Adventurer Sheet - Category Bounuses

[JumpingDwarf]

Do people add the Skill category Bonus to the written value for each skill that they fill in on the adventurer sheet so they do not have to always do the maths to add it during play?

 

[jeffjerwin]

36 minutes ago, JumpingDwarf said:

Do people add the Skill category Bonus to the written value for each skill that they fill in on the adventurer sheet so they do not have to always do the maths to add it during play?

 

Yes.

[JumpingDwarf]

So when am experience check roll is attempted, presumably you:

1. Subtract the category modifier from the skill value that is written on the sheet to get the base value
2. Roll the dice adding the category modifier to the roll
3. Assuming the roll plus the modifier was over the existing value (or over 100) then write the new value including the modifier on the sheet 

Is that correct?

[Richard S.]

48 minutes ago, JumpingDwarf said:

So when am experience check roll is attempted, presumably you:

1. Subtract the category modifier from the skill value that is written on the sheet to get the base value
2. Roll the dice adding the category modifier to the roll
3. Assuming the roll plus the modifier was over the existing value (or over 100) then write the new value including the modifier on the sheet 

Is that correct?

From what I understand the bonus is factored into your skill value at all times, so when rolling for experience it remains a part of your current skill, but you also add it to the D100 roll.

[JumpingDwarf]

7 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

From what I understand the bonus is factored into your skill value at all times, so when rolling for experience it remains a part of your current skill, but you also add it to the D100 roll.

So a category bonus makes you no more likely to succeed with a skill experience roll?

But of course the character will get to attempt skill experience rolls more frequently.

 

An adventurer with a 0% category bonus and 60% skill would have to roll 61 or more to succeed with the experience roll.

An adventurer with a 10% category bonus and a 60% skill (70% is the combined value that is written on the adventurer sheet for the skill) would have to roll 61 or more to succeed with the experience roll.  Their skill has already been adjusted from 60% to 70% because of the bonus.  When the player attempts the experience roll they need to roll 61 or more to get over 70 because 10 is added to the roll.

 

Is that correct?

[PhilHibbs]

1 hour ago, JumpingDwarf said:

An adventurer with a 10% category bonus and a 60% skill (70% is the combined value that is written on the adventurer sheet for the skill) would have to roll 61 or more to succeed with the experience roll.  Their skill has already been adjusted from 60% to 70% because of the bonus.  When the player attempts the experience roll they need to roll 61 or more to get over 70 because 10 is added to the roll.

Is that correct?

Sort of, except they have a skill of 70, not 60.

The additional benefit of a category modifier is for skills over 100; without a modifier you have no chance to improve, whereas with it you only need to get over 100.

Edited September 25, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[womble]

5 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

The additional benefit of a category modifier is for skills over 100; without a modifier you have no chance to improve, whereas with it you only need to get over 100.

Just a slight amend to that... p416 says if you roll 100 on your gain roll, it always goes up whether the actual total is 'over' 99 or not.

Personally, I'm of a mind to have skill and bonus be separate for experience purposes; this will result in faster improvement for those with skill bonuses because in the above example they'd only have to roll over 50 to increase, and the skill total will be further over 100 before you start running into 'gotta roll 100' to improve. And the flipside will mean negative modifiers make improving skills harder and getting past [100-plus-negativeskillbonus] is going to be rare. I do have to rein my generosity in sometimes, as GM, but I don't think this will be particularly gamechanging.

Edited September 25, 2018 by womble
Premature posting...

[Mechashef]

I have always written the combine value on the sheet, but when doing Experience Check Rolls, I subtract the Category Bonus and add it to the roll, thus allowing it to benefit that roll.  That probably makes me over generous.

 

If using a character sheet that I'm writing on, I only write the values in for the skills that do not have their default (plus category modifier) value to avoid clutter. 

If using a character sheet that I fill in electronically and print at will I tend to fill in values for all skills the character has.

 

Perhaps clarification on how to fill in these details could go in the upcoming GM book to help new GMs/Players

[PhilHibbs]

25 minutes ago, Mechashef said:

I have always written the combine value on the sheet...

If using a character sheet that I'm writing on, I only write the values in for the skills that do not have their default (plus category modifier) value to avoid clutter. 

...Perhaps clarification on how to fill in these details could go in the upcoming GM book to help new GMs/Players

Include or Exclude has always been a vigorous debate among RuneQuest players in my experience. Personally I go for Exclude, and I add the category modifier as I roll. The advantage is that you don't have to rewrite a bunch of your skill chances when your stats (mostly, POW) change. This is less often an issue with breakpoint category modifiers though.

[David Scott]

2 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Include or Exclude has always been a vigorous debate among RuneQuest players in my experience. Personally I go for Exclude, and I add the category modifier as I roll. The advantage is that you don't have to rewrite a bunch of your skill chances when your stats (mostly, POW) change. This is less often an issue with breakpoint category modifiers though.

