Math and BRP

[NickMiddleton]

The FileMaker Pro database I use prints the %, the critical chance, and the fumble chance, each in a different color, so it's right there for ya.

I still have some GW RQII sheets with little spaces for those... *sniff* happy memories...

I've always preferred the asymmetry of crit/special/success/failure/fumble precisely becuas it feels like it accentuates the positive for characters.

Also I've used the RQII/III scheme so long that the mental arithmetic is second nature, but I would never be too hard on old fogeys# like Grampa Whitaker who can't keep up

More seriously, the obvious simplification isthe original SB 10% for crits, as it's very easy.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

# he is after all at least months older than me...

[lawrence.whitaker]

I would never be too hard on old fogeys# like Grampa Whitaker who can't keep up

I know. Its a sad but true fact that, once over the hill that is 40, the decline is both fast and inexorable. Yet I embrace my path towards the god that is Victor Meldrew* with fondness because, at some stage, my faculties will have degenerated to a point where I just don't care any more!

*For our overseas friends who might not be familiar with the British sitcom 'One Foot in the Grave', Victor Meldrew is a 60-something curmudgeon who hates everything about the modern world, the people occupying it, and the things it does to him. His catch phrase of 'I don't believe it!' is legendary and oh so true.

[Chaot]

Finding 20% is simple and only has to involve one 'mental math' check. Double your skill. That's it. Most people find it easy to multiply by two.

After that, it's just a question of placing a decimal point and rounding up (or dropping the decimal, depending on agreed upon rules).

That being said, I leave a place on the character sheet for the player to scrawl their Crits and Specials.

[Sorloc]

Yeah, my character sheet has the crit, special, and fumble % all written right next to the Attack %... So I guess if I didn't write it down the first time I calculated it, or the second, or the third, or the fourth, I would probably get tired of doing that math (or maybe I'd memorize it by then).

L.W - any time you want, call me up and I'll figure it for you (OK, I'm lying - actually, I'll most likely look it up on the 'Game Aids' booklet that came with RQ3). I will do this as often as you like for a low low $10 US weekly.

I take PayPal.

If you prepay 22 weeks, I will give you four for free - That's six months for the price of five!

[Nightshade]

I have to agree that there's a certain amount of mountain constructed from molehill here. First, most of these chances can be listed with the weapons involved; those get modifications to their to-hit, of course, but that doesn't happen all the time, or even the majority of the time. Second, even if you don't, you only need to check this in a subset of cases. With a 5% chance of a crit, you know you aren't critting on anything over a 5 (unless you have over 100% skill), so you don't need to wonder about it most of the time; same with specials on rolls over 20%.

[Trifletraxor]

I have to agree that there's a certain amount of mountain constructed from molehill here. First, most of these chances can be listed with the weapons involved; those get modifications to their to-hit, of course, but that doesn't happen all the time, or even the majority of the time. Second, even if you don't, you only need to check this in a subset of cases. With a 5% chance of a crit, you know you aren't critting on anything over a 5 (unless you have over 100% skill), so you don't need to wonder about it most of the time; same with specials on rolls over 20%.

Well, if 6000 gamers roll for 30 minutes...

20% and 5% is fine. I would prefer 10% and 1%, but I'm pretty used to 20 & 5.

Cheers,

Sverre.

[soltakss]

The trouble with writing down specials and criticals on the character sheet is that they need recalculating whenever you have any modifiers due to circumstances or spells.

But, yes, for speed in normal combat it's a good idea, but you have to be able to calculate the chances to write them down ....

[Nightshade]

The trouble with writing down specials and criticals on the character sheet is that they need recalculating whenever you have any modifiers due to circumstances or spells.

But, yes, for speed in normal combat it's a good idea, but you have to be able to calculate the chances to write them down ....

Most of those are just as trivial to keep track of because they're in 5% increments; since each 5% adds 1% to specials, if you can remember one you can remember the other. Crits aren't as tidy, but the breakpoints are so big it shouldn't be hard to notice when you hit them.

[soltakss]

I have to agree that there's a certain amount of mountain constructed from molehill here. First, most of these chances can be listed with the weapons involved; those get modifications to their to-hit, of course, but that doesn't happen all the time, or even the majority of the time. Second, even if you don't, you only need to check this in a subset of cases. With a 5% chance of a crit, you know you aren't critting on anything over a 5 (unless you have over 100% skill), so you don't need to wonder about it most of the time; same with specials on rolls over 20%.

Exactly.

