hanataka Posted June 3, 2018 Share Posted June 3, 2018 I am reading RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. It is most beautiful and exciting rulebook I have ever read. But There are some glitches left in it. As one of them, There are three inconsistency rules in the probability of critical and special success. Rule 1: Page 7."Whenever a division result creates a fraction, always round in favor of the players" If an adventurer has 65% skill, 65/20 = 3.25, he has 4% (rounding upward) chance of critical success. If the enemy has 65% skill, he has 3% chance (rounding downward). If they have 75% skill, 75/20 = 3.75, the result is same. Adventurers have 4%, the enemies have 3% Rule 2: Page 142. "A critical success is an ability roll of 5% (1/20) or less of the modified chance of success." Applying this rule strictly, it becomes as follows. If an adventurer has 65% skill, 65/20 = 3.25, Rolling 03 is less than 3.25% and critical success. 04 is not. If the adventurer has 75% skill, 75/20 = 3.75, Also, a 03 is a critical success. 04 is not. So this is the same as RQ2 and "always rounding downward". Rule 3: Page 143. Ability Result Table Ability Critical Special 63-67 1-3 1-13 68-69 1-3 1-14 70 1-4 1-14 71-72 1-4 1-14 73-77 1-4 1-15 This table is the same as that of RQ3. It is calculated by the following rule. "All fractions less than .5 are dropped; fractions .5 or greater are rounded to the next highest whole number" (RQ3 Player Book p.33) These are only small differences, but I feel the need for the fix. As my personal opinion, Rule 2 is the most simple and best. At first glance, the calculation seems complicated, but actually, Rule 2 is not. When you roll 03, 03 x 20 = 60, the adventurer needs 60% skill or higher for critical success. When you roll 07, 07 x 20 = 140, the adventurer needs 140% skill or higher for critical success. It is very simple. Multiplication is always easier than division. How do you think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Scott Posted June 3, 2018 Share Posted June 3, 2018 When I started playing RQG three weeks ago, I printed the ability results table out. No one in my group has bothered with maths. Quote ----- Search the Glorantha Resource Site: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com. Search the Glorantha mailing list archives: https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hanataka Posted June 3, 2018 Author Share Posted June 3, 2018 (edited) Hi, David. If the ability result table is replaced by another one (like this extended RQ2 table), you have also no problem, don't you? Ability Critical Special Success Failure Fumble ------- -------- ------- ------- ------- ------ 01-04 01 -- 02-05 06-95 96-00 05-09 01 -- Ability Avility 96-00 10-14 01 02 Ability Avility 96-00 15-19 01 02-03 Ability Avility 96-00 20-24 01 02-04 Ability Avility 97-00 25-29 01 02-05 Ability Avility 97-00 30-34 01 02-06 Ability Avility 97-00 35-39 01 03-07 Ability Avility 97-00 40-44 01-02 03-08 Ability Avility 98-00 45-49 01-02 03-09 Ability Avility 98-00 50-54 01-02 03-10 Ability Avility 98-00 55-59 01-02 03-11 Ability Avility 98-00 60-64 01-03 04-12 Ability Avility 99-00 65-69 01-03 04-13 Ability Avility 99-00 70-74 01-03 04-14 Ability Avility 99-00 75-79 01-03 04-15 Ability Avility 99-00 80-84 01-04 05-16 Ability Avility 00 85-89 01-04 05-17 Ability Avility 00 90-94 01-04 05-18 Ability Avility 00 95-99 01-04 05-19 20-95 96-99 00 100-104 01-05 06-20 21-95 96-99 00105-109 01-05 06-21 22-95 96-99 00 110-114 01-05 06-22 23-95 96-99 00 115-119 01-05 06-23 24-95 96-99 00 120-124 01-06 07-24 25-95 96-99 00 Edited June 3, 2018 by hanataka 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilHibbs Posted June 3, 2018 Share Posted June 3, 2018 2 hours ago, hanataka said: Ability Critical Special Success Failure Fumble ------- -------- ------- ------- ------- ------ 60-74 01-03 04-12 Ability Avility 99-00 65-79 01-03 04-13 Ability Avility 99-00 Typos in the left column. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hanataka Posted June 3, 2018 Author Share Posted June 3, 2018 5 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said: Typos in the left column. Thank you, PhilHibbs. I have fixed it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Scott Posted June 3, 2018 Share Posted June 3, 2018 10 hours ago, hanataka said: you have also no problem, don't you? Except the pointless exercise of printing another table out. My game is internally consistent, why do I need to make more work for myself? 1 Quote ----- Search the Glorantha Resource Site: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com. Search the Glorantha mailing list archives: https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soltakss Posted June 3, 2018 Share Posted June 3, 2018 1 hour ago, David Scott said: Except the pointless exercise of printing another table out. My game is internally consistent, why do I need to make more work for myself? You can never have enough tables. 1 Quote Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. www.soltakss.com/index.html Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Scott Posted June 3, 2018 Share Posted June 3, 2018 3 minutes ago, soltakss said: You can never have enough tables. You must have seen the nice ones at UKGE https://www.boardgametables.com/ Quote ----- Search the Glorantha Resource Site: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com. Search the Glorantha mailing list archives: https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BWP Posted June 4, 2018 Share Posted June 4, 2018 On 6/3/2018 at 4:16 PM, David Scott said: No one in my group has bothered with maths. A statement that's always been largely true of the RQ designers (for any edition). The RQ3 "hit points per location" table, for instance, only agrees with the written rule occasionally. Use the table found in the rules, or create your own that matches the text of the rules? A matter of personal preference, obviously. Back in the day creating an accurate table required either a lot of patience in calculating and recording the results manually or access to a computer system and some programming skills. These days it's 5 minutes with a spreadsheet program. Quote "I want to decide who lives and who dies." Bruce Probst Melbourne, Australia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
