Critical success / failure on more than 3 dice

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by RobW

An important point is that ITL RAW do not allow triple damage on defending figures, and reduce the overall chance of critical successes from about 5% to less than .5%. That is, ITL RAW create a significant advantage to the defend option that would be lost with this new "distinct dice" rule.

THerefore, the question for the new edition is whether or not Defending should have the effects it has in ITL RAW, or should odds of critical success stay about constant regardless of the number of dice rolled.

I prefer that critical successes are still reasonably possible (ie not ITL RAW). And in that case, the "distinctive dice" rule has a lot of advantages to a lookup table.

Yes, as I wrote to Zot, the colored dice system works great for reproducing the crit odds for a 3d roll "IF that is really what you want."

Which, you might.

But I think I would often (almost always?) want a combination of the skill and the number of dice to affect the critical result chances too.

Since when I try to do that using a table like Metagaming did, I'm not entirely happy with the available percentages (and of course needing a table isn't ideal), I think I'd go for something like:

Roll colored (or otherwise distinguished) dice as Flankspeed describes above.
If the 3 core dice indicate a critical result, then roll again to confirm.

One way* to do this is to:

Roll the same number of dice again and compare the total to the attribute being rolled against. If the result is the opposite of the crit result, adjust the crit level by one:

contradicted triple damage becomes double damage
contradicted double damage becomes an auto hit
contradicted auto hit becomes a miss
contradicted auto miss becomes a hit
contradicted auto drop becomes auto miss
contradicted break weapon become drop weapon

The reason to do that, is to NOT just reduce any number of dice to the same odds of crit results, so hard rolls aren't overpowered by automatic results, easy rolls have less chance of disaster, and ability level nicely still has an effect.

* Note that there isn't just one clear best way to do this. I've used a variety of systems for this over the years, and I think ideally it makes sense to consider different systems for different situations, but then, I am more willing than most to use crunchy mechanics when I think they make sense and add something.

e.g. Another simple thing that makes sense to do for things that should be really hard and not subject to 5% auto-successes, is just not use crit success. i.e. The almost-impossible to spot hidden door.

e.g. Another thing you can consider doing for the easy 1d and 2d rolls, where you want the chance of a crit to be more interesting and based on skill, is to re-roll the confirmation of 3d or 4d, so the bell curve hits the range of abilities where it has a good range.

etc.

[flankspeed]

Originally Posted by Skarg

.... Roll colored (or otherwise distinguished) dice as Flankspeed describes above.
If the 3 core dice indicate a critical result, then roll again to confirm.....

I can understand wanting to have the number of dice affect the odds of a critical result, but this starts to remind me of things in Basic Role Playing or DragonQuest or D&D that I have mixed feelings about..

In percentile-dice-based systems, the rules may state something like a roll totaling 5% or less of your base chance is the ultimate critical result and a roll under 15% or less of your base chance is some kind of special success. This would result in very fine distinctions as a 60% chance to hit would score a crit on 3% or less and a special hit on 9% or less, and so on. You would have to constantly take rounding off into account or let a table show you the numbers.

While the wargame-loving simulationist in me liked that idea in principle, in reality, I really didn't enjoy having to do the math or consult a table each time dice were rolled. Too much detail for me, in this case. And the old D&D system of confirming the crit with another roll was also just too much detail for me.

I will support anyone else making whatever house rules they desire, but I just can't add that much detail to TFT, which I love for how easy it is to resolve rolls with clear results in a single roll, no math or tables or confirmation needed. I will stick with the straight 3d roll crit chances.

However, I do remember original ITL clearly stating that the GM did not need to allow automatic successes or crits on certain rolls because then players could abuse the system to eventually succeed no matter how small the odds of success should actually be. If a GM wanted to simply say that no automatic successes/crits can be scored on 4d or higher, that would be one way to handle things.

Again, so long as we are talking a one-time dice roll and not repeated rolls ad infinitum, then I am happy with using the 3d chances for automatic results.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by zot

Do the new rules handle this?

It occurred to me that you could roll 3 dice first, check for automatics and criticals, and then add in more dice if it's not automatic or critical. This would keep the same probabilities for automatic and critical success / failure.

You could also have 3 white dice, use other colors for extra dice, and roll them all at the same time, using only the white ones for automatic / critical results.

The original rules handle it.

AM page 18 covers 4d with full detail level for combat rolls.
ITL page 40 covers 1d to 8d for saving rolls - but notes that auto success should not be used for other types of rolls. (automatically failing, however...)
Combining them fully is not done until Dragons of Underearth, and the FMC-81 includes the table, as well...

