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11-12-2019, 08:33 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: San Rafael, CA
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Heroic Archer House Rule
I don’t like the Heroic Archer having to make 3 rolls every turn to shoot the bow. I am considering a house rule to make it one roll and have an automatic miss on a natural 16 instead. Does anyone have any thoughts?
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11-12-2019, 09:04 AM | #2 | |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
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Re: Heroic Archer House Rule
Quote:
Made it by 0 or more: drew arrow, readied bow, hit. Missed by 1: you drew the arrow but still need to take a Ready to be able to shoot next turn. Missed by 2: you biffed drawing the arrow too. You can take a Ready to draw an arrow, but the next turn you have to Ready the bow and then shoot (which you can try to do again next turn in one round) I haven't worked out the math, but it's quick and easy and preserves some of the outcomes but still gives one-roll resolution.
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11-12-2019, 10:24 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Dec 2015
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Re: Heroic Archer House Rule
Effortless Fast Draw (Arrow) and Effortless Ready (Heroic Archer) are both perks from a pyramid article... somewhere... which allowed automatic success (no roll) if final skill is 16 or higher
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11-12-2019, 08:48 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Aug 2013
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Re: Heroic Archer House Rule
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11-13-2019, 04:41 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Mar 2019
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Re: Heroic Archer House Rule
I want to take a look at the possibility of just skipping the first two rolls (Fast-Draw Arrow, Ready Bow) and instead placing a -4 penalty to the bow skill attack roll. This penalty is the sum of the -3 for trying to hurry (described in the heroic archer advantage) and an additional -1 to take the place of the other rules.
I'm going to start out assuming that the scout will be rolling against a 16 for each of these rolls, since if you're spending the points on heroic archer, you might as well buy those skills as high enough that your odds of failure are minimal, and then look at some permutations from there. This means Having Fast-Draw (Arrow) (16) and Bow (19). So, if there are no penalties (good conditions, <3 yards, unfogged mind) the odds of failure for each are ~1.9%, or cumulatively 5.7% of failure when trying to draw and shoot on a single turn. A -4 penalty to a Bow (19) would mean rolling against a 15, with odds of success at 95.4% and a 4.5% chance of failure, which is close enough to 5.7 for my tastes. In practice though, the scout is never going to roll against a 15: they are just going to put four more points into the bow skill, to eat the extra -1 for quick draw, and roll against a sixteen. Now you do have a real change in odds: with three rolls, no matter how high the scout buys their skills, they can't shaek the 5.7% chance of a fail, but now they've gotten themselves down to that maxxed out 1.9% fail per shot = Problemo (maybe? I don't know if I actually care, but for the sake of argument let's assume I do). The reality is though, how often is the archer taking an unpenalized shot? The value of the scout in combat is attacking at range or targeting the soft spots, or a combination of both. For the sake of example, lets say the archer (Quck Draw (16)/Bow Skill (20)) is shooting at ten yards, causing a penalty of -4 to hit. With three rolls, they would roll against 16 (1.9% fail), 17 (1.9% fail), 13 (16.2% fail) for a total failure rate of 20%. With one roll, they roll versus 12 (20 -4 for house rule quick draw, -4 for range) which leads to a 25.9% fail rate, making it disadvantageous for the archer. Narratively, I kind of like this: when the shootin' is easy the extra flourish of fast draw is unlikely to affect the archer; when aiming for the eye through the snow on the run, the riskiness of trying to fire quickly is elevated. |
11-13-2019, 05:13 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Heroic Archer House Rule
The problem is that fast-draw really shouldn't be a skill in the first place, it should be a technique. I might generalize this as:
Fast Readying: if you have multiple attacks, you may spend one of them to ready. This includes multiple attacks from rapid strike, as long as the weapon being readied is the same one used to rapid strike. Fast Draw: default skill-6, max skill. Allows draw and attack as a single attack (this is a special case of fast readying). |
11-12-2019, 04:45 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.
