Generalized combat effects.

[JoeArcher]

I don't think the skepticism is due to a lack of mathematical understanding.

I hope you have fun with it and come up with something you and your players like.

I never assumed as much. Just wanted to present the numbers. If you want to fix the issues with the stances, you have to fix the thing causing it

[JoeArcher]

Just another test. Simpler and cleaner. Unfilled numbers on skill dice are not counted, unless you're weary. Then they're subtracted.

TN 14 - xd6+1d12 (sauron fail, gandalf success) [WEARY]
1 = 16.67% [16.67%] (exactly like RAW for both)
2 = 31.25% [24.77%]
3 = 46.84% [34.45%]
4 = 60.34% [42.45%]
5 = 70.74% [47.94%]
6 = 78.14% [53.23%]

Tweaking is easily done, but setting a default TN lower... for instance TN 12

TN12
1 = 25% [25%]
2 = 43.52% [35.19%]
3 = 59.03% [42.36%]
4 = 70.49% [50%]
5 = 78.36% [56.02%]
6 = 83.51% [60.11%]

I like those numbers a lot

[JoeArcher]

With outlined numbers (1-3) counting as zero normally and subtracted when weary.
TN14 - sauron 0 instead of failure [Weary]
1 = 16.67% [16.67%]
2 = 31.25% [24.77%]
3 = 47.72% [35.34%]
4 = 62.64% [43.77%]
5 = 74.52% [49.72%]
6 = 83.24% [55.92%]

Much better distribution. This is spot on for me. When Sauron is set at 0 instead of automatic failure, it allows for more narrative possibilities of having success with complications. Plus having the eye as automatic failure gives some serious issues in terms of the value of having bonuses from traits, virtues and rewards, because of the constant 1/12th chance of failure on the feat die, that caps such bonuses at higher level to become pointless. Such a simple solution to the issues with high skill level propability. And the nice thing is that it scales really well as the TN rises. The propability of success at TN 20 with 6d skill is only 56.39%. Then you have to add various bonuses rerolls etc. But still it's much better than the RAW where a skill 6 would have 89% chance at TN 20 and 99% chance at TN 14. That's only a difference of 10, whereas the difference with this system is 27. A huge difference in terms of making the propabilities scale well and balance your games. Give that troll just +1 or +2 parry and the players WILL feel the difference, instead of having to give it +10 parry to make a difference. With this system TN 14 for someone with skill 6 is quite easy while TN 20 is close to a 50-50 chance. Much better than TN 14 being pointless and TN 20 being very easy.

[Glorelendil]

Much better distribution. This is spot on for me.

I guess I'm puzzled at how you determine what the probability curve should look like, in the absence of all other variables like damage & defenses. I know you haven't been playing the game itself; have you been creating high level characters and doing mock fights, and are finding it to be too easy?

Remember that almost nothing else other than hit chance scales naturally in TOR: health, parry, protection, damage, number of attacks, wound chance...they all stay constant. The only exceptions are an increasing chance for tengwars (which still cap at two, and that curve offers diminishing returns) and whatever bonuses you choose due to reward/virtue choices*.

Take a character with weapon skill of, say, 5. (Which is the same as Glorfindel's Battle skill. In other words: crazy good. This character has been around a long time, and is truly an expert with his weapon.) Give him a Keen, Fell, Grievous weapon. Pit him against 3 Black Uruks: tougher than average orcs, but nothing like trolls or named adversaries or anything like that. Parry of 5+2.

He takes Defensive stance because he's fighting three orcs at once and two lucky hits could take him out. But he still only gets one attack per round.

What do you think his chances should be of hitting an Orc (TN 19) be with each attack? How long should this fight take? Most importantly, what should his chance of winning be? Remember that he gets hit and dies just as easily as a brand new character.

[JoeArcher]

In RAW he would have 80% chance of hitting that orc and the orc would have a great chance of hitting him back.

With my system it's around 49% and the uruk would have a lesser chance of hitting too. That's perfect for me. But the main issue is distribution of success and TN rises.

In my system the chance of success from TN14 to TN20 goes from 75% to 43% (skill 5)

In RAW It goes from 97% at TN14 to 75% at TN20 (skill 5)

It's not just the distribution of chance to succeed as your skill goes up that I find bad in RAW. It's the huge difference, because your chances go up way too much with each die extra you get, so it's also the distribution of success as TN goes up.

With RAw you have a 50% chance of making TN 27 at 6 skill. That's just way off the scale. In combat, travel and most other instances your TN will rarely go much beyond 20. So I want to balance the game around 20 being tricky even for the skilled.

TN20 and 6 skill is 90% in RAW and 56% in me system. On top of that you add dice from advantage, bonus from spending hope and all other bonuses. I want hope to remain in play even at high level of play in some instances. With 56% at TN20, it's fine.

But to truly fix the stances I think you should use the house rule Rich posted, where damage is limited in open and defensive.

