Re: +1 per 10 (was Re: Big, Small, headaches....)

From: David Cake <dave_at_...>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2003 12:39:43 +0800


At 10:38 AM +0000 21/3/03, jamesjhawkins scribbled:
>> Using augments of 1/10th doesnt seem significant.
>
>Taken out of context, but does anybody else think that +1 auto-
>augment per 10 points of ability is a little low?
>
>After all 10 points of ability costs 10HP, which is a lot.
>
>Maybe 1 per 8 would be more reasonable, leaving rolled augments at +1
>per 5.

        If you go by the rules, it doesn't make much sense after w2 - you can have a rolled augment that virtually automatically succeeds of (ability/5) -4 (ie you have a mastery augment roll).

        So the unrolled augment is a good deal for an ability of under 1 mastery (where any augment at all is chancy), but a poor deal for anything over w2.

        So the best out of ability/10 or (ability/5 - 4) is at least one sensible rule, to stop people rolling purely for the higher augment it grants (when the augment is still virtually automatic, and just slows down play).

        There are other terrible problems with the maths of augments anyway. The biggest problem is they break the logarithmic nature of HW abilities - as far as granting augments go, two abilities of w1 are equal to a single ability of w2, which is not how it should work. In a direct contest, w2 handily whups two w1 opponents. There are also issues with the first 10 being effectively free. The fix for this problem would be to make the augment based on the difference between the two abilities ie (augmented ability - augmenting ability +10)/5 or similar.

        Removing multiple augments makes the problem a lot less of an issue in play, though. You definitely need at least a rule that multiple augments using the same ability never stack even if from disparate sources (do we already have this rule?) - use the multiple casters table instead.

        Still, no one ever listens to arguments based on making the maths work.

	Cheers
		David

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