So, while Linda and I were waiting around, we kicked the tires on V2, specifically the roll under combat. Linda's comment "Yeah, it works and rolling over under 25 is the same as rolling over 15 on a d20 but it doesn't feel good to roll under a 25 on percentiles".
1. So, experiences with roll under combat?
2. How do you feel about rolling under; i.e. rolling low for combat?
Thanks,
Bill
It doesn't matter. Rolling low isn't inherently less exciting for me. I get that it bothers some people. But I've never understood that.
Two minor issues:
Bonuses often wind up being subtractions and penalties additions. That's counter intuitive.
In some set ups, you wind up with floor effects.
Maybe it's because I grew up with golf and The Price is Right but rolling low never bothered me.
To date, my longest running favorite system, BRP, uses a roll-under percentile system. I've always thought of it as something like the percentile score being a land stake that you've claimed -- as long as you roll inside your own land, you're golden. Beneficial mods are ways of keeping the dice closer to home instead of encouraging them to go wild.
!i!
Quote from: NicephorusTwo minor issues:
Bonuses often wind up being subtractions and penalties additions. That's counter intuitive.
In some set ups, you wind up with floor effects.
I was reading Gurps (4e) the other day at lunch and this is one of those things that always jumps out at me. That a positive assessment is actually a negative adjustment. In 4e they handled this by adding the bonus, instead, to the target number.
IMHO, this breaks one of the little paths in my head that applies situational modifiers to the target but character-centric modifiers to the roll. But that's just me.
Quote from: NicephorusTwo minor issues:
Bonuses often wind up being subtractions and penalties additions. That's counter intuitive.
In some set ups, you wind up with floor effects.
Well, in terms of V2 we have open ended rolling so we should be o.k. on this front.
Bill
Sort of like what Ian says. But I don't find it effortless to get there so it isn't easy for me to switch back and forth. So I'm ok with it if it is used consistently in the system.
I have no problem with a roll-under system. Negative modifiers for positive conditions don't bother me, either. However, that might be a side-effect of many years of playing Squad Leader, which uses a lower-is-better system, negative modifiers for positive conditions and all. That said, I do prefer adjusting the target number over a drm for roll-under, but it all comes out in the wash.
I don't like roll under systems. It's purely psychological, but I just prefer it if a big huge number means SUCCESS! and not FAIL!
Is 4E going to a roll under system?
Quote from: HinterWelt1. So, experiences with roll under combat?
Every percentile system that I've ever used was roll-under.
Quote from: HinterWelt2. How do you feel about rolling under; i.e. rolling low for combat?
Normally I prefer roll-over but like roll-under for percentiles because a roll equal-or-under percentile system makes the percentage transparent and I think it's pretty naturally to think of a roll being in the 5th percentile (05) being better than a roll in the 95th percentile (95). Basically, think of the percentile roll as a percentage where a 5% chance of success requires a result of 5% or less.
Quote from: HinterWeltSo, while Linda and I were waiting around, we kicked the tires on V2, specifically the roll under combat. Linda's comment "Yeah, it works and rolling over under 25 is the same as rolling over 15 on a d20 but it doesn't feel good to roll under a 25 on percentiles".
1. So, experiences with roll under combat?
2. How do you feel about rolling under; i.e. rolling low for combat?
Thanks,
Bill
1. I played several games with roll under combat: RuneQuest, Stormbringer, GURPS, etc.
2. Very good. That said, I like most resolution systems, roll under, roll over, dice pools, etc.
Roll under and roll over mathematically are the same, the diferences are psychological. To some people roll under feels wrong because to them, the more they score the better. To others, roll over is not as intuitive as roll under, because with roll under you compare the result of the dice with your score, no way it can get easier than that. It's not rational.
Quote from: NicephorusTwo minor issues:
Bonuses often wind up being subtractions and penalties additions. That's counter intuitive.
In some set ups, you wind up with floor effects.
The counter to that is about what you're bonusing.
Add a +1 to the SKILL and not the DIE and you still have a +1.
Same effect, different context and still roll-under.
I think roll under gets only slightly weird on camparitive rolls. Usually it's by what you beat your own skill by vs. theirs. But that's easy once you get used to it.
Quote from: KrakaJakThe counter to that is about what you're bonusing.
Add a +1 to the SKILL and not the DIE and you still have a +1.
Same effect, different context and still roll-under.
I think roll under gets only slightly weird on camparitive rolls. Usually it's by what you beat your own skill by vs. theirs. But that's easy once you get used to it.
This may be the way I try to handle it.
