Contests - I don't like

[Sadrik]

Contests are opposed rolls. I will keep this simple. I don't like them. I would rather the acting player roll vs. the defending players modifier +10.

Examples:
Eight kobolds hiding on the cliff face, each kobold gets a perception roll to detect the halfling as he sneaks into the cave entrance opposed each time by the halfling. Instead the halfling rolls to sneak into the entrance by rolling his sneak skill vs the kobold's 10 + wisdom modifier + perception bonuses/penalties. Much smoother and faster gameplay.

A character tries to wrestle free from a orc's grapple. Rather than opposed strength roll, the player makes a strength roll against 10 + the strength of the orc. He fails. the orc then tries to flip the character on the ground to bash him for some damage. Orc roll strength against the character's strength +10.

This streamlines the rolling so much and makes the acting player in control of if he succeeds or fails rather than if the defending creature (rolls a 20 or worse a 1). Thoughts?

 

[MichaelSomething]

I will attempt to persuade you to accept contest by making a charisma roll against you!

Edit: I think I beat your defense! Unless you have a very high bonus, you better start accepting contest!

 

[fuzzlewump]

I agree that perception in particular should be passive. I also wouldn't mind perception being its own stat, like it is in Dragon Age RPG for example, so you don't end up with the Wis 8 rogue problem, where the cleric finds the traps and the rogue disables them.

And things like arm wrestling is weird, because as an opposed strength check, the 10 strength guy will win against the 18 strength guy more often than reality would agree with.

 

[Sadrik]

Sorry Michael something I rolled a 2 so it did not matter what you rolled for the most part. I failed to defend with a decent roll, negating the effectiveness of your high roll.

 

[Li Shenron]

Eight kobolds hiding on the cliff face, each kobold gets a perception roll to detect the halfling as he sneaks into the cave entrance opposed each time by the halfling. Instead the halfling rolls to sneak into the entrance by rolling his sneak skill vs the kobold's 10 + wisdom modifier + perception bonuses/penalties. Much smoother and faster gameplay.

I think it would be wrong to ask the halfling to roll 8 times, it should be 1 roll of the halfling vs 8 rolls of the kobolds OR vs 1 roll for all kobolds at once with some bonus from being 8 of them.

What matters are the probabilities. Rolling 8 contests makes for a much lower chance of success for the halfling, it would be almost impossible to win all of them.

Whether the halfling should roll or take 10 I'm undecided. I think rolling is always more fun, and hardly slows the game down (it's not like you have this situation too many times in a session), while take 10 reduces randomness... it all depends if the feeling is that there is too much randomness or too few in the game.

 

[Raith5]

Generally I agree. I like the idea that the actor which decides the action in question gets to roll. I think this should be the case for attacks, spells and skills.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I kind of like opposed rolls. Here's how I see it

- More rolling is more complicated

+ Opposed rolls give a triangular rather than flat probability distribution

= You can make the odds identical either wasy

+ The defender gets to feel like he's doing something to defend himself because he's rolling.

I think it's the last factor that clinches it for me.

 

[SeRiAlExPeRiMeNtS]

I kind of like opposed rolls. Here's how I see it

- More rolling is more complicated

+ Opposed rolls give a triangular rather than flat probability distribution

= You can make the odds identical either wasy

+ The defender gets to feel like he's doing something to defend himself because he's rolling.

I think it's the last factor that clinches it for me.

I really liked the rumour that the abilities bonus were score - 10, this way all abilities would have a passive (full score) and a active (the bonus) to use easily. They even take out the defences that could be used for this, each abilities should have a passive/defence score.

 

[Abstruse]

Don't know about you, but I've been using Attribute Contests for years...only they were skills instead of attributes. Rogue rolls a stealth check, enemies roll perception/spot. Paladin rolls an insight/sense motive check, shady NPC rolls a bluff check.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Contests as written with opposed roles will be very random in outcome, and probably make the involved modifiers matter relatively little. That's really bad for stuff like stealth vs perception. Combat related stuff like grapples can be okay, since these are round-to-round activities and if you failed this round, you may succeed the next, and there usually will be a next round.

But if you're trying to sneak past a few guards, a single failure would ruin the entire attempt, and so, failure or success should be more predictable.