You only work it out when you need to or when it's close.

[McBard]

The chief reason I decided to go with a single special/critical mechanic at 10% was that it can be determined without math calculation at all:

A d100 roll that ends in a '0' and succeeds is a special success.

A d100 roll that ends in a '0' and fails is a special failure.

Although I completely agree that the 5% or 20% calculation isn't too difficult to determine on the fly (no chart needed), I really like the game design elegance of the "roll ending in '0'" simplicity.

If you want to retain the 20% rate, just rule that any roll that ends in a '0' or a '5' is a special result. (This is how Harnmaster works, btw, and it's the system from which I stole the idea...). I've never been a fan of the "super success" rule (i.e. criticals), but that's just me.

I think a single grain at 10% splits the difference between two at 5% and 20% just fine in game play.

[badcat]

The 10% has always been my favorite method, but another way to have a fast critical or special that takes advantage of the percentile granularity is to go with 5% skill increments and use 20% special with no critical. It is almost as effortless as 10%. As in RQ2, drop the 5% critical. The weapon damage by itself creates the 'critical'.

[Lord Twig]

The chief reason I decided to go with a single special/critical mechanic at 10% was that it can be determined without math calculation at all:

A d100 roll that ends in a '0' and succeeds is a special success.

A d100 roll that ends in a '0' and fails is a special failure.

Although I completely agree that the 5% or 20% calculation isn't too difficult to determine on the fly (no chart needed), I really like the game design elegance of the "roll ending in '0'" simplicity.

If you want to retain the 20% rate, just rule that any roll that ends in a '0' or a '5' is a special result. (This is how Harnmaster works, btw, and its the system from which I stole the idea...). I've never been a fan of the "super success" rule (i.e. criticals), but that's just me.

I think a single grain at 10% splits the difference between two at 5% and 20% just fine in game play.

This works just fine, but there is a psychological factor to consider as well. With the standard system, lower is ALWAYS better. With your system a 30 is better than a 02. Again, mathematically it is just fine, some people (including myself) just don't like the feel.

[Nightshade]

I personally prefer to keep both a special and a critical result; the former provides more of a tool for weapon type differnces (since it can trigger the various special results for bashing, slashing and impaling weapons) while it doesn't overly gust really severe results, which are reserved for criticals.

The only thing I _do_ wish is that there was a more consistent way to handle criticals; treating it differently against armored and unarmored foes is ugly, but you get border conditions where crits mean less and less the less armor the target has.

[Enpeze]

I personally prefer to keep both a special and a critical result; the former provides more of a tool for weapon type differnces (since it can trigger the various special results for bashing, slashing and impaling weapons) while it doesn't overly gust really severe results, which are reserved for criticals.

I agree. A special is not just an excellent attack. it could be also dangerous for the attacker himself. In the old BRP core rules the impaling weapon stuck in the target and could only be retrieved if the attacker rolled 2x impaling chance on d100. I didnt use this rule as it is written, but in my games the attacker has to make a normal skill roll if he want to pull the weapon out of the body of the target. Additionally it uses up one of his actions. More often than not the weapon remained in the target (which was sometimes running away - only to bleed out after a while) Tell me another rule system where such funny situations could happen.

The only thing I _do_ wish is that there was a more consistent way to handle criticals; treating it differently against armored and unarmored foes is ugly, but you get border conditions where crits mean less and less the less armor the target has.

What do you mean with consistent? Crit hits target, target cannot parry - target dead most of the time. This I call consistent. Do you want to "innovate" the crit too?

[Enpeze]

The 10% has always been my favorite method, but another way to have a fast critical or special that takes advantage of the percentile granularity is to go with 5% skill increments and use 20% special with no critical. It is almost as effortless as 10%. As in RQ2, drop the 5% critical. The weapon damage by itself creates the 'critical'.

I used 10% in my SB games in the past. Its simple to calculate on the fly and absolutely ok. OTOH 20%/5% ist just another layer of damage results for different weapon types which can be fun and lead sometimes to interesting situations (see above). I mean, 20/5 does not make BRP much more complicated, no? Whatever - I like both systems.

[Nightshade]

What do you mean with consistent? Crit hits target, target cannot parry - target dead most of the time. This I call consistent. Do you want to "innovate" the crit too?

The problem is that there's no difference in most versions between a crit and a special against an unarmored, or even a lightly armored enough target. Most of the fixes for this seem excessive, though (double damage, for example).