In V1, this is what I have done for year. Basically, in skill checks, you would a +x to your skill check meaning if you had a 40% you would add x and roll under.
For the combat in V2, I have the goal to keep my Defense based on stats but now add a skill component to it. So, we get (AGL+CON+Dodge Skill)/6. A person rolls their Weapon Use (40-100%) - opponent's Defense. This gives us any where form a -20 all the way upto a nearly unmodified chance. I might consider dividing by 10 for Defense instead and make hits a bit more common.
Anyway, yeah, I know it is in her head but it raised my eyebrows a bit since I am like some of you guys and it is all the same to me. I just see a chance to hit.:deflated:
Thanks,
Bill
Quote from: KrakaJakI think roll under gets only slightly weird on camparitive rolls. Usually it's by what you beat your own skill by vs. theirs. But that's easy once you get used to it.
My favourite method (if using a roll under system at all) is to use the actual die roll as "success rate". A low roll is close to a minimal success, with a higher roll being better - as long as it does not beat the skill rank.
I have spent the twenty-six years I have been playing role-playing games using roll-under systems [RuneQuest and HeroQuest].
So it feels odd to me to roll-over. :eek:
Also when people say things like "He must of rolled a natural 20 to get a date with her" or similar I think about it differently - like he must of really blown it! :D
I think roll under is much more intuitive - because the skill percentage is a degree of how good you are at something.
HinterWelt, if you are using a percentage system, roll under should be the default because it is more intuitive.
A roll over with a percentile-based mechanic would be the exception, not the rule.
Playing Warhammer for years and other Percentile systems has conditioned me to look to roll under as the norm. If I see a modifier I by default apply it to the target number and not the roll. I just find that it makes more sense to figure out what you need to roll first and then roll. Opposed to rolling then having to do the math on your result.
Quote from: kryystPlaying Warhammer for years and other Percentile systems has conditioned me to look to roll under as the norm. If I see a modifier I by default apply it to the target number and not the roll. I just find that it makes more sense to figure out what you need to roll first and then roll. Opposed to rolling then having to do the math on your result.
This makes more sense to me.
My longest running effort as a GM was running Runequest, so I have to second a lot of what's been said. I like "math first, then roll" as kryyst suggested.
One of my players, who had only played AD&D up 'til then, had problems with it. In RQ, you roll to attack; if successful, the target may roll to defend, and parry the attack. The player was used to D&D's roll vs. armor class: "I roll, I hit". RQ was more like: "I roll, I hit! Oh crap, he parried". He then said, "This is like an old Errol Flynn movie," to which I of course replied, "Exactly!"
Quote from: Leo KnightMy longest running effort as a GM was running Runequest, so I have to second a lot of what's been said. I like "math first, then roll" as kryyst suggested.
One of my players, who had only played AD&D up 'til then, had problems with it. In RQ, you roll to attack; if successful, the target may roll to defend, and parry the attack. The player was used to D&D's roll vs. armor class: "I roll, I hit". RQ was more like: "I roll, I hit! Oh crap, he parried". He then said, "This is like an old Errol Flynn movie," to which I of course replied, "Exactly!"
And this is sort of what I am looking at but I am trying to move this down to one roll. So, I roll to attack, your dodge is figured in, if I hit then you can decide to try and parry. Most folks like my parry rules from V1.
Bill
After a stupidly long combat in HarnMaster last night, one thing to note about roll-under is that in combination with separate damage rolls it can lead to a real Whiff Factor.
"I swing at him with my sword!" *clatter* "I hit!"
*clatter* "He steps neatly aside."
"Damnit!"
"Now he jabs roughly at your guts -" *clatter* "He strikes a heavy blow."
*clatter* "His blow passes my guard!"
"His blow thunks on your chest for -" *clatter* "11 damage from the edge of his blade."
"11? Bah! I have 12 from mail and leather there! I jab at him -"
And so on.
Essentially, the more dice rolls there are between a strike at a foe and the actual injury, the more chance there is of a Whiff Factor, of nothing happening.
And it gets tedious. We did more dice rolls for that one combat than we'd done in the whole campaign so far - ten sessions or something.
So if you have roll-under, you have to have some sort of other stuff to speed things up, like fatigue, shock rolls, blows not being entirely stopped by armour (stab damage turned to bash, for example), options for "all out attack" or "feints" to make tangible results more certain, and so on. Otherwise... whiff!
That's one advantage of comparative game mechanics, like "Attribute + Skill + roll, highest roll wins, winning margin added to damage roll." Most exchanges will get some kind of actual tangible result...
I'll second Kyle's observation. That is precisely why I will never play HarnMaster again. The only thing worse in Harn than participating in such a combat was watching it. ARRRRGG!!!
