Topic: Multiple Participant Maneuvers

[Marc R]

Which method of bonus calculation do you use for multiple people?

For instance:

Joe, in AT20, falls off a 20' cliff, survives, but breaks an arm and a leg.

The remaining party of 4 PCs tosses down a rope which he ties under his arms.

GM decides it's an extremely hard maneuver for one person to drag Joe in his AT20 up the cliff face, and that every round he's being dragged, he takes 10 hits of damage from having his broken bones ground on the cliff. .

The other 3 players pitch in to help the strongest player. . .which method do you use to take account for their participation. Do you reduce the difficulty of the MM, Allow them to add all or part of their bonus to the MM, both?

[Ecthelion]

In similar cases I have often averaged the skill bonuses of the PCs involved and have reduced the maneuver difficulty. In cases where no skill was used and instead only a stat, in the above example perhaps St, was applied, I often simply added the stats.

[Fidoric]

Maybe you can add 3*ST for the strongest character and 1*ST for those helping him reflecting the fact that they are not as efficient as he (worse position...)

[markc]

 I generally take a combined look at the problem:
1) The person being pulled up has to make a climb roll to prevent more damage.
2) Take the highest skill and either add the total # of ranks but limited to no more than 1/2 his total skill roll modifier. The skill again IMO is climbing since that also involves helping others clime/ascend etc. [I try and keep the rolls to skill vs skill even if it has some bizare outcomes.]

Thier are a number of different ways to do #2 above, such as the second add's total # of ranks, the next adds 1/2 his # ranks etc, or each add thier St bonus in a way that helps the main puller.

MDC

[Rivstyx]

In the case of pulling a person up with a rope that everyone has ahold of I leave the difficulty modifier the same but I add all strength bonuses together because everyone is pulling at the same time in the same direction.  The assumption is if one fails they all do.  The person being pulled up does not contribute to the bonus.

two people lifting a couch are distributing the weight between them separately so I would lower the difficulty modifier by a degree due to the smaller load but I would still have them roll separately.  Character A could lift ok but character B may fail and drop his side.

[Marc R]

Hmm. . .that was the logic I was struggling with too. . .what's the distinction between when you should lower the difficulty, or combine the bonuses?

[Rivstyx]

Hmm. . .that was the logic I was struggling with too. . .what's the distinction between when you should lower the difficulty, or combine the bonuses?

Since you did not include a quote Iam assuming you are asking me this question?  My reasoning for the pulling of the rope example is that their combined strengths are being used to pull a single weight using the same method (in this case a rope).  So I apply all of their strengths to a single manuever at the original difficulty.

In the couch example they are both lifting the same object but using separate methods to do so(Their own backs).  I lower the difficulty because they are splitting the load but I make them roll separately using their own strength. 

Another point of my reasoning is that using the rope should be easier than unassisted lifting. Otherwise, why use a rope at all