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Old 05-08-2019, 10:00 AM   #11
hcobb
 
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Default Re: Roll to miss variants

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Originally Posted by RobW View Post
This does avoid any perverse incentives about roll-to-miss, but it makes it easy to shoot arrows through a crowd of people to hit a target.
You only have a 94% chance of passing a single person with this blind shot.

So there is a one third chance of losing the arrow if you try to shoot through a half dozen in your way.
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Old 05-08-2019, 11:05 AM   #12
Skarg
 
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Default Re: Roll to miss variants

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Originally Posted by hcobb View Post
You only have a 94% chance of passing a single person with this blind shot.

So there is a one third chance of losing the arrow if you try to shoot through a half dozen in your way.
One third chance to shoot through six figures in the way, is way too easy.

It's important that intervening figures be significant, for reasonableness, and for retaining tactical interest/

In GURPS, trying to shoot through six people means a -24 penalty...
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Old 08-09-2019, 11:46 AM   #13
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Default Re: Roll to miss variants

Ok, so I finally got around to looking at this in more detail.

My conclusion is that the TFT rolling to miss have problems.

The original Melee version is trying to be simple yet keep map positions meaningful. It works ok as far as that goes (in an arena context) by refusing rolls to miss foes, but is kind of gamey and makes it weirdly likely to hit friends for double or triple damage.

The Advanced Melee and ITL version alters that a bit, but has weirder gamey side effects because you can roll to miss foes and get a much higher chance than usual to get double or triple damage hits. e.g. That creates a Murphy's tactic where if say the opponent has heavy armor, it might be better to try to miss him to get a much higher chance of double or triple damage. And the "high weapon falls to the ground" if you miss unless you roll a 14 or more is weird too.

Much better (in my opinion, since they make much more sense to me) are the rules for rolling to miss in GURPS, which actually seem less complex than the TFT rules to me. Skill levels are a bit different in GURPS though, and leaving out the details about posture, a version I might suggest adapted to TFT might look like:

When there are figures along a line of fire other than the target, first roll to hit the target. The roll is at -4 if there is a figure standing between the firer and the target, and an additional -2 for each additional intervening figure, plus the range and cover penalties, etc.

If the intended target is missed, then roll to see if the other targets along the line of fire are hit, starting with the closest, then the next closest, etc. Friend or foe, the attack is at the firer's adjDX, minus the same penalties for intervening figures, range, cover, etc (but not Blur or Invisibility), or 8, whichever is LESS.

Last edited by Skarg; 10-31-2019 at 01:28 PM.
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Old 08-21-2019, 02:25 PM   #14
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Default Re: Roll to miss variants

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If the intended target is missed, then roll to see if the other targets along the line of fire are hit, starting with the closest, then the next closest, etc. Friend or foe, the attack is at the firer's adjDX, minus the same penalties for intervening figures, range, cover, etc (but not Blur or Invisibility), or 9, whichever is LESS.
I'm not sure I follow.
As an example, let's say I have a friend in front of my target and a friend in the line of fire behind.
I'm an archer with DX12. There is one intervening figure, so adjDX=8, and I miss.
Now what happens?
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Old 08-21-2019, 03:20 PM   #15
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Default Re: Roll to miss variants

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I'm not sure I follow.
As an example, let's say I have a friend in front of my target and a friend in the line of fire behind.
I'm an archer with DX12. There is one intervening figure, so adjDX=8, and I miss.
Now what happens?
After missing the intended target, you'd roll to hit the figure in front of you. (It doesn't matter whether he's friend or foe.) Assuming he's not behind any cover, that would be at a 9 (your adjDX to hit him intentionally would be 12, but a miss has a max chance to hit someone of 9).

If the arrow misses him too, roll to hit the figure behind the original target. That figure is behind two figures, so that's -4 for the first figure, and -2 for each additional figure in the way, so the effective adjDX to hit that figure would be at 6 (or less if there's anything else in the way, or a range penalty).


(A slight tweak I might make to what I wrote would be to actually have the max be 8 rather than 9. In GURPS it's 9, but in GURPS there are also additional chances of still not actually being hurt, such as dodges, shield blocks or passive defenses.)
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Old 08-22-2019, 08:22 AM   #16
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Default Re: Roll to miss variants

Thanks I get it now.

At first glance I was thinking that under this system, a highly skilled archer has more chance of hitting his friends than a poor one (as the rolls are always to hit against adjDX).

But at second glance, that's not necessarily true, as a highly skilled archer has less chance to miss the original target in the first place. Hmm... I think it's going to depend.

The reverse of being more likely to hit your friends is that the better archer will also be more likely to hit an enemy (given he misses the original target). This doesn't bother me though.

Overall, this clarifies for me that the "ideal" rolling-to-miss rule would mean that, if you are a friend of the archers, you would always want the better rather than the worse archer to shoot past you.

Also, I very much like taking into account intervening figures on the initial to-hit roll, as opposed to multiple figure by figure rolls-to-miss. A nice thing about making this penalty an increase in the number of dice rolled (as opposed to straight DX -), is this increases the chance of a critical failure with each intervening figure. Which fits the case well. A shot through 2 intervening friends at a dodging enemy should have a high chance of critical failure.
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Old 08-22-2019, 07:35 PM   #17
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Default Re: Roll to miss variants

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Originally Posted by RobW View Post
At first glance I was thinking that under this system, a highly skilled archer has more chance of hitting his friends than a poor one (as the rolls are always to hit against adjDX).

