Sort of what I wanted to do too, but the "turning the tide of battle" can easily justify destroying a group of minions in my opinion (causing a landside or toppling a large stack of big and heavy crates), which is better than a crit. So, with your take - which I like and sometimes would be more easy than trying to make the PCs narrate something grand and epic - I would let the damage of the weapon cause additional damage to the remaining minions… so a damage 5 weapon would with a crit and only 1 success kill 2 minions in a group, where they have 5 WT. Sounds fair?

Jegergryte said:

mm I think a triump SHOULD be able to do things outside the rules … however perhaps not exactly EPIC …. maybe 'epic' though I mean keep in midn that with 4 characters all doing actions with rolling 3 skill dice (after a few sessions) you would end up with 1 triumph - on average every single turn!! My take on it is more akin to using Triumph and Dispair to do additional sideeffects - like knocking people prone, jamming guns, shooting a guy with a jetpack, make the jetpack run him into the ground, into another character or just fly him of to long or extreme range … IMO its important to keep the Triumph and the Dispair at simular value, thus if u autokill a group of minions with a single Triumph u can atleast autokill a single PC on a Dispair or if the NPCs roll a Triumph - are u prepared to do that ?

So, causing a landslide to impair movement or block a passage between the PCs and the NPCs might more be like it?

I do not, however, agree that killing a group of minions, tusken raiders for example, is the same as killing a PC or a Nemesis NPC outright. For me, coming from 7th Sea when thinking about minions (ie Brute squads)… at least partly, minions are easy cannon fodder, only scary in large groups as they should be, but still easy enough to dispatch of.

Jegergryte said:

IMO yes … or sometimes just cause that crit …be flexible …a triumph is more amazing when people roll one yellow die, than when the roll 4

Jegergryte said:

ok was kinda joking would be fun to the players faces though when u turn the table on them … - let THEM decide how powerful they want the Triumph to be … just throw them back at them when appropriate

I think the landslide idea - for killing a small group - might sometimes fit, but for consistency's sake I might overrule such attempts in the future, rather cause more postponing actions - although sometimes I think it might fit, when it oh so obvious that the precarious looking boulder over there just have to fall and kill the enemy, at least do some serious damage - about the landslide: I did actually check for falling damage, which is what killed the group of tuskens, I didn't just waive them away.

yeah - its all about the fun epicness of it …so by all means keep it up - my only 'warning' if u want to put is as that was that something that happens rarely ….is epic …something that happens all the time is just business as usual

Jegergryte said:

Jegergryte said:

Page 196, a crit auto-incapacitates a minion. So a crit takes out one minion, and the damage from the attack can usually take out a second minion.

-EF

Right. As the rules are stated today, whenever you deal a critical hit to a minion, the minion is automatically killed. If I'm reading and processing all the updates correctly, you cannot trigger a critical hit unless you deal wound damage. So let's say you deal 10 damage and a critical hit to a group of three stormtrooper minions… you would deal 5 to exceed their "group" soak of 5, deal another 5 damage to kill one stormtrooper, and then apply your critical hit to kill a second minion.

I never interpreted the rules to mean a critical hit destroys an entire group of minions; that just doesn't seem to scale quite right. But in either case, that is a discussion for the adversaries thread maybe.

To address another concern posted, the effects of triumph and despair are pretty balanced right now - triumph can trigger a critical hit for an NPC the same way it can for a PC. If you want a game where all the enemies are "on par" with players, then just avoid utilizing minions. Personally, I love the "cinematic" feel of having the heroes cut through swathes of minions - but it's a personal preference. Much like the "adversary talent" argument in other threads… if a GM wants to manage your NPCs at the same level of complexity as PCs, there really is nothing stopping them. Otherwise, minions are going to get the short-end when it comes to things like crit and strain damage.

That said, I'm going to be selfish and bring this back to my idea of making Triumph equivalent to 3 successes (and Despair = 3 failures).

A few folks posted some hesitation because triumph was already a "tide turner" and didn't want to make it too powerful. I get your point here, but I just don't agree… in fact, I'd argue that making the triumph worth 3 successes actually *helps* the GM bring the narrative in-line with what's happening. For example, it is so awkward for a GM to have to narrate through a situation when a player nets 4 failures, 3 threat, but manages to snag a triumph. It just doesn't make sense.

"You shoot. You miss. Your gun jams. You fall prone. But good news, your stray shot managed to hit a sniper you hadn't previously noticed."

I mean, it's like JarJar all over (and god help us). And I understand that can still happen, but it's much less likely. Having Triumph/Despair worth three successes/failures respectively accomplishes the following:

> adds weight to the concept of upgrades - it's only 1 in 12, but you can't achieve three successes/failures on any other kind of dice

> helps to mitigate any weird combinations of massive success with despair / massive failure with triumph

> balances out some of the inconsistencies around more dice > upgraded dice (which flows downhill to character creation and investing in characteristics vs. skills)

So third session is just over.

