+100% skill

[Utgardloki]

I've thought of a variation on the subtraction rule.

A character can voluntarily subtract an amount from his die roll, and his opponent has to subtract the same amount from her die roll. For a character with a skill rating over 100%, there is very little reason not to drop their rating to 100%.

There is a sweet spot, but if you don't know your opponent's skill level, you won't know what to subtract in order to hit it.

 

[Rurik]

I have not seen all the methods but for skills over 100% so I'm sure that this was one of them but here is my idea...

Take the amount you have over 100 (after all modifiers have been figured in) and subtract it from the lesser score. Now both roll and use the book method of seeing who won. If subtracting from the lower amount brings them to 0 or lower then they cannot win. (A Balrog. A demon of the ancient world. This foe is beyond any of you. Run....!)

Example... 150 vs. 75. The 75 would have to subract 50 from his percent chance giving him 25. You now roll 100% vs. 25%.

I know the idea probably sucks but...oh well.

That is actually one of the better methods floating around. It is the one I plan on using.

 

[RMS]

I'm jiust wondering if we should stick with the 1/5th (since cric=tcals have gone up), or go with a 1/2 rule. With 1/2 the people who don't like to do math can't complain. If someone can't divide by 2 they couldn't run the game anyway.

I like the idea of keeping it at 1/5th. 1/2 just seems a little too common for my tastes, but it'd still work just fine. If you already know your chance of a critical, just double it to get the special success chance. (I realize that this isn't quite the same as the old 1/5th rule since you drop fractions, but it'd work well enough.)

I have never in 20+ years had a single player complain that calculating 5% or 20% of a skill to determine criticals and successes was too difficult. I've only read about it on-line, which makes me wonder how much of an issue it really is. Personally, I can't understand how doing 1/20 or 1/5 is any more difficult than 1/10 or 1/2, but I do recongize that math comes much easier to me than most people and that I really don't have any comprehension where the break points are for the average person.

 

[AKAramis]

I have never in 20+ years had a single player complain that calculating 5% or 20% of a skill to determine criticals and successes was too difficult. I've only read about it on-line, which makes me wonder how much of an issue it really is. Personally, I can't understand how doing 1/20 or 1/5 is any more difficult than 1/10 or 1/2, but I do recongize that math comes much easier to me than most people and that I really don't have any comprehension where the break points are for the average person.

Single digit multiplication is a pretty good cap for multiplications; many can do single vs double, but I'd say it's not a majority who can do so on the fly.

Division is trickier; most people can only do "perfect" divisions casually. (Divisions with integer results that are the multiplication of two single digit numbers; older generations, say, pre HS-Class of 90 to 95, typically learned to 12x12, while younger students often didn't.)

Most people can do an integer divide by 10 once it's pointed out that it is simply read the *ing 10's place.

Addition tends to be a bit faster than subtraction.

Few people actually realize they know the first 11 squares... 0^2 = 0, 1^2=1, 2^2=4, 3^2=9, 4^2=16, 5^2=25, etc...

Fewer still can go the other way comfortably.

1/5 is easier than 1/2 since they are already figuring the 1/10th...

But I'd say "Use double the critical range" rather than the almost identical "use 1/5th skill"... It's a 1 point difference half the time, but it's that much faster to follow.

 

[simonh]

A character can voluntarily subtract an amount from his die roll, and his opponent has to subtract the same amount from her die roll. For a character with a skill rating over 100%, there is very little reason not to drop their rating to 100%.

Suppose I have 80% and your character has 60%. I voluntarily deduct 55% from my score, so my skill is 25% and yours is 5%. Grossly unfair.

A variation that might work is to halve the penalty for your opponent, so if I take a -40% penalty, you take a -20% penalty. I haven't though that through properly yet though.

Simon Hibbs

 

[atgxtg]

A character can voluntarily subtract an amount from his die roll, and his opponent has to subtract the same amount from her die roll. For a character with a skill rating over 100%, there is very little reason not to drop their rating to 100%.

Suppose I have 80% and your character has 60%. I voluntarily deduct 55% from my score, so my skill is 25% and yours is 5%. Grossly unfair.

A variation that might work is to halve the penalty for your opponent, so if I take a -40% penalty, you take a -20% penalty. I haven't though that through properly yet though.

Simon Hibbs

Or some sort of cap on the penalty. Basically this is the poker problem. Without limits the guy with the most money can win virtually every hand of poker by throwing more money arounnd. In this case skill points are the same as money.

Some sort of cap (half you ability) might work.

 

[atgxtg]

1/5 is easier than 1/2 since they are already figuring the 1/10th...