I totally agree with @PhilHibbs, exclude, I’d like to add spirit and rune magic that alter bonuses, Strength, Odayla rune magic for example.

[JumpingDwarf]

For those who use the "exclude" policy how do you do experience check rolls?

If the adventurer has 60% written for the skill and 10% for the category bonus then the skill level they roll against when using the skill is 70%.

 

When you roll for the experience increase do you roll against 60% or 70%?

 

[Joerg]

In RQ3 I wrote down the unmodified values on the sheet, and substracted the bonus when it came to experience rolls.

[Julian Lord]

RuneQuest 2 used INT as the minimum % chance to progress, though the basic experience rolling rule was clunky indeed. 

Of course, it's just clearly easier to write the combined skill % (including the bonus), so as to avoid having to do a useless mental calculation every single time you use that skill ; in this vein, RuneQuest 3 stated explicitly "when you have once used a category modifier to revalue a skill, you will not use it again for that skill." ; and later "Add the appropriate skills category modifier to the roll before determining whether the experience roll succeeded."

Otherwise, I'd generally suggest that mental addition is less error-prone (and I think faster) than mental substraction.

Edited September 26, 2018 by Julian Lord

[David Scott]

6 hours ago, JumpingDwarf said:

For those who use the "exclude" policy how do you do experience check rolls?

If the adventurer has 60% written for the skill and 10% for the category bonus then the skill level they roll against when using the skill is 70%.

When you roll for the experience increase do you roll against 60% or 70%?

It’s exactly as the rules are written on page 415.

Quote

To make an experience roll, a player rolls D100 for each ability check and then adds the appropriate skills category modifier for that ability to the roll. (...)

If the roll, as modified by the appropriate skills category modifier, is higher than the adventurer's current skill ability, the adventurer improves their rating in that skill.

You’re not rolling against skill plus bonus, just skill, the bonus is added to the roll. In your example you roll D100 and add the bonus to it, then compare it to the 60% skill. IMO excluding the bonus for the skill on the sheet makes experience rolls easier to do. 

[PhilHibbs]

7 hours ago, JumpingDwarf said:

For those who use the "exclude" policy how do you do experience check rolls?

If the adventurer has 60% written for the skill and 10% for the category bonus then the skill level they roll against when using the skill is 70%.

When you roll for the experience increase do you roll against 60% or 70%?

You roll over 60, or 100+ when adding category modifier.

8 hours ago, David Scott said:

I totally agree with @PhilHibbs, exclude, I’d like to add spirit and rune magic that alter bonuses, Strength, Odayla rune magic for example.

Oh, another way of doing it is just use my Google Sheet which does it all for you including spell bonuses.

Bear in mind that the spirit spell bonuses to characteristics do not increase your category modifiers, the spells have separate explicit effects on the modifiers. (My spreadsheet does that correctly too)

[jps]

In RQ3 I didn’t add the modifiers to skills so that when a modifier would change we wouldn’t have to change all the skills. Obviously we added them to the skill when we rolled. Thinking of it, my players added their modifiers to the skills when they created their characters in the new edition.

The way we play: we roll for experience under the full skill (skill+modifier). As PhilHibs said the big benefit of a positive modifier is when you want a skill to be over 100.

Edited September 26, 2018 by jps

[womble]

5 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Bear in mind that the spirit spell bonuses to characteristics do not increase your category modifiers, the spells have separate explicit effects on the modifiers. (My spreadsheet does that correctly too)

IMG, they'll add to the stat and improve the bonuses exactly as if they had naturally added. A lot of the time that'll be the same as the default change in the spell description (which I consider a shortcut/generalisation to avoid having to do sums that might be unnecessary)... Sometimes it won't, and that matters to me.

[PhilHibbs]

23 minutes ago, womble said:

IMG, they'll add to the stat and improve the bonuses exactly as if they had naturally added. A lot of the time that'll be the same as the default change in the spell description (which I consider a shortcut/generalisation to avoid having to do sums that might be unnecessary)... Sometimes it won't, and that matters to me.

I might have a go and see if I can switch over the calculations on my sheet so that it can work either way. The easy way actually would be to ignore the spell check boxes and just put the bonus numbers into the temp adds that are there for other spells and effects.

Edited September 26, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[JumpingDwarf]

Thank you people.

It appears that different people do different things.

If I have read the responses correctly, some people do add the Skill Category Bonus to the written value for each skill, while others do not.

 

Some people have it that the Bonus effectively does not impact the success of an Experience Check Roll, while others have it so that the Bonus does make a difference.

 

So I guess the real answer is there isn't an official correct way.  Instead use whichever the GM and players are happy with.

[PhilHibbs]

7 hours ago, JumpingDwarf said:

So I guess the real answer is there isn't an official correct way.  Instead use whichever the GM and players are happy with.

There is, it's just that some people house-rule it differently. Officially, category mods are added in on the sheet, but are taken out again for experience rolls (by adding to the die roll), only really helping at over 100% skill.

Edited September 27, 2018 by PhilHibbs