From: Joerg Baumgartner (joe@sartar.toppoint.de)
Date: Wed 16 Jun 1993 - 04:10:08 EEST
Boris writes:
> 1. THE CASE FOR CHARISMA
> I'm sorry, folks, but I know LOTS of really brainy people that don't have
> the first clue in social situations (myself included, except I'm not sure
> I meet the first criterion). And I know lots of clueless twits who breeze
> through social matters easily. Basing skills such as Bargain, Beg, Fast
> Talk, Orate, or Savoir Faire (which Custom, a knowledge skill, really
> doesn't cover) on INT is silly. CHA would be much better. Another thing,
> having some upper limit on bound spirits would be handy. CHA in RQ2 had
> that function, and it makes some sense. There is no such limit currently.
> So it seems to me there is a hole in RQ3 and in the current draft that
> CHA would fill. I wouldn't get rid of the communication skills, as Loren
> seems to be advocating (correct me if I'm wrong here). Elvis may not have
> been very good at acting, and Hitler may have been a lousy haggler, but
> that's just because they never tried to develop those skills. Keep the
> skills, and base them on, say, CHA + INT/2 + POW/2 - 20. Which leads me
> nicely to point #2.
All this makes a lot off sense to me. I'd back this in conjunction with the
skill (Craft?) appearance. Give most women a higher cultural base chance on
it (except in Esrolia or Trowjang), and we have APP in new appearance.
> 2. THE CASE FOR POW
> Yeah, I realize that POW goes up and down a lot. However, divorcing it
> completely from skills is a cure worse than the disease. I agree with
> Paul, if we remove POW from all skills but magic, what the hell ARE we
> measuring? How are we to have any clue to a real world analog to POW if
> all it's used for is to cast spells? I always saw POW as much more than
> just the amount of magical energy someone could use. It's also Willpower,
> Drive, Luck, and many other things. As such, it should be a factor into
> many skills. It wouldn't bother me a lot if it were a secondary add in
> nearly everything, I see it as that encompassing.
This only leads to discarding of low POW characters, since those won't make
it anywhere in Gloranthan society. Don't include POW everywhere, and then
exclude unlucky players' characters from everythingwhere POW is important.
The POW fixes Paul advocates would include POW even in attack skill.
I always figured that "luck" is expressed by rolling dice, and that "skill"
is represented by the statistical chances.
> That said, what would be a cure for the problem of refiguring skills each
> time POW changes? Well, what we have always done is ignore it. Skill
> bonuses are added in when skills are learned. You use them when checking
> for skill increases, as a modifier to the die roll or the hours spent in
> training, but if POW (or STR or CON or anything else) goes up or down, the
> skills don't change. The only exception is from the effects of magic;
> Coordintation 4 would add 8 to all DEX skills, Suppress INT 5 would
> subtract 5 from all INT skills. But that is as much due to the nature of
> the magic as anything else, IMO. This fix very simply eliminates the
> problem, and allows POW to add it's influence where it should.
An even easier fix: Describe exactly how Coordination and like spells
influence skill categories, and what the heck, make each 2 points of Strength
plus 1d4 on damage. Or call them direclty like the skill categories. This is
a rewrite, isn't it? No great change, a few new names, and keep the old ones
as optionals, and everybody is happy.
> I also like Paul's suggestion of making maximum POW based on original POW.
> This will add more variation in characters, and tend cause players to
> devote more points to POW in point build games. Many times I've seen
> people drop their POW 2-3 points below what they want, to raise another
> characteristic, knowing they would recover it in pregame experience.
> Basing max on original would tend to limit such behavior.
Just explicitly forbid that praxis, and keep things as they are. Else you get
born priests as well as born losers, and almost nobody likes to play the
latter. Rather let me play a slave than a character damned to inactivity
because of low initial and thereby permanently low POW!
> BTW, I do like the idea of balancing each skill category in regards to
> characteristic modifiers. This fixes something I was always dissatisfied
> about in RQ3.
> 4. FATIGUE
> I'll have to cast my vote against the die roll mods also. Making a lot of
> stupid mistakes is better modelled by a skill modifier, and lowering the
> autofailure level as someone suggested (sorry, I forgot who). Getting
> tired shouldn't make catastrophic mistakes 10-20 times more likely. It
> doesn't make sense, folks.
I liked the autofail increase coupled to chance of success decrease. And don't
tell me you cannot calculate specials or crits for 20% mali - you can
perfectly well for combat boni and mali.
> 5. SPECIAL COMBAT OPTIONS
> These should either be made much easier to learn (say, no learning at all
> required) or much easier to perform (say, not requiring a special to
> succeed). As it is, very few will even bother. Tom Zunder's proposal
> in the 6-4 RQ Daily makes sense; allow skill masters to learn the
> maneuvers much like the ki skills in RQ:Nihon. Starting chance is less
> than the current case, but it can be improved much more easily.
I support this, but maybe use the RQ3 martial arts mechanic instead: a
separate skill, either with increased difficulty, or without experience
rolls. Don't involve MP expenses!
> 6. SKILL VS SKILL
> Every scheme I've see so far involves additional rolls, and/or doing non
> trivial calculations (by non trivial, I mean something other than adding
> or subtracting. I personally don't have a problem with taking the nth
> derivitive of the skill, but some of my players are art-school types [hi
> Rebecca] so let's please keep this simple).
>
> The simplest method I've seen proposed was by (I think) Nick Brooke, who
> suggested doing it Pendragon style; if all rolls are of the same level of
> success, whoever rolled highest in that level wins. One roll, no math.
> Unfortunately it's somewhat counter RQ, where the low roll is always best.
> So, instead say whoever rolled the most under the level needed wins. One
> roll, some math, but only subtraction. Or even easier, though not as fair
> to those with high skills, whoever rolled lowest in the level of success.
> So if Clumsy Joe rolled an 05, barely a special of his skill of 25, and
> Graceful George rolls a 7, easily special in his skill of 89, Joe wins.
> But if Joe had rolled a 6, it would no longer be a special, and George
> would win. This is not as satisfying as the other, but is very simple.
> I wouldn't mind either one. But after the initial roll, to divide the
> skills by 10 and compare with another roll on the resistance table? A bit
> too complicated, IMO.
I'd say stick with th eresistance roll, but do something about the resistance
table. It's too linear for my taste. I'm not quite convinced about the
exponential character of characteristics, and even less when it comes to
comparing skills. So delinearize the table, and make it a table worth
including, or better an algorithm easy to calculate. Any mathematical
genius on board? I couldn't think of the perfect solution to this yet.
-- -- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de 0,,
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