Attack and Parry Matrix, but with Elric!

[Zamzal]

Magic World is fantastic, but I don't like specials.

Elric! doesn't have any, but what would happen if I removed the specials from Magic World?

Does anyone have any experience and/or tips?

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Zamzal said:

Magic World is fantastic, but I don't like specials.

Elric! doesn't have any, but what would happen if I removed the specials from Magic World?

You'd wind up with a lot more successes.

Also keep in mind that Elric!/Strombringer had a higher critical chance. So you will get a lot more tied success levels. 

1 hour ago, Zamzal said:

Does anyone have any experience and/or tips?

If you do it double the critical chance ala Elric!

You might also want to drop weapon and shield hit points. In Magic World success levels help to keep parrying weapons from breaking easily, but if you remove specials then parrying objects (and so attacking weapons) will break about 25% more often. Either tat on increase the weapon Hit Points a little to offset than. 

 

[soltakss]

On 9/10/2024 at 4:52 PM, Zamzal said:

Elric! doesn't have any, but what would happen if I removed the specials from Magic World?

There would be gnashing of teeth, the lamentation of women, and the world would end horribly.

Or, nothing would happen, and the game would work anyway.

[smiorgan]

On 9/10/2024 at 5:52 PM, Zamzal said:

Magic World is fantastic, but I don't like specials.

Elric! doesn't have any, but what would happen if I removed the specials from Magic World?

Does anyone have any experience and/or tips?

Elric! Actually has specials. It just calls them criticals (1/5 skill) and instead of a "critical" based on skill level it has a fixed 01 chance of "impale".

The attack / parry matrix of Elric! works just fine and there's zero issues using it with Magic World. It's simpler and, in my view, more interesting than the later evolutions in BRP 2008, Magic World, RQG and BRP 2023.

[Nozbat]

I'm moving more to the idea of dropping specials and just retaining 'criticals'. It simplifies combat and for those that are mathematically challenged a tenth of the score is an easy calculation to make. 

I'd like to just call them a special hit but that gets confusing with it meaning something else in RQG or BRP 

Over the years, I've moved away from combat orientated games, posing more problem-solving stuff. The increase chance for a 'special' in say, Insight rolls, Research or Orate etc allows players to make those special memories of when things go very right and they defeat the protagonist in a debate at Law or find that the double Accounting run by the Medici Bank is actually triple accounting and they have been clandestinely syphoning off profits to fund a clandestine rebellion against the Antwerpen Council.

Mechanics for me are just a way to enhance the narrative of the story

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Nozbat said:

I'm moving more to the idea of dropping specials and just retaining 'criticals'. It simplifies combat and for those that are mathematically challenged a tenth of the score is an easy calculation to make. 

That's basically what Strombringer did. 

But Stormbringer didn't use the combat matrix or track weapon hit points.

 

[Mugen]

Specials and Criticals help differenciating skill levels beyond the simple chance of success, especially if said skill is high enough that your chance of success is already maximum (somewhere between 95 and 100% depending on your BRP version).

Without these, a skilled character in BRP has just better chances to perform a task, but when he succeeds he does not particularly performs better than a beginner.

As for myself, I'd be tempted to follow JB 007 and SPQR (Steve Perrin's Quest Rules), and use skill/10 for crits and skill/2 for specials, to make maths easier.

SPQR even had a chance for "super-crits" on skill/100.

Edited October 2 by Mugen

[AndreasDavour]

Skill/10 and skill/2 is delightfully simple! I love that!

[Atgxtg]

On 10/2/2024 at 2:29 AM, Mugen said:

Specials and Criticals help differenciating skill levels beyond the simple chance of success, especially if said skill is high enough that your chance of success is already maximum (somewhere between 95 and 100% depending on your BRP version).

Yes, plus they also help to account for the low probability stuff that can happen. For instance hitting a gap or weak spot in a opponent's armor. 

On 10/2/2024 at 2:29 AM, Mugen said:

Without these, a skilled character in BRP has just better chances to perform a task, but when he succeeds he does not particularly performs better than a beginner.

