05-21-2019, 01:48 AM | #21 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: Removing the Rule of 16
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05-21-2019, 02:20 AM | #22 | |
Join Date: Oct 2007
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Re: Removing the Rule of 16
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Also, healing magic (including potions) is quite useful if you want to keep on going without having to spend a couple of days recovering after a challenging skirmish. I'd generally not want to give anyone trying to help me that way a -20 penality to their rolls. |
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05-21-2019, 03:22 AM | #23 | |
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: OK
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Re: Removing the Rule of 16
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Affliction is exotic, not supernatural, if we're going by the symbol next to it. And yet it can be used to produce what are English-supernatural abilities (it can perfectly mimic Mind Control, for instance). It's still strange that the Rule of 16 applies to a magical attack, but not to, for instance, exotic pheromones or other non-supernatural attacks. I don't understand what design goal that difference furthers.
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"For the rays, to speak properly, are not colored. In them there is nothing else than a certain power and disposition to stir up a sensation of this or that color." —Isaac Newton, Optics My blog. |
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05-21-2019, 05:43 AM | #24 | |||
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: Removing the Rule of 16
That wouldn't be an inherent Character ability would it. Also, wouldn't be a resisted Will attack, would be a "resist by rolling HT with this bonus or penalty" which is not a contested resistance.
Sure, you could make is a contested resistance roll, but going this route to avoid the Rule of 16 just seems like a jerk move as GM. Quote:
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The rule says "If a supernatural attack (magic spell, psi ability, etc.)..." so I mean the 'etc' is right there. Quote:
Granted I can't think of a single instance the resisted source wasn't supernatural or at least 'exotic' (Chi abilities). |
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05-21-2019, 10:37 AM | #25 | |
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Southern New Hampshire
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Re: Removing the Rule of 16
I'm in the camp that the Rule of 16 is a good rule to have where resist-or-lose abilities exist, and that the most likely consequence of not including it would be the significant off-balancing either from clever players (or power gamers), or from NPCs the GM made mistakes with.
Also, to address the "living" thing question... the rules does say "sapient"... so I think vampires and self-aware robots are protected too... Quote:
My big complaint has always been that it's confusing. If the defender's resistance is lower than 16, effective skill of the attacker is capped at 16, so that attack works best on people with weak defenses. If the defender's resistance is 16+X where X is 1 or greater, the attacker's effective skill capped at 16+X, though the defense could be higher hypothetically. That's confusing. I can figure it out. It's just more complicated than I think it has to be. It might be easier to make a different rule... Rule of ResistanceWay less math, and still achieves the goal of making it so that super high skill won't off-balance anything. Things like Will and HT are already limited, so defenses can't get unreasonable, and the GM can impose limits on things like Magic Resistance. And you could adjust the limit on margin of success as you like too. Example: Weak Defense vs Weak Attack In the RAW with the Rule of 16, a defense of 10 against an attack of 10 is unaffected. The dice control it entirely. In my proposed house rule, a defense of 10 against an attack of 10 is pretty much unaffected again... except if the attacker manages to roll a 5, their margin of success still counts as 4, and the defender gets a tiny bit of help. Example: Strong Defense vs Strong Attack With the Rule of 16, an attacker with skill 25 against a defender with a defense of 18 means that the max effective skill of the attacker is 18, so it becomes an equal roll-off again. Who will roll better? In my proposed house rule, the attacker with skill 25 is extremely likely to hit the limit of 4 for margin of success (only not true if they roll 17 or 18). The defender has their defense of 18, and they have a -4 essentially. 14 or less and they win which is much better than 50/50 odds. It favors the defender which I like because I've always hated "save or die" spells in D&D, and I hate "resist or lose" spells/abilities in GURPS. Example: Weak Defense vs Strong Attack Now in this example we have the powerful attacker going against the weak defender. With the rule of 16 in place, an attacker with skill 25, and a defender with a score of 10... the attacker has an effective skill of 16, giving them a 6 point lead in the contest. The attacker is very likely to win which makes sense. With my house rule, the attacker just has their margin of success of 4, and the defender with a score of 10 gets to try to roll 6 or below instead of the more likely need for a critical success. It helps the defender out a bit, but not so much that it makes the attack pointless. Example: Strong Defense vs Weak Attack By RAW, you don't have to modify anything. The defender is going to win with an 8 point lead. With the house rule, the attacker might have to limit their margin of success to 4 if they roll 5 or lower... but... it's unlikely, and the high defense would probably win anyway. Conclusion... The house rule favors the defender a little, but I like that. The thing I REALLY like is that the math is way easier to understand. This is all just a thought that occurred to me as I was writing in support of the rule of 16 for keeping a game from having a loop-hole that could be exploited to detrimental effect. |
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05-21-2019, 11:00 AM | #26 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Removing the Rule of 16
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The Rule of 16 only applies in the case of Malediction, and that should probably be flagged as Supernatural. |
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05-22-2019, 08:12 AM | #27 | |
Join Date: Feb 2019
Location: Amboise, France
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Re: Removing the Rule of 16
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And i don't agree with that, as i prefer to give attacker a slight advantage. Maybe your margin of success should exceed 4 according to the attacker level of skill, ie 5 if attack skill is 20-24, 6 with 25-29, and so on. Also, i report there my idea of increasing X in the Rule of X with the skill level of the attacker, ie Rule of 17 for 20-24, Rule of 18 with 25-29, etc. However these skill values are not fixed yet, i think of every 4 skill levels instead, especially with spells to avoid a stair effect with other spell's advantages (ft cost, ritual, etc.). My piece of idea... :) |
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05-23-2019, 11:02 AM | #28 | |
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Southern New Hampshire
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Re: Removing the Rule of 16
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A character dying because the player made a few bad choices and a few bad die rolls... at least there was time to save themselves. To do something different. When it's a single roll to avoid an effect that will effectively kill your character... I like to favor the defender. |
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05-23-2019, 03:02 PM | #29 | |
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: Removing the Rule of 16
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05-23-2019, 07:43 PM | #30 | |
On Notice
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
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Re: Removing the Rule of 16
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