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February 7, 2012

Category: Electrum Pieces

November 12, 2011

Opposed Rolls

by John Payne — Categories: Andras, Electrum Pieces and Microlite 20 — Tags: , , , , , — Comments Off

Before going into a post likely to be snored off, I wanted to thank Kevin Sullivan for the stats he generated on this site. The presentation of certain things are more clear there. He also provided me with a good idea on how to generate Class XP tables for Andras.

I had posted on Google Plus about a shortcut method of performing opposed rolls. The numbers do not come out the same, but I figured that they were close enough. What I discovered in studying these numbers points to effects of specific designs. In the end, I think that my design doesn’t produce results that are always similar, but that produces results more in line with my design philosophy.

Specifically, the results show that:

  • Characters with equal bonuses to skill rolls under Microlite20 will have a similar, but varied chances of success under my system.
  • The Microlite20 system is affected by relative adjustments to the roll. My system is affected by the actual skill ranks and Attribute score.

Here is an example using the Microlite20 rules as written and comparing to my system.

Listen is Subterfuge + MIND.
Move Silently is Subterfuge + DEX

Aesir is attempting to sneak up on a guard. Aesir has a 16 DEX and a Subterfuge rank of 2. The Guard has a MIND of 12 and a Subterfuge rank of 4. According to the rules, the one with the highest roll wins. Each character receives a bonus to their individual rolls of Skill Rank + Attribute Bonus.

For Aesir, we get 2 (skill rank) plus 3 (Attribute Bonus in M20) to get 5.
For the guard, we get 4 (skill rank) plus 1 (Attribute Bonus in M20) to get 5.

Given these stats, Aesir will succeed 47.5% of the time. The guard will succeed 52.5% of the time because he will win all ties. By rule, ties go to the character with the highest skill rank.

Under the Microlite20 system, the chances of success will not change if the guard has a Skill Rank of 5 and a MIND of 10, a Skill Rank of 3 and a MIND of 14 or a Skill Rank of 2 and a MIND of 16. The adjustment to the roll remains +5.

In my system, success is determined by rolling-under the total of the Skill Rank and the Attribute itself. When performing an opposed roll, the Player Character has to subtract half the total of the NPC’s skill rank and attribute. In this example, Aesir’s Subterfuge rank plus DEX is 18. The guard’s Subterfuge rank plus MIND is 16. Success is determined by Aesir rolling equal to or under 10. In other words, 18 minus 8 (half of 16). This give Aesir a 50% chance of succeeding. This is a slightly better chance of succeeding than with the Microlite20 system.

What I found surprising is that if the guard is changed as I mentioned earlier, Aesir’s chances of success are affected.

sub MIND Aesir Wins
Guard 1 5 10 52.50%
Guard 2 4 12 50.00%
Guard 3 3 14 47.50%
Guard 4 2 16 45.00%

All four of these guards are identical according to the Microlite20 system, but the results are slightly different under my system. Nothing is really dramatic in the results, even with very improbable NPCs (do you hire MIND 16 guards? Would a MIND 10 guard have a 5 subterfuge skill?)

For the sake of completeness, let’s say that Aesir is opposing a lower skilled guard of average intelligence. Subterfuge skill rank of 2 and a MIND of 10. Under the standard Microlite20 system, Aesir has a 62.5% chance of success. Ties no longer go to the guard, but they don’t go to Aesir either because there would be a re-roll. Under my system, Aesir has a 60% chance to succeed.

Why does it give a worse chance? The amount of change is less in my system. If you compare the original example, Microlite20 provided no advantage to Aesir. He and the guard were equal. In my system Aesir had a slight advantage, thus a higher chance for success as compared to M20.

Changing to scores provided Aesir a great advantage. Instead of being even with the Guard, he now enjoys a +3 advantage. That big of an advantage yields bigger results. In my system, Aesir already had an advantage over the first guard. Changing the skill and MIND score had less effect because the amount of advantage changed comparatively less.

Somehow I’m Awake, What Does All This Mean?

Advancement in Microlite20 provides for increasing Skill Ranks and Attributes. This makes the characters very high powered around 10th level. In my variation of M20, characters cannot change Attributes except by magic or optionally by age.

I hope this means that characters can be fun to play for more than 10 levels.

This also means that using Microlite20 as a platform to develop Andras helps me get the bones of the system working well. This will be easier to playtest, especially for newer GMs. This also allows me to playtest a solo version of M2010 (my system). Maybe I have been reading too much T&T lately, but having a solo version plus the Mythic GM appeals to me.

As always, more later.

November 8, 2011

Anabe

by John Payne — Categories: Andras and Electrum Pieces — Tags: , , , — Comments Off

The plane of Jugu is a vast swamp dotted with areas of relatively dry land throughout. A skilled primordial summoner learns of Jugu at some point in their career due to the vast numbers of Anabe found here.

