Topic: The End of Critical Tables?

[providence13]

having no crit tables wouldn't ruin it for me, but they are fun! Hit location severity  could be used instead of crits.. This could be used as a Difficulty Rating applied to OB. Instead of a minus, it could be a % of the OB. Ye Olde 'Mythus' had Non-Vital, Vital, Super Vital, Ultra Vital as Damage multipliers; x1, x2, x3, x4. This system could be used even without increasing hits. Most people could take a few Non-Vital wounds, but you would have to be darn tough to be conscious from a Ultra-Vital.
Dropping Concussion hits ain't a bad idea though..

Another game, we'll call it RaFTS, has hits and a number to represent a sort of physical structure damage. More physical skills can build up the ability to withstand those physical structure wounds It is kinda like you're "first wind" before the hit points (second wind) are affected. These come off before the actual hits. With enough skills, you can power creep incredibly high and out of control! Skills like Ambush could cut through straight to the hits.

Without crits I'd worry about a similar situation (power creep) in RM games. Maybe I'm also lazy and qualify for the 'new GM' status, but I think crits help tell the story.

As others have said, random damage rolls, random concussion hit total rolls and random healing rolls are not for me.
I understand that RM started with d10's for hits and still has some for damage (certain spells) but RM didn't drop the random healing. Sure, different people heal at various rates and Con helps, but I don't need that level of realism. Never really comes up with magic healing though.
Good conversation!

[arcadayn]

I personally find both the crit AND the weapon tables to be essential to RM.  None of the truncated combat systems over the years (MERP, RMFRP, HARP, or Combat Companion) have ever given me the same feel as the individual weapon tables.  It was the main reason I moved from MERP to RM back in '85.

[lordmalachdrim]

The per weapon tables is what convinced my group and I to move back to RMSS.

[Cory Magel]

I haven't played around with it too much, but I was tinkering with making one chart that runs to 200 and combines hits and crits.  Basically my thought was to simply reduce die rolls and charts to attract new players.  But since the "new" version of RM seemed to have lost steam so I didn't bother seriously trying to figure it out.

Ideally I'd like to see a two page chart for each weapon that covers results from 1-200 with hits and crits combined.
This way you eliminate a roll and you have a unique critical hit chart for each weapon.  For a "starter" core version you could use the usual Slash, Crush, Puncture, etc.  Then you could expand into individual charts for each weapon in an Arms Law.

[Marc R]

I've missed our conversations, it's been way too long.

Hmm, sort of stretch out the attack table, then swap out the A-E results with the actual A-E crits, add them together and thus one roll?

I suspect you might find that you either signifigantly reduce the variations to fit the space, or you may need a lot more space for results than you'd think.

I'll arbitrarily pick Broadsword vs AT 12, let me pull my AL (RMC version, it was on top)

there's 93 results on the table, of which:

9 are 0s
27 are hits only
13 are As
14 are Bs
13 are Cs
9 are Ds
8 are Es

Hmm, not actually all that far off, but issues.

There are 19 results on a crit table x 5 = 95, but 11 of the slash table are just hits so call it 84. 56 of the attack table are crits, so you're going to need to do a bit of inflation, like 50%. . .but condensing the bottom of the table 0s and pushing out the top to 200 does a lot of that anyway.

Your problem comes in the actual end result. . .now even assuming the first quarter to third of the table is mostly single lines of zeroes, say to 40 and hits, lets call it from there to 115 at just hits of damage. . .that easily fits into a single page. . .but take a look at an attack table. . .it goes by ones. . .and we're "stretching" that 50% but can't get smaller than 1s.

So another 85 results that basically correlate to critical results. . .which also sounds like a page. . .until you realize that what we're looking at here is Broadsword vs AT12. . .so this is a column, one of five. Assuming the crits are roughly the text size of current crits, that's 4.5-5 pages to fit, even if we underestimate the 0s and just hits at 0.5 page, and lowball the 85 actual crit like results at 4.5 pages. . .it's 5 pages.

I would so buy it, and so use it, and so love it. . .but I don't know if a 5 page long combined attack/crit table for broadsword, preceded by 5 pages for Bola and followed by 5 pages for Club would be everyone's cup of tea. (Damn would it be %$#ing cool as hell though).

I don't think people quite get how crazy it is that RM actually offers via the two roll, two table results, such a vast number of actual variations of result, but it's really mind boggling when you math it out as if it were a single roll table. . .to truly capture it in a single page barbarically cuts the results back to 20%. . .Culling down to two facing pages for a nice spread would be culling variation from current to 2/5. . .40%, or a 60% loss of variability.

Cutting it back to two facing pages, one an attack table, one a crit table, still requiring two rolls would give you as many results as the current game logic does and keep it all on one spread. . .If you could find a sucker willing to do a custom crit table just for each individual weapon, you'd actually extend and multiply the variations of result (since a couple hundred attack tables share say 10 critical tables, if you made it more like X attack tables with X crit tables you'd dupe results less often.). . .course, writing that many crit tables would take a crazy person (or make one).

