Let's Talk About Levels or Tiers of Success

[TheSword]

The excellent WFRP 4e makes Success Levels (SLs) the core metric for determining success in everything from finding herbs in the wild to successfully hitting in combat and dealing damage. Casting a spell, persuading a guard or not succumbing to fear.

In that system the SLs are determined by the difference in 10’s between what you rolled and what your target number was. In d20 terms it would be 1 SL for every 2 you beat the DC by.

What this does is give a reward for luckier rolls (which is fun) and allows a more broad spectrum of successs. A more nuanced set of results. So for instance when Doktor Max performs some field dressings on the warrior nun, he makes a Heal check and she regains his Int bonus in wounds recovered plus 1 for every SL he got.

Furthermore. Winning or losing by 5 or 6 SL can be an outstanding failure or success leading to a compaction or even greater effect. Meanwhile succeeding or failing by 1 can lead to a Yes-but or No-but outcome which can interesting too.

It makes every roll more interesting and means a person can be competent and still have motivation to develop. You should definitely consider degrees of success in your game even if not to this extent.

 

[aramis erak]

Unless your dice have a speaker that yells "YOU SUCCEED!" This is some form of user error, either an impatient/forgetful player who rolls against the basic difficulties without apply modifiers OR a GM who applies modifiers when the result goes the "wrong" way.

Players should ask the GM for the DC before rolling(especially scenario 2 and consider asking "are you sure?") or at least before declaring success.

You apparently don't get the situation.

In many count-success games, difficulty is a dice pool modifier, not a change to number of successes needed. (A few, it's a change to what counts as a a success on a given die.) The roll to hit is already adjusted for difficulty.
The situation is that a successful roll isn't of need a successful action, just a prerequisite for it.
Quite a few use alternating sequence of rolls, so a successful action roll isn't of need a successful action. It's not user error, it's a design that results in nullifying the prior roll.

It's a quite common design decision... whether or not it's a count success system, and is separate from the inherent difficulty of the to-hit task. In many such, it's a factor of the action economy as well... if they don't have remaining actions/reactions, they can't make the opposed roll; in a few, the opposed roll is free... again, it's not a misuse, it's no error on the player's part... it's a natural consequence of design decisions that reactions can nullify the initial successful attack.

Games where this is common include: Shadowrun, WoD (Vampire, Wereworlf, Mage, Wraith, Changeling, Hunter, etc), [Chaosium] RuneQuest (1-3), Mongoose RuneQuest (1 & 2), All Cortex Plus/Cortex Prime games, All Palladium games, Most Year Zero Engine games, FFG L5R 5, most 2d20 system games...
All of them, a successful roll on the to hit doesn't actually mean a hit until the parry fails to stop it, or the dodge fails to evade it.

In WoD, Silhouette (Tribe 8, Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles), and Shadowrun 1e, a successful hit then rolls damage, but there's a soak roll step, and that frequently can result in a strong hit doing no damage.

In quite a few games, the successful hit does a number of damage points, but armor stops damage points rather than affecting the to-hit... and that can nullify the successful hit. L5R 5e and Alien, damage is increased by rolling more than needed successes... but if the damage isn't more than the armor, the hit has no effect upon the target. Alien Evolved Edition, it's very common for Aliens to have 3 or more armor - but most weapons base damage is 2, and it's ALWAYS 1 success needed to hit - the difficulty adjusts the to hit dice pool size... so a basic 1 success hit does no damage to most adult stage aliens. And Aliens, being Year Zero, also has the issue that certain attack types can be nullified by a dodge (ranged fire) or are opposed rolls to hit (melee if the target has unused actions).

It's not user error - it's a designer created situation where success on the dice isn't of need a success on the action's intent.

 

[Reynard]

You apparently don't get the situation.

In many count-success games, difficulty is a dice pool modifier, not a change to number of successes needed. (A few, it's a change to what counts as a a success on a given die.) The roll to hit is already adjusted for difficulty.
The situation is that a successful roll isn't of need a successful action, just a prerequisite for it.
Quite a few use alternating sequence of rolls, so a successful action roll isn't of need a successful action. It's not user error, it's a design that results in nullifying the prior roll.

It's a quite common design decision... whether or not it's a count success system, and is separate from the inherent difficulty of the to-hit task. In many such, it's a factor of the action economy as well... if they don't have remaining actions/reactions, they can't make the opposed roll; in a few, the opposed roll is free... again, it's not a misuse, it's no error on the player's part... it's a natural consequence of design decisions that reactions can nullify the initial successful attack.

Games where this is common include: Shadowrun, WoD (Vampire, Wereworlf, Mage, Wraith, Changeling, Hunter, etc), [Chaosium] RuneQuest (1-3), Mongoose RuneQuest (1 & 2), All Cortex Plus/Cortex Prime games, All Palladium games, Most Year Zero Engine games, FFG L5R 5, most 2d20 system games...
All of them, a successful roll on the to hit doesn't actually mean a hit until the parry fails to stop it, or the dodge fails to evade it.

