Munchkinism

[kenjib]

This character reminds me of something from a picaresque - the "slippery man" who is called upon by the protagonist during one of his critical challenges to leap, dance, and jump his way through a gauntlet of enemies and/or traps to grab something on the other side.

[Ingenious]

(Sorry for the length of reply)
Very valid points everyone.
Though I must comment on each of them..
Alan, yes I realize the complete rules for the acrobatics roll and the number of dice you get for each, etc.
However, my views have occured the same as yours have before regarding the starting level at which a skill is gain via MA points.
I realize that the game is not all about combat, I merely have a high TO so that ties into my views of not wanting to be hit.. and also that I can't have armor if using acrobatics(which by background and roleplaying I am never to use armor..ever.) However, we have been playing the buying of skills with MA points exactly as Lx stated..with no modifiers. It is bought at the worst skill packet rating. So in the case that my character has Skills as priority A..6, in the case that it was B..7.
Bob, yes I know that it has no application in roleplaying.. I just wanted to see if anyone thought that this subject was bordering on the 'exploitation of the rules' scheme ala D&D. I.e. min/maxing.
Poleaxe's ideas are interesting..bordering on some of my own thoughts..
Silvermane, if this character had massive amounts of subcutaneous fat.. he wouldnt be so awesomely acrobatic..(yes the obesity flaw exists)
Jake: I beleive it comes more from a fear of their character either dying, getting hurt to the point where they cant defend themselves and THEN die..etc. As the player of the character with the proposed TO of 8 said to me'I chose country X as my character's origin because of the +1 TO.'
..which is quite the same as D&D logic.

Jaeger, thanks for linking me to that... The thing is our seneschal doesn't really see a problem with superiorly tough characters.(But I might play a protagonist PC again..and how am I ever going to succeed in that if i am going up against a brick-wall of a character?)((hypocracy noted))

Aaaaand back to the concept of you only get to spend one point on any one skill, and then have X amount of MA points left.. and you can't put more than one point of MA into any single skill.
I do not see that expressly written myself.
You all are taking liberties with examining and the interpretation of the rules.
'Each character gains an additional skill, language, or -1SR adjustment to any one skill for each point of his MA.'
So, for example.. say I spend 5 points of my MA into lowering a skill that had a then current SR of 8. It would then be 3. But then I might be out of MA points. Thus to improve dramatically on one SR.. I sacrifice improving others. Exactly like it is with making several attributes 6's and 5's and one 7.. the rest of those stats are going to be lower because of it. Compromise is built into the system you know.

Thanks again for the opinions.
-Ingenious

[Alan]

'Each character gains an additional skill, language, or -1SR adjustment to any one skill for each point of his MA.'
-Ingenious

"Each character gains an additional skill, language, or -1 SR adjustement to any one skill for each point of his MA.  A new hero with MA 5, for example, could have 5 additional skills (each approved by the Seneschal), speak 5 languages other than his native tongue, lower the SR of 5 individual skills, or take any combination thereof."

Note the wording "lower the SR of 5 individual skills...."

[Bill Cook]

I'll bet Allen's interpretation is aligned with design intent.

Anyway, . . .  Cory (Ingenious), I think you're min/maxing and you're feeling guilty about it and you started this thread because you want someone to affirm you.

I guess I'm an ass for speaking plainly, but I am your friend, after all.

Don't necessarily buy into the negative connotations of any idea that provides some payoff for you (e.g. Munchkinism).  And keep in mind, any system can be broken if you incessantly poke at it.   Just use TROS for what it does well and let the inconsequentials blur.

A few months ago, when Jason was running that AD&D dungeon crawl he wrote when he was 16, I thought I'd get back into the swing of things by playing a thief (my longtime favorite class).  I never could divine the procedure to backstab and the God-damned dwarf ended up finding all the traps and secret doors.  I tried to pick a lock and got paralyzed by a poison needle; the dwarf then proceeded to brush me aside, while laughing, and cleanly whack the padlock free of the chest with the butt of his axe.  

