(Un)Opposed resilience rolls

[PhilHibbs]

Following on from some recent discussions in other threads, maybe an unopposed Resilience test for damage isn't all that bad, but if it's going to apply to any kind of damage (environmental, wrack) then it should be across the board. What's the down side? Mostly, it's that once your skill goes over 95%, you can effectively ignore Serious Wounds. I'm sure that's why it was introduced - one skill that effectively doubles your Hit Points is quite unbalancing.

What's the alternative? You could make the roll harder the further you go into negatives, but that doesn't scale. A 6m giant with 18HP in his legs should be making the same rolls at -9 as most people are making at -3. Or, is that already taken into account with the giant's high CON and hence high Resilience? He has a base chance of 78% after all.

Is the problem just that it's too easy, a starting adventurer having up to ~70% chance of ignoring a Serious Wound?

 

[Deleriad]

Following on from some recent discussions in other threads, maybe an unopposed Resilience test for damage isn't all that bad, but if it's going to apply to any kind of damage (environmental, wrack) then it should be across the board.

Why? For example, if someone is trying to prevent you from climbing a cliff that would be an opposed Athletics test, but if you were just climbing a cliff it would be unopposed. Similarly if someone clobbers you on the back of the head with a stone in an attempt to knock you out, that would be an opposed resilience roll but if a stone simply falls on your head, it's unopposed. I don't see what 'problem' you are trying to fix.

Still, if you don't want opposed resilience tests for damage then the easiest solution is negative modifiers of -20% to -60% depending on the severity of wound. So a dead arm (0 HPs in the arm) might cause no modifiers but a major wound to the head would be -60%. It's pretty straight forward and follows the usual game mechanics.

Is the problem just that it's too easy, a starting adventurer having up to ~70% chance of ignoring a Serious Wound?

If by serious wound you mean being reduced to 0 Hit Points in the arm and a character has maxed out their Resilience at character generation because they can take a lickin' but keep on tickin' then I don't see the problem. If a player wants to play a Bruce Willis character then surely that's *fun.* If by serious wound you mean major wound to the head then all the resilience test does is say you'll be dead soon rather than dead now.

As far as I can tell your issue seems to be that if someone is reduced to zero hit points in a location that they should not be able to resist it except in unusual circumstances. If that's what you want then say that all resilience tests are assumed to fail unless the PC spends a Hero Point.

To be honest I don't see a problem in the rules as written however there are always different ways to tune the lethality of a system to fit your own preferences.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Following on from some recent discussions in other threads, maybe an unopposed Resilience test for damage isn't all that bad, but if it's going to apply to any kind of damage (environmental, wrack) then it should be across the board.

Why? For example, if someone is trying to prevent you from climbing a cliff that would be an opposed Athletics test, but if you were just climbing a cliff it would be unopposed. Similarly if someone clobbers you on the back of the head with a stone in an attempt to knock you out, that would be an opposed resilience roll but if a stone simply falls on your head, it's unopposed. I don't see what 'problem' you are trying to fix.

The attacker is not actively doing anything to prevent you from withstanding the wound that he already dealt. His chance of a crit and any Damage Bonus has been already been figured in, but he's not actively preventing you from toughing it out. It just seems to me that if you're on -3 hit points in the head, it doesn't matter whether the rock fell or was thrown. One should not be two or three times as hard to resist than the other. Whether or not the wound is to a major location is already taken into account in the severity of consequences for failure, making the roll harder as well is increasing the value of going for the majors.

Also, counting zero hit points as different to negatives is introducing a whole new category of wounds, now you have positive, zero, negative, and negative to the level of the normal positive. I'm happy with three levels of location health and see no need for a fourth, I don't see what 'problem' you are trying to fix. :wink: The problem that I'm trying to fix - well, one of them - is that players (and GMs) keep forgetting what they rolled to hit. The percentile dice may well have been picked up and re-rolled as a result of a CA. And in the case of Wrack, that might have been several melee rounds ago.

 

[Deleriad]

Also, counting zero hit points as different to negatives is introducing a whole new category of wounds, now you have positive, zero, negative, and negative to the level of the normal positive. I'm happy with three levels of location health and see no need for a fourth,

I'm not. 0 Hit Points in a location is a serious wound, RAW, I was using the example of a dead arm (0 HPs in the arm) as the most trivial possible serious wound as compared, for example, to a dagger through the eye.

The problem that I'm trying to fix - well, one of them - is that players (and GMs) keep forgetting what they rolled to hit. The percentile dice may well have been picked up and re-rolled as a result of a CA. And in the case of Wrack, that might have been several melee rounds ago.

Two answers suggest themselves. I tell my players to leave their dice on their table after the roll. That way if we forget, the roll is still there.

For the wrack example where the serious/major wound might be done a long time after the initial spell roll, then either roll unopposed (the world won't actually end, probably) or get the player to re-roll their grimoire skill in opposition to the Resilience roll.

Alternately you can completely rejig the resilience system to fit your preferences. Negative modifiers based on severity of wound is probably the easiest way go in that case while retaining the general outcomes of RQII. Alternately you can use something like RQ3 which basically works out much like a version of RQII where all Resilience tests are failed.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Alternately you can completely rejig the resilience system to fit your preferences. Negative modifiers based on severity of wound is probably the easiest way go in that case while retaining the general outcomes of RQII. Alternately you can use something like RQ3 which basically works out much like a version of RQII where all Resilience tests are failed.

I like Resilience tests. It's good that a toughened character can take damage more easily than an inexperienced one, and not just a couple of points based on their stats which are really hard to improve over time. Maybe I should just ignore the "giants" problem and go with fixed negatives based on how many negative hit points they are on.

 

[Deleriad]

I like Resilience tests. It's good that a toughened character can take damage more easily than an inexperienced one, and not just a couple of points based on their stats which are really hard to improve over time. Maybe I should just ignore the "giants" problem and go with fixed negatives based on how many negative hit points they are on.

Why make it complicated? If someone has 6 Hit Points in their leg and is reduced to -5 (almost a major wound) then their negative modifier is going to be higher than someone with only 2 Hit Points in their leg and an equivalent wound. Plus it means you end up asking players how many hit points they are on, doing some sort of calculation and then giving them a negative modifier.

No reason not to keep it simple.
Serious wound, non-vital location (arm, leg): Resilience test no modifiers.
Serious wound vital location (body, head): -20%
Major wound non-vital location (limb): -20%
Major wound, vital location (head, body): -40%.

Or even simpler: serious wound - no modifier; major wound -40%.

 

[HalfOrc HalfBiscuit]

Just thinking right off the top of my head here - so this may be fundamentally flawed - how about making all rolls opposed but rather than using the attacker's roll use damage done x 10% (always treating it as if it were a successful attack roll).

So if rock (whether falling or thrown) dealt 4 points damage and thereby provoked a resilience roll, the injured defender would have to roll successfully but over 40% (or a critical success). If a large rock dealt 8 points to Phil's adventurer with 70% resilience, he'd have to roll a critical.

The only immediate "downside" I can see is that if an attacker rolls a critical attack but doesn't choose the maximise damage CM and rolls low for damage, it would be easier to resist. But I wonder if a critical should be so much harder to resist if it doesn't deal significant damage? And obviously the attacker should still be gaining a significant advantage with the CMs he does choose.