Dice mechanics

[DeathFromAbove]

Hi,

new to the forum, but old timer RPGs, BRP, Runequest and d100 gamer.

I come from the Harnmaster system, where every roll divisible by 5 is a critical success/failure, and I love this mechanic, as it is simple, and come into play just enough.

I was wondering if the success degree mechanics for the Runequest is fast enough to be used on the table.

the 5%/20% thershold for critical success/special success is easy to handle?

Anyone adopted other methods?

[Psullie]

rounding to 5's for the target number then just diving by 5 or 20 keeps it simple. 

[jps]

Yes it's easy to use: just divide by ten and divide by two again for critical or multiply by two for a special success.

Piece of cake ^^

[styopa]

2 hours ago, DeathFromAbove said:

Hi,

new to the forum, but old timer RPGs, BRP, Runequest and d100 gamer.

I come from the Harnmaster system, where every roll divisible by 5 is a critical success/failure, and I love this mechanic, as it is simple, and come into play just enough.

I was wondering if the success degree mechanics for the Runequest is fast enough to be used on the table.

the 5%/20% thershold for critical success/special success is easy to handle?

Anyone adopted other methods?

We've been using it for ~40 years, so...yes?

I like the Harn system, in particular that it spreads "criticals" as successes/failures naturally across the spread of chance, rather than clustering them at the top/bottom (which can lead to funky changes in statistical likelihood if someone accidentally interprets it like "this gives you a -5% on your attack roll" ...suddenly your chance to crit goes up by 5 points, special/success doesn't change, and it becomes impossible to fumble).

But the RQ system gives more granularity as well (at least, on the success side - always wished there was some easy way to do that for failures just for symmetry) and that's useful.

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, DeathFromAbove said:

I was wondering if the success degree mechanics for the Runequest is fast enough to be used on the table.

the 5%/20% thershold for critical success/special success is easy to handle?

Yes, but it probably depends on the group. In our group at least two people at the table could do the 5%/20% calculation in their heads (there are a couple of tricks for that, if you are interested), so it was very fast at the table. Only occasionally did we stop to check to see if something was a crtical or special, and that was only when a roll was vary close, and the outcome really important. 

2 hours ago, DeathFromAbove said:

Anyone adopted other methods?

Yeah, I've tried a couple, including some similar to Harn. 

[PhilHibbs]

2 hours ago, DeathFromAbove said:

I come from the Harnmaster system, where every roll divisible by 5 is a critical success/failure, and I love this mechanic, as it is simple, and come into play just enough.

I was wondering if the success degree mechanics for the Runequest is fast enough to be used on the table.

the 5%/20% thershold for critical success/special success is easy to handle?

Doesn't work so well with "highest roll breaks a tie", although that is not an official RQG rule.

[MJ Sadique]

Like most RQ's GM, I've tried lot of alternatives and solutions (from the slowest to the fastest)

1/ Giving all players the table : Simplest (for the GM) and no problem with most players (not newbies)

2/ Create a new Sheet with some space to write Special & critical success for all skills (like in Cthulhu v7)

3/ A bit Change of rules by multiplying the Dice Score by 5 or 20 instead of dividing the skills percentages. (an great idea of my first GM)

• If Dice Score x5 is still a success, it's a special success
• If Dice Score x20 is still a success, it's a critical success
• 01 is always a Critical success

4/ Giving to players a "Card Game" size table with simplified table (Considering Dice x5-20 instead of skills /5-20)...(My favourite one but it's a lot more time consuming to create, print...)

[DeathFromAbove]

Thanks everyone for the insights.

I really like the last card table, and perhaps I could work on something similar for my table.

I'd like also to look into rule about skills over 100, that subtract for adversaries; I'm from the school that the less you need to make calculations with numbers, the faster the game.

But not yet found any kind of solution for it.

[styopa]

8 hours ago, DeathFromAbove said:

Thanks everyone for the insights.

I really like the last card table, and perhaps I could work on something similar for my table.

I'd like also to look into rule about skills over 100, that subtract for adversaries; I'm from the school that the less you need to make calculations with numbers, the faster the game.

But not yet found any kind of solution for it.

The subtract from adversaries is only from rqg, no other version used it iirc.  The game plays better without it.

[soltakss]

On 10/5/2018 at 1:57 PM, DeathFromAbove said:

I come from the Harnmaster system, where every roll divisible by 5 is a critical success/failure, and I love this mechanic, as it is simple, and come into play just enough.

