Topic: Static vs Moving Maneuvers

[Marc R]

The more I look at these tables, the more I find their names misleading. . .and reading over the rules for them, I find I use them at variance to the rules.

To me, the static maneuver table is the "All or nothing" table, while the movement and maneuver table is the "success over time" table. . .

Many maneuvers you'd consider "Static" are in fact ones you can just keep at until you fumble or complete them.

Like say Crafting. . .it shouldn't be that x% of all of a smith's product are "Failures", it should be that the better a smith is, the faster they get the same project done. (Few smiths turn out faulty horseshoes, but some smiths turn out more than others over time.)

Many moving maneuvers are actually "All or Nothing". . . .

Like jumping. . .using the MM table, you need to clear an 8' gap. . .Often you can just game the table "OK I jump 10' and hope for an 80% success" or "I jump 16' and hope for a 50% or better success.". . .This would be much better handled as an all or nothing "Static" maneuver. . . .you jump and fumble, or jump and fail, or jump and partially succeed (hanging on the edge) or Jump and make it. . .the "percentage" of success is meaningless, especially since you can't "Jump 50%", start falling into the hole, then roll again to get the other 50%.

I see no reason why Moving Maneuvers that are all or nothing shouldn't be using the "Static" table, and other than the flavor text of the fumbles/supersuccesses, I don't see any reason not to use the Success over time method of the "Moving" table for non moving static actions that are not all or nothing.

Am I missing something there, or does that make sense?

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

the same questions you are asking now are part of what prompted the HARP all-or-nothing resolution method as well as the maneuver table used in HARP (with its Percentage, Bonus, and RR columns).

[Dax]

Yes, the name might be misleading, but I believe it envolved in that way
(aren't there enough people here to testify ?  )

What do I mean (I hope I understand it myself )
The creators of RM developed the wonderful Maneuver Table and then someone adapt it to specific skills. S/he concentrated on skills that are made without moving (pick locks, etc.) and called it Static.
But it is basically the MMV Table with added flavored text.
A GM may use the MMV Table for any skill (I use it that way).

A GM can use the MMV Table even for spell use:
The mage cast a Class III spell he needs 3 rounds. Chose a difficulty row with an average of 30% result* with his added bonus ! Let the mage roll each round until he get 90% in the sum (you have to interpret percentages over 90 as part of a round left, maybe even allow to begin casting of a new spell).

With another interpretation the MMV Table becomes a research/repair time table; the GM has to state a duration and adjust the needed time by the result:
A taylor needs 6 days to make a leather coat. A roll on the MMV Table reads as 80 %. This means the taylor only has a production speed of 80 %, so s/he needs 6/0.8 days for this one ...
Of course in "real life" the taylor rolls for every minor step, so quite often for a leather coat, there will be some failures, some critical successes, but skill should be more important than rolls = chose difficulty column wisely !

[Marc R]

I dunno if I'd allow it for spells and attacks, but yeah, it seems to me that you can essentially use either table for any other usage that's either "all or nothing" or a "percentage result". . .(Hmm, you could do 2 table RM using just those tables, inluding casting, RRs and combat, but it'd be a major change.)

[Fidoric]

Are we not heading straight to Harp Maneuver table here ? 

[Marc R]

True, true. . .but I'd been using Static maneuvers for say Jumping. . .and the MM table for say Crafting. . .for years. . . just seems to make sense.

[thrud]

It's hard to come up with a single solution. I'm leaning toward some standardised solution using MMV table. Calculate max jump, roll on MMV table, apply pecentages -> distance

[Fornitus]

 My soulition as GM is whitchever chart I come upon first.

[Erik Sharma]

I see the problem, I for one keep it simple and for the retries of SM I usually raise the difficulty one step for each retry so I don't have to deal with players boring me out with to many retries.

As for varying degrees of success for Static Maneuvers I don't even bother to look it up on the MM table instead I use the result as a guideline.

Example: A weaponsmith is trying to make a broadsword that normally take about 3 days to make. I would rule to craft he has to pay a material cost of 1/3 of the finished items price for each roll.
 Now the player rolls a total of 138 and succeeds by 38. He completes the sword earlier (3days/1,38). If he failed I would require another roll to complete it.
For example he rolls 80 on his first roll completing only 80% of the sword, then he could complete it with another roll (plus another batch of material cost) at +80 to the skill (with the success reducing the time).

This way I can limit the amount of retries since making more than 3 tries would result in a very expensive sword (would be cheaper to buy one already made). Another options instead of rolling again you could use the lower roll and just increase the time and/or cost for him to succeed or the opposite if succeeds or fails the roll.
 

[Arioch]

My soulition as GM is whitchever chart I come upon first.

Mine, too! Lol! 

Are we not heading straight to Harp Maneuver table here ? 

I love the HARP manuever table and I would be very happy to see something similar in RM!

[pastaav]

Like jumping. . .using the MM table, you need to clear an 8' gap. . .Often you can just game the table "OK I jump 10' and hope for an 80% success" or "I jump 16' and hope for a 50% or better success.". . .This would be much better handled as an all or nothing "Static" maneuver. . . .you jump and fumble, or jump and fail, or jump and partially succeed (hanging on the edge) or Jump and make it. . .the "percentage" of success is meaningless, especially since you can't "Jump 50%", start falling into the hole, then roll again to get the other 50%.

What if the player say "I jump as far as I can to be on safe side". This is what would happen in IRL if the jump is difficult as far as I can see.

