Homebrewing Resistance Rolls

[Chao]

Hi all,

I've been GMing Runequest Glorantha for about a year now, and I've been really enjoying the system. It gets over a lot of the issues that DnD 5e (which I have much more experience with) has, and the greater level of simulation aligns way more with what I try to get out or Role Playing. There are however a number of rules that I've found either frustrating or unnecessary, and have replaced with homebrew versions that much better suit my group.

There is however one rule that I've been thinking about how to replace pretty much since day one, which is resistance rolls. I really like the success level system employed throughout the game, it really helps the flow as for most interactions I don't need to know what my players skills or attributes are, just whether their roll was a success or fail. Resistance rolls however break this mold completely, and every time they've come up in game (which is a lot), they've always been kind of awkward. I've been trying to think of a less awkward solution for quite a while, but I've never managed to come up with one that would achieve similar results. I think I've finally got one though, but I thought I'd run it past the forum before trying it with my group, just in case there's some horrible consequence that I haven't considered.

So the main reason as I can see it that resistance rolls don't use contested rolls like everything else, is that contested rolls have the possibility of a tie, which doesn't really work for what resistance rolls are trying to achieve. This gets even worse when high power creatures and players are around, as ties tend to become even more common as skills increase. Perhaps we could get around this by just redoing the check whenever there's a tie, but such a system would surely destroy the tension whenever any more powerful opponents are faced due to the sheer number of rerolls required.

But what if we reintroduce the tension by making the reroll a choice on the attackers side, and a choice which they have to spend one magic point for each time they make. This would make contests between individuals of high power still feel significant, rather than the current system which treats all equal power contests the same, and although large amounts of magic points could end up getting used I figure it wouldn't matter much, since high power players have a lot of MP anyway.

So in summary, my replacement rule would be to make a contested roll and in the case of a tie, the attacker may choose to conduct another contested roll for the price of one magic point.

I'm yet to consider how this would work for other kinds of resistance rolls, but they are far less common in my group than POW vs POW. Let me know what you think, and if you see any glaring issues that I've failed to consider. Advice on how to use the resistance table more efficiently would also be appreciated, I'm fully open to the possibility that I've just been missing something this whole time and it's actually really convenient to use.

[RandomNumber]

Hi Chao,

To be frank, I don't have a problem with Resistance rolls as they are. I toyed with the idea of introducing spendable 'Luck' per COC 7ed but discounted it as I think that's what Runes and Passions are for (i.e. giving you a better shot that you would normally get). Essentially I like the rules as written in this regard.

You could certainly try your proposal out but it does seem as if it could lead to a lot of die-rolling and some game-breaking imbalance. Firstly you are breaking the narrative flow for a series of die rolls. The passive party in the resistance roll will very much be a hostage to fortune i.e. the whim of the active party.  That seems somehow 'unfair'.  

Secondly, someone with sufficient MP could simply keep rolling until they succeed, which rather removes the uncertainty from the contest.  The number of trials you require before a success is modelled by the negative binomial distribution. From a quick calculation (=NEGBINOM.DIST) an active party in a 50/50 resistance roll has a 98.4% chance of success if they are prepared to spend 4MP (i.e. to get five attempts). That seems to undermine the notion of the resistance test being 50/50...

It's really not for me to say what will work or won't in your campaign.  Do what you wish and what your players enjoy. That said, you asked for feedback and you now have mine. Good on you though for being prepared to tinker and make it your own.

[DreadDomain]

9 hours ago, Chao said:

So the main reason as I can see it that resistance rolls don't use contested rolls like everything else, is that contested rolls have the possibility of a tie, which doesn't really work for what resistance rolls are trying to achieve.

A popular way to resolve this for contests where a tie doesn't make sense, is to use the rule as written in the Quickstart. In a nutshell, if both parties roll the same level of success, whoever rolls highest win. There is still a chance for a tie if both contestant roll the same number. In that case, the contest could be given to the highest skill/characteristic or be rerolled.

[coffeemancer]

I kinda like this kamehameha logic.

[Lordabdul]

1 minute ago, coffeemancer said:

I kinda like this kamehameha logic.

For more kamehameha logic, you could go full on with 1 MP = +X% to the Resistance Roll (with X somewhere between 1 and 5).

[Bill the barbarian]

13 hours ago, Chao said:

I've been GMing Runequest Glorantha for about a year now, and I've been really enjoying the system. It gets over a lot of the issues that DnD 5e (which I have much more experience with) has, and the greater level of simulation aligns way more with what I try to get out or Role Playing. There are however a number of rules that I've found either frustrating or unnecessary, and have replaced with homebrew versions that much better suit my group.

 

If they offend, remove them.

