Chewing on proficiencies, maneuvers and combat.

[thirtythr33]

Your examples are extremely misleading.

Fighter A swing for 21 and gets quite a good roll with 17 succeses.

This has a probability of 0.36%

Fighter A swing fo 10 and gets quite a good roll with 7 successes.

This has a probability of 17.19%

You need to keep the probabilities constant across examples, not the ratio of successes.

[Benedict]

Okay, lets try to put things into context istead of talking around in circles.

The game is undergoing an overhaul aside from a name change.

Things to take into account:
• No more D10s. The game uses D6s. But.
• No more dice explosions. Now it's safe to say that 2 dice=1 success.
• No more X+Y formula (ATR+SKILL or ATR+ATR). The formula is X+Y+Z. X for primary Stat, Y&Z from Tapping anything appropriate into the roll; tapped dice cap at 3.
• CP formula is (ATR+ATR)/2 + PROF. Combat Turn is still 2 Ph(r)ases long.

So please stop comparing to TROS, or whatever else you might fancy. Also.

Why do you use TROS (and TROS-clones) and not other d10 games for your comparisons, I really wonder.

Yea...It's really shocking to compare tros-combat based system to tros rather than say... d20 or wfrp

Please try to read what is written before replying. When I state "other d10 games" (WoD and Exalted naturally come to mind, and even LOT5R or 7TH SEA could be used in some respects) you respond with "d20 or whfrp". We can't have real conversation like this.

Because, as you wrote yourself...more dice = more randomness...
And system is about to promote player skill and risk taking.

Risk taking is full of chance. You need luck for that. Or in other words it's full of randomness. Player skill is the ability to access the situation and take calculated risks, meaning trying to minimze the bad and maximize the good of the probable outcomes.

To make it simple...When you defend against cut of 6 you might wonder whether to use say... counter and use enemy's succeses. Will it yield better result to pay an activation cost of manouver? You make a decision based on risk assessment. In case of rolls of 20 dice in one attack....it kinda stops being a tradeoff. Manouvers become silly cheap. Player skill becomes less important.

Wrong. Just as it requires skill to decide whether to use a 6d Counter or 8d Block vs a 6d Draw Cut, it also requires the same amount of skill to choose between a 30d Counter or 32d Block vs a a 30d Draw Cut. The only difference is that the low dice situation ideally can net a MoS8 (highly unlikely tho), while the high dice situation can go up to MoS32 (once in a zillion). It doesn't matter tho if you suffer 8 or 32 Wounds. You'd die all the same.

Spend 3 SA points for "Not Quite Dead Yet". I believe the 300-hour campaign epic built can afford 3 SA points.

You did not solve anything. Player merely survives the scene. Duel is lost, kingdom conquered, princess raped, and slained ...

Riddles get solved. Also math problems get solved. Not stories. Stories get resolved. Especially drama. Even if everyone dies in the process. Take Hamlet for example.

As for the aforementioned "unsolved" situation. You end up tied up in the dungeon, your hand chopped off, the kingdom conquered, the princess raped, then slain, then raped again, and now you wanting revenge more than anything. Besides, a story is not about simply "winning" or "losing". It's about how the characters cope with what is happening to them, good or bad. Just saying.

I'd ask from other perspective. If there is no cap, who would forbid it?

Common sense maybe? Still, by continuing this line of thought, if there was a cap, who would forbid you to overrule it? It's your game afterall.

Well my experience say otherwise.

You will of course forgive me for not being convinced by anecdote.

What the man said. Unless you take the time to provide real facts that is, even if its "merely" a statistical analysis.

Let me rephrase with an example...

This is all over the place. And it's a single instance, not solid proof of everything you claim it to be. As thirtythr33 rightly points out:

You need to keep the probabilities constant across examples, not the ratio of successes.

To cut it short.

all of sudden we use mechanics that would be redundant if both had 2 times CP.

Redundant? Why? Please explain.

[dra]

Your examples are extremely misleading.

Fighter A swing for 21 and gets quite a good roll with 17 succeses.

This has a probability of 0.36%

Fighter A swing fo 10 and gets quite a good roll with 7 successes.

This has a probability of 17.19%

You need to keep the probabilities constant across examples, not the ratio of successes.

Funny. Exactly same exchange happened on our last bob test session. With exception of pools, they were equal at 25 CP and MoS of killing blow was 14 succeses. Regardless of it's probability.

Okay, lets try to put things into context istead of talking around in circles.

The game is undergoing an overhaul aside from a name change.

Things to take into account:
• No more D10s. The game uses D6s. But.
• No more dice explosions. Now it's safe to say that 2 dice=1 success.
• No more X+Y formula (ATR+SKILL or ATR+ATR). The formula is X+Y+Z. X for primary Stat, Y&Z from Tapping anything appropriate into the roll; tapped dice cap at 3.
• CP formula is (ATR+ATR)/2 + PROF. Combat Turn is still 2 Ph(r)ases long.

So please stop comparing to TROS, or whatever else you might fancy. Also.

Look. 2 exchange per round combat pools system where you spend activation dice , aim for specfic location and wound levels are recorded based mainly on succesess.... is Tros-like system whetever you fancy to call it. Unless there are some huge changes made to it, the same rules apply to combat in tros , blade or bob. And in this instance particular manouver might be a bit better, this or that weapon a bit stronger/nerfed...whole thing kinda runs the same.

Combat is completly different in any "other d10 games" At the same time wheter tros, blade or bob, they are remarkably similar to any other tros-like experience I had.
So now, changing dice type or making different outside combat testing system does not make observation you made with tros combat invalid in bob. Same general rules apply.

