[RULE] Rule of 16

[Mavelic]

Hi gurpsists,
I need your opinion about (new) "rule of 16"
1) do you use it ? (in 3d ed, i didn't, at all)
2) wouldn't that be better to use 20 as a limit instead of 16 to not frustrate high level skills magic, psy users ?
Thanks in advance for your comment.

PS : i'm doing my comeback on rpg and gurps 4th at the same time after more than 15 years stop playing rpg. While i was happy to use 2nd (boxed set + horseclans) then 3rd ed since late 80s, i'm very pleased by this new ed. I begin again my old fantasy campaign in a few weeks, with my daughters (they love table rpg) and a new club. Really happy to be back and to read lot of interesting stuff there. Regards.

[Andreas]

1) I don't use it. Always being more likely than not to resist magical effects as long as your health or will is pretty good, regardless of how powerful the magical effect is, does not make much sense in most settings. When I find some magical abilities too powerful, I just increase the cost of them instead.
2) It is better in that it comes up less often, but it is still problematic for the same reasons.

[ericthered]

I use it. Its very nice for giving characters who have spent just a little on a defense a chance against quick contest attacks. I think that 16 is the correct number, not 20, because it means that resisting attributes of 12 are meaningfully better than resisting attributes of 10, and I think that's important.



If I wished to give higher scores an advantage, I'd say that if they have a 16 or higher in the contest, you are limited to an effective score of theirs +2. This maintains a ratio greater than 50/50 in the contests without completely overwhelming folks who aren't built to counter your attack.

[Kromm]

The only thing "new" about the Rule of 16 is giving it that name in the Basic Set. In the GURPS Basic Set, Third Edition, you'll find this rule under Resisted Spells (p. 150). In GURPS Psionics for Third Edition, you'll even find it called "The Rule of 16" on p. 7. And in GURPS Compendium II, almost the exact wording found in Fourth Edition appears in The Rule of 16 – Resistance Rolls, p. 190.

Anyway, it's up to you whether to use it, but it's balanced overall, especially as a lot of resisted effects are "save or lose." High-powered characters with high skill still get to be very effective against ordinary fodder; they just can't reduce battles against peers to "Whoever acts first, wins!" The Rule of 16 means the odds flatten out at 50% (remember, it's the higher of 16 and the defender's actual resistance). That seems fair. High-end enemies in most fiction don't just hope to have the higher Basic Speed and then mash their cranked-up "I win!" button to prevail; they duke it out. But most game worlds are full of HT 10-12, Will 10-12 mooks who won't stand a chance, explaining why powerful heroes and villains can wade through the hired help and generally have to face each other directly.

[ULFGARD]

There's a Perk called Rule of 17. If one wants a slightly more balanced way of extending the effective skill, I suppose this could become a leveled Perk. I've considered allowing the leveled part but only as an element of specific magical styles or secret rewards. Of course, my fantasy campaign is a DFRPG/DF hybrid, so sometimes unbalanced rewards are worth it - especially as quest objectives.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by ULFGARD

There's a Perk called Rule of 17. If one wants a slightly more balanced way of extending the effective skill, I suppose this could become a leveled Perk.

That's how I deal with it, and also require that for every level they have to have 4 character points in the spell.

This stops* ye olde DF Wizards who roll in with IQ 15, Magery 6, and a spell level of 19 for 1 point; from buying Rule of 17 as a game start Perk.


* It also limits the number of spells they are going to get this Perk for and how high they'll be leveling it. And note, I put no limits on how high they go, I see it as costing 5 points per level at this point (along with the corresponding occasional benefits in the spell itself of reduced casting cost, reduced casting speed, increased casting distance).

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by ULFGARD

There's a Perk called Rule of 17. If one wants a slightly more balanced way of extending the effective skill, I suppose this could become a leveled Perk. I've considered allowing the leveled part but only as an element of specific magical styles or secret rewards. Of course, my fantasy campaign is a DFRPG/DF hybrid, so sometimes unbalanced rewards are worth it - especially as quest objectives.

It's already suggested in Power-Ups 2: Perks as a leveled trait.

For me, it depends on the game. If it's a reasonably low-powered game (less than 750 points or so), I'll usually stick to the Rule of 16, and encourage "Cosmic: No Rule of 16" on abilities over "Rule of 17+" as a Perk if they want to avoid it.

Once we get to higher-powered games, (more than 750 points), the rule usually doesn't get applied. These characters are supposed to be powerful, and the people who should be able to resist their powers are going to have really high defenses.

[Culture20]

The rule of 16 seems to make a mere mortal SHIELD agent with slightly higher will, trained in one or two levels of Mental Strength able to easily resist Xavier and Doctor Strange. I do not use it. One of my PCs has run rampant with a seriously beefed up mind control power, and it feels right according to comics; there are occasional immune or highly resistant NPCs (usually robots) who throw a spanner into the works.

[Rupert]

Slightly higher Will implies (to me) about Will 12. A couple of levels of Mental Strength means a total of 14 (at most). Winning a resistance check with 14 vs 16 is about 36% - not what I'd call 'easily resist'. Also, this 'mere mortal' SHIELD Agent has Trained By A Master, so they've spent a lot of time and effort learning an expensive cinematic advantage - they should able to be good at this sort of thing!

Now, when the defender's defence hits 16+, their chance of defending with the Rule of 16 becomes about 55% (because the defender wins on ties), or ~52% vs. standard magic (because it gives no resistance check on critical successes). If this is a problem, a solution could be to change the rule so that should the defender have a 16 defence, the attacker's effective skill is capped at defence+1, reducing the change of defence against a capped skill to ~45%.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Slight higher Will implies (to me) about Will 12. A couple of levels of Mental Strength means a total of 14 (at most). Winning a resistance check with 14 vs 16 is about 36% - not what I'd call 'easily resist'. Also, this 'mere mortal' SHIELD Agent has Trained By A Master, so they've spent a lot of time and effort learning an expensive cinematic advantage - they should able to be good at this sort of thing!

In many settings, any level of ability realistically achivable in the real world only qualifies as "slightly higher" compared to people who are truly powerful. The given example here seems like one of those (at least for some versions of those characters). Just being "good" at something doesn't mean that you should have a decent chance of resisting massively superhuman abilities, just like having good HP and HT shouldn't allow you to survive a point blank nuclear explosion.