 Shadowrun 3rd Revised, our backs turned, looking down the path |
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 Apr 2 2007, 06:58 PM
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#376
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Target  Group: Members Posts: 28 Joined: 14-March 02 Member No.: 2,374  |
Sorry about that, that was done in 5 minutes in excel before a meeting. I didn't come up with this system, I got it a LONG time ago (pre-internet). I will look around to see if I still have the hardcopy I printed out. The person who came up with this had a fairly detailed mathematical discription of this method. |
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Apr 2 2007, 07:20 PM
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#377
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Well, let's see. If I'm properly awake:
Which comes out to approximately:
Unless I've done my math wrong somewhere. Edit: I also doubt you got the system pre-internet :) though there's about a year-long timespan you could have gotten it pre-web. Unless it was intended for something other than Shadowrun, of course. ~J |
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Apr 3 2007, 01:45 PM
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#378
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Target Group: Members Posts: 28 Joined: 14-March 02 Member No.: 2,374 |
You're right, not pre-internet, pre-web. It's hard to connect something like the old prodigy or compuserve BB to today's internet. I can't find the old hardcopies, but I did redo the math and my numbers agree with yours. It looks like in the reroll 6's and add to 5 result in lower probabilities of getting target numbers of 7 and higher, and are significantly lower in the 11+ range. The reroll 5 & 6 and add to 4 has similar odds to the reroll 6 and add to 6, with slightly more favorable odds of getting the higher target numbers. If you're going to redo the die rolling system, the one I suggested would eliminate the 5 = 6 issue and give similar odds for getting higher target numbers. |
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Apr 3 2007, 03:07 PM
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#379
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
I think you mean the 6=7 issue :) the other oddity in the dice rules is how big a difference 5 -> 6 makes, though I'm not sure it's a problem.
~J |
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Apr 6 2007, 02:15 PM
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#380
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
List of Liber Non Grata added to first post.
~J |
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Apr 15 2007, 05:07 AM
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#381
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Update on direction: sometime soon, hopefully over the Summer, I intend to begin advancing the in-game world starting from the last of the SR3R canon works. The SR3R canon contains all books from Shadowrun 1st, 2nd, and 3rd edition, English printing, except as listed in the Liber Non Grata and as altered in the relevant SR3R threads. While this will be under the SR3R umbrella, its development will be much more centralized—however, this should not cause any difficulties to those seeking to use SR3R rules together with pure SR3 (and possibly SR3-adapted SR4) setting developments.
Also, the following is to be considered a key concept in the development of the SR3R rules and the alteration of preexisting in-character material: "when fluff and rules disagree, everyone loses." The SR3R project is not intended to disparage or lay claim to any trademark owned by WizKids or their affiliates. ~J |
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Apr 19 2007, 02:00 AM
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#382
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Decker on the Threshold Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,922 Joined: 14-March 04 Member No.: 6,156 |
That reroll 5/6-add 4 thing is very interesting. Remember, though, that the important thing isn't just to eliminate 6=7, but to make the relative difference between hitting two adjacent TNs as small as possible. Not only do we need to eliminate 6==7, but we also want to minimize times where, for instance, 5->6 drops the probability in half, relatively speaking. The above system does that, but there are a few that may be better: Reroll 5s and add 4; reroll 6s and add 5. Reroll 5s and add 4; reroll 6s and add 6. Calculations: (EDIT: FIXED)
Note the averages, btw. What those basically mean is that every time the TN is raised by 1, the difficulty increases by that percentage chance. The standard rule of 6, for instance, means that on average each +1 TN makes the test 25.1% tougher, +/- 15.2%. It's the last lines that are most important, the standard deviations. These show that, of the probabilities shown, "Reroll 5s add 4, reroll 6 add 5" gives the best overall relative difference between different TNs. The other two rerolls work as well, both being far better than either the standard Rule of 6, and the standard "fix" of roll 6 = add 5. The differences between the three later rerolling methods tend to disappear when looking only at the lower TNs; here the "Reroll 5/6 add 4" gives the best results, but it's very close. IMO the one that gives the best "end behavior", yet still has good performance over the most-used TNs is the "Reroll 5s and add 4; reroll 6s and add 6" rule. This one has an added advantage in expanding the useful range of TNs, that is, the range of TNs that you can reasonably expect to see someone actually hit in a given game. You notice the problem especially in decking, where a Detection Factor of 9-10 is pretty much a requirement to do anything in the Matrix, but by the time you hit 17 or so you're pretty much guaranteed to never be detected. For those who were wondering, "Reroll 5s and add 5; reroll 6s and add 6." turns out awful; the numbers are already cluttered or I'd show why. Another thing we should work out is the Rule of Ones. Instead of all 1s, how would you feel about a simple majority of 1s, along with no successes, activating the rule, sorta like Critical Glitches in SR4? |
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Apr 19 2007, 02:38 AM
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#383
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
My initial reaction is negative, but the numbers aren't coming out the way I'm expecting them to. I'll have to look at that botch proposal in more detail.