Risk taking is full of chance. You need luck for that. Or in other words it's full of randomness. Player skill is the ability to access the situation and take calculated risks, meaning trying to minimze the bad and maximize the good of the probable outcomes.

Exactly.
The bigger the pool, the less important this calculation is.

Wrong. Just as it requires skill to decide whether to use a 6d Counter or 8d Block vs a 6d Draw Cut, it also requires the same amount of skill to choose between a 30d Counter or 32d Block vs a a 30d Draw Cut. The only difference is that the low dice situation ideally can net a MoS8 (highly unlikely tho), while the high dice situation can go up to MoS32 (once in a zillion). It doesn't matter tho if you suffer 8 or 32 Wounds. You'd die all the same.

Ill simplify.

You have Fighter A with 14 CP. Fighter B with 14 CP.
Fighter A cuts for 7, Fighter B wants to counter for 7. He pays activation 2 and faces choice. Providing he defends, If his opponent rolls 3 or more succeses, he will win on this decision (will recieve amount of succeses of attacker in next exchange, which would be higher than his activation cost). He now has 5 more dice + 3 succeses stolen from his opponent. If his opponent rolls 0 or 1 succeses, he will end up worse than just parrying. Anyhows, let's say A had 4 succeses and B finished with 9 dice vs 7.

If fighter A has 30 CP, fighter B has 14 CP.
Fighter A cuts for 15, Fighter B wants to counter for 14. He pays activation 2 and his choice is virtually a no brainer one. His opponent has very low chance to roll 0 or 1 succeses. Say he rolls 7, B rolls 8. B now has 20 dice against 15 and makes a counter...

In case of 60 - 60 dice pools it becomes self defeating to attack.

Same goes for say, block to open. It is a counter version for shield dudes (mechanically). With 30vs30 you just spend your entire pool on defence. MoS is higher and you should recycle huge amount of dice staying relatively safe.

Activation cost of 2 is laughable comparing to nearly sure rewards. Only a moron would just block or parry in above situations.

Redundant? Why? Please explain.

If you have reasonable CPs, most MoS will result in wounds. Shock, Blood Loss, Pain and such silly numbers devs took their time to make combat system work.
If it "doesn't matter tho if you suffer 8 or 32 Wounds. You'd die all the same." than the whole table is not needed.

Apart from using cool parts of the system, you also create tension during fights. Most memorable duels my players remember is ones where they turned the odds around , fighting with sword in one hand and keeping their insides togheter with second even when all their allies or other players urged them to yield. With lower chance of low MoSs as thirty's table shown, huge pools will have less of those "moments".

[Agamemnon]

Funny. Exactly same exchange happened on our last bob test session. With exception of pools, they were equal at 25 CP and MoS of killing blow was 14 succeses. Regardless of it's probability.

You can't build a system around outliers of probability. The moment we ignore probability as a factor the system is broken regardless.

In current public build, Strength and Stamina have the same range. In the coming 'Scoundrel build, it is a factor of Brawn and thus still has the same range.

Weapon damage ranges from -1 to +3, normally. Armor ranges from 0-6, and there are only 5 levels of wounds. Even at 8 dice, if I roll all successes on my attack and you roll 0 successes on defense, if we are even remotely evenly matched, the fight is all but over.

There is no way to build a system with dice intended to be used as a random variable while simultaneously protecting you from the randomness of the dice. As Thirty33 already pointed out, the statistical difference in swingy-ness at different die-pool sizes is less than the activation costs of maneuvers, which makes the latter still more important than the former even at higher pools.

If fighter A has 30 CP, fighter B has 14 CP.
Fighter A cuts for 15, Fighter B wants to counter for 14. He pays activation 2 and his choice is virtually a no brainer one. His opponent has very low chance to roll 0 or 1 succeses. Say he rolls 7, B rolls 8. B now has 20 dice against 15 and makes a counter...

The effect of throwing a 30CP fighter against a 14CP fighter is going to be roughly the same as throwing a 14CP fighter against a 6CP fighter. At a certain point, you are just going to be outmatched. That's not an issue of scale.

Also, a number of your examples rely on an extant asymmetry in the current rules. Presently, an attacker can't safely go all-in on an attack because the opponent will simply pre-empt the attack and kill them for over-exposing themselves. Unfortunately, there is nothing to stop a defender from going all-in on a defense. The only response the attacker can make is to declare a feint and also go all-in, but because of the expense of the current feint rules, they will still be at a dice disadvantage. In the case of a counter or a deflect and strike, this creates an unassailable position for a smart defender from which to attack.

This has been corrected in the coming edition of the rules by giving the attacker a way to exploit this behavior in the way that a defender can exploit an attacker doing the same.

In case of 60 - 60 dice pools it becomes self defeating to attack.

Not possible, RAW. The absolute maximum someone could get with the current release math is 45, but even that would require literal years of play. But again, see above. It's self-defeating because of that specific kind of interaction.

EDIT: I just checked, our warrior was a sissy.
With tier 4 attributes and tier 5 profficiencies you can create a warrior with staggering 21 CP to begin with. Add some experience and few firing SAs...

To compare, AFAIR Tros had a best starting char at 14 (15 with some Edge).

With the coming build, the max you can get at character creation is a base 21CP, and that's with two Tier 5s, which has taken 10 of your 15 total points to spend. That gives you a 3 and two 1s, or two 2s and a 1. You're making a major sacrifice to get there.

If you only have one tier 5, then you can either have at best Reflex 8+ Prof 11, or Reflex 10+Prof 9. In both cases, you're still making a significant sacrifice to get there relative to the amounts of points you have to spend. because you have to focus very narrowly on the things you're dealing with, to the exclusion of everything else.

