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

[the_matrix_walker]

Originally Posted by Bruno

A resistance roll is a kind of quick contest. Quick contests do not have critical success or critical failure, they purely compare margin of success. There's no note in how to resolve either a quick contest or a resistance roll that a critical trumps anything. It merely ensures that you succeed, which is a requirement to win a resistance roll (you must succeed) but the OTHER requirement is MOS.

Critical doesn't adjust MOS.

Critical doesn't adjust MOS, true, but they do invoke "the GM determines what happens to you. It is always something good!" Even if Crits don't impact margin, they summon the good will of the GM. And a contest is a comparison of success rolls, so I see no reason to think they don't exist.

I also suppose something good could happen regardless of resistance, "Sure the mind control works despite your crit, but luckily you then slipped off the pier with your last bit of will so your powers weren't used against the innocents"

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Bruno

A resistance roll is a kind of quick contest. Quick contests do not have critical success or critical failure, they purely compare margin of success. There's no note in how to resolve either a quick contest or a resistance roll that a critical trumps anything. It merely ensures that you succeed, which is a requirement to win a resistance roll (you must succeed) but the OTHER requirement is MOS.

On the other hand, you could perfectly well go with an Attack/Defense roll model, any resistance is a success, and have an equivalent of Deceptive Attack (take a penalty to attack to give an equivalent defense penalty) and have basically the same odds without the quick contest coming into it anywhere. I think the Rule of 16 was probably more important in 3e. Most of the stuff that uses it is IQ based. When IQ skills topped out at 2 points per level, vs the 8 points per level for weapon skills - it was a lot easier for mages to buy skills too high to defend against that it was for fighters, and the cap help balance that.

[sir_pudding]

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]

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.

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]

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]

@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]

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.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Bruno

A resistance roll is a kind of quick contest. Quick contests do not have critical success or critical failure, they purely compare margin of success. There's no note in how to resolve either a quick contest or a resistance roll that a critical trumps anything. It merely ensures that you succeed, which is a requirement to win a resistance roll (you must succeed) but the OTHER requirement is MOS.

Critical doesn't adjust MOS.

Succeeding is only required for the attacker in a resistance roll, I think? The resister can win without 'succeeding' at their roll.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

The odd thing about resistance rolls vs. spells, to me, is that if you critically succeed with a resisted spell, the victim gets no defense (per Magic p. 13, for example).

Any other success, and they resist normally with a contest mechanic, and must beat your margin of success. They can neither critically succeed or critically fail. You, however, are limited by the Rule of 16.

So it's a skill roll vs. a contest mechanic, rather than strictly a Quick Contest.

Oddly back in 1e-3e days, you could effectively critically fail your spell resistance rolls - there was an example of a badly blown resistance roll by an orc vs. a Mass Sleep spell. In the 1e GURPS Fantasy, pg. 10:

Orc 6 rolls an 18! The GM rules that Orc 6 falls into a coma . . .

Interestingly, back in the day, there wasn't any mention of automatic victory over resistance by a spell.

But like I said, back in the day. I'm talking 1986 and 1st edition GURPS Fantasy.

I do think the current rules are a bit odd, though, and we've long house ruled that a 3-4 always resists a spell and a 17-18 always fails to resist. It doesn't seem to break the game, even if you otherwise retain the Rule of 16, like we do.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

The odd thing about resistance rolls vs. spells, to me, is that if you critically succeed with a resisted spell, the victim gets no defense (per Magic p. 13, for example).

The odd thing about Magic is that it was never completely updated for 4e. :)