Interesting. It might help somewhat with small ability score differences, but at the really high end it won't change anything -- turning a two-mastery advantage into a four-mastery advantage still doesn't do anything to ameliorate the weird "only the weaker contestant's TN matters" problem that means if I have to face a 20w3 in a simple contest, I'd much rather have a 20 (or even a default 6!) than a 1w2! Actually, your change means that when facing a 20w3, I'd rather have a 20 than even a 1w*3*... I regard this weirdness as the most important bug to fix.
> > However, I prefer the subtraction method because it smooths
> > out all the mastery-level boundary effects, rather than just many.
>
> You might be onto something there. Certainly this has been
> suggested as an improvement for the _augmentation_ rules, so maybe
> it'd work more generally.
Right -- the augmentation suggestion was the inspiration, but I'm pretty confident all contests would suffer less from strange special cases if subtraction were used everywhere. I really want to apply this to extended contests, too, but that becomes more difficult: how does the disadvantaged party roll against a -11? Treat it as 9w-1 (meaning one bump-*down*) is probably the answer, but that seems to stack the deck against the underdog even worse. Plus the fact that *group* contests suddenly require lots more arithmetic... maybe just have each side roll against their skill alone? But then two Heroes fighting always inflict a -x2 AP loss to the other, so having the higher skill even by just one point uniquely determines the victor, and that's no fun. Hmmm. Needs more work. OTOH, the extended contest system needs somewhat less changing IMO because the multiple rolls involved tend to smooth out some of the one-die-decides-it weirdnesses.
> I'd go with how close, myself, if it's really necessary to
> discriminate that finely.
Well, I'd at least like to maintain the possibility of "Injured (-50%)" as a level between "Hurt (-1)" and "Dead".
> After all, that's what one often does "informally", when judging
> "how good a success" a given result really is. "A 2? OK, I'll give
> him the _juicy_ rumour..."
Hmm. Good point. I was just afraid this was the primrose path back into modular arithmetic weirdness land.
I think my current leaning is to roll the same contest again, and if it's a victory adjust up one level and if a loss down one. For example, a simple contest of 4w vs. 17 in my first-version alternate system is resolved as an ability test against 17, giving Complete Victory on a 1, Minor Victory on 2-17, Minor Defeat on 18-19 and Complete Defeat on 20. The modified suggestion is to roll another die: on a 1-17, Minor Victory becomes Major Victory, Minor Defeat becomes Marginal Defeat, etc.; while on a 18-20 shift Complete Victory to Major Victory, Minor Victory to Marginal Victory, etc. Yes, we're back to rolling two dice, but at least there's no chart lookup; and for sufficiently large differences (+30 or more) the second roll can't fail, so you always shift the 1-in-20 Minor Victory up to a Major.
> > For example, one species of deer in Anaxial's Roster is supposed
> > to try to augment with an ability of just *10*, which is either
> > useless or foolish under standard rules.
>
> Be fair, it's worth an expected net +0.0875, to be precise. ;-)
Hmm, 10 vs. 5 loses more often than it wins, due to the "both contestants lose" phenomenon; my calculations put the expected net at *negative* 0.12... (at least) one of our programs appears to be wrong. Remember that 10 vs. 5 is harder than 10w vs. 5w, due to the operation of the mastery cancellation special rule. A further plug: any rule based on subtraction of opposing abilities means there's no need for a mastery special rule.
Ryan Caveney
Powered by hypermail