PHP Sadowrun 4 Dice Roller, Needs Beta Testing & Your Feedback Options

[Fionnoulla]

I have a new version of my dice roller finished and ready for testing:

Shadowrun 4 Dice Roller

Features:

• Initiative Test - Rolls a number of dice then adds hits to the number of dice.
• Success Test - Rolls a number of dice and counts hits.
• Opposed Test - Rolls a number of dice per character then compares which has more hits.
• Extended Test - Rolls a number of dice against a Threshold, repeating until threshold is met or the test fails due to critical glitch.
• BBCode Output - The output for each roll also appears in the BBCode box formatted for pasting into forums.
• Email Functionality - Ability to Email rolls to a specified address (albeit intermittently). [Requires Logged in User Account]
• Roll History - The previous rolls are stored in roll history until cleared or user leaves the site.
• Store Rolls to Database - Ability to store rolls in the database for future reference. [Requires Logged in User Account]

Known Issues:
Email functionality is intermittent due to the Server.

Guest Account
If you registered and never got the email, but still want to test the DB and Email Features Please use:
Username: guest
Password: guest

Please post feedback in this thread, thank you!

[ShadowWalker]

As a suggestion add the Intervals for programming to the extended test page. What's missing is 3 months and 6 months.
Looks good otherwise.

[Fionnoulla]

As a suggestion add the Intervals for programming to the extended test page. What's missing is 3 months and 6 months.
Looks good otherwise.

Programing intervals of 3 and 6 months have been added.

Thank you for testing!

[ShadowWalker]

When you do an extended test, and select the 1/2 interval option it always shows the result as if Edge was used, even when Edge is left blank or zero is put in it.
I went and looked up edge and what it could be used for and didn't see anything about changing the interval of an extended test. It would be cool if there was such a thing though.

Also when you put Edge in an extended test it only does it for the first interval test. Since you could use Edge for each and every interval in the test, until your Edge is zero.
It would be nice to be able to some how allow for this option. Hard to do though since you don't know how many tests there will be. Unless you were to do one test, then give
the results for the roll, and ask for Edge/no Edge on the next one. and keep doing this till the threshold is reached.

There is a possibility with programming to use a nexus programming environment. Doing so cuts the interval time in 1/2, without having a glitch on a 1 or 2.

[ShadowWalker]

Glitches don't appear to be calculated properly.

[pre]Extended Test Results:[b]
[b]Roll No. Roll Hits Result
1 6 5 1 2 3 2 4 2 4 3 6 4 4 6 6 2 3 3 5 Roll Success
2 2 1 1 5 2 1 6 6 5 4 1 3 6 6 1 1 1 6 Glitch!
3 4 2 4 5 6 1 5 4 4 5 3 5 1 6 1 2 6 Roll Success
4 1 5 3 1 5 3 5 3 3 1 3 2 2 3 3 3 Roll Success

Character rolled 18 dice, generating 20 hits in 4 rolls
The test was a success taking 12 Months(s)

[Extended Test Parameters: Threshold:18 Interval:Programming (3 Months) Dice Pool:18 Edge: Edge Rule:Standard -1 Per Roll:Yes]
[/pre]

Half of 17 is 8.5 or 9 ones would need to be rolled to get half or more or a Glitch. I only could 7 ones for the roll shown as a Glitch.

[Fionnoulla]

When you do an extended test, and select the 1/2 interval option it always shows the result as if Edge was used, even when Edge is left blank or zero is put in it.
I went and looked up edge and what it could be used for and didn't see anything about changing the interval of an extended test. It would be cool if there was such a thing though.

Also when you put Edge in an extended test it only does it for the first interval test. Since you could use Edge for each and every interval in the test, until your Edge is zero.
It would be nice to be able to some how allow for this option. Hard to do though since you don't know how many tests there will be. Unless you were to do one test, then give
the results for the roll, and ask for Edge/no Edge on the next one. and keep doing this till the threshold is reached.

There is a possibility with programming to use a nexus programming environment. Doing so cuts the interval time in 1/2, without having a glitch on a 1 or 2.

Page 75 of Shadowrun 4th Ed -20th Anniversary Core Book:

Edge Variations
You can tweak the applications of Edge to fit your style. Here are a few examples:
Rather than adding extra dice, Edge can be used to buy automatic hits (or
perhaps even automatic success).