Really, there's a bazillion variables that go into the attack roll, but like 5 possible modifiers to a crit result in the whole game, all fairly predictable. . .how much game play time does rolling the second, critical roll, take? If you wanted to streamline RM combat, you'd streamline the attack roll mechanism, not the critical, it takes longer to read the crit, react, slap the table, laugh, say a few "Damn.  .just damn"s than it does to roll it. . .all the combat time suckage is on the attack side, the crit is like the cherry on the attack sundae.

You could easily drop the two roll method, but even being conservative above, it culls the results back 60% for a spread, 80% for a page, 96% when you cull it back to one column. . .there's a reason why some MERP and HARP people choose to use AL (or moved whole from MERP to RM) . . .it's a huge upgrade in variations of result. . .and a giant cut going in the other direction.

[RandalThor]

Hmm, sort of stretch out the attack table, then swap out the A-E results with the actual A-E crits, add them together and thus one roll?

Had to do a big snip there and didn't read it all (sorry - at work), but I say you look at HARP's Hack and Slash because it does this. Maybe not to 200 (150 I believe), but it already does this. No, there is not quite as much variance, but there is enough. IMO.

[Marc R]

The short version:

The 2nd crit roll is 1% of the time and 80% of the variation of results, so while "Dropping the crit" seems an easy way to cut back the complexity and time taken in combat, in reality it saves the least time, for the most reduction of variation, of any possible simplification choice. If one were looking to streamline combat, that 2nd roll is an obvious and easy target, but IMO the worst possible one in terms of time saving to variation loss ratio.

[Ecthelion]

LM, fully agreed.

[Shottglazz]

I also agree - removing the crit tables would (for our group) make it no longer "Rolemaster"...and a lot of the time in combat can be removed by simply making sure that everyone has a copy of their weapon chart(s) and knows how to use them!

[Cory Magel]

I agree with your initial statements LM... it may prove a larger chart or reduce the actual color text too much for our tastes.

However, what I have been doing is trying to find a way to help create a simplified version that would go into a core book, thereby combating the stereotypes RM suffers by those not truly familiar with it.  My intention would be for them to expand things back out in an "Arms Law" or "Combat Companion" book later on.  So, it might HAVE to be a simpler version to start off with.  Then they could start presenting the 'expansions' to the new players that will be what the existing players would want and be waiting for.

Essentially I think RM needs to revisit what it was trying to do before with RMSS and RMFRP, but take it in a direction that is going to circumvent the misconceptions that people who don't play RM have about the game by simplifying the absolute basic core of the system to a point that most existing RM users will likely turn their noses up at it... UNTIL the expansions start to arrive which are done in a more thought out, organized, controlled manner.  i.e. no more expansion books without much effort put into consistent power level control to prevent proliferation or power creep.  Basically we need a core book that is a new version of the game system that rhymed with BURP (the game that shall not be named).  A gateway to the true RM.

The Catch22 here is that, in my opinion, to gain NEW players RM needs to have a simple "starter" point and overcome the criticism it has suffered in the past (deserved or not).  Then take the good aspects of all the past versions and products and mesh them together in a manner that is appealing to RM2/RMC and RMSS/RMFRP users alike.  The problem will be that us veteran RM users will need to accept that we are probably NOT going to like the initial release in such a revamp.

So, one of the biggest criticisms of RM has been the supposed number of rolls and charts.  I, personally, have no issue at all with these things and I think any gamer worth their salt shouldn't be blindly swallowing all the rhetoric that gets spouted about RM from people who haven't played it, let along even actually learned anything about it, in many cases.  But, I think if RM is to gain new players, its going to have to get over those hurdles regardless.

[Ecthelion]

Cory, then why not simply use simplified charts like the old ME RP game had. In a similar way it was done for HARPer's Bazaar 11 or IIRC also in Combat Companion. These are a bit simplified (or at least condensed) versions of the RM combat system that still retain the excitement the criticals offer.

[RandalThor]

The short version:

The 2nd crit roll is 1% of the time and 80% of the variation of results, so while "Dropping the crit" seems an easy way to cut back the complexity and time taken in combat, in reality it saves the least time, for the most reduction of variation, of any possible simplification choice. If one were looking to streamline combat, that 2nd roll is an obvious and easy target, but IMO the worst possible one in terms of time saving to variation loss ratio.

Uuummm.... are you saying here that, in a regular RM game only 1% of attacks end up getting a roll on a critical table? Because that has not been my experience. Generally around half, or even more, tend to end up rolling a critical. Maybe I don't/haven't played the uber gritty way like many, but I still find it hard to believe that it is supposed to be only 1% of attacks end up getting a critical - that is worse than the "critical" chance in DnD (a base 10% in most cases: 19-20, not that a critical in DnD is anywhere near the same thing in RM, mind you....).

Of course, it is entirely possible that I don't understand what you mean there. 

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

I believe what LordMiller is saying is that rolling the dice to generate a result to look up on the critical tables  does not take much real time. Getting rid of the second roll therefore does not save much actual time.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[Marc R]

Exactly what I meant.

Pay attention next combat to what you spend time on during combat.

