Chewing on proficiencies, maneuvers and combat.

[Benedict]

1. Is 2 cp activation cost bigger portion of CP 14 than 30?

You have been answered here

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.

here

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%

and here

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.

What exactly you don't understand?

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

Does CP30 provide a chance of MoSes unattainable at CP 14?

Since we are talking all this time about BoB the answer is no.

30CP will give you MoS40 with a 0.000000144480% chance.
14CP will give you MoS40 with a 0.00000000000000000001% chance.

Agamemnon however already answered you on that.

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.

and you replied that

Look, it's obvious typo.

Stop talking in circles.



If we are talking about 'Scoundrels the answer is yes.

MoS caps at the number of dice rolled.

Simple?

And a note: Provide a detailed example how one attains 30CP. Otherwise the conversation regarding CPs ends here, at least for me.

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

Does higher MoS generally mean higher mortality rate or not?

Ofcourse it does. It's like asking if the sun rises from the east. And?

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

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?

If you took the time to read the charts it would be clear to see that the "freakish blow" was not that freakish when we are talking about a 21 v 17 exchange.

The chance to get 17 successes with 17 dice is 0.415%.
The chance to get 17 successes with 21 dice is 4.542%.

See any pattern here?

It's simple. It's 10 times more likely for 21 dice to get 17 successes than 17 dice.

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

If

We run around 15ish? bob games before we converted to something else.

and

I'd say they get on avarage around 4 SAs per play

are both valid, the average SA wield is 60.
You say that

around 56 SA were availible to spend on whatever

In BoB its AG+CU+PROF
Lets assume that the character in question had Priority 4 Attributes: Ag4+Cu4= +8CP and Priority 5 Proficiencies: +11. Meaning his starting CP is 19. To get it to 25 he needs to raise Proficiency from 11 to 17.

Which means

Prof. | CP | SA req
11>12 | 20 | +12
12>13 | 21 | +13
13>14 | 22 | +14
14>15 | 23 | +15
15>16 | 24 | +16
16>17 | 25 | +17

for a grand total of 87 SA points.

If you played 15 sessions this means he earned 5,8 SAs per session for that to be correct.

If he got an average of 4 SAs per session he needs 21,75 sessions to be played.

With zero SA spent on anything else, meaning other advancement and narrative effects.

(insert huge asterisk here)

asterisk (*): Ofc this is an estimate, since you are not generous enough to provide facts. With the absence of facts one has to resort to hypothesis to reconstruct data/events. It's simple logic.

(huge asterisk ends here)

Numbers fortunately don't lie. They can be misinterpreted (like what you have been doing for 2 pages now) but they don't lie.

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

I blelieve we modified it because players wanted to do it blade style (one main SA and other releveant provide 1 extra dice).

You believe? Meaning what? You might have modified it? You did modify it? Not sure?

Let's say you did modify it to satisfy your players. It's ok. But it's not RAW. There's no reason debating over RAW when you have modified it. First you modify it, then you come here telling what? That it didn't work as intended? And you blame RAW for that? This is hilarious.

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

It seems you don't quite get gamistic approach concept so let me help you.

Please spare me. I've been in RPGs since 1987. I've been GMing since 1991. I've been GM and/or official arbiter at official tournaments (AD&D, D&D3, D&D4, WoD, Exalted, Shadowrun, 7th Sea, L5R) for more than 20 years. I've been playing CRPGs from the time when "Bard's Tale" and "Dungeon Master" were the coolest things in town. I've been playing WHF since '92, WH40k since '96. And I haven't even started showing off.

Thanks for the offer, but there's no help you can provide me with.

I'd never presume to offer help when none is requested. Perhaps I could help you. But only if you ask me to. Not before.

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

We can agree we disagree. Everyone can come to his own conclussions by reading what's been written. But please stop talking around in circles. Thank you.

[dra]

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).

Of course. I never wrote it is not emotional.

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.

Sure, no problem.
In wod you roll against your stats and opponent rolls against his.
In tros you have to risk spending dice on manouvers which have different effect which may be beneficial or not, assess probability and make a decision. Knowledge of manouvers and smart usage of them lets the player make his character stronger than his stats would suggest. Equipment choices are more meaningfull.

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

So you see no difference in risk assesment of say rolling k100 against your close combat in WFRP vs tros-based combat?

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.

You never won a duel in tros based combat system due to better manouvering?

Apart from this, a short rhetorical question.

(...)
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.

Above is example of unnesecary work. Nowhere did I suggest to scale AC or wound levels.
All I said is puny and huge pools will tend to produce more freak results than medium.

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

This is werid question.
There was exchange of opinions here regarding cap on profficiencies. I provided mine. You started a discussion saying my observations were incorect. If dev would come and say, yea, it may be so but we made a choice during system design and decided to leave it like this, I'd have nothing against it. Yet you started arguing that my observations are not true. Which is funny as you were suprised not so long ago there is no cap.