Allow Edge to be spent to reduce an Extended Test interval by half.

That is why I have that 1/2 interval radio button, not that I use the rule myself it is just there for completeness. As for it always showing edge, it requires edge to be used to occur.

"Since you could use Edge for each and every interval in the test, until your Edge is zero"
I will look into the difficulty of making that possible (no promises on that on!)

Thank you very much for the solid input.

Edit: My reply (on re-read seems arrogant) that is not my intent... I do very much appreciate all feed back also if my understanding of the rules is incorrect PLEASE let me know, I want the roller to be 100% correct.

[Fionnoulla]

Glitches don't appear to be calculated properly.

[pre]Extended Test Results:
Roll No. Roll Hits Result
1 6 5 1 2 3 2 4 2 4 3 6 4 4 6 6 2 3 3 5 Roll Success
2 2 1 1 5 2 1 6 6 5 4 1 3 6 6 1 1 1 6 Glitch!
3 4 2 4 5 6 1 5 4 4 5 3 5 1 6 1 2 6 Roll Success
4 1 5 3 1 5 3 5 3 3 1 3 2 2 3 3 3 Roll Success

Character rolled 18 dice, generating 20 hits in 4 rolls
The test was a success taking 12 Months(s)

[Extended Test Parameters: Threshold:18 Interval:Programming (3 Months) Dice Pool:18 Edge: Edge Rule:Standard -1 Per Roll:Yes]
[/pre]

Half of 17 is 8.5 or 9 ones would need to be rolled to get half or more or a Glitch. I only could 7 ones for the roll shown as a Glitch.

Good Catch... it should now work correctly.
You also found a bug for me by posting the BBCode output there was a missing slash, which is also fixed now.

And Months(s) has been corrected to display as Month(s)

Thank you for testing!

[ShadowWalker]

ok, didn't see that option for spending edge on getting extended tests to reduce the interval in half.
But, there is also Rushing the Job, on pg 65 of SR4A that states you can decrease the interval time in half, but it makes 1s and 2s count towards glitches.

[Fionnoulla]

ok, didn't see that option for spending edge on getting extended tests to reduce the interval in half.
But, there is also Rushing the Job, on pg 65 of SR4A that states you can decrease the interval time in half, but it makes 1s and 2s count towards glitches.

Good call... I totally missed that, I will add a "Rush Job" option so that can be rolled as well.
Thank you for catching that.

[ShadowWalker]

I would suggest putting one for Rush Job and one for Nexus Programming, and you could in fact use Edge to decrease it by half, Rush the Job, and be working on writing some new software in absconded time in a Nexus Programming environment. Which would mean cutting it in half 3 times. Not sure how most people would interpret this. Would you cut it into an eight?

[Fionnoulla]

Wow good question!

Yes it would be interval /8 if that's how it works.

Edit, Seems like you can... Therefore I added it in!

Thank you for bringing that up, I learned more about the rules today (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[KarmaInferno]

I think I mentioned it in an earlier dice roller thread, but...

If you use the Dice Cap optional rules, you can actually have an odd situation on extended degrading tests if you have a dice pool modifiers higher than the cap, if you apply the cap after all other modifiers are applied.

Let's say you have a current Dice Pool Cap of 20, but have Attribute + Skill of 10 and a 14 Dice Pool Modifier for a total possible dice pool of 24, of which you can only use a maximum of 20 on any given roll. You make an extended degrading test at -1 per roll.

You lose a die off the pool every roll, but the total base + modifiers don't drop below the dice cap until the sixth roll. So your dice rolled ends up looking like this:

20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, etc.

Would it be especially difficult to code this as an option? Like have an additional field for dice cap, and if this is lower than the Dice Pool entered it delays the -1 per roll until the total pool falls below the dice cap?


-k

[Fionnoulla]

I think I mentioned it in an earlier dice roller thread, but...

If you use the Dice Cap optional rules, you can actually have an odd situation on extended degrading tests if you have a dice pool modifiers higher than the cap, if you apply the cap after all other modifiers are applied.

Let's say you have a current Dice Pool Cap of 20, but have Attribute + Skill of 10 and a 14 Dice Pool Modifier for a total possible dice pool of 24, of which you can only use a maximum of 20 on any given roll. You make an extended degrading test at -1 per roll.

