Limits and You!, The underlying math of Limits Options

[Wired_SR_AEGIS]

Hello, Dumpshock! This is my first post. Long time Shadowrun player, I took a break during 4th edition, but I’m really looking forward to seeing 5th edition in action. While I’ve seen a lot of discussion on is Limits, one of the things I haven’t seen is a post that contains the underlying probabilities of Limits.

So I whipped up a quick Python Utility to model the behavior.

Initially, I intended to release the source code to that utility as part of this post, but Python is heavily whitespace dependent, and I ran into formatting issues. Instead, I’ve just included a print out of one of the reports I generated. If anyone is interested in having some code that can model results for you, send me a PM, maybe we can work something out.

The utility works as follows: A number of dice are rolled, and the successes are compared against a certain Limit. This is done 100,000 times for any given combination of dice from as low as 6 up to as high as 18, with limits ranging from 3 to 8.

Then the report gets a bit more granular of the results, and tallies the percentage of time that you would have exceeded the limit of 1 success, 2 successes, 3 successes, or 4 or more successes. In short, this helps measure how ‘painful’ a limit would be. For instance, infrequently losing one success is probably a mild annoyance. Losing two or three from time to time may be more than a mild annoyance. And of course, frequently losing 4+ successes is a great reason to raise those Limits!

Results below:

[ Spoiler ]

