Re: Complete Successes

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_...>
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 23:15:27 +0000


On Fri, Feb 21, 2003 at 10:31:52PM +0000, Benedict Adamson wrote:
> Graham Robinson wrote:
>
> ...
>
> > We've been playing with the rule that a HP could buy a
> > bump down for your opponent if you yourself are already at a critical. Only
> > used about twice so far
>
> ...
>
> Interesting idea. One problem I've noticed is that there are situations
> with the standard rules where spending an HP will have no effect
> (failure bumped to success but they succeed better, so you still fail
> anyway).

Not _no_ effect; you're turning a Minor Defeat into a Marginal one. (Or in an EC, halving your AP loss.) Still not the best "bang for the HP buck" though, no.

> This seems to happen quite often.

Indeed, success/fail is going to be about half the outcomes between roughly equal opponents, and in the majority of situations, one's HP-bump-up will have exactly that effect. After all, chances are you failed _because_ you rolled worse than your adversary...

> Providing means for spending more than BHP and allowing HP expenditure
> to bump down might get around that problem.

BHP? I don't think Graham was suggesting bump-downs as an extra tactical option; rather that, in the situtation where, under the (rumoured/ previewed) that _effect_ of a bump-up was to bump-down (the new rule for getting "better than a crit"), you be allowed to get this effect by spending said HP, as opposed to having a special case prohibition against doing so.

Cheers,
Alex.

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