A question about buying hits, aren't the rules a bit harsh? Options

[GregPogor]

I mean, in calmful situation, with no time limit, you get a free hit for every four dice you'd roll. With a fixed TN of 5+ while rolling six-siders, on average every third die is a hit.

Why the difference? You can say that's the price to pay for having not to roll, but the rules stat that you can do it only while relaxed or when you have exceptionnaly large dicepools (which I interpret as 15+), two instances in which I'd loose the lead on the characters.

Even the d20 rules, not really known for being gentle with characters, let the players take 10 in relaxed situations. That's what said players would roll one time out of 2 on a d20.

So, why?

[Shadow_Prophet]

I'm not sure where the rub is here.

It gives you a simple mechanic to speed things up and is reasonable. Stattisticaly 1 time in 3 you will roll a 5 or a 6. However as we all know from rolling dice, this doesn't allways happen. By taking the slight penalty of spending that extra die you guarentee a success. And I wouldn't say 15+ is the interpretation I'd use. I'd use it probably on as little as 10 or 12 dice for most circumstances.

Secondly its mainly used for things where you can easily do. Ie. a mechanic changing the oil on his car. He shouldn't have to roll for something like that, he's got a decent dice pool, he succeeds. A programer programing a devent, but not complicated program can buy hits and just not worry about completely screwing it up, or he could try to rush it and hope he doesn't muck up the thing by rolling the dice, which for all he knows could come up 75% 1's.

Its for that trained sniper up on the building there thats all aimed in and ready to hit her target who's completely unawares. Why chance the miss when you can burn the dice and get 2 auto success and with the called shot bypass their armor and drop them where they stand.

Its the sacrifice you make to ensure you don't botch or get a bad roll.

[Egon]

I think the auto success rules are about right. There has to be some reason to roll the dice. If it were based on statistical average I know lots of players would never take the dice out of the bag. Hell my mage is already making charts for him self to know what force for each drain code he can use and not have to take drain.

[Mr. Unpronouncea...]

You have a 50% chance of getting a success on 3 dice.

You have a 100% chance of getting a success for 4 dice.


Not harsh at all, unless you need luck on your side...in which case, why are you buying successes?

[FrankTrollman]

Actually, you have a:

33% of getting at least one success on 1 die.
56% of geing at least one success on 2 dice.
78% of getting at least one success on 3 dice.
100% of getting a success on 4 dice.

I don't see the problem.

-Frank

[Azralon]

It's true that 3 dice, on average, will get you a success. However, spending that extra 4th die is probably a fair trade for negating the possibility of a glitch.

[mintcar]

Unless I´m mistaken, you also negate the risk of a glitch when you buy successes. I would say that calling 4 dice harsh is pretty far from the mark...

<edit> ... and I´m not alone it seems ;)

On another note: Maybe it´s time we learn to use the term "hit"?

[Azralon]

I dare say that the whole "success = hit" switchover bugs me.

I mean, I'm not always hitting people. But I usually try to succeed.

Oh, and 4 dice does not equal 100% chance of a hit. Not unless you're throwing dice with only 5's and 6's. :)

[Darksong]

[Nikoli]

and when you trade 4 dice for one hit, it is a 100% garuntee you won't get a glitch.

[Egon]

hit or success. Tap or "turn card 45% to show..." Got to love the WoTC copyrights. So long as we know what we are talking about does it matter. I think the move to "hits" is just a text msg culture thing. Its short and easy.

[Azralon]

I'm gonna get a whole mess of blank d6's and paint two happy faces and one sad face on them. Then I can just say "I got 5 happies" or "I got a critical sad."

Azralon rolls Agility (5) + Firearms (4): :( :( :| :| :| :| :) :) :)

:P

[Mr. Unpronouncea...]

[Azralon]

[blakkie]

I have some blank dice on order already. You need a little more detail than just happy, neutral, sad though. There are really happy and happy (6's and 5's, really happy is for when you use Edge and 6's explode), neutral (4's and 3's), little bit sad (2's, count towards Glitch when you are trying to make a Rush Job on an Extended Test), and sad (1's).

I hadn't planned on using happy/sad though. I was going to use large green circle for 5's, large green circle circumscribed by a larger black box for 6's (i couldn't get black burst lines to look good), a small red dot for 2's, and a filled medium red circle for 1's. I tryed this with wet erase markers and three blank white 19mm (i think) dice. The 2's really seem to blend in normally, and the green seem to make an easy count and the red seems to stand out well, but separately from the green.

But now that you mention it, before do the final drawing in permanent marker i might try with the happy green/sad red faces for 6's, 5's, and 1's (still red dot for 2's).

[Egon]

[Azralon]

[blakkie]

[Veggiesama]

I've color-coded my dice for easy visual grouping too, but I'm not using blank dice. I went to Amazon and bought a pack of fourty-eight d6's ($7! there's a box of 200 for $20, too), plus a pack of green and red circular label stickers.

They seem pretty good so far, and it seems like the stickers won't come off easily (even if they do, I got about 700 more so it's no big deal). Red got plopped on 1's, green on 5's and 6's. In addition, I drew a little "E" for Edge on the 6's. I figure the Rush Job Extended Test is so vague it'd never end up being used, and if it was, there's still a visible 2 on the dice just in case.

[Kagetenshi]

SR4 dice:

:dead: :( :| (x2) :) :D

or

:dead: :( :| (x2) 8) :cyber:

~J

[Azralon]

[Elldren]

[mintcar]

I´m already finnished making my dice.

I now have a hundred dice with two green dots, one with black stroke or edge ;) (thanks blakkie), and one big red cross. Very easy to use. I didn´t bother with the 2, that just destroys the beuty of it.

I used permanent markers on blank dice, but they smudged when you had your fingers all over them, permanent or no :) . To prevent that I sprayed them with an acrylic varnish. Works just great!

[snowRaven]

I'm thinking of getting a whole batch of regular white dice, mark the sixes with a green burst, the fives with a green 'target', the ones with a red design of some sort, and the twos with a red edge around the dots.

[Nikoli]

I just keep a tone of pip based 6's around. the layout of the pips is enough for me to viaually sort, when I'm not using an app for the rolling that is.