No, I didn't leave out physical skills. My example stated clearly that the model supposes that the Juicer took all the physical skills available (the new Ultimate Edition might have added some new ones, theoretically) that added to either the PP attribute or to your bonuses to dodge or parry.

Yes, I suppose if you created outright demented characters that combined all kinds of disparate elements from all the different books, you could make bigger munchkins than my Juicer example; but this would require ignoring all sense of setting, and even then, you're still talking about trying to cover a 20 point gap from my numbers to the numbers you were stating; and again, this is a LEVEL TEN character.

I'm not trying to question the sincerity of your memory, but it could be that you are either remembering it wrong, or your group was just plain making shit up or something and not really following the rules at all.

RPGPundit

Quote from: brettmb;323391If 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.

Maybe a simple 'roll above paradox'?  The current level you have or the amount you are about to get or something...  Interesting.

I agree Mage works better with GM fiat.

ArsM 5E is a glory and a wonder to behold, easily the most best version of the system I've seen - better combat than 4E (*finally* armour isn't more likely to kill you than protect you!), no Realm of Reason nonsense from 3E.

The exception is the rules for spell penetration. The way these work, the Penetration of your spell - required to get past the magical defenses of wizards and other magical creatures - depends on the difference between the number you roll and the target number to activate the spell.

This means that when you have duels of wizards it will often devolve into a contest whereby people try to cast the least powerful spell they possibly can in order to get past the other party's defences... so grand and powerful magi end up casting cantrips at each other because it's the only way to have a hope of being effective.

Quote from: Cranewings;323356

Quote from: ggroyWonder 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.

I only ever used that formula to check whether an encounter is overpowered or underpowered on one side.

Quote from: J Arcane;323305I definitely think the 3e and 4e designers probably have.  

The closest older editions had for example, was hit dice, which meant basically fuck all, which is why CR was invented in the first place.

HD made sense in OD&D when they were D6 and all Weapons/Mosnters did D6 damage. So, a four HD beastie takes around four hits to down it. They made less sense once variable weapon damage and variable HD for characters and D8 HD for monsters were introduced.

Quote from: StormBringer;323430Maybe a simple 'roll above paradox'?  The current level you have or the amount you are about to get or something...  Interesting.

I agree Mage works better with GM fiat.

IE Mage is one of my favorite games but I have to disagree with this one SB, the game needs less GM fiat....the rules most times were really dodgy but I think the clash of expectations between what the players wanted or could do and the influence of the GM created some really interesting situations - at least in my games. When I run the game again (never) we as a group are going to agree on a little more structure before hand.

Regards,
David R

My favorite probability blunders from rpg's-

Traveller - In the original traveller rules, you couldn't miss hitting an unarmored target with a shotgun.  Also, two unarmored guys with gauss rifles will always kill each other.  Combat was so horribly designed that they developed at least two add-ons to try to fix it (Snapshot and Azhanti High Lightning).

D&D- a shield makes you 5% harder to hit.  Are you kidding me?

Combat in old versions of Tunnels & Trolls where both sides are heavily armoured can mean that no one can damage anyone (possibly realistic, but a game failure).

Apparently in Wraethu the collision rules mean that kicking a car can kill you.

In RuneQuest, as characters get better, their attack percentage gets higher, but so does their parry percentage. This can, apparently, make combat take forever, because virtually everything gets parried (another possibly realistic but not very fun result).

In Car Wars (maybe only older versions?) you had to roll to hit even for things like grenades. I'm not quite sure how this worked, but there were some circumstances where you could throw a grenade at the ground and miss, causing the grenade to disappear.

As some people have referred to, in the first version of Vampire the more skilled you were at something, the more dice you rolled, which meant the higher chance of a critical failure you had.

Quote from: Age of Fable;323461Combat in old versions of Tunnels & Trolls where both sides are heavily armoured can mean that no one can damage anyone (possibly realistic, but a game failure).

That's what SR's are for.

Quote from: Age of Fable;323461In Car Wars (maybe only older versions?) you had to roll to hit even for things like grenades. I'm not quite sure how this worked, but there were some circumstances where you could throw a grenade at the ground and miss, causing the grenade to disappear.

Grenades ALWAYS were thrown at a spot, at +3 bonus. If you missed, it scattered; if you made, it stopped in the nominated square.

Wherever it ended up, 1 second later, it goes boom.

Quote from: Age of Fable;323461As some people have referred to, in the first version of Vampire the more skilled you were at something, the more dice you rolled, which meant the higher chance of a critical failure you had.

Not true. Each 1 cancelled a success. Most difficulties were in the 4-8 range, so with the nominal 5, each die is a 50% chance of +1 success, 10% chance of -1 success. A botch only occurred if more 1's than successes came up.

For 1D at diff 5, that's 10% botch, 40% 0s, 50% 1s
for 2D at diff 5, that's 9% botch, 16% 0s, 50% 1s, 25% 2s
for 3d at diff 5, it's about 5% botch chance... and about 7% 0s

Quote from: aramis;323485Not true. Each 1 cancelled a success. Most difficulties were in the 4-8 range, so with the nominal 5, each die is a 50% chance of +1 success, 10% chance of -1 success. A botch only occurred if more 1's than successes came up.

Actually a lot of difficulties were in the 9 or 10 region, to the point that special rules were brought in for difficulties above 10.

QuoteFor 1D at diff 5, that's 10% botch, 40% 0s, 50% 1s
for 2D at diff 5, that's 9% botch, 16% 0s, 50% 1s, 25% 2s
for 3d at diff 5, it's about 5% botch chance... and about 7% 0s

Here is a table showing where the probability goes wonky. (ok, so it is not a table as the forum hates white space)

L ___   Botch risk with 2d10 __   Botch risk with 3d10
6 ___   0.09 _______________ 0.076
7 ___   0.11 _______________ 0.103
8 ___   0.13 _______________ 0.136
9 ___   0.15 _______________ 0.175
10 __   0.17 _______________ 0.22

This is why revised changed the mechanic.