The the halving rule is harder than the old special success system? Much as I would love to agree (and in the long rule do believe that), I still think that most people can divide by 2 easier. Esepcially as the /10 then mulitple x2 two step "shortcut" tends to loose a lot of people. My mother for one. SHe can do math-she can even do /5 in her head, but /10 and multiply x2 just dont' look like the same thing to her.

almost[/b] identical "use 1/5th skill"... It's a 1 point difference half the time, but it's that much faster to follow.

Reasonably good to me too. I actually woundn't mind a gradualr degree of success thing with 1x crit, 2xcrit, 3xcrit, 4xcrit (for example, with a skill of 120% and a roll of 62, crit =12%, 62 is 6x crit) and comparing the die rolls that way. It works, is easy (for me) but I suspect most people wouldn't take to it.

 

[AKAramis]

1/5 is easier than 1/2 since they are already figuring the 1/10th...

The the halving rule is harder than the old special success system? Much as I would love to agree (and in the long rule do believe that), I still think that most people can divide by 2 easier. Esepcially as the /10 then mulitple x2 two step "shortcut" tends to loose a lot of people. My mother for one. SHe can do math-she can even do /5 in her head, but /10 and multiply x2 just dont' look like the same thing to her.

It's not actually that finding 1/5th is the easier task. It's that 1/10th is the easier task (when described properly: "find the 10's digit"), and since you've already got to know 1/10th for the task system, doubling that is going to be faster for most. Divisibility by 5 is easy; dividing by 5 is somewhat less so, especially if there will be a remainder.

Of course, my experiences as a Substitute Teacher show me that most kids coming out of middle school can't do division in their heads other than 2 and 10; they HAVE to break out paper or fingers.

At the point where a calculator or scratch paper becomes needed for the SLOWEST player in my group, the math is getting in the way.

But I'd say "Use double the critical range" rather than the almost identical "use 1/5th skill"... It's a 1 point difference half the time, but it's that much faster to follow.

Reasonably good to me too. I actually woundn't mind a gradualr degree of success thing with 1x crit, 2xcrit, 3xcrit, 4xcrit (for example, with a skill of 120% and a roll of 62, crit =12%, 62 is 6x crit) and comparing the die rolls that way. It works, is easy (for me) but I suspect most people wouldn't take to it.

Too much to remember. Most persons can remember 7-8 digits in short term memory and work with them. (Wechsler.) That means we can usually get 2x2digit numbers and a comparison number (the die roll). Having a third in front of them is USUALLY doable, but not always.

Playing a variety of games over the last 27 years, I've noticed 3 things:
1) Players can happily look up a roll against a short table
2) Players hate doing divisions on the fly
3) Players won't retain more than 3 numbers of two digits in short term memory

There are exceptions...

This is why the lack of special success didn't phase me at all... it makes excellent psychological sense.

 

[atgxtg]

Interesting. So if your line of reason holds.

THe typical experience RQer is better at math than the average person/gamer, as they are able to do this sort of ,ath without pulling out pens & paper or fingers and toes.

Funny. I don't said I agree with you on this, but it is amusing.

I would like to think that the average gamer is somewhat better at math than your average middle school kids (after all, just being gamers shows that they have superior intellect :wink.

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

A character can voluntarily subtract an amount from his die roll, and his opponent has to subtract the same amount from her die roll. For a character with a skill rating over 100%, there is very little reason not to drop their rating to 100%.

Suppose I have 80% and your character has 60%. I voluntarily deduct 55% from my score, so my skill is 25% and yours is 5%. Grossly unfair.

A variation that might work is to halve the penalty for your opponent, so if I take a -40% penalty, you take a -20% penalty. I haven't though that through properly yet though.

Simon Hibbs

So just restrict it to skills over 100, and state that you can't drop your own below 100.

Of course, you probably don't know what your opponent has, so you're taking the risk that she might be a 155%-er.

Plus, 25 vs 5 actually gives the lower person a better chance of winning than 80 vs 60 does. So again, you take the risk.

 

[Don Allen]

"I would like to think that the average gamer is somewhat better at math than your average middle school kids"

I think most newer game companies are gearing their games for the "average middle school kids". Haven't you seen any of Wizards of the Coast ads for D&D. They show a few young kids (maybe 12 or 13) playing. Thats why games on average are becoming more math lite.

 

[Lord Twig]

I have not seen all the methods but for skills over 100% so I'm sure that this was one of them but here is my idea...

Take the amount you have over 100 (after all modifiers have been figured in) and subtract it from the lesser score. Now both roll and use the book method of seeing who won. If subtracting from the lower amount brings them to 0 or lower then they cannot win. (A Balrog. A demon of the ancient world. This foe is beyond any of you. Run....!)

Example... 150 vs. 75. The 75 would have to subract 50 from his percent chance giving him 25. You now roll 100% vs. 25%.

I know the idea probably sucks but...oh well.

I also may very well use this rule. The only exception being that I would always allow for a 5% chance of success, even if the subtraction brings your skill below 0%.