styopa Posted June 4, 2018 Share Posted June 4, 2018 4 hours ago, BWP said: A statement that's always been largely true of the RQ designers (for any edition). The RQ3 "hit points per location" table, for instance, only agrees with the written rule occasionally. Use the table found in the rules, or create your own that matches the text of the rules? A matter of personal preference, obviously. Back in the day creating an accurate table required either a lot of patience in calculating and recording the results manually or access to a computer system and some programming skills. These days it's 5 minutes with a spreadsheet program. Yep. There was some discussion about whether RQG would take the opportunity to fix the broken historical hp-per-location maths, or just use the clunky RQ2 historical table. Nostalgia wins! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilHibbs Posted June 4, 2018 Share Posted June 4, 2018 22 hours ago, David Scott said: Except the pointless exercise of printing another table out. My game is internally consistent, why do I need to make more work for myself? Bully for you! But it isn't consistent with the rules as written, so I think raising an alternative suggestion is an entirely legitimate thing to do at this stage. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joerg Posted June 4, 2018 Share Posted June 4, 2018 7 hours ago, BWP said: A statement that's always been largely true of the RQ designers (for any edition). The RQ3 "hit points per location" table, for instance, only agrees with the written rule occasionally. Use the table found in the rules, or create your own that matches the text of the rules? A matter of personal preference, obviously. Back in the day creating an accurate table required either a lot of patience in calculating and recording the results manually or access to a computer system and some programming skills. These days it's 5 minutes with a spreadsheet program. Whut? RQ3 bestiary (book 4 in the DeLuxe box, IIRC) had the calculations which was all that I needed, and hit point allocation tables for a number of body shapes. Most vital/protected body part aka chest 2/5 total HP, head, other body parts like abdomen and major limbs 1/3 total HP, secondary limbs like human arms or quadruped legs 1/4 total HP, lesser limbs (e.g. chitinous ones whose loss wouldn't incapacitate) 1/6 total HP. If any sample characters deviated from this, I never noticed, because I have never bothered to look up any numbers, but always calculate on the spot unless I am using a handout (which is rarely the case). Plus there is always a chance that neither player characters nor opposition are at full HP, giving just enough wiggle room to avoid total fails. (I did translate this part of the rules to German for private use, but didn't notice any discrepancies with the table. But then possibly I just calculated the values rather than transcribing the table entries without checking the text portion or the numerical tables verbatim, rounding mathematically correct.) RQ3 offered enchantments which would be available to major adversaries, pumping up location HP or AP - offering some wiggle room to avoid total pushovers, too. Then there was Enhance CON, which would create a few temporary total HP that could raise location HP by one or two for the duration of the spell with reasonably restrained sorcerers. Quote Telling how it is excessive verbis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yelm's Light Posted June 4, 2018 Share Posted June 4, 2018 Same here. I don't need a lot of the tables, I just calculate the values on the fly. Of course, I've been doing it for decades... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BWP Posted June 5, 2018 Share Posted June 5, 2018 6 hours ago, Joerg said: Whut? Was my point not clear? The RQ3 chart for HP-allocation-per-location did not match the provided charts and calculations except at a few points. You calculated everything on the fly? Good for you, how does that alter the reality of what was presented in the rulebooks? "Here are the calculations, here's a handy summary in case you don't want to make those calculations for yourself, whoops the summary is wrong, so sorry." (Except that nobody bothered to say "sorry".) I did have access to a computer and had some basic programming skills, so I printed out my own summary and used it. Other people used the printed summary. Doesn't matter a fig either way, as long as you're consistent with your approach in an individual campaign. I have no idea what the relevance of enchantments or spells has to this. Yes, there are ways you can modify the number of HPs you have in a particular location. That has nothing to do with the inconsistency between what the rules said and the printed summary. Or to put it another way: the rules authors told you how to calculate HPs per location, and then demonstrated that they didn't know how to use those calculations. I'll note in passing that a consequence of using the calculations as opposed to the printed summary is that for "unusual" HP ranges (i.e., creatures with more HPs than a PC would typically have), the 0.25 for arms vs. 0.33 for most other locations in humanoids (or near humanoids) led to, say, giants with unusually spindly arms (and barrel chests). Not any sort of problem in game play, of course, but I vaguely recall that the printed summary tended to "even out" the locations a trifle in these unusual cases. Quote "I want to decide who lives and who dies." Bruce Probst Melbourne, Australia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilHibbs Posted June 5, 2018 Share Posted June 5, 2018 Yes, the HP per location charts in RQ3 were approximations of the multiples presented in the rules (0.33, 0.25, 0.4 if i recall correctly), or vice versa. Despite my mathematical brain, I always just used the charts on the basis that that's what all the published stats would probably use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simonh Posted June 5, 2018 Share Posted June 5, 2018 (edited) IIRC RQ3 basically just said here are some charts you can use. If these don't cover what you need, you can use these fractions instead. I don't particularly see any need for the hand-tuned charts to be perfectly consistent with the fractions though. The fractions are just there to help out in unusual cases. Best of both world if you ask me. Simon Hibbs Edited June 5, 2018 by simonh Quote Check out the Runequest Glorantha Wiki for RQ links and resources. Any updates or contributions welcome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
