Hi all.

I've noticed alot of debate lately (especially in the Creatures Anathema thread) about Unnatural stats and whether they "work" within the system or not.

Now I'm no saying that it's going to fix things for everyone, and I'm also not saying that it's going to fix all aspects of Unnaturalness... ness... um.

BUT. In the Inquisitors Handbook, it mentions that on opposed tests the guy with Unnatural's adds extra Degrees of Success to his roll, but only providing he succeeds in the first place.

This doesn't sit right with me. If an Ogryn has Strength 55 with x2 Unnatural Strength, he still only has roughly an equal chance of passing as he does failing, much the same as a human with 55 Strength does. His Unnatural trait ONLY comes into play if he passes.

What I'll be houseruling in my games (hell, my players wouldn't know any better anyway) is that the bonus DoS gained are added whether they pass OR fail.

That way, with the above example, if an Ogryn fails, the Human would still need to roll at least 35 or under to even EQUAL the Ogryn.

And if the S 55 Human was arm wresting (scythe wresting!?) a Carnifex (S 65 x4, for example), the Human would already be at a disadvantage whether the Carnifex passed or failed... exactly as he should be (needing to roll 15 or less, and thats only if the Carni failed its roll).

Some things just shouldn't be possible (or at least SO incredibly unlikely) regardless of what the dice come up with.

What do you think?

That is where the difficulty rules come into play. Just by nature a Ogryn has an easier time wrestling a small human then another human would, so you adjust the modifier to ordinary (+10) or routine (+20). After that you modify the task by the Unnatural Characteristic modifier (with is one degree of difficulty easier, in out case form Oridinary (+10) to Routine (+20) or Routine (+20) to Easy (+30) or so), which gives the ogryn even more of an advantage.

If the ogryn does succeed it gains 2 more degrees of success.

This in essence give the ogryn a 75 to 85 strength to deal with that pesky human. And yes he can still mess it up, but it is unlikely. But it is reasonable to believe so, afterall a Ogryn is huge and a man smaller, he might easily miss or the human just squirms out of the grasp.

Maybe it seems a bit difficult, like a bunch of math in the head. But it is a aspect of Dark Heresy, and it works as long as you remember that there are other rules to apply and not just the Unnatural Characteristic rules.

So, WHY is wrestling easier for an ogryn? Well, he's stronger. Shouldn't that be represented in, possibly, his strenght stat instead of gm arbitration?

Space Monkey said:

Thing is, the overwhelming majority of opposed tests aren't made from an equal footing - it's almost never a case that whichever side succeeds is the overall winner. Rather, opposed tests are primarily used when one creature is resisting the actions of another - Perception vs Stealth, or the opposed strength tests in a grapple (where one side is testing either to deal damage or break free, and the other is testing to stop him). As a result, success on the part of the weaker party (the man trying to spot a Lictor, the human wrestling an Ogryn, etc) is nothing more than a stall at best (if the character passes sufficiently well to exceed his opponent's DoS, or the stronger party simply failed the test) and pointless at worst (if his DoS are less than those generated by his opponent).

With that in mind, even if the Ogryn in your example only has a 55% chance of his success... the human's chance of success in the opposed test is much smaller, even if his chance of passing his test is still 55%. If both fail, it's a stalemate anyway (Rulebook, page 184: "Should both parties fail, one of two things occurs. Either there is a stalemate and nothing happens or both parties should re-roll until there is a clear winner"), and degrees of success are only relevant on opposed tests when both characters pass anyway (and in cases where DoS are equal, the character with the higher bonus wins).

If I understand peacekeeper_b's suggestion, additional difficulty modifiers wouldn't be an aspect of the creature's strength, but rather his size - a hulking character (space marine, ogryn, tyranid warrior, etc) will inherently have a better time on tests that oppose strength because of greater size compared to his average-sized opponent (greater mass on top of considerable strength)... though really, attempting to arm wrestle and Ogryn would be difficult in the first place - for a start, their forearms are about two and a half feet long, and the overall size and mass difference is sufficient to prevent either one arm wrestling the other.

