Zornhau Forums

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

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

dra wrote:

Benedict wrote: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

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

dra wrote: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.

dra wrote:

Benedict wrote: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 ...

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

thirtythr33 wrote:

dra wrote:Well my experience say otherwise.

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

dra wrote:Let me rephrase with an example...

thirtythr33 wrote:You need to keep the probabilities constant across examples, not the ratio of successes.

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

thirtythr33 wrote:Your examples are extremely misleading.

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

This has a probability of 0.36%

dra wrote: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 wrote: 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.

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.

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.

Redundant? Why? Please explain.

dra wrote: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.

dra wrote: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...

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

dra wrote: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).

dra wrote:

thirtythr33 wrote:Your examples are extremely misleading.

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

This has a probability of 0.36%

dra wrote: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.

\ 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)

thirtythr33 wrote: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"
(...)

Agamemnon wrote:

dra wrote: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.

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.

dra wrote: 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.

Korbel wrote: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 wrote: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.

dra wrote: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.

dra wrote: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.

dra wrote: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.

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

dra wrote: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.

dra wrote: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.

thirtythr33 wrote: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.

dra wrote:It is not an issue I am rising.

dra wrote: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.

dra wrote: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

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

dra wrote: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.

dra wrote: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 wrote: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.

thirtythr33 wrote:

Korbel wrote: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.)

thirtythr33 wrote: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.

Korbel wrote:

thirtythr33 wrote: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.

thirtythr33 wrote:(...)

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

*Sigh* Really?

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

Benedict wrote: 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.
(...)
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.

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