Something bothered me for a while now: (Yeah some of you all know that i am GM in a 4th edition group while prefering the third... sorry about the constant negativity.. i am trying to like it more, honest)

In some tests the active character(s) lose dice depending of thing they can not know... the gravest offender i think are perception test. Say you jump into the dark warehouse and take a quick lookie around: Visual perception is rolled BUT STOP: One dude is protected by concealment (6), another one has a chameleon suit (-4) Another one stand right before him but has a small gun in a stealth holster (-4 i think?) and a big gun in quickdraw beneath his coat (-2?)

So i have to ask him to throw say... 6 (of his 12) dice, than 2 more and then 2 more again... thats just unneccessary and gives him clue to what is going on here. (Yeah of course the GM could throw the dice hidden... but then I have to throw and throw again some crap all the time)

So i was thinking of converting dice substractions to additional threshold for my sessions (but my players HATE houseruling so thats a problem)

But i just wanted to ask: Anyone of you have the same bad experience with that? What are your opinions on that? Or is it totally ok for you? I really miss the stealthfactor of the third edition. (If i recall it correctly) Just an open test to set your factor, let the other character roll and just see if roll+enhancements > stealthfactor+enhancements... the more hits the more information.

EDIT: Damn i wrote unelegant wrong... sigh... why did i even chose that... is that even a word? Let's just call it coarse, ok?

Why not have them roll the dice where you can see them, and count over from the left only the number of dice they secretly get?
Sure it takes longer, but short of rolling the dice into something that will line them up, or using a program to roll and display a list, it's the best option I can see.

I think the GM rolling Perception in secret is always a good idea. Players won't know if they rolled well, so they can't be too sure they're safe. Roll 0-2 extra times just to keep them guessing about the number of people they're seeing/missing, too.

Every game has elements of metagaming. Doesn't matter what system it is. The moment you ask for a "Surpise" test, there goes surprise. Develop a method of players and GM to trust each other and not metagame to any great advantage.

This is where the occasional "Roll 6 dice please" and not letting them know what it is for helps. It requires some preparation, but it helps a lot. To prepare is easy, the common rolls are surprise and perception checks of various kinds, keep track of a few key pool sizes from session to session, and ask them to roll that pool and not tell them what it's for until the relevant moment. That way they know something is up when you ask for that roll, but not what's it's for, you keep suspense.

The other fun outcome is you can ask for a roll now and then completely randomly, but of course nothing will happen, just to keep their attention.

Well, if you change it into thresholds, remember that 3 dice roughly equals 1 hit. With Edge, 2 dice roughly equal 1 hit.

So maybe halve all the perception penalties, and apply them as threshold modifiers?

2.5 dice

With a dice pool of 36 you get 12 hits, 6 rerolls. Which gives another 2 hits and 1 reroll, which averages 1/3 more hits.* 12 + 2 + 1/3 = 14.3333

36 / 14.333 = 2.5116

*Additional 6s and hits from even more 6s is so slight as to on average disappear. If you really want you can add in an additional 0.0555, resulting in... 2.5019 dice equaling an extra hit. I suspect if I did the complex math to work this out to infinity I'd end up with exactly 2.5

It's probably easiest to make a sheet of paper with everyone's Perception pools, along with the various bonuses they get from enhancements. You can check for applicable enhancements without alerting them that they're needed.

For added convenience, also print the relevant Perception/Visibility tables on the same sheet of paper.

I usually turn penalties on a PC's perception test into extra dice for the bad guys to roll instead. That way I don't need to dicker with thresholds, The pc's always roll the same number of dice without having to worry about why their pools are suddenly lower, and the bad guys still get a better chance of hiding.

The best part is that the PC's never even need to know you're doing it since it never affects how many dice they roll.

I've never felt that it was right for the GM to roll anything that's on a PC's sheet. Their character is the only thing they have in the game world that is theirs to control. Rolling their dice for whatever reason just takes away from that one bit of game influence they actually have.

Which is statistically identical, assuming that the penalty value is less than the PC's dice pool + 4 (then you're getting into probable glitch territory, or worse, 0 dice).

