>I don't think this applies to combat. In combat, I think even the puniest
>peasant should have the chance to land a lucky hit on his skilled
>oppressor from the knightly classes. In this circumstance I don't like
>the idea of bell curve probability and others which heavily penalise
>weaker people. I think 5% (or less in RQ) is a reasonable chance of a
>lucky hit. It doesn't happen too often to be ridiculous, but it does
>happen often enough to make it worth hoping for (or fearing about if you
>are the knightly oppressor).
It all depends on what you are trying to achieve. I'm sure you could punch out Mike Tyson if he was very unlucky and you were very lucky. But is it something that a rational person would consider? If you want a game that gives an unskilled person with a six inch knife a 5% chance to kill a skilled, alerted warrior in armor in a one-on-one fight I don't think I'd want to play that game.
Not that it couldn't happen, but the sequence of events would be somewhat extreme. Peasants with grudges are advised to use missile weapons. Weapons that can kill nobles were unpopular most places. That's why longbows never became popular in France, crossbows were "banned" by the church and the Bushi banned guns in Japan.
Delaing with people who completely outclass you in combat is better handled by player cleverness than by rule systems that encourage silly outcomes. I think it's a lot more fun to scheme up ways to kill the oppressers by stealth and guile than to use the Time Master technique of throwing a bag of rice at them (See, each hit has a 1% chance of an auto kill and a bag of rice should get dozens of hits, so. . .)
Kevin
End of Glorantha Digest V3 #186
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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