You can of course resolve this by the GM deciding "I don't care about the actual jump length and hole length, let's use a static maneuver that has a successrate about the same as a very hard maneuver"....but that is circumstancing the problem. Sort of the fitting the facts to wanted outcome instead of really answering the question about how hard it is jump over a 8' hole.

The way I run it is that I don't allow the players state I jump 16', they just say they will try to jump over the hole.

The difficulty of a length jump is in my world decided by ground, gear and injuries of the jumper. The length of the hole is not a factor. When the player has stated their intention I would state "with current conditions you jumping is a easy maneuver and you will need 120% to land on the other side and 80% to have a chance to catch the side and climb up". What percentage they need depends on an estimate of what their average jump would be. When the player have this information they are free to decide if they want to pursue the jump or not.

[Fidoric]

I love the HARP manuever table and I would be very happy to see something similar in RM!

Both system are similar enough so that you may use the Harp table with RM without effort. Success will occur on a 101 rather than a 111 but it's not a problem, as the same rule applies to PC and NPC alike. It is as if the whole universe has suddenly received a +10 modifier to all actions !
Maybe the result of a god getting a very high roll on the MM table ?

[thrud]

I like the idea of assigning difficulty based on enc., injuries,...

[twh]

Like jumping. . .using the MM table, you need to clear an 8' gap. . .Often you can just game the table "OK I jump 10' and hope for an 80% success" or "I jump 16' and hope for a 50% or better success.". . .This would be much better handled as an all or nothing "Static" maneuver. . . .you jump and fumble, or jump and fail, or jump and partially succeed (hanging on the edge) or Jump and make it. . .the "percentage" of success is meaningless, especially since you can't "Jump 50%", start falling into the hole, then roll again to get the other 50%.

RMC gives BMR but does not provide for calculating other maximum physical feats, such as jumping.  This leads to the problem of someone declaring an impossible jump in hopes of getting a small percentage success.  I have read it suggested elsewhere to base such things on real world feats, and even for the GM to have a copy of Guinness World Records handy at the game table for reference.

Using the jump example, the men's world record long jump is 8.95 m, which is about 29 feet.  I would call that the absolute maximum for a character with 102 QU (ST and AG might figure in, as well) with specialized gear and perfect circumstances, then extrapolate from that what a PC in a cave might reasonably be expected to do.  That would then be "100%" on the MM table.

It would be a good idea, probably, to have some common actions--jump length & height, swim speed, and so forth--worked out ahead of time to avoid in-game delays.  Some other game systems also might help figure those things out; now that I think of it, my copy of HERO 5e might help (since I need to work these things out myself).

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

My soulition as GM is whitchever chart I come upon first.

Mine, too! Lol! 

Are we not heading straight to Harp Maneuver table here ? 

I love the HARP manuever table and I would be very happy to see something similar in RM!

http://www.guildcompanion.com/scrolls/2003/feb/irregularmaneuvers.html

[Arioch]

Great!
I've also used that table for a while, but then I completely forgot about it...
Thanks Rasyr!

[Marc R]

I dislike the exact scenario of aiming to jump an 8' hole by jumping 10', then determining all factors and getting a percentage of 10'.
1-6' is a failure, 7' is a partial success, anything over 8' is a complete success . . . that's essentially the static maneuver table in a nutshell already. . .

Or more exactly, with that kind of "Fail/partial/full" scenario, the MM table looks a lot like the SM table with the difficulty mods pre-applied.

We stopped using that route when people started calculating "Do I have a better chance of making 100% of a medium maneuver, 80% of a hard maneuver or 60% of a very hard maneuver?"

Another instance in which I've seen jumping and the MM table turn ugly is:

A 19' wide river, with a row of 2' diameter rocks 5' apart. . .so it's:

Shore-5'gap-2'rock-5'gap-2'rock-5'gap-shore

Have fun trying to cross that with the MM table. . .you fall in the river if you under or overshoot each jump.

So if you said "Oh that's easy" then the pcs will keep OverJumping into the river, or if you said "Oh that's hard" then the PCs will keep UnderJumping into the river.

Jumping for distance, where there's no target, just trying to jump as far as possible, I could see saying "It's absurd, the distance is 25', roll MM to see how far you jump." since the result you're trying to determine is "How far does the PC jump". . .but in most instances, you just don't care how far, the question the maneuver is trying to answer is "Did the PC make the jump successfully?", which the SM table just seems to do so much better.

Need to look at that HARP table, and the GC table refed.

[mocking bird]

Shore-5'gap-2'rock-5'gap-2'rock-5'gap-shore

Have fun trying to cross that with the MM table. . .you fall in the river if you under or overshoot each jump.

In which case it seems a little absurd where the chart makes you succeed too well.  So if you ignore the over results I guess it really is the static maneuver chart then isn't it?

But I would say that the static/moving maneuver charts are some of the more complicated aspects of RM(whatever).  We probably use it most for pace modifiers when trying to run (or faster) to close distances. 

Generally we just have the player roll and hope for 111 so we don't have to look anything up.

[Moriarty]

In RMCII sections 5.22 and 5.23 there are some suggested ways of using the moving maneuver table and static maneuver table differently, depending on whether the action attempted is 'all or nothing', 'time consuming', or 'above and beyond'. For 'all or nothing' actions, it is suggested that the manuever result is interpreted as a % chance of succes, e.g. an obtained moving manuever result of 70 would mean 70% of making it - all or nothing. Another suggested, alternative method of resolving moving maneuvers is by using the static maneuver table (and vice versa).

[Marc R]

it appears I was in compliance with the rules after all, just a later version. . .funny how I almost never refer off to the companions except when I need a profession or list.