Savage Worlds

[Kunimatyu]

Thanee, the slight disassociation between skills and abilities is intentional - a high Agility makes it easier to quickly increase fighting, but it's still possible to build a perfectly competant character who uses a few Agility skills without actually training up Agility that high.

By more tightly coupling abilities to skills, you're unnecessarily restricting the available "character space" and substantially messing with some of the Legendary tier Edges that give you the ability to do some of the things.

Also, initiative is many things, but a crap shoot it's not - Quick, Level Headed, Improved Level Headed, and a power I'm forgetting at the moment can substantially alter your fortunes. Initiative is just random enough to keep players on their toes and excited about the next round being dealt.

For those reading the thread who haven't played SW yet, the take-home message is this: SW works great as written, and doesn't require extensive house ruling. Really!

When I first saw the system I immediately started thinking of house rules to "fix" things, but after playing the game for the better part of a year, I see that it's a fairly robust design that doesn't really need house rules unless you want something genre-specific (high noon duels for a western, superhero strength to toss people, etc).

 

[Particle_Man]

Thanee, the slight disassociation between skills and abilities is intentional - a high Agility makes it easier to quickly increase fighting, but it's still possible to build a perfectly competant character who uses a few Agility skills without actually training up Agility that high.

For example, the Knight in Shining Armor, the puts ability points into Strength and a little Vigor, takes the feats to both afford and be able to wear plate w/o encumbrance problems, and then ends up with Agility d4, but Ride and Fighting d10 each.

 

[Kunimatyu]

For example, the Knight in Shining Armor, the puts ability points into Strength and a little Vigor, takes the feats to both afford and be able to wear plate w/o encumbrance problems, and then ends up with Agility d4, but Ride and Fighting d10 each.

Ride d10 seems excessive (d6 to d8 is usually enough), but it's a perfectly viable concept. It gets iffy when you have 3+ agility skills, but it's otherwise fine.

Strength really should not be underestimated due to its connection with encumbrance, weapon dice, and ranged weapons.

Your weapon die cannot exceed your Strength dice, so if you try to use a greatsword as a Str d4 character, you'll be rocking the d4+d4, same as a dagger

Furthermore, because ranged weapons have Str minimums, a Str d4 guy can't use a bow effectively, as it requires a d6 Strength.

 

[Particle_Man]

Ride d10 seems excessive (d6 to d8 is usually enough), but it's a perfectly viable concept. It gets iffy when you have 3+ agility skills, but it's otherwise fine.

I was thinking of the rule that a mounted combatant using the *lower* of Fighting and Meelee when using a meelee weapon.

 

[Thanee]

You're sort of screwing yourself out of the exploding die that way, aren't you?

Yes and no. The average of a higher die is still higher, even with a lower chance to explode.

Thanee, the slight disassociation between skills and abilities is intentional - a high Agility makes it easier to quickly increase fighting, but it's still possible to build a perfectly competant character who uses a few Agility skills without actually training up Agility that high.

Yes, I'm aware that it is intentional, but that doesn't mean, that it is what everyone wants.

I, for example, do not want someone with a low Agility to be as competent a fighter as someone with a high Agility. You still can become a good fighter, just not that good. That requires talent as well as training. Not just one of the two.

Also I want someone with a high Agility to be good at anything, that works off Agility, even without extensive training. This is not covered at all by the basic rules.

For those reading the thread who haven't played SW yet, the take-home message is this: SW works great as written, and doesn't require extensive house ruling. Really!

I agree with that, definitely. You do not need house rules for the system to work (and I don't think I said that anywhere, either).

It's just that I like some things better, when they work a little different.

By more tightly coupling abilities to skills, you're unnecessarily restricting the available "character space" and substantially messing with some of the Legendary tier Edges that give you the ability to do some of the things.

Yes, it does restrict some "concepts" (but also opens up others, so in the end, there is not restriction of available "character space"; at least not really), and that is fully intentional.

When I first saw the system I immediately started thinking of house rules to "fix" things, but after playing the game for the better part of a year, I see that it's a fairly robust design that doesn't really need house rules unless you want something genre-specific (high noon duels for a western, superhero strength to toss people, etc).

...or just a slightly different feel.

For example, the Knight in Shining Armor, the puts ability points into Strength and a little Vigor, takes the feats to both afford and be able to wear plate w/o encumbrance problems, and then ends up with Agility d4, but Ride and Fighting d10 each.

Yep, for example, such a character should not be able to compete (on the same high level; he certainly would be able to compete in total) with a lightly-armored fighter with Agility d8 and Fighting d10. He trades one advantage (better protection) for another (weaker maneuverability, which also affects fighting).


Anyways... to repeat: I'm not saying the system does not work without such changes, but that I like the system better the way it works with such changes.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Qualidar]

Yes and no. The average of a higher die is still higher, even with a lower chance to explode.

Even when you factor in that they can continue to explode?

 

[Thanee]

Yep.

For example, a d10 has an average of 5.5 and a 10% chance to explode, which results in another d10 to be added to the total, and another 10% of 10% chance to explode, and so on (an infinite series).

So the actual average is 5.5 + 10% x 5.5 + 1% x 5.5 + 0.1% x 5.5 + ...

In total...

5.5 + 0.55 = 6.05 + 0.055 = 6.105 + 0.0055 = 6.1105 + ...

As you can see here already, the series will result in 6.11...1105 (with an infinite number of 1s where those '...' are).

So for practical purposes, the actual average of the d10 with exploding is below 6.12 (much closer to 6.11 already).

The average of a d12 is 6.5; so even without exploding, that is more than the d10 with exploding.


It's the same for the other dice.

d4 -> average 2.5

2.5 + 25% x 2.5 + 25% x 25% x 2.5 + ...

2.5 + 0.625 = 3.125 + 0.15625 = 3.28125 + 0.0390625 = 3.3203125 + 0.009765625 = 3.330078125 + ...

As you see, when looking at the intermediate sums (after the '='), the amount added to the total (which represents the added total of continuously rolling 4s, which just becomes highly improbable eventually, and thus only adds a very small amount to the actual average) gets smaller and smaller and eventually becomes so insignificant, that the running total doesn't really get any bigger (practically).

A d6 without exploding already has an average of 3.5, and with exploding it will be above 4, the d4 never reaches that (not even the 3.5 in fact).


The thing that is a bit misleading, the fact that a d4 has a much higher chance to explode (25%) as opposed to a d10 (10%), just to look at a more extreme example, is counteracted by multiplying it with the smaller average (2.5 as opposed to 5.5). The actual amount added isn't that different for any dice type (0.625 for the d4 in the first step as opposed to 0.55 for the d10, for example, so the actual change (since both dice types get the exploding 'bonus') is in the vincinity of ~0.1 between those... even fewer, when you actually look at the difference between d4 and d6, or d6 and d8, etc).

The full 1-point-shift in average (2.5 > 3.5 > 4.5 > 5.5 > 6.5) for going to the next higher dice type is always a much bigger change.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Kunimatyu]

Good catch on the Riding, Particle_Man.

Thanee's right with the math - higher dice are better, even if Acing goes down a little bit.

I'm still not on board with those House Rules - I don't want Agility to directly help Fighting, for example, but that's why they're house rules and not core rules.

I particularly like the Tricks and Tests of Will (Taunt, Intimidate) in the system - it's very refreshing to have stunts and psychology mechanically integrated into combat, instead of as a minor add-on.

 

[Thanee]

I'm still not on board with those House Rules...

You absolutely do not need to either.

But someone might have the same likes and dislikes, which is mostly why I posted it.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Qualidar]

Yep....(math stuff)

Eeek! You've sold me.