I was wondering if the success degree mechanics for the Runequest is fast enough to be used on the table.

the 5%/20% thershold for critical success/special success is easy to handle?

Anyone adopted other methods?

For Mythras/Legend, I just use the tens part of the skill as the Critical chance, makes it easy and saves having to round up or down.

For RQ2/RQ3/RQG, we just work out a fifth and a twentieth, but normally, we divide by ten and double or half, again fairly easy on the fly, but you have to round.

 

Nomrally, we roll and see if it is worth working out. So, a roll of 70 on a skill of 80 means it isn't worth working out the chance of a cpecial/critical, but a roll of 18 means we need to see if it is a Special, a roll of 10 needs to see if it is a Critical.

[womble]

4 hours ago, styopa said:

The subtract from adversaries is only from rqg, no other version used it iirc.  The game plays better without it.

That's been in since RQ2 at least, I think, for >99 skills. Though before RQG I think it only came off the lower skill. In RQG it comes off both,  so your chances of crit/spec/fumble don't change once you're past 100 and fighting lesser-skilled opponents. Apparently.

[PhilHibbs]

6 minutes ago, womble said:

That's been in since RQ2 at least, I think, for >99 skills. Though before RQG I think it only came off the lower skill. In RQG it comes off both,  so your chances of crit/spec/fumble don't change once you're past 100 and fighting lesser-skilled opponents. Apparently.

I think the reduction of high skills is new to RQG. And as I understand it, it doesn't reduce the chance of specials or criticals. So 200% vs 150% when reduced to 100% and 50% still have special chances of 40% and 30%, and critical chances of 10% and 8%.

[Skovari]

6 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I think the reduction of high skills is new to RQG. And as I understand it, it doesn't reduce the chance of specials or criticals. So 200% vs 150% when reduced to 100% and 50% still have special chances of 40% and 30%, and critical chances of 10% and 8%.

I think the critical and success is based on your final adjusted skill.  Much like a blade sharp on your sword adjusts them up.

And I always thought it came of both.  You are using your over 100 skill to lower their opposing.  Think this was always true.  Otherwise it would make the primary skill too powerful. My experience being RQ2 and the new RQG

Edited October 7, 2018 by Skovari

[Joerg]

3 hours ago, Skovari said:

I think the critical and success is based on your final adjusted skill.  Much like a blade sharp on your sword adjusts them up.

And I always thought it came of both.  You are using your over 100 skill to lower their opposing.  Think this was always true.  Otherwise it would make the primary skill too powerful. My experience being RQ2 and the new RQG

While I have never played RQ2, that game had Defense which substracted from the opponent's attack roll, reducing the problem of such skills somewhat.

[d(sqrt(-1))]

True, but Defence was normally in the 0-10% range and much harder to improve (roll INT or less on d% in any adventure where it made the difference between being hit or not). I suppose if you played a PC for years it might get up to high levels - can't find my Rune Masters pdf at the moment to check. 

(It was never really clarified if negative Defence counted or not - none of the monsters with high SIZ etc had a Defence lower then zero though)

 

[soltakss]

1 hour ago, d(sqrt(-1)) said:

True, but Defence was normally in the 0-10% range and much harder to improve (roll INT or less on d% in any adventure where it made the difference between being hit or not). I suppose if you played a PC for years it might get up to high levels - can't find my Rune Masters pdf at the moment to check. 

(It was never really clarified if negative Defence counted or not - none of the monsters with high SIZ etc had a Defence lower then zero though)

Our high level RQ2 campaign had Defence around the 80% mark, which was very effective against normal NPCs. Some had Defence of over 100%, but they had high INT so made the increase more often, I think Raven, our Aldryami Yelornan, had INT 24, but she didn't play as often as some PCs.

[d(sqrt(-1))]

10 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Our high level RQ2 campaign had Defence around the 80% mark, which was very effective against normal NPCs. Some had Defence of over 100%, but they had high INT so made the increase more often, I think Raven, our Aldryami Yelornan, had INT 24, but she didn't play as often as some PCs.

Ok, I was thinking that you would be a likely person to have experience of it. I guess even at high levels of defence, if you need to split it between multiple attackers it's not that effective. Also ISTR that you had PCs with skills in the 100s of percentages, so -80% might not have been such a great effect, relatively. But as you say, against normal NPCs pretty effective.

