Best Rules for Comparing Successful Rolls

[olskool]

On 12/5/2018 at 5:22 AM, RosenMcStern said:

Your Memory roll was too high, Jakob  In fact, Revolution allows even starting characters to go beyond 100.

When your adjusted skill roll is above 100, you add your quota beyond 100 to your die roll for the purposes of comparing it to the opposition. This means that if for instance you have 140% and roll 49, it counts as 89 for comparisons. But you only need to make the calculation if a comparison is needed, whereas the "subtract to the skill before rolling" requires that you make the maths for all rolls. This completely eliminates the need for two-digit subtraction, and any kind of multiplication or division. I never found these operations difficult, but many people do.

As for the "philosophical" reasons why the blackjack method (roll as high as possible, but within your skill, as it happens in Pendragon and HeroQuest) is disruptive in classic percentile games, it may help to think in a slightly different way:

You roll low -> Thing went very smoothly and you went for the simplest approach to the problem. You did it, but not so elegantly and anyone who adopted a more sophisticated approach will outclass you.

You roll high -> Things went in the most complicate way you can think of, and only a real master could cope with this specific situation; if you are not such a master, you failed; however; if you were skilled enough to succeed, then your success outclassed anyone else's.

Well, you should consider that "borrowed."   

...(Sighs)... looks like I have another reason to buy Revolution now, and I just ponied up for RQG, D&D5e (not really impressed by this despite my nephew's accolades), and 3 softback editions of Mythras as Christmas presents.  I just wish my local gaming shop had a hardcopy to buy.   I am admittedly a "Dead Tree Grognard" and hate PDFs despite my "digital" nephew's best efforts.  He does seem to enjoy borrowing all my "dead tree" RPGs Though, pretty odd for someone so attached to digital media?  I guess I'll have to look into a LULU printing like I did with Mythras.

[olskool]

14 hours ago, Crel said:

I've got to process the rest of your thoughts more, but I do really like this. It makes it obvious whether or not the roll was a crit or a fumble the moment you see the dice. When you round up for Outstanding Success, where do you cut off the rounding? In other words, would a 51% also round up to a 6% Outstanding Success?

 

 

Yes.  I give the benefit to the player since I'm dropping this from 20% of the roll for a normal Special Success (impale).

[olskool]

8 hours ago, lawrence.whitaker said:

Just to clarify, Mythras/RQ6 combat doesn't use Opposed Rolls for deciding combat outcomes and Special Effects. It uses Differential Rolls, which measure levels of success. Opposed Rolls don't have any Special Effects involved: effects are reserved for physical and spirit combat only.

For true opposed rolls, such as Perception vs Stealth, or Willpower resisting a spell, Opposed Roll resolution uses the 'Roll High But Within' method to determine the winner, with a Critical result trumping a success, and a higher Critical (ie, roll high within one's critical range) result trumping an opposing crit.

Mythras also reduces participants who have >100 to 100, with opponents being reduced by a number of points equal to the excess. This applies to both Opposed Roll and Differential Roll situations. In Mythras, skills don't tend to climb very far beyond 100%, and it would be exceedingly rare to find someone with 200%+.

1

       Yes, I'm aware of this.  My issue was always if you ran out of ACTIONS or you used your last ACTION for something else (casting a spell, readying a new weapon) and your opponent scored a success on an UNOPPOSED ROLL, he gets to not only hit you for damage but inflict some kind of Special Effect as well (some of which are "game changing").  All of this just because you run out of ACTIONS.  It felt more than a little "unfair" to slower characters and magic users trying to cast spells with their actions who were subsequently attacked (often with ranged weapons).   

       My bumping the selection of an SE up to a roll of 1/2 Skill or less your Skill reduces the frequency of SEs and makes them feel more like the Special Effects I believe that they should be.  This is just my opinion of course, and your RQ6 may vary.  This desire to make SEs feel "Special"  is why I divide them up between THREE levels of Success (instead of the two levels in RQ6).

[Pentallion]

The best rules for comparing successful rolls?  RQG's rules as written.

[lawrence.whitaker]

36 minutes ago, olskool said:

       Yes, I'm aware of this.  My issue was always if you ran out of ACTIONS or you used your last ACTION for something else (casting a spell, readying a new weapon) and your opponent scored a success on an UNOPPOSED ROLL, he gets to not only hit you for damage but inflict some kind of Special Effect as well (some of which are "game changing").  All of this just because you run out of ACTIONS.  It felt more than a little "unfair" to slower characters and magic users trying to cast spells with their actions who were subsequently attacked (often with ranged weapons).   

       My bumping the selection of an SE up to a roll of 1/2 Skill or less your Skill reduces the frequency of SEs and makes them feel more like the Special Effects I believe that they should be.  This is just my opinion of course, and your RQ6 may vary.  This desire to make SEs feel "Special"  is why I divide them up between THREE levels of Success (instead of the two levels in RQ6).

