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Veggiesama
Is there any rhyme or reason to the book's use of (round up) and (round down)?

For example, in the section on Special Types of Damage, every example seems to have you resist with half your Impact armor (round up). Then you get to falling damage, and it's half your Impact armor (round down). Typo or some sort of mystical logic I'm not seeing?
PlatonicPimp
Nope. I personally say round like you were taught to in third grade, but some systems go for round down to prevent people from benifitting from "I've purchased 1.5 levels in this, it acts just like level 2 but I saved points." SR4 seems to round however the fancy struck them.


I'm compiling a comprehensive file of house rules and expansions I'm going to use in my home campaign, and in there I've been doing things like adjusting to a consistent rounding method and defining what bonuses are capped and what bonuses aren't.
RunnerPaul
The general house-rule of thumb is if the book doesn't specifiy, round to the disadvantage of the character.
FrankTrollman
In general, the Shadowrun 4 book uses the Champions mechanic, where characters round halves in their favor. So Drain Values for spells round down, damage value from strength and wound boxes from body round up.

There are a few exceptions to that, but they are rare enough that I strongly suspect them to be errors. In general, round however the character rolling the dice would want it to round.

-Frank
PlatonicPimp
3 people, four answers. I love it.
Grinder
Did you expect something else?

I always round down, btw. Sometimes it's an advantage for a char, sometimes not. But in the long run it seems to be balanced.
Azralon
It'd be best if they had a global "always round like this" rule, but they don't.
blakkie
But sometimes up is down. smile.gif I'd rather there be no rounding at all, or at least a lot less, that's probably the only way for it to work well.
PlatonicPimp
I have a 5.65 strength? how do I roll. 65 of a die?
blakkie
QUOTE (PlatonicPimp)
I have a 5.65 strength? how do I roll. 65 of a die?

How did you get it?
PlatonicPimp
Sorry, I was being facetious. How about this? I have a skill rating of 5. My modfied skill limit is 7.5. I have the Adept power Improved ability in that skill at rating 3. (The only thing everyone can agree the cap applies to.) That totals 8, but the max I can have is 7.5, so I lose the half-point and have a skill rating of 7.5. Now do I roll 7 or 8 dice? Or 7d6 + 1d3?
Azralon
Let's look at it like this: When does it say to round up, and when does it explicitly say to drop fractions?

Here's some of the list off the top of my head:

* Body damage boxes are calculated by 8+(Body/2, drop fractions). Stun is 8+(Willpower/2, drop fractions).

* Magic Loss is equal to (Essence Loss, round up from any fraction).

* Attribute augmentation caps are (Natural maximum x 1.5, drop fractions).
FrankTrollman
QUOTE (Azralon)
* Body damage boxes are calculated by 8+(Body/2, drop fractions). Stun is 8+(Willpower/2, drop fractions).

Um... not exactly.

QUOTE (SR4)
8 + (BODYś2, ROUND UP) BOXES


QUOTE (Azralon)
* Magic Loss is equal to (Essence Loss, round up from any fraction).


Also, Healing Suppression rounds Essence Loss down.

So if you have an Essence of 5.1 or 5.9, you lose a point of Magic and it is no more difficult to heal you.

-Frank
Azralon
Like I said, off the top of my head.

Coulda sworn I read somewhere (maybe here in Disinformation Land) that it was like:

1 & 2 = 9 boxes
3 & 4 = 10 boxes
etc.

EDIT: Ahh, I see what I was doing.
blakkie
QUOTE (PlatonicPimp @ Oct 20 2005, 10:41 AM)
Sorry, I was being facetious. How about this? I have a skill rating of 5. My modfied skill limit is 7.5. I have the Adept power Improved ability in that skill at rating 3. (The only thing everyone can agree the cap applies to.) That totals 8, but the max I can have is 7.5, so I lose the half-point and have a skill rating of 7.5. Now do I roll 7 or 8 dice? Or 7d6 + 1d3?

So if you don't have a calculation designed that can work out to 7.5 then where is the rounding issue? Go to the source of the problem and eliminate/alter [most of] those types of formulas and round-off isn't nearly the same issue.

P.S. Given how Essense works, and the core design involves a number with 3 significant digits that eventually changes one that is 1 siginifacnt digit, that is one place that would be incredibily hard to get rid of rounding.
PlatonicPimp
QUOTE (blakkie)
QUOTE (PlatonicPimp @ Oct 20 2005, 10:41 AM)
Sorry, I was being facetious. How about this? I have a skill rating of 5. My modfied skill limit is 7.5. I have the Adept power Improved ability in that skill at rating 3. (The only thing everyone can agree the cap applies to.) That totals 8, but the max I can have is 7.5, so I lose the half-point and have a skill rating of 7.5. Now do I roll 7 or 8 dice? Or 7d6 + 1d3?

So if you don't have a calculation designed that can work out to 7.5 then where is the rounding issue? Go to the source of the problem and eliminate/alter [most of] those types of formulas and round-off isn't nearly the same issue.

P.S. Given how Essense works, and the core design involves a number with 3 significant digits that eventually changes one that is 1 siginifacnt digit, that is one place that would be incredibily hard to get rid of rounding.

Ah, so instead of coming up with a blanket system of rounding ( a simple patch to an existing rules set), we should alter all the calculations in such a way as to prevent fractions from occuring ( a complicated patch to an existing rules set, and problematic with designing a new rules set since it requires either the restrictive use of only even numbered stats, or preventing the use of division or multiplication by fractions in the formulas ).
Eyeless Blond
Well personally I'd perfer to drop fractions when calculating Magic/Resonance loss instead of rounding up; I really don't think a pair of cybereyes should drop a full point of Magic. Then again I'm also a fan of mages with a little cyber, and of the houserule that technomancers need to actually connect to the Matrix to use it, rather than "magically" make their brains into radio tranceivers.
blakkie
Er, no PlatonicPimp. IMO it should have been designed in to start with. nyahnyah.gif They did remove some rounding issues, just not as many a i would like to have seen.

P.S. I actually prefer to keep as is as opposed to trying to implement a house rule blanket rounding. *shrug* Partially because sometimes up is down anyway, so you have to remember how you are suppose to look at it.
blakkie
QUOTE (Eyeless Blond)
Well personally I'd perfer to drop fractions when calculating Magic/Resonance loss instead of rounding up; I really don't think a pair of cybereyes should drop a full point of Magic. Then again I'm also a fan of mages with a little cyber, and of the houserule that technomancers need to actually connect to the Matrix to use it, rather than "magically" make their brains into radio tranceivers.

I'm not sure about Awakened, but flavour wise optimally i would have liked to have seen Technomancers take some cyberware (but not bioware) without taking a Resonance hit. The rules for that would be a bit strange though.
Eyeless Blond
Well, why *not* bioware? It's not like their particular form of Awakening should be incompatible with technology, after all. smile.gif
blakkie
QUOTE (Eyeless Blond @ Oct 21 2005, 09:25 AM)
Well, why *not* bioware? It's not like their particular form of Awakening should be incompatible with technology, after all. smile.gif

I was thinking foriegn fleshy parts bad, machines no so bad. nyahnyah.gif
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