All in all, the "arm wrestling" situation (brought into WFRP scaling arguments when it was realised that, actually, the chances of a little girl successfully wrestling a bear were incredibly small) is an example set up to fail, and not one I put any stock in... in practice - when actually playing and running the game, rather than engaging in a bout of theorycrafting/mathhammer - the mechanic works fine, simply because opposed tests don't work like people seem to think they do (you don't, for example, compare degrees of failure to determine the winner if both sides fail, as I've seen some people suggest), and because the situations in which opposed tests are used are not oversimplified 'arm wrestling' contests - generally, there's an attacker and a defender involved, rather than two equal parties.

Graspar said:

It is. In the fact that he has a natural higher strength (probably 35+2D10 or so) and the Unnatural Strength trait at X2. US (X2) already gives the beast a degree of difficulty break, making the brute's strength more or less at +10 for all actions and then once it does succeed it gets two bonus successes. Thats harsh.

And we are also forgetting that part of a wrestling match is damage, inflicting and tacking, and with ogryn's also havng Unnatural Toughness (X2) that just gives them even more of an edge.

As far as the straight Unnatural Characteristic rule goes, simply apply it as follows.

Each degree of Unnatural Characteristic, add +10 to characteristic for tests. (X2 is +10, X3 is +20, X4 is +30).

NOTE: While the Inquisitor's Handbook states this is a max bonus of up to +30, I assume that this is a errata miss from when the original eratta changed the modifier max from +30 to +60.

Characters with a Unnatural Characteristic always wins ties in opposed tests. In addition when in an oppossed test and succeeds in their roll, these characters gain a number of bonus degrees of success EQUAL to the Unnatural Characteristic's MULTIPLIER. So X2 is +2, X3 is +3 and so forth.

But as far as I can tell, from reading the books and playing for a year now, strength, as far as the concept of lifting, brute force and actual muscle power is a combination of factors.

Strength (naturally), Toughness (makes sense) and Size (which isnt really stated).

Just apply the Modifier listed on table 12-2 Creature Size Modifier, to its S tests when engaged in contests that involve mass, from push/pull, shove, tug of war, & wrestling, to overbearing and the like. Soa hulking ogryn gets another +10.

Graspar said:

GM Fiat is the most powerful, effective and easiest rule there is.

But to address this again, its easier to just apply the rules as they are (especially since they do work, it just takes a little getting use to) then to rebuild the system in such a way that it still works with published material but satisfies everyone.

But go ahead, and good luck, Like to hear the results.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Well then, you've understood the rule wrong. The box in IH makes it quite clear that on opposed tests there is no +10 bonus but instead extra degrees of success. And the extra degrees of sucess is only ever mentioned for opposed tests. So it's one or the other.

Also, table 12-2 never mentions a bonus for the large creature, only increased movement rate and a bonus for an attackers to hit roll. This is what I mean by confusing rules.

Graspar said:

Never said it did, I said just apply it as such. It is just common sense and a natural extension of the rules as written.

Graspar said:

No I didnt understand it wrong. The way it is written in the IHB is just worded very poorly, and I do not argue that it is a well written rule, but it is a rule that works just fine once you understand it.

It says on page 226 of IHB to apply the degree of difficulty modifier to skills tests. And I do agree it states also that the bonuses to degree of success is applied to oppossed characteristic tests. According to how it seems you are stating the rule they are different things. Well according to the letter to the rules as written in the core book, there is no oppossed characteristic tests, only Oppossed Skillts tests (page 184 DH Core Rules). Why does the core rules not specifically state Oppossed Characteristics tests and Oppossed Skills tests, because they are the same thing.

You are over complicating something based on poor wording.

Otherwise the situation detailed on page 184 of the Core Rules, the example under Oppossed Skill test, would never be modified by Unnatural Characteristics and a character with Unnatural Perception (X99) would have no advantage to detect a character who doesnt ever have the Silent Move skill. Just the natural rolling mechanics of the system.