~J |
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Apr 19 2007, 04:48 AM
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#384
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Decker on the Threshold Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,922 Joined: 14-March 04 Member No.: 6,156 |
OOPS! I made a huge mistake on those calculations; I forgot to do a relative difference on that last one, the Reroll 5 add4, reroll 6 add 6 one. Fixing now...
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Apr 19 2007, 03:05 PM
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#385
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Incertum est quo loco te mors expectet; Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,548 Joined: 24-October 03 From: DeeCee, U.S. Member No.: 5,760 |
I want to make botches more common, however the problem with the SR4 rule is that it makes botches among people with 2 or 3 skill just way too common. In SR4 it sort of works because by default, the average person is rolling 6+ dice for a given skill, and not less than 3 even if you don't have the skill. In SR3, where 1-4 dice is the average case, and 6 is basically the ceiling, cutting the number of 1's in half means you're going to have an awful lot of botches.
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Apr 19 2007, 03:14 PM
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#386
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Well, it's not just cutting the number of 1s in half—Eyeless' proposal gets rid of the godawful "botch while succeeding" possibility. One die, TN 4 has a 1/6 chance of botching now and a 1/6 chance of botching under his proposal, two dice had a 1/36 chance of botching and now have a (1/6)*(3/6) or 3/36 or 1/12 chance of botching—actually, I should have checked this earlier, as this is the first value I've checked that seems unreasonably high. Assuming we're taking the ceiling of half the dice for the 1s requirement, 3 dice is a (1/6)^2*(3/6) chance, or 3/216, or 1/72, which… I dunno, 4 is an average task, and for someone with 3 dice to be botching more than one in a hundred times…
It's not totally broken except maybe for Skill 2, but I'm not sure I like it. The other big problem with it is when you have someone with Biotech or First Aid 3 (proficient, mind you), you end up with about a (1/6)^2*((6/6)-((1/6)*(3/6))) = (1/36)*((6/6)-(3/36)) = (1/36)*(33/36) = (33/1296)… huh. The numbers never quite come out as bad as I expect them to—I guess a 2.5% chance of botching isn't quite enough to keep someone from trying to stabilize someone else, though in the case of a plainclothes cop (from SRComp, Biotech 2) it means a (1/6)*(33/36) or a 33/216 or a 11/72 chance of botching. I don't know. I'll have to run more numbers, but the only glaring flaw thus far is "don't have Skill 2". ~J |
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Apr 19 2007, 07:34 PM
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#387
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Decker on the Threshold Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,922 Joined: 14-March 04 Member No.: 6,156 |
Well, keep in mind that your skill 2 guy--who spent a grand total of 4 karma for the privelege, btw--will fail that "average task" 25% of the time; I don't see anything totally wrong with making a larger mistake 8.33% of the time. At the same time, why should that same guy with a skill of 2 botch a TN2 test just as ofen as he botches a TN 8 test? Shouldn't harder tests (higher TNs) be easier to botch?
If you feel that nervous about it, maybe we can also retcon the rule that you can spend karma pool to negate a Rule-of-1 glitch? |
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Apr 19 2007, 07:59 PM
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#388
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 546 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Manchester, England Member No.: 1,062 |
What seems stupid to me, is that skill 1 man has more chance of botching than skill 0 - attribute 2 man. Because he's defaulting, he should by definition be a lot more likely to screw it up, not less likely.
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Apr 19 2007, 08:24 PM
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#389
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Incertum est quo loco te mors expectet; Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,548 Joined: 24-October 03 From: DeeCee, U.S. Member No.: 5,760 |
EB - good suggestion, with karma pool
Angel - yeah, I think you basically got what's bugging me. Botch is based off of skill, not difficulty of the task, time taken, or even whether you're defaulting! EB's suggestion of allowing karma pool helps because it means if you're spending your full attention on it, you're probably not going to botch, but if you've had a really busy couple of days, you're less likely to be able to avoid mistakes. A second suggestion would be to say defaulting acts like a skill of 1 for the purpose of botching. |
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Apr 19 2007, 08:30 PM
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#390
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 546 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Manchester, England Member No.: 1,062 |
You could, but then a 10Str Troll is going to botch awfully often when defaulting to Str.
