Houserule Idea - always resist with critical success instead of Rule of 16

Yako · 09-27-2012, 09:32 AM

I have been actively GMing GURPS for a while and I have to say, I often find my players struggling with the Rule of 16.
And since I myself have a bit of mixed feelings on it, I have been thinking of how to maybe deal with it in a better way.

I understand that the intend of the rule is to not make Malediction type abilities, including spells waltz over people, however, what I find it really does is this: The rule of 16 makes Will / Health 16 a hard set value which, baring afflictions which are both malediction AND give a penalty to the resistance roll (I haven't seen any of those yet), gives you a better than 50% chance (since ties are in your favour) to resist any attack of this type flung at you.
I don't really like this hard set border.
With an average Joe opponent, Rule of sixteen means that if his opponent rolls a ten, he resists at 4 or lower, a critical success, so to say.
Given how rare crits are, this seems like a fair "doesn't always work" for average cases.
On the other hand however, the higher the opponents Wil or Health, the harder the rule hits you, making it quit akin to a wild swing to "maledict" anyone with 16 or higher Will / Health.
Is that really a good solution?

My idea would be to shake up this dynamic in the following way:
A critical success (including easier crits for highly skilled characters) always means you resist it.
First, what this does is even give a chance of success to really low Will / Health characters, after all 3 and 4 always are crits.
Secondly, In the average case, it protects Will / Health 10 characters as well as the rule of 16.
Thirdly, it does give some degree of insurmountable protection to the high Will / Health characters, after all, they can at best have around a 10% chance to crit.

For me, it quite resolves anything I dislike about the current situation, however, I would like to get some opinions on how far you think this might unbalance a game.
After all, a +10 reliable Malediction 3 allows you 90%+ odds to afflict anyone in your line of sight who doesn't have an immensly high resisting attribute.
On the other hand, you can have the same with the cosmic modifier in tow that lets you ignore the rule of 16 (and give you absolute odds) in the current rules, so, it seems to be a case of what modifiers to allow anyway.

SO, anyway, what are your views?

Goober4473 · 09-27-2012, 10:21 AM

I kind of like this. Not so much for balance reasons, but because the Rule of 16 is a pain to use. For instance, "Okay, I passed my roll by 8, but my skill is 20, so she resists at -4 due to Rule of 16, unless she has a higher than 16 Will, in which case she resists at -4 plus the amount her Will exceeds 16, up to a maximum of -7." It would be a lot easier to jsut say, "she resists at -7."

sir_pudding · 09-27-2012, 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goober4473

I kind of like this. Not so much for balance reasons, but because the Rule of 16 is a pain to use. For instance, "Okay, I passed my roll by 8, but my skill is 20, so she resists at -4 due to Rule of 16, unless she has a higher than 16 Will, in which case she resists at -4 plus the amount her Will exceeds 16, up to a maximum of -7." It would be a lot easier to jsut say, "she resists at -7."

Either I don't understand what you are saying here, or I don't understand the rule of 16. AFAICT, the way it actually works is "Okay you made roll by 4, and she made her roll by 3 so you win" or whatever. It's just MoS versus MoS. The rule of 16 gets applied at the beginning.

kirbwarrior · 09-27-2012, 08:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Either I don't understand what you are saying here, or I don't understand the rule of 16. AFAICT, the way it actually works is "Okay you made roll by 4, and she made her roll by 3 so you win" or whatever. It's just MoS versus MoS. The rule of 16 gets applied at the beginning.

Not so much PC vc NPC. You don't know if you are hitting the rule of 16 or not then.

sir_pudding · 09-27-2012, 08:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Not so much PvC.You don't know if you are hitting the rule of 16 or not then.

Poly Vinyl Chloride doesn't get the rule of 16, it only applies to sapient targets. :)

Actually I have no idea what "PvC" means in this context.

sir_pudding · 09-27-2012, 11:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Not so much PC vc NPC. You don't know if you are hitting the rule of 16 or not then.