Good fun, a couple of triumphs, one used to topple a large shed on top of Tor the bounty hunter (from Crates of Krays) basically immobilising/pinning him down for 4 rounds (a bit long I realised as they wiped out the minions in one round). Perhaps 2 or 3 would be better "next time".

Since these sessions are hectic and short on time, I rarely get to check too much in the book, so I ruled the blast from the ship turret on one group of minions as a "normal" blast … which killed that group.

The one despair I used to give the brawling duelist - not his natural environment at all, he prefers his vibrosword - a hand picked crit ruining his hand and increasing brawn and agility checks for the rest of the encounter. Perhaps a bit harsh, but he loved it… smashing your bare fist against a durasteel helmet might bot be such a good idea.

Now, again about the amount of threats in non-combat situations… while triumphs and despairs are hard in the failed combat checks, and tricky when streetwising… I find the amount of threats, particular the odd one, to be hard to spend… it might just be down to poor planning and poor improvisation skills (they are lacking I realise after a few years of not playing regularly) … but sometimes I feel like waiving those odd threats away and not using them (I actually exclaimed something about wanting to play D6 instead today), the "normal" failure doesn't seem to happen anymore, the chances for a result with only blank sides … well I don't know the math, but I would think its pretty rare… already I miss the old boring, "meh, I failed, next one" (the swing and miss thingy - I miss it). Even the success, like 6 - with three threats … I want to like it, but … or zero successes and 6 advantages, on a medicine roll inside a turret, how to spend them? I assumed that the advantage for strain mechanic goes only for a successful check (I might be wrong though)… so, uhm, a boost die to the guy who's in the turret, and then what?

To put this in other terms, I'd like to see some changes to the dice, or perhaps the cost of threats and advantage expenditure, so that the single adv or threat might be ignored more easily, similarly the final book should, must, supply a good amount of varied and some really odd examples to show how strange situations can be solved - it might just be me and my lacking skills but I'd like some advice and pointer on how to use adv and threats in odd and non-standard situations.

Additionally, when I end up with 3 failure, no successes and 5 advantages on a streetwise, or computer, or any other non-combat check… can I spend the advantages? sometimes it seems I can, in other instances the skill descriptions seem to take for granted that the check is a success, at least in the suggestions on how to spend advantages… but what if I had no successes? (I guess this is a symptom of not really getting used to the system yet… perhaps in another few weeks).

About the triumph/despair thing. I'm not against the 3 success thing, but I still think it should have the "turn the tide of battle" and "auto-crit" function in it, simply because its beardy…. but I guess that's over-powered. Perhaps only one of the abilities can be used, so you can choose 3 successes, and not auto-crit or tidy the battle field with epicness and awesomeness, or one of the other two and not the remaining abilities…

Jegergryte said:

I still think it should also. Remember that, in today's rules, triumph counts as two distinct things: first, it counts as a single success… and second, it counts as the tide-turner.

All I'm suggesting is that instead of one success, it counts as three. The remaining mechanic (tide-turning, auto-criting, infinite advantage) should remain unchanged!

Exalted5 said:

Then we are agreed, at least the two of us. I will test it next session, whenever that is. Regular gaming is an issue these days it seems. If only people could get their priorities straight!

Wild notion (or perhaps not so wild - more like silly). What if, instead of upgrading to proficiency dice, you add them to the dice pool? This would then demand increasing the base difficulties with at least one die, and challenge dice would be additional dice just like proficiency… this will not solve the issue of the number of advantages/threats rolled, some rolls will become freakishly absurd with the number of threats on successes, or advantages on failure, and triumphs would become a lot more commonplace. But it would solve the issue of the boost additions vs proficiency upgrade… not such a good idea, but I had to let it out… so. there. now. The moment has passed.

Jegergryte said:

this is how it is in WFRP but they use a mechanic of limiting skill ranks in order to prevent it from becoming way too advantageous to then just max one skill …I would prefer simply modifying the yellow die to allow a triumph symbol to count as any combination of 3 success or advantages

Boehm said:

Me and some buddies tried out a couple of the Triumph options posted here during our high-level stress test session last night.

We found that letting a Triumph count as two successes plus the "activate any Advantage-fueled ability regardless of cost" that's already part of the Triumph mechanic to be sufficient. Counting as 3 successes we found to be leaning towards overkill, and mix & match of 3 successes or advantages slowed combat down as players tried to determine which was more advantageous.

It's too bad we have to f$ck around with the symbols like this. Solving the die problem at the source would have been much easier.

