SA dice by roll or CP

[Lance D. Allen]

I'd like to see someone attempt to skewer me with a singapore cane.. while I was wearing plate.. and while they were hating my guts.. I had kidnapped their significant other, and any other real-world SA you can think of.. do you even think for one moment that I'd be under ANY risk of danger from anyone at all on this planet in that situation? If you do, seek help.

Yes. Realistically, yes. No one, at any time, no matter how skilled or wearing however much armor is invincible. Just that level of arrogance that you proclaim right there is one reason why.

I agree with you about how SAs are applied in combat.. But not for your reasoning. You're coming from the realism angle, and realism isn't that much of a factor to many people, especially in gaming. I'm much more nodding my head with Ralph.. the main reason why SAs shouldn't be added to every roll in combat is not because it's unrealistic.. Realistically, an untrained peasant who's passionate is still an untrained peasant. He's still most likely to get his ass handed to him by a trained knight, no matter how much he cares. SAs are, point blank, unrealistic.

They're cinematic, and thematic, 100%. If you want realism, ditch SAs entirely. A lot of people who like TRoS have advocated that already. If, on the other hand, you want TRoS, then you play it both ways. The reason why SAs should not be applied to individual rolls in combat, rather than SAs, is because it makes making the hard decision less important, or with sufficiently high values of SAs, unimportant. There is very little risk when you've got 25 dice (at a maximum) added to both offense and defense.

People have mentioned that major enemies will have SAs.. and I agree that they should. But very few villains have their SAs stacked so that they'll all be firing during the climactic battle with the hero. Do you think that the six-fingered man had many SAs firing? How about any? I think not. He was simply better than Inigo. Realistically, he should have killed Inigo. But because Inigo had at least two or three SAs firing, he was able to destroy the six-fingered man in a right and proper manner.

[Ingenious]

Dude, once again I get misinterpreted.(Sorry for the length of this rant)
What I mean using that arrogant analogy.. was that even an unskilled peasant wielding a toothpick.. using the per roll method of applying SA's... has the capability of skewering a guy in plate. The number of successes one can obtain over your opponent when throwing 10 more dice than him can make that happen.

That was my point. And in that specific analogy(seeking further clarification).. I was saying that I'd be in plate, and the person attacking me would have a bamboo cane. My opponent would never be able to penetrate that plate in real life. But if the situation was modeled after TROS with the per roll method.. a peasant wielding such a thing would be capable of punching through the armor..with a freakin bamboo cane.

If strength + weapon damage is equal to toughness and armor.. all you need is 5 successes in the margin to kill someone... even less considering what a level 3 and 4 wound can do.

Example, bamboo cane with a weapon damage of strength.. against an opponent with average toughness.. and plate. (for shits and grins let's say.. 6 strength, he's a strong peasant after all of that work in the quarry or the fields). That's 6 vs 10.. without rolling an attack and defense.
Let's say that through the use of the per roll method, the opponent gets 20 dice in SA's(two SA's at 5).. atop of the reflex(say it's average of 4) That CP suddenly becomes 24(compared to JUST 4). Oh, and no training so I'm using the raw reflex score. Let's give this stick of wood an ATN of 7. Let's also use that as my DTN. My CP in plate is 11.

After doing a roll in the IRC chatroom.. here are the results: A full CP attack by my opponent, and an almost full CP defense by me(leaving one die).
-RPGServ:#TROS- <Roll for Ingenious [24[1d10]]: 10 6 4 8 2 10 9 4 9 8 8 5 10 7 4 2 5 1 1 8 6 7 5 1 > 11 successes.
-RPGServ:#TROS- <Roll for Ingenious [10[1d10]]: 1 7 1 6 9 10 2 8 6 6 >
4 successes.
Margin of success = 7.
7 successes +6 damage = 13
TO of 4, and AV of 6 = 10
Level 3 wound. With a fucking piece of wood... vs plate, by an overly amped up peasant on crack.
-RPGServ:#TROS- <Roll for Ingenious [24[1d10]]: 5 7 5 4 1 3 1 8 7 10 5 1 2 9 2 2 7 8 8 1 8 9 8 8 > 12 successes.
-RPGServ:#TROS- <Roll for Ingenious [10[1d10]]: 4 6 8 6 4 3 1 9 9 6 >
4 successes.. and all things in the equation still being equal.. that's a level 4 wound.
Did it twice just for thoroughness.

