Specials and Criticals, with no math!

[GAZZA]

I'm sure I'm not the first to do this, but just in case - whenever we're playing RQ (or I guess any BRP game, but RQ is the only one I play - having attempted several times to read even a single short story of Lovecraft, I have come away with the impression that it's just not my cup of tea), we don't use the charts for specials and critical chances.

Instead, roll a d20 along with the d100:

• If the d100 roll is a success, then if the d20 is 1, it's a critical, if it's 2-4, it's a special. Otherwise it's a normal success.
• If the d100 roll is a failure, then if the d20 roll is a 20, it's a fumble. Otherwise it's a normal failure.

Mathematically identical, but works out smoother in play (you don't have to worry as much if there's a +20 modifier or whatever - no recalculating your special chances on the fly).

If you're using something like Steve Maurer's old Hero Quest rules, or some similar "Super Runequest" idea, this is easily extended for those over 100% skill:

• If the d100 roll is a success:
  • If the d100 roll is less than or equal to your skill divided by 100 (rounded down - yes, this is math, no, I don't think this counts), you have a "super critical".
  • Otherwise, figure out your skill modulo 100 (that is, just take the 1s and 10s digits - again, this isn't really complicated).
    • If the d100 roll is less than or equal to this adjusted skill, then you critical if the d20 is 1-2, and special if it is 3-8.
    • Otherwise, you critical if the d20 is 1, and special if it is 2-4, as normal.
• The d100 roll only fails if it is higher than 95 + (skill / 100, rounded down). So 96-100 for 1-99, 97-100 for 100-199, and so on. Calculate fumbles normally (the reduced chance of failure automatically means a reduced chance of fumbling).

For really really high skills (400%+) the concept can be extended, left as an exercise for the interested student. (I want to play in your game! ).

[Akhôrahil]

This is not quite mathematically identical, as you have some nice rounding bonuses as a player under the regular system. This is a quibble, though.

[Joerg]

This method breaks down when the skill is better than 100%. This doesn't happen in combat due to that (horribly non-scaling) deduction from the opponent's parry or attack, but may happen in other situations, e.g. a master crafter trying to produce a superior product, or a master household manager aiming to get a superior result from the annual economy roll.

[PhilHibbs]

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

This method breaks down when the skill is better than 100%. This doesn't happen in combat...

It happens in combat if the opponent doesn't or can't defend, such as an archer with >100% skill or a surprise attack.

It also happens if you houserule to cap the reduction so that someone with 10% dodge can't reduce a 1000% hit chance to 100%.

[Akhôrahil]

27 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

 

It also happens if you houserule to cap the reduction so that someone with 10% dodge can't reduce a 1000% hit chance to 100%.

That doesn’t happen anyway, does it? You only drop someone down to 5% or 0% (not sure which) and keep any overflow?

Also, one PC in my campaign got a Farming skill of over 100% on its own, raised to over 180% through Bless Crops for the income roll.

[PhilHibbs]

16 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

That doesn’t happen anyway, does it? You only drop someone down to 5% or 0% (not sure which) and keep any overflow?

Also, one PC in my campaign got a Farming skill of over 100% on its own, raised to over 180% through Bless Crops for the income roll.

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/publishers/chaosium/runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-players-book-print/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-qa-by-chapter/cha4028-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha-chapter-08-combat/

Quote

Combat with Skills Above 100% (page 201)

So let’s say with a ton of magic up my berserk Storm Bull Lord has a 250% attack.  The broo he is trying to kill has a dodge of 55% that he is opposing him with.  Which of the following happens:

1) I have to use all of my extra 150% on my attack to lower his dodge and we end up with a 100% attack and a 5% dodge.   Thus lowering my critical and special chances to the 5/20% levels because my attack is 100%.  The dodge would just have a 1% critical also I assume being lowered to 5%.

Everything over 100%. You can distribute the excess skill points as modifiers to multiple attacks/attackers, if desired. As a GM, I’d let you apply those excess skill points as a negative modifier when you’re parrying, if desired. 

