Sean Waters Posted July 11, 2009 Report Share Posted July 11, 2009 So, I've been thinking*... 8-, right, 8- is about a 1 in 4 chance of success. That's rubbish. 7- is even more rubbish and, frankly, 3- is utterly rubbish. So, new metarule: for a PC nothing, and I mean NOTHING** has a worse chance of succeeding than 8-. How does that sound? *...and drinking **except really stupid stuff, obviously Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtelson Posted July 11, 2009 Report Share Posted July 11, 2009 Re: New Metarule For most genre's that I would use the Hero system for that makes a lot of sense actually. You should drink more... edit: must spread rep... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Waters Posted July 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 11, 2009 Re: New Metarule For most genre's that I would use the Hero system for that makes a lot of sense actually. You should drink more... edit: must spread rep... I do drink more Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Hiemforth Posted July 11, 2009 Report Share Posted July 11, 2009 Re: New Metarule Well, considering that one of the elements I like least about d20 resolution is that things can't have worse than a 5% or higher than a 95% chance of success/failure, I'd have to vote no on this one. I think having no steps between 0% chance and 25% chance isn't nearly granular enough... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtelson Posted July 11, 2009 Report Share Posted July 11, 2009 Re: New Metarule Well' date=' considering that one of the elements I like least about d20 resolution is that things can't have worse than a 5% or higher than a 95% chance of success/failure, I'd have to vote no on this one. I think having no steps between 0% chance and 25% chance isn't nearly granular enough...[/quote'] I actually like that for To Hit and Saves in d20 (at least in 3 and 3.5) there were no absolutely cans or absolutely can'ts, thus the 1 always fails, 20 always succeeds for those checks, for some reason I thought Hero 3's and 18's were similar maybe that's just how we roll Skills were different and end result was all that mattered so if your skill check +1 suceeded you couldn't fail, and if your skill check +20 couldn't suceed you always failed, that generally bothered me a bit but with the take 20 rule it kind of made sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Hiemforth Posted July 11, 2009 Report Share Posted July 11, 2009 Re: New Metarule I actually like that for To Hit and Saves in d20 (at least in 3 and 3.5) there were no absolutely cans or absolutely can'ts' date=' thus the 1 always fails, 20 always succeeds for those checks, for some reason I thought Hero 3's and 18's were similar maybe that's just how we roll [/quote']They are. But a 3 and an 18 on 3d6 each only occur 1 time in 216. A 1 and a 20 on a d20 each occur 1 time in 20. That's way too often for an automatic success or automatic fail, IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schir1964 Posted July 13, 2009 Report Share Posted July 13, 2009 Re: New Metarule I prefer to go another route when it comes to attempting any task. Guidelines Any task can be attempted by any character. A roll of 3 or 18 does not automatically mean success or failure. A sliding scale of what is possible or impossible is used to determine when 3 and 18 means an automatic success or failure. To extrapolate from 5th Editions guidelines where an "impossible task" is automatically given a -10 penalty, a chart could be made to show the different levels where a 3 or 18 are scaled for different way to exceed an automatic success or failure. Example: A -10 Penalty represents an impossible task for a Normal Character. Any task that has this penalty means that a roll of 3 is not a success and any natural roll of 8 or above is considered more than a failure. This would be similar to how Rolemaster/Spacemaster handled Extreme Successes and Failures. What is good about this is then the GM can categorize tasks into these levels: Simple, Easy, Routine, Hard, Difficult, Impossible (or however the GM wants to break it down) and these categories have inherent Bonus/Penalties assigned to them that scale the min/max interpretation of the rolls. Thus a Simple Task would be impossible to fail with a straight roll. Successes/Failures would only occur based on additional Bonuses/Penalties at the time. Just An Idea - Christopher Mullins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted July 13, 2009 Report Share Posted July 13, 2009 Re: New Metarule Well, I think setting it at 8- is probably a bit on the high side. An alternative: 3--critical success 4-5--auto-success 16-17--auto-fail 18--critical fail That would pretty closely mirror the d20 setup, since then you have automatic success 5% of the time, automatic failure 5% of the time, and crits about 1% of the time. If you have an adjusted chance below 3, it's just not possible to do it. And if you have an adjusted roll above 18, there's no need to roll it, because there's no chance for failure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markdoc Posted July 13, 2009 Report Share Posted July 13, 2009 Re: New Metarule Yeah, I don't like this idea at all. It takes away a significant degree of granularity, for no good reason that I can see. I have my own metarule, which is that if a PC has a skill (even a FAM), they don't need to roll when success would be trivial and or expected. Rolls only matter when something's on the line - and in that case, if you want better than a 1 in 4 chance of succeeding, you should maybe spend some points. cheers, Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StGrimblefig Posted July 13, 2009 Report Share Posted July 13, 2009 Re: New Metarule So, I've been thinking*... 