Quote from: ggroy;323302Wonder how many rpg designers use the formula:

average number of attacks to kill a single target = (number of health units)/(probability of hitting target)

where for each instance the attacker hits the target, it does one health unit of damage.

ie.  For a monster with 2 hit points, and an attacker which has a 50% probability of hitting the monster and doing 1 hit point of damage, it takes on average 4 rounds to kill the monster.

That was exactly how I wrote mine.

What you describe here is not my experience of the Palladium system; yes, you almost never "miss" a strike roll (unless you rule that a natural 1 misses automatically). But essentially the system is an opposed roll; your "strike" versus the other guy's "dodge" or "parry" or "roll".
What REALLY fucked up the palladium system was when Siembieda added the "you can't dodge bullets" rule, where trying to dodge a bullet or laser was done with a flat -10. If you just ignore this stupid rule, the system works fine.

RPGPundit

Quote from: brettmb;323328You could just ignore the botch rule, you know.

Correct me if I am wrong, but (at least) the first edition of Mage required the botches to garner Paradox, right?  For the other games, probably not so much of a problem, but without Paradox to kind of reign the mages in, there is really little incentive not to use vulgar magic all the time.

Quote from: RPGPundit;323360What you describe here is not my experience of the Palladium system; yes, you almost never "miss" a strike roll (unless you rule that a natural 1 misses automatically). But essentially the system is an opposed roll; your "strike" versus the other guy's "dodge" or "parry" or "roll".
What REALLY fucked up the palladium system was when Siembieda added the "you can't dodge bullets" rule, where trying to dodge a bullet or laser was done with a flat -10. If you just ignore this stupid rule, the system works fine.

RPGPundit

See, in my experience, the groups I played with were mostly hideously overpowered, even the ones who weren't really trying to twink.  So +tohit and +parry/dodge were easily at least 30-40 in some more ludicrous cases, at which point it sort of felt pointless to roll at all, especially when most NPCs didn't even have hardly any modifier at all, so victory was a foregone conclusion.

This was Rifts though.  In other Palladium games it's not so big an issue, because modifiers are more sane, and it becomes as you say, an opposed roll with an armor check.

Quote from: StormBringer;323365Correct me if I am wrong, but (at least) the first edition of Mage required the botches to garner Paradox, right?  For the other games, probably not so much of a problem, but without Paradox to kind of reign the mages in, there is really little incentive not to use vulgar magic all the time.

True, but you could always fudge it and introduce paradox when the botch is actually appropriate.

Quote from: RPGPundit;323360If you just ignore this stupid rule, the system works fine.

That's my basic assumption when approaching any RPG.   Every "stupid rule" may work for some group, but if it doesn't work for me so out they go.

For Storyteller, we dumped the oWoD botch early on.   We did Botch = No Successes and the number of 1s equaled the severity of the botch.   No successes and no 1s was just a failure.  

But woah to thee who hath rolled four 1s...

Quote from: brettmb;323369True, but you could always fudge it and introduce paradox when the botch is actually appropriate.

Ah, I think I see what you mean.  Leave the Paradox for a 'botch', just don't worry about the botch itself and call it a standard failure.

Quote from: J Arcane;323278They did when I was in school in the 90s, and most designers are older than I am.

Current standards in most states include basics of probability in grade 5 or 6.

The math program my local school district covers more stats & probability than a designer needs by grade 6.

Not with sufficient repetitions to make it stick for all but the sharpest, but it's covered.

Quote from: StormBringer;323385Ah, I think I see what you mean.  Leave the Paradox for a 'botch', just don't worry about the botch itself and call it a standard failure.

If I remember correctly for 1E, vulgar and witnesses determined if a single point of paradox was gained (or something along those lines). Then depending on the type of casting (vulgar, incidental), paradox was gained when botching either by counting the ones or counting all the dice. You might just be better off making a save roll to avoid paradox - like the paradox is just potential paradox; if you fail the save then you gain it.

