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Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => RMC/RM2 => Topic started by: Dimuscul on July 19, 2017, 06:39:54 AM
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So we are running a few games with the group. They are legionnaires in ancient Rome, its fun and all ... but I cannot ignore the fact that when, the players roll against other NPC, there is no problem ... but when they roll against a chart (the hypothetical 110 result) is hard as hell.
You need a lot of ranks and stats to manage to reach 110 to be considered competent ... am I doing something wrong?
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No you aren't.
This is even more of a problem in RMU in my experience so far. If the characters are low level then set the difficulty factors to a suitable level, don't make locks so tough they cannot pick them or such.
I have a house rule that makes beginning characters much more competent at unskilled tasks which I came to because of just this difficulty.
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A total of 76+ will give you a partial success, so as long as you can retry/keep at it, it's not outright failure.
With a 91 you can even roll again with a bonus, or leave things partially completed.
When using Movement Maneuvers, the result is a percentage, so most of the times (climbing, swimming) you can keep rolling until you complete the maneuver.
But also, remember that there are a number of difficulty modifiers.
Routine is +30, so anything that should be doable with no pressure could get that bonus.
A medium maneuver represents the standard challenge for a professional at that skill, not your everyday work (at least that's how I see it).
And finally, you should only be rolling dice if there is a chance for failure because of a time limit, external pressure, or a competition where the result matters. If the character has enough ranks that the GM determines the task can be done if given enough time, then it is done, and you move on.
The maneuver tables and all the rules around their resolution are meant to help determine the outcome of conflicts, high stakes moments, of which there will be a lot, but that's not all there is to adventuring.
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Those are all good points that Peter and Voriig make. Also remember that the charts with 111 as the full success threshold are mostly for 'Static Maneuvers': ones that are kind of 'pass/fail', in the sense that either you do it or you don't, like picking a lock (rather than things that just take a while, like climbing up a low hill). Things that take a while can just use the 'Movement Maneuver' or moving maneuver table, with results like '60' indicating that the character gets 60% of the way up the hill in that round (and only needs 40% more success on the following round/s to get to the top). The moving maneuver table makes partial successes more significant.
The original RM2 Character Law set the bar for success for Static Maneuvers at 101. But for some reason, in the charts one finds in RoCo II and later books, there seems to be a change to make 111 the threshold for full success (apparently so that 90-110 can be partial success with a bonus to the reroll). The idea that partial success is possible was a good one, but raising the threshold for full success was IMHO a mistake, as that bar was already too high.
So, to answer your question Dimuscul, here are some things you can do to address the issue:
--Make sure you set appropriate difficulties for tasks and give players significant bonuses for easy ones. Routine tasks should get +30 or even more; if they are dead simple and being done outside of combat or with no time limit, you don't even need to require rolls.
--Use the Moving Maneuver table for tasks that normally are not pass/fail, but just take a while.
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Way back, I wondered about the odds. I did some calculations of the probabilities of succeeding at all-or-nothing maneuvers, when it took a 101+ to succeed. I found that the difficulty categories yield a big jump between "Light" and "Medium. Here are the odds of success for each category with a 0 bonus:
Routine=92
Easy=80
Light=72
Medium=37
Hard=28
V. Hard=21
Ext. Hard=15
Sheer Folly=7
Absurd=3
Based on this, I frequently use difficulties of "Light -10"=66%, "Light-20"=59%, "Med+20"=51%, and "Med+10"=44% to make things more gradual.
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That's an interesting idea Jengada; I like it!
Can I ask how you calculated the chances of success? On the static maneuver tables in Rolemaster Companion II, usually any result of 75 or less is a failure, often with a stipulation that you can't try again for x days/hours. When I try to calculate the chances of success using those charts, it looks like someone with a 0 skill bonus is going to fail on even 'light' maneuvers at least 65% of the time.
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Those were computed using the original single chart for maneuvers (15.31 in ChL&CaL). Odds of success are the sum (within difficulty) of the products of the "open-ended roll ranges" times the probability listed for that range. So one term in the sum, for example, for Light +0, would be rolling a 21-40 yields a 60% chance for the second roll, and that term in the sum is 0.2*0.6. It's straightforward for everything but the open-ended sections.
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Ah, I see; that makes sense.
So one interesting conclusion is that it is easier to get success if you use the moving maneuver chart for static maneuvers, rather than the static maneuver chart!
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So taking into account the responses and all ... I ended making my custom difficulty modifications.
I reduced the amount of them, and if needed to add modifiers on site.
Easy: +50
Medium: +25
Hard: +0
Very Hard: -25
Almost impossible: -50
It was something like that ... lower difficulties are easier while harder ones are similar to the already existing ones.
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Many maneuvers can be overcome with a skill in RM2 anyway... and there you can ADD you skill bonus instead of only your move in armor that can max 0 or even minus depend on armor.
So I often have jumping, tumbling, flying, dropping, drewling etc etc
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So taking into account the responses and all ... I ended making my custom difficulty modifications.
I reduced the amount of them, and if needed to add modifiers on site.
Easy: +50
Medium: +25
Hard: +0
Very Hard: -25
Almost impossible: -50
It was something like that ... lower difficulties are easier while harder ones are similar to the already existing ones.
I like it. The increments actually work better with RMU too, since RMU already has a system of making actions less effective by 25 points for each action point fewer you spend on the action (so spending only 3 AP on a melee attack rather than 4 means you attack at -25). Keeping those same increments then would be like saying that doing something hastily (i.e. spending one less action point) increases the difficulty by one ap or 25.
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Easy: +50
Medium: +25
Hard: +0
Very Hard: -25
Almost impossible: -50
I personally think these modifiers are way too low (whereas the original are just fine). With them, at merely level 10, (many) RM2 characters are almost super-humans, having 50% of performing "almost impossible" feats. Indeed, since a level 10 character would have +70 (20 ranks) +30 (+3 per level) +10 (low stat bonus) = +110, a mere -50 would allow them to regularly perform such "almost impossible" feats. RoCo. IV had -100 for insane ("marginally beyond the abilities of humans"/"worthy of appearing in the book of records") manoeuvres, -150 for phenomenal ("impossible for human beings but not for superhuman beings") manoeuvres and -200 for virtually impossible ("hard even for superhuman beings") manoeuvres, which I found closer to what it should be. I mean, "almost impossible" are, well, almost impossible. That a normal, low level, has any chance of doing so hardly makes it almost impossible.
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I have kept the standard difficulty penalties but made the additions to 'unskilled' tasks such as kicking in a door or remembering your sisters birthday bigger. It solves the same issue but applies the solution at a different place.