Issue of overbloated CPs is not something I invented. I read it first at trosfans forums and didn't see a problem in it. I thought , believe it or not, that it only occurs vare rarely and even if it happens, both CPs will be overbloated so increased defense dice will negate increased offense dice. After encountering it many times I see exactly why it might be a problem. Whatever statistics say, weird results happen when you roll with high CPs...

Blade and bob made an improvement with this phenomenon. At the same time they both increased starting CPs. Bob additionaly decreased wound levels by 1. Bob also equilised most TN and invented exploding dice.

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.

Of course it is.
I'd never waste time with something I'd think I'd have problems having fun with.

If all else fails you can always narrate "Not quite dead yet" for 3 SA.

Unless it solves nothing.

Or your buddy can Parry that finishing blow by invoking "In the nick of time" for 2 SA.

Can he parry the blow? I believe it only let's smn intervene as jump in between rounds or sth?
Regardless, what if friend is half a city away ?

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.

Which suprises me since you do not see a need of player skill in it.

However, I offer opinion. The argument is yours. It kinda looks like this:

Me: This here might look better.
You: No it can't. It's perfect. Your explanation makes no sense.
Me: It does, it may lead up to that and that.
You: Stop arguing!

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.

So if it has a bigger ratio (is cheaper?) does it mean that manouvers are cheaper? That there is less risk assesment? Because cost of loosing one die in next exchange is miniscule comparing to if you had low cp?

That illustrates why a 20CPer fights better than a 10CPer. As I explained above.

Noone questions character skill here. Only lower amount of player skill required.

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.

I believe I did. It was not me who ventured into what makes a good GM and what amount of dice is good for defence and what isn't.
If you dislike an example : provide yours.

[Benedict]

First read what I posted above.

Then understand that we are all arguing here. Everyone provides reasons why he supports or opposes an idea or suggestion, or the process of explaining these reasons.
That's what argument means. The funny thing is that when you are confronted with facts and data you disregard them.

I do not know you, you do not know me, and life is fine as it is.
I don't have anything personal against you, even if you do get under my skin, mainly for the following reasons:

• You keep ignoring facts.
• You talk around in circles.
• Your suggestions, opinions, or whatever you might call them, are pure unsupported factoids.
• You are being rude.
• You contradict yourself post after post.

One thing I am considering is that English is not your strong suit. It seems to me that your syntax is in your native (Polish?) directly translated to English. Which can lead to misunderstandings, with you coming off rude.

Still it's no panacea, because I see intention behind your posts. For example :

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.

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.

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.

Look, it's obvious typo.

and then you ask again

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

when you already been answered by 3 different guys, and you admitted that the 30 v 14 comparison was a "typo". This conversation is not so funny.


To put things into place:

• If you have anything you want to tell me on a personal basis PM me.
• If you want to provide facts to support your opinion or to disprove an opinion you find wrong please do so.
• If its anecdote, unsupported opinions, "what ifs", or mere chit-chat, use the General Banter (off-topic) section of the forum here: viewforum.php?f=9

Thank you.

[EinBein]

O man. This thread and the discussion has begun to be toxic at some point.

I think we can all agree that dra is right that maximized pools also maximize statistical variance of expected successes. There are differing opinions about when exactly this is becoming a problem and if there is a need to incorporate countermeasures.

I think the higher variance is only a problem when a highly skilled fighter is opposed by another highly skilled fighter. A lowly skilled fighter (less CP) will always have lesser expected amount of successes than a higher skilled fighter. He can only win by luck (his lower chances beating the higher chances of the enemy) or poor tactics / arrogance of the higher skilled fighter. So demand for realism is satisfied here.

In regards to duels with opponents of equally exceptional skill and resulting higher mortality (more than 20 CP was the supposed limit, right dra?), 33 proposed a viable tactic that would be logic for supposedly veteran fighters to follow, if they were not suicidal (invest more dice to defending than attacking). I think none of the provided examples referred to this viable tactic until now. Anyways, we'll all have to read the new rules draft in order to see whether 33's ideas are feasible and non-exploitable with various maneuvres.

In the following, I'd like to explain my own feelings towards power levels and befitting NPC's or situations in order to challenge a player character that focuses on combat (I'll leave out the effect of firing Drives, because only players benefit from them and rarely to full extend - especially when the player is focusing on advancement, his Drives pool will be regularly emptied):
As Agamemnon explained two days ago, you can only achieve 21 CP at character creation with the coming rules build. And this comes at very high cost (19 CP being a more "realistic" limit). Advancing from 21 to 25 CP would cost 54 SA (=12+13+14+15) exclusively spent on advancement. And then: Why not? If any player is committed to play the best fighter of the universe... (please remember that he doesn't wear any armor with CP penalties yet). Let's have a look at possible opposition:

lords, elite bodyguards, famous barbarian warriors, consistant winners of knightly tournaments , [...]

