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Under-Half Successes


KPhan2121

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So I had a conversation with my friends about BRP a while back. They criticized that the combat could get bogged down easily with characters just trading blows for rounds. One of the solutions I used was adopting the riposte rules from an old discussion I've found on the matter. 

 

While glossing over the discussion, one post caught my attention.

On 8/24/2009 at 3:16 AM, deleriad said:

 

 

Why make it complicated? The proposed rule is really a generic rule for any sort of counter-attack with any sort of weapon. It's not specific to fencing.

 

Why not just say that a riposte/counter-attack is an attack using a defensive reaction. A riposte thus subtracts 30% from your next defense (just like any parry or dodge) and the attack can be any sort of attack. I see no need to bother with DEX ranks and so on. After all, a regular attack doesn't consist of mostly doing nothing except on your DEX rank, the DEX rank is just a handy method of ordering who does what when. It seems to me that the essence of BRP is about using fairly quick and simple ways of resolving issues with minimal book-keeping.

When I first introduced this houserule into the game, my players seemed to enjoy it, and sure enough the game's combat was faster. We've used it in a variety of different campaigns. My players have become less enamored with that houserule, the combat was ending in fewer turns but the time spent fighting and number dice rolls made to reach to the conclusion had only decreased a little.

I've thought of a houserule to include an "Under Half Success", basically if you roll a success that is under half the current skill rating it would count as a Under Half Success. It expands the type of successes a character can achieve. I haven't presented the idea to them yet, but what do you guys think of the houserule? Also do you guys have a better name for this? Like Good Success or something that sounds between Normal and Special? 

You like Fading Suns? Well, I made a thing that's kinda like it!

 

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A Critical causes double damage; a Special causes the weapon's special effects; so what would be the effect of an "Under Half Success"? Roll damage twice and take the higher result might work but that just increases the number of dice rolls. Or, an Under Half Success could automatically allow a riposte.

When applied to other skills, I can see how this would be useful. Perhaps on an Under Half Success, a particular task gets completed more quickly (even a couple of combat rounds could make all the difference in some cases) or has some other minor advantage.

As for a different name, I quite like "Solid Hit" or "Solid Success".

Hope this helps a bit.

Colin

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8 hours ago, KPhan2121 said:

 

I've thought of a houserule to include an "Under Half Success", basically if you roll a success that is under half the current skill rating it would count as a Under Half Success. It expands the type of successes a character can achieve. I haven't presented the idea to them yet, but what do you guys think of the houserule? Also do you guys have a better name for this? Like Good Success or something that sounds between Normal and Special? 

The old James Bond RPG used to do this. In that RPG your roll would generate a Quality Rating, similar to RQ/BRPs Success Level. QR1 was the best result (1/10th success chance), QR2 the next best (1/5th), QR3 (1/2 success chance) and QR4 was a marginal success.  Now in that RPG just how well you accomplished something, weapon damage, etc. was tied to that QR result. 

I'd suggest making the half result a normal success and call the other result a marginal or acceptable  success. 

The thing is, though, just what are the benefits going to be to rolling under half, compared to a normal roll?

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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9 hours ago, colinabrett said:

A Critical causes double damage; a Special causes the weapon's special effects; so what would be the effect of an "Under Half Success"? Roll damage twice and take the higher result might work but that just increases the number of dice rolls. Or, an Under Half Success could automatically allow a riposte.

When applied to other skills, I can see how this would be useful. Perhaps on an Under Half Success, a particular task gets completed more quickly (even a couple of combat rounds could make all the difference in some cases) or has some other minor advantage.

As for a different name, I quite like "Solid Hit" or "Solid Success".

Hope this helps a bit.

Colin

Well, it counts as a normal success in the attack-parry matrix. The whole point was that it beats a normal success. Also Critical Success does max damage and goes through armor. In other skills it will offer a minor benefit. I quite like the name "Solid Success".

7 hours ago, Mankcam said:

Isn't this a 'Hard Success' from CoC 7E?

 

I didn't know that was a thing if CoC 7E.

5 hours ago, RosenMcStern said:

You might also consider moving to one of the rulesets which use effect-based combat to make hand-to-hand action more interesting: Legend, Mythras or Revolution d100.

I tried that and some of my players didn't like it as much. Part of the idea of Half-under success was to speed up combat while keeping the book-keeping minimal. BRP has rules for some special maneuvers like disarming which requires the player to announce their intent and roll under 1/2 their skill already. I'll probably expand on that to include more effects. 

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

The old James Bond RPG used to do this. In that RPG your roll would generate a Quality Rating, similar to RQ/BRPs Success Level. QR1 was the best result (1/10th success chance), QR2 the next best (1/5th), QR3 (1/2 success chance) and QR4 was a marginal success.  Now in that RPG just how well you accomplished something, weapon damage, etc. was tied to that QR result. 

