Specials, Crits and Fumbles

[hix]

This is one of the points of resistance I get from players with BRP. They don't like looking at a chart to know degrees of success. They want to know immediately by looking at the dice. Can't say I blame them. So how do you do it? Openquest uses doubles IIRC, what else ya got?

[rsanford]

Delta Green uses doubles too. Magic World uses 20% and 5% as special levels of success.

[Atgxtg]

55 minutes ago, hix said:

This is one of the points of resistance I get from players with BRP. They don't like looking at a chart to know degrees of success. They want to know immediately by looking at the dice. Can't say I blame them. So how do you do it? Openquest uses doubles IIRC, what else ya got?

I can do the math in my head, it's pretty easy.

Critical Chance in standard RQ/BRP is 1/20th skill, so 1 know that it's 1% in skill is below 30, 2% at 30, 3% at 50, 4% at 70, and so on.

Special Chance in Standard BRP/RQ is 1/5th skill, so I know that 1% is skill is below 8%, 2% 8%, 3% is 13% etc. Basically is't twice the tens die +1% if the 1s die is a 3-7 and 2% if it is an 8-9.

Fumble Chance is the reverse of the critical chance, and the two will add up to 6% as long as skill is below 100%

 

So I can tell right away that a chance with a 73% skill has a 4%  chance of a critical,a 15% chance of a special, and a 2% (99-00) chance of a fumble 

 

As for other methods:

Doubles works good although it gives a 10% chance of a critical, and is close to what some BRP variants, such as Stormbringer use for criticals.. 

HARN uses rolls that end in 0 or 5. This is within 1% of the special chance in standard BRP. If you use 0&5 for specials and even tens digits for crticals, you get chances very close to BRP. 

 

 

Edited September 24, 2020 by Atgxtg

[g33k]

37 minutes ago, hix said:

This is one of the points of resistance I get from players with BRP. They don't like looking at a chart to know degrees of success. They want to know immediately by looking at the dice. Can't say I blame them. So how do you do it? Openquest uses doubles IIRC, what else ya got?

Some people just get so adept/familiar with the calculations, they can do 'em on the fly at the table...

I used to use a custom sheet, with the Crit/Special/Fumble values pre-calc'ed per-skill; I've always been able to remember those three alongside the nominal skill, when I make the roll.

With RQG, I find this less useful, because the skills get Augmented so-frequently (and the mechanism for the Augment is a variable skills-bonus).

[hix]

I do the math in my head as well, but I've been talking to american young people., who were taught math with Common Core. They can't do math in their heads, and if you've seen that stuff you know why. Maybe a little off-topic, but it made me understand why they don't like it.

[Atgxtg]

1 minute ago, hix said:

I do the math in my head as well, but I've been talking to american young people., who were taught math with Common Core. They can't do math in their heads, and if you've seen that stuff you know why. Maybe a little off-topic, but it made me understand why they don't like it.

Yeah, I've noticed an anti-math trend among gamers these days. Don't get me wrong, I think gaming math should generally be easy for the players at the table, but I've seen people be so obsessed with keeping the math simple that they are willing to accept rules that don't make sense and/or don't work very well. 

[hix]

4 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

anti-math trend

alright, at the risk of being ridiculously off-topic, here is why your average 19 year old american doesn't like doing math.

[Atgxtg]

Wow! I really am starting to think modern teachers are deliberately trying to sabotage the education system. Couldn't they have picked another method?

I'd have done a partial subtraction method. That is I's subtract 25 from both values to get 13 and 300, then take the 13 off of the 300 to get 287.

[foolcat]

43 minutes ago, hix said:

So how do you do it? Openquest uses doubles IIRC, what else ya got?

The problem I have with using doubles is uneven distribution: on a better than half chance of success (54%), 11, 22, 33, and 44 are crits (4%), while 55, 66, 77, 88, 99, and 00 are fumbles (6%). Even when defining 01 as a crit as well, it’s still 5% vs. 6%.

In RQ, I‘ve always used to ballpark it when looking at dice, telling me at a glance whether it’s even worth checking if a crit or a fumble occurred. Given that it’s relevant to the in-game situation in the first place. Assuming most skills in the lifetime of a competent adventurer are somewhere between 30 and 90%:

01 is always a crit, and 2–4 are good candidates for skills up to 90%.

00 is always a fumble, and 97–99 are fumbles for skills below 30%.

Special success are even more easy to determine: just left-shift the decimal point and double the number. 😉

[Atgxtg]

Just now, foolcat said:

The problem I have with using doubles is uneven distribution: on a better than half chance of success (54%), 11, 22, 33, and 44 are crits (4%), while 55, 66, 77, 88, 99, and 00 are fumbles (6%). Even when defining 01 as a crit as well, it’s still 5% vs. 6%.

The solution there would be to shift 00 into he success range, but then 99 would always have to be a fumble.

Just now, foolcat said:

In RQ, I‘ve always used to ballpark it when looking at dice, telling me at a glance whether it’s even worth checking if a crit or a fumble occurred.

Yeah, pretty much. Unless the characters are ultra skilled, I know I don't have to bother looking at any roll over 25, and that's most of them.

[hix]

4 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

solution

I would keep success doubles, but limit fumbles to 00 only. The more rare they are, the more punishing and thus more interesting they get to be.