Dice:6 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:3--Breaks: 10.005% Total.
Breaks by 1: 8.256% | 2: 1.6% | 3: 0.149% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:6 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:4--Breaks: 1.695% Total.
Breaks by 1: 1.537% | 2: 0.158% | 3: 0.0% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:6 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:5--Breaks: 0.142% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.142% | 2: 0.0% | 3: 0.0% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:6 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:6--Breaks: 0.0% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.0% | 2: 0.0% | 3: 0.0% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:6 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:7--Breaks: 0.0% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.0% | 2: 0.0% | 3: 0.0% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:6 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:8--Breaks: 0.0% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.0% | 2: 0.0% | 3: 0.0% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:7 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:3--Breaks: 17.254% Total.
Breaks by 1: 12.773% | 2: 3.773% | 3: 0.659% | 4+: 0.049%
Dice:7 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:4--Breaks: 4.583% Total.
Breaks by 1: 3.886% | 2: 0.645% | 3: 0.052% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:7 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:5--Breaks: 0.686% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.645% | 2: 0.041% | 3: 0.0% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:7 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:6--Breaks: 0.054% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.054% | 2: 0.0% | 3: 0.0% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:7 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:7--Breaks: 0.0% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.0% | 2: 0.0% | 3: 0.0% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:7 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:8--Breaks: 0.0% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.0% | 2: 0.0% | 3: 0.0% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:8 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:3--Breaks: 25.955% Total.
Breaks by 1: 17.106% | 2: 6.859% | 3: 1.717% | 4+: 0.273%
Dice:8 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:4--Breaks: 8.888% Total.
Breaks by 1: 6.94% | 2: 1.674% | 3: 0.261% | 4+: 0.013%
Dice:8 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:5--Breaks: 1.927% Total.
Breaks by 1: 1.662% | 2: 0.244% | 3: 0.021% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:8 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:6--Breaks: 0.24% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.223% | 2: 0.017% | 3: 0.0% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:8 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:7--Breaks: 0.01% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.01% | 2: 0.0% | 3: 0.0% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:8 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:8--Breaks: 0.0% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.0% | 2: 0.0% | 3: 0.0% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:9 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:3--Breaks: 34.777% Total.
Breaks by 1: 20.33% | 2: 10.257% | 3: 3.324% | 4+: 0.866%
Dice:9 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:4--Breaks: 14.543% Total.
Breaks by 1: 10.314% | 2: 3.377% | 3: 0.767% | 4+: 0.085%
Dice:9 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:5--Breaks: 4.284% Total.
Breaks by 1: 3.466% | 2: 0.724% | 3: 0.092% | 4+: 0.002%
Dice:9 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:6--Breaks: 0.855% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.746% | 2: 0.106% | 3: 0.003% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:9 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:7--Breaks: 0.103% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.097% | 2: 0.006% | 3: 0.0% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:9 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:8--Breaks: 0.008% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.008% | 2: 0.0% | 3: 0.0% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:10 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:3--Breaks: 44.424% Total.
Breaks by 1: 22.895% | 2: 13.785% | 3: 5.787% | 4+: 1.957%
Dice:10 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:4--Breaks: 21.334% Total.
Breaks by 1: 13.565% | 2: 5.783% | 3: 1.645% | 4+: 0.341%
Dice:10 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:5--Breaks: 7.605% Total.
Breaks by 1: 5.623% | 2: 1.638% | 3: 0.305% | 4+: 0.039%
Dice:10 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:6--Breaks: 1.985% Total.
Breaks by 1: 1.663% | 2: 0.287% | 3: 0.035% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:10 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:7--Breaks: 0.35% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.304% | 2: 0.042% | 3: 0.004% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:10 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:8--Breaks: 0.038% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.037% | 2: 0.001% | 3: 0.0% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:11 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:3--Breaks: 52.973% Total.
Breaks by 1: 23.986% | 2: 16.645% | 3: 8.473% | 4+: 3.869%
Dice:11 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:4--Breaks: 29.226% Total.
Breaks by 1: 16.867% | 2: 8.469% | 3: 3.005% | 4+: 0.885%
Dice:11 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:5--Breaks: 12.144% Total.
Breaks by 1: 8.298% | 2: 2.951% | 3: 0.767% | 4+: 0.128%
Dice:11 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:6--Breaks: 3.956% Total.
Breaks by 1: 3.046% | 2: 0.755% | 3: 0.141% | 4+: 0.014%
Dice:11 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:7--Breaks: 0.871% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.73% | 2: 0.128% | 3: 0.013% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:11 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:8--Breaks: 0.142% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.124% | 2: 0.018% | 3: 0.0% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:12 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:3--Breaks: 60.344% Total.