The other one I might use is the one I suggested. The multiple rolls added together rule. I am very aware that this becomes more complicated when you get up to 301%+, but for skills in the 100 to 300% range it shouldn't be that hard.

 

[Gnarsh]

Interesting. So if your line of reason holds.

THe typical experience RQer is better at math than the average person/gamer, as they are able to do this sort of ,ath without pulling out pens & paper or fingers and toes.

Funny. I don't said I agree with you on this, but it is amusing.

I would like to think that the average gamer is somewhat better at math than your average middle school kids (after all, just being gamers shows that they have superior intellect :wink.

I think it's a bit more then that. In the same way that reading alot will make you a better reader, playing games which require counting, adding, and other math skills will make you better at math. Kids who play RPGs tend to be better at math, not necessarily because kids who are good at math gravitate to playing RPGs, but because by playing them, they become better at math over time.

I know for a fact that a good portion of my fast calculation skills came from playing Champions back in the day. For those who've never played it, you basically had large open ended values that you commonly had to calculate in multiples of 3, 5, 10, and 15. In short order, you become wickedly good/fast at calculating numbers.

Players learn this stuff pretty well. As someone mentioned before, I've never run into a player who simply couldn't do the math required to play the game. And honestly, most players are going to be better off for having to do the math. It's kind of an interesting switch of opinion over time, but back in the day, the big plus to RQ was that you did simple calulations with skill values and dice to generate results. This was considered a huge improvement over the massive tables and charts used by other RPGs of the day (anyone here remember the *law games? Yiikes!). D&D itself technically required 3 table lookups everytime you made an attack, although most people ignored one of them (bonus by weapon type versus armor, a table that most players didn't even know existed), and one of the others only changed as you leveled. RQ was a huge advancement *because* you just did some simple math and no tables were required. That was its selling point. You didn't need anything other then what was written on your character sheet, and some dice and imagination.

Oh. It was also unique in that it treated monsters with the same rules as players. But now I'm getting off topic. I guess the point I'm getting at is that I really don't think a little bit of math is a bad thing...

 

[RMS]

Of course, my experiences as a Substitute Teacher show me that most kids coming out of middle school can't do division in their heads other than 2 and 10; they HAVE to break out paper or fingers.

Is it just the grognard in me thinking, "we did crits and specials in RQ in 7th grade without any problem, what's wrong with these kids today!" In fairness, I'd guess that this was true of the average student then too, but just didn't reflect my gaming group.

Btw, I think your experience is what games should probably be built around. I've always understood that most things for daily consumption should be written so that an 8th grade graduate can read, comprehend, and use them. I'd expect the same of math skills in an RPG too.

At the point where a calculator or scratch paper becomes needed for the SLOWEST player in my group, the math is getting in the way.

This is where different experiences really help (at least in my view). I haven't experienced this, but the vast majority of my players have been people with graduate degrees in engineering, physics, or math (in the last decade+)...so we haven't been particularly bothered by math in a game. (The irony, as I've pointed out before, is that I personally loath basic accounting like in GURPS or HERO character creation...no idea why, but I just dislike it.)

Too much to remember. Most persons can remember 7-8 digits in short term memory and work with them. (Wechsler.) That means we can usually get 2x2digit numbers and a comparison number (the die roll). Having a third in front of them is USUALLY doable, but not always.

How about just figuring how many 10s they make their skill by as a level of success measurement? Have a skill of 120%, roll a 70 and note that you have 5 levels of success. Just drop the 1s digit, like with the current critical system.

Playing a variety of games over the last 27 years, I've noticed 3 things:
1) Players can happily look up a roll against a short table
2) Players hate doing divisions on the fly
3) Players won't retain more than 3 numbers of two digits in short term memory

From your last two, I take it that a new game should really try to stay away from d100 and that calculatiing criticals (and specials, or similar) from roll-over mechanics really are more intuitive for most people than how we go about things in RQ.

 

[gamesmeister]

Without wanting to repeat myself....I'm about to repeat myself...

Let someone who has a skill over 100% split the skill and make two rolls. They can split it however they like, but can only split it into two numbers. If over 200%, they can split into 3 numbers etc...

So at 150% vs 75%, I could split the 150% into two rolls at 75% each, giving me (theoretically) twice as much chance of beating you in an opposed roll. Alternatively I could go for 100% and 50%, and hope that if you rolled between 51% and 75% that my first roll comes in higher.

 

[atgxtg]

Without wanting to repeat myself....I'm about to repeat myself...

Let someone who has a skill over 100% split the skill and make two rolls. They can split it however they like, but can only split it into two numbers. If over 200%, they can split into 3 numbers etc...

So at 150% vs 75%, I could split the 150% into two rolls at 75% each, giving me (theoretically) twice as much chance of beating you in an opposed roll. Alternatively I could go for 100% and 50%, and hope that if you rolled between 51% and 75% that my first roll comes in higher.