By comparison, the reflex of most physically active NPCs in the world is going to be 4-6. An amature thug or brawler might have Prof 4. A trained soldier will have 5-6. Veterans will have 7-8. 9-10 is your most elite types. The majority of fighters in the game as written will have between 8-12CP. Anything above that is likely a named NPC known for their swordsmanship or some kind of ultra-elite kingsguard type of deal.

In practice, most of the characters I've seen made with the current setup have CPs between 9 and 16, if they were made to be combat types at all.

[thirtythr33]

The thing is, as dice pools increase you have to defend with a greater amount of your pool. Defending a 3 dice attack with 3 dice is safe, because the absolute worst than can happen is you get hit with MOS3. If you defend 20 dice with 20 dice, well there is a very high chance you just get wrecked by a MOS5 or more. The point is, if you get attacked with a 20 dice attack you need to defend with something like 25 to be "safe".

Consider, my opponent attacks me with "A" amount of dice. Here I've calculated how many dice I need to defend with "D" such that I reduce my attackers chance of scoring a MOS3 or higher to below 10%.

A . D
3 . 1
6 . 6
9 . 10
12 14
15 17
18 21

If you want to be even more safe, here's the number you need to defend with to have a 75% chance to win MOS1 or more against your opponent.

A . D
3 . 6
6 . 10
9 . 14
12 17
15 21
18 24

A good rule of thumb is to use 25% more dice than your attacker, rounded up.

[Benedict]

Your examples are extremely misleading.

Fighter A swing for 21 and gets quite a good roll with 17 succeses.

This has a probability of 0.36%

Fighter A swing fo 10 and gets quite a good roll with 7 successes.

This has a probability of 17.19%

You need to keep the probabilities constant across examples, not the ratio of successes.

Funny. Exactly same exchange happened on our last bob test session. With exception of pools, they were equal at 25 CP and MoS of killing blow was 14 succeses. Regardless of it's probability.

1. You have to understand that your examples are misleading because they are not complete in many aspects.

I assume you mean that you had two combatants, each 25CP, trading blows.

You say that

Fighter A Swings 21 D = 17 S; Fighter B defends (?) 15 D = 7 S. MoS10 for A.

1st Issue: There is no maneuver called "Defend". He Parries with his weapon? Blocks with a shield? If yes what kind of shield? Dodges? Disengages? Grabs?

2nd Issue: In this instance you have 21v17, not say 21v19. That's a 4 dice mismatch instead of 2. Assuming that 2 dice = 1 success the average expected MoS for 21 is 2. This estimation does not take into account exploding dice.

Made a little thing to account for explosions as well.

Code: Select all

\ Band of Bastards Dice Roller

\ Basic Pool D10

N:=1; \ Change N to alter the number of dice

count 5< N#(accumulate x:=d10 while x=10)

You can go to Troll dice roller, roll to your heart's content, and calculate probabilities with this code.
http://topps.diku.dk/torbenm/troll.msp

Using this code we get that 21 D average 11.66 S.
Likewise 17 D average 9.44 S.
Both are at TN6 ofc.
Expected average MoS for higher pool = 2.22

Check it out.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2. Now I want to put this behind and ask something else. 25CP vs 25CP. Wow.

How did they get 25CP? I'm really curious.

Priority 5 Attributes gives 20pts. To get max CP out of Attributes he'd have to assign 10 points to Agility and Cunning. Which means Ag6 Cu5 OR Ag5 Cu6. Either way this totals 11CP. And he has 10pts left to distirbute to 6 Attributes, meaning a 2.66 average Attribute rating.

Priority 5 Proficiency gives 20pts with a cap of 11. Which means that base CP+Prof = 22CP.

Having spent 10 Priority points he has 5 left.

He spends 3 to Edges, trades two minor Edges to one major Edge and gets Large for the +2CP bonus. For a total of 24CP at character creation.

Skills get Priority 1 (5@2) and finally Class gets Priority 1 as well (serf or slave).

So, you can't have a 25CP character right from the start. 24CP is the absolute maximum, still it is an awkward built, at least for my tastes. Add a single SA of 5 and you get a staggering 29CP for a specific situation (SA firing).

I assume that you played some sessions and they gained the required SA to advance to 25CP. If this is the case I'd be curious to know their starting build, advancement during play, and number of sessions played. Oh, but wait. I shouldn't assume anything. You said "latest test session", didn't you? So how do these guys have 25CP?!?!?!

To continue with this.

Are they both player characters? If not, why does an NPC has CP matching the PC exactly? Don't forget, NPCs don't get any SAs. That's only for PCs.

This reminds me of DnD and similar games, where the opposition gets bigger with PC advancement.

The fighter gets a sword +3? Start throwing critters that require +4. The mage gets Finger of Death? Start throwing strong Undead. Yada yada yada.

The point of point-buy story based games is to defeat this kind of inflation. BoB's "play what you want from the start" concept even more so.

But as they say, to each his own.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3. About strategy and maneuvers being insignificant with big pools.


When these two 25CPers faced off the defender made a huge error. Why? Because he was attacked with 21 dice and he responded with a 17 dice defense. Let's assume it was a Parry. The obvious choice would be to respond with an equally big (if not bigger) Parry. The not so obvious choice would be to respond with a Preemptive Attack. He'd have dice enough to burn so he'd win that Speed Contest fairly easily, then he'd use a Precision Thrust to a vulnerable wheel with some good hit locations to choose from. Or a fairly small Grab and on Tempo 2 throw it all in a Gouge/Snap/Strangle. If that was his strategy you'd have an entirely different outcome.

