Open Tests, End the madness! (House Rule) Options

[Sphynx]

After yet another annoying (2 games in a row) detection by an Int:2 Security Guard against the Stealth:12 adept, I've decided I -must- House Rule open tests.

Although I'm looking for suggestions, I also have one.

OpenTests: TN = 4. Most successes wins. If number of successes is a tie, highest roll wins.

Has any one else found the need to House Rule that rule?

Sphynx

[ShadowGhost]

It's called luck. I leave open rolls as they are. I've seen 8 dice rolled come up with a result no higher than four, and 2 dice roll a 25.

I've seen a Rating 8 Forged Credstick clobbered by a rating 4 credstick reader...8 Dice against Tn 4 losing to 4 Dice against TN 8.

I'd just look at it as the Stealth 12 adept hit the one spot on the floor that squeeks, a twig under leaves that snaps, or suddenly being illuminated by the headlights of a passing car while trying to hide in the shadows.

A skill of 12 means you're really, really friggen good, but it doesn't mean you're invisible or silent, or automatically succeed. Statistically, you'll clobber two dice with your 12. But on those rare occasions, you will lose.

[Smiley]

I feel your pain. I was stealthing my ass off last night with a 26 and STILL got spotted by some pissant Cascade Ork. Sphinx, it does seem stupid that someone with stealth of 12 could be so easily disocvered. Maybe adding your stealth skill number to your roll?

[Jason Farlander]

The problem with eliminating Open tests is that it makes a character using stealth almost impossible to detect if you continue using the visibility modifiers as they are written. A character with stealth 6 moving in partial lighting conditions will almost never be noticed buy an INT 6 guard with Stealth(Alertness) 4(6), insofar as the character's TN will be 4 while the guard's TN will be 6. You can forget the remote possibility of ever seeing someone in a ruthenium suit if their stealth is 4 or better.

Reworking visibility modifiers presents a challenge insofar as those modifiers carry over into combat situations, so you also have to make sure that you dont screw up the game in that regard.

I certainly wouldn't mind eliminating open tests from the game, but in this particular case I find it far easier to stick with canon, even if it does cause some minor annoyances.

[Sphynx]

[Moonstone Spider]

I recall houseruling them as a variant of opposed test, and that stealth worked like ED for characters. TN = 4, each success means your opponent needs one more success to spot you on a perception check (His TN being dependent on the environment and your actions as normal).

We had a disguise skill that worked the same way for makeup and acting your way. The more successes on your disguise test, the more successes an observer would need on a perception test to tell you weren't actually a repairman or CEO or whatever you were pretending to be.

[Lilt]

The rules make it hard to sneak reliably unless you have camofluage or similar perception TN mods. The perception 2 guard has a 12% chance of seeing the high stealth adept, but once you start adding modifiers (like a camo suit for +4) then it drops to 5%. Add the partially hidden perception modifier for another +2 and another +2 as the guard is distracted (dosen't care & thinking of dinner) the guard's chance drops to around 1.64%...

I personally rule that a single success means that the guard will look again, without the distracted modifier and maybe a bonus, but will think it's just a cat (or something) unless he scores a success again.

[Smiley]

[Herald of Verjig...]

If you get the high numbers by rolling 4 dice, just roll your stealth of 12 in three groups. If the low numbers are a disturbing fluke of probability and your rolling style, this should get around that.

[Smiley]

After last night's run, i think i just have dice gremlins.

[Nikoli]

I'm assuming the 12 dice tossing character is a Phys ad. If so the player should invest in traceless walk. severely limits what can give them away. You make no noise, nothing you are touching makes noise (guns still do since you don't touch the gass escaping nor would you want to)
No more pesky pressure sensors, no more pesky squeky floor boards, etc.

[TinkerGnome]

A stealth adept should grab Traceless walk and a camo suit right off the bat. Then upgrade to a stealth suit/cloak ASAP. Sure, 12 dice vs. 4 dice is fine... but add a 10 to the high of 12 and it becomes a lot harder.

Which has already been said, so I'll paraphrase as "me too!"