I rule I use is that when defaulting, all failing to reach 4 is a fail for attribute, failing to reach 3 for another skill. |
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Apr 19 2007, 08:33 PM
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#391
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Unless I'm reading you wrong, that means someone defaulting with Attribute 1 is immensely better off than someone defaulting with Attribute 20, who is in turn dramatically better off than someone with Attribute 5000. Or was that to be combined with Eyeless' suggestion (one 1, all others failures)?
Anyway, I dislike high botch chances because it encourages not doing things (failure is often equivalent to having not tried, botching involves actively making things worse). I essentially never use a skill at 1—that 1/6 chance of botching is overwhelming. Assuming I'm not alone, why don't we just eliminate Skill 1 and make it cost 4 points of karma to buy Skill 2? For the record, I don't like that idea, but as it stands Skill 1 is worse than useless. In my opinion, your suggestion also pulls Skill 2 into worse-than-uselessness. What about the karma botch-negation needs retconning? ~J |
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Apr 19 2007, 08:43 PM
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#392
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 546 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Manchester, England Member No.: 1,062 |
I think you're reading me wrong, someone with attribute 1 needs to roll a 4+ to not botch. Basically, they have a 50-50 chance of seriously screwing up. Someone with attribute 2 will have 25% chance of totally screwing up... and so on. So, attribute 20 man would be better off giving it a shot than attribute 1 man, because by definition att. 1 man isn't built for the task.
It basically takes the (default modifier/2) rounded up, and subtracts it from the roll. If what you're then left with is all ones, you botch. As for karma pool, we just use it to re-roll as opposed to avoid and ooops. |
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Apr 19 2007, 08:45 PM
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#393
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
I was talking to Nezumi there, you posted while I was writing my reply.
~J |
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Apr 19 2007, 08:55 PM
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#394
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 546 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Manchester, England Member No.: 1,062 |
oops :)
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Apr 19 2007, 09:15 PM
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#395
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Incertum est quo loco te mors expectet; Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,548 Joined: 24-October 03 From: DeeCee, U.S. Member No.: 5,760 |
Yeah Kage, good point. My idea was pretty bad :P
Hmm... Skills start at 2? Not bad. You're right that basically skills are useless until that point anyway. |
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Apr 20 2007, 02:51 AM
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#396
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Decker on the Threshold Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,922 Joined: 14-March 04 Member No.: 6,156 |
Hehe... the irony here is, for all skill levels other than 1, we're still talking lower or comparable botch rates to those in d20. :)
Anyway, yeah, I guess I can see how for SR3, with the lower number of dice we're talking, adapting these rules might be a problem. I'd just like to see botching be slightly more probable at higher skill levels; as it stands whenever someone Rule of Ones (the single time I actually saw it anyway) the GM goes out of his way to completely screw over the player, because the rule happens so infrequently. If it happened more often there wouldn't be that tendency so often, I think. |
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Apr 20 2007, 11:14 AM
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#397
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,066 Joined: 5-February 03 Member No.: 4,017 |
Not likely. D&D related forums are full of arguments over the validity of critical fumble rules. A non-trivial amount argue that 1/400 is still too common to shoot yourself in the foot while more have horror stories of the GMs who had a chart of interesting unintentional suicides to roll on every time you got a 1 on an attack roll. It's a GM problem, not a probability one. |
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May 2 2007, 02:14 PM
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#398
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Gecko Crawl and Levitate have the exact same target numbers and drain codes. Now, Gecko Crawl doesn't increase your TN if you mass more than 100 kilos, but is that really a big enough compensation for losing both the ability to use it to manipulate objects and the ability to leave surfaces?
Thoughts? ~J |
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May 2 2007, 08:48 PM
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#399
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Free Spirit Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 3,950 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Bloomington, IN UCAS Member No.: 1,920 |
Seems good enough to me.
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May 2 2007, 09:22 PM
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#400
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
In addition to fixing just about everything else about the current drug rules, what are the effects of a mage with Focused Concentration ingesting Psyche? No additional bonus? Something else?
Also, Cram's crash effects are expressed in terms of stun damage, but they're implied to last for a fixed duration. Should that be changed? If not, how does that interact with, say, the Stun-reducing properties of the Pain Editor or the Trauma Damper? ~J |
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