Sure, I get that; I was just making the opposed/differential separation clear because there are some people who have mistaken one for the other. How you choose to have the effects work should reflect your play style.

And thank you for buying lots of copies of Mythras!

[Thyrwyn]

58 minutes ago, olskool said:

.... D&D5e (not really impressed by this despite my nephew's accolades), .....

I’ve been playing since AD&D, and 5e is my favorite system by far, but it’s strengths may only really prove evident during play. It is not deeply intricate, but it is consistent, and broad enough to allow meaningful choices that remain engaging and fast. 

The action system is deeper than it appears at first glance, and the advantage/disadvantage mechanic makes tactics relevant without requiring the number crunching that hampers some systems. The character backgrounds allow another layer of character customization that creates varied and diverse characters, despite the constraints of a class based system. 

The mechanics make it easy to prep for (as a GM), and easy to play. As a GM, I find it easy to get even new players to look up from their character sheets and make engage the world; to make decisions based on situations, not mechanics. 

Give it a chance

[MJ Sadique]

13 hours ago, Pentallion said:

The best rules for comparing successful rolls?  RQG's rules as written.

I'm half agree with you...

Personally, the very best rule to me is HeroWars (& HQ) rules to compare successful rolls because :
-Bonus are used as usual, skills rolls only take in account the decimal + unit ( 126% is roll ass 26% : no need for an extra table)
-Each 100% (1M) give you a bonus of one quality of success or a malus to the other side
-You compare the global success giving you a qualitative result (minor>major>total) and not just a win or fail
-Even equality in "success/success or fail/fail" never ended without a proper and simple answer

The HW/HQ is so simple, you can write all rules in half A4 and it is also easier to compare opposing characteristics without any multiplication-by-5-for-dummies table

... because RQ-G had clearly benefit from HW/HQ system but not enough to my taste because inspirations/skill boosting another is clearly simpler, better, faster to use in HW.

Edited December 7, 2018 by MJ Sadique
orthograph (like always)

[soltakss]

On 12/4/2018 at 4:56 PM, Tywyll said:

I assume that mechanic bottoms out at skills of 100%. What happens beyond that?

There is an optional rule that if you roll below the amount of skill above 100, it is an Advantage. So, if I have a skill if 120% and I roll 18, then that is an Advantage, as it is below 120-100=20.

I have an optional rule of a Double Advantage, where if the above rule is applied and the roll would naturally be an Advantage then you get 2 Advantages, so 10 is an Advantage as the tens digit is higher than the units digit and is an Advantage as 10 is below 20.

[soltakss]

17 hours ago, olskool said:

...(Sighs)... looks like I have another reason to buy Revolution now

Has anyone told you about how Skills and Traits work? If you want Revolution because of the Advantage rules, then you are going to love the Skills and Traits. Well, I love those, anyway.

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

Has anyone told you about how Skills and Traits work? If you want Revolution because of the Advantage rules, then you are going to love the Skills and Traits. Well, I love those, anyway.

No ones' told me. I've read the SRD, but what's so special about the skills & traits? 

Edited December 7, 2018 by Atgxtg

[soltakss]

6 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

No ones' told me. I've read the SRD, but what's so special about the skills & traits? 

For me, it's the best thing about Revolution D100.

You have a reduced set of skills, off the top of my head there are about 12 skills.

For each skill you can have Traits, which are specialisations, or things you can do better. So, you might have Athletics as a skill but also have Climb, Jump and Swim as Traits. So, two PCs could have Athletics 50%, but one could have Climb, Jump and Swim as Traits and the other could have Run, Throw and Brawn, so they have the same base skill but have very different skill sets. It becomes really useful with things like Sense Chaos, in other D100 games, Sense Chaos would either be a skill on its own, in which case it has to be increased separately, or it is a special ability, in Revolution it is just a Perception Trait.

Its real strength comes when using Revolution with different genres. You have the same base skill set, but you might want to add Science, perhaps, but you use different Traits. So a Space Marine might have Parachuting as an Athletics Trait, for example.

With Traits come Stunts, which are specialisations in the Trait. So, the Space Marine might have Parachuting as an Athletics Trait but have HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) and NOLO (Near Orbit Low Opening) as Stunts, allowing him/her to parachute down from very high altitudes without being spotted.

For me, they are extremely flexible, get around a lot of the problems I have had with D100 games, being a long-term player, and are very easy to use. I like large skill sets, so RQ2 was great for me, then RQ3 dropped Trap Set/Disarm in favour of Mechanisms, then MRQ dropped even more skills and Mythras/Legend dropped them further. I hated that, as it reduced the complexity and variety of a PC. Then I saw Revolution D100 and it hit the sweet spot, with a reduced set of skills but a large number of Traits, allowing me the flexibility of an RQ2 PC with the simplicity of "new" versions of D100. 

