[LWMPG] Alternative take on bonuses at rank 11+

[hal]

Rather than the approach in Book of Magnakai where bonuses reach a point where success is almost inevitable and some bonuses cap at rank 10, what do people think about the following?

For every rank above 10, a character gets a reroll per session that can be spent on any act that the charatcer's disciplines apply to.

The advantage of rerolls is that the give an increasing bonus per rank but they naturally diminish meaning that they won't ever reduce the chance of success to zero.

I was considering converting the +1 above +5 into a reroll per roll, but found that increasing the number of dice rolls by this much was too much.

 

[Random Code]

Take a look at the alternative rules document that Hellebore did here:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=47162

It really is full of good stuff.

 

[hal]

Take a look at the alternative rules document that Hellebore did here:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=47162

It really is full of good stuff.

Nice. I like the idea but I don't know if I would want to see things changed so fundamentally so that ranks 6 to 10 have the same bonus.

 

[Hellebore]

Well it would be simple enough to just use your Rank as your dice modifier (instead of 1/2 where it means every two ranks gets the same bonus instead of my every 5 ranks). The difficulties would have to change. I can see the whole thing working so that 5 is the lowest difficulty for Kai and then increasing from there. Really all you are doing is changing the chance of success for average tests, the actual difficulty is irrelevant.

The reason I did it that way was because it was simpler and didn't stray too far from the low numbers of the actual test itself.


However using rank does provide a rather interesting image of a character having spent 5 ranks with hunting only receiving +5 whilst a character getting it at rank 7 goes from 0 to +7 instantly.

You could go into more complexity by having the character sheet list the ranks and have multiple columns where you write down each dicsipline you get at the rank you get and then the bonus is contingent on that.

Or you could just subtract your current rank from the rank you where when you got the discipline to get your bonus (so got hunting at rank 6 and am now rank 9 so I get +3 to hunting tests, whilst the other disciplines would have diferent bonuses).

The order you list the disciplines would be the ranks you got them at - discipline 1 was your first discipline and would have the highest modifier to tests.

Hellebore

 

[hal]

Interesting. I think your idea is similar to what is used in the Lone Wolf OGL

Yeah, I have the same issue with the current system as you do I like having the difficulty stay between 0 and 9 for all ranks as it provides consistency and continuity. I am also looking for a simple solution in line with the existing design.

So your take is cool. I personally prefer not to change the existing modifiers for ranks 1 to 10 as this introduces the changes from the very beginning and flattens ranks 6 to 10 in a way I am not comfortable with.

The advantage of rerolls as i see it is that they sit on top of the existing system which remains unchanged and diminish naturally so as to always preserve a chance of failure, which drives at the heart of the issue.

 

[SnowShadow]

I'm a big fan of re-rolls, August agreed to my suggestion that in the books the Crystal Star Pendant (as a Talisman of Good Fortune) gives one re-roll per session. Of course if you re-roll you must accept the new roll, even if it is worse. This helps with many of the instant death random numbers in the books falling mast/escaping Helghast in bk 2, escaping Kaag bk 14 and Ruel bridge-jump Bk 13; although now we have the multiplayer rules you can also use Alether bonus at the end of Bk 13 provided you keep hold of your backpack. Yes!

 

[Hellebore]

5 or more re-rolls a session seems a little excessive though. 10 re-rolls per session seems unwieldy.

Hellebore

 

[hal]

5 or more re-rolls a session seems a little excessive though. 10 re-rolls per session seems unwieldy.

Hellebore

I agree that it's a balancing act. You could just say that for each bonus over +5 you get 1 reroll. That's just 3 with the existing rules. That's quite nice too.