CT task system idea

[Marchand]

Another recent thread got me thinking about task systems for CT, again. How about this for a simple one:

Throw Characteristic or less on 2D to succeed. Skill level = number of attempts. Subject to difficulty mods imposed by the referee, from +5 (very easy) to -5 (very difficult) (expressed as mods to the characteristic).

[NB: where the ref is unsure of the difficulty, the difficulty mod could be generated using 1D-1D, i.e. Flux.]

Problem 1: failure on an average task is impossible if the Characteristic is 12 or above.

However, in practice many tasks may be governed by more than one Characteristic. e.g. fixing the jump drive may be governed by both INT and EDU. Making a good impression at the Duke's ball may be a function of INT and SOC, or DEX and SOC (dancing). So even a DEX 9, SOC D character might still fail.

High characteristics also allow more difficult tasks to be attempted.

Problem 2: what to do about skill=0. I haven't decided the best solution for this. Perhaps just allow it as Skill-1 but with Disadvantage, i.e. roll 3 dice, take 2 highest.

Jack-of-all-Trades could work the same way as Skill=0, i.e. throw 3D, take 2 highest. Plus you always have to include INT as a governing Stat.

Problem 3: it may mean a lot of dice getting rolled. However this could be a feature not a bug, as they say, if you like rolling dice. Plus you stop if and when you succeed.

Thought I'd put it out there and see what people thought.

 

[kilemall]

Well, I am big on overthrowing the itty bitty bell curve of most characteristic effect DMs and making the difference between say INT5 and INT8 large.

But you do want skills to matter.

I happen to do it with some brutal no-skill negative DMs, EDU knowledge checks to take the edge off tough rolls, extra abilities with the higher skills, and JOAT eliminating no-skill effects but not being an actual skill.

This seems an elegant solution, have to think on it.

Have a suggestion to handle skill-0- the number means how many times you can reroll past the first roll, so skill-0 gets just the one roll, skill-2 gets 2 rerolls after initial roll, etc.

I would also suggest failure at rolling natural 12, success at natural 2.

How are you going to handle no-skill rolls?

 

[Marchand]

No-skill rolls where there is no skill in the game for the task, e.g. breaking down a door? Throw vs. Characteristic (prob STR in this case), with difficulty mod.

Auto succeed and fail on 2 and 12 is interesting but I'm not sure how it would work where the PC has enough skill to throw more than once.

Counter-intuitively, it means a higher-skilled PC has more chance to auto-fail than a lower-skilled one, because they have more chances to throw a 12. True, they have more chances to throw a 2 as well, but it still feels wrong to have a characteristic=12 guy have more chance to fail with Skill-3 than Skill-1.

Although I do like this idea: if a character throws both 2 and 12 during a task, Something Unusual happens. (Cyberninjas appear!) Approx 0.1% chance on 2 throws if my maths is right. Might happen once in 20 or 30 games!

 

[aramis]

Suggestion.... well, refined counterproposal ...
2d6, doubles except 1's open end, for attribute or less, skill level is dice of rerolls...

So, joe with skill 1 rolls 2&2, uses his one reroll, still a 2. Doubles result in another 2d6 being added. Rolls 3 & 3 on the open end, then 2 and 4... so 4 +6+6=16... and makes nat 12 almost assuredly a failure...

Creates an infinitely long to the right distribution...

Fred skill 3, rolls a 2&6, but is att 4. Rerolls the 6, gets a 5, rerolls the 5, gets 2, rerolls the 2 (to avoid the double), gets 1. Makes.

For my own use, i think this would need to add skill to att for tn as well...

 

[kilemall]

No-skill rolls where there is no skill in the game for the task, e.g. breaking down a door? Throw vs. Characteristic (prob STR in this case), with difficulty mod.

Auto succeed and fail on 2 and 12 is interesting but I'm not sure how it would work where the PC has enough skill to throw more than once.

Counter-intuitively, it means a higher-skilled PC has more chance to auto-fail than a lower-skilled one, because they have more chances to throw a 12. True, they have more chances to throw a 2 as well, but it still feels wrong to have a characteristic=12 guy have more chance to fail with Skill-3 than Skill-1.

Although I do like this idea: if a character throws both 2 and 12 during a task, Something Unusual happens. (Cyberninjas appear!) Approx 0.1% chance on 2 throws if my maths is right. Might happen once in 20 or 30 games!

No-skill, meaning someone without the skill but desperate tries anyway- say an injury to a companion but no Medic skill. Usually there is a penalty.

Price the skill-3/characteristic person pays for being successful all those other times, and you don't want perfect people (well, unless you ARE playing Lensman). And if they are That Damn Good, they are likely rolling successes most of the time before a natural 12 comes up anyway.