Not if not all of the PCs have the same penalties; for example, when one of them has ultrasound and the rest don't. Then you'd have to roll separate hiding tests for a single badguy against different PCs. And eventually that means you'll screw up your hiding test against the blind one, and succeed against the all-seeing one. (And Murphy will make sure it happens often.)

Use auto-successes ONLY unless they specifically say they are actively scoping the area then use concealment mods as auto successes for a threshold.

Or you just roll the biggest DP that the NPC gets after bonuses (anti penalties) and subtract dice from left to right to get the various thresholds that the people have to hit. So blind joe has to get 6 hits and ultrasound bob only needs 3 hits because of the 8 dice you took off from the left, three of them were hits.

The big differences statistically between doing this and doing it the 'proper' way is 1) an overall lowering of glitch and critical glitch chances because everyone will always be rolling large DPs and 2) the inability to completely null out someone's ability to do something (Like giving a -6 DP to someone with a DP of 5). So yeah, a bonus to the NPC DPs is actually slightly in favor of the PCs, so I can't imagine them complaining too much. Of course you don't ever have to tell them you're doing it.

Oh, and as for the surprise check, every once in a while say "Okay, everyone declare what you are doing right now." and when it is actually a surprise attack, whatever they say they're doing is what they'll be locked into doing during their IP if they are surprised. And of course make sure to ask this at random times as well so they don't always go 'pulling out my gun and looking around' whenever you ask.

Not quite. Here's a base example:

'Attacker' and 'Defender' both have a DP of 2. So by deducting from the attacker or adding to the defender we have either 1 vs 2 or 2 vs 3.

1 vs 2
Probability of success (at least one net hit) = Probability of 1 hit vs 0 hits
= (1/3)x(4/9)
= 4/27
= 36/243

2 vs 3
Probability of success (at least one net hit) = Prob. of 1 hit vs 0 hits + Prob. of 2 hits vs 0 hits + Prob. of 2 hits vs 1 hit
= [(4/9)x(8/27)]+[(1/9)x(8/27)]+[(1/9)x(12/27)]
= 52/243

The starting point of 2 vs 2 had a success probability of 72/243, so benefitting the Defender reduces the probability by 20 units whilst penalising the attacker reduces it by 36 - a decrease of 4/9 of the penalty's weight.

Looking at the next case up,
3 vs 3 has a probability of success of 242/279
3 vs 4 has a probability of success of 184/279
2 vs 3 has a probability of success of 156/279

If the attacker is penalised the probability loss is 86 units, whilst if we award the defender the loss is instead 58. This time the loss of probability of success drops by 14/43.

So the difference will be felt less with more reasonable dice pools but of course they'll be felt more with bigger penalities.
Either way, reducing the attacker's DP and raising the defender's DP isn't the same thing.

[Feel free to correct the numbers if necessary, it's late. ]
[Left out glitches, but their inclusion could only support the hypothesis]

This is the best suggestion I've seen yet, but I would like to help with it slightly. Instead of printing out the visibility tables as well, use the GM screen.

Don't forget that visibility penalties also apply as penalties for ranged attack rolls as well.

Also, you can always ask your players to roll random dicepools with random penalties, just to keep them off their toes.

We also have the BASE PENALTY of "Distracted" with a -2 modifier.

Unless a character is taking a complex action to "Obsercve in detail" they suffer a -2 dicepool modifier.

Now, how many runners are on their toes ALL THE TIME looking for things?

Unless a player states what they are looking for and that they actually take the time (observe in detail) I would give them a -2 modifier.

This is where a good observation drone is useful. Give a drone the order to:

A: Follow the players
B: Observe in detail for...
B.1: Hostiles
B.2: Weapons
B.3: Traps

etc...

Isn't "Observing in Detail" a simple action? A runner can't be on his toes all the time looking for things, but he can be on his toes, while he is conscious, looking for things. Of course, if the runner is making a Complex action or doing things that require 2 Simple actions, then normally he won't be able to "Observe in Detail".

@Summerstorm
How would you've done it if you were Gamesmastering 3rd Ed ?

with a Curious Dance
Medicineman

Sorry, my bad.

