done.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Thanks, all.

I use class defense INSTEAD of dodge/parry; otherwise, yeah, they'd be redundant. And what little magic I'm using is more d20 Call of Cthulu than anything else.

I'll probably skip Blue Rose for now, although I'll certainly browse it at the very least.

 

[Skywalker]

And what little magic I'm using is more d20 Call of Cthulu than anything else.

It sounds more and more like D20 Conan is what you are looking for. The magic system is very CoC.

 

[dvvega]

Correct me if I am wrong, however the damage save system and the max skill ranks system are very similar (if not identical) to two optional rules in Unearthed Arcana correct?

D

 

[whydirt]

Correct me if I am wrong, however the damage save system and the max skill ranks system are very similar (if not identical) to two optional rules in Unearthed Arcana correct?

D

You're correct, although the damage save originally comes from Green Ronin's Mutants and Masterminds game.