And to assume that is the intent of the rules is just either ignorant or straining for a reason to argue against it.

As I said before, its not a bad or broken rule, it is just very poorly written.

The worst thing about the wholy unnecesscary level cap is that whoever wrote the rules felt the need to compress the skill levels down in to the 30s to compensate. So while faffing around at the top end to solve a problem that doesn't exist, the standard skills are to low at the bottom.

Frankly, the best thing to do is clense it with fire and start again for v2 using a better understood core mechanic.

Hell, changing to an equivalent stat + d100 aiming for a basic target number of 100 would be better.

Strength 300 Marine + d100 gives a total effort of 301 to 400

Strength 50 Man + d100 gives 51 to 150.

Simple and easy to understand.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Both example boxes count the creatures success from their unmodified scores.

As for your unnatural x99 creature, under your rules he'd get 99 degrees of success extra for detecting a noisy human instead of noisy machinery. It doesn't make sense like that either.

It's a bad rule.

Peacekeeper_b said:

You know what would be common sense? To give strong creatures high strenght scores instead of being terrified of some arbitrary limit. There's a problem when a strong human can get strenght 65 and all the other stuff has to fit within 66-100, orks, ogryns, bloodthirsters and biotitans in a smaller range than humans get.

The point is, when you give a creature +10 on every strenght test as well as higher strenght bonus you might as well give them +10 to strenght. But this self imposed limit of 100 keeps that from happening. They should have just given out extra bonus instead of bonus multipliers.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Not much rebuilding is needed really, all you need to do is have some way to increase the bonus without increasing their chance to succeed in swimming and the like.. So when I read an ogryn has s 65 unnatural (x2) i'll substitute it for s75 with sb increased to 12. As stated before, there's no mention in the rules about double bonuses for opposed tests and the characteristic bonus is already a tie breaker in favour of the stronger combatant. It should behave the same for all cases where it's sensible, weed out the cases where 35 unnatural (x2) beats 75 normal in a tie (which is good, right?) and be easier to sort out.

And then I can be on my merry way towards a nicer place to GM, where strong creatures have high strenght scores and still use the original material as intended.

Graspar said:

No under the way I understand it, you get your bonus on ANY skill test, not just oppossed, Maybe it isnt expressing listed that way in the book, but that is the feel I get.

And +10 is pretty much the same thing as +1 degree, only with a better chance to succeed.

A skill test and a characteristic test are pretty much the same thing. A skill test is just a characteristic test that has a defined area of coverage. Characteristic tests are there to cover the game when you run across a situation that a skill does not cover.

And besides, to me it just isnt dramatically necessary to have an ogryn make a characteristic test to win an arm wrestling contest or knock in a door.

Graspar said:

Now thats just silly talk.

Graspar said:

So all orks have to be 66+ cause humans are max at 65? Page 23 of DH on table 1-2 has orks listed as 41-45 for Strength. As most orks are warlike (ok, my bad, all orks are), many will have talents and traits to enhance said strength, such as crushing blow and brutal charge and berserk charge and frenzy and furious assault. But I really dont see them having Unnatural Strength as it is. With what was listed about you are already talking about a +6 damage modifer with a +20 WS and +9 damage modifier on charge. A bloodthirster works fine a S77 (as per tome of corruption) and adding Unnatural Strength (x2).

Graspar said:

Becasue larger doesnt necessarily mean stronger. Size does give an edge, but not necessarily in Strength.

True strength is Strength + Touoghness + Size. Certain Talents and Traits will affect those.

A S30 Ogryn is going to come off as Stronger then a human with S60 simply because of common sense. We know the Unnatural Strength means the beast has a different style of Strength then the human. So a S60 human kicking in a door would probably roll against his straight S60. Whereas, as a GM I would rule that the Ogryn has superhuman strength, and just by virture of the rules it makes the test from Challenging (+0) to Ordinary (+10), and then I as a GM using my GM powers would say to myself "that door is not been reinforced to stop super strength" and I would apply another modifier to the roll, bringing it to Routine (+20). Then I would say, you know what, thats an Ogryn, his boot is larger, the door is smaller to him, let me go ahead and add another step of ease to this roll, making it Easy (+30).