 

13 hours ago, Chao said:

There is however one rule that I've been thinking about how to replace pretty much since day one, which is resistance rolls. I really like the success level system employed throughout the game, it really helps the flow as for most interactions I don't need to know what my players skills or attributes are, just whether their roll was a success or fail. Resistance rolls however break this mold completely, and every time they've come up in game (which is a lot), they've always been kind of awkward. I've been trying to think of a less awkward solution for quite a while, but I've never managed to come up with one that would achieve similar results. I think I've finally got one though, but I thought I'd run it past the forum before trying it with my group, just in case there's some horrible consequence that I haven't considered.

 

Opposition rolls might help here. Use the rules as written for them or modify by having the better roll succeed in use of ties, that is the higher roll or some such (Mythras, another great d100 game, has something similar) instead of having ties as per RAW.

 

13 hours ago, Chao said:

So the main reason as I can see it that resistance rolls don't use contested rolls like everything else, is that contested rolls have the possibility of a tie, which doesn't really work for what resistance rolls are trying to achieve. This gets even worse when high power creatures and players are around, as ties tend to become even more common as skills increase. Perhaps we could get around this by just redoing the check whenever there's a tie, but such a system would surely destroy the tension whenever any more powerful opponents are faced due to the sheer number of rerolls required.

 

See above...

 

13 hours ago, Chao said:

But what if we reintroduce the tension by making the reroll a choice on the attackers side, and a choice which they have to spend one magic point for each time they make. This would make contests between individuals of high power still feel significant, rather than the current system which treats all equal power contests the same, and although large amounts of magic points could end up getting used I figure it wouldn't matter much, since high power players have a lot of MP anyway.

 

Using MPs seems wrong, but each to their own.

 

4 hours ago, RandomNumber said:

To be frank, I don't have a problem with Resistance rolls as they are. I toyed with the idea of introducing spendable 'Luck' per COC 7ed but discounted it as I think that's what Runes and Passions are for (i.e. giving you a better shot that you would normally get). Essentially I like the rules as written in this regard.

 

Yeah, I like the idea that a tie means it is ‘up in the air’, again each to their own.

 

Good first post Chao, welcome aboard.

 

Edited August 2, 2021 by Bill the barbarian

[Bill the barbarian]

1 hour ago, coffeemancer said:

kamehameha

Er...

ETA
Kamehameha I, also known as Kamehameha the Great, was the founder and first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The state of Hawaii gave a statue of him to the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, D.C. as one of two statues it is entitled to install there.

Got it!

 

Edited August 2, 2021 by Bill the barbarian

[coffeemancer]

33 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Er...

ETA
Kamehameha I, also known as Kamehameha the Great, was the founder and first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The state of Hawaii gave a statue of him to the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, D.C. as one of two statues it is entitled to install there.

Got it!

 

Refering to his famous magical beam attack, of course. as the son of a volcano god, his kung fu was very powerful

[Chao]

14 hours ago, RandomNumber said:

That said, you asked for feedback and you now have mine. Good on you though for being prepared to tinker and make it your own.

Thank you for the feedback! The mathematical analysis is especially appreciated, the nature of the success system makes it a little harder to calculate probabilities than some other systems. The narrative flow disruption is one of my biggest concerns for sure, I'll report back on how badly it's affected once I test out the change.

13 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

A popular way to resolve this for contests where a tie doesn't make sense, is to use the rule as written in the Quickstart. In a nutshell, if both parties roll the same level of success, whoever rolls highest win. There is still a chance for a tie if both contestant roll the same number. In that case, the contest could be given to the highest skill/characteristic or be rerolled.

Ah yeah, can't believe I forgot about that one. I've been going through the Hero Quest rules recently and I remember being pretty impressed with the system as implemented there, which is pretty much the same, I'll definitely try it out after I've tested this one.

10 hours ago, coffeemancer said:

I kinda like this kamehameha logic.

Haha yeah that's one of the big draws for me too. With the current resistance table, a contest of wills between two individuals at POW 10 and two individuals at POW 30 plays out precisely the same mechanically, I'm hoping that having these extra rolls and expenditure of MP will help to emphasize the epic clash of power.

10 hours ago, lordabdul said:

For more kamehameha logic, you could go full on with 1 MP = +X% to the Resistance Roll (with X somewhere between 1 and 5).

I'm a little hesitant to try this one, having to recalculate your success chance after every roll could be frustrating. Perhaps though instead of spending an MP, you could choose to sacrifice a point of POW for +20% or something.

9 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Good first post Chao, welcome aboard.

Thank you 🙂

 

Thank you all for your feedback, it's greatly appreciated. I'll make sure to report back with the results once I've tried out the rule.