EDIT: Although I don't think it's entirely the fault of the extra d6 damage rolls. That you could so easily end up in a tie or a no result was at the root, and you'd see that outside combat too. Rerolls suck. I love rolling dice....when it means something's gonna happen!
Yep. Basically, as GM the worst words you ever have to say are, "nothing happens." That's boring, and players I'm sure can be bored without travelling to a game session, they can sit at home and play WoW or something.
On the other hand, it was a lot quicker when at least one of the participants was not wearing armour. Some impressive heroics from one PC, who fought on, covered with his own blood and that of his foes, who could have fled and saved his life, but chose to stand and fight and protect the gates of Tiwesdæg.
Hwæt! Hear tell of Aesc, Daughter-done,
fell fighting, seven times spear-struck,
never man could slay him,
vanquished by Valkyrie with Wotan's Wyrdaxe
Hear tell of Aesc, Bear-born,
fell fighting, seven times spear-struck,
before the gates of Tiwesdæg,
gore-garnished, kilted kin killed.
Much better than "whiff!"
See, damage soaking through armor is an important part. I am thinking of extending it to parries. Yeah, you parry but he tinks you for 1 die of the damage of the weapon so, if the weapon does 3d10 you would tink for 1d10.
But yeah, Kyle, it can be an issue with roll under systems. Often you need to watch balance on the armor/defense mechanisms closely in order to keep them in balance with the rest of combat.
Bill
Quote from: Kyle AaronAfter a stupidly long combat in HarnMaster last night, one thing to note about roll-under is that in combination with separate damage rolls it can lead to a real Whiff Factor.
I know I'm a bit more dense than most of the folks who're taking part in this conversation, but I don't understand how the Whiff Factor is inherently more pronounced in a roll-under vs. roll-over system. The extra dice rolls for damage and such can be found in roll-over systems as well.
Assume you have two systems, one roll-over, one roll-under. All other things (chance to hit, dodge, etc.) being equal, how would the roll-under system produce more Nil results? The chances are the same, yes?
Or are you saying that it tends to be easier to skip all the extra dice rolling with roll-over games?
Again, if I'm dense, slap me up. But I've never noticed this being a property inherent in the roll-under systems vs. the roll-over, comparative, pool, etc. systems I've played.
Quote from: Kyle AaronAfter a stupidly long combat in HarnMaster last night, one thing to note about roll-under is that in combination with separate damage rolls it can lead to a real Whiff Factor.
That's one advantage of comparative game mechanics, like "Attribute + Skill + roll, highest roll wins, winning margin added to damage roll." Most exchanges will get some kind of actual tangible result...
Kyle,
That has
NOTHING to do with roll under, and
EVERYTHING to do with HarnMaster.
It's the large number of rolls, not the fact it's roll under.
-Kyle
Quote from: KenHRI know I'm a bit more dense than most of the folks who're taking part in this conversation, but I don't understand how the Whiff Factor is inherently more pronounced in a roll-under vs. roll-over system.
It's not.
I never mentioned roll-over. Rather, I said that a
comparative game mechanic, where "highest roll wins, add margin of success to damage" or something similar would avoid that.
Roll-under, roll-over, comes to the same thing, the difference is purely aesthetic, except that addition tends to be quicker for people to calculate than subtraction (such was the complaint about d4-d4), so that if you want to use the margin of success - the amount rolled under or over - for something in the game, then roll-over works better.
Quote from: flyingmiceThat has NOTHING to do with roll under, and EVERYTHING to do with HarnMaster.
Yes and no. In any system where one rolls to hit, and the other to parry/dodge, there are four possible results
- Attacker hits, defender defends
- Attacker misses, defender defends
- Attacker hits, defender fails
- Attacker hits, defender defends
in most game systems, only one of those four possible results, the third, gets you a hit which may do damage. So for example if two foes have 50% skill each, only 25% of the passes between them will result in a strike which can cause injury.
When that's combined with armour subtracting from damage done, many of the hits won't give an actual result.
The same thing can happen in GURPS, however GURPS has feints, all-out attacks, extra effort, critical hits and so on, which lessens the whiff factor quite a bit. Still, it can get annoying, which is why in GURPS I allowed xp to be spent as "hero points" to turn successes into critical successes, and so on.
The whiff factor's something to watch out for in roll-under
or roll-over systems, but doesn't occur so much in comparative systems. The whiffing can be reduced by combat options for the foes which are likely to give more tangible results, feints in one round to reduce defences in the next, and so on.
