frogspawner

But you accept Independent Rolls, although you prefer another method, is a valid option. That's all I was asking for.

Though for my part, I'd say significant negotiations (like whether Billy gets the death sentence or not) deserve a more extended contest - in attack/parry style, drawn out like combat.

It's not an impossible dream to have the roll-results defined for each skill. The new BRP has a decent stab at that. More guidance as to how they'd interact with opposed skills could be included, and it's a bit inconsistent in places, but it's a start.

In your examples, I'd just point out that Forgery & Appraise wouldn't normally be rolled at the same time, so that's actually an example of Independent Rolls interacting. Bargain (and Ride?) is the skill to use for buying horses (though it's probably Fast Talk for selling snake-oil...). Making Billy (presumably a PC) convert to Set just because the priest Persuades him the religion is valid (and Billy, unsurprisingly, fails to Persuade him it's not!) is not something I'd inflict on a player-character, even if he did blow his Chaste roll!

In the case of Stealth contests, I see the 'perfect solution' as the successful sneaker 'successfully' realizing the (equally successful) spotter will see him unless he stops for a while, but he can try again in a minute or so. Something like that anyway - I'm still working on it...

I think "ur-skills" simply means super-skills, like the phrase "key skills" mentioned earlier. But with negative connotations of wrongness.

And Independent Rolls are my preference, suiting my style. I take issue with the charges of longwindedness, ambiguity, subjectivity etc, but we don't actually need to resolve which method is 'better' here. I'm just saying Independent Rolls should be acknowledged as an alternative mechanism to Opposed Rolls, that's all.

The trouble with this is how do you define the draw?

It's subjective. But there's no need to define "winner" or "loser" or "draw(ers?)" in the game mechanics. They just define what happens. And I think having each skill roll's results defined separately by degree-of-success does that most neatly.

Combat is the easy one. As you say, there's real trouble over stealth tests: "You see it"/"You don't see it" seems too simplistic to me, too. I'd really love to have a Spot v Hide contest mechanism that's (even half!) as richly-detailed as combat...

I totally don't play it that way.

And all power to you for that! It just so happens that in this thread we are discussing 'ur-skills' and pseudo-classes, that's all.

Because in your particular example the defender has obviously 'won'...

I'm sorry but that's overly simplistic. In the combat example I gave earlier in this thread, Billy the defender parried but still got injured (and notched his heirloom sword!) badly enough to make him surrender.

The question remains, is it better to have a single chart that resolves two independent actions as opposed to each other, or two charts that require refereeing two opposing effects against exclusive goals? In the end, I think it is one of semantics.

Some prefer one, some the other. Your chart & document are clearly very useful to some - and that's great - but I'd prefer the other. It's not just semantics. Would you happily swap to my preferred mechanism? No? Well then obviously there's a real difference.

As Islan said, he finds all these variations on the rules confusing. Adding more options will not help in this regard.

I suspect Islan might prefer the simplicity of Independent rolls but, since he says he only got into BRP with Elric/SB5, I guess he hasn't had opportunity to see them.

While it does not prevent the possibility of a critical, it does limit it to when the defender misses their parry or dodge roll. As stated, a simple success on the defense side is able to knock down a critical attack success to a special.

What I meant about this was that when the defender makes a successful parry/dodge then under the OR mechanism they cannot be criticaled (or even hit by just normal-success attack roll). This seems too safe & boring, especially when with high Parry/Dodge skills it becomes the norm.

In his system it only applies to the dodge skill, ie its a feature of the skill, not the roll mechanism. Attack and parry are still independent rolls.

Yes, it has important differences - simplicity and independence. Roll-Independence gives a better feeling of immediacy - you know what you've done as soon as you roll (and don't have to wait for the other guy to come back from the loo to make his rolls), and that puts you more in tune with your character. (Incidentally, it's also much better for Play-By-Post).

Further documents should be created for other resolution mechanisms, perhaps with a short reference to them at the bottom of this one.

Sounds good to me.

Why must their always be a winner?

Exactly - there's no reason at all. Draws happen.

I don't think a skill deterioration rule would have changed any of the stages very much.

I'm not advocating a skill deterioration rule here, just the assertion "You can't have Magic and Martial Arts* skills because there aren't enough hours-in-the-day for you to practice them both as much as you need to".

(* Or Holiness/Allegiance or Sleight/Backstabbing or whatever)

Incidentally, I'd have thought that rule would have affected them at the 'Green' stage - because they couldn't have had any skill in specialisms other than the one they'd initially chosen (except by GM kindness). But if you don't mind, that's fine.

I thought this thread was started to clarify the points about the Opposed Roll mechanics in BRP as written, not to allow someone to issue another complaint against the combat resolution mechanism.