The guys on dra's list would rarely - if at all - equal a fighter of above profession level. With maxed attributes, he's supposed to be one-of-a-kind already and there should be few with equal build. Combining that with equally legendary fighting skills makes him even more a hero of songs for ages to come. Does he really expect to face enemies of the same level? And why would a GM try to provide those anyways? Challenge level can be increased in so many other ways than pure CP, that he wouldn't be forced to do so ever. Why not let the player feel special for his outstanding investment? He should beat any of the above enemies if dice fall as expected (of course, even with 25 CP, you can lose against a 20 CP consistent-winner-of-knightly-tournaments). The GM could provide ambushes, two elite bodyguards at 16 CP at once, let the PC fight within a burning townhouse against an opponent who wrapped himself in wetted clothing or is otherwise less effected by the heat than the PC, damage his blade and introduce a dice roll for possible breaking anytime he uses it for parrying or when he's being parried in order to force him to use other maneuvres, etc.

[...]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...

We're entering the realm of fantasy here. I like fantasy. Being a fan of gritty WHFRP (the low fantasy world, not the rules, and certainly not the high fantasy elements that were introduced in the later editions of the tabletop wargame). Others may have different opinions than dra and me do. Nevertheless, we had a thread on these very forums where we discussed how to use skeletons in the BoB ruleset, and even though they'd certainly not have high CP's, they make dreadful foes. In the same spirit, I wouldn't necessarily push CP of other "fantastical" foes to the limit. I would try to find ways to increase dreadfulness on other levels:

• The chaos warrior melted in his age-old demonic plate armor for example. Why does he need CP 25 when he has armor 7 on any part of his body? Additionally, his armor would be covered with spikes, making attempts to wrestle him down dangerous at best!
• The vampire would have powerful regeneration and hideous magic tricks up his sleeve, paired with inhumane speed. But not necessarily paired with equally high profession level.
• The Werewolf would take advantage of superior senses and manoeverabilty in the dark and dense forest, along with great regeneration and frightful howling. Again, he doesn't need equally high CP in order to teach manners to your player fighter.

Anyways, these ideas don't solve dra's concerns. Just 33's tactical advise on "how to stay alive when having high CP and fighting another guy with equally high CP" do to some extend, if the rules to come support it. I'd say, "stay calm and wait on". Then discuss again.

[Benedict]

O man. This thread and the discussion has begun to be toxic at some point.

Couldn't agree more.

I think we can all agree that dra is right that maximized pools also maximize statistical variance of expected successes. There are differing opinions about when exactly this is becoming a problem and if there is a need to incorporate countermeasures.

No one denies that. But its entirely different to find a sweet spot than talking about hypothetical out of bounds CPs, like 30 or 60.

I'd say, "stay calm and wait on". Then discuss again.

Couldn't agree more. After all 'Scoundrels public build isn't public yet.

[dra]

I think we can all agree that dra is right that maximized pools also maximize statistical variance of expected successes. There are differing opinions about when exactly this is becoming a problem and if there is a need to incorporate countermeasures.

Not all...oh wait.

No one denies that.

I think the higher variance is only a problem when a highly skilled fighter is opposed by another highly skilled fighter. A lowly skilled fighter (less CP) will always have lesser expected amount of successes than a higher skilled fighter. He can only win by luck (his lower chances beating the higher chances of the enemy) or poor tactics / arrogance of the higher skilled fighter. So demand for realism is satisfied here.

Granted.

In regards to duels with opponents of equally exceptional skill and resulting higher mortality (more than 20 CP was the supposed limit, right dra?), 33 proposed a viable tactic that would be logic for supposedly veteran fighters to follow, if they were not suicidal (invest more dice to defending than attacking). I think none of the provided examples referred to this viable tactic until now. Anyways, we'll all have to read the new rules draft in order to see whether 33's ideas are feasible and non-exploitable with various maneuvres.

I believe I did. Block to open for all dice, use higher MoS to gain huge advantage over opponent in next exchange. Any example is welcome.

Let's have a look at possible opposition:

lords, elite bodyguards, famous barbarian warriors, consistant winners of knightly tournaments , [...]

The guys on dra's list would rarely - if at all - equal a fighter of above profession level. With maxed attributes, he's supposed to be one-of-a-kind already and there should be few with equal build. Combining that with equally legendary fighting skills makes him even more a hero of songs for ages to come. Does he really expect to face enemies of the same level? And why would a GM try to provide those anyways? Challenge level can be increased in so many other ways than pure CP, that he wouldn't be forced to do so ever. Why not let the player feel special for his outstanding investment? He should beat any of the above enemies if dice fall as expected (of course, even with 25 CP, you can lose against a 20 CP consistent-winner-of-knightly-tournaments).

And that's the whole point isn't it?
To provide enemy that is tough but not too tough. And why do that? If a player invest so much in combat he does not expect his part of the sessions to revolve around academic debates and pickpocketing, does he ?

The GM could provide ambushes, two elite bodyguards at 16 CP at once, let the PC fight within a burning townhouse against an opponent who wrapped himself in wetted clothing or is otherwise less effected by the heat than the PC, damage his blade and introduce a dice roll for possible breaking anytime he uses it for parrying or when he's being parried in order to force him to use other maneuvres, etc.