[Pentallion]

Above 100% the chance for specials and crits increases so that is handled fine.  Of course, if you use RAW, you reduce the higher skilled person to 100% and the lower skilled person by a like amount.  So no problem there.  In fact, that works great in opposed rolls.  In combat, I absolutely despise reducing skills to 100%.

[Tywyll]

22 hours ago, Pentallion said:

Above 100% the chance for specials and crits increases so that is handled fine.  Of course, if you use RAW, you reduce the higher skilled person to 100% and the lower skilled person by a like amount.  So no problem there.  In fact, that works great in opposed rolls.  In combat, I absolutely despise reducing skills to 100%.

Why is that out of curiosity? 

[HreshtIronBorne]

There are a couple situations I have found in combat where stuff just gets weird and un-fun with the RAW skills over 100 rule. 

 

My starting Humakti had 100 to hit. With a bladesharp 4 he got to 120, with a simple success at inspiration/augmentation he is at 140. Still fairly reasonable, opponents are -40% to hit him and to parry most if the time.

This same character got ahold of just a 12 point mpm and then used his MP + the MPM to cast a Sword Trance with 15 MP in it. This put him at 290 to Hit and to Parry. Every opponent he faces would be -190 to hit and to Parry. Combined with Truesword and Bladesharp 4, he is hitting for 4d8+4+1d6 with his greatswords. He still only crits on 5 or less and specials on 20 or less. He wades through anyone with less than 200 skill. It's probably just me and the way our group plays but, this quickly led to the battles all feeling like The Humakti Show, lol. Basically the only tool the gm has to throw at me is some other dude that if he happens to get lucky and ruin me, he then decimates the whole party with no chance to resist. Then there is the whole reduction of crit and special, which to me having grown up RQ3ing with pretty epic characters, just leaves me feeling like I never advance at all. I may be winning more but, the satisfaction of a crit or special success is awesome. 

 

That's just my two sense about the whole Skills over 100 thing. 

[jeffjerwin]

1 hour ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

There are a couple situations I have found in combat where stuff just gets weird and un-fun with the RAW skills over 100 rule. 

 

My starting Humakti had 100 to hit. With a bladesharp 4 he got to 120, with a simple success at inspiration/augmentation he is at 140. Still fairly reasonable, opponents are -40% to hit him and to parry most if the time.

This same character got ahold of just a 12 point mpm and then used his MP + the MPM to cast a Sword Trance with 15 MP in it. This put him at 290 to Hit and to Parry. Every opponent he faces would be -190 to hit and to Parry. Combined with Truesword and Bladesharp 4, he is hitting for 4d8+4+1d6 with his greatswords. He still only crits on 5 or less and specials on 20 or less. He wades through anyone with less than 200 skill. It's probably just me and the way our group plays but, this quickly led to the battles all feeling like The Humakti Show, lol. Basically the only tool the gm has to throw at me is some other dude that if he happens to get lucky and ruin me, he then decimates the whole party with no chance to resist. Then there is the whole reduction of crit and special, which to me having grown up RQ3ing with pretty epic characters, just leaves me feeling like I never advance at all. I may be winning more but, the satisfaction of a crit or special success is awesome. 

 

That's just my two sense about the whole Skills over 100 thing. 

It sounds like this PC needs to meet a properly kitted out Yarnfil Tarnils Rune Lord, or be challenged by another Humakti to a formal duel.

[HreshtIronBorne]

That is the problem though. They are some of the few npcs that can fuck shit up on that level but with the RAW over 100 rules they would put the whole rest of the party through a meat grinder. Without subtracting percentiles over 100 at least the less skilled party members can parry a couple times. 

[jeffjerwin]

2 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

That is the problem though. They are some of the few npcs that can fuck shit up on that level but with the RAW over 100 rules they would put the whole rest of the party through a meat grinder. Without subtracting percentiles over 100 at least the less skilled party members can parry a couple times. 

Truthfully, avoiding melee combat with Humakti seems like a decent survival strategy. Of course Humakti are not immune to missile weapons (there's only so much Parry can do), nor are they immune to Sunspear, nasty Sorcery spells, or Mindblast, etc. In fact, RQ even in earlier editions was much more survivable if everyone learned how to shoot a bow (particularly against Chaos and Trolls).

From what I've seen of real European sword fighting, a skilled master can make short shift of a less skilled person, and the results are rarely in doubt - except versus multiple opponents, or when there's some serious disadvantage to the master. In skirmishes and battles, no doubt the strategy with Humakti is to isolate and overwhelm them, probably aided by magic.

