Skills over 100%

[Alexandre]

Hi all,

the new edition of RQ is gorgeous! I love the art and also many of the concepts, though some areas baffle me a little. For example the rules say:

• If the adventurer has a skill above 100% and that skill is opposed by another skill lower than the adventurer’s skill, the opposing skill is reduced by the amount that the adventurer’s skill is above 100%. 

And this is fine. However they then say:

• If both combatants have combat skills of greater than 100%, the combat skills of each is reduced by the amount the highest skill is above 100%.

Why is this? I mean, if your skill is at 150% and you fight against an opponent whose skill is at 100%, you keep your 150% but he drops to 50%, whereas if his skill is just 101% you take the 50% penalty too! It just seems to me a huge difference for such a small change (even though it's above the "magic threshold" of 100%, which is actually 99% for split attacks, but this is another topic). 

Would it not make more sense to have each combatant reduced by the amount the other's skill is above 100% (or 99% to keep the same threshold as for the split attack)?

Thanks,

Alex

[Kloster]

29 minutes ago, Alexandre said:

Why is this? I mean, if your skill is at 150% and you fight against an opponent whose skill is at 100%, you keep your 150% but he drops to 50%, whereas if his skill is just 101% you take the 50% penalty too! It just seems to me a huge difference for such a small change (even though it's above the "magic threshold" of 100%, which is actually 99% for split attacks, but this is another topic). 

No, if you have 150% and your opponent 100%, you go down to 100% (with 20% special and 5% crit) and your opponent go down to 50% (and 10% special and 3% crit).

 

[Alexandre]

1 minute ago, Kloster said:

No, if you have 150% and your opponent 100%, you go down to 100% (with 20% special and 5% crit) and your opponent go down to 50% (and 10% special and 3% crit).

 

Exactly, this is my problem:

• If I have 150 and my opponent 99, I stay at 150 and he goes down to 49;
• If I have 150 and my opponent 100, I go down to 100 and he to 50.

Basically for a difference of 1% in his skill I also get the penalty of 50%. This is what seem to me a bit harsh but of course YMMV. 

[Kloster]

13 minutes ago, Alexandre said:

Exactly, this is my problem:

• If I have 150 and my opponent 99, I stay at 150 and he goes down to 49;
• If I have 150 and my opponent 100, I go down to 100 and he to 50.

Basically for a difference of 1% in his skill I also get the penalty of 50%. This is what seem to me a bit harsh but of course YMMV. 

No, if you have 150% and your opponent 99%, you go down to 100% and he go down to 49%.

[Alexandre]

Though this is what logic would suggest, it does not seem to me this is what is written in the rules (p. 201 and 202):

. . If the adventurer has a skill above 100% and that
skill is opposed by another skill lower than the
adventurer’s skill, the opposing skill is reduced by
the amount that the adventurer’s skill is above 100%.
Thus, a troll with a 75% shield skill who tries to
parry an attack from an adventurer with a 120%
sword skill has only a 55% chance of parrying the
sword. Alternatively, a troll with a 75% one-handed
mace skill who tries to hit an adventurer with a
120% shield skill has only a 55% chance of hitting.

 

. . If both combatants have combat skills of greater
than 100%, the combat skills of each is reduced
by the amount the highest skill is above 100%.
Thus, if a Sword Lord of Humakt with a 150%
broadsword skill fights a Wind Lord with a 130%
medium shield skill, the Sword Lord attacks at
100% and the Wind Lord parries at 80%.

(emphasis mine)

[Kloster]

Ough, I had not seen this one.

[Kloster]

According to Jason (in the Runequest core rules question thread, P4), if you have 150% and your opponent 99%, you go down to 100% and he go down to 49%. There was a question on the same subject by Skovari, and a clarification asked by myself. But I agree with you, the wording RAW is strange.

Edited February 26, 2019 by Kloster
wrong page number

[PhilHibbs]

Seems to me that everyone, including the authors, have just assumed that in the first case, the higher skill is reduced to 100% even though the rules don't actually say it. Clearly there is a sentence that needs to be added to make this explicit!