So blame the player who doesn't know how to use efficiently his big CP pool. Not dice, probability, or lack of caps.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

4. About rules being redundant.

The only rule I can think of being "redudant" is Swing vs Draw Cut when you claim Emphasis for Sabre. They cost the same but Draw Cut adds +2DR vs exposed areas. Too niche to be called redundant if you ask me.

A freak occurrence when one side over-invests and rolls really high, the other side misjudging the situation, under-invests and responds with poor strategy doesn't make anything redundant.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And a final note.

Thirtythr33's probabilities are correct for non-exploding pools.

As you can see below it's 0.36% to score 17 successes with 21 non-exploding d10s.
On the other hand it's 4.542% to score 17 successes with 21 exploding d10s.

Explosions make a mess out of probabilities, that's why bigger pools can wield more varied results.



Should I change digits precision from 3 to 12 we get this nightmare.

21d10 non-exploding cap at 21 successes with a 0.000047683716 % chance.

21d10 exploding get 21 successes with a 0.098968359176 % chance; they "cap" at 39 successes with a 0.000000000001 % chance. Theoretically you could roll infinite successes with an exploding pool.

Thankfully Scoundrels kills exploding dice. And good riddance if you ask me.

[Korbel]

The thing is, as dice pools increase you have to defend with a greater amount of your pool. Defending a 3 dice attack with 3 dice is safe, because the absolute worst than can happen is you get hit with MOS3. If you defend 20 dice with 20 dice, well there is a very high chance you just get wrecked by a MOS5 or more. The point is, if you get attacked with a 20 dice attack you need to defend with something like 25 to be "safe"
(...)

Hard to argue about this. There is a noticeable difference when fighting with 10 or 25 dice (not talking about more extreme situations). But will it happen during typical games? Well, probably will, from time to time. Sometimes you're a good swordsman with your SA granting you 5 points, and sometimes you're just an average fighter, using your weaker Prof., forced to pay some dice to Positioning rolls, and your SA only firing for 1 dice. Well it happens.

We've had one such situation, I believe Benedict's char was wrestling with a NPC. Their Pools where not huge to begin with, and then there were Positioning Rolls and I believe some Impact involved, too. With not many dice to distribute, it took quite many rounds to resolve. It would probably be much quicker if using let's say 20 dice.

That's quite unfortunate - characters with more dice will generally tend towards quicker resolutions. And we'd expect those fights to last longer for dramatic effect. Not to say that it's unrealistic - well trained swordsmen should probably be able to murder each other in one or two exchanges. It's just not very cinematic (well for many of us).

[dra]

Funny. Exactly same exchange happened on our last bob test session. With exception of pools, they were equal at 25 CP and MoS of killing blow was 14 succeses. Regardless of it's probability.

You can't build a system around outliers of probability. The moment we ignore probability as a factor the system is broken regardless.

No of course you can't. You can however adjust randomness of rolls. The whole concept of dice pools is one of those instances. In most early rpgs you simply rolled one dice. Be it d20, d100 or d6. You roll, compare it to some numeral on character sheet, you have results. However randomness of this solution must have bugged many people since rpgs evolved from that stage a lot. Wod style pools is one example of it. It can be additionally refined but there is no real need. It works as much as it's needed for most purposes.

In tros-style combat randomness is still a factor and that's good. What we want as players from dice rolls is some emotions. However, what distinguish this fighting style from say, WoD is amount of player influence on what's happening. Tros was heavily influenced by polish rpg "Dzikie Pola" and it refined this system a lot creating blend of tactical game within a game. Player not only rolls, he kind of judges his chances against probability and makes decisions. This is golden.

It kinda works like a poker game. You see what you have, see what other players might have, calculate risk. If you have bigger chance, you rise the stake, if you don't you cut your losses and pass. Granted probability does not mean you will win no matter what. Cards always can kick you in the arse. However, if you read probability better than your opponent over the course of the evening, you will win more and loose less and therefore will be victorious.

Problem with tros combat is how short on money you are. Basically you only have 5-6 wound levels. You can risk a bit here and there but if all of sudden we talk less about MoSes of 4-5 and start seeing more of 8-10 your money pool will simply not be sufficient enough to cover for that. That's first issue why huge CPs do not work. Yes, you can defend with 7 dice and have 0 succeses why your opponent has 5 out of 5 victories and recieve a MoS of 5 in your face. Yet if you do not take exploding dice into account, you simply can't have MoS 10. Not only unlikely, simply and outright impossible. So you basically has less poker money to begin with and therefore, game is less enjoyable

Another thing I wrote and noone seems to care about is cost of manouvers. When we attack with 6-8 dice rolls activation cost of 2 is significant. If we attack with 15-20 less so. And no, it does not matter that Benedict would like to use draw cut, have poor or good defending on the other side and by the way GM is shit that he provided this particualar opponent. Simple math will tell you, 2 is much bigger portion of 6 than it is of 15.

If manouvers are cheaper that means there is less risk calculations in it. If at the same time players have less of felxiblity with their character's wound levels, that means for me that higher pools provide less space for player combat skill. Please, do not explain to me what is the role of GM in rpg, how low probable is scenario I wrote (which I know is of low probability, I specifically wrote it so) and why defender in an example should use more or less dice. It is not an issue I am rising.

There is also another issue which is not tied to system design on math level, rather general concepts. I always was a fan of realism in rpg (to an extend). This doesn't work well with issue of player's mortality. Personally I have nothing against keeping players on their toes. I have friend GM who never kills players due to a fact, that he invest so much in their story lines, having them killed is considered a waste by him. This goes to a bit extreme range for me since players will sense that straight away and whole exciment of combat or action scenes flies away through nearest window. Having said that, designing system that promotes too much PCs deaths is shooting yourself in a foot with a shotgun. Therefore there is some sort of thin line. For example it worked great in our sci fi system where damage was huge and one shot basically fried target alive. At the same time players had energy shields that had some defence value as well as hit points which made whole thing work great. We had a cookie and ate a cookie.