Still, having to state that "I observe in detail" every few minutes to the GM so that they not loose 2D6 can be a pain in the arse.

The same should go for corp security. How often are corp security NPC's "on their toes" as they should also have penalties for not observing in detail for the right things.

Corp security in a shopping mall expects burglars, not watchers, spirits or infiltration drones for example (except their own drones or watchers).

I think a PC with some Perception training could be on lookout all the time, but that does mean that PC is preoccupied keeping an eye; moving somewhat slower, and he can't do much else, because he's spending simple actions keeping the observation going.

Not a bad choice, if you're not alone, to have someone monitoring the surroundings. It does require good concentration however.

Easy solution:

Roll the dice to be subtracted by yourself and subtract hits from the hits your player got. Mathematically this is about the same as subtracting dice form the initial roll.
For more information see my house rules (SHP) in the signature (but beware, they are 1-2 years old).

Interesting idea and it does give you the same mathematically expected (read: average) result, but my Pedantry(+2) specialisation is kicking in again.

First, what if the net result is a negative number of hits? It's not a big issue as it will only happen in a few % of tests, so perhaps just treat it as an automatic glitch (or upstaging a natural glitch to a critical).

Second, although the average stays the same (assuming negative net hits has a meaningful implication of relative magnitude) the probabilities are shifted. For example, for a DP of 3 being 'counter-attacked' by 1 die the player is more likely to get 2 or 3 hits (than with a DP of 2) but less likely to get 0 or 1 hits (than with a DP of 2). Suppose the player needed 2 net hits – his chances are now 5/27 instead of 1/9=3/27, a 67% increase in the chance of success.

Third, the player now has the ability to score more hits than with RAW, which for tests where extra hits mean a better success (e.g. more detailed information learned) means he is able to do better than should be possible. For example, a DP of 5 with a -2 penalty shouldn't be able to score 5 net hits, it should be capped at 3, but including this cap would make the penalty harsher than it should be.

You could decide that the second and third points balance out the first, so long as everyone is aware of the implications. Or you could say that the difference is minimal and it's just a game, shut up Aero.

In 3rd Ed, have them rolling, have them rolling the 6's again as needed.

I know that ! I've been playing 3rd Ed for Years. I'm up to something different.I'm seeking simmilaritys instead of separations
Now get out and let Summerstorm answer !

HougH!
Medicineman

Just remember to update it on occasion. The only problem with the GM rolling is when edge is used.

The other issue is the deadliness of the game. Failed perception = suprise= no full dodge = very well placed sniper shot = dead runner = well fed Ghoul or a new look for a shedhim.

This is one of my biggest problems with 4e. Variable dice pools slow down the game a great deal, and dice pool penalties can easily knock most skills into the can't make a roll range or way to easy to fumble range. IMO the best solution in only give bonus dice, never give penalty dice.(mark me as agreeing with the poster who 1st suggested it) It is not as slow, and it removes the silly situations of 0 dice and fumble heavy pools. I think they started moving in the right direction with cover against ranged attacks in 4A, bonus dice to your reaction/dodge test. My gun shouldn't jam more often when someone is behind cover, and the players more often knowing what dice they have to roll before they even state there action speeds things up incredibly.(also can remove the metagmaing if that is an issue). Also if the player is rolling 5 dice for his dodge test and gets 2 successes, it is a lot easier(mostly psychologically) for me to say you have+4 dice because his recoil is out of control or you have cover and have him add the successes than have him re-roll entirely, especially if he got a good roll.

Sure penalty dice make more sense in some cases like recoil, you don't dodge better because the guy has recoil he shoots less accurately. But it is statistically the same and avoiding 0dice pools and fumble situations is more important and avoids those logical problems.

Take your example, if I were to be writing that adventure(assuming I was not caught off guard with the we raid a warehouse request) I'd give bonus dice to all the hiding checks of the guys in the warehouse, and I could roll in advance so I would know how many successes would be needed to spot them and it would be written down on my cheat sheet. Charlie(chameleon suit) 4 hits, Bob(behind crate)2 hits etc.

Oh... kay:

I just note the stealth factor for my NPC's and thingies and remember their equipment/situational modifiers.