[Jason Farlander]

I found myself in a bruteforcing sort of mood (I also like rolling dice) so I just rolled a series of 100 opposed (not open) stealth/perception tests. I assumed a stealth of 6, an intelligence of 9 for the guard, and that the only modifier was a +2 perception TN mod (for whatever reason).

If ties go to the perciever, the guard succeeded 28% of the time. If ties go to the character using stealth, the guard only succeeded 14% of the time. Thats only with a TN difference of 2... imagine how bad it would get with perception mods of +4 or worse.

[Lilt]

Well as the result of the stealth test is the TN for the perception test, ties go to the perceiver.

[Jason Farlander]

[gknoy]

I'd like to note that we are discussingthis very issue in another thread ("Speaking of calculating odds ...").

http://invision.dumpshock.com/index.php?sh...topic=3656&st=0

My graph ( http://www.anasazisystems.com/~gknoy/sotsw...enTestGraph.png ) shows the AVERAGE value in an open roll from any number of dice; interesting to note that 12 dice can expect to roll about 11 as a high number (on average). Note that I screwed up the axis labels - dice on X axis, roll results on Y.

Your perception 2 guard has an extermely low chance of beating an adept, ON AVERAGE. I'd say that if your people are regularly doingit, it's a factor of imperfectly rolled dice. :) (in a batch of 12, maybe they don't have enough freedom of movement?)

[Sphynx]

50% of the time a person rolling 12 dice will NOT get a 12+.
10% of the time a person with a perception of 4 will.
Better than a 5% chance that 12 stealth is noticed by perception 4.

Though, experience tells me it's closer to 20% for some reason. :P

Sphynx

[Jason Farlander]

[Moon-Hawk]

Okay, I've got a crazy idea. Bear with me, it's crazy.
Perhaps allow a karma reroll after they've been detected.
DM: Make your stealth test.
Player (rolling): My highest was an 8
DM (rolling): You're gonna fail.
Player: No way, who saw me, what'd they get?
DM: Eat me. You wanna reroll or not?
Player (spending karma and rerolling): I got an 11
DM: Nevermind, you're fine.

Usually, when rerolling with karma, you already know if you've succeeded or not and make a reroll using that information (admittedly, not always), so it's not painfully broken by that standard.
It's not perfect, but it's a really, really simple fix, and it ends all player whining, and isn't that really what's important? :P (kidding)

edit: I should say that, as a house-rule, I allow karma to reroll all but the highest die on an open test. All in all it sounds generous, but it makes the whole open-test pass/fail issue seem to work out more like I think it should without any major changes.

[John Campbell]

So you occasionally get spotted despite all the min-maxing you can do to your Stealth skill.

Hear that? That's the world's smallest violin, playing just for you.

[Smiley]

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to declare min/maxing or munchkinism. Seems to be an inevitability.

[Sphynx]

Ok, John that quickly puts you on an ignore-all-posts-from-him.

First off, despite belief, the player is a mundane, not an Adept, started the game with a stealth of 4 and through karma only has it up to 12. He is the best of the best, better than even the min-maxxed adepts who can start at 12 (though their stealth isn't REALLY a 12, they only get to roll 12 dice). Although I can appreciate how someone would want to play a violin that a player's 100 karma (cost to go from 4 to 12 with a Quickness of 12) seems useless since every 3rd time he hides a lucky dice roll makes it useless, I tend to give my players not only more respect than that, I tend to want to keep the game fun for them.

Now that I've had to explain myself, I am going to come up with a House Rule because it's gotten crazy, and I don't enjoy seeing my players that annoyed that his rolls just don't matter. The question isn't if the current rule is good enough, it's coming up with a better system so that the extreme luck factor isn't a factor.

Sphynx

[Smiley]

[TinkerGnome]

Hits the "Abandon Thread" alarm.

That's okay, I guess we already covered everything important on stealth rolls. Modifiers, modifiers, modifiers. There's a reason a good stealth adept has multiple vision modes and high athletics. Go where the guard does not look!

[TinkerGnome]