[Nightshade]

I used 10% in my SB games in the past. Its simple to calculate on the fly and absolutely ok. OTOH 20%/5% ist just another layer of damage results for different weapon types which can be fun and lead sometimes to interesting situations (see above). I mean, 20/5 does not make BRP much more complicated, no? Whatever - I like both systems.

And truth is, both work okay; I prefer the distinction, but then, I tended to prefer RQ's level of detail over most of the simplifications in other versions of BRP.

[badcat]

I have used 20/5 as well, I am simply more comfortable with 10. If I could just look at the percentage and have the number pop into my head like 10%, then I would go with 20/5% because yes, it does allow for a wider range of results.

[Sven Norén]

I personally prefer to keep both a special and a critical result; the former provides more of a tool for weapon type differnces (since it can trigger the various special results for bashing, slashing and impaling weapons) while it doesn't overly gust really severe results, which are reserved for criticals.

The only thing I _do_ wish is that there was a more consistent way to handle criticals; treating it differently against armored and unarmored foes is ugly, but you get border conditions where crits mean less and less the less armor the target has.

One idea I saw on a discussion of BRP houserules on RPG.NET (see, it's not all bad!) was to have a short list of special effects, like:

- Do extra damage (impale/slash/crush)

- ignore armour

- choose hit location

- do knockback

- disarm

-

All are taken from the RQ3 combat rules, some of them optional. When you roll a special hit, pick one of the above. On a critical, pick two. Gives the players (and NPC:s) a bit more control over the fight, without adding an extra layer of rules. I'm going to try this next campaign.

[Nightshade]

One idea I saw on a discussion of BRP houserules on RPG.NET (see, it's not all bad!) was to have a short list of special effects, like:

- Do extra damage (impale/slash/crush)

- ignore armour

- choose hit location

- do knockback

- disarm

-

All are taken from the RQ3 combat rules, some of them optional. When you roll a special hit, pick one of the above. On a critical, pick two. Gives the players (and NPC:s) a bit more control over the fight, without adding an extra layer of rules. I'm going to try this next campaign.

That's kind of the tact at least one version of the RQM rules used, and its probably as good a solution as you're going to find. I may try it next time I'm running something BRP-ish.

[phrog]

A lot of really good suggestions in this thread

For the sake of completeness, I'll mention an approach I saw in the RQ rules mailing list, that I cannot at the moment properly credit. I have NOT tried this in a live game, so, YMMV, but it kind of intrigued me.

The approach is to roll an additional 20 sided die to track the level of success - call it a 'crit' d20.

If your main attack is a success, and your 'crit' roll is a 1, you've critical'd

If your main attack is a success, and your 'crit' roll is a 2, 3, or 4 - you've special'd.

If your main attack is a miss, and your 'crit' roll is a 1, you've fumbled.

If you have over 100 skill, you have to play some extra games to see if you roll your crit dice more than once (ie. at 125% skill, if you roll under 25% you'd roll your 'crit' dice twice and take the best result - at least, at first glance that seems to make the math work )

The math geek in me digs it because it's a restatement of the idea "When you hit, 20% of the time you will special, 5% of the time you will critical.", just moved into the time domain (wipes nose on sleeve)

It's not the most particularly elegant approach, but it does have some side benefits - it 'fixes' the low-skill range oddity where a person with 5% skill in something will 'crit' 20% of the time they actually succeed. And it makes it easy to expand the number of crit categories, if you're into that sort of thing ('special fumble' becomes easy for example). If I were to use it in a game, I'd probably do something like : to-hit roll of '01' and a 'crit' roll of '1' would get you the original RQ crit (2x weapon damage, ignoring armor) that I always found to be a bit too lethal to occur 5% of the time.

Anyway, food for thought.

[drohem]

That is an intriguing approach. I'll have to think on it.

[RMS]

It does increase the chance of fumbling compared to the standard BRP roll, but otherwise works nicely. I'm not big on extra die rolls and can do the math easier that rolling another die, so I wouldn't use it, but I can see where others would.

Harnmaster, which is a BRP derivative, has crits, successes, failures, and fumbles. You roll % against skill. Under is a success, over is a failure. Any multiple of 5 is a critical (if under) or a fumble (if over).

[Nightshade]

That's actually a pretty sound method from where I sit.

[drohem]

Harnmaster, which is a BRP derivative, has crits, successes, failures, and fumbles. You roll % against skill. Under is a success, over is a failure. Any multiple of 5 is a critical (if under) or a fumble (if over).

I liked Harnmaster's skill index concept as well.