From: Mats Olsson (d4matso@dtek.chalmers.se)
Date: Wed 31 May 1989 - 09:56:33 EEST
Yet another experience system (YAES) ------------------------------------
One problem I have found with the RQ experience system is the "We've got the POW check, main weapon check and shield parry check. Let's go home and increase our skills". Some people aren't bothered by this. More power to them, but I am. Also, I cannot understand why just that one specific roll allowed me a chance to increase skill, when all subsequent rolls had no effect. I do like the way the RQ xp system automatically slows down gain rate for high skills.
Having thought about this for some time, I have come up with something that might suffice:
"If a player succeeds in using a skill but would have failed if the dice
would have been read backwards then the player is eligible for a 1% advancement
in the skill used".
Hmm... Sounds complicated. Alternative phrasing:
"A player succeeds in using a skill. Would he have failed if he read the
dice the other way? If so, he is eligible for a 1% skill gain."
Better.
Hmm... Must have forgotten the skill bonus. Can't have that. Revision:
"A player succeeds in using a skill. Would he have failed if he had read the
dice the other way and added his skill bonus? If so, he is eligible for a
1% skill gain."
What are the chances of of rolling a skill gain roll for a specific skill percentage? Hmm... well, without delving into mathematics, it should be approx (skill * (1+skill bonus-skill)), which means a bell curve, with a maximum of 25% at 50% skill, assuming a low skill bonus. Approx the same curve as for the usual RQ xp gain, I would think.
Only, if using the ordinary RQ, the number of "wasted" rolls, ie those that are rolled without chance of gaining in the skill, is much higher in skills much used, for example main weapon attack, scan and such compared to open locks, hide, survival and others. With this system, no rolls would be wasted, which would mean a much higher skill gain rate in skills much used.
Hmm... (I like humming :-))
A fast approximation of "worst case" gain rate ( for GM's that is :-)) would be approx four rolls for 1% gain. For skills seldom used, this might be ok. But if the players are doing something like 50 attacks/parries per session, they will go up 10% - 12% in those skills. Too much? I would think so.
How about saying that a skill gain does not give 1%, but only a certain chance
of gaining 1%? Low use skills might have 100%, intensely used skills such as
attack and parry might have 10%.
Personally, I would think (without having played with this system) that a d6
for attack and parry, d3 for some others, and no dice for most other skills
would be pretty good.
Not too good. This would slow down fights, as the players would have to first check if they are eligible for experience, then roll dice to see if they really gained. I do not see any need to slow down fights.
Hey! If you have to roll a dice everytime you would gain, why not roll that dice at the same time as when you roll the skill roll? This would speed things up, as the eligibility for skill gain would only be checked whenever the skill gain check dice said so.
Now, that doesn't sound too bad. A new definition:
Well, I think this has some good points, namely
Ok, I've said my bit. How about some comments?
"There's no justice, there's just us"
d4matso@dtek.chalmers.se Mats Olsson
---
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 10 Oct 2003 - 01:54:04 EEST