Math and BRP

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Enpeze

What do you mean with consistent? Crit hits target, target cannot parry - target dead most of the time. This I call consistent. Do you want to "innovate" the crit too?

The problem is that there's no difference in most versions between a crit and a special against an unarmored, or even a lightly armored enough target. Most of the fixes for this seem excessive, though (double damage, for example).

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Enpeze

I used 10% in my SB games in the past. Its simple to calculate on the fly and absolutely ok. OTOH 20%/5% ist just another layer of damage results for different weapon types which can be fun and lead sometimes to interesting situations (see above). I mean, 20/5 does not make BRP much more complicated, no? Whatever - I like both systems.

And truth is, both work okay; I prefer the distinction, but then, I tended to prefer RQ's level of detail over most of the simplifications in other versions of BRP.

[badcat]

I have used 20/5 as well, I am simply more comfortable with 10. If I could just look at the percentage and have the number pop into my head like 10%, then I would go with 20/5% because yes, it does allow for a wider range of results.

[Sven Norén]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

I personally prefer to keep both a special and a critical result; the former provides more of a tool for weapon type differnces (since it can trigger the various special results for bashing, slashing and impaling weapons) while it doesn't overly gust really severe results, which are reserved for criticals.

The only thing I _do_ wish is that there was a more consistent way to handle criticals; treating it differently against armored and unarmored foes is ugly, but you get border conditions where crits mean less and less the less armor the target has.

One idea I saw on a discussion of BRP houserules on RPG.NET (see, it's not all bad!) was to have a short list of special effects, like:

- Do extra damage (impale/slash/crush)
- ignore armour
- choose hit location
- do knockback
- disarm
-

All are taken from the RQ3 combat rules, some of them optional. When you roll a special hit, pick one of the above. On a critical, pick two. Gives the players (and NPC:s) a bit more control over the fight, without adding an extra layer of rules. I'm going to try this next campaign.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Sven Norén

One idea I saw on a discussion of BRP houserules on RPG.NET (see, it's not all bad!) was to have a short list of special effects, like:

- Do extra damage (impale/slash/crush)
- ignore armour
- choose hit location
- do knockback
- disarm
-

All are taken from the RQ3 combat rules, some of them optional. When you roll a special hit, pick one of the above. On a critical, pick two. Gives the players (and NPC:s) a bit more control over the fight, without adding an extra layer of rules. I'm going to try this next campaign.

That's kind of the tact at least one version of the RQM rules used, and its probably as good a solution as you're going to find. I may try it next time I'm running something BRP-ish.

[phrog]

A lot of really good suggestions in this thread

For the sake of completeness, I'll mention an approach I saw in the RQ rules mailing list, that I cannot at the moment properly credit. I have NOT tried this in a live game, so, YMMV, but it kind of intrigued me.

The approach is to roll an additional 20 sided die to track the level of success - call it a 'crit' d20.

If your main attack is a success, and your 'crit' roll is a 1, you've critical'd
If your main attack is a success, and your 'crit' roll is a 2, 3, or 4 - you've special'd.

If your main attack is a miss, and your 'crit' roll is a 1, you've fumbled.

If you have over 100 skill, you have to play some extra games to see if you roll your crit dice more than once (ie. at 125% skill, if you roll under 25% you'd roll your 'crit' dice twice and take the best result - at least, at first glance that seems to make the math work )

The math geek in me digs it because it's a restatement of the idea "When you hit, 20% of the time you will special, 5% of the time you will critical.", just moved into the time domain (wipes nose on sleeve)

It's not the most particularly elegant approach, but it does have some side benefits - it 'fixes' the low-skill range oddity where a person with 5% skill in something will 'crit' 20% of the time they actually succeed. And it makes it easy to expand the number of crit categories, if you're into that sort of thing ('special fumble' becomes easy for example). If I were to use it in a game, I'd probably do something like : to-hit roll of '01' and a 'crit' roll of '1' would get you the original RQ crit (2x weapon damage, ignoring armor) that I always found to be a bit too lethal to occur 5% of the time.

Anyway, food for thought.

[drohem]

That is an intriguing approach. I'll have to think on it.

[RMS]

It does increase the chance of fumbling compared to the standard BRP roll, but otherwise works nicely. I'm not big on extra die rolls and can do the math easier that rolling another die, so I wouldn't use it, but I can see where others would.

Harnmaster, which is a BRP derivative, has crits, successes, failures, and fumbles. You roll % against skill. Under is a success, over is a failure. Any multiple of 5 is a critical (if under) or a fumble (if over).

[Nightshade]

That's actually a pretty sound method from where I sit.

[drohem]

Originally Posted by RMS

Harnmaster, which is a BRP derivative, has crits, successes, failures, and fumbles. You roll % against skill. Under is a success, over is a failure. Any multiple of 5 is a critical (if under) or a fumble (if over).

I liked Harnmaster's skill index concept as well.