Sweet! you rolled a 3

[Chromatic]

I saw this point in another thread, and rather than derailing it (Deadlands is cool enough that it deserves its time in the spotlight) I started a new thread.

Originally posted by Bozimus

Some thoughts on chips and Hero....

 

You gotta be careful when tinkering. I told my players that rolling a natural 3 meant full damage from the dice (champs game, standard superhero level).

 

This seems like a common practice. Roll a natural 3 get max damage. But really, shouldn't it be get the best result? So the question here for discussion:

 

When a natural 3 is rolled, what should be the results in your game?

 

Same question for an 18?

 

Should the result differ for combat versus skill rolls?

[Outsider]

My rule was that a 3 always succeeded, and an 18 always failed. Situations that are absolutely sure things* didnt call for a skill roll in the first place, so no problems there.

 

*Like targetting one's own hex with a dropped object or noticing that the sun is up on a clear day at noon.

[Blue]

I did the "Full Damage" thing in my original campaign. It happened rarely and didn't seem to unbalance things. I don't do it now though because I've got 3x the number of players and therefore have 3x the likelihood of it happening.

 

Now 3 is an automatic hit and lends you automatic "Armor Piercing" effect for free for that hit. If you already have AP or you really need something lucky to happen, instead I handle it as if you got a few levels of luck.

 

An 18 is an automiss and if an ally is in an adjacent hex the hero makes an 11- to hit roll on them (allowing Offensive levels to subtract from the roll and help cause a miss).

 

For all situations (including skills) a roll of 3 at a critical point in a game will also give the player +1 exp at the end of the scenario.

[coach]

In general, I just do the 3 is an automatic success/hit, except for patently impossible situations (a normal can't hit the moon with a rock, no matter how many 3's he rolls). 18 is an automatic miss, of course. I personally dislike crits and fumbles. They add more randomness to a game that's already too random. And fumbles are *particularly* unherioc and just tend to embarrass the player.

 

One time, in a game that I play in where we use criticals, I rolled a 3 against a friendly NPC who had been controlled to turn evil. All I intended to do was knock her out, and had modified the number of dice that I planned to do accordingly. Critical did max damage and killed her dead. And I've been through tons more situations where the fumble/crit rule screws the players.

[Snarf]

That sounds pretty dangerous. I would cap the damage at instant knockout before it reached instant kill.

[Zaratustra]

In my group, when you roll a 3 you get to choose between 50% extra DC, automatic Constun or double Knockback.

 

Also, if you -really- want crit rules on games without crits, just link some power like this to your main power:

 

Drain 2d6 from STR, (maybe some NND or whatever), Linked (-1/2), Only works when a 3 is rolled on attack (-2)

[austenandrews]

In combat, a 3 is an automatic hit, max damage. Also, a 3 can only be Blocked/Missile Deflected by a 3. In the past I have allowed the player to choose a Hit Location rather than taking max damage, and would probably do so again. Other effects are possible (I once had a PC split an arrow in an archery contest with a 3). The player can decline any of these bonuses.

 

On a skill roll, a 3 gives more-or-less maximum success. I usually carry the success, or at least a bonus, over to subsequent and/or related skill rolls (so a 3 on Computer Programming pretty much gives you full control over the computer for the near future; a 3 on a DEX roll gives you a few moments of perfect footing; etc.).

 

An 18 is an automatic miss, and a fumble unless the chance to hit was really high (17+). With skill rolls I tend to carry over the effects to subsequent and/or related skill rolls, though not as much as with a 3.

 

I once experimented with allowing players to buy "hero points" with EPs. One hero point could be traded for a roll of 3. However I found that the mechanic robbed tension from critical situations, so I stopped using it.

 

-AA

[Monolith]

For years I always played that a 4 roll was +1d6 and a 3 roll was +2d6, but recently I have cut out the 4 roll bonus and not give +4d6 (Haymaker) damage to the 3 roll.

 

On an 18 roll it is just a miss, but I do give a 2 in 6 chance that someone in an adjacent hex will get hit (I normally use 1 in 6 for a normal miss).

[McCoy]

3 always succeeds, 18 always fails. PC's have bought levels so sometimes they have a to hit roll of 21 or 22 or less, I'll stipulate that on a skill roll, they must make the attack roll.

 

Natural 3 may only be blocked/missile deflected by another natural 3.

 

3 gets max possible damage.

 

Player never hit themselves on an 18, opponent might (there are advantages to being a PC).

[austenandrews]

Originally posted by McCoy

Player never hit themselves on an 18, opponent might (there are advantages to being a PC).

