I saw this question regarding 'Halving' over at RPG.net...

[Melkor]

Someone by the name of 'yipwyg' (not me) posted the following over at RPG.net.

"I was wondering what the effect would be if instead of halving skills higher than 100 to determine the new percentage chances, you just make an addtional roll if you roll 00. This new percentage would be skill-100.

For example a person with a 125% skill, rolls to see if he succeeds.

He rolls a 90, he made it.

Same person rolls a 00, he rolls again this time with a 25% chance. He rolls a 12. Giving him a total of 112. He barely makes it.

I think this is easier than halving everything, I think it also fixes the wonkiness factor of the halving method. However, I do not know how that affects the probabilities."

I'm sure someone has mentioned it before here on the MRQ forums, but a search lead me to too many threads to possibly dig through.

So for those math wizards out there, how well would this work ?

I can see it becoming kind of strange once you get skills up in the 200% - 300% range - but how often does that really happen to a character ?

Thanks!

 

[atgxtg]

The math is easy for this one. THe effect would be that skills above 100 would have little value. A "00" Only comes up 1 in 100 rolls (1% of the time). Basically someone at 125% would have a 99.25% success chance, someone with 150% would have a 99.5% success chance, someone with 199% skill would have a 99.99% chance of success.

You could continue the patrice onwards for two "00" and so forth, so a 250% skill would be a 99.995% chance of success, but basically it isn't worth the investment.

 

[Melkor]

The math is easy for this one. THe effect would be that skills above 100 would have little value. A "00" Only comes up 1 in 100 rolls (1% of the time). Basically someone at 125% would have a 99.25% success chance, someone with 150% would have a 99.5% success chance, someone with 199% skill would have a 99.99% chance of success.

You could continue the patrice onwards for two "00" and so forth, so a 250% skill would be a 99.995% chance of success, but basically it isn't worth the investment.

So how does this effect the overall concept of MRQ ?

Should skills really be worth the investment over 100%, or should the game be adjusted to make skills over 100% harder to obtain ?

I mean rationally, 100% is it...it's the most you can ever have...it's 'all of it' if that makes sense.

I never played RQ2, and only a little RQ3....That said, were skills over 100% 'common' in those games ? I know they were in Stormbringer 5th from reading the rules (but never played that one either).

Seems like the 'halving' rule causes you to really hurt yourself by taking high percentages in skills - being worth even less of an investment than the method spelled out above.

How are you personally handling the opposed mechanic in your games atgxtg ?

 

[King Amenjar]

There are other benefits to getting over 100%, though - for instance, if you have 135% or higher, you can ignore all your opponents' armour.

 

[Zotzz]

Melkor wrote

I mean rationally, 100% is it...it's the most you can ever have...it's 'all of it' if that makes sense.

This was one the the problems I have always had with Precentile systems. It makes more sense if you think of it as a d100 system. Then all those arguements about someone having a skill at 100% is a master in the skill, turns into him being a well trained character with 100 points in his skill.

 

[atgxtg]

The math is easy for this one. THe effect would be that skills above 100 would have little value. A "00" Only comes up 1 in 100 rolls (1% of the time). Basically someone at 125% would have a 99.25% success chance, someone with 150% would have a 99.5% success chance, someone with 199% skill would have a 99.99% chance of success.

You could continue the patrice onwards for two "00" and so forth, so a 250% skill would be a 99.995% chance of success, but basically it isn't worth the investment.

So how does this effect the overall concept of MRQ ?

Should skills really be worth the investment over 100%, or should the game be adjusted to make skills over 100% harder to obtain ?

Well the efffect of using this idea would be to make skills over 100% not worth the investiment, as you are spending improvement rolls for less and less return.

I mean rationally, 100% is it...it's the most you can ever have...it's 'all of it' if that makes sense.

I never played RQ2, and only a little RQ3....That said, were skills over 100% 'common' in those games ? I know they were in Stormbringer 5th from reading the rules (but never played that one either).

Yeas statistically 100% is all of something. But the RQ system never looked at 100% of the skill or ability, just as a realtive degree of competency. LIkewise, someone who has 100% in a language skill does not know every single world in that language.

Seems like the 'halving' rule causes you to really hurt yourself by taking high percentages in skills - being worth even less of an investment than the method spelled out above.

How are you personally handling the opposed mechanic in your games atgxtg ?

Yeah, the halving rule does cause difficlities. Persoanlly I don't use it. I've toed with several different ideas for opposed resoltion, but will stick with the RQ3 method until I see something better, or we all decide on one of the proposed variants.

 

[atgxtg]

There are other benefits to getting over 100%, though - for instance, if you have 135% or higher, you can ignore all your opponents' armour.

