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Correlating Player Satisfaction, Combat Speed, and HP / Damage Modeling
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<blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 6943931" data-attributes="member: 6775031"><p>Have you considered the alternatives, though?</p><p></p><p>A big problem with games that <em>do </em>consider the degree of success is that they give far too much control to the attacker, to the point where it makes the defense roll unnecessary. Using your specific example, if the attacker succeeded by that 8-point margin, then the defender who rolls 3d6 and tries to score under 10 <em>cannot possibly</em> defend from that attack. It basically goes back to being D&D at that point, where the attacker hits you while you stand there and take it.</p><p></p><p>The great thing about the way GURPS does it is that both numbers <em>always*</em> matter. You never get to the point that D&D sometimes has, where someone will roll at +15 to hit and it doesn't matter whether your AC was 12 or 14 because there's no way that they could possibly fail. In GURPS, it doesn't matter <em>how well </em>they hit you, because you'll <em>always</em> have your 21% chance to dodge (or whatever it works out to). </p><p></p><p>The chance of them dealing damage to you with an attack in GURPS is equal to the <em>product</em> of their chance to hit <em>times</em> your chance to not dodge. Both numbers <em>always</em> factor into the probability, whether it's 2 percent or 99 percent*. Even if they somehow got their accuracy up to 100 percent, beyond which they would gain no further benefit, you still have your chance to dodge. <em>They</em> never get to invalidate <em>your</em> defenses based entirely on choices that <em>they</em> made in a vacuum. </p><p></p><p>To contrast, you can look at something like Shadowrun or Exalted, where margin of success translates into extra damage, and the attacker is always better off throwing as much into their attack skill as possible - more dice just translates directly into a wider variety of enemies who can't possibly defend against you <em>and</em> increases the damage you deal to everyone in every situation. You don't have that great built-in limit that GURPS has, where there's no point* in investing more in a skill because <em>your</em> skill isn't the only determining factor in what happens.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The Crimson Binome, post: 6943931, member: 6775031"] Have you considered the alternatives, though? A big problem with games that [I]do [/I]consider the degree of success is that they give far too much control to the attacker, to the point where it makes the defense roll unnecessary. Using your specific example, if the attacker succeeded by that 8-point margin, then the defender who rolls 3d6 and tries to score under 10 [I]cannot possibly[/I] defend from that attack. It basically goes back to being D&D at that point, where the attacker hits you while you stand there and take it. The great thing about the way GURPS does it is that both numbers [I]always*[/I] matter. You never get to the point that D&D sometimes has, where someone will roll at +15 to hit and it doesn't matter whether your AC was 12 or 14 because there's no way that they could possibly fail. In GURPS, it doesn't matter [I]how well [/I]they hit you, because you'll [I]always[/I] have your 21% chance to dodge (or whatever it works out to). The chance of them dealing damage to you with an attack in GURPS is equal to the [I]product[/I] of their chance to hit [I]times[/I] your chance to not dodge. Both numbers [I]always[/I] factor into the probability, whether it's 2 percent or 99 percent*. Even if they somehow got their accuracy up to 100 percent, beyond which they would gain no further benefit, you still have your chance to dodge. [I]They[/I] never get to invalidate [I]your[/I] defenses based entirely on choices that [I]they[/I] made in a vacuum. To contrast, you can look at something like Shadowrun or Exalted, where margin of success translates into extra damage, and the attacker is always better off throwing as much into their attack skill as possible - more dice just translates directly into a wider variety of enemies who can't possibly defend against you [I]and[/I] increases the damage you deal to everyone in every situation. You don't have that great built-in limit that GURPS has, where there's no point* in investing more in a skill because [I]your[/I] skill isn't the only determining factor in what happens. [/QUOTE]
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