 

Oh, do fumbles result in hitting yourself in other game systems? Sounds kinda goofy. When I say fumble I mean extra problems like dropping your weapon, losing your footing (DCV penalty), maybe snapping a bowstring; that kind of thing.

 

-AA

[Silbeg]

We do play that a "3" is a max damage roll (that hasn't come up much, but has come up). Makes for some interesting effects, like the super speedster that has an 18 DCV, but low defenses... rarely hit, but if hit, could take life-threatening damage.

 

Usually, on an "18", I try and determine an "interesting" side-effect of the failure. In combat, this usually means an attack on someone with a 0-OCV, but has meant other things at times. An example of this (and the most bizarre turn of events, and die rolls, I have ever seen was:

 

Grenadier (basically a super-agent) was piloting the team's VTOL jet, chasing after a Humvee on the highway... their plan was to fly ahead of the ground vehicle, allowing the team's brick to jump out on (or in front of) the humvee... well, it turns out he rolls an 18 on his combat piloting roll for this manuever... I then had him roll a "to-hit" to ram the HMVV with the plane (with a 0-OCV), and the dice come up 1-1-1.... a three!!! So, not only did he collide, he did so for max damage...

 

Was interesting seeing everyone aborting to dive out of their respective vehicles.

 

----

 

On another note, we are thinking about implementing a "Take-11" rule (much like the "Take 10" in D20), where in a non-combat/stressful situation, a character may just make an average effort, eliminating extra dice rolls...

 

Silbeg...

[McCoy]

Originally posted by austenandrews

Oh, do fumbles result in hitting yourself in other game systems? Sounds kinda goofy. When I say fumble I mean extra problems like dropping your weapon, losing your footing (DCV penalty), maybe snapping a bowstring; that kind of thing.

 

-AA

I was playing RuneQuest before Champions. In that, hiting yourself was a possibility on a fumble.

 

Is realistic, RuneQuest combat system was developed by some very active members in the Society of Creative Anacronism who all admit to having suffered self-inflicted injuries. But it happens rarely enough in comics that I feel it is out of genera.

 

(Most amazing non-gaming fumble I've ever see did not involve humans. Saw wildlife footage of a cheetah stalking a Thompson's Gazelle. Tommys are larger that cheetahs' normal prey, but she was hungry. The cheetah started the run, the tommy took off. The chetah got one paw on the tommy's flank, the tommy did a double back kick, catching the cheetah in the jaw. Cheetah stumbled, tommy sprinted, and ran into a tree at 40 mph. Defeate from the very jaws of victory. Plus this was the Kalahari, that was probably the only tree for 40 miles.)

[Trebuchet]

I'm uncomfortable with the idea of a natural 3 generating some kind of arbitrary benefit. An automatic hit is good enough. Some normals or DEX-drained opponents would need a 3 or 4 to hit in the first place; does it really make sense that any hit they achieve also be a critical?

[austenandrews]

Originally posted by Silbeg

On another note, we are thinking about implementing a "Take-11" rule (much like the "Take 10" in D20), where in a non-combat/stressful situation, a character may just make an average effort, eliminating extra dice rolls...

 

I've been testing this IN combat for over a year. It works quite well for the tone of my game. If desired the player can take an 11 to hit, and/or a chest shot for hit location, and/or average damage (3.5 per die, rounded down). Same goes for skill rolls in or out of combat.

 

My game tends to have very powerful PCs fighting a large number of less powerful NPCs, so this option makes big melees run much faster. Against lesser opponents it easily doubles the speed of combat. When fighting NPCs of an equivalent power level the players usually don't opt for an average roll, because it can amount to throwing away a Phase. It works out.

 

(I also ran the numbers to determine to-hit rolls from multiple opponents with a single roll. Saves time on my end.)

 

-AA

[McCoy]

Originally posted by Trebuchet

I'm uncomfortable with the idea of a natural 3 generating some kind of arbitrary benefit. An automatic hit is good enough. Some normals or DEX-drained opponents would need a 3 or 4 to hit in the first place; does it really make sense that any hit they achieve also be a critical?

See Silbeg's comment about the Speedster. It's a realism vs game balance issue, no wrong answer, just a matter of taste.

[austenandrews]

Originally posted by McCoy

I was playing RuneQuest before Champions. In that, hiting yourself was a possibility on a fumble.

 

I played in a fairly long RQ campaign a few years back, but the GM generously modified the rules to suit his taste. I never actually read the rulebook myself (not since I bought a copy in the early 80's, anyway). We didn't do fumbles.

