SA dice by roll or CP

[Valamir]

An interesting question came up in the SA survey thread regarding whether groups added dice from SAs into each exchange or into the Combat Pool total.

I was astonished by how many groups do it by roll.  Doing it by roll seems to me to destroy almost all of the strategy of dice allocation in the system, so I thought I'd start this thread to describe my thoughts and then have other folks chime in on what actually happens in play like this.

A big part of the combat strategy in TROS is about dice allocation.  If I have a pool of 13 dice, do I attack with 3, with 6 with 10, etc?  That's a pretty huge choice.

So lets say you are in a fight where you are getting 7 dice from SAs.

If you add this to the CP (just like adding stance bonuses) you now have a pool of 20 dice.  You still have the same strategic choices as above, only now you have more dice to work with.  This might make the choices easier to make if fighting a now inferior opponent, or they may make it possible to employ ones usual strategy against a superior opponent, or even multiple ones...but you still have the essential interplay of -- how many dice do I throw.  Its still possible with a 20 die pool to attack with 18 dice and have only 2 dice left to defend.

It seems to me that if you add the SA dice to each roll you lose this.  It now becomes largely irrelevant what your dice allocation strategy is, because you're guarenteed a minium of 7 dice a roll anyway.  It becomes impossible to have a situation where you threw too many dice into an attack which didn't work, and are now faced with a defense where you don't have enough dice left...because no matter how few dice you have left in your pool, you know you're going to be getting an extra 7 for free.


Further, you essentially double the effectiveness of the SAs.  Instead of adding 7 dice to your 13 CP you're adding 14 in this example.  In a huge all SAs firing scene where you're getting 15 or 20 SA dice, doubling that is even more amazing.  Essentially the power of the SAs are no longer augmenting one's proficiency but overwhelming it.  This doesn't seem all that desireable to me.  Even in the Princess Bride Inigo couldn't defeat the 6 fingered man on passion alone...he had to study for years to get good enough to hunt him down.


Anyway, that's my rationale for why I think SAs should go in the combat pool, and not be added to each exchange.  But since there were so many groups adding them to each exchange out there, I figured maybe I was missing something.

How does it work in your groups?  Is it working so far largely because you haven't been engaging with very many SA dice and so the above effects haven't been noticed yet?  Is my reasoning above off? Or is it on but you actually find you prefer it that way?

[Malechi]

ahhh I mistook the question in the SA Survey.. I thought he meant added to every situation.. Skills, Attributes or CP/MP/SP.  We add them to pools, and they refresh as per pools in combat... interestingly having many SAs firing at the beginning of the round makes for some reckless play.  If a character now has 24 dice (SAs + CP) to roll, they'll tend to roll them all, thinking that the odds favour them nicely, leaving none for the second exchange.  It almost backfired in the biggest way last session with one character using all his dice in the first exchange, and only rolling two successes, luckily the opponent only rolled one success...

[Stephen]

There's definitely some merit in what you say.

At the same time, I have to favour the "SAs to every roll, not just pools" approach because it's the only way to give sorcerers the ability to be the terrifying gods-on-earth they're supposed to be without taking years off their life for it.

Do people think it would be fair to say, "You can add SAs only to your overall pool for CP and MP, but you can add them to both casting and anti-aging rolls in sorcery"?

I don't have any problem with that, myself -- sorcery is supposed to be about breaking limits and to have more to do with the power of your spirit than with physical restrictions -- but I can also understand the approach of saying, "No -- pick a rule and stick with it; I don't mind which, but it has to be consistent."

[Ian Charvill]

The other end of the spectrum, during my brief time playing, our GM would only allow SAs to add to the combat pool once in a combat - SA's didn't refresh along with the combat pool.

[Valamir]

ouch.  

Was that just a misinterpretation or did he really intend to hamstring the SAs like that?

I hestitate to say he was playing "wrong", since I guess that could be a house rule for a legitimate reason...did he understand the point of SAs as being an engine of character effectiveness?

[Ian Charvill]

Ralph

The guy in question is a hardline illusionist.  I don't doubt that he was running the rules how he felt they were written - but he was reading them with a lot of preconceptions in mind.

I don't think the text in the book is explicit enough about SAs - a lot of them seem to say 'when the Seneschal deems appropriate' or words to that effect.      