I'd suggest making the half result a normal success and call the other result a marginal or acceptable  success. 

The thing is, though, just what are the benefits going to be to rolling under half, compared to a normal roll?

I'm not sure what to do with the Under-Half success other than it beating the normal success. The main point was to add another quality rating that would reduce rounds of players trading blows with not much happening. I also might make a system revamp that requires the characters to generate a minimum quality rating to succeed in place of a modifiers. Like a difficult action requires a under 1/2 skill success or a special success. 

You like Fading Suns? Well, I made a thing that's kinda like it!

 

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I've played with what could be described as a 'more criticals' rule for years

Specials are under half rather than under one-fifth

Criticals are under one-tenth rather than under one-twentieth

Death happens on an 01

 

I really like it. But then it does what I want (increases the frequency of special results).

I've certainly had discussions with many people on boards who hate it, because they don't see the need for more frequent special results (one even said something along the lines of 'but then I'd feel gutted if I only rolled under my skill rather than under half!)

Rule Zero: Don't be on fire

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2 hours ago, KPhan2121 said:

I tried that and some of my players didn't like it as much. Part of the idea of Half-under success was to speed up combat while keeping the book-keeping minimal. BRP has rules for some special maneuvers like disarming which requires the player to announce their intent and roll under 1/2 their skill already. I'll probably expand on that to include more effects.

I have some difficulties following your point.

- Effect-based combat does not increase book-keeping needs. You generate an effect and spend it on the fly. What book-keeping are you talking about?

- Pre-announcing the manoeuvre you want to use does not speed up things at all. Because it requires that you make a tactical choice every time you are about to roll. Post announcement, on the contrary, limits tactical decisions to when you win the exchange. You only pick one option when the dice have already said "yes", not when the dice might say "no".

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1 hour ago, RosenMcStern said:

I have some difficulties following your point.

- Effect-based combat does not increase book-keeping needs. You generate an effect and spend it on the fly. What book-keeping are you talking about?

- Pre-announcing the manoeuvre you want to use does not speed up things at all. Because it requires that you make a tactical choice every time you are about to roll. Post announcement, on the contrary, limits tactical decisions to when you win the exchange. You only pick one option when the dice have already said "yes", not when the dice might say "no".

Well, I've noticed with my players is that they don't think about the decision until after they make the roll. Which means they pause the game to look up what the different effects do and how to do them. For them, the tactical choice is made before their turn when the intent is announced first and they don't do that when the intent is announced after. They opt to wait for the results before making any tactical considerations, which slows the game down. They want a "Does this work? Yes or no." instead of a "You have a list of choices you can make after the roll." I think it comes down which person has the responsibility for the rules. The announce intent before approach has them thinking solely on the combat situation with me handling the rules of how it works while the choosing from a list after approach has them being responsible for the rules. I have a player whose pretty mechanically minded and likes dissecting the ruleset, so he's pretty much fine with anything. The other two aren't and don't like it when the rules intrude into the narrative.

Edited by KPhan2121

You like Fading Suns? Well, I made a thing that's kinda like it!

 

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I think you might like how Call of Cthulhu 7E does things. It has Critical Success, Extreme (Special) Success, Hard Success (half %) and Standard Success.

(Of course it also has Failure and Fumbles)

But the extra success level at half % really makes a world of difference.

The rules are simple for Hard Success. If a roll is under half %, then a Hard Success has been achieved. They do not generate any special effects, however they are considered better than a Standard Success for opposed rolls, so it works well with Dodge, Parry etc and stops much of the old stalemate combat rolls in BRP.

The other thing is if you want to attempt a Manuver, then you don't do damage, but cause an alternative outcome instead (which could be disarming, tripping etc, or pretty much any Spot Rule effect). The outcome is then narrated by the GM, often with the default mechanical effect of incurring that your opponent now makes rolls as Hard Success (or less).

Its very simple and really just reworks principles already inherent in the system.

I recommend how CoC 7E does this, so perhaps checking out the CoC 7E Quickstart may be helpful :)

Edited by Mankcam

" Sure it's fun, but it is also well known that a D20 roll and an AC is no match against a hefty swing of a D100% and a D20 Hit Location Table!"

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20 hours ago, KPhan2121 said:

I'm not sure what to do with the Under-Half success other than it beating the normal success. The main point was to add another quality rating that would reduce rounds of players trading blows with not much happening. I also might make a system revamp that requires the characters to generate a minimum quality rating to succeed in place of a modifiers. Like a difficult action requires a under 1/2 skill success or a special success. 

LOL, you might want to take a peek at that old Bond RPG. It did stuff like that.

