Buying success

[jabba]

Can you buy a success on contest rolls? if so what if its between two pcs and they each use points to buy a success.

[Dustin]

Most diplomatic response would be to refund their points and roll normally. Alternately, the first to declare gets it. Buying successes isn't a core GURPS mechanic, so this doesn't come up much.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by jabba

Can you buy a success on contest rolls? if so what if its between two pcs and they each use points to buy a success.

I allow it (although I generally restrict players to one success per session and I don't allow critical successes to be bought). I treat bought successes as the bare minimum needed to to succeed though, so they'll tie.

[PK]

Originally Posted by jabba

Can you buy a success on contest rolls?

Yes, though you're only buying a success for your roll -- not success in the Quick Contest itself. In other words, if you fail your roll, you can spend 1 character point to instead succeed (with margin 0). But if your foe succeeds by 1 or more, he still wins.

if so what if its between two pcs and they each use points to buy a success.

They both succeed with margin 0, which means there's a tie.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Yes, though you're only buying a success for your roll -- not success in the Quick Contest itself. In other words, if you fail your roll, you can spend 1 character point to instead succeed (with margin 0). But if your foe succeeds by 1 or more, he still wins.


They both succeed with margin 0, which means there's a tie.

Follow-up here, Rev. If you spend enough to buy a critical success could your margin be better? or would it be useless to do so?

Say if you have a skill of 15 and rolled a 16 (failing by one), you could spend 1 CP for success with a margin of 0, but could you spend a additional 2 CP for a higher margin?

Ghostdancer

[PK]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

Follow-up here, Rev. If you spend enough to buy a critical success could your margin be better? or would it be useless to do so?

Say if you have a skill of 15 and rolled a 16 (failing by one), you could spend 1 CP for success with a margin of 0, but could you spend a additional 2 CP for a higher margin?

That's a very good question, to which I don't have a very good answer. There's no established "critical success" to "margin of success" conversion. I'd say the closest would be the many rules that offer a certain result on "success by 5+, or on a critical success" -- implying that spending 2 CP nets you a margin of 5 -- though I admit that does seem a bit low. (The trouble is that you can have a skill of 5, roll a 4, and it counts as a critical success even though your margin is 1!)

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

That's a very good question, to which I don't have a very good answer. There's no established "critical success" to "margin of success" conversion. I'd say the closest would be the many rules that offer a certain result on "success by 5+, or on a critical success" -- implying that spending 2 CP nets you a margin of 5 -- though I admit that does seem a bit low. (The trouble is that you can have a skill of 5, roll a 4, and it counts as a critical success even though your margin is 1!)

It's come up before in my campaigns, matter of fact the situation you describe is similar to what occurred. Perhaps the difference of what your skill is and what the Critical success would be could work. That is, the lowest number you would have to roll and your actual skillwould be the margin of success. So if you have a skill of 15 you need a 5 or less to crit, so your margin would be 10, while if you had a skill of 5 you'd need a 4, so your margin would be 1.

Ghostdancer

[PK]

I'm not sure if I'd want to use the exact margin of difference that way, if only because I could see someone complaining that his character gets the same margin at effective skill 14, 15, or 16. So I might just reason that since 6 is the worst roll you can get that's still a crit (in theory), your margin should be (effective skill - 6).

Still, I'd want to be as far as possible to the player with a crappy skill, given that huge cost difference (2 CP, possibly on top of the 1 CP to buy off failure). So -- speaking as a GM, not a GURPS guru -- I'm thinking I'd rule that my players' effective margin becomes 5 or (effective skill - 6), whichever is higher.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

I'm not sure if I'd want to use the exact margin of difference that way, if only because I could see someone complaining that his character gets the same margin at effective skill 14, 15, or 16. So I might just reason that since 6 is the worst roll you can get that's still a crit (in theory), your margin should be (effective skill - 6).

Still, I'd want to be as far as possible to the player with a crappy skill, given that huge cost difference (2 CP, possibly on top of the 1 CP to buy off failure). So -- speaking as a GM, not a GURPS guru -- I'm thinking I'd rule that my players' effective margin becomes 5 or (effective skill - 6), whichever is higher.

Seems workable, I'll try this for a while and see how it works. Thanks for your reply Rev. Its appreciated.

^^

Ghostdancer

[kenclary]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

I'm not sure if I'd want to use the exact margin of difference that way, if only because I could see someone complaining that his character gets the same margin at effective skill 14, 15, or 16. So I might just reason that since 6 is the worst roll you can get that's still a crit (in theory), your margin should be (effective skill - 6).

Still, I'd want to be as far as possible to the player with a crappy skill, given that huge cost difference (2 CP, possibly on top of the 1 CP to buy off failure). So -- speaking as a GM, not a GURPS guru -- I'm thinking I'd rule that my players' effective margin becomes 5 or (effective skill - 6), whichever is higher.

Why not use 3, i.e. the best roll possible? It may still not be much better than just buying off a failure for someone with very low skill, but better than assuming a 6.