[Atgxtg]

22 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Seems to me that everyone, including the authors, have just assumed that in the first case, the higher skill is reduced to 100% even though the rules don't actually say it. Clearly there is a sentence that needs to be added to make this explicit!

Or just drop the first paragraph and amend the second to something along the lines of:

If one or more combatants have combat skills of greater
than 100%, the combat skills of each is reduced
by the amount the highest skill is above 100%.
Thus, if a Sword Lord of Humakt with a 150%
broadsword skill fights a Wind Lord with a 130%
medium shield skill, the Sword Lord attacks at
100% and the Wind Lord parries at 80%.

 

 

This also handles what happens when three or more character have combat skills over 100%

[PhilHibbs]

32 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

This also handles what happens when three or more character have combat skills over 100%

There's never a three-way comparison of results. If I'm splitting my attacks against two opponents, that's two separate comparisons. If I'm parrying two attacks, that's two separate comparisons.

Alice and Bob are attacking me.

Alice's skill is 130 and my parry is 90. That's 100 vs 60.

Bob's skill is 120 and my second parry is 70. That's 100 vs 50.

Are you proposing that Bob's attack be reduced to 90 because of Alice's attack skill?

Edited February 26, 2019 by PhilHibbs

[Atgxtg]

No, but are you sure Alice's attack skill doesn't reduce your chance to defend against Bob? 

 

[Alexandre]

22 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Or just drop the first paragraph and amend the second to something along the lines of:

If one or more combatants have combat skills of greater
than 100%, the combat skills of each is reduced
by the amount the highest skill is above 100%.
Thus, if a Sword Lord of Humakt with a 150%
broadsword skill fights a Wind Lord with a 130%
medium shield skill, the Sword Lord attacks at
100% and the Wind Lord parries at 80%.

 

 

This also handles what happens when three or more character have combat skills over 100%

Absolutely! The first bullet is the origin of the confusion, as it says (maybe) the same thing as the one below with a different wording that could also mean something else! (Indeed probably most people, myself included on first reading, just forgot the first bullet after having read the second). 

While we are at it. The third bullet:

.While the actual chance of hitting remains no
better than 95% (due to rolls of 96–00 failing),
the chance of a special or critical success continues
to increase or decrease, based on the final
modified chance of success. As with other skills or
abilities, the final modified value is always the one
used to determine the chance of special or critical
successes, as well as fumbles. Thus, a Wind Lord
with a 150% sword skill has a 30% of a special
success, and an 8% chance of a critical hit.

in context could mean that even if the skill is decreased the original value is used to figure out the special and critical chances but I don't think it is the case (after all it says modified chance of success). So in general it is possible to have skill values over 100 only in an unopposed contest (OK, combat is not strictly an opposed contest, but you get my meaning).

Ciao,

Alex

 

[PhilHibbs]

28 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

No, but are you sure Alice's attack skill doesn't reduce your chance to defend against Bob? 

Yes.

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

Yes.

Okay. I wasn't sure. I could see the argument for either case. 

[PhilHibbs]

Just to clarify, I haven't seen an official ruling but the converse would be bizarre.

1. A has 100%, B has 200%, A goes first. My first parry is not reduced, but my second is by the standard 20% and further by 100%. Fine.

2. A has 200%, B has 100%, A attacks first. My first parry is reduced by 100%, and my second is reduced by 120%. Order of incoming attacks has made a profound difference to the outcome (assuming I survive the first blow, that is, maybe she rolls really low on damage.)

If A and B attack simultaneously, how do I figure which to use? I guess simultaneous attacks already have this problem, as one of them gets parried at full chance and the other is at -20%.

[Kloster]

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

1. A has 100%, B has 200%, A goes first. My first parry is not reduced, but my second is by the standard 20% and further by 100%. Fine.