Course I think kicking a door open is more akin to an attack on a nonmoving, inanimate object and kicking it in would count as an all out attack against a non moving target for a total bonus of probably +60. And just let the damage do the talking.

Anyway, you are more then welcome to think it is a broken system, I just stand by that the Core Book did little justice for the rule and the IHB tried to cram in a quick fix and in the end it is just poorly written and in dire need of a errata.

Hmm...this one keeps cropping up doesn't it. I think the continuing disquiet comes from the inability of a capped 0-100 scale to effectively model everything within the 40k 'verse. The Unnatural traits thing is of course a 'design end-around' to try and sort out this inherent design problem.

That said, i think i'd support those who say, 'it sort of works ko, so why fix it'? How well it works is debateable of course, but its what the system does to deal with these issues so within that context i think its best just to get used to the rules foible and move on...

One way to assess the quality of a rule is to take it to its extreme, so lets look.

The Unnatural traits rule allows the following:

Character A - STR 01 (SB 0) (x100,000,000)

This character has 1% chance of succeeding as a challenging Str test, has no Strength Bonus, but when he succeeds gains 100,000,000 extra DoS.

Character - STR 100 (SB10) (no unnatural strength)

This character has 100% chance of succeeding as a challenging Str test, has Strength Bonus 10, but when he succeeds gains no extra DoS.

Consider what would happen if these two arm-wrestled, without GM-imposed modifiers.

Extreme examples for sure, but still possible within the RAW.

Is a rule that allows those two possibilities broken or unbroken?

Perhaps its best not to ask and just get on with enjoying the game?

Luddite said:

That's my approach. I don't give a donkey's jockstrap whether or not the mechanic works in arbitrary examples posted by people who don't like the mechanic. My only concern is whether or not it works in the situations I want and need it to work in. Which it does.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Amen!

Truer words have not been spoken on these forums!

Graspar said:

It seems to me vastly easier and more logical to simply increase the Strength of beings with exceptional Strength and then eliminate the multiplier. Having the 30 (x2) creature arm wrestle a Strength 40 human opens up all sorts of potential for illogical results or creates a lot of cumbersome rules to let the scenario make sense. For one thing, the GM would have to say that its a challenging roll for the Str 40 human and a routine (+20) for the Str 30 creature, or you could give the human a penalty instead or do both. This is cumbersome and forces the GM to make an off the cuff assment without sufficient basis for judgment. Furthermore, if the penalties or bonuses don't give the exceptional Strength creature a higher percentage then its very likely that it will be more likely to fail its Strength roll than the human. It confuses the issue of comparative Strength - who is stronger the creature with the low exceptional Strength or the one with a high normal Strength? There isn't a real answer.

Far easier to simply multiply the Strength score by the exceptional multiplier. The ogryn with a 65 (x2) Strength will simply have a Strength of 130 or 120. The ogryn will win at every roll that would challenge a human, but can still fail at more difficult tests and can still lose in direct tests of Strength against strong humans because of degrees of success. As for why should I fix it if it can be done by the rules? Well, because its FAR FAR easier to cross out 65 (x2) and write down 130 then it is to use all of the rules associated with exceptional Strength. Also, its a lot easier dealing with the convoluted rules in a forum where we can look up all the rules instead of in a real gaming situation where something needs to be done quickly and easily - which is why I favor eliminating exceptional attributes in favor of 100+ attributes.

Peacekeepr_b said:

That's my approach. I don't give a donkey's jockstrap whether or not the mechanic works in arbitrary examples posted by people who don't like the mechanic. My only concern is whether or not it works in the situations I want and need it to work in. Which it does.

Jackal_Strain said:

Truer words have not been spoken on these forums!