[PhilHibbs]

8 hours ago, Skovari said:

I think the critical and success is based on your final adjusted skill.  Much like a blade sharp on your sword adjusts them up.

And I always thought it came of both.  You are using your over 100 skill to lower their opposing.  Think this was always true.  Otherwise it would make the primary skill too powerful. My experience being RQ2 and the new RQG

Hmm, now that I re-read it, you're right, it says "skill is reduced" so it affects everything.

Personally I will houserule that it does not affect crit and special. Fewer recalculations. Why do you think it makes the primary skill too powerful? I think it's the other way around. In my example, the higher skill should have a 5% crit and the lower a 3%, whereas in my rule they get 10% and 8% which is closer in relative terms. Special chances RAW would be 20% and 10%, my rule gives 40% and 30%. So the basis difference is the same, but proportionally they are closer.

[Skovari]

5 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Hmm, now that I re-read it, you're right, it says "skill is reduced" so it affects everything.

Personally I will houserule that it does not affect crit and special. Fewer recalculations. Why do you think it makes the primary skill too powerful? I think it's the other way around. In my example, the higher skill should have a 5% crit and the lower a 3%, whereas in my rule they get 10% and 8% which is closer in relative terms. Special chances RAW would be 20% and 10%, my rule gives 40% and 30%. So the basis difference is the same, but proportionally they are closer.

I think it more powerful as it is reducing the other roll, still hitting at 100%, and keeping the full critical and special range.  Whereas the other skill will be well below 100% now.  And calculation of new specials and criticals on the fly is easy as pointed out above.  Divide by 10 and then either multiply or divide by 2

[PhilHibbs]

5 minutes ago, Skovari said:

And calculation of new specials and criticals on the fly is easy as pointed out above.  Divide by 10 and then either multiply or divide by 2

It's easy for you and me. I've seen grown men angry and tearful over having to do it, not being able to, and having to rely on others. Anything that can be done to entirely eliminate any form of multiplication or division in the middle of combat is a good move in my books.

Edited October 7, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Skovari]

2 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

It's easy for you and me. I've seen grown men angry and tearful over having to do it, not being able to, and having to rely on others. Anything that can be done to entirely eliminate any form of multiplication or division in the middle of combat is a good move in my books.

Then I do the math for them.  Or just print a table from 1-200%.

What I’ve never been happy with on this mechanic is that there were many ways to pump attacks up and not parry or dodge.  Just makes defense difficult as attacks escalate up.

[PhilHibbs]

8 minutes ago, Skovari said:

I think it more powerful as it is reducing the other roll, still hitting at 100%, and keeping the full critical and special range.

"Still hitting at 100%" (well, 95% really) isn't on the table here, is it? I don't think that either of us are advocating changing that.

I think the only difference between my way and RQG is that in mine, the lower skill gets to keep critical and special chances that are closer to those of their opponent. I see no way at all in which my way is more generous to the higher skill, quite the opposite. I like the way that my system keeps the two combatants closer in terms of outcome.

[Skovari]

1 minute ago, PhilHibbs said:

"Still hitting at 100%" (well, 95% really) isn't on the table here, is it? I don't think that either of us are advocating changing that.

I think the only difference between my way and RQG is that in mine, the lower skill gets to keep critical and special chances that are closer to those of their opponent. I see no way at all in which my way is more generous to the higher skill, quite the opposite. I like the way that my system keeps the two combatants closer in terms of outcome.

If course 95% is the real hit chance.

I guess I still see the defender worse off.  You’ve just lowered his chance for a normal success drastically and not taken anything off the attacker’s chance or special ranges.  What do you do when the parry becomes lower than their chance to special?  And why does this darned auto correct keep trying to change parry to party!!

[PhilHibbs]

27 minutes ago, Skovari said:

What do you do when the parry becomes lower than their chance to special?

Then all success are special successes, but the success chance still goes down below the special chance. That's going to be fairly rare, though, and only when the defender is thoroughly outclassed.

It only really breaks down when the lower skill is 1900% or more, where both sides still have 95% chance of a critical.

Edited October 7, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[soltakss]

16 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

It's easy for you and me. I've seen grown men angry and tearful over having to do it, not being able to, and having to rely on others. Anything that can be done to entirely eliminate any form of multiplication or division in the middle of combat is a good move in my books.

That is why I tend to use "Take the tens part and double it for a Special and halve it for a Critical" approach - quick and easy and, although not exactly accurate, it's close enough.