The Easy DoS rule is quite possibly the best thing since sliced bread! But BC "broke" it by changing the way Degrees of Success are calculated, making a "simple success" now yield 1 DoS (rather than 0, as is the way it had been). What is the Easy DoS rule, you ask?

<sales pitch> Tired of calculating your DoS for every shot of your bolter? All those stacking bonuses throwing your math of the charts? Just want to get back to shooting things? Well, then, the Easy DoS rule is for you! Ands it's free!(For a limited time only, no warranty or double the no money back) </sales pitch>

Easy DoS
Whenever rolling a test, the 10's digit is also your DoS.

Example: Bob shoots Greg, at short range using Semi Auto for a total bonus of +20 to his BS, which is 30. His effective BS for this test is 50, and he rolls 34.

Under the Easy DoS rules, this is a hit with 3 Degrees of Success. That being resolved simply by looking at the first die (the one showing 10's).

This means that you want to roll as high as possible, under your threshold, rather than as low as possible. The statistics are the same, however, you have just as much chance of scoring the same number of DoS as you have under the normal rule. The higher your effective threshold, the higher you can roll and still pass the test. And the more DoS you can achieve. But this saves you from a calculation on every test, and they add up. In a 10 round combat with 6-8 fighters, this simple subtraction to work out DoS can account for several minutes real time. Over a long and combat intensive game session, it really adds up.

The only minor deviation is the result of a 00. If you do not count this as a success, then you only have 9 possibilities of scoring 0 DoS (I.e., "just made it", while you have 10 possibilities of all others. Turning the 00 into a 0 rather than a 100, and counting it as a success resolves this inequality, and as an added bonus you get a more evenly distributed number of "special" results if you use the Perfect Hits/Fumbles rules.

What to do with BC?

I really don't want to go back to doing "all that math", so we'd like to stick with the Easy DoS. An obvious fix is to just always add 1 to the DoS result, but it kinda takes away the elegant simplicity of the rule. Anyone else use this rule? How have you combined it with BC?

Honestly, I think the best solution, and easiest, is to just add 1. I use the same trick of looking at the 10s die, and as various characters have skills + mods of over 100, I'm already used to adding extra to the roll when needed.

I have a player with dyscalculia in my DH-group, so in order to make the game more accessible for him we started doing the roll D100-roll the other way around, so that a high roll is desireable. This was inspired by my experience from being a math-teacher for students with special needs, that subtraction is trickier than addition. It turned out that we all felt this system was a lot easier and faster to work, and it has sped up our combats noticeably.

So, modified for BC: Check your effective skill (and add/subtract modifiers), then add the roll of a D100. If you equal 100 you succeed with one rate. For ever 10 over, you score one extra rate. Weapon jams and other unwanted effects occurs on low rolls (01-07 etc).

As an alternative you can let negative modifiers be applied as an increase of the target number, for even less subtraction.

The genious thing is that first you add up the tens-digits. It will easily be quite clear if you succeed and if so with how many rates. Next you check the single digits to see if they add upp to 10 or more, if so add one extra rate. This check is easily done with a glance if you are familiar with the "ten-friends" (1 is friend with 9, 2 with 8, etc...) there is no need to actually add them up.

A simple test that only checks succeed or not is even easier, since most times you only need to check the ten-friends of the tens-digits. If the tens add upp to 90, you will of course have to check the ones as well.

That's a great idea, Mellon.

So a character with BS 45, performing a Standard Attack (+10) on Short Range (+10) has a Target according to the RAW of 65.
A roll of 65 or less will succeed, so he has 65% chance of success.

In your system, he would roll d100, and add 65. Lets say he rolls 68. Adding just the 10s gives us a 12, which means a sucess (more than 100), with 2 DoS. (Actually 3, so the problem remains)

Checking the 1s gives us a 13, which bumps the DoS up to 3 (4 with BC) (more than 10). This is only necessary if that 1 DoS is relevant (ie not for failed
A roll of less than 35 would fail, so he still has his 65% success chance.

It isn't actually any less "math-intensive", though. Just gets rid of subtractions, I guess.

Dear Darth, you are subject to very strange desires and needs.... and you are the first GM I know of that despises number-crunching

Anyway...way don´t you just keept things as they are in regard to your EasyDoS System? Yep, the number of success will be now a little lower the it was...but is this changing that much? It only ramps up the difficulty by one nodge. A fair price for maintaned speed, isn´t it?

How d'you calculate degrees of failure with this?

Was wondering the same thing! I want to use this: but how with DOF?

SneakySly said:

How far under 100 is the total? That's your DoF.

Or just the old regular way. I agree it isn't as elegant as calculating DoS, but then again it mostly matters for opposed tests.

The benefit of quickly seeing the number of hits generated by a burst is worth it

Good idea, thanks!

I've found it easiest to write down all of the values that I need to roll under. I have a little notebook that I keep notes of my characters in and just referance that whenever I have to make a roll.

The point of the EasyDoS rule is not to see if you passed or failed a test, but to quickly see how many Degrees of Success you had, without having to do any maths.

Writing down a list of target numbers depending on combat action, weapon and mods used etc is useful either way. But it's not going to help you work out DoS.

Mellon said:

This is very clever indeed. I'll be pitching this to my friends, definitely.

Darth Smeg said:

I find it easier for me as all I have to do is just add or remove to that number then see how much under I am. Every ten I'm under is a Degree of Success.

Sure, that is the RAW method.

Point is, not everyone finds doing those (admitedly simple) maths exercises for every roll that simple. It's not that we can't do it, or even that it takes all that much time, but it all adds up. And even with your prepared numbers, you still have to adapt to any situational modifiers the GM may apply.

"So lets see, my aimed shot target of 73, subtract 10 for Fog (so says the GM), and I roll... 24. So, thats 73 - 10 - 24 = 39, making 3 Degrees of success."

Now all the boys around tha table do this for every actions they take, and watch the turns slow down.

At least, that is my experience. Especially when a little alcohol enterns the mix. Which happens