If someone makes a perception check, i can just see how he rolled and quickly see if his roll+/- equipment >= stealthfactor+/- equipment.

For example someone with a ruthenium-polymere-suit (12 cameras) is hiding: throws a 8, i note 8(+v12)

Players come in and look around, i say: roll perception: Dude say: 9, 5, 5, 4, 3. Normaly no hit for perception... but if he has infrared. BANG hits. Easily done in 2-3 seconds after i've seen the dice falling.

And now (4th edition) i have to note: threshold (say... 3) -6v.

Players come in and want to look around; I have to say: Sure throw...X dice +/-(+3 for active searching, and -4 visual and -2 for a bit farther away and so on blahblah). He says: but i have Ultrasound. Me (calculating.. hmmm then its Y dice). Just this one back is just time wasted.

So back on the track: Hm... yeah even if it is maybe a bit unfair, rolling against the player/npc with the dice he lost may be possible too. but i think i am keeping the +threshold. then i can note just like before: Threshold 3(+1V) or 3(-1V+1far) and be done with it. So the notations behind the base threshold will be nullified with right equipment on the side of the "attacker". Same thing on other tests. Of course than fewer "glitches" will occur... but meh no one ever critical glitches anyways at anything important *g*.

Uh.

Observing in detail qualifies as "actively looking" which grants a +2 DP modifier (+3?). So there's clearly a middle ground.

Yeah, I'd say if you're walking down the street just to get from point A to point B or trying to creep about a facility undetected you shouldn't get the distracted penalty. You need something actively going on that would divert your attention. For example, if you're walking down the street while doing an AR hack or have had a couple drinks and are dancing at a noisy club without a care in the world, you should get the -2 penalty.

As I understand it, Perception is basically always modified; if you're actively looking you get a bonus, and in almost all other cases you get the penalty for not paying attention.

Players come in and look around, i say: roll perception: Dude say: 9, 5, 5, 4, 3. Normaly no hit for perception... but if he has infrared. BANG hits. Easily done in 2-3 seconds after i've seen the dice falling.

Maybe your Group should work with Threshold Successes
Transform every -2 to -3 Dice to 1 more Success
and any +2 to +3 to one less Success
Discovering the Heavy Pistol 1 Success
" the Holdout Pistol 2 Successes
" the Ninja in Cameosuit in the Background 3 Successes
and the Mage hidden by his Spirit 3 Successes
let your Player roll his normal Perception (+/- any Obvious Dice for Light and Observing,etc) than simply count his Successses and tell him everything

You can either Change the # of Dice or the # of Successes or even both

with both Dances
Medicineman

Not really. If you're just walking down the street not really doing anything, you're going to notice stuff fairly well, but not as well as if you're scanning the street trying to find your friend or money on the ground or whatever. You're also going to notice stuff alot better than you would if you were trying to read a book/notes or look in your backpack or are texting on your cellphone or even just talking on your cellphone. Oh, and don't forget playing a gameboy or something like that.

So yeah, I think there is a no modifiers middle ground between being distracted and actively looking.

Or in a guard situation. You have three guards. One is sitting at his desk watching the mini-TV, the other is sitting at his desk kinda watching the hall or whatever while his mind wanders to what he'd rather be doing, and guard three is sitting at his desk, eyes peeled, focused on making sure no one and no thing gets past him.

For the first guard you could just about go "Hey joe!" as you walk past and he wouldn't notice you, the second guard you likely couldn't get past, but maybe a flyspy or something small might be able to slip his notice, but the third guard is going to notice an ant trying to sneak past him.

Here is an example

Bah, watch this one instead. So much better.

Yeah, that is good. I got one.

I got 8 and speculated on a 9th that time, but I knew what some of them were.

Just out of curiosity, which one did you notice?

I noticed the bear to suit of armor, mostly because I expected the bear to start dancing. Also think I saw the armor move just a bit as they were finishing setting it up. I noticed a bunch of other 'hey, why do they look like they've moved' sort of things, but didn't really connect for me.

Yeah, the armor wiggles just a titch. I think its the only real mistake. Probably should have done the armor first and swapped to the bear...

I was watching the people.. didn't see any of it coming because I expected something about the people to be significant.