The GM does though. It's always just a Contest, there's none of this penalty business.

kirbwarrior · 09-28-2012, 03:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Poly Vinyl Chloride doesn't get the rule of 16, it only applies to sapient targets. :)

Actually I have no idea what "PvC" means in this context.

Heh, you quoted me while I was editing it. You even requoted me later XD.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goober4473

I kind of like this. Not so much for balance reasons, but because the Rule of 16 is a pain to use. For instance, "Okay, I passed my roll by 8, but my skill is 20, so she resists at -4 due to Rule of 16, unless she has a higher than 16 Will, in which case she resists at -4 plus the amount her Will exceeds 16, up to a maximum of -7." It would be a lot easier to jsut say, "she resists at -7."

I was talking about this. From the player's perspective, they think "I beat my skill by 7! Oh wait, Rule of 16. Gotta say something weirdly complicated so the GM knows." This hasn't been much of a problem with my players (The guy who bought Body College to 25+ knows the Rule of 16 well and plans for it) but I can see it being very annoying.

sir_pudding · 09-28-2012, 03:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I was talking about this. From the player's perspective, they think "I beat my skill by 7! Oh wait, Rule of 16. Gotta say something weirdly complicated so the GM knows." This hasn't been much of a problem with my players (The guy who bought Body College to 25+ knows the Rule of 16 well and plans for it) but I can see it being very annoying.

The resisting character doesn't have a -4 or a -7 or any minus at all (not from that anyway). She just rolls her resistance. The rule of 16 just gets involved if the resistance is 15 or lower. Otherwise it's a quick contest. You don't need to say anything absurdly complicated, just "I rolled a 12" or whatever.

Yako · 09-28-2012, 04:53 AM

@Sir pudding: I think what is meant is that unless your GM tells you your targets exact WILL before you roll, it can get a bit messy with the calculating, or you have to tell the GM both your effective skill and your roll.

In either case, it can get annoying compared to the simple cimparison of margins.

Of course there is never actually any penalty, but quick contests behave pretty close to a roll where you get the defenders margin of success as a penalty.

@Bruno: That is exactly how I read it too, normally, quick contests and crits don't combine.

Edit: about the deceptive attack idea, I think that would be a very bad choice.
Will and health are cheap enough to raise, deceptive attacks work the way they do because it is much harder to raise your defence compared to your offence!

Anyway, I think I shall go with it as a test and see how it goes, after all, we have a powered priest and a magician in the group, results should show quickly.

Qhaysh · 09-28-2012, 11:04 AM

You could also set a relative limit, so to say. For example a cap of resisting attribute + 6. Against average people, the effective skill would be 16, as usual. For more remarkable opponents, it would be a little higher (FREX HT 16 would make for a skill cap of 22).

Here's a better example: Mr. Archmage knows Stone to Flesh at 25. First, he tries his spell against Mr. Average who, as one would expect, has HT 10. Since the cap is Attribute+6, Mr. Archmage rolls vs. 16 (Mr. Average's HT of 10, plus six); while Mr. Average rolls against 10 (his HT).

If Mr. Archmage tried to affect Mr. Resistant (HT 16), it would work like this: Mr. Archmage would roll against 22 (which corresponds to Mr. Resistant's HT of 16, plus six); and Mr. Resistant would roll against 16 (his HT).

This means that skilled opponents will always have better chances of affecting more vulnerable opponents, but not overwhelmingly so. You could always lower the cap to attribute+4, for example.

I'm not very good at statistics, so I won't crunch any numbers. But I'm pretty sure there's an acceptable margin there somewhere, just not sure if it's really attribute+6.

