I know Kung Fu...., Are skills easier in this game? Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Switch to: Standard Linear+

[mrobviousjosh]

Okay, fairly familiar with 4th edition but not totally yet. My one big peev of the system is that the constant TNs of 5 means that, generally speaking, it's harder to do easy tasks and easier to do hard tasks (like jump out a building, into a chopper, knocking the gunner out, and holding onto the chopper- yes, it's the example given in SR3 with the Hooper Nelson rule for Karma Burn). I realize that dice get taken away from extreme actions (and don't get me wrong, I think the simplicity is great by keeping the TNs the same and just adjusting the number of dice) but the liklihood of getting 1 or 2 successes on an extreme activity is easier now, especially if I spend Edge to reroll. Am I wrong? Maybe I'm not adjusting to the sudden stability of TNs. Any thoughts? (And no, I'm not saying 3rd edition is better, I'm just asking if my interpretation of this system is correct). Thanks.

[Dashifen]

I don't think you're correct. Let's assume temporarily a dice pool of 6 to perform an action. With a hit on 1 out of 3 dice, you should get 2 hits on average. Now, easy things might only have a threshold of 1 or 2, meaning you'd succeed in this case, but harder actions might have a threshold of 3 or 4. Thus, those actions would fail if you only got 2 hits.

Then, as you mentioned, if the harder activity reduces your dice pool for any reason, now you're trying to reach a higher threshold with less dice. That, to me, seems to make harder things harder and easier things easier.

This post has been edited by Dashifen: Apr 3 2006, 09:33 PM

[GrinderTheTroll]

mrobviousjosh I'm not sure I can follow your logic.

Easier tasks have lower thresholds than harder tasks. You can tweak dice pools and thresholds to help measure how "hard" a task is.

The "easier" task with a 10 dice pool and Theshold 1 have a far better chance of succeeding over a "harder" 10 dice pool and Theshold 3.

Even adding situational dice pool modifiers (lighting, wounds, speed, etc.) and you still have better chance of success with the "easier" task as long as the modifiers are applied in a similar fashion.

[bustedkarma]

For "simple" tasks, I was thinking about adjusting the HITS to 4,5,6. The book actually mentioned it, although I haven't seen it in action.

I screwed around with a dice roller earlier, and was getting alot of 4 and 5 Hit rolls using 4 as the minimum hit, and throwing 8 dice.

With 5 as the minimum hit, it was alot of 2s.

[James McMurray]

Which is how it should be, since 4-6 is 50% and 5-6 is 33%.

[fool]

when you start with an average of about 10 d for a decent skill and attribute, you're on average coing to get three success, but take away 2 d and you get 2 on average. As the GM I tend to take away alot of dice from my players. (They really hate that) :grinbig:
Remember too on the jumping that you do still have a max distance you can jump.
But most importnant is the threshold. If the threshold is 4 or more it's not going to be easy to get with 10 dice, especially since you can only effect an actio with one edge point (IE> no more spending mass karma pool to pull off the impossible.)

[Kremlin KOA]

not sure f easy tasks became harder, but at the higher skill levels hard tasks became easier

itmakes the game mre 'anime' or 'cinematic'

[emo samurai]

I LOVE anime.

[James McMurray]

[NightHaunter]

[mdynna]

I think our original poster was assuming the SR3 staple of "1 success means you accomplished it". This is not true anymore. Tasks need a certain number of successes in order to be accomplished.

Now, in SR3 there was really only one "slider" to change the difficulty: TN. You ratchet up the TN, your PC lumps in every pool the possibly can and throws an ice cream pail of dice, often enough, one of those would hit the TN, whatever it was. Granted, for many things, 1 success wasn't going to get you much. However, for other things, like spectacular feats of athletisism, 1 was all you needed.

In SR4 the GM now has 2 "sliders" in order to alter the difficulty:
1) Modifiers, which reduce the PC's dice
2) Threshold, which determines how many hits it takes to have "success"
IMO, this allows the GM to make hard tasks really hard. Of course, with modifiers reducing the PC's skill it does create the "impossible task" issue. This problem bothers people to various degrees, and is a byproduct of the way SR4 does tests.

[FrankTrollman]

A task with a threshold of 1 and a -8 dicepool penalty is outright impossible for anyone who isn't a super-ninja at the relevent skill. For anyone who is a superninja, it's fairly routine (they'll automatically succeed if they can take their time doing it).

A task with a threshold of 4 and no dicepool penalty is extremely hard for average joes and they will very rarely succeed. It's the kind of thing that a superninja has a noticeable chance of failing, but still succeeds about half the time.

You can mix and match between those two extremes depending on how you want characters with a 4 die pool and characters with a 12 die pool to respond.

-Frank

[GrinderTheTroll]

As a GM, I find the easiest way to "control" the difficulty mathematically is to adjust the dice pool. Threshold adjustment is nice, but it has the largest impact in just a minor change.

**removed incorrect formula**

IMO, threshold adjustments will work best for Extended Tests instead of Opposed or Success Tests unless of coarse you want to impress how difficult the immediate task is.

[Dranem]

[Apathy]

[FrankTrollman]

[GrinderTheTroll]

[Austere Emancipa...]

[GrinderTheTroll]

[Crusher Bob]

The general formula for the probablity of at least one success looks like: 1- (2/3)^(number of dice rolled).

So sample numbers:
1: 1/3 (~33%)
2: 5/9 (~56%)
3: 19/27 (~70%)
4: 65/81 (~80%)
5: 211/243 (~87%)
6: 665/729 (~91%)
and so on

[edit]
To find out more, such as the probability distributions of a certain number of hits, you'll need to read up on Binomial Distributions
[/edit]

[mrobviousjosh]

Okay, since there have been a few different interpretations of what I've been saying perhaps I didn't explain myself that well. I understand the basics of SR4 and, to some extent, the Threshholds needed. HOWEVER, even with threshholds of like 4, if I have 8 dice for an action statistically, it's harder to achieve one success at TN 12 or so than to achieve 4 at TN 5. I realize that each 5 has a 33% chance of being hit and I'm talking half of your dice for the threshhold here but, in SR3's system even using karma points to reroll your dice pool multiple times, it's far more difficult to achieve an insane TN than to eventually get yahzee. This becomes even more true, as I've witnessed, if the GM allows you to buy hits. I realize that when you roll Stat + Skill and only need 1 or 2 threshold you should be able to achieve most without rolling, if hits are bought, and ensuring success but at the same time it seems to make achieving a success easier because, and I may be wrong here, IIRC you can't be limited below one dice. If you need 2 hits and have edge points to use, you could achieve a TN 5 much easier twice than achieving a TN 9 or more with one dice (meaning a 6 and then another roll of 3 or better). Maybe I'm just not used to this system yet, and I admit I could be wrong, but the lower TN seems to be easier to achieve (maybe I just know too many people who consistently roll well).

[mrobviousjosh]

[Azralon]

[FrankTrollman]

[James McMurray]