Topic: What do people think of my Spell Law Quiz?

[vroomfogle]

I've always used a single roll for both SCSM and BAR, or SCSM and EAR. Otherwise you have two chances to fail the spell, one with each roll.   

Consider a spell that meets the auto spell casting requirements so that it only fails on a 1 or 2.   Now look at one of the EAR charts, which also shows a failure on a 1 or 2.   That right there tells me that this should be a single roll otherwise it means that base attack spells and elemental spells have a greater than 2% chance of failing (it's actually 3.96%), whereas normal spells are just 2%.

So, if you use multiple rolls the second roll should not be allowed to fail.

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

There are a couple of questions were the wording is unclear -- the one about which is mandatory where one of the answers is "voice is optional" was confusing, as for an Essence user, voice is mandatory, but the volume of the voice was optional.

[DavidKlecker]

Yikes... I'll have to look at that again then.

Thanks for the replies. I know it's just for fun, but it's good to have the kinks out anyways. []

[rdanhenry]

I've always used a single roll for both SCSM and BAR, or SCSM and EAR. Otherwise you have two chances to fail the spell, one with each roll.   

Consider a spell that meets the auto spell casting requirements so that it only fails on a 1 or 2.   Now look at one of the EAR charts, which also shows a failure on a 1 or 2.   That right there tells me that this should be a single roll otherwise it means that base attack spells and elemental spells have a greater than 2% chance of failing (it's actually 3.96%), whereas normal spells are just 2%.

So, if you use multiple rolls the second roll should not be allowed to fail.

EAR charts show failure on an unmodified 1 or 2 (or 1-4 for balls) and more chances for modified low rolls on the bolt charts (and on the BAR chart). So attack spells already have a greater than 2% chance of failing almost all the time. Why should the second roll not be allowed to fail? For non-attack spells, that's the whole point of the second roll. And if you don't allow failure for attack rolls, it would be possible to have the SCSM roll be less likely to fail than "automatic" casting. Non-automatic casting is supposed to be risky.

How do you deal with the differences in skills used for SCSMs and EARs with your combined rolls?

[vroomfogle]

I personally don't think the intention was to ever allow failure on two separate rolls as can greatly increase the chance of failure.   However your point is well taken, I didn't really think it through.  If you do use two separate rolls you are correct, you can't just ignore failures on that second roll because they could be modified failures, not just a UM 1 or 2.

But I think that one single roll is the way to go, with two different bonuses applied.   This way you have a flat 2% chance of an UM failure.   For the SCSM, if not automatic, you add in your bonus and determine success or failure.  If that succeeds then you add/subtract your directed spell bonus, or your BAR mod.    That modified result could also fail.

If you consider a case where there is higher chance of failure on both the SCSM and on a modified BAR, then using two rolls can *greatly* increase the chance of failure as you can fail on either or and the success rate is a conditional probability.   However with a single roll your highest chance of failure is still going to be only the highest fail rate of either the SCSM or the BAR (alternately the SCSM or the EAR).

[rdanhenry]

Well, you can house rule anything, but from page 105 of RMSR: "If this maneuver is successful, the spell may be cast with the same normal failure chances outlined above." I don't think there is any ambiguity but that the rules as written are that you make two rolls. I don't have a problem with this, as the SCSM rules are otherwise quite generous, and for 2% failure to be considered "automatic" casting, the chances of failure in other circumstances should be noticeably greater.

[DavidKlecker]

Hmm... need to think about this response more.

[Fidoric]

Barely passed thre exam... I guess I haven't played RM for too long now.