09-27-2012, 09:32 AM	#1
Yako Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Germany	Houserule Idea - always resist with critical success instead of Rule of 16 I have been actively GMing GURPS for a while and I have to say, I often find my players struggling with the Rule of 16. And since I myself have a bit of mixed feelings on it, I have been thinking of how to maybe deal with it in a better way. I understand that the intend of the rule is to not make Malediction type abilities, including spells waltz over people, however, what I find it really does is this: The rule of 16 makes Will / Health 16 a hard set value which, baring afflictions which are both malediction AND give a penalty to the resistance roll (I haven't seen any of those yet), gives you a better than 50% chance (since ties are in your favour) to resist any attack of this type flung at you. I don't really like this hard set border. With an average Joe opponent, Rule of sixteen means that if his opponent rolls a ten, he resists at 4 or lower, a critical success, so to say. Given how rare crits are, this seems like a fair "doesn't always work" for average cases. On the other hand however, the higher the opponents Wil or Health, the harder the rule hits you, making it quit akin to a wild swing to "maledict" anyone with 16 or higher Will / Health. Is that really a good solution? My idea would be to shake up this dynamic in the following way: A critical success (including easier crits for highly skilled characters) always means you resist it. First, what this does is even give a chance of success to really low Will / Health characters, after all 3 and 4 always are crits. Secondly, In the average case, it protects Will / Health 10 characters as well as the rule of 16. Thirdly, it does give some degree of insurmountable protection to the high Will / Health characters, after all, they can at best have around a 10% chance to crit. For me, it quite resolves anything I dislike about the current situation, however, I would like to get some opinions on how far you think this might unbalance a game. After all, a +10 reliable Malediction 3 allows you 90%+ odds to afflict anyone in your line of sight who doesn't have an immensly high resisting attribute. On the other hand, you can have the same with the cosmic modifier in tow that lets you ignore the rule of 16 (and give you absolute odds) in the current rules, so, it seems to be a case of what modifiers to allow anyway. SO, anyway, what are your views?

09-27-2012, 10:21 AM	#2
Goober4473 Join Date: May 2008	Re: Houserule Idea - always resist with critical success instead of Rule of 16 I kind of like this. Not so much for balance reasons, but because the Rule of 16 is a pain to use. For instance, "Okay, I passed my roll by 8, but my skill is 20, so she resists at -4 due to Rule of 16, unless she has a higher than 16 Will, in which case she resists at -4 plus the amount her Will exceeds 16, up to a maximum of -7." It would be a lot easier to jsut say, "she resists at -7."

09-28-2012, 04:53 AM	#9
Yako Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Germany	Re: Houserule Idea - always resist with critical success instead of Rule of 16 @Sir pudding: I think what is meant is that unless your GM tells you your targets exact WILL before you roll, it can get a bit messy with the calculating, or you have to tell the GM both your effective skill and your roll. In either case, it can get annoying compared to the simple cimparison of margins. Of course there is never actually any penalty, but quick contests behave pretty close to a roll where you get the defenders margin of success as a penalty. @Bruno: That is exactly how I read it too, normally, quick contests and crits don't combine. Edit: about the deceptive attack idea, I think that would be a very bad choice. Will and health are cheap enough to raise, deceptive attacks work the way they do because it is much harder to raise your defence compared to your offence! Anyway, I think I shall go with it as a test and see how it goes, after all, we have a powered priest and a magician in the group, results should show quickly.

09-28-2012, 11:04 AM	#10
Qhaysh Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: alocal	Re: Houserule Idea - always resist with critical success instead of Rule of 16 You could also set a relative limit, so to say. For example a cap of resisting attribute + 6. Against average people, the effective skill would be 16, as usual. For more remarkable opponents, it would be a little higher (FREX HT 16 would make for a skill cap of 22). Here's a better example: Mr. Archmage knows Stone to Flesh at 25. First, he tries his spell against Mr. Average who, as one would expect, has HT 10. Since the cap is Attribute+6, Mr. Archmage rolls vs. 16 (Mr. Average's HT of 10, plus six); while Mr. Average rolls against 10 (his HT). If Mr. Archmage tried to affect Mr. Resistant (HT 16), it would work like this: Mr. Archmage would roll against 22 (which corresponds to Mr. Resistant's HT of 16, plus six); and Mr. Resistant would roll against 16 (his HT). This means that skilled opponents will always have better chances of affecting more vulnerable opponents, but not overwhelmingly so. You could always lower the cap to attribute+4, for example. I'm not very good at statistics, so I won't crunch any numbers. But I'm pretty sure there's an acceptable margin there somewhere, just not sure if it's really attribute+6.