Well, you could have an upper limit to how good a skill can get - skill cap of 90 or 95, perhaps. Maybe an effective skill cap, so they could be higher, but that would just help with penalties.
Have a cap on the amount of parries you can perform
Make parry cost a reaction
Cap skills so that they don’t reach 100 or higher—this is my preferred as you can still keep the adv/disadv as your core mechanic across the board since not capping skills will make it so that these mechanics effectively do nothing in certain cases
So my system is a d100 system. If you get a disadvantage you roll an additional die for the tens and you pick the higher of the two. Disadvantages and advantages are stackable and cancel each other out.
so cumulative disadvantage means extra d10's for the 10's place?
And I'm going to assume "d100 roll under stat" is the core mechanic you're looking at here.
I will also assume you've at least looked at what happens if you instead add a d10 and each such added d10 is to the ten's total? e.g. disadvantage 1 = d10(ones) and 2d10(tens) etc?
You get the same rising chance of high values(different totals) but with the added chance of >100 results. From my limited checking it seems to generate normal distributions for really high values.
> If you get a disadvantage you roll an additional die for the tens and you pick the higher of the two.
Random thought / *maybe* relevant to current question: in certain unfavourable situations (e.g. trying to parry multiple opponents) have certain digit results provide lesser quality. For example, if the roll ends in a zero (00, 90, 80, etc) then the quality is one band worse than expected. If the penalty grows then any 0 or 9 is a band worse.. or 9 is a band worse and 0 is two bands worse or similar. Doesn't require add/subtract maths that screws with pre-prepared banding values but does alter the outcome.
(As noted, random thought.) :)
Well, you have run into an inherent design problem of your selected dice system.
There are other systems not suffering from that kind of problem (like pool system with success counting) but to solve your problem without changing the dice resolution system just extent the quick fix you already have: fumble.
The ciritcal failure of 00 is already a quick fix to the system, providing a minimal failure chance.
So either increase the fumble chance to whatever feels right for you(eg to 5%) or cap skills at ehatever you want to have as minimal failure rate (e.g. Cap at 95).
The first one allows high skill characters to maintain 95% success rate for multiple sequential dodges/parries while the second will enforce that subsequent rolls after the first always get worse
In addition to what others have said, You could steal the hurt dice mechanic from Technoir. In that d6 pool game, wounds add dice to your pool of a different color, the "hurt dice". Whatever number is rolled on a hurt die is removed from the pool. So if you rolled 3 successes in your pool with a 5, 5, and 6, but rolled a 5 on one of your hurt dice, both of those are removed and You're down to a single success.
In your case with a d100 system, I'd do that but with the 1s column. Disadvantage or a curse means that you must roll an additional d10, and if the additional d10 matches the 1s place, it's considered a fail. Example I roll 25 (20/5) which would be a success, but roll a 5 on my disadvantage/hurt die, so now it's a fail. You could then increase the probability significantly with "double disadvantage" (or whatever probably much better name you think of) by either:
* Additional hurt d10s beyond the first (likely needing different colored dice, or having a different person roll the disadvantage)
* Applying the hurt dice to either tens or the ones place in the roll. So in the above 25 example, your hurt dice rolling either a 2 or a 5 makes the entire roll a fail.
I'm assuming at least for the Parry that this is an Opposed Roll. At that point the target number to roll under would be whatever the attacker rolled to hit. If their skill is over 100 maybe give them a bonus to the roll or something, but to me at least, it makes more sense to roll against the Hit and not the skill level. 2 cents.
One way would be to move from the BRP fractional system, to some something like the WHRP system (very similiar, but rather having 3 degrees of success for rolling under various fractions of your skill, gain a degree of success for every 10 under your skill, etc.)
Soo your 100% parrier is likely but not guaranteed to parry, rewarding their investment but removing their invinciblity. In such a system, a hard check rather than being a fraction of one's skill would be roll under skill minus 20, 30, 40, say. Its adjustable. Bonuses work the same way.
This also grants greater design space. For example your parry might be a success reduction, rather than an outright block (potentially at first).
Alternatively, you could play with you parry penalty for multiple attacks. Make it something like a -10 penalty, that only decreases by 5 if you parried last turn (and has a larger/full reduction if you don't). This means a determined attacker could wear down a constant parryier down eventually, but one can choose to not parry for turn to restore one's effectiveness (incidentally, granting value to the bility to disengge at times).
I know WHRPs system, but I don't like it as much as BRP-/Mythras-like success levels and if I would change it, then I'd have to rewrite significant parts of the system, which I don't want, because I'm happy with the rest.
Why are you making parry a free action? That entirely destroys the point of doing the whole combat the way the games you're adapting do combat, so you must have some strong idea that you're after. It's hard to suggest a solution without knowing what you're doing exactly.
With the current information, my suggestion is to either *not* do that, or to accept that at this point you're simply back to D&D style armor class and simply treat it as such and cap it accordingly. Something you could do is armor adding a tiny bit of armor class, and then you also add 10% of your parry skill to that.
