10-28-2020, 11:45 PM | #11 | |
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Durham, NC
|
Re: Critical success/failure table, p 9
Quote:
See ITL pg 9 for this table. |
|
10-29-2020, 12:45 PM | #12 |
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: North Texas
|
Re: Critical success/failure table, p 9
So not everyone agrees it is 'official', but the old Fantasy Master's Codex has the breakdown you are looking for. TBH, I prefer it since it reinforces the idea that as task difficulty increases (adding more dice), your odds of a critical success will go down.
On 4 dice... 4 = critical success/triple damage 5 = critical success/double damage 6 or less = auto-hit/success 20 or greater = auto-miss/failure 21-22 = critical failure/drop weapon 23-24 = critical failure/break weapon On 5 dice... 5 = critical success/triple damage 6 = critical success/double damage 7 or less = auto-hit/success 24 or greater = auto-miss/failure 26-27 = critical failure/drop weapon 28-30 = critical failure/break weapon On 6 dice... 6 = critical success/triple damage 7 = critical success/double damage 8 or less = auto-hit/success 28 or greater = auto-miss/failure 31-33 = critical failure/drop weapon 34-36 = critical failure/break weapon
__________________
“No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” -Vladimir Taltos |
10-29-2020, 08:22 PM | #13 |
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Durham, NC
|
Re: Critical success/failure table, p 9
So do you (a plural you) think the chart on ITL pg 9 is in error or intentional?
As it was pointed out, on 8 dice, the automatic failure start beyond 50%. That seems intentional to me. That is, if something requires a 8 die saving roll and you had an army of apprentices boost your stat to 50, it will won't help you beyond 27. So an 8 die saving roll will never get easier than 46% success. that makes sense. Now the auto successes going up seems wrong. |
10-29-2020, 08:43 PM | #14 | |
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
|
Re: Critical success/failure table, p 9
Quote:
So, automatic success goes from 1/36 with two dice up to 6.1%. The 2 dice odds are kinda pathologically low, so let's figure it goes from about 5% to 6.1% and then starts going down. By the utterly silly 20 dice, it's down to 3.8%. Just playing around, it seems that the probability of automatic failure is strictly increasing. I'd say that a one percent fluctuation up around seven dice isn't a big deal for automatic success. What should obviously keep us all up at night is what happens when we reach 16 dice and the automatic failure point is equal to the automatic success point (44). Because you know that the very first time we require a sixteen die roll, it's gonna come up 44. You rescue the princess, but she has mega-herpes? You save the kingdom from the orc invasion just as the sun goes nova? You manage to climb the underside of the rock overhang, but fall into an Escher drawing? ETA: To answer your question about intention, the text on ITL 9 says "Note that the numbers are weighted toward critical failure on extremely hard tasks!" It doesn't say that odds of automatic failure are strictly increasing, but I'd say it's intentional. The fact that auto success increases for a while is probably not intentional but not worth fixing. (I must say, I'm puzzled it increases like that. I would've guess strictly increasing or decreasing, not having a maximum at 7.) Last edited by phiwum; 10-29-2020 at 08:54 PM. |
|
10-30-2020, 07:17 AM | #15 | |
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Durham, NC
|
Re: Critical success/failure table, p 9
Quote:
I think it only makes sense that a auto fail beats a auto success. That is, if you are asking for a 16 die save, you really are saying this should be close to impossible. |
|
10-30-2020, 07:45 AM | #16 | |
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
|
Re: Critical success/failure table, p 9
Quote:
The fact that things get honky at the unreasonable extremes doesn't really matter because they're unreasonable. Sixteen dice are close enough to impossible that I'd call it impossible before then. Though, per the rules, there's roughly a 4% chance of success in that case, or 3% if we agree that auto fail trumps. That's significantly better odds than rolling double or triple damage on 3 dice (about 2%). |
|
10-30-2020, 10:31 AM | #18 | |
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
|
Re: Critical success/failure table, p 9
Quote:
I'd buy that the increase of critical success might do that. On five dice, there is a 3.2% chance of critical success, which I presume is double damage unless you get the 1/6^5 roll of all ones. Six dice yields about 3.5%. So that is an increased probability of double damage. Let's suppose your opponent has DX 12, so a probability of about 75% to hit. Let's presume his expected damage is x. I'll simplify by ignoring triple damage. 0.07 * x. To hit an expert who is defending, the roll is 11 or less on five dice, and that's double damage unless an eleven is rolled, so an expected damage of 0.032 * 2x + 0.026 * x = 0.09 * x. 0.019 * 2x + 0.72 * x = 0.76 * x To hit an average Joe who is defending, the roll is 12 on four dice and double damage on seven or less. The expected damage is 0.027 * 2x + 0.31 * x = 0.36 * x I don't see the problem. Oh, I suppose that defending against a low DX opponent can increase the odds of hitting, since auto success increases slightly. But a master surely isn't fighting such low DX buggers all that often, is he? I must be missing something. Last edited by phiwum; 10-30-2020 at 02:00 PM. |
|
10-30-2020, 01:59 PM | #20 | |
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
|
Re: Critical success/failure table, p 9
Quote:
That means that the expected damage for DX 12 (or anything less than DX 17) ends up rolling 14 or less on six dice, which yields about 6.1% chance of hitting. If a character with DX 12 or less attacks a weapons expert who is defending, he must roll 11 or less on five dice, which yields about 5.8% chance of hitting. The rules entail it's easier for a DX 12 (or lower) character to hit a master than an expert. Expected damage is 0.09 * x when attacking the expert, as calculated before. When attacking the master, the expected damage is 0.035 * 2x + 0.024 * x = 0.094 * x. Strictly speaking, you're right. The master does worse when defending against DX 12 or below. At DX 13 or higher, the edge goes to the master, though that doesn't make things alright. On the other hand, I don't think that it has much practical effect on the game. The master gets hit, what, one more time every 333 attacks than the expert? It's wrong that the numbers work out like this, but it's not too significant. Thanks much for the correction. Stupid error on my part. |
|
|
|