Inteststing, but I think I'd sort of enfoce a 100% plus difference, rule. JUst becuase the 102% is probably going to want to go 51% & 51% and that hurts them. 100%+2% actually helps.

 

[Don Allen]

I sort of like the idea of having something so unlikely that it's, for all extents and purposes, impossible. However I may allow a hero point to be spent in order to try to get that five percent chance if they were taken down to 0.

 

[Gnarsh]

I sort of like the idea of having something so unlikely that it's, for all extents and purposes, impossible. However I may allow a hero point to be spent in order to try to get that five percent chance if they were taken down to 0.

Interestingly enough, we do that for straight resistance rolls (but not for skill rolls, where we keep the "1-5 always succeeds, 96-100 always fails" method). Actually, if you look carefully on the RQ3 resistance table, the chance for success/failure changes to 01 and 00 respectively, when the difference on the table hits 30.

The default table does not go farther, but a bit of logical extrapolation places the "zero point" at +/-50 points. If we assume a correlation between 20 points of difference and 100 percentiles of "success/fail" rate, then we see that at +/-10 points the first "cap" of 5% is applied (since resistance rolls start at 50 and scale by 5s, this represents 100% being capped to 95%, or 0% being floored at 5%). 30 points +/- equates to an unbounded 200% success/fail, and on the table, drops to a 1% "cap" (01 always succeeds, 00 always fails). Logically, 50 points is a 300% success/fail, and should be the next step.

It makes sense to be honest. I don't care how lucky you are, you are *not* going to overcome the power rating of a god. Same deal with lifting a mountain. There really should be a point at which you just can't succeed, and on the resistance table, that seems like a reasonable point. Again. We don't use this for skill comparisons, because something can always go "wrong" in that case. Which, unfortunately, makes it difficult to apply this concept to MRQ. It's one of the many problems introduced IMO by changing stat rolls into skill values.

 

[AKAramis]

Of course, my experiences as a Substitute Teacher show me that most kids coming out of middle school can't do division in their heads other than 2 and 10; they HAVE to break out paper or fingers.

Is it just the grognard in me thinking, "we did crits and specials in RQ in 7th grade without any problem, what's wrong with these kids today!" In fairness, I'd guess that this was true of the average student then too, but just didn't reflect my gaming group.

I was the math challenged one in my group until college.

Now, it's the software engineer that is math challenged. Well, to be honest, she's no worse than the McDonald's Manager...

Btw, I think your experience is what games should probably be built around. I've always understood that most things for daily consumption should be written so that an 8th grade graduate can read, comprehend, and use them. I'd expect the same of math skills in an RPG too.

Well, it is definitely something to keep in mind... see below...

Too much to remember. Most persons can remember 7-8 digits in short term memory and work with them. (Wechsler.) That means we can usually get 2x2digit numbers and a comparison number (the die roll). Having a third in front of them is USUALLY doable, but not always.

How about just figuring how many 10s they make their skill by as a level of success measurement? Have a skill of 120%, roll a 70 and note that you have 5 levels of success. Just drop the 1s digit, like with the current critical system.

*I* don't see a problem with it, other than many players will be counting on fingers...

Playing a variety of games over the last 27 years, I've noticed 3 things:
1) Players can happily look up a roll against a short table
2) Players hate doing divisions on the fly
3) Players won't retain more than 3 numbers of two digits in short term memory

From your last two, I take it that a new game should really try to stay away from d100 and that calculatiing criticals (and specials, or similar) from roll-over mechanics really are more intuitive for most people than how we go about things in RQ.

Not necessarily. It depends upon target audience. In so doing (using d100), one raises the target age somewhat, and that may not be a bad thing.

Keep in mind, while teens have (usually) 100% disposable income, but collegiate types tend to have about the same absolute disposable income. These two are, traditionally, the major consumers for RPG's. I suspect the "average" education of RQ players will likely be post-bac; traditionally, that's where it has tended to be.

 

[atgxtg]

Gnash,
I agree with your reason, and with your points. Especially how it does't translate to skill comparisons. I don't quite agree with your math though.

Basically the attributes in RQ are built on a non-linear scale. A +8 instnt a 40% increase in ability but a 100% increase. This means that when a guy with a 10 STR has a 1% chance to lift a SIZ 59 rock, he isn't moving something that is just shy of six times a SIZ 10/60 kg object, but instead is moving something around 70 times his STR (over 4 tons). THat is much,much better than the character has any right to expect. And a lot more more generous than a 50% vs 295% skill comparison.

Doing the same sort of relationship is possible with skills but calaculation things like the 5% cutoff at 2.39 times skill and tythe 0% cutoff at 77+times skill, is a bit much.