Breaks by 1: 23.653% | 2: 19.135% | 3: 11.034% | 4+: 6.522%
Dice:12 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:4--Breaks: 36.842% Total.
Breaks by 1: 19.144% | 2: 11.085% | 3: 4.757% | 4+: 1.856%
Dice:12 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:5--Breaks: 17.983% Total.
Breaks by 1: 11.202% | 2: 4.9% | 3: 1.463% | 4+: 0.418%
Dice:12 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:6--Breaks: 6.722% Total.
Breaks by 1: 4.859% | 2: 1.493% | 3: 0.31% | 4+: 0.06%
Dice:12 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:7--Breaks: 1.816% Total.
Breaks by 1: 1.48% | 2: 0.294% | 3: 0.037% | 4+: 0.005%
Dice:12 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:8--Breaks: 0.392% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.341% | 2: 0.049% | 3: 0.002% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:13 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:3--Breaks: 67.835% Total.
Breaks by 1: 22.888% | 2: 20.74% | 3: 13.832% | 4+: 10.375%
Dice:13 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:4--Breaks: 44.746% Total.
Breaks by 1: 20.627% | 2: 13.75% | 3: 6.887% | 4+: 3.482%
Dice:13 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:5--Breaks: 24.111% Total.
Breaks by 1: 13.842% | 2: 6.852% | 3: 2.554% | 4+: 0.863%
Dice:13 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:6--Breaks: 10.362% Total.
Breaks by 1: 6.985% | 2: 2.512% | 3: 0.679% | 4+: 0.186%
Dice:13 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:7--Breaks: 3.38% Total.
Breaks by 1: 2.57% | 2: 0.649% | 3: 0.133% | 4+: 0.028%
Dice:13 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:8--Breaks: 0.861% Total.
Breaks by 1: 0.709% | 2: 0.132% | 3: 0.02% | 4+: 0.0%
Dice:14 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:3--Breaks: 73.747% Total.
Breaks by 1: 21.519% | 2: 21.461% | 3: 16.02% | 4+: 14.747%
Dice:14 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:4--Breaks: 52.425% Total.
Breaks by 1: 21.423% | 2: 16.055% | 3: 9.119% | 4+: 5.828%
Dice:14 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:5--Breaks: 30.97% Total.
Breaks by 1: 16.011% | 2: 9.081% | 3: 4.112% | 4+: 1.766%
Dice:14 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:6--Breaks: 14.879% Total.
Breaks by 1: 9.083% | 2: 3.968% | 3: 1.401% | 4+: 0.427%
Dice:14 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:7--Breaks: 5.815% Total.
Breaks by 1: 4.08% | 2: 1.327% | 3: 0.337% | 4+: 0.071%
Dice:14 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:8--Breaks: 1.765% Total.
Breaks by 1: 1.358% | 2: 0.342% | 3: 0.056% | 4+: 0.009%
Dice:15 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:3--Breaks: 79.224% Total.
Breaks by 1: 19.499% | 2: 21.492% | 3: 17.828% | 4+: 20.405%
Dice:15 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:4--Breaks: 59.495% Total.
Breaks by 1: 21.275% | 2: 17.79% | 3: 11.434% | 4+: 8.996%
Dice:15 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:5--Breaks: 38.418% Total.
Breaks by 1: 18.05% | 2: 11.523% | 3: 5.765% | 4+: 3.08%
Dice:15 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:6--Breaks: 20.23% Total.
Breaks by 1: 11.486% | 2: 5.617% | 3: 2.281% | 4+: 0.846%
Dice:15 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:7--Breaks: 8.816% Total.
Breaks by 1: 5.756% | 2: 2.206% | 3: 0.674% | 4+: 0.18%
Dice:15 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:8--Breaks: 3.149% Total.
Breaks by 1: 2.273% | 2: 0.695% | 3: 0.158% | 4+: 0.023%
Dice:16 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:3--Breaks: 83.279% Total.
Breaks by 1: 17.335% | 2: 20.8% | 3: 18.897% | 4+: 26.247%
Dice:16 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:4--Breaks: 66.029% Total.
Breaks by 1: 20.613% | 2: 19.078% | 3: 13.624% | 4+: 12.714%
Dice:16 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:5--Breaks: 45.723% Total.
Breaks by 1: 19.414% | 2: 13.638% | 3: 7.55% | 4+: 5.121%
Dice:16 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:6--Breaks: 26.062% Total.
Breaks by 1: 13.467% | 2: 7.597% | 3: 3.386% | 4+: 1.612%
Dice:16 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:7--Breaks: 12.747% Total.
Breaks by 1: 7.739% | 2: 3.447% | 3: 1.141% | 4+: 0.42%
Dice:16 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:8--Breaks: 5.036% Total.
Breaks by 1: 3.378% | 2: 1.241% | 3: 0.333% | 4+: 0.084%
Dice:17 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:3--Breaks: 86.885% Total.
Breaks by 1: 15.01% | 2: 19.635% | 3: 19.569% | 4+: 32.671%
Dice:17 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:4--Breaks: 71.845% Total.
Breaks by 1: 19.708% | 2: 19.405% | 3: 15.493% | 4+: 17.239%
Dice:17 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:5--Breaks: 51.98% Total.
Breaks by 1: 19.572% | 2: 15.205% | 3: 9.763% | 4+: 7.44%
Dice:17 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:6--Breaks: 32.527% Total.
Breaks by 1: 15.277% | 2: 9.601% | 3: 4.801% | 4+: 2.848%
Dice:17 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:7--Breaks: 17.036% Total.
Breaks by 1: 9.502% | 2: 4.753% | 3: 1.968% | 4+: 0.813%
Dice:17 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:8--Breaks: 7.542% Total.
Breaks by 1: 4.811% | 2: 1.944% | 3: 0.603% | 4+: 0.184%
Dice:18 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:3--Breaks: 89.856% Total.
Breaks by 1: 12.967% | 2: 18.122% | 3: 19.704% | 4+: 39.063%
Dice:18 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:4--Breaks: 77.032% Total.
Breaks by 1: 18.037% | 2: 19.984% | 3: 16.86% | 4+: 22.151%
Dice:18 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:5--Breaks: 58.628% Total.
Breaks by 1: 19.432% | 2: 17.032% | 3: 11.475% | 4+: 10.689%
Dice:18 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:6--Breaks: 39.325% Total.
Breaks by 1: 16.979% | 2: 11.658% | 3: 6.405% | 4+: 4.283%
Dice:18 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:7--Breaks: 22.438% Total.
Breaks by 1: 11.492% | 2: 6.514% | 3: 2.942% | 4+: 1.49%
Dice:18 | Rolled:100000 | Limit:8--Breaks: 10.54% Total.
Breaks by 1: 6.323% | 2: 2.788% | 3: 1.03% | 4+: 0.399%

