How to read The Resistance Table

[VGA Ubersoldat]

I have been looking for a system that I can use for a game I have been toying with for some time. I grabbed the BRP book and then got it for FG2. Looking at the Resistance Table with regards to Radiation and Poison I discovered something. A person with high CON is more likely to succumb to Radiation poisoning than someone with lower CON. For example: Rad of 5 (Active characteristic) vs some poor sod with a CON of 8. The poor sob will have 35% chance of avoiding the effects, but someone with a CON of 3 will have 60% chance of resisting. Am I reading this correctly?

I reread and reread the rules and figured that I was incorrect. The Active Characteristic is something trying to do something to the Passive. The roll is to see if the effect (radiation) will be effective. I had to do a rethink of my initial impressions. The Active is the effective chance of doing what it wills against the Passive. I need to make that clear to my future group of players. From my initial readings, I thought that the player needs to make the roll to resist the effect. Their chance looked better if their CON was lower. That was a mistake it seems from how the table was written. Total mindset change. I welcome it. I like the BRP system. Spent several months deciding to buy it when in the past I dropped money on a system I never used. I played a little of Call of Cthulu when I could find players to try it. A very robust system. I apologize for writing a seemingly ill conceived posting but I hope other find it useful.

[Eggnogisgood]

Hi V'

It's reassuring to hear that it's not just me who gets confused on things like this:).

In this case the system treats the 'threat' as a type of attack which has a percentage chance to succeed rather than something which the character rolls to resist. If this doesn't suit your personal tastes, you could always invert the percentages and allow your players to roll a classic 'saving throw'

ttfn

Egg

[Thalaba]

It doesn't usually matter which is the active. Some people rule that the player is always active vs. the non-player. Others have different ways of defining 'active' and 'passive'.

What is important is that the dice are rolled from the perspective of the active stat, whichever you decide that is.

If you rule that the radiation is actively trying to overcome the players con, then you would put in the numbers 5 (active) and 8 (passive) to get 35%. Interpretation: The radiation has a 35% chance of overcoming the player.

If you rule that the player is actively trying to resist the radiation, you put the numbers 8 (active) and 5 (passive) into the table to get 65%. Interpretation: the player has a 65% chance of resisting the attack.

It doesn't matter which of the two ways you interpret it - the chance of the player surviving the attack is the same.

The player with a lower con has a lower chance of resisting the effect, or a higher chance of being overcome by it. It's all how you look at the numbers, and as always common sense prevails.

[Atgxtg]

thalba is correct,

the key thing to remember is that the higher stat has the advantage.

So if you treat the PC as "acticvely" resisting the poision, disease or whatver, you would have a succes mean he resists.

On eht other hand, if you treat the posion as ther "attacking" force and the PC as the "resisting" force, a success means that the posion successfully inflcited it's full damage.