One thing you should clarify is that all the 'extra' rolls occur in the same time and task as the one roll, so you don't have Gun-4 people getting 4-5 shots off, nor the Pilot-4 person taking extra time to pull off the escape maneuver.

 

[kilemall]

Suggestion.... well, refined counterproposal ...
2d6, doubles except 1's open end, for attribute or less, skill level is dice of rerolls...

So, joe with skill 1 rolls 2&2, uses his one reroll, still a 2. Doubles result in another 2d6 being added. Rolls 3 & 3 on the open end, then 2 and 4... so 4 +6+6=16... and makes nat 12 almost assuredly a failure...

Creates an infinitely long to the right distribution...

Fred skill 3, rolls a 2&6, but is att 4. Rerolls the 6, gets a 5, rerolls the 5, gets 2, rerolls the 2 (to avoid the double), gets 1. Makes.

For my own use, i think this would need to add skill to att for tn as well...

Interesting redistribution, but painful.

 

[Marchand]

Suggestion.... well, refined counterproposal ...
2d6, doubles except 1's open end, for attribute or less, skill level is dice of rerolls...

So, joe with skill 1 rolls 2&2, uses his one reroll, still a 2. Doubles result in another 2d6 being added. Rolls 3 & 3 on the open end, then 2 and 4... so 4 +6+6=16... and makes nat 12 almost assuredly a failure...

Creates an infinitely long to the right distribution...

Fred skill 3, rolls a 2&6, but is att 4. Rerolls the 6, gets a 5, rerolls the 5, gets 2, rerolls the 2 (to avoid the double), gets 1. Makes.

For my own use, i think this would need to add skill to att for tn as well...

On screen it reads like it might be a wee bit fiddly in play. "Wait, how many dice has Fred rolled again..?"

Another variant I was considering was functionally very similar I think to what you are proposing but a little bit more "player proof":

Throw [skill level +2] dice, pick which 2 you keep to make your throw, for lower than or equal to Characteristic. So Skill-0 (where unskilled attempt is judged possible by the Ref) = throw 2 dice, no choice. Skill-1 throws 3 dice, presumably picks lowest 2. et cetera.

Special success on a 2 (and chance goes up with skill level). Special fail on a 12 if 2 dice are thrown, or where a 6 is thrown on all but one of the dice in the set.

I don't like that special fail rule particularly, but it seems to be a basic problem where the number of dice thrown goes up with skill, assuming you don't want higher skilled people to face more chance of auto-failing.

 

[kilemall]

I'm not seeing the autofail problem.

Technically yes they have a chance to fail, but the key is to sequentially roll then do rerolls one at a time per SL, on average you will have many many more chances to succeed then fail.

If you have a low enough characteristic to need multiple rolls to succeed every time, one should not be surprised that this character fails more then the average or talented, and they have autosuccess working for them.

 

[robject]

Throw [skill level +2] dice, pick the lowest 2.

Special success on a 2 (and chance goes up with skill level).

Spectacular failure when all 6's are rolled. This implies that high skill levels are more insulated against spectacular failure.

That sort of edge case will be exceedingly rare at skill-1 and up.

 

[GypsyComet]

Throw Characteristic or less on 2D to succeed. Skill level = number of attempts. Subject to difficulty mods imposed by the referee, from +5 (very easy) to -5 (very difficult) (expressed as mods to the characteristic).

This is basically a dice pool mechanic, with each die in the pool actually being two dice, the target being low instead of high, and only needing one success. You could roll different colored pairs all at once instead of serially.

Note that it can be flipped to a "roll high" mechanic by adding the characteristic to the roll and having the default target be 14. The probabilities are the same.

This system puts a LOT of weight on the value of the characteristic. Only in the middle characteristic range will a high skill matter much, since you are looking at multiple long shots or multiple walks in the park at the extremes. A final (after mods) characteristic of 5 is going to produce a slightly less than one-in-three chance of success, while a 9 produces a five-of six chance (the mirror of 5- is actually 8- for the task check). This makes the most likely range of characteristics (two-thirds of all unmodified characteristics) incredibly swingy, but also means that the fringes have less use for high skill numbers on an unmodified target task.

Then you get to decide whether assets (like tools or an assistant) are modifiers to the characteristic or the skill. Each has distinct mechanical effects, so this is not a throwaway decision.

------
Too much of Aramis' counter proposal stayed in his head for me to decipher or comment on it

 

[robject]

Too much of Aramis' counter proposal stayed in his head for me to decipher or comment on it

As far as I could see, it simply added the open-ended rolls for doubles, except in the automatic success case of snake eyes.