Some thoughts:

Rolling between 10 and 14 dice seems like it will be among the most common dice rolls. That represents a fairly proficient dice pool, that may include positive modifiers or skill specializations. The interaction with Limits there is interesting:

With 10 dice and a limit of 5, you’ll find that your successes are being clipped 7.6% of the time. Note that less than one half of 1% you’ll lose more than three successes. So frequently this is just an annoyance. If you outfit yourself with a Smartlink, and bump that Limit up to 7, it’s entirely possible that you can go your entire Shadowrun Career without having a significant impact from limits: 0.004% of rolls.

With 12 dice, and a limit of 5 you should probably prepare to be annoyed. Close to one in five rolls will be capped, though again don’t expect serious inconvenience. You will lose 3 successes 1.46% of the time, and 4+ successes 0.418% of the time. With a limit of 7, once again epic frustration requires epic deviations in probability: 0.042% chance for a roll to lose 3+ successes.

With 14 dice, you probably want to think about raising your limit. At that point, it’s time to get some custom gear. Limit: 5 is annoying or worse in close to one out of three rolls. About one in twenty rolls will cost you 3+ successes. With Limit: 6, that’s a bit more bearable. It goes down to under 2% of the time you’ll lose 3+ successes. And, of course, if you’ve got custom gear with a smartlink you’re sitting pretty: 1.765% chance you’ll run south of a limit. Losing out on 3 successes occurs 0.056% of the time. Losing 4+ occurs 0.009%(!!!) of the time.

Anyway! Hope the above is useful for all of you min/maxers out there who need to understand where your diminishing returns exist. And useful for any of you curious types who enjoy the elegance of the math “under the hood”.

Enjoy. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

[Draco18s]

With 10 dice and a limit of 5, you’ll find that your successes are being clipped 7.6% of the time. Note that less than one half of 1% you’ll lose more than three successes.

About what I expected.
And I'm totally cool with this. One in every 13 rolls gets a hit knocked off? Not that big of a worry (on the "it punishes players" end of the spectrum in areas they SHOULD be competent in).

[Wired_SR_AEGIS]

About what I expected.
And I'm totally cool with this. One in every 13 rolls gets a hit knocked off? Not that big of a worry (on the "it punishes players" end of the spectrum in areas they SHOULD be competent in).

It certainly doesn't punish players with a Smartlink, that's for sure. A 10 dice pool with a character whose taken their standard Limit: 5 piece of gear, and outfitted it with a Smartlink to increase the limit to 7 will only lose successes 0.35% of the time. That's getting close to 1 in 300 rolls which is 'Miiiiiiiiiight happen once or twice in your characters career'. And when it does?

Something like 86% of of the time when you do crack the odds and hit a limit, you'll just clip a single success. The odds of losing actually losing two or more successes are silly: 1 in 2173 rolls. I've played a lot of Shadowrun, but I'm not sure I've ever made that many rolls. Period. Let alone with a single character.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

[Cain]

I've discovered that player frustration can settle in at even one success stolen; this is especially true on opposed tests (which make up almost all of combat) where one success can make the difference between a hit or a miss.

[Epicedion]

I've discovered that player frustration can settle in at even one success stolen; this is especially true on opposed tests (which make up almost all of combat) where one success can make the difference between a hit or a miss.

Indeed, watching for how often a Limit contributes to turning a success into a failure is really the more important aspect. I suspect that rate would be much higher.

What you should do is take a series of reasonable scenarios. I recommend stuff like this:

Character with 5 Agility and 6 Pistols (11 dice) shooting at a target at close range, so no modifiers.

Compare shooting with a crap gun (Acc 3), substandard gun (Acc 4), standard gun (Acc 5), good gun (Acc 6), standard gun with smartlink (Acc 7), good gun with smartlink (Acc (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) .

Compare shooting at a target with Reaction 5 + Gymnastics 5 (10 dice).