But it's very much personal preference I know. But comming from wfrp, where defence at higher levels were pointless because you simply did not miss with RAW, I know I want a different system. It's also combined with my other options for combat of course.

But it's easy to tweak this system to exactly what you want. Letting 1-3 count as 1 instead of 0, for a slightly higher chance of success, or letting all dice count as one less than the number showing. For me RAW is just simply unbalanced once you get past 3 skill because some options become rather pointless.

[Glorelendil]

With my system it's around 49% and the uruk would have a lesser chance of hitting too.

Wait...what else are you changing? I thought your rule only kicks in above 3 dice. The Uruk only has skill 2 (favoured) so he's 2d6 + 5, so his rolls would remain unchanged I thought.

So I want to balance the game around 20 being tricky even for the skilled.

But is the game itself designed for that? What else will break if that becomes true?

But comming from wfrp, where defence at higher levels were pointless because you simply did not miss with RAW, I know I want a different system.

Believe me, I understand bringing frustrations from other games with me, but I would caution against assuming that a "problem" in one system is still a problem in a very different one. (I never played WFRP so I don't know the specifics in this case.)

[Rich H]

I'm not saying either of you (Elfcrusher or Joe) are right or wrong on this as I haven't got any characters in my games with skills higher than 4 nor have I 'crunched the numbers' at all but here are a couple more options that you could consider, Joe:

1) Raise the TN tiers by 4 points each step rather than 2. Also do something similar with Stance TNs; maybe altering those from 6, 9 and 12 to 9, 12 and 15 respectively. Any Stance TN alterations would really impact on PCs with Weapon Skills of 2 or 3 though so I don't think that's a great idea at all.

Or...

2) Use a rule so that for skill checks you only add up the Feat Die plus the 4 (or 3, up to you) highest Skill Dice. That way, those characters with skills of 5 or 6 (or 4, 5, or 6) would discard lower value dice - ie, making them more competent as low rolls could be ignored but also limiting the maximum total from dice rolled to 34 or 28; 10 (highest Feat Die score) + 24 or 18 (from the 4 or 3 Success Dice).

Would those provide a more interesting mechanic or simpler solution? I'm not sure as I haven't done any analysis but thought I'd offer some suggestions...

[JoeArcher]

With my system it's around 49% and the uruk would have a lesser chance of hitting too.

Wait...what else are you changing? I thought your rule only kicks in above 3 dice. The Uruk only has skill 2 (favoured) so he's 2d6 + 5, so his rolls would remain unchanged I thought.

The uruk would not count 1-3 either and if his hate was gone they would subtract. He would have 31% chance of hitting (41% in RAW). The rules is across all skill levels, but it really has the greatest effect at higher levels of course, so the chance of success don't rise as much when you gain skill, as it does in raw.

But in RAW the Uruk would have 41% chance of hitting and the PC would have 80% (31 and 49 with this system).


-------------------------
If you set 1-3 to count as 1's it would instead be 63% for the PC and 35% for the uruk.

If the PC moved to forward stance the chances of success would be 79% for the Uruk and 92% for the PC. If he used my rule of saving dice for defence and saved one die, his chance of hitting would be 81% and the first uruk would have a 53% chance of hitting while the next two would remain at 79%

In any case, he would most likely have to spend a point of hope to win that fight alone, but that's just fine I think.

____

Rich H. I tried to tinker with that exact option (saving 3-4 dice out of those rolled), but the probability still got really high in terms of rolling 20. But yeah... I'm not saying I'm completely right or elf is wrong either

[Glorelendil]

Oh...I was misunderstanding your rule; I must have been stuck on an old iteration of it.

Assuming that "too easy to hit" is a problem at high level*, I like Rich's solution that you count the X highest dice from the pool. Very simple to read. I seem to recall seeing something similar in another game somewhere.

*But I'm still not convinced it's a problem. In WoW the hit rates at max level are extraordinarily high. Effectively 100% in many cases. But if Blizzard one day decided, "You know, it shouldn't be so easy to hit" and slashed hit by 50%, it would screw up every fight in the game. Some would be too easy, some would be too hard.

Again, hit rate is only one of many variables to balance, and even the term "hit" is misleading: Endurance loss is not necessarily physical damage.

[JoeArcher]

It's not so much the damage itself, but more that the chance of inflicting that one wound becomes really high and it ruins some options like stances a bit. But I understand what you're pointing at elf.

Tried some calculations with exploding dice (reroll 6's), it gave a more even distribution, but of course it changes the chance for tengwars slightly. But exploding dice are always fun. I would like the propability to be slightly higher, after looking at the example you posted. Exploding dice raise the chance for a skill 1 character to hit TN 14 from 16% to 20%, so that's nice, while for a skill 6 character the raise is from 83 to 86%. The TN 19 would be hit 57% of the time with skill 5 as opposed to 49% and the uruks chance would be 37% to hit TN 19.

EDIT: of course the tengwar issue is easily solved by ruling that only temgwars on the initial roll is counted.