Tros-combat is another win-win scenario in this case as long as it works as it was designed to work. I absolutely loved the fact, that if fight went wrong for the player he usually got wounded in the process, his cp lowered he had his chance to yield. Same went for npcs. Players do not need to be psychopats killing scores of enemies, they may just wound them and capture them or sth simillar. With higher cps, you have higher chance of high MoS which taken everything into account (armor, DR of weapons, attribute differences) will result in more insta deaths.

In current public build, Strength and Stamina have the same range. In the coming 'Scoundrel build, it is a factor of Brawn and thus still has the same range.

Weapon damage ranges from -1 to +3, normally. Armor ranges from 0-6, and there are only 5 levels of wounds. Even at 8 dice, if I roll all successes on my attack and you roll 0 successes on defense, if we are even remotely evenly matched, the fight is all but over.

There is no way to build a system with dice intended to be used as a random variable while simultaneously protecting you from the randomness of the dice. As Thirty33 already pointed out, the statistical difference in swingy-ness at different die-pool sizes is less than the activation costs of maneuvers, which makes the latter still more important than the former even at higher pools.

Look, do you tell me that cost of manouver of 2 with CP 14 is not bigger than cost of manouver of CP 30?

The effect of throwing a 30CP fighter against a 14CP fighter is going to be roughly the same as throwing a 14CP fighter against a 6CP fighter. At a certain point, you are just going to be outmatched. That's not an issue of scale.

Look, it's obvious typo.

Also, a number of your examples rely on an extant asymmetry in the current rules. Presently, an attacker can't safely go all-in on an attack because the opponent will simply pre-empt the attack and kill them for over-exposing themselves. Unfortunately, there is nothing to stop a defender from going all-in on a defense. The only response the attacker can make is to declare a feint and also go all-in, but because of the expense of the current feint rules, they will still be at a dice disadvantage. In the case of a counter or a deflect and strike, this creates an unassailable position for a smart defender from which to attack.

Look examples have been simplified to maximum. I didn't want to go into who has what weapon, reach, armor, stats and so on because every part of that equation could be discussed over and over without end.

This has been corrected in the coming edition of the rules by giving the attacker a way to exploit this behavior in the way that a defender can exploit an attacker doing the same.

Can't wait than, you guys have some excellent ideas worth noting.

Not possible, RAW. The absolute maximum someone could get with the current release math is 45, but even that would require literal years of play. But again, see above. It's self-defeating because of that specific kind of interaction. [/quote

This is an example of such watering down of an example. I said:
Me:CP 30 gives more randomness than CP14. Going by this logic CP 60 vs 60 is even more random.
You: 60 takes years of play...

It's just a hyperbole put here to provide context that if cp60s will result in more randomness CP30s will as well. CP 15 will result in more randomness than CP14s although it will be simply not visible in any way.

With the coming build, the max you can get at character creation is a base 21CP, and that's with two Tier 5s, which has taken 10 of your 15 total points to spend. That gives you a 3 and two 1s, or two 2s and a 1. You're making a major sacrifice to get there.
(...)
In practice, most of the characters I've seen made with the current setup have CPs between 9 and 16, if they were made to be combat types at all.

So basically the system will work for those players and they will not notice my issues.
Which has nothing to do with my statement : Tros based games support mostly CPs of 10 to 17-18. Beyond that it gets funky more often the farther you go.

[thirtythr33]

That's quite unfortunate - characters with more dice will generally tend towards quicker resolutions. And we'd expect those fights to last longer for dramatic effect. Not to say that it's unrealistic - well trained swordsmen should probably be able to murder each other in one or two exchanges. It's just not very cinematic (well for many of us).

No, it just means you should adjust the ratio of dice you assign to attacks and defense. Instead of assigning dice 50%/50%, you can assign closer to 35%/65%. The higher the dice pools, the higher the percentage you should be keeping for defense.
Assigning dice 50%/50% MAXIMIZES the randomness of the fight and MINIMIZES the expected number of exchanges.
Assigning dice 5%/95% MINIMIZES the randomness of the fight and MAXIMIZES the expected number of exchanges. (This actually makes it the most "skillful" option too.)

For a very cinematic fight with combatants of high combat pools, they might assign something like 7 dice attacks and 14 dice defenses. Then there can be many back-and-forth exchanges before someone manages to score the decisive blow.
The main problem here is that Expulsion makes small attacks non-viable.

Another thing I wrote and noone seems to care about is cost of manouvers. When we attack with 6-8 dice rolls activation cost of 2 is significant. If we attack with 15-20 less so. And no, it does not matter that Benedict would like to use draw cut, have poor or good defending on the other side and by the way GM is shit that he provided this particualar opponent. Simple math will tell you, 2 is much bigger portion of 6 than it is of 15.

If manouvers are cheaper that means there is less risk calculations in it. If at the same time players have less of felxiblity with their character's wound levels, that means for me that higher pools provide less space for player combat skill. Please, do not explain to me what is the role of GM in rpg, how low probable is scenario I wrote (which I know is of low probability, I specifically wrote it so) and why defender in an example should use more or less dice. It is not an issue I am rising.

*Sigh* Really?