LethalDose said:

Well in all honesty its a pretty simple fix really

Boehm said:

IF the proper fix is to change the symbols, perhaps it is entirely possible. I'm hoping there has not been a mass creation of dice yet (only a few prototypes since we have stickers in beta), and the smart phone apps can easily be patched. It may have been the plan all along for FFG to wait until towards the end of beta to finalize their dice.

Well if the dice can be changed, I'd love to see that single advantage face replaced with a triple success on the yellow die.

Is it possible to simple add the Attribute dice to the proficiency dice for skill rolls? We've been playing the Beta for a couple of games so far, and our group agreed that this method is more efficient than the current system as we understand it.

I have noticed that in certain circumstances the current system has a point of diminshing returns. For example, if the attribute and skill are equal, then the dice actually diminish the actual chance for success. If both the skill and the attribute are 2, you roll one proficiency die and one attribute die. Not seeing how this reflects the skill OR the attribute properly.

Just my thoughts. Any opinions?

dreddwulf1 said:

If both skill and characteristic are 2, you're rolling two proficiency dice, not one prof die and one ability die. Well, technically, if they're equal, nothing happens since the rules don't actually cover what happens when they're equal. Rolling 2 prof dice is my best guess as to the intentions of the dice pool system.

-EF

EldritchFire said:

Thanks for the answer. It still seems to have the problem of diminishing returns by the Skill overriding the attribute instead of adding to it. Though trained skill is usually more effective than natural ability, natural ability shouldn't be removed from the equation, Especially since it takes so much after characteer creation to raise Attributes. Any thoughts?

dreddwulf1, I'm no mathematician, but here's my best guess as to the difference between an ability die and a proficiency die. Also, there are a few threads that deal with more of the number crunching, but I can't seem to find them >_<

An Ability die has a 3/8 chance of 1 success, that's 2 faces with one success symbol, and one face with a success/advantage combo. There is also a 1/8 chance of rolling 2 success symbols. So that's (3/8)x1 + (1/8)x2. or .375+.25, or .625, which is a 62.5% chance of success.

A proficiency die has 6/12 chance of rolling one success, two faces with one success, three faces with success/advantage, and the triumph, which counts as a success. Also, there is a 2/12 chance for a double success. So (6/12)x1 + (2/12)x2. Or .5+.333, which is and 83.333% chance of success.

Or, if you want to go really simple, an ability die has 4 faces that give you one or more successes, that's a 50% chance. the proficiency die has 8 faces, which gives 66.666% chance of one or more successes.

In my opinion, upgrading dice instead of adding dice is a way to keep the dice pools smaller and more manageable, while at the same time making dice adds just that much more powerful.

-EF

So the conclusion is that upgrading dice is a great way to gain extra advantages, but in order to gain successes u need to gain MORE dice … now this would not be so bad if all checks were treated as a simple Success or Failure test (ei. degrees of succcess doesnt matter) since then once you reached a certain level of competence where you should expect a successful check on average … then advantages would become more desireable, and those the upgraded die IS better at providing …

So an alternative to modifying the dice (successvallue of the Triumph) could be to simply say that any successes past enough to make the check are simply wasted … ei. no additional damage on attacks due to successes etc !

Personally I actually kinda like this ruling, since it would mean that people runnign on natural talent alone (stats) have a decent chance of success, but would rarely perform really amazing feats ….(due to lack of upgraded dice to supply advantages and ofcause the Triumph).

what do u guys think?

EldritchFire said:

Understandable, but you still have a point of diminishing returns. For example, if the proficiency is greater than the Attribute, the attribute is ignored COMPLETELY. It stands to reason that if this remains true, why would anyone ever want higher attributes? For example, if my Attribute is 2 and my skill is 3, the roll is still three proficiency dice. Who would ever waste time raising and attribute at this point? By your own math, there is a far better chance of success with a proficiency die so using experience to get to the higher attribute is wasteful at this point. The most you are ever rolling is ten dice between those two even if adding the dice together is implemented with some amazing scores, so I don't see that the slightly larger size in dice pool as a major manageability issue, particularly since GM decisions (Setbacks and challenges) are also dice pools of their own.

What I see as a major problem is that the balance of attribute AND skill is not reflected here. Someone who has taken the time to truly train in a skill is going to do better than someone who is naturally talented and untrained. The trick is that someone who is both naturally gifted AND trained is going to smoke the first two examples and that is in no way illustrated in the current dice system.

dreddwulf1 said:

Umm… What??? I think you're building the Dice pools wrong if you think the skill dictates the number of Proficiency dice…

Building a Dice Pool, pg. 16… Take the HIGHER of the Skill or Characteristic. That is your starting Ability dice. Take the lower of the two and this becomes the number of Upgrades to Proficiency. So, raising Skill higher than Characteristic results in more ability dice, not more Proficiency dice. The same is true for the other way around. If your Characteristic is raised higher than your Skill then you STILL end up with more Ability dice.