You remember how frustrated I got when combat started and I couldn't hit anything?  And I started rolling (and failing) to grab my own elbow just to express my impotence?  Well, the next campaign we ran, I drew up a half-elf fighter/magic-user with sword weapon specialization, lightning bolt & fireball spells, a ring of fire resistance, a ring of wishes, a bag of holding, a sword that disintegrates evil, a cloak of invisibility, a scroll of teleportation, bracers of AC -2, and a THAC0 of 2.  ("Hold onto something, brother, 'cause you're about to feel my impact!")

It was hoaky as Hell, but hey, I kicked more ass per round and had a great time doing it.

To me, what's exciting about TROS is its integrity of ways to be cool.  That is to say, it all hangs together, whereas AD&D looks more like a ball of bandaids.

Why quibble with TO maximums, attribute leveling angst or what have you?  There's grapple to pin and poleaxe hook maneuvers to explore!

[Ingenious]

This is true Billy.. but I'm not feeling guilt about what I want my character to do.

This'll all be hashed out by the time the next session/adventure is.
I'd rather have my friends speak plainly than to blow smoke.. if you get my drift.

Anyways, back on topic..

What Nick seems to want to do however is have a TO of 8, choose his country not for roleplaying reasons.. but for the benefit of a +1 to TO..
And wear chain, though assumedly not a full suit of it.. which makes for a very potent adversary.. and it seriously amplifies the difficulty of attempting to subdue his character should such a situation warrant it.

Let us take for example.. both of our characters in the same situation of being caught with our collective pants down.
Let's say an archer attacks either of us with a crossbow. And let's say that he gets 3 successes..and that we did not see the attack coming. This would result in a damage rating of 9.
For me that's a level 2 wound.. for Nick that is a level 0..
In order for that crossbowman to hit Nick for a level 5 wound.. he would need 11 successes. Going on Nick's defensive rating is 12, with no defense, crossbow's total damage is 6..
So in order to kill Nick's character in one hit.. that crossbowman better have a very high MP..(though I picked this as a 'possible' event due to a crossbow's ATN of 5)
In order for his character to get killed in one hit by a melee fighter.. they had better have a very very very large CP and use the whole entire thing in one attack.
But then there is the 'swarm' approach.. whereby Luke might send 6 NPC's after him in order to challenge him.. collectively they could chip away at him.. but knowing that his character can't be killed nearly at all even without a defense.. he might just split his pool into 3 parts.. and use that against 3 of them(I beleive the max number of people that can attack you in melee is 3).. and with his high strength and most likely margin of success.. he'd hack down three of them without receiving a scratch.(not accounting for a terrain roll on Nick's behalf, which would allow him to focus on a smaller number of foes at that moment unless he fumbled it.)..

My only fear is that the GM in these cases has to work double-time in order to challege the character as much as the rest of us would be/are in combat. While it may be fun in the short term to stand single handedly against 6 or 7 people.. that turns into D&D very quickly..

Remember Billy.. when Luke sent the level 20 demon at us in DND and we all lived..we all said 'what is the point of it all?'
We werent challenged, nothing could stop us.. and that seriously made the fun factor go down the crapper.

So you see, my character is far from invincible.. but the only ways that Nick's character could get ANY better at all was to wear plate.. and to have his TO 2 points higher.

I remember when we got the shield/blocking rules mixed up.. and allowed the AV of a shield to absorb damage in an active defense..
Stan had a defensive rating of 20 with that.. and the 'modified' NPC Luke was using against me had all of his SA's firing and he had a CP of around... 25 or 28.... it was well into the 20's though..

I do not want Luke or any of us to have to go to extremes again like we had to in D&D..

Excuse the semi-non-coherence of this post.
-Ingenious
edit: After seeing the light of how non-fun it is to have a high TO character in either case..I will be modifying my character before the adventure starts..thus improving his statistics elsewhere.