This doesn't work well with issue of player's mortality. Personally I have nothing against keeping players on their toes. I have friend GM who never kills players due to a fact, that he invest so much in their story lines, having them killed is considered a waste by him. This goes to a bit extreme range for me since players will sense that straight away and whole exciment of combat or action scenes flies away through nearest window. Having said that, designing system that promotes too much PCs deaths is shooting yourself in a foot with a shotgun. Therefore there is some sort of thin line. For example it worked great in our sci fi system where damage was huge and one shot basically fried target alive. At the same time players had energy shields that had some defence value as well as hit points which made whole thing work great. We had a cookie and ate a cookie.

Tros-combat is another win-win scenario in this case as long as it works as it was designed to work. I absolutely loved the fact, that if fight went wrong for the player he usually got wounded in the process, his cp lowered he had his chance to yield. Same went for npcs. Players do not need to be psychopats killing scores of enemies, they may just wound them and capture them or sth simillar. With higher cps, you have higher chance of high MoS which taken everything into account (armor, DR of weapons, attribute differences) will result in more insta deaths.

As I recall, in another thread you were making the argument that full STAM applying to DR was unrealistic and should therefore be reduced to 1/2 STAM.

Which has nothing to do with my statement : Tros based games support mostly CPs of 10 to 17-18. Beyond that it gets funky more often the farther you go.

Which is exactly why BOB had a "soft cap"...

[Benedict]

In tros-style combat randomness is still a factor and that's good. What we want as players from dice rolls is some emotions. However, what distinguish this fighting style from say, WoD is amount of player influence on what's happening.

Two distinct points here:

1. You can evoke the same amount of emotion from dice rolling no matter what system you are using. It all comes down to the GM and players abilities to narrate dice results, not the number or type of dice rolled. A d3 (Fudge) can be as cool as a d6 (Shadowrun) or a d100 (Cthulhu).

2. Explain why "what distinguishes TRoS fighting style from say, WoD is amount of player influence on what's happening". Call me an idiot, but I simply don't see why this statement is valid.

Player not only rolls, he kind of judges his chances against probability and makes decisions. This is golden.

As any other RPG I am aware of that involves dice, no matter what die type we are talking about.

It kinda works like a poker game. You see what you have, see what other players might have, calculate risk. If you have bigger chance, you rise the stake, if you don't you cut your losses and pass. Granted probability does not mean you will win no matter what. Cards always can kick you in the arse. However, if you read probability better than your opponent over the course of the evening, you will win more and loose less and therefore will be victorious.

In all honesty, comparing a RPG to poker is unfair, boring, and misleading. A big difference is that poker and similar games requires you to remember what has already happened, calculate probabilities, and finally read your opponents while you remain a mystery to them.

In BoB in particular you need a single Exchange to have all the essential data you need: namely your opponent's CP. After that it comes down to who knows the rules better, can apply this knowledge, and luck. Even if I rolled 1d vs 15d I could still get a MoS1. It has nothing to do with how clever I am, how well I can bluff, or read my opponent's body language.

Another thing I wrote and noone seems to care about is cost of manouvers. When we attack with 6-8 dice rolls activation cost of 2 is significant. If we attack with 15-20 less so. And no, it does not matter that Benedict would like to use draw cut, have poor or good defending on the other side and by the way GM is shit that he provided this particualar opponent. Simple math will tell you, 2 is much bigger portion of 6 than it is of 15.

I believe that thirtythr33 already answered this.

The really surprising thing to me is just how huge a difference 2CP makes at any pool size. In the 15CP range it's worth around 27% to hit. I had kind of assumed that activation costs and armor penalties would become negligible once you had huge CPs in the 30s, but even in that case 2CP makes a difference of 19% to hit.

Apart from this, a short rhetorical question.

Higher CP means better combat ability? I believe we both agree, yes.

The following will use a lot of assumptions. You are attacked by xCp with Swing and he gets 3 Successes. Let's select a defensive maneuver with a high cost and various effects based on MoS.


Grab Weapon | AC2 | MoS1 Restrained | MoS2 Disarmed (weapon out of reach) | MoS3 Weapon in your hands

Total CP8 : 4d Grab Weapon vs 3 Successes Swing; 2 dice remaining; AC ratio 1:4
MoS1 14.1%
MoS2 3.6%
MoS3 0.7%

Total CP14 : 7d Grab Weapon vs 3 Successes Swing; 5 dice remaining; AC ratio 1:7
MoS1 57.8%
MoS2 33.5%
MoS3 15.4%

Total CP20 : 10d Grab Weapon vs 3 Successes Swing; 8 dice remaining; AC ratio 1:10
MoS1 86.1%
MoS2 70.0%
MoS3 49.5%

I am using a 3 Successes Swing because an Ob3 is the Average difficulty for unopposed actions. I am using a low, medium, and high CP build; half CP + AC2 goes to Grab Weapon, leaving the remaining for the following tempo.

Probability spread illustrates the aforementoned statement: Higher CP means better combat ability.

If maneuver costs were removed you'd still get the same conclussion, even if the munbers would be different: Higher CP means better combat ability.

Your suggestion is to scale AC to keep a constant ratio? To keep a constant fighting ability? It is unclear. If any of the above is your suggestion, then I have to say that it's bad. Its awkward because it creates dead levels. Its unfair because it diminishes returns the more you invest.

It is not an issue I am rising.

If it's a non-issue why raise it in the first place. Boredom? Discussion for discussion's sake? Something else?

There is also another issue which is not tied to system design on math level, rather general concepts. I always was a fan of realism in rpg (to an extend). This doesn't work well with issue of player's mortality....
...
...Tros-combat is another win-win scenario in this case as long as it works as it was designed to work. I absolutely loved the fact, that if fight went wrong for the player he usually got wounded in the process, his cp lowered he had his chance to yield.

