Opposed skill tests

[algauble]

so is there any concensus that on a fail/fail, it should be high roll wins?

it makes more sense to me this way.

is there a counterargument supporting the rules as written that anyone would care to share?

to me, it would seem to be useful, simple and consistent to use high roll wins no matter whether the roll is a crit, regular success, fail, or fumble. of course, i would keep these degrees of success in opposed tests. not so in the rules, but it seems i'm not alone in wanting to keep them there.

 

[Rurik]

so is there any concensus that on a fail/fail, it should be high roll wins?

it makes more sense to me this way.

is there a counterargument supporting the rules as written that anyone would care to share?

to me, it would seem to be useful, simple and consistent to use high roll wins no matter whether the roll is a crit, regular success, fail, or fumble. of course, i would keep these degrees of success in opposed tests. not so in the rules, but it seems i'm not alone in wanting to keep them there.

If keeping Criticals you can go with low role under skill wins rather than high roll roll under skill. This seems more consistant since low is always good then.

Success/Sucess low roll does not change the odds one bit from Sucess/Success high wins.

In short, reverse the mongoose rule. Low roll wins on success high roll wins on fail.

 

[algauble]

If keeping Criticals you can go with low role under skill wins rather than high roll roll under skill. This seems more consistant since low is always good then.

Success/Sucess low roll does not change the odds one bit from Sucess/Success high wins.

In short, reverse the mongoose rule. Low roll wins on success high roll wins on fail.

If I'm not mistaken, Success/Success high roll wins has the same odds as Success/Success farthest from skill level wins (in other words, succeeds by most), but if you're just comparing the actual lower roll of the dice the odds will vary with the relative skill levels of the opposed characters. If low roll wins on a compare with success/success, it favors the lower skill; if high roll wins, it favors the higher skill. Similarly, if low roll wins on a fail/fail, it favors the lower skill, just as high roll wins on a fail/fail favors the higher skill. Again, if I'm not mistaken, if we go with high roll wins in a success/success AND high roll wins in a fail/fail, we'll be favoring the higher skill in both cases. If low roll wins in both cases, we favor the lower skill in both cases...
It seems more consistent and simpler to go one way or the other - favor high skill or favor low skill in both cases, instead of favor X on success and y on fail. Is there some reason why this inconsistency is great, but I'm failing to see it?

 

[Rurik]

If keeping Criticals you can go with low role under skill wins rather than high roll roll under skill. This seems more consistant since low is always good then.

Success/Sucess low roll does not change the odds one bit from Sucess/Success high wins.

In short, reverse the mongoose rule. Low roll wins on success high roll wins on fail.

If I'm not mistaken, Success/Success high roll wins has the same odds as Success/Success farthest from skill level wins (in other words, succeeds by most), but if you're just comparing the actual lower roll of the dice the odds will vary with the relative skill levels of the opposed characters. If low roll wins on a compare with success/success, it favors the lower skill; if high roll wins, it favors the higher skill. Similarly, if low roll wins on a fail/fail, it favors the lower skill, just as high roll wins on a fail/fail favors the higher skill. Again, if I'm not mistaken, if we go with high roll wins in a success/success AND high roll wins in a fail/fail, we'll be favoring the higher skill in both cases. If low roll wins in both cases, we favor the lower skill in both cases...
It seems more consistent and simpler to go one way or the other - favor high skill or favor low skill in both cases, instead of favor X on success and y on fail. Is there some reason why this inconsistency is great, but I'm failing to see it?

Oops. You are right, switching to success/success low roll wins does shift in favor of the defender - though not as big a shift as switching fail/fail to high roll wins gives to the higher skill. My bad.

The problem with math is, as ever, the people using it

 

[Dort Onion]

Which ever method you use it comes down to changing the winner in 2 areas of probability - Area 1 -[both succeed, higher skill rolls > lower skill rating] and Area 2 - [both fail, lower skilled rolls <= highers' skill rating]

All other sections of the probability chart give an equal result in any of the 3 options.

Option 1 - Rulebook (high roll wins on success, lower on fail) gives Area 1 to the higher skilled and Area 2 to the lower
Option 2 - Taking 'High roll wins' gives both areas to higher skilled player
Option 3 - Taking 'Low roll wins' gives both areas to lower skilled player

Of the 10,000 (100x100) possibilities -
Area 1 is [Difference in skills] x [Lower Skill] in size
Area 2 is [Difference in skills] x [100-Higher Skill] in size

Example 1 - Skill 80 vs. Skill 30
Area 1 is 50 x 30 = 1500 (out of 10,000) - 15% of the possibilities
Area 2 is 50 x 20 = 1000 (out of 10,000) - 10% of the possibilities

Example 2 - Skill 90 vs. Skill 10
Area 1 is 80 x 10 = 800 (out of 10,000) - 8%
Area 2 is 80 x 10 = 800 (out of 10,000) - 8%

Example 3 - Skill 50 vs. Skill 40
Area 1 is 10 x 40 = 400 - 4%
Area 2 is 10 x 50 = 500 - 5%

So which system you use can make a large difference....

As I said before I'll be using 'High roll wins' - but if you wish to favour the underdog (a lot) then thats your choice

Dort the Infomative
Mathemagician

 

[Rurik]

You generate your formulas the exact way I do.

I'd initially forgotten to give Area 1 to the lower skilled character for low roll under score succeeds. Pretty major synaptic lapse.

Quickly realized the error when I made the correction above.