Mathematically, you should see the following (only doing the odd ones here, since they're likely the most common):

Crap Gun (Acc 3)
Cap exceeded 52.74% of the time.
Dodger equals or exceeds cap 70.09% of the time (0% chance of success for the shooter).
Result: 36.97% of the time, the cap directly contributes to failure

Standard gun (Acc 5)
Cap exceeded 12.21% of the time.
Dodger equals or exceeds cap 21.31% of the time.
Result: 2.60% of the time, the cap directly contributes to failure

Standard gun with Smartlink (Acc 7)
Cap exceeded 0.88%
Dodger equals or exceeds 1.97%
Result: 0.017%

Bump up the shooter to 20 dice versus the dodger's 10 dice, you'll see the following results:
Crap gun: 65.87%
Standard Gun: 14.98%
Standard Smartlinked: 0.67%

Those are percent chances that the shooter exceeds the dice cap and still fails because the dodger equals or exceeds the cap. And it's just a single scenario. Comparing every single scenario would be a monstrously huge task.

The Accuracy Limit does bother me, though, because it reminds me of the old adage "it's a poor workman that blames his tools." But the system seems set up such that the better you are, the more likely you are to be able to rightly justify blaming your tools.

[Draco18s]

The Accuracy Limit does bother me, though, because it reminds me of the old adage "it's a poor workman that blames his tools." But the system seems set up such that the better you are, the more likely you are to be able to rightly justify blaming your tools.

So get better tools. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Wired_SR_AEGIS]

Those are percent chances that the shooter exceeds the dice cap and still fails because the dodger equals or exceeds the cap. And it's just a single scenario. Comparing every single scenario would be a monstrously huge task.

The Accuracy Limit does bother me, though, because it reminds me of the old adage "it's a poor workman that blames his tools." But the system seems set up such that the better you are, the more likely you are to be able to rightly justify blaming your tools.

Less monstrous than you may think. I'll see about putting together something to model that. Having hard numbers always makes discussions about things like this easier, and more objective.

Also, don't forget that the reverse of your scenario may also be true: There will be times when Limits will work in the favor of PCs, when they have a sufficiently high probability of dominating the upper limit of their opponent. At those junctions in time, players will appreciate Limits.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Also, don't forget that the reverse of your scenario may also be true: There will be times when Limits will work in the favor of PCs, when they have a sufficiently high probability of dominating the upper limit of their opponent. At those junctions in time, players will appreciate Limits.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

I would not be in that group. If you cannot be hurt/challenged, then what is the point? Might as well just write a novel, instead.

[Oracle]

So, if the limits do not affect anybody, why were they necessary? Shadowrun wasn't really suffering from a lack of ruleswise complexity before...

[Draco18s]

So, if the limits do not affect anybody, why were they necessary?

Correction: "Limits do not affect anybody who uses the right equipment." Or in the case of natural (vs. gear based) limits, "Limits do not affect anybody who is naturally proficient."

E.g. someone who is naturally charismatic is never going to have issues using all the hits they generate in a social situation. Someone who is athletic is never going to have issues using all the hits they generate when performing athletic tasks.

Its when people are forced outside their strong roles that they're going to bump up against those limits.

[Oracle]

It's just clipping the maximum successes of those characters who weren't good at the task in the first place? I'm still not really grasping, what this new concept is supposed to achieve...

[j2klbs]

One thing that Limits does is increase the value of the "Pushing the Limit" Edge option. Since spending an Edge point lets you roll extra dice, benefit from the Rule of Six AND ignore any limits, it makes the use of Edge much more cinematic. In other words, a character might have a harsh limit imposed by a crappy pea-shooter gun, but he spends a point of edge and shoots the villain right through the eye socket!

In game terms, the most effective use of Edge has always been either "Pushing the Limit" if your dice pool was small or "Second Chance" if your dice pool was large. What limits do is shift the balance of power a little away from large pools, i.e. it helps out the character with smaller pools. Put another way, the Decker with a gun can, a few times per day, be as good as a maxed out Street Sam.

~j2klbs

[Epicedion]

Less monstrous than you may think. I'll see about putting together something to model that. Having hard numbers always makes discussions about things like this easier, and more objective.

Also, don't forget that the reverse of your scenario may also be true: There will be times when Limits will work in the favor of PCs, when they have a sufficiently high probability of dominating the upper limit of their opponent. At those junctions in time, players will appreciate Limits.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Monstrous. There are thousands of dice pool vs dice pool vs cap vs cap scenarios. Restricting it to a max of 20 and a min of 1, with a max cap of 8 yields over 20,000 possible scenarios.