So if you are going to lose all your super high skill percentage against a trivial defence, the only thing you can do is split your attacks. Rather than one attack at 250% being reduced to 100% vs 5% by a 55% dodge, do two attacks at 125% each, which ends up as 100% vs 30% and 100% vs 10%.

This does make super-ridiculously-high skills against mooks pointless, as you will not have enough SR to split your attack enough times to shed the percentages down.

Yep. Needs a houserule to cap the reduction, if you're going to those dizzying heights.

[Akhôrahil]

5 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

(Quoted ruling)

Jesus Christ, the rules and rulings in this game... that’s just silly. The rule might technically be phrased this way, but that just makes it a horrible rule that needs to be fixed right away! It should be bleeding obvious that you only reduce down to 0% and then stop.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[GAZZA]

15 hours ago, Joerg said:

This method breaks down when the skill is better than 100%. This doesn't happen in combat due to that (horribly non-scaling) deduction from the opponent's parry or attack, but may happen in other situations, e.g. a master crafter trying to produce a superior product, or a master household manager aiming to get a superior result from the annual economy roll.

It gets trickier, yes.

If you have 180% Farming, for example, then you have a 27% special chance and a 9% critical chance:

• If your d100 roll is 01-80:
  • If the d20 is 1-2, you critical.
  • If it is 3-8, you special.
  • Otherwise, you succeed.
• If your d100 roll is 81-100:
  • If the d20 roll is 1, you critical
  • If the d20 roll is 2-4, you special.
  • Otherwise you succeed.

Critical chance: 0.8 * 0.1 + 0.2 * 0.05 = 0.08 + 0.01 = 9%

Special chance: 0.8 * 0.3 + 0.2 * 0.15 = 0.24 + 0.3 = 27%

"But what about failures and fumbles?" Well, we have to use a slightly different rule there:

• If the d20 comes up 20, regardless of the d100, you fail.
• Roll the d20 again, if that is also 20, you fumble, otherwise you simply fail.

RAW, once your skill level is 96+, your chance to fail and fumble never changes (it's always 5% chance to fail, and hence 0.25% chance to fumble).

In fact one can unify the <100 and >100 rules:

• If your base skill is 96 or greater, ignore the rule that 96-100 automatically fails.
• Find your skill level ignoring anything but the tens and ones digit; call this the "modified skill".
• If your base skill is less than or equal to 95:
  • If the d100 roll is less than or equal to 95 or your skill (whichever is lower):
    • If the d20 roll is 1, you critical.
    • If the d20 roll is 2-4, you special.
    • Otherwise you simply succeed.
  • Otherwise, if the d20 roll is a 20, you fumble; otherwise you simply fail.
• If your base skill is 96-99:
  • If the d20 roll is 20, you fail. Reroll d20, if it comes up 20 again, you fumble instead.
  • Otherwise, if the d100 roll is equal to or less than your skill:
    • If the d20 roll is 1, you critical.
    • If the d20 roll is 2-4, you special.
  • Otherwise you simply succeed.
• Otherwise (100+):
  • If your d100 roll is equal to or less than the modified skill:
    • If the d20 roll is 20, you fail. Reroll d20, if it comes up 20 again, you fumble instead.
    • If the d20 roll is 1 to (1+base skill/100, dropping fractions), you critical.
    • If the d20 roll is (2+base skill/100, dropping fractions) to (4+base skill/100 + 3*base skill/100, dropping fractions), you special.
    • Otherwise you succeed.
  • If your d100 roll is greater than the modified skill:
    • If the d20 roll is 20, you fail. Reroll d20, if it comes up 20 again, you fumble instead.
    • If the d20 roll is 1 to (base skill/100, dropping fractions), you critical.
    • If the d20 roll is (1+base skill/100, dropping fractions) to (1+base skill/100 + 3*base skill/100, dropping fractions), you special.
    • Otherwise you succeed.

