That old Antiparry chestnut again

[GAZZA]

Pages 201-202 that explain what happens if you have >100% in your weapon skill seem to be a little unclear.

The way I've been playing it so far is that if I have 115% Sword, and my opponent has 80% Shield, then I attack as if I had 100% Sword (01-05 Critical, 06-20 Special, 21-95 Success, 96-99 Fail, 100 Fumble) and he parries as if he had 65% Shield. In other words, we both get -15% to our skills.

However, that actually appears to be wrong. It appears that the reduction in both skills applies only if they are both over 100% (bullet point 2). Bullet point 1, which talks about >100% versus a lower skill, does not say that the higher skill is reduced. And indeed bullet point 3 (which talks about a Wind Lord with 130% having improved special and critical chance) would be meaningless if it did work the way I thought it did, since there would never be a case where an effective attack skill exceeded 100%.

So, this seems to be an excellent deal for someone with 101+ weapon skill: you reduce your opponent, and you suffer no reduction yourself (unless they've got 101+ too). What I want to know is:

1. Is this correct?
2. What if I have 201% and my opponent has 101% - RAW, he goes all the way down to 0 (so just the base 5%) and I have 100%, but if he had 2% less (only 99%) then I'd have no reduction at all, and thus twice the chance to critical or special. This seems a massive disparity between opponents with 99 and 101 weapon skills.

 

[soltakss]

On p201, it says

Quote

If the adventurer has a skill above 100% and that skill is opposed by another skill lower than the adventurer’s skill, the opposing skill is reduced by the amount that the adventurer’s skill is above 100%. 
Thus, a troll with a 75% shield skill who tries to parry an attack from an adventurer with a 120% sword skill has only a 55% chance of parrying the sword. Alternatively, a troll with a 75% one-handed mace skill who tries to hit an adventurer with a 120% shield skill has only a 55% chance of hitting 

That is pretty unambiguous and clearly applies to an opponent with a skill below 100%, as the example clearly shows a Troll with 75% reduced by 20.

However, on rereading your question. it does not concern the troll but the fact that the higher skill is not decreased. 

On p202, it says:

Quote

If both combatants have combat skills of greater than 100%, the combat skills of each is reduced by the amount the highest skill is above 100%. Thus, if a Sword Lord of Humakt with a 150% broadsword skill fights a Wind Lord with a 130% medium shield skill, the Sword Lord attacks at 100% and the Wind Lord parries at 80% 

Which just says to use the highest skill as the best and reduce combat skills of both by that amount.

Again, on p202, it says:

Quote

While the actual chance of hitting remains no better than 95% (due to rolls of 96–00 failing), the chance of a special or critical success continues to increase or decrease, based on the final modified chance of success. As with other skills or abilities, the final modified value is always the one used to determine the chance of special or critical successes, as well as fumbles. Thus, a Wind Lord with a 150% sword skill has a 30% of a special success, and an 8% chance of a critical hit 

This is unfortunate, as the example seems to follow on from the previous (150% skill) but doesn't really.

In the previous example, the 150% is reduced to 100%, so special and critical chances are based on 100%, not 150%. The other Wind Lord has a Parry of 80% after adjustments, so specials and criticals are based on 80% not 130%.

 

There are two ways to go about this (Maybe more, but two jump out at me):

1. Always reduce the attacking skill, so a skill of 150% against a skill of 75% becomes effectively 100% vs 25%
2. Only reduce the higher skill if the lower skill is above 100 (This implies that the lower skill also reduces the higher skill) so 150% against 130% becomes 100% vs 80%, but 150% vs 75% becomes 150% vs 25%.

My gut feeling would be to go for Option 1 as it then becomes a consistent rule.

 

Expanding it slightly, what about 200% vs 70% as opposed to 170% vs 75%? The 200% is reduced to 100% and the 75% is reduced to 5%, but in the other case the 170% is reduced to 100% and the 75% is reduced to 5%. Clearly, the 200% should have a better final skill. 

What I would do is use the concept of "Using" part of a skill. So, you use part of your skill to reduce the other skill. In the case of 200% vs 75%, you use 70 to reduce both skills by 70, leaving 130% vs 5%. For skills over 100%, in the 150% vs 130%, you could say that the 130% skill uses 30% to reduce the 150% to 120%, so it becomes 120% vs 100%, then the 120% uses 2-0% to become 100% vs 80%. That way, both examples make sense and are consistent.

 

 

[Julian Lord]

I dislike all published rules for skills over 100%

In my own game, wistful sigh, I used a Heroic Success rule, at a chance equal to 1% for each full 100% of any skill attempt.

Exactly identical to a Crit, except granting an immediate second attempt at the same skill % and the same Strike Rank ; and not necessarily against the same opponent or obstacle

It worked pretty well, and there were some truly epic moments when my players rolled that 01 or 02 in some particularly desperate situations when all seemed lost !!

[GAZZA]

I've seen similar things in Steve Maurer's Hero Quest rules. Not sure how practical they are - certainly at most reasonable levels of RQ a critical will kill most opponents, meaning anything more is just overkill. I suppose if you're fighting the Bat or the Mother of Monsters or something that's not necessarily true.