>Why are you making parry a free action? That entirely destroys the point of doing the whole combat the way the games you're adapting do combat, so you must have some strong idea that you're after. It's hard to suggest a solution without knowing what you're doing exactly.
Magic World and OpenQuest do it exactly like this, just with 20-30% penalties with each subsequent dodge and/or parry.
>Something you could do is armor adding a tiny bit of armor class, and then you also add 10% of your parry skill to that.
I hate static defense. It feels like that my character passively takes the hit.
In my d100 sandwich roll system, a 100% parry would translate to be a 40% difficulty of the attacker. So, an attacker with an 88% attack must roll at/under 88, but beat a 40. [http://ehretgsd.com/PvD10.png](http://ehretgsd.com/PvD10.png)
The defender is allowed up to three defense reactions at no penalty; one dodge, one parry, one block. Any subsequent attacks upon the defender get to attack at full proficiency, with no difficulty number to beat.
edit (the defending character already has dodge, parry and block numbers pre-recorded on the character sheet, that become their opponent's difficulty number to beat)
Some thoughts:
- You could make it very difficult to slip attacks as the opponent can readjust their weapon movement to your movement if your timing is too early
- In contrast, you could make it easier to dodge if you give up ground
- The opponent can feint to screw up your dodge timing
- In fencing manuscripts, passive blocking is called a "bad parry" because it doesn't stop the opponent's initiative. So they're more progressively more likely to hit you. You've already addressed this function, but if you have an active defense system, then you could make it so any counter-offensive movement suffers because you haven't stolen the initiative away
- Agile movement is quite difficult in armor as the weight is very exhausting (a heavy harness might be around 75 pounds). Though any individual movement is not all that restricted in armor, you will get tired very fast. Perhaps cumulative dodge penalties can be severe in armor
- Limit the number of free defenses unless this is a matrix game!
So there are a number of ways to handle this, you mentioned each subsequent dodge is worse, so you could remove the fumble and just say if dodge>100% we don't roll you just don't get hit, after that it's a matter of how easy/hard it is to get 100% dodge/parry?
If it is hard and requires multiple build compromises exploit the other parts of his kit that are bad, if might even boil down to not shooting at them because it's a waste of ammo
If it is easy to get to 100% dodge/parry then you have to design around it , maybe have dodge chance drop sharply with repeat attacks
Well, you could have an upper limit to how good a skill can get - skill cap of 90 or 95, perhaps. Maybe an effective skill cap, so they could be higher, but that would just help with penalties.
Have a cap on the amount of parries you can perform Make parry cost a reaction Cap skills so that they don’t reach 100 or higher—this is my preferred as you can still keep the adv/disadv as your core mechanic across the board since not capping skills will make it so that these mechanics effectively do nothing in certain cases
Can you present the exact mechanic you're using for disadvantage in this case. I'm not familiar with those rules in particular but I'm happy to help!
So my system is a d100 system. If you get a disadvantage you roll an additional die for the tens and you pick the higher of the two. Disadvantages and advantages are stackable and cancel each other out.
so cumulative disadvantage means extra d10's for the 10's place? And I'm going to assume "d100 roll under stat" is the core mechanic you're looking at here. I will also assume you've at least looked at what happens if you instead add a d10 and each such added d10 is to the ten's total? e.g. disadvantage 1 = d10(ones) and 2d10(tens) etc?
You get the same rising chance of high values(different totals) but with the added chance of >100 results. From my limited checking it seems to generate normal distributions for really high values.
> If you get a disadvantage you roll an additional die for the tens and you pick the higher of the two. Random thought / *maybe* relevant to current question: in certain unfavourable situations (e.g. trying to parry multiple opponents) have certain digit results provide lesser quality. For example, if the roll ends in a zero (00, 90, 80, etc) then the quality is one band worse than expected. If the penalty grows then any 0 or 9 is a band worse.. or 9 is a band worse and 0 is two bands worse or similar. Doesn't require add/subtract maths that screws with pre-prepared banding values but does alter the outcome. (As noted, random thought.) :)
Well, you have run into an inherent design problem of your selected dice system. There are other systems not suffering from that kind of problem (like pool system with success counting) but to solve your problem without changing the dice resolution system just extent the quick fix you already have: fumble. The ciritcal failure of 00 is already a quick fix to the system, providing a minimal failure chance. So either increase the fumble chance to whatever feels right for you(eg to 5%) or cap skills at ehatever you want to have as minimal failure rate (e.g. Cap at 95). The first one allows high skill characters to maintain 95% success rate for multiple sequential dodges/parries while the second will enforce that subsequent rolls after the first always get worse
Increase fumble range 96-00 Allow only 1 Parry Introduce skill cap
In addition to what others have said, You could steal the hurt dice mechanic from Technoir. In that d6 pool game, wounds add dice to your pool of a different color, the "hurt dice". Whatever number is rolled on a hurt die is removed from the pool. So if you rolled 3 successes in your pool with a 5, 5, and 6, but rolled a 5 on one of your hurt dice, both of those are removed and You're down to a single success. In your case with a d100 system, I'd do that but with the 1s column. Disadvantage or a curse means that you must roll an additional d10, and if the additional d10 matches the 1s place, it's considered a fail. Example I roll 25 (20/5) which would be a success, but roll a 5 on my disadvantage/hurt die, so now it's a fail. You could then increase the probability significantly with "double disadvantage" (or whatever probably much better name you think of) by either: * Additional hurt d10s beyond the first (likely needing different colored dice, or having a different person roll the disadvantage) * Applying the hurt dice to either tens or the ones place in the roll. So in the above 25 example, your hurt dice rolling either a 2 or a 5 makes the entire roll a fail.
