Question about riposte, trip and regain footing.

[PhilHibbs]

If both skills involved were 50% and the trip roll was a 20 and the athletics was a 42, to me the trip was more sucessful. The rules say otherwise so I house rule-trump them.

Your way and the rules' way is identical only your way requires more maths. The probabilities of "high roll wins" are identical to "person who made their skill by their most" only you don't need to bother subtracting.

He isn't using "who made their skill by the most", he's using "lowest number". No maths, but gives an advantage to the low-skilled person who was lucky enough to make their roll. It's favouring the underdog, but that might appeal to some. But, bear in mind that in adopting this system, you are dramatically altering the odds of winning in favour of the lower-skilled participant.

 

[Chalupacabra]

Ahhh, thanks! The light is now on!!! Guess I was being too simplified in lower is better. There's not degrees within simple sucess, crit, or miss, it is what it is. Rolling above is giving the greater skill more range to oppose the roll with. That gives the higher skill character the benefit of their higher percentage. Sorry about that and thanks for sticking with it, helped alot.

I shall now run away from that topic and stick with the rule book on that one.

 

[Dan True]

Ahhh, thanks! The light is now on!!! Guess I was being too simplified in lower is better. There's not degrees within simple sucess, crit, or miss, it is what it is. Rolling above is giving the greater skill more range to oppose the roll with. That gives the higher skill character the benefit of their higher percentage. Sorry about that and thanks for sticking with it, helped alot.

I shall now run away from that topic and stick with the rule book on that one.

Great you got it How you run things if of course up to you, but sometimes clarifications are needed.

And thanks a lot for all the responses. They have been great at turning the first experiences in my head. I've just ordered Arms & Equipment, Vikings and the GM Screen, so this is definitely a system I'm sticking with. One of my players actually said "This battlesystem is fantastic" 2 rounds into the first fight they had.

Now I just need to get the hang of divine magic and sorcery, and I'll be ready to roll.

- Dan

 

[PhilHibbs]

But, bear in mind that in adopting this system, you are dramatically altering the odds of winning in favour of the lower-skilled participant.

I should explain what I mean by that as I see it can be misread. I don't mean to say that a lower skilled person has an advantage over a high skilled, I just mean that changing to lower-is-better shifts the odds slightly towards the lower skill.

I just ran the numbers. The chance of an 80% skill winning against a 20% skill under RQ2 RAW is 90.45%. The chance under a "lower is better" system is 68.01%. This is disregarding the 0.34% chance of a tie.

 

[Deleriad]

There is as well the issue that in combat RQ has a bit of "roll and keep" in the system. Say your attack skill is 53%, you roll 40 and hit. Your opponent then misses their parry so you choose a Combat Manoeuvre.

If you choose a CM like trip then your opponent must not only succeed at their roll they must either roll a critical and must roll higher than 40. Essentially you are forcing them to a roll at a penalty of around 35. Similarly, if the attack causes a serious wound, the Resilience roll is pretty hard.

So choosing CMs is informed by a roll already on the table. If I rolled 13 and hit then I probably wouldn't choose a CM that required a dice roll. If I rolled 81 and hit then I probably would.

 

[PhilHibbs]

So choosing CMs is informed by a roll already on the table. If I rolled 13 and hit then I probably wouldn't choose a CM that required a dice roll. If I rolled 81 and hit then I probably would.

Indeed - anyone with a low skill is never going to use a CM that has an opposed roll, unless they crit.