[Crel]

1 hour ago, jeffjerwin said:

Of course Humakti are not immune to missile weapons (there's only so much Parry can do), nor are they immune to Sunspear, nasty Sorcery spells, or Mindblast, etc.

Disruption does a lot of work in these situations too, for a 1pt spell. It's kind of like having a wand of magic missile in D20 games; fire and repeat until the nearly-untouchable bastard stops moving.

[womble]

4 hours ago, Crel said:

Disruption does a lot of work in these situations too, for a 1pt spell. It's kind of like having a wand of magic missile in D20 games; fire and repeat until the nearly-untouchable bastard stops moving.

And any starting character with access to Multispell and Disruption can fire off a 3d3 shot every round at DEX SR. Demoralise drops the Humakti's chance to hit (by how much depends on your GM's interpretation of what gets halved, when). Dispelling the magics would let the wind out of his sails some: 3 points of Rune Magic Dispel gets rid of the Truesword and the Bladesharp, both. Slow the Humakt, and make it a running fight until some of the magic wears off. Or Befuddle him and leave well alone. Speedarted Heavy Crossbow: which location would you like to stop using, with that 2-hander (I'm assuming roughly RAW stats: with a d6 damage bonus, he'll be lucky to have superhuman HP)?

The Sword Trance trick can't be pulled off every fight, neither can the Inspiration, RAW. If the Humakti elects to preserve all his resources for the 'last fight', he might be at risk of not making it to that last fight. As a ref, I've been verrrry liberal with the MP resources my players have available; this is intended to give them greater stamina, with the potential to chuck the odd situation-changing wad, and allow them to actually use all their lovely tools rather than fretting about not having them available because they burned all their POW's worth of MP in the first fight they got a bit nervous in. Edit: and give them 'permission' to use their non-combat spells, as they'll still have the MP to do that by the time it gets to a fight.

But, even if you're going to the 'one big shot, baseline the rest of the time' model, a party can do something to stop your Humakti's evil reflection scything through them like so much barley, similarly, the NPCs will have to refrain from just going head-to-head with the bloke. Which is probably the best course of action even if he hasn't got his threshing machine rolling.

Certainly, the system starts to break down at 200-plus. When my lot get there, the higher skill will only be reduced by enough to have the matching reduction of the lower skill take the lower skill to 5%. In fact, if at any point their over-100 would take the opposed skill to less than 5 if reduced to 100, the lower will go to 5 and the higher be reduced by the same, leaving the vastly more skillful character with improved (though not full) Special/Crit chances.

Edited December 9, 2018 by womble

[HreshtIronBorne]

I simply prefer everyone having all their skills all the time. To me it feels just as, if not more, epic to leave everyone at full percentiles all the time. Just because someone has excellent skills doesn't mean they should ignore that their opponent has trained their whole life as well. 

[soltakss]

I don't mind one person having a high skill with magic. It just means they churn through minor NPCs and can fight more people, but give major NPCs a run for their money. It reminds me of Lin Chun in The Water Margin, he is functionally the equivalent of that Humakti PC. 

Some people might think it is unfair to have one PC who is so good at fighting, but it just means the other PCs can concentrate on their own opponents, safe in the knowledge that he will finish off anyone else. It is teamwork rather than individual glory.

Edited December 9, 2018 by soltakss

[HreshtIronBorne]

The high skill isn't the issue. I personally love RQ when characters get to high skill and power levels. The thing I find disrupts the experience is the RAW Skills Over 100 Rule. I think it takes a lot of the fun from high power RQ3 play and deflates it. 

[Mugen]

On 12/4/2018 at 2:45 PM, Mugen said:

Highest roll win ties is definitely my first choice.

Success Margin means more maths for little benefits.

Low roll creates strange cases where a character's higher skill will make him lose a contest (as it is the case when you roll over your opponent's skill).

Least favored is the one that was chosen for RQG : nothing happens on a tie. It basically means "defender wins" when there is a "defending" party.

I would add that, in case both characters fail their rolls, the one with the highest roll should also win the contest.

This is something that is done in 4th edition of Warhammer FRP, and a good thing.

Edited December 10, 2018 by Mugen

[Kloster]

8 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

The high skill isn't the issue. I personally love RQ when characters get to high skill and power levels. The thing I find disrupts the experience is the RAW Skills Over 100 Rule. I think it takes a lot of the fun from high power RQ3 play and deflates it. 

Completely agree here.

Kloster

[womble]

2 hours ago, Mugen said:

I would add that, in case both characters fail their rolls, the one with the highest roll should also win the contest.

This is something that is done in 4th edition of Warhammer FRP, and a good thing.

That will depend very much on the contest, the format and the environment. Sometimes both failing might mean both have to try again, or just a 'no-contest'.