From: Paul Reilly (paul@phyast.pitt.edu)
Date: Fri 02 Jul 1993 - 00:48:10 EEST
On extended tasks like maintaining armor or other equipment, just looking
at the skill level makes a lot of sense. Do you really want to roll
Armoring x 3 every time you fix a rivet? Obviously for some tasks you
are averaging over the results of hundreds of rolls, thus a straight skill
level is appropriate. (There are some examples of this in RQ III, like
scribing the runes of Enchantment.)
In our campaign we use opposed tests of skill like those in Pendragon
(as I've described before.) An additional rule sometimes used is that
you can boost your _chance_ of success by only trying for a low level of
success. It works like this (feel free to refine & improve this if you like):
Tasks are categorized according to success levels. The standard Sartar
Harvest Dance might be very easy, a successful performance is any
Normal 10 or better. A man with a 50% Dance skill who wishes to stay out
of the spotlight can go for only the basic success level (giving up any chance
of a special or critical), which is Normal 10. His skill is 50%, the difference
between the success level he is trying for and his skiill is 40%, so he
gets a 40% bonus. He has a 90% chance of achieving that Normal 10 level
of success, and cannot critical or special. His success level is a Normal
10. He will only fumble on a 00% (based on his boosted % chance), reflecting
the fact that he isn't trying any fancy moves.
Another example: Say turning out good spearpoints takes a Normal 50
on Armory skill. A weaponsmith with a 75% skill can choose to turn out
normal standard spearpoints with this level of success virtually guaranteed,
(5% chance of autofailure) but will not special or crit. If he wants to try
to make a really good spearhead (a la Dragonslayer) he does his usual roll
and hopes for a high success level or a crit.
This system may need tweaking on some numbers but the basic idea is sound:
a competent person can choose to do something easy.
I don't know if such a system is needed or not, but would like to hear
what others think.
- Paul
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