Ian

[Edge]

Yeah i think i mistook the question as well
I allow SA's to be used wherever the player feels they play a part.
If that is in combat then they go into the CP or if that is in critical negotiations then they get the dice on their Soc roll.

[Ian.Plumb]

Hi,

An interesting question came up in the SA survey thread regarding whether groups added dice from SAs into each exchange or into the Combat Pool total.

Was that what was being asked? Oh well, too late to edit the answer now I guess...

Cheers,

[Valamir]

Interesting.  

So the phenomenon of the other thread was mostly just mis reading the question?  Unless it was me misreading the question...Alan?


But regardless, then it would seem that most folks are adding their SA dice to the Combat Pool at the beginning of each round, and not to each exchange.

Cool, thanks.

[Alan]

Yeah, several people seem to have misread the CP useage question in my survey thread.  As a result, I think the data for that answer are crocked.

I think Ralph makes a good case for adding SAs to pools and not individual rolls.  I want to suggest an elaboration on that idea, but first here's my recent expereince GMing SAs.

In  our recent TROS game, (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10321" >Fire Upon Fenwyk) we decided that, when active, Spiritual Attributes added to  every roll.

This led to few complications.  For example, it didn't seem right to add five or six SA dice to a Terrain roll, so I didn't allow that.  This wasn't a big issue because the players knew they would be getting the bonus dice on the rest of their pool.  I only let players add their highest SA to a skill roll.  

Counter to the "combat is too deadly" criticism, SAs do make a huge difference.  Every combat we had involved SAs and only one PC ended up dead, or significantly wounded, after 5 sessions (each with at least one combat).

On reflection, I think I would use the following rules:

- Skill rolls: SAs can't raise the dice total beyond double the Trait.

- Combat and Magic: SAs are added to the Pools.  

- Multiple Opponents: When a character splits his pool, full SAs are added to each portion of the pool, instead of the original total.  (This allows heroic  outnumbered fights.

- SAs are never halved or quartered as a result of being prone or other disadvantage.

[Alan]

[Deleted identical post.]

[Valamir]

- Multiple Opponents: When a character splits his pool, full SAs are added to each portion of the pool, instead of the original total. (This allows heroic outnumbered fights.

I don't know that I would have thought to do that, but that could be a very good idea, especially in more heroic campaigns.  It would also make it easy to differentiate an SA that applies vs one opponent (Hate enemy #1) but not against the other.

With alot of SA's firing at once, however, you're easily getting very substantial pools from SA's alone...meaning you can take on pretty much however many opponent's there are with little difficulty...definitely requires a campaign with that added heroic bent, but well suited to the hacking through hordes kind of situation.

[Ingenious]

Well, SA's allowed me to completely chop in half a zombie in last night's session.. using the SA's given in the CP method.. along zone 3. (Arguably the easiest method of chopping someone/thing in half if using those overdamage rules..)

The attack had just enough successes for that to be possible.
(I had 10 SA points firing at the time)
But my point is, is that adding SA dice to every roll even in those largely heroic like situations where you're facing down many opponents.. is that doing so detracts from such extraordinary acheivements.. they'd be alot more common than you might think.
Which is perfectly fine if you're into that sort of adventure, where alot of people can chop someone in half on the horizontal axis.. or if someone wants go up against a moderate number of opponents.

But if you add SA's to every roll in combat, the end result is far more advantageous than I think is necessary. It would basically double the amount of SA points that you normally would be getting using the CP method. (5 SA dice net, or 5 SA dice per exchange for example.. or per opponent.)

However, it is a good thing that you guys are differentiating between opponents in the use of SA's.

My conscience kicked in a number of times in last night's session. It applied to hacking up some undead that were attacking a few peasants.
Though whenever I attacked a zombie that wasn't currently going after some of the defenseless cannon fodder.. the conscience didn't apply.

Again, I see no problem with using either method for SA's.. one just wields more potent results.

-Ingenious

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I asked this question to Jake very early in my experiences with TROS. I think you can find the threads here if you look carefully.

He said, "per roll." I gaped. Really, Jake? Yeah, he said. If you have 25 dice firing, then you can add them to your (e.g.) spell roll. And then turn right around and add them again to your resistance roll. Note that the spell dice and resistance dice are split from your whole pool.

Uh-huh. That's a big deal.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

Little lost Ron,

Are you saying you think that's the way it should be played (if so, I'd have to ask why), or are you saying that you think that answer was incorrect and you woudn't play that way?

or what?