Could and should, yes.

In the same spirit, I wouldn't necessarily push CP of other "fantastical" foes to the limit. I would try to find ways to increase dreadfulness on other levels:

• The chaos warrior melted in his age-old demonic plate armor for example. Why does he need CP 25 when he has armor 7 on any part of his body? Additionally, his armor would be covered with spikes, making attempts to wrestle him down dangerous at best!
• The vampire would have powerful regeneration and hideous magic tricks up his sleeve, paired with inhumane speed. But not necessarily paired with equally high profession level.
• The Werewolf would take advantage of superior senses and manoeverabilty in the dark and dense forest, along with great regeneration and frightful howling. Again, he doesn't need equally high CP in order to teach manners to your player fighter.

I kinda do simillar things.
Yet if you want your vampire to be inhumanely fast after "burning" blood, you should increase it's agility , speed and cunning which in turn would increase CP. High CP do not exclude other features. Say werewolf. I would give him inhuman speed, strenght, ability to heal itself 1 wound level per round unless hit with special material, extra dice for terrain rolls (jumping between opponents). In his case, players are needed in 2 or 3 strong group to survive.

Even legendary human swordsman can be considered lunch for superhuman.

[Benedict]

Why so shocked?

I said "No one denies that. But its entirely different to find a sweet spot than talking about hypothetical out of bounds CPs, like 30 or 60." I was clear.

Don't quote what is convenient and omit the rest.

[dra]

Why so shocked?

This is what I say:
CP of 20 is more random than 17. CP 25 is more random than 20. And by hyperbole, CP 30 and CP 60 is even more random.


If we can all agree that high cp is more random, than why not cap profficiencies?

[Benedict]

Because you are talking about a build that will be replaced soon by other rules.

Now initial absolute max is 24. I'm guessing that in the new build initial max would be something like 16. 8 dice is a huge difference.

It also means that to get from 16CP to 25CP one must spend 144 SA points. This translates in years of playing. I doubt any character will live that long.

Too much time spent on debating on something unknow.

[dra]

Because you are talking about a build that will be replaced soon by other rules.

I am not talking about any build.
I am talking about tros-based combat in general.

[Benedict]

I am not talking about any build.
I am talking about tros-based combat in general.

My mistake: I thought we were discussing about the proposal of enforced Proficiency caps in 'Scoundrel. Which led to debating over BoB's rules.

Your mistake: You are talking about TRoS-based combat in general. In a place where a very specific rule set is being discussed. Namely 'Scoundrels.

[dra]

Your mistake: You are talking about TRoS-based combat in general. In a place where a very specific rule set is being discussed. Namely 'Scoundrels.

Weird.

It seems that it is only you that cannot accept the fact that those are practically simillar. Simillar enough to transfer experiences from one to another adjusting them by differences. This is what Agamemnon wrote in first post of this topic

For those who might be nervous right about now, rest assured that the core tenants of our combat system remain the same. CP split between a two-tempo round to fuel maneuvers that have to target specific wheels, etc.

also

We previously simplified some things that other TROS games didn't. Almost all of these, I'm still perfectly fine with. At the moment, with the new maneuver spread, one has me reconsidering:

Other....Tros...games...
What I am talking about is general tros games combat occurences that happened in tros, happened in blade, happened in bob and most likely will happen in scoundrels if nothing is to be done about it. Wheter it's important to do something about it or not it is different story alltogheter. There you can argument that "yeah, it happens rarely" or "this is not worth limiting player's will".
Instead you argued that it doesn't happen which obviously I defended. The rest is in post and I regret you deleted that part where your ego got better of you

[Benedict]

Instead you argued that it doesn't happen which obviously I defended. The rest is in post and I regret you deleted that part where your ego got better of you

I deleted it by mistake, not by some ego trip. I tried to retrieve it but sadly I cannot. I already informed the team about it.

But please, post it again if you want. I am not going to delete anything.

[Agamemnon]

O man. This thread and the discussion has begun to be toxic at some point.

Agreed.. and after however many pages of posts this has gone on, I'm going to say that I don't really grok what's being debated here.

I've got a limited amount of time to spend on these sorts of things, so you'll have to forgive me if I summarize and paraphrase at times rather than go back and dig up every single quote. If' in so doing I misunderstand or seem to misrepresent what you meant to get across, call me on it and direct me to the passage in question. It's all kinda blurry and I just wrote 5,000 words on herbal supplements. My brain is completely fried.

Variance according to CP size.
The first issue to come up was that the higher the CP, the higher the variance. Mathematically, that's going to be true and no one is arguing otherwise. The problem isn't inherently that this happens, otherwise we could point to 12cp v 12cp as a problem just the same was we could point at 30cp v 30cp. The problem is at what point this variance becomes enough of an issue that we care about it.

As I understand it, dra argues first that above 17 or so CP the statistical variance starts making the outcomes more based around luck than skill because the dice get so swingy. Thirtythr33 runs the math, because he's better at that sort of thing than I am, and provides us with useful graphs.