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Re: Heroic Archer House Rule
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The chance of rolling an 18 on one of the three rolls is almost the same as the chance of rolling a 17 or 18 on a single roll (1.38% vs 1.85%). It gets worse when you consider that two out of the three rolls are against skill levels below 16 (the Bow-3 and Fast-Draw). Similar cumulative chances of rolling a normal failure happen with the skill rolls. Assuming a standard Dungeon Fantasy Scout with Bow-18 and Fast-Draw-14, a moderate -3 range penalty, and remembering the -3 to Bow to Nock & Draw, the chances of failing one of those three rolls is almost 12% - the same as rolling against skill-13. Even if you max all three skill rolls, so you've got skill 16+ on all three rolls, there is a cumulative 4.11% chance of failing one of those three rolls by rolling a 17 (plus the 1.38% chance of a critical failure); this is close to a single skill roll against a 15 (2.78% chance of a failure, 1.85% chance of critical failure). However, if effective skill would have been 16+ I'd still allow a 6 to be a critical success.
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Eric B. Smith GURPS Data File Coordinator GURPSLand I shall pull the pin from this healing grenade and... Kaboom-baya. |
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11-12-2019, 05:51 PM | #8 | |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
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Re: Heroic Archer House Rule
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Or just make it that way all the time regardless of skill level. On the flip, an out of the gate knight can delivery 1-3 ridiculous damage melee shots per turn, and unless the Scout really gets some time to shine from a distance, having a player be able to Do Something each turn with a relatively minor chance of failure is probably good game design.
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11-12-2019, 06:11 PM | #9 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.
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Re: Heroic Archer House Rule
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This means that the cap should probably the lower of 15 or the lowest of the three skill rolls: Fast-Draw, Bow-3, or Bow-Speed/Range. However, this puts a weird skew where Bow skill is constantly controlled by Fast-Draw and all Scouts would automatically put 1 extra point into Fast-Draw just to raise the cap to 15 in most situations. It also complicates things far more than they need to be, since a cap of 15 is close enough but keeps it simple. A cap of 15 also mostly captures the cumulative chance of failing or critically failing at least one of the three rolls even with maxed skill levels in all three.
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Eric B. Smith GURPS Data File Coordinator GURPSLand I shall pull the pin from this healing grenade and... Kaboom-baya. Last edited by ericbsmith; 11-12-2019 at 06:27 PM. |
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11-12-2019, 10:46 AM | #10 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Heroic Archer House Rule
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Let's see what we have. The Fast-Draw (Arrow) part of things is standard stuff for any would-be fast shooter. The new thing that Heroic Archer adds is a roll (Bow at -3) to ready the bow instantly and shave off another second. The effect: If you fail the new roll, you spend the usual second readying the bow, then shoot normally. If you succeed at the new roll, you ready the bow instantly, then shoot at -3 TH. My thought: To speed up play, how about this: Do away with the new Bow -3 roll to ready the Bow instantly. Let Heroic Archer make that feat automatic. To balance this out, though, boost the shot's TH penalty from -3 to -4. (Halve that to -2 for Weapon Master.) Does that sound workable? This option could replace the Heroic Archer speed-shooting rule, or exist side-by-side (the archer could choose either). The use of -4 is just a suggestion; maybe it should be -5 or more, but I like -4. (The kind of characters who have Heroic Archer aren't too likely to miss that Bow -3 roll to begin with, so doing away with it doesn't require big compensation.) And maybe there should be a provision for some minimum Bow skill to use this automatic speed-shooting option. Whatever the details, the most important thing IMO is that it does away with that extra speed-shooting roll. Because it's a wee unfortunate when Heroic Archer, which is meant to speed up in-game action, slows down actual play. (Next: If we want, it should be possible to do the same thing for Fast-Draw (Arrow): for a character with Heroic Archer, and presumably with Fast-Draw and Bow at some minimum levels, let the Fast-Draw become automatic in exchange for some subsequent penalty on the shot. But one thing at a time . . .)
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