compilation of house rules

[svenlein]

A while back Jake said he was going to put up all the house rules that have been developed on this list, I am really looking forward to this.  If need be people can send me the house rules: sgalthoff@icqmail.com and I will put them in a nice format so Jake and easily put them on the web page.  Here is the house rules I have so far:

Rapier Damage (various people):
St + 2 or St + 1

Suggested Katana Stats (Jake Norwood):
Cut
ATN 5
ST + 2 damage, -2 vs. metal armors
Thrust
ATN 7
ST dam, or maybe ST +1
DTN 7
Cut (0)
Thrust (1?)
Counter (2 or 3?)
Iai (a quick-draw maneuver that I wrote for TFOB)
and maybe a few others.

Flails:
Were any house rules suggested?

Danish Broadaxe (kviksverd):
2H, long
ATN: 6 ( or 7 (Jake) )
DTN: 9
Damage: ST+3c
Notes: as for Hand Axe

Parrying a bare hand attack with a weapon (Valamir):
If you succeed in the parry by more than 0 you do damage equal to Difference in Successes + St + Weapon's damage modifier

Parrying a weapon with bare hands (Wolfen):
I'd say that if you successfully parry a cut with your hand, that you apply damage from the weapon + the attacker's successes, minus your cumulative successes from the defense. Like so:
Tiberius swings on Julianos with his shortsword. Julianos is currently unarmed because he's a yutz, but he attempts to block with his hand to keep from getting his head severed. Tiberius rolls 4 successes, and Julianos rolls 5, which makes a successful parry. However, Julianos blocked a bladed weapon with his hand... So we take the damage of the weapon (ST, in this case, 5) and add 4 successes, for a total of 9 damage. Now subtract Julianos TO (a 6, if I remember correctly) and his 1 cumulative success (5-4=1) which leaves a remaining damage level of two, to the hand.
If it is blocking a thrust from a bladed weapon, use only the damage of the weapon as knocking aside a thrusting blade is much easier than a cut. Like so:
Tiberius is now attacking the newly rejuvenated Julianos with a thrust from his short sword. Again Tiberius rolls 4 successes, and Julianos, lucky bastard that he is, rolls 5 again. Julianos has successfully parried the thrust with his bare hand, but is at risk of getting a nasty cut. The damage of the weapon is again ST, so we take the total damage (5) and minus TO+ the cumulative successes, once again 1. Julianos has parried the blade without injuring his hand.
Add in an arming glove, and you can add the armor rating (3) to your damage resistance, meaning that blocking a cut from most things less than a greatsword or such will be fairly effective.

Send me any other house rules I missed, also any house rule I have please tell me if you disagree with it and I will try to put on the page multiple interpretations.

[Jake Norwood]

Rapiers also suffer from a damage penalty against plate armor (and perhaps chainmail)--say, -3.

Jake

[Thirsty Viking]

Rapiers also suffer from a damage penalty against plate armor (and perhaps chainmail)--say, -3.

Jake

This coulds be argued,  but i'd say that rapiers should only be -1 dam if that against chain in a thrusting attack (i am assuming this is in addition to the chain AV).  They would only have to break one or two links  and they'd go right in to the person...  just as an arrow  would.  unlike plate  they have a little hole to catch the point,  decreasing the chance of them glancing off.

[Jake Norwood]

Rapiers also suffer from a damage penalty against plate armor (and perhaps chainmail)--say, -3.

Jake

This coulds be argued,  but i'd say that rapiers should only be -1 dam if that against chain in a thrusting attack (i am assuming this is in addition to the chain AV).  They would only have to break one or two links  and they'd go right in to the person...  just as an arrow  would.  unlike plate  they have a little hole to catch the point,  decreasing the chance of them glancing off.

Sounds good to me. It's similar to the saber mods for armor (which is where the rapier discussion originated, as I recall).

