Unskilled rolls

[Jackal]

Originally Posted by David L Pulver

If the solution is instead for everyone to make a 4d or 5d roll against IQ until they succeed, it changes a natural story-based solution to a die-rolling solution.

This.

Unless the talent has a specific penalty for trying to use it unskilled, I would tell players to find some one to help them.

That said, if the GM wants to let a player try, CJM's idea to add 1d6 per talent cost, above, is pretty cool!

- Jack

[Steve Jackson]

Here is a draft of a *simple* approach, which does leave some things to our GM:

Unskilled Rolls

Some talent (e.g., Climbing) specify what may be attempted by a person who does not have the talent.

For other talents, the GM may, at their sole discretion, allow attempts at a penalty of one or two dice. For instance, suppose a situation specifically requires an Thief roll to open a lot. But it’s an easy lock, big and old. The GM could say “I’ll let you try it without Thief skill, but at a penalty of 2 dice.” Thus, the non-Thief players would have to roll 5 dice to tickle that lock into opening.

The commonest example of this is with regular weaponry. Most weapons are fairly easy to use, so if you pick up a weapon without training, you can still hit with it, at a penalty of 1 die. So you roll 4 dice every time you attack with that weapon.

But the GM should ruthlessly prohibit unreasonable uses of this rule. No matter how high your basic stat might be, some things are just not possible without training. There is no “unskilled” ability to fire multiple arrows in a turn, or to be a Priest or Physicker or Vet. Likewise, skills like Throwing, Veteran, and Warrior, whose whole effect is a numerical bonus, cannot be invoked in an unskilled mode.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

I think your statement is Ok, but I'd probably say "at least 1 more die, if he thinks it's reasonable."

The really short rule and "if he thinks it's reasonable" part is important by the way. The complex (and fixed value and skill to skill) default rules are IMO one of GURPS bigger flaws. If you're spending more than a few minutes and a couple sentences on an equivalent for TFT, you're probably overdoing it.

[CJM]

Could you do this? For every IQ point you need to spend on a talent is the number of extra dice you have to roll to try it untrained? For example; Acrobatics cost 3 would = 3 extra dice. Sword (2) = 2 extra, Crossbow (1) = 1...Don't know if anyone has suggested this yet...but it might work. I enjoy using extra dice, the guys I role play with seem to really like it as well. Hope you keep it :-)

[JLV]

Originally Posted by CJM

Could you do this? For every IQ point you need to spend on a talent is the number of extra dice you have to roll to try it untrained? For example; Acrobatics cost 3 would = 3 extra dice. Sword (2) = 2 extra, Crossbow (1) = 1...Don't know if anyone has suggested this yet...but it might work. I enjoy using extra dice, the guys I role play with seem to really like it as well. Hope you keep it :-)

That's a really interesting idea there (though I'd find it amusing to see how someone roleplayed a failure at Acrobatics, as opposed to just saying "you can't do it"); I hope Steve reads it!

[CJM]

Thanks, I hope he does to. I always like giving my players a chance even though it is highly unlikely that they will succeed.

[tbeard1999]

My opinion:

Before proposing a default talent use rule, we should probably consider what kind of success rate we want default talents to have. Consider these attribute levels, and the -4 modifier:

• 8 (25% chance on an unmodified 3d6 roll; 5% chance on 3d with -4 mod; 5% on 4d)
• 10 (50% chance on an unmodified 3d6 roll; 9% chance on 3d with -4 mod; 16% on 4d)
• 12 (75% chance on an unmodified 3d6 roll; 25% chance on 3d with -4 mod; 34% on 4d)
• 14 (91% chance on an unmodified 3d6 roll; 50% chance on 3d with -4 mod; 56% on 4d )
• 16 (95% chance on an unmodified 3d6 roll; 74% chance on 3d with -4 mod; 76% on 4d)
• 18 (95% chance on an unmodified 3d6 roll; 91% chance on 3d with -4 mod; 90% on 4d)

So...do you want default talents to allow average or near average folks to succeed some (but not most) of the time? Or do you want average folks to succeed almost never, but high attribute folks to succeed far more often? Etc. And as this chart shows, the concern about high attribute levels being way too capable with default talents is well-founded.

Default Talents
I think that figures should be able to perform the following talents at some default level:

• Physical talents - talents that rely mostly on ST or DX (weapon talents, athletic talents like running, swimming, and acrobatics, silent movement, climbing, etc.)
  
• Knowledge/Physical/Observation Talents - talents that require some knowledge, but mostly rely on physical or observation abilities - tracking, hearing, alertness, bard, recognize value, naturalist (maybe)).
  
• Common/simple Talents - talents that are simple or that the figure would have lots of exposure to (cooking, a lot of mundane talents, driving in a modern setting, firing modern guns)
  

No-Default Talents
I don't think that these kinds of talents should be allowed to be used at a default:

• Advanced version of other talents (fencing, master thief, expert horsemanship, etc.)
  