[Brian Leybourne]

Actually, you can do the skill thing Cory's way and not be out of line with the rules. I certainly allow multiple MA points on the same skill - why can't someone make a character who has spent a lot of time training to become really good at one thing? That's not unrealistic at all, and the fact that he has done so means that he's suffered in other areas (by not putting the MA points in them). Again, perfectly realistic.

The real answer is, of course, do it how you want to. Whichever way works for your group is exactly the right way to do it. Neither is expressly disallowed by the rules.

Brian.

[Alan]

Actually, you can do the skill thing Cory's way and not be out of line with the rules. I certainly allow multiple MA points on the same skill - why can't someone make a character who has spent a lot of time training to become really good at one thing?

Hi Brian,

I don't have anything against some way for a player to focus on one skill.  As a convenient rule for character generation, allowing players to reduce skills by one point doesn't break the system.  However, allowing more leads to problems that violate some of the design principles of character creation.

Here's some quick approximations of the costs of improving skills by experience checks.  You can see that the return on SR after 6 goes up asymptotically.  ie way out of proportion.

(MA TN = 15-current score)
(My probabilities are quick estimates, not based on formula.)

MA / 7 to get SR 7 - 1d10 has 40% (requires 2.5 dice)
MA / 8 to get SR 6 -  1d10 has 30% (requires 3.1 dice)
MA / 9 to get SR 5 -  1d10 has 20% (requires 5 dice)
MA / 10 to get SR 4   - 1d10 has 10 (requires 10 dice)
MA / 11 to get SR 3   - 1d10 has 10% (requires 10 dice)

So if a character starts with SR 7 and uses an MA point to reduce to SR 6, that's the equivalent of rolling about 3.1 MA dice in an experience check - a little less than one check for MA 4.

However, if he buys down the SR with, say 3 MA points, from SR 6 to SR 3, that's the same as 25 MA dice rolled for checks - six or seven tries for an MA of 4!  Why should 1 MA point be equivalent to 2 experience checks as the skill gets better?  Or put another way, the more MA you spend on a single skill the more cost effective the whole lot is.

Sure TROS is not about balance, but it sure is about choices.  In the priorities table, the difference between the choices is gradual not asymptotic.  I don't think it's wrong to expect the same gradualism in MA point skill increases.  

At the very least, the MA cost of reducing a skill should increase after the first point - say cumulatively so the first reduction costs 1, the next 2, the third 3, etc.

Or a simpler solution, more in keeping with TROS design, is to allow only 1 MA point to be spent on a given skill at character creation.  I think this was Jake's intent when he wrote the example I quoted from page 20.  Why else would the example mention every other possible combination EXCEPT the possiblitiy of spending multiple points on one skill?

[Lance D. Allen]

Criminy. You don't check the boards a day, and miss two pages.

My only pertinent question is this: Is the character fun? Does the player enjoy the character? Do other players in the group enjoy the character? Or is this character detrimental to the group's enjoyment of play?

That's the only important question. I have allowed rules-breaking characters on various occasions before because they were fun. In most roleplaying groups, that's all that matters.

If the character is ruining your fun, then fix it. Otherwise.. Enjoy it and leave the rules alone.

[Bill Cook]

Cory:

I see now where you're coming from.  I've been going back and forth on how to address this issue.  To me, the main thing that doesn't make sense
is that TO reduces all damage, regardless of weapon characteristics.

At the grossest level, weapon and delivery should match to defense and penetration.  e.g. "I whip you with a leaf of grass" up to "I fire a laser cannon at your chest."  Likewise for defense, "you are standing naked in an open field" up to "you take refuge in an underground bunker."

TO just can't reduce crossbow damage as effectively as damage from a punch, but the formula for figuring Wound Level makes no such distinction.

[Anthony I]

- I disagree on TO being a "hero factor" - that's what SA's are for.

- And I disagree on TO reflecting "I make the blade hit me less harmfully" that's what spending CP dice on defense is for.

And if you ever have to wonder if something is or is not "munchkin" - then it is.

