Conduit

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice Here's the point you are not changing the number of dice rolled. You are mearly predefining the number rolled on them. You are saying roll 8d6 and let the total of the first 6 equal 21 (the 2d6+21 method). This obviously increases the predictibilty of the result of rolling 8 dice because you have predetermined 6 of 8 results. This is a whole different matter than the predictibilty of 2d6 versus 8d6. Actually you are. The mean of the 2d6+21 method is 28 and its Std Deviation is 2.4. This means that 68.2% of the rolls will be between 26 and 30 and 95% between 23 and 33. With the 8d6 method the mean remains 28 but 68.2% are between 23 and 33 and 95% are between 18 and 38. So you are changing the range of predictible number significantly, but you are not doing it by "rolling two dice" you are doing it by "rolling" 6 dice and always getting 21 and accepting a random result from the last 2 dice. It remains a proven, mathmatical fact that the more dice you roll, the more predictable the result. Let me prove it to you. DC d6 + StD Average StD as % Average 2 1 3.5 1.7 7 24.40% 4 2 7 2.4 14 17.25% 6 3 10.5 3.0 21 14.09% 8 4 14 3.4 28 12.20% 10 5 17.5 3.8 35 10.91% 12 6 21 4.2 42 9.96% 14 7 24.5 4.5 49 9.22% 16 8 28 4.8 56 8.63% 18 9 31.5 5.1 63 8.13% 20 10 35 5.4 70 7.72% As you can see even with your method, the more dice you throw the more predictible the results.

Re: To sum up... You've hit the nail on the head. Phil is only concerned with absolute variance which means little to nothing in the world of probabilty. The more dice used the closer the average roll you will be and thus more predictable (no quotes needed). See the following example using the formula provided by Phil for the standard deviation of Nd6 on page 10 of this thread. (Namely (35N/12)^0.5). Nd6 Average Roll Standard Deviation Coefficient of Variation(StD/Mean) 1 3.5 1.7 48.8% 2 7.0 2.4 34.5% 3 10.5 3.0 28.2% 4 14.0 3.4 24.4% 5 17.5 3.8 21.8% 6 21.0 4.1 19.9% 7 24.5 4.5 18.4% 8 28.0 4.8 17.3% 9 31.5 5.1 16.3% 10 35.0 5.4 15.4% So what exactly does the coefficient of variation mean? What it gives us is a way to compare standard deviations of different populations. In other words it is the ideal measure to compare the predictability of throws of different amounts of dice. As you can see, the CoV decreases as the number of dice thrown increases. This means that the standard deviation becomes less and less significant and therefore the throw more predictible. A throw of dice has a perfectly normal distribution. Therefore we know that 68.2% of the throws will total within one standard deviation from the mean. What the CoV tells us is how much of a difference to that mean it will make. For 10d6, 68.2% of the time the throw will be 35 + or - 15.4%. While the absolute value of that 15.4% may be larger than the 48.8% on 1d6, it is more predictible because being off by 5 when you start at 35 is less significant than being off by 2 when you start at 3.5. So, to be specific 10d6 is more than twice as predictible as 2d6.

Re: Speedster trick, would you allow this? I'd probably allow it but require them to add Extra Time 1 Phase or something similar to show that it takes a full move, maybe limit the area to the fastest movement power.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Repped!

Re: Gps It's interesting to note that the use of GPS in civil aeronautics has lead to increased difficulty of SAR operations. In the past, the Civil Air Patrol could focus its search for downed aircraft along VOR navigation routes with a high chance of finding the aircraft. Now pilots tend not to follow these routes and just use GPS making them much harder to find.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread.

Re: 6th Edition thoughts If you don't understand it, don't buy it. Having just one attack power would not be a simplification. It would make every thing that much more confusing because of all the additional modifiers.

Re: Mechanics vs. SFX... Where is the line? I think the issue is more that people are willing to accept mechanics that lead to sfx that don't make sense. You can build it any way you want, but it should still make sense. That is why Superman not noticing bullets built as missle deflection doesn't work because it doesn't make sense. Superman is just tough enough that he doesn't notice any force of that level, and that is defense and KB resistance. If a chosen mechanic leads to wierd situations, it should be rejected by the GM. In all of the campaigns that I play in, all of the players, experianced or not, sit down with the GM and make the character together. It prevents a lot of these issues.

Re: Mechanics vs. SFX... Where is the line? Someone else may have said this already but this is just a case of a somewhat poorly constructed power. Sunglasses protect against light, and perhaps sand or sprays (say Mace) and that should be either defined as part of the SFX or actually given a limitation, say -1/4 only versus light and small thrown objects. The sfx problems like this arise when we don't actually require the power to be built to correspond to the power as described.

Re: This equipment will self-destruct... Do you ever want your PC's to be able to stop it? If so, stat it out somehow. If not, it's a plot device. Even if you did want to let the PCs stop it sometime you could still just go with plot device and let them get to it once.

If two powers are permenatly linked two each other, can they be bought in the same slot of a multipower?

I would use a side effect always occurs. I like the AOE line suggestion

FREd really doesn't stand for anything. Once upon a time Steve Long said, "You can call it Fred as long as you buy it." So we do. It has been retcon-ed to mean either Fifth Revised Edition or Fifth Rules Edition.

And we can proudly proclaim, "We are incompetent mortals!"