In WoD, Silhouette (Tribe 8, Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles), and Shadowrun 1e, a successful hit then rolls damage, but there's a soak roll step, and that frequently can result in a strong hit doing no damage.

In quite a few games, the successful hit does a number of damage points, but armor stops damage points rather than affecting the to-hit... and that can nullify the successful hit. L5R 5e and Alien, damage is increased by rolling more than needed successes... but if the damage isn't more than the armor, the hit has no effect upon the target. Alien Evolved Edition, it's very common for Aliens to have 3 or more armor - but most weapons base damage is 2, and it's ALWAYS 1 success needed to hit - the difficulty adjusts the to hit dice pool size... so a basic 1 success hit does no damage to most adult stage aliens. And Aliens, being Year Zero, also has the issue that certain attack types can be nullified by a dodge (ranged fire) or are opposed rolls to hit (melee if the target has unused actions).

It's not user error - it's a designer created situation where success on the dice isn't of need a success on the action's intent.

It isn't a situation where a success isn't a success -- it is a situation where the success check is not complete until the difficulty (parry) is determined. you could just as easily roll parry first.

 

[Kannik]

Silhouette (Tribe 8, Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles) .. a successful hit then rolls damage, but there's a soak roll step, and that frequently can result in a strong hit doing no damage.

Apologies, as a resident fan of Silhouette, noting here that there's no soak step. It's a more pure MoS system (and where I got that nomenclature from): MoS x Damage Multiplier = Damage Done. That value is then compared to the target's Wound Thresholds, dealing either Nothing, a Flesh Wound, a Deep Wound, or Instant Death. (Armour adds to the thresholds.)

So with Silhouette at least (I do not know about WoD or SR1e), a strong hit will be a strong hit damage wise (unless the target is especially beefy or armoured, which will generally be obvious), and it will remain consistent. The same sized hit will have the same effect every round.

 

[TheSword]

That opposed SL roll is great. Whether it’s a dodge mechanic or a parry providing it doesn’t lead to a whiffling effect. Where the attacker only has a 66% chance of hitting and then the defender has a 66% of parrying so only has a 1/5 chance of doing anything each round.

What I like is the difference in SLs leading to the win, in WFRP you can make a clumsy failed attack but if the defender is more clumsy and fails by more you can still hurt them.

 

[kigmatzomat]

You apparently don't get the situation.
....
It's not user error - it's a designer created situation where success on the dice isn't of need a success on the action's intent.

In those systems there is no result until the Opposed Test is complete. You may have "successes" or hits but you have not completed the process. This is impatience, like the first gymnast declaring themselves the victor because they have to top score before anyone else gets a turn.

As for "I hit but do no damage", yeah, that's a thing. Like casting fireball on a fire elemental, most systems support Resistance or Immunity. Some foes are hard, or nearly impossible, to beat down with some weapons. There's also the variant of regeneration, where you hurt it, but it doesn't matter. One is hitting the Juggernaut with a baseball bat, the other is hitting Deadpool with a baseball bat.

I wonder if those players are ever willing to forgo their own dodge/soak checks. My guess is no, they do not wish to do that.

And I will note, in Shadowrun an attack that does no damage now may result in damage later because it exhausts the defender's dice pools, causes compounding penalties, etc. It's an assist that lower-skill characters can use to set up a take-down by the expert.

Plus in SR1 damage was based on the net successes to adjust the damage stage. SR1, SR2, SR3 were dice pool systems where modifiers adjusted TN, not dice pools. SR4 is where modifiers affect dice pools size directly. OWoD, a spiritual derivative of the SR system, also used TN modifiers.

 

[billd91]

It isn't a situation where a success isn't a success -- it is a situation where the success check is not complete until the difficulty (parry) is determined. you could just as easily roll parry first.

I think there are cases where different rules that can negate a successful roll may feel different from other rules even though both are part of the whole action resolution procedure. Some feel like they determine the level of result needed to achieve success while others feel like they strip a success away. For example:

In Call of Cthulhu, melee combat is resolved by opposed rolls and success is determined largely by who got the better level of success with Extreme > Hard > Normal > Failure. That's an example of the opposed roll feeling like it sets the level of success you need to actually succeed at the check.

In D&D 3rd edition, concealment can negate a successful attack and actually feels like it's stripping away a success even though it's part of the attack resolution rules. (I suppose it doesn't help the fact that I used to have my players roll the concealment negation check AFTER they made their attack roll... because it makes me feel more ratbastardDMish to see their faces fall when the crit they rolled actually missed. Don't judge.)

Both the opposed melee combat roll and the concealment negation check are fully part of the rules when determining the result of a PC's attack, but one psychologically hits differently from the other one.