prelude_to_war
Mongoose
So our group is about to start another campaign and there has been some debate on the proper/balanced use of experience points. An area of concern are that XP dice are not equal in the hands of all.
On one hand, using XP during a campaign game is balanced if everyone has access to them (caveats to this statement, see counter points below). But then issues get cloudy such as:
- Stealth: you make a successful roll. As the opposing Minbari player can I spend an XP point to make you reroll that roll? Is that fair?
- Critical hits: I roll a 1 on the crit table...so I expend an XP point and roll a 4 (weapons) or a 6 (vital). Or reroll to get a 6 result on said chart. Or both if I have the XP! Is this fair?
What if you roll good crit results against me, can I make you reroll them for near harmless 1-1 crits?
What about races whose refits & duties tables are notoriously bad i.e. Dilgar? Is hording XP as a consequence fair? Should there be a cap on the amount of XP which can be banked?
These points brought up by Ripple (hope you don't mind the repost):
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- stealth...most often a 50/50 roll, exp dice don't really even out here, if I fail I spend to hopefully hit stealth (I'm not at a 75% chance-ish) assuming I make it, you counter spend reducing me back to a 50/50 roll (given one made one not that should work out, someone check my statistics). But you only have to spend half of the time to counter my spending. This means you have an exp dice advantage to use on your very effective beams.
- interceptors...making an early roll is much more important than making a later roll and for ships without a 'die' style defensive system, they cannot improve their defense cheaply.
- dodge...again...a die style defense that not only negates the damage but the hit.
- beam...beam equiped ships can make much better use of these dice as early hits are effectively provide big bonuses.
- crits...may ships are particularly crit effected while some are not. Being able to manipulate the crit chart resulted in devastating hits being common and return hits being not so common...a crit from a triple damage weapon is huge, a single damage weapon not so much.
The big deal here is exp dice are not earned equally. Some races win battles by the skin of their teeth, losing most of their ships doing so. Some races win by big margins or lose by them. Some races can disengage easily keeping damaged ships intact with exp dice to spare, many ships cannot disengage.
Once someone gets ahead on exp dice they tend to stay there, with a wideing margin as more of their ships survive battles while the guy losing battles tends to have brand new ships with no exp dice.
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All valid points. Some suggested workarounds include:
- XP rerolls cannot occur during the game. In other words they can only be spent on refits and special duties.
- The situations in which XP can be used for rerolls is clarified; no crit chart rerolls, etc.
- XP completely taken out.
Ripple, please chime in if I've missed anything.
Wondering if anyone out there has had similar issues with XP rerolls during a game, and what - if any - solutions you came up with?
On one hand, using XP during a campaign game is balanced if everyone has access to them (caveats to this statement, see counter points below). But then issues get cloudy such as:
- Stealth: you make a successful roll. As the opposing Minbari player can I spend an XP point to make you reroll that roll? Is that fair?
- Critical hits: I roll a 1 on the crit table...so I expend an XP point and roll a 4 (weapons) or a 6 (vital). Or reroll to get a 6 result on said chart. Or both if I have the XP! Is this fair?
What if you roll good crit results against me, can I make you reroll them for near harmless 1-1 crits?
What about races whose refits & duties tables are notoriously bad i.e. Dilgar? Is hording XP as a consequence fair? Should there be a cap on the amount of XP which can be banked?
These points brought up by Ripple (hope you don't mind the repost):
--------
- stealth...most often a 50/50 roll, exp dice don't really even out here, if I fail I spend to hopefully hit stealth (I'm not at a 75% chance-ish) assuming I make it, you counter spend reducing me back to a 50/50 roll (given one made one not that should work out, someone check my statistics). But you only have to spend half of the time to counter my spending. This means you have an exp dice advantage to use on your very effective beams.
- interceptors...making an early roll is much more important than making a later roll and for ships without a 'die' style defensive system, they cannot improve their defense cheaply.
- dodge...again...a die style defense that not only negates the damage but the hit.
- beam...beam equiped ships can make much better use of these dice as early hits are effectively provide big bonuses.
- crits...may ships are particularly crit effected while some are not. Being able to manipulate the crit chart resulted in devastating hits being common and return hits being not so common...a crit from a triple damage weapon is huge, a single damage weapon not so much.
The big deal here is exp dice are not earned equally. Some races win battles by the skin of their teeth, losing most of their ships doing so. Some races win by big margins or lose by them. Some races can disengage easily keeping damaged ships intact with exp dice to spare, many ships cannot disengage.
Once someone gets ahead on exp dice they tend to stay there, with a wideing margin as more of their ships survive battles while the guy losing battles tends to have brand new ships with no exp dice.
--------
All valid points. Some suggested workarounds include:
- XP rerolls cannot occur during the game. In other words they can only be spent on refits and special duties.
- The situations in which XP can be used for rerolls is clarified; no crit chart rerolls, etc.
- XP completely taken out.
Ripple, please chime in if I've missed anything.
Wondering if anyone out there has had similar issues with XP rerolls during a game, and what - if any - solutions you came up with?