One thing you might consider doing with the half % would be to let it adjust damage. One idea I was toying with was to set the number of damage dice by the SL. So something like a broadsword might only do 1D4 on a marginal success, maybe 2D4 on a normal success, 8D4 on a impale, and so on.  

 

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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On 06/12/2017 at 3:41 AM, KPhan2121 said:

I'm not sure what to do with the Under-Half success other than it beating the normal success. The main point was to add another quality rating that would reduce rounds of players trading blows with not much happening.

I also might make a system revamp that requires the characters to generate a minimum quality rating to succeed in place of a modifiers. Like a difficult action requires a under 1/2 skill success or a special success. 

Yep this is how CoC 7E does it. I think it will be a shame if it isn't how RQ or other Chaosium BRP systems run things. I know I certainly will be playing them all like this, just for consistency, and the fact that such a minimal addition to the original rules can really make things run so much better at the gaming table.

Edited by Mankcam

" Sure it's fun, but it is also well known that a D20 roll and an AC is no match against a hefty swing of a D100% and a D20 Hit Location Table!"

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6 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

LOL, you might want to take a peek at that old Bond RPG. It did stuff like that.

One thing you might consider doing with the half % would be to let it adjust damage. One idea I was toying with was to set the number of damage dice by the SL. So something like a broadsword might only do 1D4 on a marginal success, maybe 2D4 on a normal success, 8D4 on a impale, and so on.  

 

That sounds like an interesting idea. I think the adjusted damage should be based on the difference of quality rating between the attacking roll and the defending roll. 

1 hour ago, Mankcam said:

Yep this is how CoC 7E does it. I think it will be a shame if it isn't how RQ or other Chaosium BRP systems run things. I know I certainly will be playing them all like this, just for consistency, and the fact that such a minimal addition to the original rules can really make things run so much better at the gaming table.

Awesome! I'll take a look at the quick-start rules as soon as I can.

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You like Fading Suns? Well, I made a thing that's kinda like it!

 

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In Call of Cthulhu 7th edition, hard successes (1/2 skill) and extreme successes (1/5 skill) are not really different qualities of success, because there is no qualities of success (except for combat attacks, where an extreme success still allows to get a damage bonus).

The general rule is only to know wether the goal of the Player Character (what he wants to achieve) is successful. So, hard and extreme successes are just here when there is a Non Player Character who resists (to achieve his goal, the PC must then get a better success than the NPC) or when the difficulty of the action is harder (the GM then asks for a hard or an extreme success).

Thus, a hard success doesn't bring anything more than allowing to succeed a hard action or to beat a NPC's normal success. Ditto, an extreme success (for anything else than an attack) doesn't bring anything more than allowing to succeed an extreme action or to beat a NPC's hard success.

When I first read that rule, I found that it was a pity to drop the different qualities of success. But now that I understand it better, I find it great! It avoids specially successful defenses which have effects on the attacker, allow an immediate counterattacks, and so on ... Brief all those things which slow down combats.

What if the player wants to immediately counterattack or make his attacker fall down? Simple. He just has to tell it before rolling and to get a better success than his foe. If he only gets the same success, the attacker wins (while someone who contents himself with normally defending will avoid the blow with the same success than the attacker). But if he gets a better success than the attacker, he wins, which means that his counterattack is successful (he inflicts damage) or that he makes the attacker falls down.

It's hard to make a simpler but still more living combat system. Every combat option (making fall, pining, disarming ...) remains possible with only two rolls (one for the attack and one for the defense or special maneuver) and a mere comparison of the results.

Needless to say that I would like the possible future revision of the BRP to use that system!

 

Edited by Gollum
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My feeling is that the Strike or DEX Rank rules as in the BGB are not really made for simulating detailed combat with effects and maneuvers. An attack roll is actually a series of mouvements or feints aimed at placing a strike at least. It is all abstracted in the die roll. Most attempts to increase the level of details and description are problematic, as the numerous discussions on this forum show it.

If your goal is only to accelerate things, introducing a supplementary level of success can help, but you have to invent the effects of it, and this is exactly the difficulty you are facing in combat. However, the BGB as it is already allows 16 different outcomes, which should be sufficient. Another way would be to increase the chances for special dies, like 1/10 for critical, a suggested before. A nice way for Specials could be as in Revolution d100, where you get a special (called Advantage) when, in case of a success, the tens die is bigger than the units die -no maths and the more skilled get relatively more specials. All this remains very abstract.

If you want a system with effects, I think you'll have to go with the above mentioned rules like Mythras or Revolution d100, which are made for combat effects. Nothing prevents you from announcing an effect before rolling, or to use combat effect cards to speed-up the process.

Wind on the Steppes, role playing among the steppe Nomads. The  running campaign and the blog

 

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