[olskool]

Since I use MYTHRAS/RuneQuest6 Special Effects, I divided my successes into THREE catagories;

Special Success = 1/2 Skill (ru)

Outstanding Success = 1/10th Skill (ru)

Critical Success = Doubles UNDER SKILL (with 00 meaning zero, zero NOT 100).

Fumbles =  Doubles OVER SKILL  

I then divide the Special Effects (hereafter SEs) into 3 tiers based on their power to affect a given combat.  Under my system, you get ONE SE from a given Success (unlike MYTHRAS where multiple SEs can be earned).  Fumbles also generate an SE, which is either picked by the person the fumbler was attacking or it is rolled randomly (at the GM's discretion).    

I find this system very fast and intuitive.  I have passed it along to INNOCENCE (another poster here) by request, so you can also ask their opinion on my breakdown of the Special Successes when used during play as well. 

.  

Edited September 25, 2020 by olskool

[g33k]

Yeah, if you wanna use Doubles as special or crit, it makes MUCH more sense to make the "d100" roll be 0-99 instead of 1-100 --  00(lowest/best) through 99(highest/worst).

I'd implement it myself across the board... except it's too odd, for too many "olde schoole" BRP'ers, and "feels" incompatible.

But I've got a group I hope to convince to use the BRP family for our core default engine... and I think they'd love the Doubles Rule... so I may do it, anyhow...

Unclear how I'd separate Specials from Crits, though...

 

Damn The Compatibility, Full Speed Ahead!

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Unclear how I'd separate Specials from Crits, though...

You could go with the 0's and 5's like HARN does.

[g33k]

50 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

You could go with the 0's and 5's like HARN does.

That's not the Doubles, though; that's a different thing.

[soltakss]

12 hours ago, hix said:

alright, at the risk of being ridiculously off-topic, here is why your average 19 year old american doesn't like doing math.

I've been using Counting Up for years, it is easier for me.

13 hours ago, hix said:

This is one of the points of resistance I get from players with BRP. They don't like looking at a chart to know degrees of success. They want to know immediately by looking at the dice. Can't say I blame them. So how do you do it? Openquest uses doubles IIRC, what else ya got?

Mythras and Legend divide by 10 for Criticals. I just use the tens value of the skill for the Critical chance, so a skill of 51 or 59 has a Critical chance of 5, a skill of 110 has a Critical chance of 11 and so on, this means you can't critical with a skill of 01-09 but that's Ok with me.

Revolution has an Advantage if the Tens die is higher than the Units die, so 10 is an Advantage but 12 isn't, 32, 54 and 83 are Advantages and so on.

[Prinz Slasar]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

Mythras and Legend divide by 10 for Criticals. I just use the tens value of the skill for the Critical chance, so a skill of 51 or 59 has a Critical chance of 5,

Mythras uses 1/10 but always rounds up. Therefore 51% means a critical range of 6%.

This is an important rule because the breakpoints of the percentage values are always at 01, 11, 21, 31... instead of 10, 20, 30 ... 

Edited September 25, 2020 by Prinz Slasar

[Mugen]

I like using the tens of the chances of success for crits, and half skill for specials. Very easy to figure,

Doubles don't scale with skills over 100, that's why I don't like using this method. 

[Zit]

17 hours ago, foolcat said:

The problem I have with using doubles is uneven distribution: on a better than half chance of success (54%), 11, 22, 33, and 44 are crits (4%), while 55, 66, 77, 88, 99, and 00 are fumbles (6%). Even when defining 01 as a crit as well, it’s still 5% vs. 6%.

 

4% or 5% or 6%, does it really make a difference in the game ? Would you really even notice it if you had 5 and 5 instead ?

[Atgxtg]

11 hours ago, g33k said:

That's not the Doubles, though; that's a different thing.

Yes. You can use one for critcals and the other for specials. The idea is to eliminate the tables.

Another possibility would be to have crticals end on 1's specials on 2's &3's and so forth. That way you could get up to ten different success (and failure) levels without any sort of table.  -In fact, I think I might just write up a game that uses that. 

Edited September 25, 2020 by Atgxtg

[soltakss]

8 hours ago, Prinz Slasar said:

9 hours ago, soltakss said:

Mythras and Legend divide by 10 for Criticals. I just use the tens value of the skill for the Critical chance, so a skill of 51 or 59 has a Critical chance of 5,

Mythras uses 1/10 but always rounds up. Therefore 51% means a critical range of 6%.

Yes, that is why I said that I just use the tens value. Having to divide in a game setting breaks things for some one my players, so I make it as easy as I can for them.

Mythras rounds up, which means slightly more calculation than some of my Players like.

[Al.]

22 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Wow! I really am starting to think modern teachers are deliberately trying to sabotage the education system. Couldn't they have picked another method?

I think you credit us (we?) teachers with having more power over the curriculum than we actually have.

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Al. said:

I think you credit us (we?) teachers with having more power over the curriculum than we actually have.

Fair enough, I'll point the finger higher up on the educational food chain. Still, somebody somewhere decided upon this method.

[hix]

@AtgxtgSounds like someone needs to practice their number sentences and multiplication stories.

[dieselpunk]

1 hour ago, hix said:

@AtgxtgSounds like someone needs to practice their number sentences and multiplication stories.

Yeah, my 2nd grader learns addition this way and I listen to him reason it out all the while thinking he's suffering from a bout of madness.