Yes, and it means that skill becomes less of a factor in the outcome. For instance, in the real world, when it comes to firearms,  skill and shot placement (something that skill plays a big factor in) are more important than the caliber of the bullet. But without degrees of success,  damage is entirely based on the die the bullet uses. 

On 10/2/2024 at 2:29 AM, Mugen said:

As for myself, I'd be tempted to follow JB 007 and SPQR (Steve Perrin's Quest Rules), and use skill/10 for crits and skill/2 for specials, to make maths easier.

Bond was a bit more layered than that.

Success Chance/10= Quality Rating  1 [Excellent] - akin to a critical 

Success Chance/5= Quality Rating 2 [Very Good] - akin to a special

Success Chance/2 = Quality Rating 3 [Good] -above average

Success Chancel= Quality Rating 4 {Acceptable] - it counts as a success

>Success Chance = Failure

00 = Equipment failure

 

But since it used a table and did everything in 10% increments (01-10%, 11-20%, etc.) of success chance there was some rounding. So a success chance of 75% was treated as 80% for QRs 1-3 (8%, 16%, and 40%).

Also Bond use the same methods and Quality Rating  results  to handle everything. So it could do opposed conflict resolution without opposed rolls.

 

 

On 10/2/2024 at 2:29 AM, Mugen said:

SPQR even had a chance for "super-crits" on skill/100.

And it think Steve continued that on with 1/1000, etc. The idea was to keep the game scale-able even if skills above 1000% wouldn't show up in most campaigns.

[Atgxtg]

6 hours ago, AndreasDavour said:

Skill/10 and skill/2 is delightfully simple! I love that!

HARN was even simpler.

It used numbers than ended on 0 or 5 as critical results. Either a critical  success or critical failure depending on if the roll was above or below skill. 

That worked out to 1/5 skill, but it could be adapted to other probabilities. 

 

For instance, you could simulate 1/10 with any number than ends in 1 (01,11,21,31, etc.)

1/5 with any number ending in 1 or 2. (01, 02, 12, 22, etc.)

And 1/2 with any odd number (or any number ending in 5 or less)

 

Very simple and it just duplicated the QR results from the James Bond RPG without using a table. 

 

 

 

[Mugen]

4 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

It used numbers than ended on 0 or 5 as critical results. 

(...)

For instance, you could simulate 1/10 with any number than ends in 1 (01,11,21,31, etc.)

1/5 with any number ending in 1 or 2. (01, 02, 12, 22, etc.)

But it doesn't scale with skills over 100%. That's why I don't like those solutions.

[Atgxtg]

52 minutes ago, Mugen said:

But it doesn't scale with skills over 100%. That's why I don't like those solutions.

True and understood. But...it might be possible to scale it. 

 

 

BTW, personally I found the Bond method worked good, and it was easy enough to do the math in my head.

1/10th SC, rounded up) was QR 1, twice that was QR 2, five times that was QR 3 up to 98%, and anything up to SC was QR 4. Or 7/14/35.

So 63% chance was 0-7% for QR 1, 8-14% for QR 2, 15-35% was QR 3, and 36-63% was QR 4

But not everybody can quickly  do that in their head.

Still, the following table in't all that bad.

SC	QR 1	QR 2	QR 3
10	1	2	5
20	2	4	10
30	3	6	15
40	4	8	20
50	5	10	25
60	6	12	30
70	7	14	35
80	8	16	40
90	9	18	45
100	10	20	50
110	11	22	55
120	12	24	60
130	13	26	65
140	14	28	70
150	15	30	75
160	16	32	80
170	17	34	85
180	18	36	90
190	19	38	95
200	20	40	98
210	21	42	98
220	22	44	98
230	23	46	98
240	24	48	98
250	25	50	98
260	26	52	98
270	27	54	98
280	28	56	98
290	29	58	98
300	30	60	98

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Questbird]

On 10/6/2024 at 7:10 AM, Mugen said:

But it doesn't scale with skills over 100%. That's why I don't like those solutions.

 

OpenQuest does it this way: if the rolled dice are the same (11, 22, 33 etc.) you get a critical; a success or failure depending on if you roll below or above your skill. But it doesn't have skills above 100%, which can happen in Elric!