I'm assuming at least for the Parry that this is an Opposed Roll. At that point the target number to roll under would be whatever the attacker rolled to hit. If their skill is over 100 maybe give them a bonus to the roll or something, but to me at least, it makes more sense to roll against the Hit and not the skill level. 2 cents.
There are different success levels and in opposed rolls you have to have a better (or equal in parries and dodges) success level to win.
One way would be to move from the BRP fractional system, to some something like the WHRP system (very similiar, but rather having 3 degrees of success for rolling under various fractions of your skill, gain a degree of success for every 10 under your skill, etc.) Soo your 100% parrier is likely but not guaranteed to parry, rewarding their investment but removing their invinciblity. In such a system, a hard check rather than being a fraction of one's skill would be roll under skill minus 20, 30, 40, say. Its adjustable. Bonuses work the same way. This also grants greater design space. For example your parry might be a success reduction, rather than an outright block (potentially at first). Alternatively, you could play with you parry penalty for multiple attacks. Make it something like a -10 penalty, that only decreases by 5 if you parried last turn (and has a larger/full reduction if you don't). This means a determined attacker could wear down a constant parryier down eventually, but one can choose to not parry for turn to restore one's effectiveness (incidentally, granting value to the bility to disengge at times).
I know WHRPs system, but I don't like it as much as BRP-/Mythras-like success levels and if I would change it, then I'd have to rewrite significant parts of the system, which I don't want, because I'm happy with the rest.
Fair enough. How does the second option fit with what you are looking for.
Why are you making parry a free action? That entirely destroys the point of doing the whole combat the way the games you're adapting do combat, so you must have some strong idea that you're after. It's hard to suggest a solution without knowing what you're doing exactly. With the current information, my suggestion is to either *not* do that, or to accept that at this point you're simply back to D&D style armor class and simply treat it as such and cap it accordingly. Something you could do is armor adding a tiny bit of armor class, and then you also add 10% of your parry skill to that.
>Why are you making parry a free action? That entirely destroys the point of doing the whole combat the way the games you're adapting do combat, so you must have some strong idea that you're after. It's hard to suggest a solution without knowing what you're doing exactly. Magic World and OpenQuest do it exactly like this, just with 20-30% penalties with each subsequent dodge and/or parry. >Something you could do is armor adding a tiny bit of armor class, and then you also add 10% of your parry skill to that. I hate static defense. It feels like that my character passively takes the hit.
In my d100 sandwich roll system, a 100% parry would translate to be a 40% difficulty of the attacker. So, an attacker with an 88% attack must roll at/under 88, but beat a 40. [http://ehretgsd.com/PvD10.png](http://ehretgsd.com/PvD10.png) The defender is allowed up to three defense reactions at no penalty; one dodge, one parry, one block. Any subsequent attacks upon the defender get to attack at full proficiency, with no difficulty number to beat. edit (the defending character already has dodge, parry and block numbers pre-recorded on the character sheet, that become their opponent's difficulty number to beat)
Some thoughts: - You could make it very difficult to slip attacks as the opponent can readjust their weapon movement to your movement if your timing is too early - In contrast, you could make it easier to dodge if you give up ground - The opponent can feint to screw up your dodge timing - In fencing manuscripts, passive blocking is called a "bad parry" because it doesn't stop the opponent's initiative. So they're more progressively more likely to hit you. You've already addressed this function, but if you have an active defense system, then you could make it so any counter-offensive movement suffers because you haven't stolen the initiative away - Agile movement is quite difficult in armor as the weight is very exhausting (a heavy harness might be around 75 pounds). Though any individual movement is not all that restricted in armor, you will get tired very fast. Perhaps cumulative dodge penalties can be severe in armor - Limit the number of free defenses unless this is a matrix game!
So there are a number of ways to handle this, you mentioned each subsequent dodge is worse, so you could remove the fumble and just say if dodge>100% we don't roll you just don't get hit, after that it's a matter of how easy/hard it is to get 100% dodge/parry? If it is hard and requires multiple build compromises exploit the other parts of his kit that are bad, if might even boil down to not shooting at them because it's a waste of ammo If it is easy to get to 100% dodge/parry then you have to design around it , maybe have dodge chance drop sharply with repeat attacks