Even at 30CP v 30CP, neither side is liable to open with more than 20 dice at a time. The difference between 5v5 dice and 20v20 dice is only 1.2MoS different in terms of even swing on average. If you want to look at AC impact on a pool at various sizes, we can see that at 15 and higher, even dice have a 43% chance of success for either party. If we look at the second chart, being two dice below your opponent at 20 dice reduces your chances of hitting from 43% to 32%. Is this higher than at smaller pools? Yes. Does it make maneuver choice insignificant? it's greater than a 10% difference. I'd still call that worth considering, in the same way that I'd consider the TN shifts worth considering.

The Freakish Roll issue.
The next point raised was something along the lines of "but freakish rolls are possible and get worse as die pool size increases." Again we need to break down what this problem actually means. If the goal is to make it so that freakish rolls simply can't happen, then we can never have a die pool higher than 4, as you can get to DR0 unarmed and MoS5 means I can kill someone in a single blow. If we make it any higher, then we are accepting that the bar isn't "it should be impossible." The bar is "at what point is the likelihood of a freakish roll statistically important enough to worry about?"

Personally, I don't think this is worth spending too much time worrying about. Even within the sweet spot given of 10-17CP/side, you're going to have a moment where someone throws down 10CP and gets 8 successes to their opponent's 2 and they are just dead. It's just the nature of the dice. Even as the variance goes up at higher CP, is this necessarily a huge problem? It means that a fight between incredibly skilled combatants could be a ridiculous slugging match, or it could be over with a single blow. Both have precedents in fiction and reality. Musashi was all about that nonsense. Or hell, watch Swordfish and see the HEMA guys go at it. Very often it's a lightning-quick exchange ending a blow that would have murdered the opponent.

Combat in the game is meant to be fast-paced and brutal..and if players run afoul of it, they have options that NPCs don't. Not Quite Dead Yet, Grin and Bear it, In the Nick of Time.. to say nothing of the fact that they will often have an SA firing which gives them a total dice advantage even over equal opposition, allowing them to pick fights outside of their weight class if they really wanted to. And, of course, part of the point of having a combat system as deadly as this is was that players needed to pick their battles wisely and actively seek ways to get the upper-hand even before the fight starts. "Play Smart" isn't just about the maneuver choices.

Bottom line, I'm not sure this argument is one to really worry about. If we're going by statistics, then it's a non-issue, and if we're ignoring statistics, then any time we are rolling more than 5+(the difference in my DR and your AV) dice, a freakish roll can happen.


On Caps
Caps pose an interesting issue by themselves. Even if we assume that proficiency caps should exist just because attributes and skills cap at 10, then the maximum base pool is 20 (10 reflex+10 prof) and the default maximum becomes 25 with SAs firing. Off the bat, this is already way outside of the sweet spot that is being argued about, and only one point off of the current character creation maximum anyway.

So, on the one hand, with that limit, we would already not actually mechanically enforcing the "Sweet spot" range. On the other hand, what it will do? Ensure that the people who want to make combat monsters wind up maxing out their Agility and Cunning post-character creation (raising their CP universally) instead of continuing to work on the thing they actually wanted in the first place - the weapon they had in mind for the concept.

Which is more obnoxious and seems less natural? A character with Agility 10, Cunning 10, and Longswords 10... Or a character with Agility 6, Cunning 4, and Longsword 15?

I'd rather see more of the latter than the former.


On Challenge

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...

I don't follow your use of gamist and narrativist here at all. In fact, it seems like you're using them backwards. His version claims that because in the narrative you are the best swordsmen, you are, in fact, the best swordsmen -- that sounds like a narrative approach. On the other hand, you're arguing that your opposition must mechanically scale with you in order to remain a challenge... I don't see how that's not the gamist position here.

This is why people hate GNS, by the way. No one can agree on what those words actually mean in context half the time.

Games can be built with one of two assumptions. The first assumption is that you start as the equivalent of a level 1 character and gain power and ability through play over time, eventually becoming big damn heroes/badasses in the process. The second assumption is that you're creating big damn heroes from the start and that your power level reflects that. 'Bastards takes that assumption from the start. You can start out the bat as one of the best, if not the best swordsmen in the setting because we want you to start off as the kind of protagonist that you're going to read about or watch a movie about. With the exception of Hero's Journey stuff, the characters in question are badasses from the start. There is no part of The Witcher book series in which Geralt has to level up to be good at his job. You yourself point out the absurdity that in the video games you need to grind for levels to get the character to live up to their concept. On the other hand, no one forces anyone to build their character around maximizing CP for a specific weapon. I've yet to see any character in my group come close to maxing out their CP at character creation.. and even if they did, I fail to see how "I want my character to be the best possible swordsman" is less valid than "I want to be the best possible thief."

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.