I think 1st parry is reduced by 100% (to 100%), while the attack is reduced to 0% (so 5%)

[PhilHibbs]

30 minutes ago, Kloster said:

I think 1st parry is reduced by 100% (to 100%), while the attack is reduced to 0% (so 5%)

Sorry, A and B are both attacking me, I didn't make that clear enough.

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Just to clarify, I haven't seen an official ruling but the converse would be bizarre.

Yes, it would be bizarre, but I could see it be justified as the skilled attacker taking up so much of your attention or overwhelming your defenses to the point where the second guy gets an easier attack. Now, I'm not saying that it should be interpreted that way, only that it could. 

 

 

[Alexandre]

10 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Sorry, A and B are both attacking me, I didn't make that clear enough.

You could even make the scenario more complex by considering that you are also attacking and likely both A and B would be parrying with their 200% and 100% skills. So if you attack A (and he parries with his 200% skill) your attack is lowered by 100%, while if you attack B your attack is unchanged, But realistically you would not be ignoring A if you attack the other. 

[kirinyaga]

To me, that rule looks like a transposition to the D100 system of the Heroquest Mastery rescaling. It's just a way to keep numbers reasonnably scaled and nothing more. I'll just do stuff normally, and, at the end, just before rolling the dice, rescale everything to a 0-100 range, so that a 80% parry against a 150% attack is like a 30% parry vs a 100% attack.

The spirit here is not to do weird stuff with the rules but only to rescale percentages properly. To me that rule is really only that : a heroquest-inspired way to keep numbers in 0-100 range. And sticking to the spirit is always better than sticking to the letter. That's how I understood it, at least.

So, to me, you parry at -100 vs the 200% guy and at 0 vs the 100% one, whatever order the attacks (well plus the -20 for the second parry of course).

[PhilHibbs]

1 hour ago, kirinyaga said:

To me, that rule looks like a transposition to the D100 system of the Heroquest Mastery rescaling. It's just a way to keep numbers reasonnably scaled and nothing more. I'll just do stuff normally, and, at the end, just before rolling the dice, rescale everything to a 0-100 range, so that a 80% parry against a 150% attack is like a 30% parry vs a 100% attack.

So what you should really be saying is, HeroQuest mastery rescaling is a D20 transposition of the RQ2 mechanic.

[Alexandre]

4 hours ago, kirinyaga said:

To me, that rule looks like a transposition to the D100 system of the Heroquest Mastery rescaling. It's just a way to keep numbers reasonnably scaled and nothing more. I'll just do stuff normally, and, at the end, just before rolling the dice, rescale everything to a 0-100 range, so that a 80% parry against a 150% attack is like a 30% parry vs a 100% attack.

The spirit here is not to do weird stuff with the rules but only to rescale percentages properly. To me that rule is really only that : a heroquest-inspired way to keep numbers in 0-100 range. And sticking to the spirit is always better than sticking to the letter. That's how I understood it, at least.

So, to me, you parry at -100 vs the 200% guy and at 0 vs the 100% one, whatever order the attacks (well plus the -20 for the second parry of course).

Except that Heroquest works (really well) the other way around: You would subtract 100 (a mastery) from both skills, not the amount over 100. But ultimately I agree that the spirit of the rule is sufficiently clear (once you assume it works the same way whether or not your opponent is above 100% too) that it does not matter.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Has anyone extensively used the "over 100%" mechanic, with characters and opponents who have skills over 100? So far I've only run a game with the pregens, where Harmast has the highest skill at exactly 100%, so runic augmentation was the only time it could have become relevant, and in that case the opponents were not defending.

Edited February 28, 2019 by PhilHibbs

[Alexandre]

Well in my campaign the fighters have their primary weapon skill at about 90% (I think with the way char gen works this should be pretty standard). With bladesharp 2 or Strength and an inspiration it means 120% in almost all serious fights.

[PhilHibbs]

14 minutes ago, Alexandre said:

Well in my campaign the fighters have their primary weapon skill at about 90% (I think with the way char gen works this should be pretty standard). With bladesharp 2 or Strength and an inspiration it means 120% in almost all serious fights.

Do you find the subtractions to be a problem?