PS, why are you signing with my name, Clash? ;)
Quote from: Kyle AaronPS, why are you signing with my name, Clash? ;)
I meant to add that at the top, but I'm old and easily get confused!
BTW, that's why I don't use defense rolls in StarCluster. They drag out combat.
-clash
Quote from: flyingmiceI meant to add that at the top, but I'm old and easily get confused!
BTW, that's why I don't use defense rolls in StarCluster. They drag out combat.
-clash
Bingo Lucy! Although I tend to take heat for "static" defense. Still, it seems a good trade-off.
Bill
Quote from: Kyle AaronThat's one advantage of comparative game mechanics, like "Attribute + Skill + roll, highest roll wins, winning margin added to damage roll." Most exchanges will get some kind of actual tangible result...
My favorite game mechanic in the entire multiverse.
I like the comparative mechanic. I love T&T. You know when you roll dice that something's going to happen.
But I also like the strategic challenge in a game where you need to seek an advantage. Most of the games I play where you can just sort of whack away at each other and frequently miss have some sort of fatigue rule. That can get dicey. Sometimes, if you simply never can find that dirty trick or advantage in the rules or the situation that will give you an edge, you have to know when to back away and say, "I guess today's not your day to die."
Of course, I sympathize with not wanting to slog through twenty rounds of combat to get there. It's fun watching Wesley and Inigo do it in the movies, but not so much without the choreography.
After hearing people talk about Harn combat, it sounds a bit like Swashbuckler!
Swashbuckler! boils down to each combatant choosing their maneuver and comparing results in a combat matrix. The results of the exchange are greatly dependent on the maneuvers chosen by the parties involved.
I bought HarnMaster Lite last week (and its on its way) so I will just need to check for myself.
With HarnMaster you choose one of 3 (IIRC, or is it just 2?) agressiveness levels to your attack, there is a 4x4 matrix associated with each of these. Then both you and your opponent roll against your respective weapon skills. The result of a single roll is one of: Marginal Failure (over your skill), Critical Failure (over your skill and ending in '0' or '5'), Marginal Success (on or under your skill), or Critical Success (on or under your skill and ending in '0' or '5').
You then look up the results on the appropriate matrix. A lot of these results are effectively no result because having a "tie" of a MF - MF or MS - MS happens quite often.
This achillies heal of this type of roll-under/roll-over mechanic (which is typical of percentile because doing double digit subtraction sucks) is when you've got opposing rolling going on. So percentile systems should generally avoid rules that stipulate opposed rolls. It's the opposite of dice pools which tend to work better making opposing rolls instead of independant action rolls against fixed targets.
Quote from: DwightWith HarnMaster you choose one of 3 (IIRC, or is it just 2?) agressiveness levels to your attack, there is a 4x4 matrix associated with each of these. Then both you and your opponent roll against your respective weapon skills. The result of a single roll is one of: Marginal Failure (over your skill), Critical Failure (over your skill and ending in '0' or '5'), Marginal Success (on or under your skill), or Critical Success (on or under your skill and ending in '0' or '5').
You then look up the results on the appropriate matrix. A lot of these results are effectively no result because having a "tie" of a MF - MF or MS - MS happens quite often.
This achillies heal of this type of roll-under/roll-over mechanic (which is typical of percentile because doing double digit subtraction sucks) is when you've got opposing rolling going on. So percentile systems should generally avoid rules that stipulate opposed rolls. It's the opposite of dice pools which tend to work better making opposing rolls instead of independant action rolls against fixed targets.
I am having a Harnmaster flashback and it is not good...I need squirrels.:ninja:
I realize my response is largely conditioned by experience but I feel rather strongly that unless you're using table look-ups, percentile dice should be roll-under, and so should additive rolls of 3d6. Roll of a d20 should be roll-over.
Most other rolls should be additive roll-over, especially if you have a variable number of dice and/or instead of adding pips, you're summing "successes". (I.e., dice pool.)
Quote from: Kyle Aaronnever mentioned roll-over. Rather, I said that a comparative game mechanic, where "highest roll wins, add margin of success to damage" or something similar would avoid that.
Fudge simultaneous combat rolls works like that, especially if you don't allow different offensive and defensive modifiers. On most rounds, one character hits the other and, as a result, combats go quite quickly.
That said, a certain amount of whiff can be useful, especially if the battle takes place in motion and involves a lot of characters. Whiffing against a character who is dodging, for example, can let them hold out while their friends finish off their opponents and then come over to help.
I like the "blackjack" style rolls that Unknown Armies uses -- roll as high as you can under your percentile score. It makes comparative rolls easy while retaining the intuitive nature of percentile.
KoOS