The defensive move I choose to do is irrelevant because of the gigantic CP differential. If I full evade.. where does that get me? Back to square one. Say I elect to attack instead.. that also is irrelevant. Once I commit ANY amount of dice to an attack the 24 CP peasant is free to buy initiative and skewer my ass. Let's say my perception is 5, and he pays 5 CP in order to pre-empt me. Look at the rolls below.
-RPGServ:#TROS- <Roll for Ingenious [19[1d10]]: 7 9 5 10 6 1 8 9 1 2 8 6 4 10 7 4 6 7 9 9 > 11 succeses.
Let's say I committed half my CP to that attack.. so that's 5 or 6..depending on how you round. I spend the other 5 or 6 trying to re-gain the first strike..since that is my only option...and thus my CP is also expended. Or let's just say that on red/red our reflex rolls tie(since he's using SA's on that also, getting 14 dice instead of 4). WP also ties due to the same reason. Therefore our attacks land at the same time, and my original attack of 5 or 6 dice goes as such:
-RPGServ:#TROS- <Roll for Ingenious [5[1d10]]: 3 4 3 2 1 > Zero successes. Yes, I actually rolled that.

Therefore my opponent whacks me with a bamboo pole at a DR of 17. That is a level 7 wound. Let's look at the damage tables for bludgeoning for a second and see if my character can survive the next attack..(regardless of where I was hit.. let's just look at level 5 wounds)...
Hmm, most of all of them are instant deaths, mortal wounds.. etc. What a surprise.. HAH. If he felt like skewering me(thrusting vs swinging).. I'd still be pretty much SOL.

Where's the fun in the ability of an amped up untrained peasant to mop the floor with a noble in plate? Hmmm?

Now, do you think it would be harder for the peasant to go after that noble with only the CP method? Certainly. And THAT is how I recommend doing it. Otherwise anyone can kick anyone else's ass using any weapon they feel like, manouvers in combat become pointless, attributes or proficiencies at character creation become obsolete.. and social class becomes meaningless since a peasant can just as easily shove a wooden club up your ass than the next guy. And armor? Might as well throw that in the toilet also.

Come on people, don't you see that??!!!
-Ingenious

[Thanaeon]

A couple of comments:

Firstly, I think a bamboo cane damage would be less than STR. Though that's not a big deal.

The big deal is that sure, the SA's break down at those kinds of levels - I mean, of course if you have 20 extra dice at your disposal (whether they're added to the combat pool or one roll makes no difference - you still have them, only in combat pool you can use them for two actions if you want - but the situation you described could still be done.) then that's just a serious Zen mojo you've got going on. As a GM, I'd be tempted to describe that in the style of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or another such movie - because that's the level of wackiness going on! :D

What I'd do for the sake of simplicity is that the player could add the SA's he wants to the CP for the turn. (Note how the description of Destiny on page 9 describes how it is used; realistically, that means other SA's work differently!)

[nsruf]

Let's say that through the use of the per roll method, the opponent gets 20 dice in SA's(two SA's at 5).. atop of the reflex(say it's average of 4) That CP suddenly becomes 24(compared to JUST 4).

Juts nitpicking here, but you can't throw all these 24 dice into one attack, since the SAs add per roll. You can make two attacks with 10 bonus dice each, which is still bad (although armor helps twice), but not one with 20.

Also, I wonder about how the SA thing works out in actual play. The objections to the per-roll method seem all based on theoretical examples. So asking the experienced TROS players: how does it work out? How many SA dice do characters have on average and do clever tactics really become moot if SAs are firing? Have you seen players forego advancement in order to keep a lot of bonus dice around?

[Ingenious]

Bah, a mere oversight by my part.
I'm just too damned used to the CP method. Which I advocate whole-heartedly.

As a somewhat experienced TROS player(around 55 hours of gaming)..I shall answer your question.. though I expect others to also. I'm not *that* experienced.

If I received double the amount of SA's, i.e. 20 instead of 10.. it would make selecting a manouver easy for attacks.. and would make dice allocation irrelevant. I have held back spending some SA's in order to use them.. but 2 of the 3 in use at the time were at level 3, and the other was at level 4.
Often-times it is the inverse in my case.. I spend them down to zero in order to advance my character faster.. but then I don't get to use them in the situations I normally would.. but I beleive i'd still get them. Otherwise I'd have to spend each one down to 1 in order to use them all, and get points for using them.. which I think would be a dumb idea and would really screw with the system..

However, back to the point of the per exchange thing.. I could still do a 14 die attack, and still have 10 dice in reserve.
So I'd be doing the equivalent of a full CP attack +3 compared to the other character... in the first exchange alone. It is still the same problem as before. In either exchange there will be an overwhelming differential between the opponents in the per roll method...which makes alot of key parts of the system useless.