The "level 20 in a 1st level dungeon" is a bad comparison from the start because the difference between a level 1 and a level 20 character in D&D is almost peasant to demigod. Depending on your edition, a level 20 can survive literally 20x the amount of punishment that a level 1 character can. They can walk through flames and all kinds of nonsense. There is nothing in our game that ever lets you get anywhere near that much more powerful than anyone else. Even if you made a dude with 30CP, you're screwed if you're surrounded by even mediocre opponents or if a smartass with a crossbow gets a bead on you. TROS was literally built as a protest against this issue. Norwood himself points out that he started the project because his high level fighter survived a fall off a cliff with arrows through him and kept on jogging like he was fine.

The second issue is working off of the logic of "A boss encounter." The very concept doesn't work well in a game like ours. Even if you give him 30CP to the player's 15CP, a three-on-one won't go very well for him. Even a two-on-one is pushing it, and then you'd have to come up with a damned spectacular explanation for how this character had 30CP in the first place.

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.

This is the exact opposite of how I would advise handling this. The numbers have meanings. If someone is supposed to be a really skilled opponent, it's perfectly reasonable for an NPC to have a prof anywhere from 8-10. That's in the realm of "normal achievement." If you really want this to be a famous one-of-a-kind opponent, you can get away with a little higher. I don't like ever going above 11 simply because that's what PCs can start with, but if you can push it to 15 or so before you start to look ridiculous. Add in another 4-6 from reflex (unless you're going to make it a point to describe him as crazy-ass clever AND agile, all of which should have been described and incorporated into the character well before the actual fight happened) and you can create an NPC swordsman who will make a decent challenge for just about any PC. Even if said PC has a higher die pool, the NPC can always have better resources, armor, minions, whatever than the PC does to even things out.

The moment you decide "NPC=Player's CP-3" you're creating a Dragon Ball Z spiral in which each opponent winds up having to make the last opponent look like a chump and it makes you wonder where Big Bad The Sixth was at with his 42CP back when we thought Big Bad 2 was scary with his 25. Worse, you wind up with the 3.5 D&D situation where characters never really feel like they are getting better at things because the higher your scores get, the higher the rolls you need are. You're only ever just barely good enough so you wind up feeling like you needing to maximize every possible number because the moment you went from 40 to 45AC you noticed all the enemies your DM went from 30AB to 35.

I've argued before that after a certain point, it's just not worthwhile to keep advancing your CP because you're already better than 99% of stuff you're going to fight. I see now why you didn't find that a worthwhile argument -- because you're not modeling the world as it is, you're modeling the world as a game. Which is fine, you can do whatever you want, but that's not really how the system is supposed to work and you're going to get weird results because of it.

We are a game with a fun combat system, but we aren't a game solely about a combat system. If you have a character who has made a ridiculously masterful swordsman, then it's obvious they want to be good at being a swordsman and get into a lot of swordfights. That's great! Enjoy! But that's not where the "challenge" of the game needs to be for them. Swordfighting will probably be a part of it, but the challenge is in their SAs. What hard choices are they being forced to make? What obstacles do they have to overcome?

Compare with Skills and Attributes
On the other hand, if we're going to entertain any of the above do any of the problems occur with skill and attribute rolls? Both max out at 8 in normal people, 10 as the absolute max, and 5 points of SA.. to say nothing of dice from tools or tapping.

Is it a problem that a 15 v 15 skill roll is going to be more swingy than a 10v10 roll or a 5v5 roll? Do we need to worry about the increased possibility of a freak roll when someone's master thief throws 10 dice on a stealth roll against a Perception 5 guard and loses? What about the challenge factor? Are we going to assume that because the PC decided his player was a thief savant and got a 10 in stealth and that this particular palace only hires guards who have a ridiculous 8 perception?

If we really want to get into challenges, the guy who took a Tier 5 in skills and maxes out some social skills is going to be a bigger threat and harder to challenge than the guy who rolls around with 30CP in his back pocket.

[dra]

I don't want to repeat myself so I'll just skip to new parts.

The Freakish Roll issue.
The next point raised was something along the lines of "but freakish rolls are possible and get worse as die pool size increases." (....)

Personally, I don't think this is worth spending too much time worrying about.

And that's pretty much sums it up. If you can accept it in game design, it's your game after all.

On Challenge
I don't follow your use of gamist and narrativist here at all. In fact, it seems like you're using them backwards. His version claims that because in the narrative you are the best swordsmen, you are, in fact, the best swordsmen -- that sounds like a narrative approach. On the other hand, you're arguing that your opposition must mechanically scale with you in order to remain a challenge... I don't see how that's not the gamist position here.

First of all, challange as a word isn't written in any gaming style. It might be common or more obvious for one style than another but it is on different scale all togheter.
Second of all, I protest against treating it as worse god's child with silly remarks. Gamism is equally good, I have a player that regullary request duengon crawl sessions. It just does not suit tros very well in my opinion. Thirdly, let's see...

Gamism according to first definition I found:
A gamist makes decisions to satisfy predefined goals in the face of adversity: to win.