Jake

[viktor_haag]

I'm not terribly fond of the way that dice pool games handle fumbles, so here's a rule I'm using in my game:

You only fumble on a failed roll if your produce more ones on the dice than any other single number. That is, a roll of 1, 1, 4, 4, 5 with a TN of 6 is not a fumble.

A roll of 1, 1, 3, 4, 5 against a TN of 6 is a fumble.


--
Viktor

[viktor_haag]

I like that 10s can be stacked when rolling to produce high values.

But what if you have a TN of 10 or less, and you roll 10s?

I'm wondering whether you can make rolled 10s slightly more flexible: any 10 rolled can *either* stack, *or* can be used as a separate die (producing an added success).

I haven't tried this out yet, but it occurs to me that it might have merit.


--
Viktor

[Mike Holmes]

I'm wondering whether you can make rolled 10s slightly more flexible: any 10 rolled can *either* stack, *or* can be used as a separate die (producing an added success).

I haven't tried this out yet, but it occurs to me that it might have merit.

I like it. Gives a bit more variability to rolls. It does slant things further to the character rolling more dice, than current. But only less than one in ten dice (usually more like one in twenty or worse), so it's not a huge effect. But allows for anything to happen in any situation.

I also like your fumble modification. Though I'd make it "same number or greater". Otherwise fumbles will be so rare as to not bother checking at all.

Mike

Mike

[Durgil]

I don't know about changing the fumble rules.  I don't have that probability calculator that I made up for TRoS with me, but I don't remember seeing the odds for a fumble ever being very high (i.e. rarely more than 1% and I don't think ever higher than 2% and this looked at pools of up to 20 dice and TNs from 2 up to 20).  I'll have to look into that later.

[Mike Holmes]

I don't think he's trying to reduce the chances of a fumble on the whole, but rather to mitigate that effect that I spoke of at one point where, in some few cases, having more dice actually makes fumbling more likely.

But you're right, even with my version of his modification, fumbles go from rare to vanishingly rare.

Mike

[Durgil]

I got a quick chance to check my chart and the largest chance of fumbling would be with (of course) a TN of 20 and rolling 18 dice, which would put you odds at about 23.7%.  Here's a little table to demonstrate afew other, more common, TNs:

Code Select Expand

TN     # Dice   Odds of a Fumble   Odds of Rolling at Least 1 Success
6      2, 3, 4           0.3%                75.0%, 87.5%, 93.8%
7      3, 4, 5           0.6%                78.4%, 87.0%, 92.2%
8      4, 5, 6           1.2%                76.0%, 83.2%, 88.2%
9        6, 7            2.6%                      73.8%, 79.0%
10         7             5.9%                          52.2%                          
This doesn't mean I don't agree with what you're saying, Mike.  I just wanted to straighten out some erroneous numbers from my last post first before I go on.

As far as the odds of a fumble going up, the number of dice given for each TN represents the highest odds for rolling a pair of 1s with no successes.  The odds do go up in certain circumstances, but only to a point and the rate of increase, as well as decrease is very small.  I'm not sure whether it was on this forum or in the Core Book that there was an explaintion of this;  something about the number of dice represents the amount of effort being used and that if a failure did occurs with a greater effort, a fumble should be more likely (which mathematically really isn't the case here either, at least not always).

Very interesting topic though, please don't let me ruin the fun.

[Thirsty Viking]

I really don't see the problem with the fumble rules.....   Could we get an example laid out that is causing the concern....  

If it is combat i see the most likely fumble being when someone does something with only 2-3 dice  and rolls 2 ones...  OTHERWISE  thier Chance of at least 1 success is huge.

If it is a skill check  then you must be applying to high a negative result from the fumble...  the worst i can think of is a stealth fumble,  you make noise/action  that WILL draw attention unless the PER roll also fumbled....   so i must ask..  Where is the problem coming from?  
Oddly enough,  someone only rolling one Die never fumbles in our current rules....  but then again they succeed less too.