The Hero Factor is what makes characters like Conan survive when faced with insurmountable foes- His Destiny-to be King or whatever may help, but his high TO is what will carry him through the day.  This isn't covered by SA's- well maybe Luck comes close- but it is handled by the way TO works right now.   I think this comes down to how folks view the sequence of events in TROS combat.  You make a good attack to my neck area and get 6 successes, my TO and armour reduce it to 1 success.  Now we narrate the scene.  You didn't do a killing blow that was reduced- you only did a flesh wound.  It doesn't matter how many successes you get till after you reduce based on TO and armour- then you have determined what the ST of the blow was.  Not before.  If my TO and/or armour reduce you to 0 successes- you missed or did less than a flesh wound- it had nothing to do with my physical toughness turning aside the sword blade, or my skill saving my ass- you just didn't hit, or hit in such a way as to do no damage.  I don't know if I'm explaining this well, or not, but I think this whole TO issue is really over-stated.  It just doesn't seem to be an issue in actual play.

Now, I'm just using a Conan-type character as an example, and I realize that my interpretation is mine and not yours- so if we disagree that is just fine.  But to the original point of this thread-

Munchkinism is such a bullshit concept, it should be struck down from the lexicon of gaming and burned at the stake.  If you want to make a character that can eat iron and spit nails- more power too you.  If you want to play a charater that was created solely to benefit from a particular system, and damn the color- so be it.  If your dwarf has 600 hit points and can shit Vecna's Hand- good for you.  There is nothing wrong with it- with the proviso that everybody at the table is on the same page with what type of game is being played.  Not just system but also things like style-of-play, what is and isn't allowed, what is and isn't rewarded, etc....you know, Social Contract stuff.

I say you want a guy with high TO and wearing armour so you can't be touched in combat- so what.  Go be an untouchable tank, and have fun doing it.  The only thing that really matters in TROS are SA's.

[kenjib]

Here's some quick approximations of the costs of improving skills by experience checks.  You can see that the return on SR after 6 goes up asymptotically.  ie way out of proportion.

You run into the same situation when you allocate your stat points.  During character generation they are allocated linearly, but once playing it is on a curve.  Thus, just like this, advantage is given to people who choose to specialize.

This is the real issue here.  The game system rewards specialization.  I don't think this is a bad thing, especially in a non-classed system like TROS.  It helps to mitigate the potential problem of all characters looking the same.

[b_bankhead]

Munchkinism is such a bullshit concept, it should be struck down from the lexicon of gaming and burned at the stakeI say you want a guy with high TO and wearing armour so you can't be touched in combat- so what.  Go be an untouchable tank, and have fun doing it.  The only thing that really matters in TROS are SA's.

I couldn't agree more, I'm toothgrindingly sick of the hypocrisy of people who use combat oriented systems with a billion and one intricate optimization options and then bitch when people take advantage of them.  These are usually the same ones who talk about how much 'roleplay' is important to them then spend 90% of the game resolving combat (D&D is FILLED with DMs like this)
Don't like 'Munchkins"?  Stop using systems which enable them and stop running games I which you have to be one to survive.  Simple Eh?

[Brian Leybourne]

The Hero Factor is what makes characters like Conan survive when faced with insurmountable foes- His Destiny-to be King or whatever

Conan's SA's, as per a game I ran once:

Destiny: To wear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow
Drive or Destiny: To find/wield his fathers sword
Drive: Find and rescue the princess
Drive: To find the source of the "two snakes coming together" emblem.
Faith: Crom
Faith: Riddle Seeker
Luck: Several times it's only luck that seems to keep him alive
Passion: Hatred – Thulsa Doom
Passion: Love – Valeria (the blonde chick)
Passion: Loyalty/Love – Subotai (the little thief guy)

Brian.

[Lxndr]

Conan's a little rule-breaker, ain't he?  That's a lot more than 5.

[Brian Leybourne]

No, that's just the full list he went through through the period depicted by the film. Remember that you can only have 5 at a time, but you can change them around as you need/want to. He didn't gain hatred for Thulsa Doom until his Love for Valeria wasn't relevant anymore, for example.

Brian.