Purpose of "rolling to miss" rule

[RobW]

Just noticed that we've been playing wrong for years on rolling to miss. We've treated allies and enemies very differently, if you roll to miss an enemy and fail, that's it, the attack is over.

RAW say that's the case for rolling to miss enemies, unless you roll 14 or over, and then an accelerated damage sequence is used (14=hit; 15=2x damage; 16=3x damage). We used the accelerated sequence on allies but not enemies.

Now, the RAW clearly state that they are trying to avoid making 'roll to miss' a tactic for hitting an enemy, but using this accelerated damage sequence means the opposite. Am I missing something?

[oldwolf]

Hmmm, they say they are trying to keep a clumsy character from hitting easily. The RAW does that since any failure to miss roll from 6 to 13 will not hit and do damage and I think we can agree characters with DX of 6 through 9, which fall in that range, are pretty clumsy. But they still seem to want Murphy's Law to have a good chance of causing significant damage to anyone by applying the 14+ rule to both friends and enemies. I think that makes the chance to hit any enemy by "trying to miss" approximately 14.4%. However, the chance of a double damage hit is approximately 4.6% and triple damage is approximately 2.8%. Compared to the normal odds of dealing double or triple damage to an enemy of ~1.4% and ~0.5% respectively.

It is an interesting approach, assuming it isn't an error. Like the OP, I had always just applied the 14+ rule to trying to miss friends.

[Skarg]

No, you're not missing anything. The rule is trying to be simple but still allow all the possible outcomes, without rolling more dice, but the shifting of double and triple damage results down has a huge effect on the odds of very damaging hits, which is a bug.

One simple bug fix, for example, could be to have 3 and 4 mean triple and double damage _hits_ as usual on a roll to miss, to avoid increasing their chances.

There are also some bugs in the roll to miss rules for the chances of hitting people who would usually be very hard to hit intentionally due to concealment or darkness or blur or something.

[hcobb]

Any case I envision for a roll to miss would be taking a shot when the way seemed clear for a moment and then they wander into into my shot. I don't see my own DX entering into it.

So to roll to miss simply roll to hit at adjDX zero.

[RobW]

Originally Posted by hcobb

So to roll to miss simply roll to hit at adjDX zero.

And failing the roll to miss means what?

[hcobb]

A figure may voluntarily (openly or secretly) reduce its adjDX by any amount for the purposes of making any roll. For example a "roll to miss" is simply a "roll to hit" at adjDX zero. Therefore a roll of three on three dice is triple damage, four is double damage, five is a hit, 18 is a break weapon, 17 is a drop weapon, and any other roll is a miss. Note that you are more likely to hit friends who are dodging.

[Tom H.]

Originally Posted by Skarg

There are also some bugs in the roll to miss rules for the chances of hitting people who would usually be very hard to hit intentionally due to concealment or darkness or blur or something.

Originally Posted by hcobb

Note that you are more likely to hit friends who are dodging.

A very pertinent thread for a situation that just came up in a game with my wife.

Does facing matter when trying to roll to miss?

My wife was trying to miss her ally with a thrown hammer that went through the ally's side hex at adjDX +2.

Therefore an ally is easier to miss when she turns her back to the "threat."

Is this another bug or is there some logic to this outcome?

It seems that it would be easier for an ally to avoid a thrown weapon when she was facing the friendly thrower.

Maybe some of the DX adjustments should also be reversed when the to-hit roll gets reversed.

[Tom H.]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Any case I envision for a roll to miss would be taking a shot when the way seemed clear for a moment and then they wander into into my shot. I don't see my own DX entering into it.

I imagined that the higher your expertise with a thrown weapon (i.e. higher your own DX) the better your aim at missing people you don't want to hit while trying to hit people you do.

[Skarg]

I don't think it's intended that facing ever gives a DX adjustment to thrown or missile weapons.

[RobW]

It seems like the consensus is this is a glitch in the rules. Maybe consider a few house variants in the subforum.