At least at my table:

#1 The biggest time waste is tangents, BSing, humor, and OOC interruptions ala "Do you want pepperoni?". (When the GM gets the players total attention and everyone starts into deep tactical mode, we get 4-5x as many rounds per hour resolved). OTOH, that's social activity and fun, and is equally true when we played AD&D or Risk.

#2 Next most of the time will be consumed in declaration and resolution of actions in the combat round. . .RM allows a LOT of interaction of factors, with a complex action round and ranging from the battle conditions, through magic, to OB/DB splits and someone else interrupting your declarations. This takes a lot of the time spent, in that what in many systems is a simple, quickly resolved declaration ala "I move up 20 feet across the pile of broken rock and attack the goblin." which in many systems would be

"Roll init, Roll a DEX check vs X difficulty to jog across the rock pile, roll an attack on the goblin vs X Difficulty"

in RM is

"Roll init, Roll to jog on the rock, how much activity to jog, what's your modifier to jog for activity, do you have any effect mods to jogging like skill or magic? Does anyone manage to attack or cast on you en route, does anyone move into the way to interrupt your attack on the goblin, does the goblin run off during your move up since there are multiple phases rather than a single resolved round of activity in which your running up and attacking is a single smooth action, what's your OB/DB split, what's the goblin's OB/DB split, do you have any situational mods to your OB, does the goblin have any situational mods to DB, roll your attack, roll your critical, read the critical."

Those two things are the big time wasters when I play RM, and #1 applies to all game systems, #2 is where I feel there's valid cause to say "RM combat is more complicated than many other systems and can take a long time to resolve".

Looking at RM combat as a process, and saying "if we cut the crit out we are cutting out a whole step in the process." is a valid point, and I'm not arguing against that, what I am saying is that RM has lots of steps in combat, and you should really measure them in terms of "How much time does step X take vs how much fun is step X?". . .the crit rolling step is a tiny fraction of the time, and a large wedge of the fun factor, so the tiny time savings is IMO not worth the giant downgrade in fun. . .there are loads of other areas to target for time and complexity reduction.

OTOH. . .isn't that a major selling point for RM, that the combat offers a lot of realism and detail? People who like it call it detailed and realistic, people who don't like it call it complicated and slow.

[Marc R]

This thread is about crit tables and if/how they complicate slow combat rounds (and if getting rid of them would speed things up and make RM more noob friendly). . .I posted an alternate target for simplification into another thread to avoid threadjacking:

http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=10371.0

[RandalThor]

Aaahh, I see. You were talking about at the table in relation to other things... got it. *Slap* to forehead.

For me, though, the reason to do it wouldn't be to save time, but to get to a more "you roll better, you better" ideology. Even in RM you can roll a fantastic hit, and then a crappy crit. I don't like that because it seems to negate the awesome attack roll. Of course, not nearly as much as in D&D and other games with seperate damage rolls, as in RM you get the initial benefit of extra hits damage with that higher roll, at least.

I still would prefer to use the Hack & Slash with it all boiled down into a single roll. Just my preference.

[Marc R]

I suspect though, that is the inverse of this thread though, it's "The end of the attack table", adding more "jus' hits" to the bottom of the crit table. . .and only rolling the crit.

[vroomfogle]

Even in RM you can roll a fantastic hit, and then a crappy crit. I don't like that because it seems to negate the awesome attack roll. Of course, not nearly as much as in D&D and other games with seperate damage rolls, as in RM you get the initial benefit of extra hits damage with that higher roll, at least.

I've come across some interesting suggestions over the years here to mitigate this effect.   

One, which I use, only impacts rolls above 150...but I give +1 to the crit roll for every 10 above 150, rather than 'wrapping-the-chart' method.  This can really help ensure that amazingly high rolls are lethal.

Another neat-sounding idea, although I have not tried it myself, is to use the same roll for the hit and the crit.   So, if you roll low, but still hit,  it will be a poor hit.  If you roll high and hit it could be dangerous.  Note that this would drastically increase the lethality of combat though, since you now have the statistics of one roll rather than a joint probability of the two, which yields smaller lethality rates.    The other side effect would be against foes with very high DB's that are very hard to hit - you wouldn't hit them any less or more, but when you did hit them it would more likely be a killing blow.

[Marc R]

RM is already quite lethal, one of the other complaints people make about it is "four hours of character creation, ten minutes of play, dead, four hours of character creation. . ."

Which is exaggerated for effect and humor, but a comment I've heard a number of times, often replied to with:

"At least you can't die during character generation like in GDW's system."

[masque1223]

Another neat-sounding idea, although I have not tried it myself, is to use the same roll for the hit and the crit.   So, if you roll low, but still hit,  it will be a poor hit.  If you roll high and hit it could be dangerous.  Note that this would drastically increase the lethality of combat though, since you now have the statistics of one roll rather than a joint probability of the two, which yields smaller lethality rates.    The other side effect would be against foes with very high DB's that are very hard to hit - you wouldn't hit them any less or more, but when you did hit them it would more likely be a killing blow.

HARP has one roll resolution.  It's one of the reasons why I dig it.