Some examples:

• Base skill 60. If the d100 is 01-60, you special if the d20 is 2-4, and critical if it is 1 (otherwise you just succeed). If the d100 roll is 61-100, you fail unless the d20 is a 20, in which case you fumble.
• Base skill 97:
  • If the d20 roll is a 20, reroll; a second 20 means you fumble, otherwise you fail.
  • If the d100 roll is 01-97, you critical if the d20 is a 1, special if 2-4, otherwise succeed.
  • If the d100 roll is 98-100, you simply succeed.
  • Critical chance: 0.97 * 0.05 = 4.85%; special: 14.55%; succeed: 0.97*0.75 + 0.03*0.95 = 75.6%; fail 4.75%; fumble 0.25%.
• Base skill 153:
  • If the d100 roll is 01-53:
    • If the d20 roll is 20, you fail. Reroll d20, if it comes up 20 again, you fumble instead.
    • If the d20 roll is 01-02, you critical.
    • If the d20 roll is 03-08, you special.
    • Otherwise you succeed.
  • If the d100 roll is 54-100:
    • If the d20 roll is 20, you fail. Roll d20 again, if it comes up 20 again, you fumble instead.
    • If the d20 roll is 1, you critical.
    • If the d20 roll is 2-4, you special.
    • Otherwise you succeed.
  • Chance to critical: 0.53 * 0.1 + 0.47 * 0.05 = 7.65%; chance to special = 0.53 * 0.3 + 0.47 * 0.15 = 22.95%.
• Base skill 216:
  • If the d100 roll is 01-16:
    • If the d20 roll is 20, you fail. Reroll d20, if it comes up 20 again, you fumble instead.
    • If the d20 roll is 01-03, you critical.
    • If the d20 roll is 04-12, you special.
    • Otherwise you succeed.
  • If the d100 roll is 17-100:
    • If the d20 roll is 20, you fail. Roll d20 again, if it comes up 20 again, you fumble instead.
    • If the d20 roll is 1-2, you critical.
    • If the d20 roll is 3-8, you special.
    • Otherwise you succeed.
• Base skill 500:
  • If the d20 roll is a 20, you fail. Roll d20 again, if it comes up 20 you fumble instead.
  • If the d20 roll is a 1-5, you critical.
  • If the d20 roll is 6-20, you special.
  • Note that you have 0% chance of simply succeeding.
• Base skill 2000:
  • If the d20 roll is a 20, you fail. Roll d20 again, if it comes up 20 you fumble instead.
  • If the d20 roll is 1-20, you critical.
  • You cannot simply succeed or have a special success, only critical, fail, or fumble.

Granted it takes a bit of getting used to for >=100 skills, though! However, the charts don't go up that high either, so it's either grab a calculator or follow some steps (whichever you prefer). Also as you can see the mechanics get a bit wonky at 500 and 2000; RAW, that's what happens, but for those of you with powerhouses like that running around, you might want to consider some sort of rules that adjusts the chance of failure and fumbling down. But that's beyond my scope!

Edited March 4, 2020 by GAZZA
More examples

[Akhôrahil]

For having no math, that’s a lot of math.

[soltakss]

We just use a lookup table for RQ.

In fact, we use the Advantages from Revolution D100, which works really well.

[gochie]

But how crappy is it to roll a 01 normal hit? 💩

I just know the table by heart 😊, or at least can figure it out very quickly if I know every 20% of skill is 1% crit and 4% special. 

Edited March 6, 2020 by gochie

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, gochie said:

But how crappy is it to roll a 01 normal hit? 💩

 

Wait, that should never happen for PCs (you round to the PCs advantage). Where's that from? The rules are utterly explicit that 01 is always a crit!

Edited March 6, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[gochie]

21 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Wait, that should never happen for PCs (you round to the PCs advantage). Where's that from? The rules are utterly explicit that 01 is always a crit!

I'm talking about his system, where the D20 determines crits and specials, while the D100 determines a hit or miss.

[Akhôrahil]

10 minutes ago, gochie said:

I'm talking about his system, where the D20 determines crits and specials, while the D100 determines a hit or miss.

Ah, I see!

[soltakss]

13 hours ago, gochie said:

But how crappy is it to roll a 01 normal hit? 💩

We have that using RD100 Advantages. It is funny watching Players' faces light up as they roll 01 then get sad as they realise it is just a normal roll.