The Anabe range in color from bright red to deep blue and every color in-between. Typical Anabe are a pale yellow or a sickly green color. They are recognizable for the large caps on the back of their oval shaped heads. They are roughly humanoid and stand about five feet tall. They have very long arms – their three-fingered hands almost reach their feet. Their faces appear to have two eye slits and a larger horizontal slit where a mouth should be. They have the appearance of a tight-lipped smile with their eyes closed.

Anabe do not organize socially. They are the lone semi-intelligent creature on their plane and do not have enemies there. Many Anabe live a solitary life in search of food and reproduction. To reproduce, an Anabe removes a small portion of their cap and throws it to the ground. In two weeks, a small Anabe begins to emerge from an egg-shaped plant. At five weeks, the Anabe is fully grown and ready to scavenge for food.

All Anage are immune to all diseases, even supernatural ones like mummy rot. Anabe are also immune to all poison. They also regenerate wounds very quickly.

Individual abilities vary widly. It is believed that all the many special abilities of the Anabe have not yet been discovered. When encountered, roll on the table below to determine the summoned Anabe’s abilities:

Roll 2d6
1 Roll 2 Hurtful Abilities
2-4 Roll 1 Hurtful Ability
5-8 Roll 1 Hurtful and 1 Helpful ability
9-11 Roll 1 Helpful Ability
12 Roll 2 Helpful Abilities
Roll 1d8
Hurtful Ability Helpful Ability
1 Insanity Cure Insanity
2 Priest Bane Priest Boon
3 Change Color Remove Color
4 Generate Poison Cure Poison
5 Generate Disease Cure Disease
6 Grow Shrink
7 Clean Water Foul Water
8 Weaken Strengthen

Notes:

Both Insanity and Cure Insanity are temporary effects lasting 2d8 hours. Saving throw negates the effect.

The Preist Bane is an experience so blasphemous to the priest that he or she can only cast 1st Priest spells for one day. If the priest cannot cast 2nd level or higher spells, the priest will not be able to cast any spells for one day.

The Priest Boon is an experience so enlightening, the priest can cast one spell at a level higher than his or her highest level. If the priest can only cast up to 4th level spells, the priest will gain the one-time ability to cast a 5th level spell of his choosing. If the priest can already cast 7th level spells, the priest gains the ability to cast two 7th level spells.

The effect of Change Color or Remove Color lasts for 2d8 days.

The Cure Poison and Cure Disease abilities are permanent. The poison or disease  generated by the Generate Poison or Generate Disease abilities is up to the GM.

The Anabe with the grow ability can transform to 1d4 times its normal size. The shirnk ability grants the Anabe to ability to shrink to 1d4 times its normal size.

The ability to Clean Water can remove contaminants from enough water to last four people for one day of hard traveling. The ability to Foul Water affects just as much water. Both effects are permanent.

The Weaken ability does 1d4 points of Strength damage. The Strengthen ability grants 1d4 additional points of Strength. Both effects wear off at the rate of one point a day.

November 5, 2011

A Different Division of Rulebooks

by John Payne — Categories: Electrum Pieces, Labyrinth Lord and Microlite 20 — Tags: , — 1 Comment

I posted about this in G+, but wanted to expand on the thoughts here.

It starts with this post from Greywulf.

The shared worlds thing was already done with Spelljammer. As I said in G+, Dragon Magazine even had an article for porting over Space:1889.

As far as writing style, I am all over the end to the Gamebooks are Technical Manuals school of thought. Even the rules to Life (boardgame) are not as dry as other game rules.

I don’t like to use minis, so I’m just skipping that part.

I wanted to focus on the bit about doing this with an OGL game like Labyrinth Lord. To do one better in this exercise, why not just go straight to Microlite 20. One page of rules, many possibilities, right? Well, let’s start with M20 Purest Essence. 17 pages.

The PHB: Remove all race and class information and the Game Master’s Guide. Also remove the spell lists and the creature lists. What you’re left with is about one page of rules to play the game.

The GMG: The entire M20 Purest Essence, although it will need to be organized.

Then we have the codices:

Humans – Race information for humans (+1 to all skills). Class information for all humans playing the various classes.  Add the spell lists, but make them different in flavor and selection. The only place with a universal spell list is the GMG. That’s just the crunchy stuff. The rest is history, a section like the Roman Way called the Human way. Outposts of humans in various game worlds, etc. Art, fluff, lots of stuff.

Elves – Race information for Elves (+2 MIND). Class information for all elves playing the various classes. Add the spell lists, but make them different in flavor and selection. You see where I’m going.

At the table, the player has a codex and a one page handout for rules. The GM has the GM Guide.

What do you think?

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