[RPM] Quick and Dirty Quirks Quirk

[Kalzazz]

One thing puzzles me about the Quick and Dirty Charm rules for RPM

As your effective skill increases, your ability to quirk your spells drastically decreases, even when throwing spells that will likely cause horrible catastrophe

For instance, say Jaina the Mageling has effective skill 30 for a spell

(Shes a skilled mageling, she is in a place of power, has a grimoire and a workspace, whatever)

She wants this to be an awesome 1000 energy spell! Her safe threshhold is 165, so thats over 5 times her safe threshhold! She rolls 3d+5 to try and avoid horrible horrible doom (she needs a 10 or less or she is suffering a botch)

Jaina however to avoid quirks just needs to get a 16 though (30 -5, so roll vs 25, 17 and 18 automatically fail skill rolls)

If Jaina was not using Quick and Dirty, and rolling each gathering roll stand alone, for most of her rolls she would botch on an 18, pick up a quirk on 17 . . . so she should be much likelier to get quirks than she would be to botch

What am I missing?

[Christopher R. Rice]

That seems right.

[evileeyore]

Q&D is presumed to be being done in a 'stress free environment', so Jaina the Mageling isn't under the same kinda battle stress she'd be out in the wilds whipping this badboy up.

[Kalzazz]

It still seems a tad bizarre she has a nearly 50/50 chance of unleashing a 2000 energy minipocalypse but if she succeeds at avoiding that fate its almost surely not going to be quirked

It seems odd in less extreme cases to. Usually when I see people doing Q&D charms, they tend to have 18+ effective skill (they tend to have good skill to begin with, and like to buy at least a +1 workspace and grimoires for their favorite spells (aka the ones they make charms for)), and they usually try to stay within a few times safe thresh hold (because they really dislike having horrible botches)

So the 'did my charm quirk?' roll usually devolves to 'roll 16 or less'

(And notably, with a bit of hitting Ye Olde Grimoire Mart at chargen time, MH1 sages and witches can easily hit these effective skill levels)

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

It still seems a tad bizarre she has a nearly 50/50 chance of unleashing a 2000 energy minipocalypse but if she succeeds at avoiding that fate its almost surely not going to be quirked

Okay, I see your point... yeah that is a bit odd.


In my games your scenario never came up. The PC made 'reasonable' charms (as in roughly the same costs they could get up to readily in the field).

[Kalzazz]

Even in that case you find things odd

A skill 20 caster can pretty well expect to hit 90 energy in the field through gathering, getting bad results on 17 quirk and 18 botch in the process

To make a 90 energy charm, its more than there safe thresh hold, but not more than twice, so they need to roll a 13 to not botch

To not quirk they need to roll a 16

In the field they are more likely to quirk than botch (17 is easier to roll than 18)

In their charm lab in unconstrained time the opposite is true

That example help clarify more?

[PK]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

One thing puzzles me about the Quick and Dirty Charm rules for RPM

As your effective skill increases, your ability to quirk your spells drastically decreases, even when throwing spells that will likely cause horrible catastrophe

Right. Because the Q&D rules are our best attempt at representing the normal spellcasting rules, and what you describe is exactly what happens as your effective skill increases: your odds of throwing a critical failure remain about the same, but your odds of throwing a normal failure decrease drastically.

So this is 100% an intended feature, not a bug.

The odds don't line up perfectly, mind you, but that's inevitable when you reduce a system this complex into two simple rolls. I originally contemplated two completely different sets of modifiers for the two Q&D rolls, but playtesters vetoed that as unnecessarily complicated, especially considering that it only made things a bit more accurate, not significantly so.

[Kalzazz]

I admit I really don't follow that, as it is always around 3 times easier to throw a 17 and get a quirk, than an 18 and get a critical failure, when skill is greater than 16

[PK]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

I admit I really don't follow that, as it is always around 3 times easier to throw a 17 and get a quirk, than an 18 and get a critical failure, when skill is greater than 16

I didn't say that it was easier to get a critical failure than to get a failure. I said that, as your effective skill level rises, your odds of failing a roll and getting a quirk drop off significantly, while your odds of rolling a critical failure often remain constant.

Once your effective skill drops to 15, your odds of a critical failure are constant, which means that any two casters whose effective skill is -- or quickly drops to -- 15 or less have near-identical odds of their spell blowing up. However, the caster whose skill starts at 14 and quickly drops to 13, 12, and 11 is far more likely to roll a simple failure than the caster whose skill starts at 16 and quickly drops to 15, 14, and 13. That's just how the bell curve works.

There are certain cherry-picked combos for which the above isn't true (generally involving both casters starting off at skill 17 vs 19 or something similar), but for the most part, I assure you that it's accurate.

[Kalzazz]

I am apparently doing a very horrible job of trying to explain what strikes me as weird

Skill 20 guy has safe threshold 65, he wants a 65 energy spell (well, 65 on top of his pool etc). So safe threshold x1, modifier of zero. He critically fails if he rolls greater than 15. He gets a quirk if he rolls greater than 16.

If he tries to cast the spell not quick and dirty, he rolls around 7 energy gathering rolls . . . . any 17s that come up are a quirk, any 18s that come up are a critical failure.

Hmmm, though . . .if he wants to press on to 130 energy, thats 2x safe threshhold, so critical fail if greater than 14, quirk if greater than 16 still. If he tries to cast it not quick and dirty, he can gather give or take 105 where he needs a 16 to succeed, 17 to quirk, and 18 to crit fail . . . but then he still has 25 to go and he is looking at 16 or less. So give or take 9 more rolls where he is going to critically fail a lot, hmmmm, and maybe fail less than he critically fails? Still doesn't seem though he should be looking at 14 or less to not critically fail, and 16 or less to not quirk. And if he tries to push all the way to 195 energy, he is looking at 13 or less to not critically fail, but still 16 or less to not quirk (at this point if he tried to do it roll by roll though Id expect the chances of critical failure or quirks to be beyond through the roof, but, the non combat no time pressure is helping if he does it quick and dirty)

And Effective Skill 20 is around what I expect to see a starting character consider putting together when working on spells they intend to cast as charms ahead of time (5-6 magery, a lower end grimoire, maybe a +1 charm lab etc)