[Durgil]

Oddly enough,  someone only rolling one Die never fumbles in our current rules....  but then again they succeed less too.

A rule stating that you must use at least 2 dice to perform any maneuver could easily take care of this proble.  As a GM, I feel there should always be the chance of a failure; that's why you should never have a TN of 1 either no matter the ease of the task.

As far as a problem, I think that it is the concern of some mathematically minded people, on this forum, to be concerned that the seemingly benefical act of awarding more dice can in actuality increase your odds of fumbling.

This is true though only to a point, as I demonstrated in my previous post, but like you said, as the number of dice that are thrown increases, so to does your odds of getting at least one success, which thereby eventually overcomes the odds of rolling two 1s.

There, as clear as mud (as my high school trig teacher used to say).

[Mike Holmes]

TV,

To clarify what I and Durgil are saying, given certain TNs, the actual total chance of rolling a fumble increases. Very few cases, but they exist. That's after considering the chance to fail as well. Also, it means that in all cases, a larger fraction of failures are fumbles the more dice you roll, in all cases.

For real.

We're not worried about what the effect of a fumble is. Just that the particular chosen mechanic has this strange feature. I suggestedonce that to make the effort thing seem more true that a player should be allowed to roll as many dice as they want to represent that success, but that they should be further penalized in terms of potential fumbles. Representing them extending themselves beyond the level of effort that they can control.

In truth, since you get CP for skill, and for tactical modifiers. We can see that the dice only partially represent effort in truth. I myself have argued that they must indicate a significant effort, as the best blows all employ significant effort. But there is a limit to this. Too wild a swing would in fact reduce your chances to do significant damage.

So to really simulate all this would require something else. It could be developed if people were really interested.

That all said, the "problem" only shows itself in a small part of the scale, and given that fumbles are uncommon anyhow, it really hardly makes a difference (we're talking about a percent or two at most in the odd circumstance). So, it's probably not all that important.

Still, it's fun to figure out ways to try to mitigate the effect. The one proposed here by me would reduce the number of fumbles significantly which I think is a bad thing. I'd like to see more fumbles. What it does do, however is eliminate that little bump on the curve, and make the "fraction of success" problem disapear.

Mike

[Thirsty Viking]

Oddly enough,  someone only rolling one Die never fumbles in our current rules....  but then again they succeed less too.

A rule stating that you must use at least 2 dice to perform any maneuver could easily take care of this proble.  As a GM, I feel there should always be the chance of a failure; that's why you should never have a TN of 1 either no matter the ease of the task.

I agree, but that isn't what i said...   I said never Fumble.  A fumble is more than a failure,  it's a DREADFUL failure:
      Dropped weapon in middle of battle.  
      A dog barks at you while your trying to sneak up on someone.  
      While Forging a ????   you ruin your raw materials and must restart.

rolling just one die,  would be so slow and cautios i can't  fumble,  but doesn't mean i don't fail anyway.   Besides  chosing to limit your dice on contested roles is a good way to lose.

As far as a problem, I think that it is the concern of some mathematically minded people, on this forum, to be concerned that the seemingly benefical act of awarding more dice can in actuality increase your odds of fumbling.

Given that you never fumble if you have even 1 success, i don't see this except in TN above 11.   And it should be easier to fumble on a near impossible task when you put lots of effort into it.

In our game dice = effort....   if they don't want extra dice,  for a greator chance of success...  let them limit themselves.  The harder you try, the more likey you are to have negative side effect IFF you fail.  but then again,  you're also less likely to fail.