[Wired_SR_AEGIS]

Monstrous. There are thousands of dice pool vs dice pool vs cap vs cap scenarios. Restricting it to a max of 20 and a min of 1, with a max cap of 8 yields over 20,000 possible scenarios.

Sure. In fact, the more that I peer at the underlying math of Limits, the cooler I think these interactions will be. Particularly the curved distribution of dice probability with respect to the linear distribution of comparative successes. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

So it seems to me that you'd need to determine, among those scenarios, which hold "interesting" data points that should be teased to the surface. And then condense that "interesting" data into concise statements that people on the internet can argue about. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

(Not to say that you wouldn't want to collect the other "non-interesting" data along the way. Just because, you know, it never hurts to have the luxury of more data points.)

I like the approach of modeling common dice pools, with common limits. Your example of 11 pistols dice w/ various limits vs. 10 Gymnastics dice w/ various limits is a good example of the type of scenario that should be analyzed.

It will be interesting to see how often dice pools of certain sizes effectively dominate limits of lower levels. Limits never change that More Dice = Good, Less Dice = Bad. And higher limits don't == Always_Beat_Lower_Limits. It's all just a function of probability, it's just that the probability isn't quite as straight forward as it used to be.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

[Bearclaw]

It's just clipping the maximum successes of those characters who weren't good at the task in the first place? I'm still not really grasping, what this new concept is supposed to achieve...

I toyed around with the idea of limiting successes on ANY roll to your skill, or 1, whichever is higher, unless you used edge. Sadly, I couldn't get anyone to go along with the idea.

[Bigity]

We did this for a time in SR3. Maximum hits were limited to your relative skill (or Force, or program etc).

Net hits mind, we never tried capping just hits themselves.

EDIT: Bah, freaking SR4. Successes, not hits (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Shemhazai]

Instead of simulating, try this spreadsheet. The first page shows the odds of meeting or exceeding a certain threshold. The second page breaks down the odds of achieving a certain number of successes. The columns are number of successes and the rows are size of dice pool.

Edit: dead link removed

To find the odds of exceeding a cap with a certain number of dice, refer to the first page and check the column that is one greater than the cap. To see the odds of beating the cap by how much, refer to the second page.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Correction: "Limits do not affect anybody who uses the right equipment." Or in the case of natural (vs. gear based) limits, "Limits do not affect anybody who is naturally proficient."

E.g. someone who is naturally charismatic is never going to have issues using all the hits they generate in a social situation. Someone who is athletic is never going to have issues using all the hits they generate when performing athletic tasks.

Its when people are forced outside their strong roles that they're going to bump up against those limits.

You'd think having a smaller pool was enough of a penaty, now they can't even get lucky when trying things outside of their domain. That is actually the thing I dislike about limits the most, it seems to promote making sure people don't even try things outside of their specialty because they are doomed to failure. I like people going for the crazy, doing things they were not built for. I'd prefer to reward people for that instead of punish them. I'm wlling to wait and see, but what you just wrote does not sound good to me.

[yesferatu]

If this rule is going to come into play 2% of the time...what is the point of including it?
I understand Catalyst needs to innovate and sell books, and I love them to pieces, but wtf?
Is this something players were asking for?

I haven't seen the "accuracy" limits on armor and other gear, but I can imagine the frustration when your 20 die gun bunny caps out at 7 hits against a moderately armored troll.

[Shinobi Killfist]

If this rule is going to come into play 2% of the time...what is the point of including it?
I understand Catalyst needs to innovate and sell books, and I love them to pieces, but wtf?
Is this something players were asking for?

I haven't seen the "accuracy" limits on armor and other gear, but I can imagine the frustration when your 20 die gun bunny caps out at 7 hits against a moderately armored troll.

I don't mind it so much on the high end, I am more worried about the low end where for example the Elf gun adept in the preview might not feel the urge to use any mental skils skill since he is capped at 3 hits, or hell he is capped at Hard tasks for physical things when he has a 6 agility and 5 gymnastics which makes it seem like he should be able to go for very hard acrobatics without needing edge. Though even on the high end extreme tasks are pretty much out of the range of any non-super human characters without edge. But if I got my basketweaving skill up to 12 and I have a 6 link stat making me one of the best basketweaker in history you'd think pulling off an extreme(8hits) basketweave would be common enough I wouldn't need edge. Still not pulling off extreme things without edge bothers me less than not pulling off relatively mundane but hard without edge.