 

Treb: I don't give "3" bonuses if the character needs something like a 3 or 4 to hit. You're right, that wouldn't make sense. Though I usually give 18 penalties even when the to-hit roll is 18-less.

 

-AA

[Dr. Anomaly]

I've used various things over the years.

 

A 3 is always a success, unless it's physically impossible (I'm going to put a bullet into a lunar crater with this rifle from Wal-Mart while I'm standing on the beach at Maui. Nope, sorry, just can't happen no matter what you roll.)

 

An 18 is always a failure. If a character has a skill roll of more than 18 (say, 23-), that extra is just there to offset conditional modifiers. Mr. 23- can attempt a well-nigh impossible task (say something that merits a -10 penalty on the roll) and still have a reasonable chance for success (needing a 13-) but 'always fail on 18' is there to represent it's always possible to fail.

 

I have also used the "roll a 3, roll double the number of dice; roll a 4, auto max damage" in combat. It doesn't happen often, and I don't mind spectacular results when it does...after all, if you think about it, 216 rolls is a lot of rolls, so a super result every 216 rolls shouldn't be out of place.

 

Interestingly enough, just last Friday, while playing in a game I co-GM (it's my turn to be a player) my scientist-sorceror rolled a '3' while attempting to hack the Serpentine Network, and the Network (the GM) simultaneously rolled an '18' on its notice/defend check. When he picked his jaw up off the floor, he ruled that I was in...and when my character picked his jaw up off the floor, started busily grabbing/downloading everything he could. I didn't get much before I got discovered and locked out, but it's a nice little coup nevertheless. Since Viper was already hunting one of our team, I don't figure it will make much difference in our relationship with them.

[Gary]

Originally posted by austenandrews

I've been testing this IN combat for over a year. It works quite well for the tone of my game. If desired the player can take an 11 to hit, and/or a chest shot for hit location, and/or average damage (3.5 per die, rounded down). Same goes for skill rolls in or out of combat.

 

My game tends to have very powerful PCs fighting a large number of less powerful NPCs, so this option makes big melees run much faster. Against lesser opponents it easily doubles the speed of combat. When fighting NPCs of an equivalent power level the players usually don't opt for an average roll, because it can amount to throwing away a Phase. It works out.

 

(I also ran the numbers to determine to-hit rolls from multiple opponents with a single roll. Saves time on my end.)

 

-AA

 

I wouldn't allow "take 11" vs any opponents of note. This mechanic simply boils down to PCs having a 100% to hit possibility vs any opponent with equal or less CV, and their normal to hit vs foes with a CV advantage. It completely skews the bell curve. Also PCs can always "game" the system by spreading or allocating skill levels just enough to get to a final 11- to hit.

[austenandrews]

Originally posted by Gary

I wouldn't allow "take 11" vs any opponents of note. This mechanic simply boils down to PCs having a 100% to hit possibility vs any opponent with equal or less CV, and their normal to hit vs foes with a CV advantage. It completely skews the bell curve. Also PCs can always "game" the system by spreading or allocating skill levels just enough to get to a final 11- to hit.

 

I'm willing to sacrifice the bell curve for ease of play. In my experience the PCs are going to defeat a gang of lesser opponents in the course of time, so I'm happy to shorten that time in those inevitable cases. Almost always, inevitable NPC defeat is avoided only by lucky shots from the bad guys. This random-but-small chance remains, because the bad guys have a lower CV and therefore must roll.

 

Against foes who can pull enough DCV to avoid the automatic hit, the PCs aren't usually willing to risk wasting an attack on an 11, when on average they're going to roll an 11 or less anyway. If they opt for the 11, they're taking a calculated risk. Not to mention the fact that the NPCs can also take an average roll if they're confident enough that they'll hit, which skews the bell curve the other way (and forces the PCs to be creative, or at least defensive, against high-OCV opponents).

 

Neither do I mind "gaming the system" in general - my players and I are all Hero old-timers. We're familiar with the system and enjoy the numbers games enough to play them out. Besides, I'll pit my Hero-fu against my players any day of the week. (Plus it's not entirely out-of-character for an experieced combat veteran to be able to gauge just how defensive he needs to be and remain safe. But that's an old debate for another day.)

 

-AA

[Gary]

Originally posted by austenandrews

I'm willing to sacrifice the bell curve for ease of play. In my experience the PCs are going to defeat a gang of lesser opponents in the course of time, so I'm happy to shorten that time in those inevitable cases. Almost always, inevitable NPC defeat is avoided only by lucky shots from the bad guys. This random-but-small chance remains, because the bad guys have a lower CV and therefore must roll.