So in one way they are right,   if you roll 16 dice to hit something with a sword...  TN 5.  then Almost any failure will be a fumble.  But one can argue that your so bloody good it Requires a fumble for you to fail when trying that hard.   chance of Failure is lees than 2 in 100,000.

here is a table at TN 7  Dice on the left
formula for success is  =1-(((TN-1)/10)^#DICE)
TN-1 is the number of failures per die  / 10  gives % to fail on each die ^ by the number of dice is the probablity of failing on EVERY die

Code Select Expand


D     % success % Failure  Fumble %
2        64.0% 36.0%      1%
3        78.4% 21.6%      
4        87.0% 13.0%
5        92.2% 7.8%
6        95.3% 4.7%
7        97.2% 2.8%
8        98.3% 1.7%
9        99.0% 1.0%
10      99.4% 0.6%
11      99.6% 0.4%
12      99.8% 0.2%


Obviously the % of fumbles can never be greator than the  % failures  I'll edit this as soon as i work out the polynomial distribution formula for rolling 2+ 1's  without a success  I'll repost the charts then

[Thirsty Viking]

Ok I think i worked out the math,  thank god for spreadsheets,  i had to brute force the effects of adding one more die to the die pool,  I think it is fianally correct.

TN 10 (also TN 11 has same % in RoS) gives me  

Code Select Expand


d10  % success  %failure  % fumble
01       10.000% 90.000% 00.000%
02       19.000% 81.000% 01.000%
03       27.100% 72.900% 02.700%
04       34.390% 65.610% 04.490%
05       40.951% 59.049% 06.185%
06       46.856% 53.144% 07.679%
07       52.170% 47.830% 08.918%
08       56.953% 43.047% 09.886%
09       61.258% 38.742% 10.588%
10       65.132% 34.868% 11.044%
11       68.619% 31.381% 11.282%
12       71.757% 28.243% 11.332%
13       74.581% 25.419% 11.224%
14       77.123% 22.877% 10.988%
15       79.411% 20.589% 10.652%

At TN of 10  you are correct <13 dice increases your % chance of fumble I'm not worried about this because this would be non-combat.  Or trying to parry with a weapon clearly unsuitable for the purpose such as a mace in one hand...  you might reasonably lose it 12% of the time on a strong desperate parry.  A good reason for a Mace wielder to use 2 hands, or to block with a shield instead.

@ TN 9  fumble drops substancially and is alway less than 5%  (1 in 20  from D&D)  any player not wanting to risk being disarmed by his opponent should restrict his dice....   combat is risky....  choose your risks..   more likely to be skewered.... more likely to drop your weapon...

Code Select Expand



d10 % success %failure % fumble
01       20.000% 80.000% 0.000%
02       36.000% 64.000% 1.000%
03       48.800% 51.200% 2.400%
04       59.040% 40.960% 3.510%
05       67.232% 32.768% 4.250%
06       73.786% 26.214% 4.640%
07       79.028% 20.972% 4.741%
08       83.223% 16.777% 4.626%
09       86.578% 13.422% 4.363%
10       89.263% 10.737% 4.009%
11       91.410% 08.590% 3.609%
12       93.128% 06.872% 3.196%
13       94.502% 05.498% 2.791%
14       95.602% 04.398% 2.411%



TN 7 Yields fumble less than 2% at all times

Code Select Expand


d10 % success %failure % fumble
1      40.000% 60.000% 0.000%
2      64.000% 36.000% 1.000%
3      78.400% 21.600% 1.800%
4      87.040% 12.960% 1.910%
5      92.224% 07.776% 1.676%
6      95.334% 04.666% 1.328%
7      97.201% 02.799% 0.987%
8      98.320% 01.680% 0.701%
9      98.992% 01.008% 0.483%


Quite reasonable the Fumble is never more than 1 in 50

I like Fumbles being more likely the harder the Target number!  We should keep in mind that most penalties are assessed through modifing number of dice available,  not the TN.  If a Fumble on Smithing is Loss of materials used. or  Start over,  weapon shatters. allowing reuse of the raw material....   so what?  that just reflects how hard the job is....  how long is reflected by the # of success needed to finsh  with each roll representing a time periode.  A fumble on Herbalism....   thats simple...  you have the wrong plant but you don't know it...  or the right plant  but it is ineffective for some unknown reason.

So I ask again.   Please spell out the situation where this is unacceptable?