• Weapons talents that enhance other weapons talents like missile weapons, thrown weapons, two weapons
  
• Many peculiar weapons talents (if they are to remain in TFT)
  
• Talents that require a great deal of knowledge/education (physicker, chemistry, alchemy, scholar, foreign languages)

Comments

• The standard default we've discussed is -4 or +1d (I'm agnostic at this point). As noted, this will allow figures with very high attribute levels to use default talents extremely well and figures with average attribute levels to succeed very rarely. This will always be an issue when applying a positive or negative modifier to a bell curve.
• A +4 (for intance) applied to DX 10 will drop the success change from 50% to 9%, but will only drop the success chance of a DX 18 from 95% to 90%.
• Some talents (thief for instance) have other default rules; I haven't considered whether or not they should be retained.

I can think of several ways to address the issue with high attributes, but and all represent different approaches than the standard TFT mechanics:

• Provide that (say) 12-15 is an automatic failure, if using a 3 die roll. This makes the default skill have a maximum success chance of about 63%. On a 4 die roll, a 14+ is an automatic failure.
• Let figures use the default skill at (say) 1/2 the attribute level (round up). This will definitely reduce the advantage of high-attribute figures. A figure with DX 10 will succeed 5% of the time; a figure with DX 18 will succeed 38% of the time. That may be too much of a penalty, but other fractions don't work so well.
• Combine the above methods - halve the attribute but give a +1 positive modifier. A figure with DX 10 will succeed 9% of the time; a figure with DX 18 will succeed 50% of the time.
• Or...and this is REAL odd... Apply no modifiers to the default skill, but also roll a different colored "default die". If the 3d roll succeeds, AND if the default die is (say) a 1-3, the roll succeeds. If the 3d roll fails or if the default die is a 4-6, the roll fails.
  
  This will halve the normal success chance. So an average person will have a 25% chance of successfully using a default skill and someone with a 15+ attribute will hav a 48% chance.

Note- I played around with this system long ago, after designing A Fistful of TOWs 2.

The idea was to have no negative modifiers for harder than average tasks. In addition to the 3d roll, you'd roll a different colored "difficulty die". To succeed, the 3d6 roll had to be a success AND the difficulty die would have to be equal to or more than the difficulty level of the task.

Normal tasks were level 1, so a difficulty die wasn't required for them.

I calibrated the system by assuming a typical attribute rating of 12.

• Hard tasks (roughly like a 4d6 roll) would be difficulty level 4. (The success chance is half of the base success chance.)
• Very hard tasks (roughly like a 5d6 roll) would be difficulty level 6. (The success chance is 1/6 of the base success chance).
• Easy tasks would be a 2 die roll.

I abandoned it, because, while I liked the statistical properties, it really didn't solve any major problems I had (I did not generally allow default talents).

That said, a difficulty level of 2 corresponds roughly to a -1 modifier (again, calibrated on a 12 attribute rating). A difficulty level of 3 corresponds roughly to a -2 modifier. So it could replace the modifier AND extra dice systems completely, with a minor loss of resolution.

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by CJM

Could you do this? For every IQ point you need to spend on a talent is the number of extra dice you have to roll to try it untrained? For example; Acrobatics cost 3 would = 3 extra dice. Sword (2) = 2 extra, Crossbow (1) = 1...Don't know if anyone has suggested this yet...but it might work. I enjoy using extra dice, the guys I role play with seem to really like it as well. Hope you keep it :-)

That's a neat idea and it might work for many Talents. However, it should only be allowed for the "base level" of a Talent; no +2d to try Unarmed Combat IV for example. I also don't like it for Literacy and how would it work with things like Shield?

[Skarg]

I like both dice and modifiers and don't have a problem rolling extra dice, or remembering or doing the math with modifiers.

However I think it's important to take into account that modifiers are mechanically different from extra dice in ways that have significant effects. Modifiers allow more precision, and in TFT a difference of one or two points can make a huge difference. More dice have a different distribution curve and range, too. And 2-die rolls have a very limited range (unless you adopt an "exploding dice" mechanic which I doubt is what's wanted for basic TFT). And you need solid rules for crit success & failure with whatever number of dice you end up rolling (and that can start to be hard even for me to remember, though I don't mind referring to a table).

[CJM]

Hey Chris, I believe you are right about the base talent. But that would make sense as someone wouldn't be able to do something at an expert level just using their base attribute, it's just to high a level to reach. I think some talents would be difficult to make it work...I was thinking after I posted it... while I was making my kids sandwiches the same thing:-) But as I think about It, I think it would work... if you are untalented at shield and the PC is in combat, picks it up off the ground to us it he/she needs to make a DX roll to do so. Something like that? As far as literacy goes it would probably have to be up to the GM to make the call if what is trying to be read was something the players would have any chance of understanding, like a similar langue or a modern langue that is common for the area.