Re: Re: Dropping Action Points

From: Roderick and Ellen Robertson <rjremr_at_...>
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2000 09:59:36 -0700

> 1. Somone in a very early post (sorry I can't find it at the moment)
> pointed out that in a contest between an ability 4W and an ability 4,
> when BOTH succeed the low ability is disproportionally liable to win
> the contest.

> One way to avoid this is to revert to the Pendragon dice result where
> the HIGHEST roll wins. Unlike Pendragon though, 1 remains a critical
> and of course criticals always beat normal successes. The 4 can still
> beat the 4W but must now roll 4 or less but higher than the 4W -
> possible but less likely.

Here's the breakdown:

Roll        no-mastery        1-mastery
1            Critical               Critical
2-4         Success             Critical (because of Bump)
5-19       Failure               Success (because of Bump)
20          Fumble               Failure (because of bump)

If you go with High-Roll wins, then the Mastery guy will win every time (barring rolling a "20"), because there is no way that a good roll by the no-mastery guy will both be a better result *and* a higher rolled number than the 1-mastery guy (assuming the target number is the same except for the mastery difference).

Frankly, if the no-mastery wins with such a low target number, he deserves to win!

Roderick