Yes, an improved crioticals. But combat skills are not havled, so the problem doesn't exist there.

But it is the opposed tests, with no criticals, ahd halving that are problematic.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I still think one of the most sensible suggestions for skills over 100% is to not allow them in the first place.
Allow temporary increases over 100% due to spells or whatever have the affect of raising critical chance and/or mitigating penalties.

Getting a skill to 90% or higher could be a prerequisite for expert skills - a bit like the Land of Ninja ki abilities - or skill like legendary abilities.

 

[Melkor]

Yeah, the halving rule does cause difficlities. Persoanlly I don't use it. I've toed with several different ideas for opposed resoltion, but will stick with the RQ3 method until I see something better, or we all decide on one of the proposed variants.

Just for giggles, would you mind typing up the RQ3 method again here ?

Thanks!

 

[atgxtg]

I still think one of the most sensible suggestions for skills over 100% is to not allow them in the first place.
Allow temporary increases over 100% due to spells or whatever have the affect of raising critical chance and/or mitigating penalties.

Getting a skill to 90% or higher could be a prerequisite for expert skills - a bit like the Land of Ninja ki abilities - or skill like legendary abilities.

An intesting option, but not very RQ. It would pretty much wreck GLorantha and any HeroQuesting. With PCs starting off with 70-90% weapon skills, it won't take long to Max out and be just as good as everyone else.

One thing about the 100% success chance is that while it might be "all success" it doen't actually mean perfection. THe quality of the result can vary, that was why the critcal rule is there for. Skills over 100% have an improved chance of rolling a critical and getting a superior kind of success.

IMO, the major problem with opposed rolls is that there are no criticals.

 

[Dr_Snugglebunny]

As an longtime RQ3 GM I still love saying to my players "That thing had a DEX of 75 and an attack skill of 450%!" to get a rise out of them. Capping stats/skills just limits the awe from meeting (or becoming) something really balls-out tough.

Finding better ways to make >100% skills worthwhile is the way forward IMHO (e.g., splitting attacks etc in RQ3; also IMG we use hypercriticals = 1/100 of skill, round down so you must be 100%+ to even get one on a 01 roll-- example rules [slightly outdated] at http://www.geocities.com/rqsummaries/rules/housecombat2.html).

 

[Sigtrygg]

IMO, the major problem with opposed rolls is that there are no criticals.

That was my first house rule three weeks ago
Opposed tasks should be able to critical, so I just use a critical trumps a success.
If both roll a critical then highest roll wins
Both roll a success, highest roll wins.
Both roll a failure, nearest to success number wins.

It works in combat too

 

[atgxtg]

IMO, the major problem with opposed rolls is that there are no criticals.

That was my first house rule three weeks ago
Opposed tasks should be able to critical, so I just use a critical trumps a success.
If both roll a critical then highest roll wins
Both roll a success, highest roll wins.
Both roll a failure, nearest to success number wins.

It works in combat too

Oh, I'm all for that. Of course I'm one of the "prefer's RQ2/3" crowd so I like the idea of degrees of success. IMO, add criticasl and remove "skill havling" and things work much better. Sure, 146 is the same as 147, but 150 is still better than 140, so it works out okay. Especially when you consider that skills above 100 imrpove 2-4 times or more faster in MRQ.

But then, I'm one who doesn't think that 300% vs. 180% is as significant as 200% vs 80% or as 100% vs 60. IMO after a certain point you are putting much more effort in for dimishing returns. But that's just me.

 

[Archer]

The basic idea of it takes a Crit to fully counter a Crit is present in Stormbringer as well, and it works very well. It is very easy to remember and use.

 

[atgxtg]

The basic idea of it takes a Crit to fully counter a Crit is present in Stormbringer as well, and it works very well. It is very easy to remember and use.

Yup, it is the old RQ way of doing things. Crits countered crits, specials countered specials, success countered success. Simply easy effective. You can even adjust it if desired to have partial cancellations (like say a special dropping a critc doen to special). Or not.

 

[simonh]

Should skills really be worth the investment over 100%, or should the game be adjusted to make skills over 100% harder to obtain ?

I mean rationally, 100% is it...it's the most you can ever have...it's 'all of it' if that makes sense.

What it means is that your character has a 100% chance at succeeding at a 'typical' task. If the task isn't 'typical' then your chance isn't 100% - there are rules in the book for modifiers to task rolls for difficult tasks (e.g. precise attacks), or for rushing a task, etc. If your opponent is outside the 'typical' range (i.e. is also over 100%) or you are, then it makes sense to adjust the percentiles, or supplement the rules somehow to cope with that non-'typical' situation.

Simon Hibbs