Conversely, I always felt that beginning MERP/Rolemaster characters were hopeless, so we went through the whole process of starting at higher levels. The whiff factor in CoC has the same simple solution (don't know if the rules give any options, but the BRP book certainly does).

Having said that, the MERP/Rolemaster tables do give some pretty interesting results. I have sometimes considered building characters using the Basic Roleplaying book and then handle skill rolls and combat etc with Rolemaster/MERP tables. That would have been a fantasy setting though.

Quote from: Trond;1113767Conversely, I always felt that beginning MERP/Rolemaster characters were hopeless, so we went through the whole process of starting at higher levels. The whiff factor in CoC has the same simple solution (don't know if the rules give any options, but the BRP book certainly does).

Having said that, the MERP/Rolemaster tables do give some pretty interesting results. I have sometimes considered building characters using the Basic Roleplaying book and then handle skill rolls and combat etc with Rolemaster/MERP tables. That would have been a fantasy setting though.

Keep in mind I'll still be using CoC for character creation. In 6th Edition, it is not unusual for an investigator to have many or all of their skills in the 40% and up range, which gives you a 2/3rds chance or better of at least partial success on the MERP static action table.

I've been thinking about this idea a little more. Some interesting things happen if you use the MERP static action table for investigator skill rolls. For reference, here is an abbreviated version of the MERP table:

Roll 1d100+Skill:
Less than -25: Critical fumble, your action has the opposite effect as intended.
-25 to 04: Complete failure, cannot try again.
05 to 75: Normal failure, can try again tomorrow.
76 to 90: Partial success, gaining 20% of the result. Can try again in an hour.
91 to 110: Near success, gaining 50% of the result. Can try again in 3 rounds (which is about half a minute in both CoC and MERP).
111 to 175: Complete success, gaining 100% of the result.
Greater than 175: Critical success, gaining 100% of the result and a bonus for the next 10 minutes.

Here are the chances for a character with a 40% Skill Rating:
35% chance of normal failure (roll of 0-35)
15% chance of partial success (roll of 36-50)
20% chance of near success (roll of 51-70)
30% chance of complete success (roll of 71-100)

So something that comes through right away is that complete and critical failures almost never happen unless the negative penalties for task difficulty exceed your skill bonus (which is to say, unlikely, unless you have a very low skill rating). An "extremely hard" task is -30, which still wouldn't reduce an average beginning investigator's roll below 10 (assuming a typical 40% skill rating). The worst thing that happens to you usually is thus a normal failure, which allows you to try again tomorrow. From my memory, Call of Cthulhu doesn't actually have skill roll difficulties (i.e. regardless of the situation, you always have the same chance of making your roll), so it would make sense to adopt the MERP difficulty categories here.

Some kind of incomplete success happens fairly often (35% of the time in the above case). You need only a 25% rating in a skill to have a 1 in 2 chance of getting a partial success or better. This is double the chance for success compared to the regular CoC system. Your chances of a complete success are lower, however, than in CoC (only a 1 in 6 chance of complete success with a 25% skill rating).

The result is that you usually get PART of what you are trying to get from a skill task roll and you almost always can try again for better results. You rarely get everything you want, however. This gives the Keeper a lot of leeway to decide what the dice mean beyond the simple "pass/fail" dichotomy that CoC usually provides.

Quote from: Theros;1114114From my memory, Call of Cthulhu doesn't actually have skill roll difficulties (i.e. regardless of the situation, you always have the same chance of making your roll), so it would make sense to adopt the MERP difficulty categories here.

I don't know anything about 6th. In 7th it certainly does, on two vectors. You roll % and check success in a way that is similar to the Marvel FASERIP system (fail = white, success = green, hard success = yellow, extreme success = red). In addition to that you may have to roll with one or more penalty dice (roll extra d10's for the "tens" die and pick the highest).

Generally, a hard or extreme success would be needed for something that is hard on its own, and the penalty dice are situational. So for Locksmith, you might just need a regular success to open handcuffs. If the handcuffs are on you, you might get a penalty die. Later on, you need a hard success to open a safe, with a penalty die if there is an eldritch horror bearing down on you.

The main issue I see with the overhaul you've described is the change to combat balance. With what you have there, the ability to Fight Back in melee (by beating the attacker's success by one degree) is much weaker, and the ability to dodge (roll equal to the attacker's success degree) becomes much easier. So initiative order becomes that much more powerful and it probably leads to a more drawn out affair than in the base system. You could of course alter that balance with more tinkering.

Quote from: Conanist;1114188I don't know anything about 6th. In 7th it certainly does, on two vectors. You roll % and check success in a way that is similar to the Marvel FASERIP system (fail = white, success = green, hard success = yellow, extreme success = red). In addition to that you may have to roll with one or more penalty dice (roll extra d10's for the "tens" die and pick the highest).

Generally, a hard or extreme success would be needed for something that is hard on its own, and the penalty dice are situational. So for Locksmith, you might just need a regular success to open handcuffs. If the handcuffs are on you, you might get a penalty die. Later on, you need a hard success to open a safe, with a penalty die if there is an eldritch horror bearing down on you.

The main issue I see with the overhaul you've described is the change to combat balance. With what you have there, the ability to Fight Back in melee (by beating the attacker's success by one degree) is much weaker, and the ability to dodge (roll equal to the attacker's success degree) becomes much easier. So initiative order becomes that much more powerful and it probably leads to a more drawn out affair than in the base system. You could of course alter that balance with more tinkering.

Oh no, I’d be using this with 6e (or maybe 3e, if I'm feeling cute). Combat works differently than 7th edition. I would also only be using MERP tables outside of combat (for investigation rolls, basically). Combat would be unchanged from 6e.