I object to your use of the word "the". Opposed Rolls are just "a" combat resolution mechanism.

Anyway, it should be noted that it is possible to play BRP without using opposed rolls. Pre-Pendragon BRP games had no opposed rolls and they worked.

Yes exactly. That was the reason for my suggestion to include Independent Rolls as an option. And I thought Harshax agreed at one stage.

Frogspawner, just one question: why on earth should it be easier to dodge Swift Sam the fast-stabbing halfling (avg. damage 4-5) rather than Clumsy Bo the Slow-bashing Great Troll (avg. damage 15-16)?

Dunno. I'm no expert in RW combat. But a Dodge rule of "Reduce Damage by 10" is slightly easier to administer than "Half Damage" (another option I've seen) and seems better to me than "Reduce Degree of Success" (which would turn all normal hits into misses, and prevent any critical). If you really need a RW justification, one could probably be worked-up as something to do with the respective limits of Sam & Bo's reach...

I think it would be an interesting idea to collect individual house rules used by the members of this forum. Frogspawner has already suggested his combat system. Should we start another thread?

I was just suggesting that to give a balanced view of how to run skill-roll contests (the most obvious example being combat), at least one example of an Independent Roll mechanism (i.e. not using opposed rolls) should be included as an option. (Not necessarily my system, though obviously I think it's the best, but perhaps straight RQ3 or the commonly house-ruled RQ3).

After all, Opposed Rolls are a relatively new innovation, and not universally accepted.

Otherwise, it could be seen as an attempt to write the traditional independent-roll mechanism out of BRP history...

I quite agree it'd be too much accounting to work out exactly. I'm just suggesting the principle could be invoked to justify (and enforce) "class"-style character differences in campaigns which don't want everyone to be a jack-of-all-trades.

Because if it were enforced only by supposedly all-powerful guilds, then it could break down through political machinations, military coercion or similar disasters, such as player-characters becoming guild-masters...

Isn't there a little more to the parry part? Doesn't a weapon actually take damage when used to parry a Critical Strike?

Yes, there can be more complexity about damaging weapons - but the Opposed Roll write-ups skip that too.

Where are your rules coming from?

My house. They're similar to RQ2/3, but with tweaks intended to fix the "Dodge Problem" mentioned elsewhere, and work with new BRP's increased weapon HPs. Just to show an alternative to Opposed Roll mechanisms - not claiming to have ever been "official".

Thanks, that's great!

Could you explain this a little more? Give me a couple of combat rounds worth of example? I'm not following what is happening here.

I'd be glad to (if there's any chance you'll actually put it in!):

[Optional] Independent Rolls: Simplified Combat w/o Opposed Mechanism

ATTACKER rolls their attack, scoring the appropriate result as listed below:

Normal = Hit for Normal damage.

Special = Hit for Special Effect by weapon type (Crush/Impale/etc).

Critical = Hit for Maximum damage, bypass armour.

Fumble = Roll on the Combat Fumble table.

If a hit is scored, the DEFENDER can then attempt to either Parry or Dodge:

PARRY

Normal = Blocks damage equal to half parrying weapon HPs

Special = Blocks damage up to full parrying weapon HPs

Critical = Blocks damage completely

Fumble = No effect (i.e. blow still hits for full damage)

DODGE

Normal = Reduces damage by 10

Special = Reduces damage by 20

Critical = Reduces damage to NONE

Fumble = No effect (i.e. blow still hits for full damage)

Any remaining damage is applied to the defender, reduced for armour as appropriate (i.e. if not a critical hit).

Example: Abner rolls a hit and hefty damage with his Axe (13 points). Billy, having foolishly left his shield at home and not wishing to risk his Broadsword, successfully dodges - luckily riding-out most of the force of the blow (13-10=3 damage), and his hard leather armour stops much of the rest, though he still gets scratched (3-2AP=1 damage). Billy slashes wildly back with his Broadsword, missing completely (Abner had simultaneously rolled to parry but ignores the result, as it's not needed).

Abner strikes again - this time scoring a critical and therefore 14 damage, the maximum for his Great Axe (the damage dice he rolled at the same time as the attack are ignored, and he has no damage bonus). Billy tries desperately to parry with the Broadsword - luckily succeeding, and slowing the fearsome axe-blade somewhat (by 20/2=10 for a normal parry, so 14-10=4 damage), but still taking a nasty wound just where his hauberk didn't cover (4hp, critically). It's not looking good for Billy - rather than fight on, he puts down the now-notched sword borrowed from his father, and begs for mercy...

Any better?

Any chance you could pop in another option, something like this...?