But at second glance, that's not necessarily true, as a highly skilled archer has less chance to miss the original target in the first place. Hmm... I think it's going to depend.
A better archer is only more likely to hit a friend if and when he misses a shot he had a good chance to make, when a friend is nearby. The probability cause and effect is actually really nicely makes sense, it seems to me. There's no way to increase the chances of hitting, or of critically hitting, based on friend/foe status (one of the severe problems with the TFT roll to miss system). And if you hit someone between you and you're target, it's usually because of the penalty caused by the figure in the way. Etc.


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Overall, this clarifies for me that the "ideal" rolling-to-miss rule would mean that, if you are a friend of the archers, you would always want the better rather than the worse archer to shoot past you.
That is the case with this GURPS-based system - especially if the "better" archers are also smart and "friendly" enough to not shoot when their chance to hit their intended target is low. The main case where your concern seems valid is when archers are choosing to take a hard shot at a foe who is amidst the archer's friends - in that case it makes sense that the more competent but very inconsiderate archer is more dangerous than a less competent archer.

Try it out and I think you'll see from experience that it works very well and doesn't have the issues of the TFT system.


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A nice thing about making this penalty an increase in the number of dice rolled (as opposed to straight DX -), is this increases the chance of a critical failure with each intervening figure. Which fits the case well. A shot through 2 intervening friends at a dodging enemy should have a high chance of critical failure.
This part I don't follow what you mean.

Do you mean that because there's an attack roll for each figure, there are more chances for a double/triple damage to friend?

(As for critical failures (drop/break bow), I would only apply those to the attacker's first roll to hit the intended target. After that, you're resolving what happens to the arrow as it flies through the battlefield, so crit failure would just mean the arrow becomes harmless.)
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Old 09-04-2019, 04:01 AM   #18
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Default Re: Roll to miss variants

I like the rule as written and don't see the issues described in this thread as drawbacks.

The main rule in TFT is - "Don't say No, figure out a way." The rolls to miss are a good example of this. Threading a shot through actively moving figures to hit a more distant figure should require that each intervening figure be missed first. That is logical and follows the flight of the arrow, thrown weapon, or spell. The archer HAS to take into account all possible targets and adjust for their interference. The point of this rule is to actively discourage players from undertaking this very risky attack without "telling them NO".

Rolling to miss is a better discouragement mechanic than increasing the difficulty of the original target. Raising the damage on a failure to miss a friend is an additional method of discouraging such a shot. Lowering the damage for foes (making the arrow simply drop in that hex), is another method furthering the same thing.

The only modification I would add is that taking time to aim (waiting for an opening, ITL 127) also affects rolls to miss when the shot is taken. But the basic 16.3% chance of failing to get by a given figure should remain. Trick shots/attacks need to be dangerous when they fail.
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Old 09-04-2019, 08:42 AM   #19
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Default Re: Roll to miss variants

-1 per intervening figure and 17 or 18 hits one of them (random).
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Old 09-04-2019, 10:56 AM   #20
Skarg
 
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Default Re: Roll to miss variants

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I like the rule as written and don't see the issues described in this thread as drawbacks.

The main rule in TFT is - "Don't say No, figure out a way." The rolls to miss are a good example of this. Threading a shot through actively moving figures to hit a more distant figure should require that each intervening figure be missed first. That is logical and follows the flight of the arrow, thrown weapon, or spell. The archer HAS to take into account all possible targets and adjust for their interference. The point of this rule is to actively discourage players from undertaking this very risky attack without "telling them NO".

Rolling to miss is a better discouragement mechanic than increasing the difficulty of the original target. Raising the damage on a failure to miss a friend is an additional method of discouraging such a shot. Lowering the damage for foes (making the arrow simply drop in that hex), is another method furthering the same thing.

The only modification I would add is that taking time to aim (waiting for an opening, ITL 127) also affects rolls to miss when the shot is taken. But the basic 16.3% chance of failing to get by a given figure should remain. Trick shots/attacks need to be dangerous when they fail.
If you don't see problems with the original rule, more power to you - enjoy.

But it sounds to me like you just don't understand the situation or the solution GURPS and my adapted version of it provide. These rules do not remove the disincentives to shoot through other figures, at all. They just remove the logic and math errors from the calculations.

In fact, the adjusted rules make it a bit more difficult to hit enemies blocked by other enemies, which I think is a good thing. With the TFT rule, if an enemy wizard is behind two screening enemies, an archer can still hit them by making two rolls to miss and then an unmodified roll to hit, which with a decent DX is not that hard unless you happen to roll high on a to-miss roll, in which case the gamey "but you never accidentally hurt foes" comes in.

With the GURPS rule, it'd be -8 to hit the wizard behind two figures, or -6 in my TFT version of it, and there would be some chance of hitting other foes, which makes a lot of sense, and also has the nice logical cause & effect of logical consequences of mobbing your figures in one place (it makes it easier to hit one of them with a ranged attack) and increases the odds of hitting a foe if you fire into a crowd of them (which the TFT rule can't do, because it's worried about it's backwards skill roll being abused).
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