 

Against foes who can pull enough DCV to avoid the automatic hit, the PCs aren't usually willing to risk wasting an attack on an 11, when on average they're going to roll an 11 or less anyway. If they opt for the 11, they're taking a calculated risk. Not to mention the fact that the NPCs can also take an average roll if they're confident enough that they'll hit, which skews the bell curve the other way (and forces the PCs to be creative, or at least defensive, against high-OCV opponents).

 

Neither do I mind "gaming the system" in general - my players and I are all Hero old-timers. We're familiar with the system and enjoy the numbers games enough to play them out. Besides, I'll pit my Hero-fu against my players any day of the week. (Plus it's not entirely out-of-character for an experieced combat veteran to be able to gauge just how defensive he needs to be and remain safe. But that's an old debate for another day.)

 

-AA

 

On average they may roll a 11-, but in practice that occurs only 62.5% of the time. Converting that to 100% is a huge jump. It seems weird that you would go from 50% chance to hit at 10- to 100% at 11-. It makes OCV and DCV skill levels much more valuable in the sense that the reward for having an OCV >= your opponent and a DCV > your opponent is so huge.

 

But if it works for you, that's all that matters.

[austenandrews]

As I said, it fits the tone of my game, which is often the fantasy equivalent of supers v.s. agents. I wouldn't use it in all cases, for sure.

 

-AA

[Nevenall]

I like the idea of taking average results to speed things up, or to prevent players from rolling 18 on some unimportant skill roll outside of combat. I have one player who can fail no matter what.

 

As for natural 3/18. I come from years of playing rolemaster so a one in 216 chance of maximum normal damage is nothing. I've seen characters toasted before they even get to make one skill roll. "We don't know what his name was, but he sure distracted that orc."

[slaughterj]

Interesting stuff.

 

I've seen people post before about benefits for rolling a 3 (e.g., max damage, etc.), or for rolling under 1/2 what you needed to roll. I agree with not giving bonuses for rolling a 3 if only a 3 would have succeeded! I basically let a 3 be an auto-hit (if it were possible to hit), no particular bonuses associated with it.

 

As for 18s, I tend to "wing it" with effects, e.g., possibly swing to hit your neighbor, possibly break your weapon, possibly drop your weapon (happened to one character in the sewers, dropped into the deep rank depths, had no choice but to dive after it ). I've always had an issue with "hitting your neighbor", specifically what mechanic to use. It didn't make sense to use the character's OCV, because just because he hits his opponents better doesn't mean he should hit others better on accident. I like some of the ideas I've seen here, and think I'll go with the following: 0 OCV attack against neighbor's DCV/2 (halved based on being "surprised") - I like using the neighbor's DCV rather than one person's suggested 11-, because the target should have some bearing on it. I'm not sure about whether to incorporate the fumbler's OCV levels like the person with the 11- suggested, might do that as well.

[Fenixcrest]

Not really regarding HERO, but at one point when I was DMing for DnD 2nd Edition, we had an archer PC who rolled almost exclusively 1's and 20's, with occasional 14's (or theresabouts), but mostly just critical hits and fumbles. In the end, we decided that it happened so often that we would apply constant results...

 

Thus, every critical hit resulted in the target's limb being torn off by an arrow (if they were man-sized or smaller, anyway...)...

 

And every critical miss resulted in his character accidentally grazing the side of his arm with the bowstring, forcing him to spend his next round going "Ow, ow, ow!" and waving his wrist up and down like a sissy.

It was really quite funny. He spent half a combat (storming a bandit-occupied mansion from the surrounding estate) openly weeping from the friction burns all over his arm.

[Koshka]

Originally posted by Fenixcrest

And every critical miss resulted in his character accidentally grazing the side of his arm with the bowstring, forcing him to spend his next round going "Ow, ow, ow!" and waving his wrist up and down like a sissy.

It was really quite funny. He spent half a combat (storming a bandit-occupied mansion from the surrounding estate) openly weeping from the friction burns all over his arm.

 

My junior high school offered an archery segment for gym class. I did that to myself more times than I could count. ::wince::

 

Though my best "18" story comes from a con game I ran a couple years back. One of the attacking robots rolled an 18 to hit, and they were all in fairly close formation, so I decided to give it a chance of blasting an adjoining bot. It got a second 18. After everyone finished laughing (they were open rolls), I ruled that the first bot had fallen over and landed on its power switch, shutting itself down.