The auto-success range is formulaic: On n dice where n>1, a=(3×(n-1))-1 or less succeeds. The bad results mirror it, so f=7n-a or more

If making combat rolls...
Special success (2×Damage) and critical success (3×Damage) are part of the range defined by a.
I need to check for the correct ranges.
Pulled the following table from my notes:

 Dice		2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	
Damage ×3	—	3	4-5	5-7	6-9	7-11	8-13	9-15
Damage ×2	—	4	6-7	8-10	8-10	12-16	14-19	16-22
Autohit ×1	2	5	8	11	14	17	20	23
Automiss	12	16	20	24	28	32	36	42
Drop weapon	—	17	21-22	25-27	29-32	33-37	37-42	43-48
Break weapon	—	18	23-24	28-30	33-36	38-42	43-48	49-54

[JLV]

That's a table that is better than the one in the Codex -- it more or less agrees with p. 38 of ITL, which I much prefer.

[zot]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

Pulled the following table from my notes:

 Dice		2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	
Damage ×3	—	3	4-5	5-7	6-9	7-11	8-13	9-15
Damage ×2	—	4	6-7	8-10	8-10	12-16	14-19	16-22
Autohit ×1	2	5	8	11	14	17	20	23
Automiss	12	16	20	24	28	32	36	42
Drop weapon	—	17	21-22	25-27	29-32	33-37	37-42	43-48
Break weapon	—	18	23-24	28-30	33-36	38-42	43-48	49-54

Nice! Should 6 dice double damage be 10-13?

[Nils_Lindeberg]

Originally Posted by zot

Nice! Should 6 dice double damage be 10-13?

Nice table, but is it correct for auto hit and auto miss? Does the chance for that really stay the same, since it keeps its interval of only 1 number no matter the number of dice?

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg

Nice table, but is it correct for auto hit and auto miss? Does the chance for that really stay the same, since it keeps its interval of only 1 number no matter the number of dice?

Hi Nils,
No the percentages change. The chance of auto hits and misses drops as you add more dice using that system.

Warm regards, Rick.

[The Wyzard]

Hmm.

I wonder if you could do something like:

If you roll a "triples" result and it's a success, that's a critical hit. If you roll a triples result and it's a failure, that's a critical failure.

It's easy to remember, and stupid dice tricks are fun, but I'm not sure how to elegantly incorporate additional dice into it.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg

Nice table, but is it correct for auto hit and auto miss? Does the chance for that really stay the same, since it keeps its interval of only 1 number no matter the number of dice?

Hi Nils, everyone.
My earlier reply was wrong. Here is the correct data:

KEY RESULTS ON MORE DICE:
# Dice ......... x3 ............ x2 .............. Auto S. .......... Auto F. ........ Drop W. ....... Break W.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Dice ............................................. 2 .................... 12 ......................................
3 Dice ......... 3 .............. 4 ............... 5 .................... 16 ............... 17 ................ 18
4 Dice ......... 4 or 5 ....... 6 or 7 ......... 8 .................... 20 ............... 21 or 22 ........ 23 or 24
5 Dice ......... 5 to 7 ....... 8 or 9 ......... 10 or 11 .......... 24 or 25 ....... 26 or 27 ........ 28 to 30
6 Dice ......... 6 to 8 ....... 9 to 12 ........ 13 or 14 ......... 28 or 29 ....... 30 to 33 ......... 34 to 36
7 Dice ......... 7 to 10 ..... 11 to 14 ....... 15 to 17 ......... 32 to 34 ....... 35 to 38 ......... 39 to 42



CHANCE OF VARIOUS RESULTS:
Num. ........... x3 ............ x2 .............. Auto ............... Auto ........... Drop ........... Break ........... Any Auto-
Dice ................................................. Succ. .............. Failure ........ Weapon ....... Weapon ....... Failure
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Dice .............................................. 2.77 %............. 2.77 % .................................................. . 2.77%
3 Dice .......... 0.46% ...... 1.39% ........ 2.78% ............. 2.78% .......... 1.39% .......... 0.46% .......... 4.63%
4 Dice .......... 0.39 ......... 2.31 ........... 2.70 ................ 2.70 ............. 2.31 ............. 0.39 ............. 5.40
5 Dice .......... 0.27 ......... 1.35 ........... 4.26 ................ 4.26 ............. 1.35 ............. 0.27 ............. 5.88
6 Dice .......... 0.06 ......... 1.91 ........... 4.11 ................ 4.11 ............. 1.91 ............. 0.06 ............. 6.08
7 Dice .......... 0.04 ......... 1.18 ........... 4.92 ................ 4.92 ............. 1.18 ............. 0.04 ............. 6.12



SUMMARY:
Using this system, the chance of a critical actually rises, but the chance of a triple or broken weapon drops significantly. The chance of a double damage or dropped weapon stays roughly the same (except for a 4 die roll when chance of these results jumps a fair bit).

Warm regards, Rick.

[JLV]

That looks better. Thanks for fixing.