[Optional] Independent Rolls: Simplified Combat w/o Opposed Mechanism

ATTACK

Normal Hit = Normal damage.

Special Hit = Special Effect by weapon type (Crush/Impale/etc).

Critical Hit = Maximum damage, bypass armour.

Fumble = Roll on the Combat Fumble table.

PARRY

Normal Parry = Blocks damage up to half weapon HPs.

Special Parry = Blocks damage up to full weapon HPs.

Critical Parry = Blocks all damage.

Fumble = No effect.

DEFENCE

Normal Dodge = Reduce hit by 10 damage

Special Dodge = Reduce hit by 20 damage

Critical Dodge = Reduce hit to 0 damage

Fumble = No effect

Wouldn't want to give the impression Opposed Rolls (although the official method) are the ONLY way to resolve things when "refereeing a good game", now would we? Especially when it seems they only got into SB5 (hence BRP) by some accident, despite adverse playtest feedback, and most incarnations of BRP don't use them...

Published, it's in Elric! / Stormbrnegr 5e. As an informal house rule, it's been around since the mid-eighties as a fix for the "Dodge" problem in RQIII...

Thanks, I'm informed about it's SB history now.

We've had the conversation about the "Dodge Problem" before - here. If that's the only reason for introducing the controversial Opposed Rolls into combat, it's very much 'a sledgehammer to crack a nut', IMO. (See that link for my preferred solution, and a perhaps even better one).

It's in WD4, according to my index. Dunno for sure if that version had berserking (but I'd bet it does).

I see that hours per day may be an excellent idea!

It is. Can't claim it's my own, though.

It's been removed now, thanks.

Oh no! I didn't mean you should do that! I think it's UA that's out-of-step here. I just wanted to trace the original "Berserk Barbarian" write-up, to translate from the original source.

I wonder if it was in an old White Dwarf? If so, I should have it somewhere (at a different house) and will look it out if I get the chance. Maybe it even pre-dates UA...

Its not new. Take a look at Stormbringer 5e.

OK, thanks. I don't know SB, but I take your word for it. Mr D's off the hook, then, since SB was the stated primary base for the new BRP. But I would have thought that the fine old tradition of non-opposed-roll combat should have earned it place as an option, at very least...

(...and it's an option I'm taking, whether it's printed or not!)

Ah. Rereading what I wrote and what you wrote, I'm guessing we're coming from the same place.

Absolutely. (I read what you said, and was nodding all the way!)

Incidentaly, the "Hours in the Day" principle, as explained to me years ago, is slightly different from what you might be thinking. It's not the time taken to learn a skill - but the time required to maintain a skill. Not part of the game system, but an assumed part of the characters' daily life. They have to practice the skills they already have - just to stave off atrophy. Too many disparate skills, doesn't leave enough time to practice them well enough. It seems to me that principle could be invoked to limit the "key" skills a character could acquire (in addition to the nice campaign-specific guild rivalries/incompatibilities, naturally!)

However, I should straighten one thing out. At no point was it ever advertised as an evolution of the system.

So where the heck did the new Opposed-Roll-driven combat come from? That's an evolutionary spurt if ever there was one! Come clean, Mr D...

...but is only available to thieves and magic users?

The question is, what is it that makes a character a "Thief" or "Magic-user" (or "Fighter" or "Cleric" or whatever)? And what stops all characters being a blend of all of them?

Possession of a "key" skill for each class/profession, I'd say. And there should be something other than just "guilds" to stop/minimise proliferation and consequent multi-classing. Or is that a campaign decision? But I think there should be something else, like an "hours in the day" principle, preventing (or at least limiting) characters from developing too many disparate "key" skills. Thoughts?

Just be aware Barbarians in UA have no berserking ability (though plenty of other skills). As written, they also hate magic...

I assume that Attack vs. Parry/Dodge, like other iterations of BRP, use different rules than Opposed Rolls. It does, however, clearly state that it modifies the "winner's degree of success".

I'm not saying that opposed rolls can't ever work in BRP, I'm just saying that I have yet to see one decent method for it in any published material (and the BRP offers several and all of them seem to have problems with them).

Yes, I think Opposed Rolls are bad, and add needless complexity to an otherwise simple system. Even the most experienced gamers end up arguing over and misinterpreting them (as I believe you have here - IMO the winner's Degree of Success may be reduced, but the loser doesn't get any success).

And to introduce Opposed Rolls into combat when no previous version of BRP used them for that is a Mistake.

But I treat the whole rule-set as a "toolkit", and just don't use 'em. So it's no problem...

Looking in Unearthed Arcana (thanks for the reference!), I see those Barbarians weren't berserkers...

I'd just say berserking means to lose all parries and gain an extra attack instead.