Edge and Glitches Options

[Draco18s]

You can allow Edge to reroll on a normal botch, but on a critical, there's only one way out: spend Edge to negate.

So I have to ask.

What is a glitch with no successes?

(Why, a critical glitch, you say)

And what does it become after it's been downgraded?

(Why, a glitch with no successes, you say)

Which is...?

[Cain]

So I have to ask.

What is a glitch with no successes?

(Why, a critical glitch, you say)

And what does it become after it's been downgraded?

(Why, a glitch with no successes, you say)

Which is...?

It gets downgraded to a normal failure, is all. You don't have to downgrade it just one step to a botch, after all.

[FriendoftheDork]

Good summary of the different positions, but I haven't seen many people preaching the C option you rightly point out as the potential dumb luck PC killer. Most people seem to be in the A or B camp from what I read, so at least this doesn't seem to be a problem on most tables.

Your scenario though, as with the Chasm'o'Doom discussed upthread, is about a PC facing a do-or-die dilemma, and as such is pretty loaded. A PC with a DP of 8 facing someone doing lethal damage with 3 hits would probably want to use Edge to augment his DP pre-roll, so the glitch and lack of net hits would probably not have come up in the first place if the PC were clever. I understand the principle of what you are saying, though it all seems fairly hypothetical to me.

Hmm thats odd, I got the impression most stuck to option C, the second most to option A, and few to option B. Then again, this thread isn't representative for all Shadowrun groups.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

In theory, anything is possible. In practice, only I can bolo on a dice pool that size in my games, and only when I'm GMing. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) Heck, I think my record is a critical botch on 23 dice. My biggest record is all 1's on 13 dice, back in the SR2 days when you needed all 1's to botch.

Anyway, there's nothing wrong with distinguishing a critical botch from a normal botch. You can allow Edge to reroll on a normal botch, but on a critical, there's only one way out: spend Edge to negate.

I think that we have a player in our group that can give you a run for your Money in the non-successful dice rolling department. I think that his DICE have gremlins. Regardless of the game, in fact. It is quite entertaining.

[Draco18s]

It gets downgraded to a normal failure, is all. You don't have to downgrade it just one step to a botch, after all.

Uh, check page 56.

Note that characters may spend Edge to downgrade a
critical glitch to a regular non-catastrophic glitch (see p. 67;
note that the character still fails).

The question is, what's the difference between a critical glitch and a glitch with a failure?

[FriendoftheDork]

Uh, check page 56.



The question is, what's the difference between a critical glitch and a glitch with a failure?

Failing the task and being inconvenienced in some way. If it's an attack, the attack misses and you messed up somehow.

[Draco18s]

Failing the task and being inconvenienced in some way. If it's an attack, the attack misses and you messed up somehow.

Explain again how that's different than a critical glitch.

[Aerospider]

Explain again how that's different than a critical glitch.

Severity, basically. You're right about the ambiguity - in all other situations 'glitch' implies success, so really a downgraded critical is a third case that lies between the two. A critical glitch might be that you hit a team mate instead of your target which can be downgraded to dropping your weapon. Either way you have failed your attempt, but one is much less painful than the other. The thing to remember, though, is that the severity of a glitch is inversely dependent on the number of hits rolled, so a downgraded critical glitch should logically still be worse than any normal glitch.

[FriendoftheDork]

Severity, basically. You're right about the ambiguity - in all other situations 'glitch' implies success, so really a downgraded critical is a third case that lies between the two. A critical glitch might be that you hit a team mate instead of your target which can be downgraded to dropping your weapon. Either way you have failed your attempt, but one is much less painful than the other. The thing to remember, though, is that the severity of a glitch is inversely dependent on the number of hits rolled, so a downgraded critical glitch should logically still be worse than any normal glitch.

Exactly.

Critical Glitches can kill you, your friends, or cause permanent damage to gear or people. It's a major fuckup.

A glitch is generally a minor inconvenience - getting burned by your spent shell casing as you put a pullet in someone's face for example. Ripping your clothes while climbing over a fence. Getting some wrong information together with mostly correct one (data search).

a glitch with 0 hits is probably worse yeah - but it should be significantly less worse than the critical glitch, otherwise why spent Edge to lessen it?

For example, if you get a critical glitch with a Monowhip, you strike yourself. If you lessen it to a normal Glitch with 0 hits you probably just entangle it in something, having to spend time to get it untangled. In a glitch with 5 hits you might have accidentally chipped off something you didn't want to - it might not be a real drawback at all as much as possibly looking a bit silly.

[Thanee]

It is left in the hands of the Game Master to determine the outcome. It only offers guidelines, but there are no concrete rules about the severity of a glitch or critical glitch.

Bye
Thanee

[FriendoftheDork]

It is left in the hands of the Game Master to determine the outcome. It only offers guidelines, but there are no concrete rules about the severity of a glitch or critical glitch.

Bye
Thanee

The rule is that critical glitches should be more severe than regular glitches. After that it's up to the GM how severe either is.

[Cain]

The rule is that critical glitches should be more severe than regular glitches. After that it's up to the GM how severe either is.

Exactly. To use the chasm of doom example, a normal failure might give the PC a chance to grab ahold of something so they don't fall to their death. A botched failure means the same, but you drop a vital piece of equipment or something similar. A critical means you fall to your death unless a miracle happens (such as the ECD clause). Really, it's just a matter of degree: by downgrading the critical, you make it less severe.

[toturi]

Exactly. To use the chasm of doom example, a normal failure might give the PC a chance to grab ahold of something so they don't fall to their death. A botched failure means the same, but you drop a vital piece of equipment or something similar. A critical means you fall to your death unless a miracle happens (such as the ECD clause). Really, it's just a matter of degree: by downgrading the critical, you make it less severe.