You lose a die off the pool every roll, but the total base + modifiers don't drop below the dice cap until the sixth roll. So your dice rolled ends up looking like this:

20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, etc.

Would it be especially difficult to code this as an option? Like have an additional field for dice cap, and if this is lower than the Dice Pool entered it delays the -1 per roll until the total pool falls below the dice cap?


-k

I will see if I can make that happen...

[Fionnoulla]

Optional Rule fixed:

When the optional -1 per roll is checked in the extended test it will now properly only utilize 20 dice per roll.

i.e. if 24 dice are entered as the pool, rolls 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 will use 20 dice after which it drops one die per roll until there is a die pool of 1, if you get lucky it will roll 1 die until the threshold is met.

Is that how it was supposed to work Karma?

[KarmaInferno]

Er, hm. Dice Caps are an optional rule, so there probably needs to be an option to use it or not.

When Dice Caps are being used, pools are capped at either double the natural skill+attribute, or 20, whichever is higher. So the Dice Cap can actually vary - for example a guy with a natural attribute of 6 and skill of 6 has a Dice Cap of 24.

Dice Caps only have that weird interaction I mentioned on extended tests with degrading dice.

The best way I can think of to represent this is a separate numerical entry field for Dice Cap. If left empty it would just do an uncapped test. If the user enters a number, the test uses that number to cap the pool.

A) If the Dice Pool is equal to or lower than the Dice Cap, or the Dice Cap field is left empty, it would just do a normal test.

B) If the Dice Pool is higher than the Dice Cap, the test would use the Dice Cap as the number of dice on each roll of the Extended Test, until the Dice Pool drops below the Dice Cap due to the degrading -1 per roll.

It should work as you coded it, except with a user-defined number for the Cap instead of just 20.

As far as the "roll 1 die until the threshold is met" part, I dunno what that is for, normally after you hit one die doesn't the test stop?



-k

[KarmaInferno]

Also, an option to Buy Hits would be nifty.

It would work exactly like a regular Test, except that instead of randomly rolling dice, it assumes a number of successful hits per interval equal to one-quarter of the pool, rounding down.

This would be useful to quickly determine if a given dice pool is sufficient to actually buy hits on a degrading extended test to reach a given Threshold. Or how many intervals would it take to succeed on a non-degrading test while buying hits. Or just to calculate what one-quarter of your die pool is, I suppose.

Thanks for the work so far, it's very nice!




-k

[Fionnoulla]

Er, hm. Dice Caps are an optional rule, so there probably needs to be an option to use it or not.

When Dice Caps are being used, pools are capped at either double the natural skill+attribute, or 20, whichever is higher. So the Dice Cap can actually vary - for example a guy with a natural attribute of 6 and skill of 6 has a Dice Cap of 24.

Dice Caps only have that weird interaction I mentioned on extended tests with degrading dice.

The best way I can think of to represent this is a separate numerical entry field for Dice Cap. If left empty it would just do an uncapped test. If the user enters a number, the test uses that number to cap the pool.

A) If the Dice Pool is equal to or lower than the Dice Cap, or the Dice Cap field is left empty, it would just do a normal test.

B) If the Dice Pool is higher than the Dice Cap, the test would use the Dice Cap as the number of dice on each roll of the Extended Test, until the Dice Pool drops below the Dice Cap due to the degrading -1 per roll.

It should work as you coded it, except with a user-defined number for the Cap instead of just 20.

As far as the "roll 1 die until the threshold is met" part, I dunno what that is for, normally after you hit one die doesn't the test stop?



-k

Done and ready for testing, there is a new box that allows for entry of a dice cap, it works as you described it. (To the best of my understanding) let me know if it is not working as intended (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Fionnoulla]

Also, an option to Buy Hits would be nifty.

It would work exactly like a regular Test, except that instead of randomly rolling dice, it assumes a number of successful hits per interval equal to one-quarter of the pool, rounding down.

This would be useful to quickly determine if a given dice pool is sufficient to actually buy hits on a degrading extended test to reach a given Threshold. Or how many intervals would it take to succeed on a non-degrading test while buying hits. Or just to calculate what one-quarter of your die pool is, I suppose.

Thanks for the work so far, it's very nice!




-k

I'll add that next, thanks for the input!

[Fionnoulla]

As suggested by Karma:
Extended Test with buying hits Calculator ("Extended (Buy Hits) Calc" menu option) is up and ready for testing.