[thorya]

If this rule is going to come into play 2% of the time...what is the point of including it?
I understand Catalyst needs to innovate and sell books, and I love them to pieces, but wtf?
Is this something players were asking for?

I haven't seen the "accuracy" limits on armor and other gear, but I can imagine the frustration when your 20 die gun bunny caps out at 7 hits against a moderately armored troll.

Just because a rule only comes into play 2% of the time, doesn't mean it shouldn't be included. There are rules for dealing with damage overflow for players and if they know what they're doing, less then 2% of their rolls will be related to that portion of the game.
And I think it was in fact something people were asking for, even if they did not realize what exactly they were asking for. Even the "hardcore" fan base that now is complaining so much about it. Maybe they weren't asking for this fix in particular, but they were asking for a fix.
All of the optimized 20-30+ dice pool characters, complaints that generalist characters can't compete or that book archetypes aren't any good, complaints that dice pool modifiers were overpowered, complaints that it was too hard to build believable opposition without unrealistically optimizing them, and complaints about how this or that item was broken (emo-toys?) are in effect complaints about the system and things that people wanted to see changed. If we now conclude that we don't like the fix for the things we complained about, you can keep complaining sure. You might even get optional rules (like people that got optional rules for attributes in the matrix) or you can not purchase the book, but don't pretend that everything was peaches and cream in previous editions (unless you're TJ, in which case you have always believed this) and that this is some sort of betrayal just because you don't like the attempts to make the changes we asked for. It's like people who order food and then because they don't like the dish they asked for they think they're entitled to a new meal for free.
And cue the righteous indignation, sense of entitlement, and denial of previous complaints.

Also, limits on armor is one of the places where they make the most sense. The amount of damage you can soak with a piece of armor should be capped. Your ballistic vest never gets lucky and entirely stops an anti-tank rocket.

P.S. Not saying I love everything about the new system. Like every rpg I've ever played or read the rules for, it has ups and downs.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

You might even get optional rules (like people that got optional rules for attributes in the matrix) or you can not purchase the book, but don't pretend that everything was peaches and cream in previous editions (unless you're TJ, in which case you have always believed this) and that this is some sort of betrayal just because you don't like the attempts to make the changes we asked for. It's like people who order food and then because they don't like the dish they asked for they think they're entitled to a new meal for free.
And cue the righteous indignation, sense of entitlement, and denial of previous complaints.

Also, limits on armor is one of the places where they make the most sense. The amount of damage you can soak with a piece of armor should be capped. Your ballistic vest never gets lucky and entirely stops an anti-tank rocket.

P.S. Not saying I love everything about the new system. Like every rpg I've ever played or read the rules for, it has ups and downs.

Wow, I have never said that SR4A was error free or Peaches and Cream. I said that I have come to terms with the vast majority of things I don't like and don't worry about them. I have complained more than enough in the past about the system, and am still very vehement on certain subjects. But most of that is reserved for arguments on overoptimization and the complaints that there is no challenge (in one form or another).

I DO think there are issues (some of which you listed) with SR4A, but I have no need to make whole cloth changes (or even partial changes) to the system because of them. In the End, SR4A was what I wanted in the game. I can tell you what I did not want. That would be a New Edition. And "Limits" and the way they were implemented are only one reason for that statement. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[yesferatu]

I straight up loved the 4th ed rules as soon as I read them.
As an improvement on 3rd ed, I thought it exceeded in simplicity and scalability.
From what I've read of 5th ed (character creation and combat pdfs) I can't imagine a new player being anything other than frustrated and confused.

Every SR player I've talked to wanted 2 things and 2 things only: More playable matrix rules & stun damage nerf.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I've seen a lot of complaints about dice pool bloat extra dice from silly equipemnt etc. So yeah I am not surprised they were trying to fix that, limits seem a bit of an odd choice for that fix though.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I've seen a lot of complaints about dice pool bloat extra dice from silly equipemnt etc. So yeah I am not surprised they were trying to fix that, limits seem a bit of an odd choice for that fix though.

Odd Indeed... *shrug*