Ahh...blessed is the mind too small for doubt.

The problem with this approach is that the mechanic doesn't do what it is designed to do in that it produces illogical results.

As Graspar points out:

Having the 30 (x2) creature arm wrestle a Strength 40 human opens up all sorts of potential for illogical results or creates a lot of cumbersome rules to let the scenario make sense.

This is an issue i came across in my game. It just doesn't sit right that the seemingly inferior opponent can achieve better success...

After the ruckus that erupted in my group when we used this rule, i resolved to not include anything with an unnatural trait again...which limited my decisions as a GM, based solely on a problematic rule .

There may well be people out there simply willing to overlook such issues, but for me and my players, it remains an issue. And given that this topic bobs to the surface of the forums every now and then, i'd guess i'm not the only one.

The problem for me is that the system is built around the foolish notion of an arbitrary skill cap.

If we solve the unnatural characteristic problem in the most sensible way (crossing it out), then I'd want to rejig the system starting from a perspective of 'what result do I want the most common result of a skill check to be', at which I think it is fair to say they wouldn't be so low.

Call of Cthulhu has primary skills more often in the 70-80% range, and it is STILL a comedy of errors as characters fail constantly even at things they should be good at.

My own experience tells me this, and you can listen to several days of Cthulhu play at http://www.yog-sothoth.com - listen as the players avoid making skill rolls cause they know they may fail! Tremble at the Klassic Keystone Kthulhu antics! That, right there, even if you don't believe my experiences, is hours and hours of digitally recorded evidence of a % system with much higher skill ratings failing miserably.

Moveing things from a do you fail? culture to a how much do you succeed culture is the only way.

Honestly people, the basic mechanic is the heart of a game, and IME often the only thing that is retained in actual play. It behoves us to ensure it is as good as possible.

Well then apparently there is a massive divide in the fans here.

In the end, however you choose to interpret or use the rules, as long as all involved know the way it is being used and the games are enjoyed, then really, who cares?

I will say the rules work more then fine as they are. Yes they are a booted in end around to provide a wider range of stats and abilities for a system dead set in staying as close to possible to its sister system as possible.

Personally, I would have rather the system stayed even closer to WFRP 2E then it did. But these are the rules, I like them, I think they work, and I will use them the way that I understand them.

Which hasnt been a problem for me or any group Ive played in.

And Ive never run into a CoC game where players were affraid to use skills cause they might fail. It isnt a flaw in that game either (the percentile system).

I just typed a huge post with a lot of good points in and some very nice examples. And the something went wrong when posting and this forum won't let me backtrack and retrieve my words so i'll just sum it up real brief.

The size rule shouldn't be a rule, sometimes huge size can prevent you from applying your strenght and those kinds of things should just be done on the fly by GM.

Unnatural characteristics is two things, first a poorly thought out way to increase the bonus on something without increasing their chance to use skills. This is good but could be done better, straight multipliers are too rigid. A sudden jump from sb 6 to sb 12 is not ideal, there should be some middle ground with sb 8 and so on so i'd use the simple formula of "Increased characteristic bonus +X".

Secondly, it's a way to sneak very high characteristics into the game without actually putting them in the game. An s65 ogryn with unnatural strenght (x2) is never going to behave like he has anything less than s75, there's always a +10 bonus or something comparable (extra degrees of success). So why include it in the rule? The only reason is to have scores above 100 without writing numbers above 100, and it's done by obfuscating stuff from players and the GM.

A bonus you always have is no bonus, it's an increase in your skill and the mislabeling makes the rule harder to use on the fly.

Or can you think of instance where a creature with unnatural strenght will have to roll under his actual strenght +modifiers (discounting the modifier for unnatural strenght, it's the point i'm trying to make) and not under his strenght+ modifiers+10? If not it's a hidden increase to the characteristic.

Hiding stuff from the GM, that's a pretty good definition of bad game design.

Graspar said:

When testing against a creature with an equal or higher unnatural strength modifier.