BoB is fine as it is in this aspect. Higher mortality forces the players to be more clever, more picky in their fights, and sense of achievement is higher with stakes being that high. If all else fails you can always narrate "Not quite dead yet" for 3 SA. Or your buddy can Parry that finishing blow by invoking "In the nick of time" for 2 SA.

Earlier you suggested to me that

Well, I'd say you might find much more satisfaction in simple combat or systems not so rules heavy and with more rolls dependant combat

Still I find the game fine as it is. It's you who argues about it and raising this issue.

Look, do you tell me that cost of manouver of 2 with CP 14 is not bigger than cost of manouver of CP 30?

It has a bigger ratio. That illustrates why a 20CPer fights better than a 10CPer. As I explained above.

Look examples have been simplified to maximum. I didn't want to go into who has what weapon, reach, armor, stats and so on because every part of that equation could be discussed over and over without end.

Oversimplification doesn't help anyone. When you do that, considering also that there is a language barrier (no offense ), it becomes a bit tough to guess what you want to say. Which leads to useless banter. Please do everyone a favor and be specific.

Which has nothing to do with my statement : Tros based games support mostly CPs of 10 to 17-18. Beyond that it gets funky more often the farther you go.

Statements are supported by proof and facts to be considered valid. By all means, do so.

[Korbel]

For a very cinematic fight with combatants of high combat pools, they might assign something like 7 dice attacks and 14 dice defenses. Then there can be many back-and-forth exchanges before someone manages to score the decisive blow.
The main problem here is that Expulsion makes small attacks non-viable.

Well there are more main problems, like countering an under-invested attack with Deflect & Strike and then tripping the attacker, or with a Mastercut. So, throwing a 7 dice attack when you're both 21 CP (I believe that was your example, correct if wrong) is not the best idea. Actually, it could make the duel shorter, and not longer.

[Benedict]

That's quite unfortunate - characters with more dice will generally tend towards quicker resolutions. And we'd expect those fights to last longer for dramatic effect. Not to say that it's unrealistic - well trained swordsmen should probably be able to murder each other in one or two exchanges. It's just not very cinematic (well for many of us).

No, it just means you should adjust the ratio of dice you assign to attacks and defense. Instead of assigning dice 50%/50%, you can assign closer to 35%/65%. The higher the dice pools, the higher the percentage you should be keeping for defense.
Assigning dice 50%/50% MAXIMIZES the randomness of the fight and MINIMIZES the expected number of exchanges.
Assigning dice 5%/95% MINIMIZES the randomness of the fight and MAXIMIZES the expected number of exchanges. (This actually makes it the most "skillful" option too.)

If I remember correctly we started throwing W/W for something like 5-6 rounds. Then we ended in a grapple after a R/R. The main problem was that we had to Position every turn because of slippery terrain. The moment I used attack 30%CP / defend 70% CP, then overinvested 85% in a Stranggle ( ) the fight was over.

For a very cinematic fight with combatants of high combat pools, they might assign something like 7 dice attacks and 14 dice defenses. Then there can be many back-and-forth exchanges before someone manages to score the decisive blow.
The main problem here is that Expulsion makes small attacks non-viable.

I agree. And a thought. Maybe the max MoS you can achieve with Parry (and augments thereoff: Counter and Expulsion) should cap at the dice invested in the attack. That would solve this problem, at least in some degree.

[hector]

For a very cinematic fight with combatants of high combat pools, they might assign something like 7 dice attacks and 14 dice defenses. Then there can be many back-and-forth exchanges before someone manages to score the decisive blow.
The main problem here is that Expulsion makes small attacks non-viable.

Well there are more main problems, like countering an under-invested attack with Deflect & Strike and then tripping the attacker, or with a Mastercut. So, throwing a 7 dice attack when you're both 21 CP (I believe that was your example, correct if wrong) is not the best idea. Actually, it could make the duel shorter, and not longer.

At that point, feinting is an option, and you have more dice with which to pull it off than if you'd gone with 50% of your pool. That said, over-investment in defence (for example, putting all your dice into mastercut so you're likely to get a pretty high MoS to follow-up with) is one of the things that the next release is apparently supposed to deal with - I would be interested to see how.

[dra]

(...)

A good rule of thumb is to use 25% more dice than your attacker, rounded up.

Yes, granted.
I specifically wrote an example in order to show particular issue. I did not write it so someone would consider wheter it's better to use this or that manouver or use this or that amount of dice. If you want to make another example, by all means, provide everything you need and we can consider effect of large MoS in case of CP 14 vs 14 and CP 30 vs 30.

*Sigh* Really?

Really.
Is 2 activation cost bigger part of CP 30 or CP 14?

As I recall, in another thread you were making the argument that full STAM applying to DR was unrealistic and should therefore be reduced to 1/2 STAM.

And?
As I said, first I want realism.
I do not want to go overboard with it since it will mean too much player deaths.

Which is exactly why BOB had a "soft cap"...

Yes there is.
There is an improvement from TROS in one aspect: no more 25 extra dice from 5 SAs firing at full power. Making 3 steps forward, it takes one back with inflated CPs at character creation. It's not game breaking or anything. It is just a bit more random if one player creates a character with extremiety in mind.

Let's not go into conclusions before we can agree on basics, first.
1. Is 2 cp activation cost bigger portion of CP 14 than 30 ?
2. Does CP30 provide a chance of MoSes unattainable at CP 14?
3. Does higher MoS generally mean higher mortality rate or not?