8-, right, 8- is about a 1 in 4 chance of success. That's rubbish. 7- is even more rubbish and, frankly, 3- is utterly rubbish. So, new metarule: for a PC nothing, and I mean NOTHING** has a worse chance of succeeding than 8-. How does that sound? So, let me get this straight, a PC has read a few articles about naturalists, maybe a book that tells one person's experiences, and he regularly watches Man vs. World (i.e. he has a Survival Familiarity, with an 8- roll), but he has never actually DONE anything like that before (that would give him enough exposure/experience to make it a "real" skill), and he has a 1 in 4 chance of finding his way out of the wilderness alive and basically unhurt, finding food that won't kill him and not becoming food? I don't buy it. Yeah, I don't like this idea at all. It takes away a significant degree of granularity, for no good reason that I can see. I have my own metarule, which is that if a PC has a skill (even a FAM), they don't need to roll when success would be trivial and or expected. Rolls only matter when something's on the line - and in that case, if you want better than a 1 in 4 chance of succeeding, you should maybe spend some points. cheers, Mark I have always disliked that any PC can take a 1 point Familiarity and use it as a "Hail Mary" roll to do things that he has not taken the time (and CPs) to practice and/or study. That is why I always say that a FAM is for information only, and cannot be used to actually DO anything in that skill domain. If you try (and sometimes you have to) you get only the base CHAR roll with an 'untrained' modifier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CourtFool Posted July 13, 2009 Report Share Posted July 13, 2009 Re: New Metarule I have allowed a player to use a related skill at penalty to do something they do not have the proper skill for. For example using one PRE skill to substitute for a different PRE skill. If you have no related skills, then a CHAR roll at penalty ( just like in the Ultimate Skill ). To me, this encourages players to buy Skills as they become even more useful. Anyone familiar with G.U.R.P.S. will notice the plagiarism (defaults). In a heroic game, I feel the heroes should always have a chance to get lucky. It happens frequently in many genres. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Waters Posted July 13, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 13, 2009 Re: New Metarule The point of the suggestion - which was half in jest, but only half, was that heroes tend toward competence. They do find their way out of the woods. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pattern Ghost Posted July 14, 2009 Report Share Posted July 14, 2009 Re: New Metarule So' date=' let me get this straight, a PC has read a few articles about naturalists, maybe a book that tells one person's experiences, and he regularly watches Man vs. World (i.e. he has a Survival Familiarity, with an 8- roll), but he has never actually DONE anything like that before (that would give him enough exposure/experience to make it a "real" skill), and he has a 1 in 4 chance of finding his way out of the wilderness alive and basically unhurt, finding food that won't kill him and not becoming food? I don't buy it.[/quote'] Anyone using Man vs. Wild as a guide for their wilderness survival skills has about a 3 in 4 chance of doing something stupid and getting killed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StGrimblefig Posted July 14, 2009 Report Share Posted July 14, 2009 Re: New Metarule The point of the suggestion - which was half in jest' date=' but only half, was that heroes tend toward competence. They do find their way out of the woods.[/quote'] Valid point. And I admit that I was kind of glossing over the issue -- such a wilderness egress would involve multiple Survival rolls, and an 8- is not a good thing to make multiple rolls against. Like others have said, I also tend to not force skill rolls for every little thing that a skill could do, but if it is opposed, done without the proper tools, etc., I will. That is how I personally model the PC hero's competence. Given that players do not have to roll trivial skill applications, I do not like giving Familiarities the same treatment, because they are not the same thing as a skill with a lower roll -- at least in my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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