styopa Posted June 5, 2018 Share Posted June 5, 2018 1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said: Yes, the HP per location charts in RQ3 were approximations of the multiples presented in the rules (0.33, 0.25, 0.4 if i recall correctly), or vice versa. Despite my mathematical brain, I always just used the charts on the basis that that's what all the published stats would probably use. Spiders and insects (ie with trivial limbs that don't count toward body hp) also had 0.1 I believe. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indiebob Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 (edited) Roll a d20 at the same time as you roll a d100 for the chance to hit or miss. If you roll a hit and roll a 1 with the d20 it's a critical (this will be exactly 5% chance, no need for rounding). If you roll a miss and roll a 20 with the d20, it's a fumble (you'd then roll the d20 again to decide the type of fumble). Or you could say that in either case it's a 20 to fumble or critical, depending on whether you hit or miss... mathematically it makes no difference. Edited March 23, 2023 by indiebob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akhôrahil Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 On 6/3/2018 at 7:20 AM, hanataka said: Rule 1: Page 7."Whenever a division result creates a fraction, always round in favor of the players" If an adventurer has 65% skill, 65/20 = 3.25, he has 4% (rounding upward) chance of critical success. If the enemy has 65% skill, he has 3% chance (rounding downward). If they have 75% skill, 75/20 = 3.75, the result is same. Adventurers have 4%, the enemies have 3% I would strongly urge everyone to ditch this rule and just round in the standard way (closest integer, up if .5) for everyone. Otherwise you get senseless outcomes like enemy D4 / 2 (typical DB for thrown weapons) being different from player D4 / 2, and as you suggest, crit/special/fumble calculations become even more tricky. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radmonger Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 critical: success with an even 10s dice and digits dice of 1 special: success with a digits dice of 1 or 5. fumble; failure with an even 10s dice and a digits dice of 0. Zero math and within rounding errors of the rules-as-written result. if you tone down criticals slightly, you can drop the stuff about the 10s dice and just go with ~10% chance of each. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilHibbs Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 (edited) 8 minutes ago, radmonger said: critical: success with an even 10s dice and digits dice of 1 special: success with a digits dice of 1 or 5. fumble; failure with an even 10s dice and a digits dice of 0. Zero math and within rounding errors of the rules-as-written result. if you tone down criticals slightly, you can drop the stuff about the 10s dice and just go with ~10% chance of each. Slightly quirky at the low end, in that a 5% chance has double the chance of a success being a special success. 6 also has a significantly higher special rate than it should. Other than that, it's a really interesting idea. It's a lot for some people to remember - my brain works that way, but not everyone's does. On the other hand I've seen grown men literally reduced to tears over critical and special calculations. Edited March 23, 2023 by PhilHibbs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radmonger Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 An alternative that's a bit smoother at the lower end is to base specials off pairs (11, 22, ...). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DreadDomain Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 16 hours ago, indiebob said: Roll a d20 at the same time as you roll a d100 for the chance to hit or miss. If you roll a hit and roll a 1 with the d20 it's a critical (this will be exactly 5% chance, no need for rounding). If you roll a miss and roll a 20 with the d20, it's a fumble (you'd then roll the d20 again to decide the type of fumble). Or you could say that in either case it's a 20 to fumble or critical, depending on whether you hit or miss... mathematically it makes no difference. A slight variation on this: Roll a d100 and a d20. D100 works as normal. On the d20: On a 1 you critical or fumble (depending if you succeed or fail on the d100) On a 2, 3 or 4, you special if you succeed on the d100. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kloster Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 22 hours ago, Akhôrahil said: I would strongly urge everyone to ditch this rule and just round in the standard way (closest integer, up if .5) for everyone. Otherwise you get senseless outcomes like enemy D4 / 2 (typical DB for thrown weapons) being different from player D4 / 2, and as you suggest, crit/special/fumble calculations become even more tricky. This is what we do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bren Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 On 3/23/2023 at 7:54 AM, Akhôrahil said: I would strongly urge everyone to ditch this rule and just round in the standard way (closest integer, up if .5) for everyone. Otherwise you get senseless outcomes like enemy D4 / 2 (typical DB for thrown weapons) being different from player D4 / 2, and as you suggest, crit/special/fumble calculations become even more tricky. We just use a D2. No rounding required. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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