It could also just mean "at death's door" instead of "very dead".

[Cain]

It could also just mean "at death's door" instead of "very dead".

Personally, I reserve that for the ECD clause. I've never had a player reach that point from a botch or critical botch, but I have had players simply fail to beat the damage threshold, nearly resulting in a very dead character. The only reason they didn't die outright was because they burned Edge.

[Aerospider]

Exactly. To use the chasm of doom example, a normal failure might give the PC a chance to grab ahold of something so they don't fall to their death. A botched failure means the same, but you drop a vital piece of equipment or something similar. A critical means you fall to your death unless a miracle happens (such as the ECD clause). Really, it's just a matter of degree: by downgrading the critical, you make it less severe.

Purely for the record, the chasm case study (in this thread at least) had the tenet that failure meant certain death.

[Midas]

It is left in the hands of the Game Master to determine the outcome. It only offers guidelines, but there are no concrete rules about the severity of a glitch or critical glitch.

I don't recall offhand the exact guidelines, but my memory (as backed up comments from other posters) is that the outcome of a glitch should be an "inconvenience", while a crit glitch should have "bad, potentially catastrophic" result.

Severity, basically. You're right about the ambiguity - in all other situations 'glitch' implies success, so really a downgraded critical is a third case that lies between the two. A critical glitch might be that you hit a team mate instead of your target which can be downgraded to dropping your weapon. Either way you have failed your attempt, but one is much less painful than the other. The thing to remember, though, is that the severity of a glitch is inversely dependent on the number of hits rolled, so a downgraded critical glitch should logically still be worse than any normal glitch.

I don't distinguish between a crit glitch downgraded to a glitch by edge and a normal glitch (apart from the aforementioned lack of successes in the test in the former case). I do not agree that logically the severity of the glitch should necessarily be "worse" for an edge-downgraded crit glitch and a rolled glitch, but it is certainly an interesting idea.

[Thanee]

It could also just mean "at death's door" instead of "very dead".

I would consider "at death's door" a little more than an "inconvenience". (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[FriendoftheDork]

I don't recall offhand the exact guidelines, but my memory (as backed up comments from other posters) is that the outcome of a glitch should be an "inconvenience", while a crit glitch should have "bad, potentially catastrophic" result.


I don't distinguish between a crit glitch downgraded to a glitch by edge and a normal glitch (apart from the aforementioned lack of successes in the test in the former case). I do not agree that logically the severity of the glitch should necessarily be "worse" for an edge-downgraded crit glitch and a rolled glitch, but it is certainly an interesting idea.

It just follow from the guideline that the less hits on a glitch, the more severe it is.

A problem with this though is that it rewards high dice pools even more (both in chance of glitching AND in outcome), while people with low dice pools (most people really) are screwed

For example, take a normal car owner with no exceptional skill (Skill rating 0, Reaction 3). If he is forced to do a vehicle test for any reason (encountering car in wrong lane, environmental conditions etc.), he is down to two dice. The chance of glitching on 2 dice is about 2/6 ~ 33% chance. That's fairly likely even. Now since he only has 1 hit on a Glitch (or 0 if downgrading a Critical glitch), his glitch will almost always be more severe, thus he is likely to damage his car somehow. This is incidentally the same chance of actually succeeding on an easy test - such as having to make a sudden stop at low speed, or simply passing another vehicle at high speed.

[Draco18s]

Purely for the record, the chasm case study (in this thread at least) had the tenet that failure meant certain death.

Which was brought up to illustrate why "you glitched: no rerolls for you" was a bad rule.

[Thanee]

Which was brought up to illustrate why "you glitched: no rerolls for you" was a bad rule.

Only if a glitch would automatically mean that you fall down the chasm, which - of course - does not have to be the case.

A glitch could also mean that you stumble before you jump off, assuming you didn't succeed at the jump, and drop something that you are carrying, which then falls down the chasm while you scramble back to safety (or, if you also succeeded, you would lose something during the jump to the other side). An inconvenience, but not a catastrophic event.

Bye
Thanee

[Draco18s]

Only if a glitch failure would automatically mean that you fall down the chasm, which - of course - does not have to be the case.

Fixed that for you. The glitch isn't the "you die" part of the test, it's the failed roll that kills you (you just happened to also glitch).

[Thanee]

Works the same. Failure does not have to mean you fall down the chasm.

That would only happen on a critical glitch (if I was GMing in that situation, that is). Which you can prevent with the use of Edge. Though you would still suffer an inconvenience (which, because of the 0 hits, would be more of a major inconvenience, like dropping your commlink or main weapon). Another option to survive that would be to suffer the critical glitch and then burn a point of Edge to survive the fall.

Bye
Thanee

[Draco18s]

Works the same. Failure does not have to mean you fall down the chasm.

It's an example, and I can give you one that you CANNOT dispute is fudgable.

You have 1 box remaining on your track before you die (you are in overflow an unconscious). You get shot.

The DV is 5, and you've got 18 dice for this.

You roll.

9 ones and 4 hits.

What now?

The glitch you could live with (broken arm, ruined armor vest). But you can't live (literally) with the extra 1 box of damage.

But the GM says you can't spend edge to roll more dice / reroll failed dice.

[Thanee]

Tough luck. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Luckily that situation is so highly hypothetical, that it is basically irrelevant.

Bye
Thanee

[Draco18s]

Luckily that situation is so highly hypothetical, that it is basically irrelevant.

Point is: there are scenarios where the only possible outcome for a failed roll is, in fact, death.

And if these scenarios exist, then a failed roll with a glitch should be allowed to roll more dice or reroll. And if you are allowed it in that scenario, you should be allowed it in all scenarios.