[Akhôrahil]

16 hours ago, Julian Lord said:

I dislike all published rules for skills over 100%

There are two separate problems, though. One is the effect of using the reasonable interpretation of the rules (I mean, we all know what the intention is). The the other is that the rules and examples are really poorly written and that the RAW is all over the place.

[GAZZA]

12 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

There are two separate problems, though. One is the effect of using the reasonable interpretation of the rules (I mean, we all know what the intention is). The the other is that the rules and examples are really poorly written and that the RAW is all over the place.

That's the thing man, I'm not sure I do know what the intention is. Bullet point 3 flat out states that it's possible for a 130% Sword skill to have an increased chance of criticals and specials. It has no reason to exist other than to make that point. If, as I had previously assumed, a skill of >100% meant that you and your opponent both reduce your skills until they are both 100% or less (which is what happens according to bullet point 2, but not bullet point 1 if only one skill is >100%), then bullet point 3 can never be relevant. Any prospective 130% skill would be reduced to at least 100%, or more if faced with a skill over 130%, so unless bullet point 1 really does mean (as it appears to) that higher skills are not reduced if the lower skill is <= 100%, then bullet point 3 is just a waste of page space.

It's really hard to believe that the intent was if I have 199% to your 99% I get no reduction, but if you have 101% I get reduced by 99%. However, whether or not this is just a case of extremes ("nobody is going to be running around with 199% skills") or an actual case where the rules are, well, contradictory I couldn't say.

[Akhôrahil]

I’m fairly certain the idea of the rules is this:

In an opposed exchange, for purposes of this exchange only, if the participant with the higher modified skill has above 100% (or if both have the same modified skill above 100%), then reduce both participants’ skills, percentage point by percentage point, until one of the following happens: the higher-skill participant’s skill reaches 100%, or the lower-skill participant’s skill reaches 0%.

This has some unreasonable outcomes in practice, but at least it makes sense as a rule. It’s incomprehensible that they could mess up pretty basic rules design this badly.

Edited May 9, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[GAZZA]

9 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

I’m fairly certain the idea of the rules is this:

In an opposed exchange, for purposes of this exchange only, if the participant with the higher modified skill has above 100% (or if both have the same modified skill above 100%), then reduce both participants’ skills, percentage point by percentage point, until one of the following happens: the higher-skill participant’s skill reaches 100%, or the lower-skill participant’s skill reaches 0%.

This has some unreasonable outcomes in practice, but at least it makes sense as a rule. It’s incomprehensible that they could mess up pretty basic rules design this badly.

The "until the lower skill reaches 0" doesn't appear anywhere in the rules (though I don't disagree it's a good idea). RAW, 195% versus 5% becomes 100% versus -90% (which is still a 5% chance).

[GAZZA]

Just now, GAZZA said:

The "until the lower skill reaches 0" doesn't appear anywhere in the rules (though I don't disagree it's a good idea). RAW, 195% versus 5% becomes 100% versus -90% (which is still a 5% chance).

Well, assuming you discount bullet point 3 that is.

[Akhôrahil]

6 minutes ago, GAZZA said:

The "until the lower skill reaches 0" doesn't appear anywhere in the rules (though I don't disagree it's a good idea). RAW, 195% versus 5% becomes 100% versus -90% (which is still a 5% chance).

Yes, and this is patently ridiculous, which is why I ignore it. There is a good way to make the rule make sense, as long as you’re ready to ignore the explicit (and appallingly bad) rules text. The basic idea isn’t awful (although I also house-rule that the participant with the lower skill can have it at most halved).

At some points in RQG, you have to go with “surely this is what they meant, and they just can’t express it?”. It would be a lot better If they could express it, though.

Edited May 9, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Lordabdul]

19 hours ago, GAZZA said:

Well, assuming you discount bullet point 3 that is.

I think bullet point 3 is for the cases where you somehow roll unopposed. If you sneak behind someone and attack, you use your full >100% skill. That 3rd bullet point explains the benefits of this because it's not always obvious to players what's the point of roll a d100 under a number greater than 100.

Edited May 10, 2020 by lordabdul

[GAZZA]

19 hours ago, lordabdul said:

I think bullet point 3 is for the cases where you somehow roll unopposed. If you sneak behind someone and attack, you use your full >100% skill. That 3rd bullet point explains the benefits of this because it's not always obvious to players what's the point of roll a d100 under a number greater than 100.

I think that's a highly optimistic way to interpret it, rather than "this is another example of confused rulings and poor editing" :). YMMV of course.

[Mugen]

On 5/8/2020 at 7:32 PM, Julian Lord said:

I dislike all published rules for skills over 100%

In my own game, wistful sigh, I used a Heroic Success rule, at a chance equal to 1% for each full 100% of any skill attempt.