So you have a predifned scenario in which stats are set in stone (more or less) and players want to beat it. It does not have to be a duengon. It might be as well lord that killed your family. In gamistic approach, lord is always the same since it is a scenario to beat. If you created a good swordsman, you will beat him (most likely), if you created a scholar, you might be in trouble.

In narrative terms, it doesn't matter what stats do lord have. I want a good story. Granted, it is not literature of highest standards, rather pulp fantasy stories with clear main plot arch but is story regardless. In my story, I will have a final showdown fight at the top of bell tower with thunders flashing. And I will adjust skills of evil lord accordingly.

Having said that, I am simulationist by heart. I do not want to push the limits of the world too far. If we agree that pikeman should have say 10 CP, why his leader should have 21? That's why I wrote about opposition scaling. If you create a top, legendary swordsman you will not fight footpads in my scenarios.

Benedict said (more or less) that if he creates a top swordsman, he should be able to beat this lord with one hand eating an apple with another. Why? Because he has too good stats for this scenario. That fits predefined challange level that you have with say, DnD official scenarios. I say, yeah, you are top swordsman. But this lord is feared throughout kingdom as well...

This is why people hate GNS, by the way. No one can agree on what those words actually mean in context half the time.

Possibly. For me it's mainly about "beating the game" in gamistic and "running a story" in narrativism. In pure narrative context, you wouldn't even have stats to begin with.

Games can be built with one of two assumptions. The first assumption is that you start as the equivalent of a level 1 character and gain power and ability through play over time, eventually becoming big damn heroes/badasses in the process. The second assumption is that you're creating big damn heroes from the start and that your power level reflects that. 'Bastards takes that assumption from the start.

Well, that's just wrong I guess.
There is much more to that scale. For example once we played tros final fantasy style. Players created teenagers, stats were curbed accordingly. A squire was still a good swordsman, he just wasn't conan material yet. They did not face evil lords, vampires and stuff like this. One of the first opponents was a drunken deserter. It's just the story that took them to save the kingdom by being in right time at right place on few occasions.

At other time same gaming group picked legendary heroes. They created very strong characters not only using higher priorities at char creation but also recieving extra spiritual attributes to spend on whatever they wanted. They wanted heroic fantasy, stuff of tales, dragon slaying and saving the world. So they recieved.

Most of the time we kind of play in medium style between those two extremes. Players are top proffesionals. They are elite mercenaries, veteran scouts, top thieves and so on. They are known and respected but still have to think about other respected proffesionals.

This is why I think karma is poor mechanics (and very gamistic if you think about it). Instead at group creation I ask them "what kind of stories do you guys want". Why should a player who, say, plays for the first time or spent his karma on last campaign become a sidekick material in heroic fantasy? Because he didn't have time to amass karma?

You can start out the bat as one of the best, if not the best swordsmen in the setting because we want you to start off as the kind of protagonist that you're going to read about or watch a movie about. With the exception of Hero's Journey stuff, the characters in question are badasses from the start. There is no part of The Witcher book series in which Geralt has to level up to be good at his job.

At the same time, he got his ass whooped by Vilgefortz. Food for thought
And another great swordsman? Ciri? Got beaten by Bonhart. Won with him in the end using terrain. What a great story it is.

You yourself point out the absurdity that in the video games you need to grind for levels to get the character to live up to their concept. On the other hand, no one forces anyone to build their character around maximizing CP for a specific weapon. I've yet to see any character in my group come close to maxing out their CP at character creation.. and even if they did, I fail to see how "I want my character to be the best possible swordsman" is less valid than "I want to be the best possible thief."

It's not. Every character has a part to play in scenario.

The "level 20 in a 1st level dungeon" is a bad comparison from the start because the difference between a level 1 and a level 20 character in D&D is almost peasant to demigod.

So make it 5 lvl vs 1st lvl scenario, the point is, if it is too easy, it is simply boring. Game has to provide challanges. Be it riddles, planning, skill usage or profficiency usage. If players breeze through scenarios like wind it becomes simillar to early superman stories - plain boring.

The second issue is working off of the logic of "A boss encounter." The very concept doesn't work well in a game like ours. Even if you give him 30CP to the player's 15CP, a three-on-one won't go very well for him. Even a two-on-one is pushing it, and then you'd have to come up with a damned spectacular explanation for how this character had 30CP in the first place.

I beg to differ. For me tros combat system works greatest in duels. This is how we always run battles:
Someone commands so rolls are made for armies.
There is an important moment. Say, leader of enemies breaks our ranks with his elite bodyguards. Someone has to stop them. Top swordsman kills another mook and run acros the battlefield to cross swords with bloke who killed his wife. He defeats him, morale gets up for a moment but battle still goes wrong way. Commander decides it's time to use a crushing blow of cavalary to the side. But wait what's happening? Cavalary man can't cross section of a town that is guarded by heavy crossbow and bow fire. We need our sharpshooter player to lead his scouts to engage those bastards. We have a shooting competition. And cavalary strikes finally but not really in time. Our commander is overwhelemed. His troops now face 3 times their opponents. Our commander need to last 9 combat rounds against 3 opponents at once. If he kills one, he has untill next 3 combat rounds between someone else jumps in...

