Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason Durall
It probably needs a bit of clarification, but to clarify here:
- The default system compares the quality of results, no matter how the dice happened to land. So a normal success is equal to a normal success, but both are inferior to a special or critical success. For example, two characters with skills of 50% make rolls of 11 and 48 and both achieve normal successes. These are considered "equal." If they'd rolled a 03 and a 10, they'd both be tied for special successes.
- The first optional system says look at the actual # rolled and use it as a means of comparing one "equivalent" success to another. Using the same example as above, the one who rolled the 48 is the winner. This is similar to Pendragon's system. The variant suggested at the end of that option is to flip it, so the 11 is the clear winner with only 10 percentile points away from the best possible roll, while the 49 is 48 away from a 01.
Does that make sense?
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Sorry, still confused. P174 it says that whoever has the higher degree of success wins, but that if the loser succeeded in his roll that he can reduce the winner's success by one level for each level of success that he achieved. Then it says that if "both parties achieve the same degree of success, the higher die roll wins the contest, giving advantage to characters with higher skill ratings"
So let me see if I can work this out...
In the default rules, if player A gets a Special success and B gets a normal success then A wins, but is downgraded by B regular success so A just succeeds and doesn't get a special success. But if A and B both got a simple success then whoever rolled highest would win. Does that mean that the loser could still downgrade his success to a failure?
In the first optional rule, if player A rolls a Special success and B rolls a regular success, then A wins and that's it. But if A rolled a regular success also, then the highest roll wins. Also, if both A and B rolled a Special success then the highest roll would win.
So I guess they are different.
Honestly I will probably use the first optional rule with the alternate suggested at the bottom that you subtract the roll from the character's chance to succeed, in order to maintain the "roll low" paradigm as you suggest. I know it would not be popular with a lot of people, but it is what my group is used to using and I am glad it is in there as a variant.
Edit: Kinda thinking I should have put this in the "Typos, Errata , Corrections, and Clarifications" thread, but it wasn't around when I made the original comment.