Personally, I would give out paradox for the really stupid ways of using magic. If it's not anything serious, one point would be fine. But if the character is trying to unleash hell, throw a ton at him. So, back to GM fiat really. I think it's best for a game like Mage.

Also remember, mathematics does not an actual play make.

The only time the WW botch rules really came into serious failure land was DC 10 rolls, which was supposed to be for near impossible actions. It gave you an equal chance of success as well as totally botching (which was intended). Mages succeed on a 6+ on casting rolls, so 50% of the dice succeed while 10% take one away. I don't see how those rules were mathematically broken.

Quote from: aramis;323386Current standards in most states include basics of probability in grade 5 or 6.

The math program my local school district covers more stats & probability than a designer needs by grade 6.

Not with sufficient repetitions to make it stick for all but the sharpest, but it's covered.

Believe it or not, I'm still naive enough to assume most RPG gamers, especially designers, are the sharper ones, until demonstrated otherwise.

Quote from: J Arcane;323367See, in my experience, the groups I played with were mostly hideously overpowered, even the ones who weren't really trying to twink.  So +tohit and +parry/dodge were easily at least 30-40 in some more ludicrous cases, at which point it sort of felt pointless to roll at all, especially when most NPCs didn't even have hardly any modifier at all, so victory was a foregone conclusion.

This was Rifts though.  In other Palladium games it's not so big an issue, because modifiers are more sane, and it becomes as you say, an opposed roll with an armor check.

Seriously? That's fucking bizarre.  Even in RIFTS (never mind Robotech or what-have-you) I've never seen bonuses like that, even in very high-level characters.
What kind of characters were you talking about?
Some dude with a high physical prowess could end up having some bonuses in the +10-20 range, but I've never seen more than that.

It sounds to me like something wasn't being done right there...

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;323407Seriously? That's fucking bizarre.  Even in RIFTS (never mind Robotech or what-have-you) I've never seen bonuses like that, even in very high-level characters.
What kind of characters were you talking about?
Some dude with a high physical prowess could end up having some bonuses in the +10-20 range, but I've never seen more than that.

It sounds to me like something wasn't being done right there...

RPGPundit

IT's very possible something wasn't, or that it was just the result of confused combinations of a dizzying array of sourcebooks, worldbooks, conversions from other Palladium games, online conversions, and God knows what else.  We were but young things then, and in true Rifts spirit, tended to just mash together whatever sounded cool.

Let's take for example, a Juicer from the main book (original edition, not sure if the "Ultimate edition" soups him up any further). The juicer is generally a pretty beefy combat dude.
Let's say he took ALL the physical skills that gave bonuses to PP or to parry or dodge (none give bonuses to strike).
Let's say he had a decent (average, for a juicer) PP of 24 (the upper extreme limit of human ability for a non-juicer).

Now let's say he's level 10, which is a very high level in rifts (which only goes to 15 and where characters above level 8 take years of play to normally achieve).
Let's also assume he upped his Hand to Hand to either Martial Arts or Assassin (the bonuses we're looking at are the same, in either case).

His bonuses to Parry, Dodge, and Strike would be +11, +11, and +7 respectively.

If he was using a Sword he had proficiency in, at level 10 he'd have +10 to strike, and +14 to parry.

Alternately, lets say he bought himself a suit of power armor, and had power armor ELITE training. His Parry, Dodge, Strike bonuses in the power armour would be +13, +13 (+16 flying), +9.

Even if we were to give him PP 30, an insanely high number, you'd only end up adding +3 to everything I listed above.  In other words, not a single bonus even making it to +20.

And those bonuses are the sort of thing that RIFTS-munchkin's wet dreams are made of.

RPGPundit

Maybe we were just really good at twinking and didn't know it.  One of our guys WAS a legendary gamebreaker.  You did leave out phys skills though, and you could squeeze some serious abuse stacking a lot of those on the right class.  Plus, most of our guys would never play something so mundane as a plain old juicer.