And thus you had the -2 for being distracted.

Personally I was looking for something in the background to happen, especially movement, so I got the +2 or +3 or whatever for the armor, and simply failed to notice the other stuff with no penalty or bonus.

But that was actually more of a case of -0 penalty for normal observation, not distracted. Add on an exceptionally high difficulty for some of the changes.
Two to five successes, depending on the changes, with the armor being the easiest to notice.

-2 for a limited vision range, +2 for being observant and you're still getting a normal pool if you're watching.

I didn't get any of them, even after reading your comments. I had to watch it a second time, just to figure out what was going on. *points to sig* Once I knew what I was looking for, several became obvious, but there were still many I don't think I ever would have noticed. I'd say the test had a high threshold.

I don't like the increased chance of glitching, due to the penalties for a well-hidden opponent. I guess you'd have to make that glitch appropriate for the well-hiddenness.

Oh certainly, the changes ranged the gamut between easy ones and hard ones, but if you're just watching the video (distracted) you're not going to see any of them. If you're sitting back and viewing but not really paying attention, you'll pick up on one or two. If you're focused on picking up every change you'll get more of them (the flowers, rolling pin, different pot, clock, bear, dead guy and carpet likely).

I got both the paintings, I noticed something different about the flowers, I got the bear/armor (it would have been cooler if they put the armor on the bear), I noticed the change with the clock and dead guy, and the table in the backround. I can't believe I missed the drapes and the rug the dead guy was on. But in my defence I was just watching it expecting something from the stories the guys were saying.

Now that it has been mentioned, I realize I noticed that some of the weapons changed but I disregarded it, figuring I had remembered what they were wrong.

Ah, the old "Perception test" conundrum.
"If I ask for a surprise test, then there goes the surprise!" Really? Party is walking down the street,
SURPISE TEST! Yay! They are not surprised by the Devil Rat chasing a cat across the street! Or you can
just ask them to roll X dice at random throughout the night, roll some dice behind the screen occasionally,
and nod knowingly. Maybe look at one of the players and just smile sadistically after a roll...

When I do things like that it's hard not to smile because nothing is happening and the PCs think something is. That always makes them edgy.

Ask them for a surprise test, then write down their numbers. Forty-five minutes later, when something happens, you already have their rolls.

That's fairly elegant, except you need to have a fair way of applying modifiers after the fact.

If you want players to roll and not reveal the number of dice, you can use a binomial distribution sheet.

In Excel, you have dice rolled horizontally.
Vertically, you have number of hits (remember zero).

In the cells you write:
=BINOMIALDISTRIBUTION($E14;F$12;1/3;TRUE)*60

Then have players roll a d6 and a d10 for a number from 1-60 (a d6 roll of 6 is 0, 00=60), run your finger along the column with the number of rolled dice - the first time you see a number higher than what you rolled, that row has the number of hits.

The cool thing about the 1-60 table is that you can check the second hand on your watch then look up number of hits, without rolling anything, the ultimate in stealth GM rolls

You can also add a glitch line: =1-BINOMIALDISTRIBUTION(ROUND.UP(F12/2;0)-1;F$12;1/6;TRUE) It doesn't consider the number of hits you get, so even if you rolled it independently it wouldn't be correct, but I still use it before the 0 hits line, and if it says glitch they roll again at one third or the dice for number of hits.

PS: My Excel version isn't in English, so I guessed the function names, you might need to adjust it.

Use this in cell C3, which would be your 0 dice, 0 hits cell.
Copy and paste for all other cells.
=BINOMDIST($A3,C$1,1/3,TRUE)*60

Will return an error in cells where you're asking for more hits than dice.


Use this in cell C2, which is your glitch row
=BINOMDIST($A3,C$1,1/3,TRUE)*60

Cell C3 will return an error (there are no dice, so 1/2 of them can't come up ones), but you can copy it horizontally.


It however looks like you'll never get more than 6 hits on 9 dice unless you start counting fractional seconds (60 > 59.5 -> 6 hits, 7 hits would need 59.94 and 8 would need 59.99)

That is genious, and I have absolutely no skill with Excel at all.