[dra]

1. You have to understand that your examples are misleading because they are not complete in many aspects.

You have to understand that they are written like this for a reason and a reason was shown above. Even when I wrote the simplest thing it was considered that "you do not defend with so many dice" , "you use different manouvers" or "GM is poor". It was not put up there for debate what's best course of action. It was put up to show that having more CP means possibility of having higher MoS and that means freaky results. Also to show that paying activation cost of 2 cp in case you have CP of 30 is much smaller price than in case of 2 cp if you can have 14 CPs.

I assume you mean that you had two combatants, each 25CP, trading blows.
(...)
Check it out.

And it's all very nice, I applaud you for counting it.
How does it help our Fighter A who lost an important duel due to freakish blow?

2. Now I want to put this behind and ask something else. 25CP vs 25CP. Wow.

How did they get 25CP? I'm really curious.

Priority 5 Attributes gives 20pts. To get max CP out of Attributes he'd have to assign 10 points to Agility and Cunning. Which means Ag6 Cu5 OR Ag5 Cu6. Either way this totals 11CP. And he has 10pts left to distirbute to 6 Attributes, meaning a 2.66 average Attribute rating.

Priority 5 Proficiency gives 20pts with a cap of 11. Which means that base CP+Prof = 22CP.

Having spent 10 Priority points he has 5 left.

He spends 3 to Edges, trades two minor Edges to one major Edge and gets Large for the +2CP bonus. For a total of 24CP at character creation.

Skills get Priority 1 (5@2) and finally Class gets Priority 1 as well (serf or slave).

So, you can't have a 25CP character right from the start. 24CP is the absolute maximum, still it is an awkward built, at least for my tastes. Add a single SA of 5 and you get a staggering 29CP for a specific situation (SA firing).

I assume that you played some sessions and they gained the required SA to advance to 25CP. If this is the case I'd be curious to know their starting build, advancement during play, and number of sessions played. Oh, but wait. I shouldn't assume anything. You said "latest test session", didn't you? So how do these guys have 25CP?!?!?!

That's great that you took your time to provide us with information what was availible for starting character. However using phrase "latest test session" kinda implies it was not a starting char. In this case I'd rather use "in our test session". We run around 15ish? bob games before we converted to something else. Stories are kinda fast paced, no fluff, centered around SAs. So on avarage they get about 3 points + drama if they roleplay nice. Every now and than a player gets a drama point for a cool idea, great planning, cinematic action or something like that. I'd say they get on avarage around 4 SAs per play. I never counted how many sessions we run but if estimation of 15 is correct, around 56 SA were availible to spend on whatever.

To satisfy your curiosity - SAs firing.
I blelieve we modified it because players wanted to do it blade style (one main SA and other releveant provide 1 extra dice).

At the same time, what's the difference?

To continue with this.

Are they both player characters? If not, why does an NPC has CP matching the PC exactly? Don't forget, NPCs don't get any SAs. That's only for PCs.

No. PC vs NPC.
So what if they have no SAs...Do all npc have to be human?

This reminds me of DnD and similar games, where the opposition gets bigger with PC advancement.

The fighter gets a sword +3? Start throwing critters that require +4. The mage gets Finger of Death? Start throwing strong Undead. Yada yada yada.

The point of point-buy story based games is to defeat this kind of inflation. BoB's "play what you want from the start" concept even more so.

But as they say, to each his own.

It seems you don't quite get gamistic approach concept so let me help you.
You take an official scenario that is a fixed challange and you run players against it. If they have good enough party, they make it. If not, they loose. Kinda like a computer game. But not all computer games are like this nowadays. Say, mass effect is an example. You start on level 1 killing geths and you end up on lvl 60 killing geths as well. Computer scales levels so they still provide simillar challange in order for the player not to focus on what quest he should do next, instead focusing on story (narrativism of some sort). Compare it to say, witcher 3 in which you yet again start at lvl 1 and if you go into wrong place pikeman kills you outright (let me remind you that you are considered world's top swordsman). It's pure nonsense.

So your approach is kinda gamistic one - I create a top swordsman and I will own everyone I face.
Where as I opt for a narrativist one. You create a top swordsman. You will own 99% of population without breaking a sweat. But there is no reason for you to mop floor with endless footpads. It doesn't make sense from realism perspective as well as from story perspective. You are still great swordsman but instead of bandit leaders you will face lords, elite bodyguards, famous barbarian warriors, consistant winners of knightly tournaments , ageless ancient race members of fighting-caste-using-magic with hundreds of years of profficiency using under their belt, vampires and werwolves, demonic possessed opponents and so on...

Only problem with your approach is lack of challanges. If you run a duengon in DnD that is for 1st lvl players and they have lvl 20 they will be bored as fook. Same goes for fighting a climatic fight with a boss to save the day having 25 CP + 5 SA and facing a ... 13 CP bloke. Why?

Because challange works best if it's difficult enough but not too difficult to beat. That's why computer shooters made to AAA standards have a system in place to provide illusion of a challange. You go blazing through level and never get too much ammo or armor to feel really secure. But than you make couple of bad moves, get into troubles and run away. And than you hide in different corridor and what do you find? Huge med-pack + ammo belt.

In case of duels which I think tros - based combat system is created for, I try to achieve this difficulty by providing better oppostions. It might be few opponents instead of one. But that proved to be less exciting. I usually take player's expected CP and lower it by 2-3 dice and thats how boss is made. In last session case I could afford more since this fight was not in fact real. It was sort of projection. I could allow myself more, player only had something important to loose, which can be remedied later.

3. About strategy and maneuvers being insignificant with big pools.

This I answered before.
Provide example that fits you and we can discuss it on it.

Thankfully Scoundrels kills exploding dice. And good riddance if you ask me.

Agreed.