Exactly identical to a Crit, except granting an immediate second attempt at the same skill % and the same Strike Rank ; and not necessarily against the same opponent or obstacle

It worked pretty well, and there were some truly epic moments when my players rolled that 01 or 02 in some particularly desperate situations when all seemed lost !!

As far as I remember, Steve Perrin's Quest Rules also had this kind of "super-critical" on a roll <(skill/100). But it also differs from RQ canon, as specials are under skill/2 and crits are under skill/10.

*****

This conversation is representative of the reasons why I prefer roll-over systems now. While roll-under works perfectly fine and requires less maths in "normal" situations, it tends to become much more complex when you have high or very high skills. Pendragon and HeroQuest being exceptions to this rule.

In roll-over, a conflict between a character with skill 5 and skill 200 would not require a special rule. Just roll 1d100 plus skill on both sides, and compare those. If you want a bit more uncertainty, just add an "open-ended dice" rule, which would give a 1/100-ish chance to succeed to the 5 skill.

And roll-over BRP is perfectly possible, even though I'd be tempted to switch to a d10+10s of the skill rather than a d100+skill, and keep the units just for experience.

[GAZZA]

3 hours ago, Mugen said:

In roll-over, a conflict between a character with skill 5 and skill 200 would not require a special rule. Just roll 1d100 plus skill on both sides, and compare those. If you want a bit more uncertainty, just add an "open-ended dice" rule, which would give a 1/100-ish chance to succeed to the 5 skill.

As long as you're happy to ditch specials and criticals, then just roll d100 and add your skill to convert BRP to a roll over system seamlessly. If you're not willing to ditch specials and criticals, then I'm not sure how roll over is any easier than roll under to be honest, as you'd still need some way to calculate margins of success and whatever rule you use could, presumably, be applied to either.

[Mugen]

3 hours ago, GAZZA said:

As long as you're happy to ditch specials and criticals, then just roll d100 and add your skill to convert BRP to a roll over system seamlessly. If you're not willing to ditch specials and criticals, then I'm not sure how roll over is any easier than roll under to be honest, as you'd still need some way to calculate margins of success and whatever rule you use could, presumably, be applied to either.

In fact, it's very simple to have a good approximation for crits : re-roll on a 96-00 or 91-00, and just check if your roll is > Threshold+100. Of course, you'll have crit chance equivalent to Pendragon for skills >100, and not RuneQuest...

Specials are more tricky, or even impossible to reproduce accurately. I tend to use Threshold+50 (or +10 with a d20, or +5 with a d10), knowing that it produces completely different results.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Mugen

[Julian Lord]

1 hour ago, Mugen said:

In fact, it's very simple to have a good approximation for crits : re-roll on a 96-00 or 91-00, and just check if your roll is > Threshold+100. Of course, you'll have crit chance equivalent to Pendragon for skills >100, and not RuneQuest...

Game rules should always seek to minimise dice rolling and mental calculation to a healthy minimum.

[Mugen]

14 minutes ago, Julian Lord said:

Game rules should always seek to minimise dice rolling and mental calculation to a healthy minimum.

That's why I suggested to use a d10 or d20 instead of a d100, explicitly because it simplifies calculations a lot.

Also, I personally prefer to have to re-roll a die once in 20 or 10 rolls than having a rule such as the one for skills over 100%.

[GAZZA]

20 hours ago, Julian Lord said:

Game rules should always seek to minimise dice rolling and mental calculation to a healthy minimum.

Eh, honestly, we play with tablets and Roll 20 so much nowadays that this isn't so much true any more. YMMV.

[Julian Lord]

14 hours ago, GAZZA said:

Eh, honestly, we play with tablets and Roll 20 so much nowadays that this isn't so much true any more. YMMV.

so you're minimising dice rolling and mental calculations then ?

[GAZZA]

2 hours ago, Julian Lord said:

so you're minimising dice rolling and mental calculations then ?

Never really thought it that way, but sure. I guess what I meant was that complicated formulae are not the problem they would have been in the past, when machines can do the math.

[PhilHibbs]

Not everyone uses tech in their games, I do but I know people who are averse to it.

[g33k]

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

Not everyone uses tech in their games, I do but I know people who are averse to it.

My experience of cellphones / etc at the table is that they too readily become their own source of attention-grabbing distraction.

Even if some players are disciplined enough to keep their primary attention on the game (and not need extra prompting for their turn, or for a recap/precis of the situation in order to "take their turn" meaningully), other players at the table are NOT so attentive, and DO need those (disruptive) supports.

Others' MMV.

[GAZZA]

3 hours ago, g33k said:

My experience of cellphones / etc at the table is that they too readily become their own source of attention-grabbing distraction.

Even if some players are disciplined enough to keep their primary attention on the game (and not need extra prompting for their turn, or for a recap/precis of the situation in order to "take their turn" meaningully), other players at the table are NOT so attentive, and DO need those (disruptive) supports.

Others' MMV.

Right now we're playing on Roll 20 if at all. There's no table. There's a fully functioning computer that is enabling the players to play - so they have plenty worse distracting possibilities than just checking in on their Universal Paperclips game on their phone.