-Ingenious
Mmmmm drag-coefficients of the human body... *droools*

[nsruf]

Well, I see the potential problem. I'm just curious if it comes up that often in actual play, as SAs may be much lower on average, or for other reasons.

Also, there seems to be one issue where the per-roll method is actually less powerful than adding dice to the pool. And this is selective application of SAs:

E.g., you are fighting two opponents simultaneously, but really hate only one of them. With the per-roll method, the Seneschal may very well decide that you only get bonus dice vs. that one opponent and not vs. the other. Whereas the pool method would allow you to split the bonus any way you like, possibly using less dice than your SA bonus vs. your hated opponent, or more dice than your proficiency vs. the other one.

Or as another example, the Seneschal could decide that SAs help you cast a spell but not resist aging. In this case, both methods grant you the same number of dice to use, but the adding to the pool allows for more flexible die allocation.

[Irmo]

Or as another example, the Seneschal could decide that SAs help you cast a spell but not resist aging. In this case, both methods grant you the same number of dice to use, but the adding to the pool allows for more flexible die allocation.

I don't think this is a meaningful restriction. If the player knows that he cannot use SA on one roll, but can use them on the other, he will simply attribute only one or two dice on the roll he can use SAs for, and use the rest for the other roll. The restriction is as such unenforceable.

[nsruf]

It may be no big deal, but I wanted to give an example where the pool method is actually better than adding dice to individual rolls. Sorry if I didn't make that more clear - in the sorcery example, you have

a) the same total number of dice either way
b) fewer restrictions on allocating them with the pool method

So if I have a Sorcery pool of 8 and may add 10 points from SA to my pool, I could decide to cast with 3 dice and resist aging with 15. Not so if I have to add the 10 bonus dice to casting.

[Alan]

a) the same total number of dice either way
b) fewer restrictions on allocating them with the pool method

So if I have a Sorcery pool of 8 and may add 10 points from SA to my pool, I could decide to cast with 3 dice and resist aging with 15. Not so if I have to add the 10 bonus dice to casting.

But if we add SAs to _both_ rolls in this same example (8 SP &  10 SA with 3 SP dice on casting) then you get 13 dice to cast and 15 dice to resist aging.  What I would do in this situation is apply only 1SP to casting, so I get 11 (1SP+10 SA) dice to cast and 16 (6SP+10 SA) dice to resist aging, leaving 1 SP in case I want to DRAW.

Likewise, I recently had a major villain who had to fight two oppoents with CP 8 and 6 activated SAs.  In one Exchange, he was able to parry one with 7 (1CP+SAs) dice and block the second with 7 (1CP+SAs) dice.  He won both and in the second exchange attacked the first opponent with 9 dice (3CP+SAs) and the second with 9 dice (3CP+SAs).

Of course, PCs had their own SAs firing; he didn't last long, but his fight was spectacular.

[thomcat]

Biggest argument I've not seen yet for *not* using the SA's per roll:

There's little penalty for splitting your pool!

Assume I have 10 SA dice firing.  So yes, with two exchanges that means a bonus of 20 dice.  But wait --- what if I make a maneuver roll to improve my combat situation?  With a 10 dice bonus, that's a piece of cake.  And then I will split my pool and attack with two weapons.  That's 10 more dice per exchange --- looks like I am up to a 50 dice bonus, for each combat round.

What, there's two of them?  Forget the terrain roll to avoid, just bring 'em on!  I'll do the "split my pool" option and gain even more bonus dice.

Aiyee!

[Alan]

Well, my villain was forced to forgoe a terrain roll in this case because of a surprise attack.  However, he used it in the next round.

Actually, I don't think the example stands as an argument for or against SAs on every roll.  It might be a litmus test that will tell you how you would prefer to play.  However, I think it would be best tested in actual play, not as a thought experiment.  I plan to test the SAs added to pools at some point.

[thomcat]

I read the "add to every roll" as meaning "besides combat", and adding it to the pool every round (as appropriate) works pretty well.  The most you will add is 25 dice to a pool, which is plenty --- but using good tactics is still wise.

I see what you are saying about "as your game style" but adding it to every roll in combat means that no PC will *ever* spend more than one die on a terrain roll --- the rest can come from an SA, and one success should be easy.  And instead of a penalty for splitting your pool, there's a bonus, which just doesn't seem right.

Can we get an example of combat with SA's from Jake's home game, so we can see how that works for ourselves?  I'm sure that's already slated for TFOB, but...