That's why I fall in love with a skirmish, it gave me a tool to really work around mass combat (not battle size but more than few fighters) in a cool and exciting way. For years though, we solved most mass conflicts with scenic duels.

This is the exact opposite of how I would advise handling this. The numbers have meanings. If someone is supposed to be a really skilled opponent, it's perfectly reasonable for an NPC to have a prof anywhere from 8-10. That's in the realm of "normal achievement." If you really want this to be a famous one-of-a-kind opponent, you can get away with a little higher. I don't like ever going above 11 simply because that's what PCs can start with, but if you can push it to 15 or so before you start to look ridiculous. Add in another 4-6 from reflex (unless you're going to make it a point to describe him as crazy-ass clever AND agile, all of which should have been described and incorporated into the character well before the actual fight happened) and you can create an NPC swordsman who will make a decent challenge for just about any PC. Even if said PC has a higher die pool, the NPC can always have better resources, armor, minions, whatever than the PC does to even things out.

Look. Wladimir Klitschko is top boxer of the world isn't he? He recently got beaten by Anthony Joshua, another top tier boxer. He got defeated by Tyson Fury which by that also has to be considered top fighter. We still have Denotay Wilder, Parker, Luis Ortiz and if we go to lower tiers, we still have some interesting contenders, all well known and great fighters who would mop the floor with 99,9% of population of other boxers.

And that's just boxing. We have also UFC, we have martial arts , we have streetfighters and you can always go with buddist monks that are unknown but potenially great opposition to our great, top fighting , legendary imagined PC. If a player create maxed boxer, does it mean he has no meaningfull opposition equal to them?

I see it simillar with sword fighters. There were for sure some legendary fighters everywhere in the world. In Poland for example there was Zawisza Czarny, which is unlikely to be ever heard about if you are not Polish. He won several tournaments in Europe, at the same time, there were most likely several other knights of his time in Europe that were undefeated. I can see how some elite bodyguards, top veteran soldiers and so on still posess a challange for Zawisza.

The moment you decide "NPC=Player's CP-3" you're creating a Dragon Ball Z spiral in which each opponent winds up having to make the last opponent look like a chump and it makes you wonder where Big Bad The Sixth was at with his 42CP back when we thought Big Bad 2 was scary with his 25.

No because as I wrote many times, difficulty level raises. First they kill a bandit leader. They find out that bandits are sponsored by one of the lords in order to create chaos in the realm to make king look weak. So they go against the lord. They face his important man. Kill him. That makes him angry, he sends assassins. They got wiped. Eventually they will face evil lord's right hand. And after that evil lord himself. And than they will find out, that lord is just a tool in hands of darker forces...And we con go with extranatural...It is all very natural, story driven, not stats driven.

Worse, you wind up with the 3.5 D&D situation where characters never really feel like they are getting better at things because the higher your scores get, the higher the rolls you need are. You're only ever just barely good enough so you wind up feeling like you needing to maximize every possible number because the moment you went from 40 to 45AC you noticed all the enemies your DM went from 30AB to 35.

Yeah, we have one powergamer in our group and players often take a laugh from his outcries, that he would like better armor, better stats and so on
They don't have feeling they need to get better. They want to make cool stories. They know the whole progression is just an illusion and we keep it in there just to make this poor fella have his advancment.

Anyway, for gamistic systems progrssion means being able to beat higher level monsters. For narrativist it's about progressing in the story, isn't it?

I've argued before that after a certain point, it's just not worthwhile to keep advancing your CP because you're already better than 99% of stuff you're going to fight. I see now why you didn't find that a worthwhile argument -- because you're not modeling the world as it is, you're modeling the world as a game. Which is fine, you can do whatever you want, but that's not really how the system is supposed to work and you're going to get weird results because of it.

It's not how I model it. But let's for the sake of argument assume so.
So you design a game, see a flaw that makes it not work as it suppose to and... blame potential player?
Do you want to make a game for your own group or for general population that might run zillions of sessions with it?

We are a game with a fun combat system, but we aren't a game solely about a combat system. If you have a character who has made a ridiculously masterful swordsman, then it's obvious they want to be good at being a swordsman and get into a lot of swordfights. That's great! Enjoy! But that's not where the "challenge" of the game needs to be for them. Swordfighting will probably be a part of it, but the challenge is in their SAs. What hard choices are they being forced to make? What obstacles do they have to overcome?

Does one exclude another?

Compare with Skills and Attributes
On the other hand, if we're going to entertain any of the above do any of the problems occur with skill and attribute rolls? Both max out at 8 in normal people, 10 as the absolute max, and 5 points of SA.. to say nothing of dice from tools or tapping.

In short, yes.
Huge pools of skill rolls make skill rolls kinda akward. Was it not in bob that 10+ dice rolls were deemed automatically succesful? Why?