House Rules: High attack-rolls

by Randy Campbell

From rcam@gwl.caMon Jun 9 13:59:06 1997 Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 09:41:59 -0500 From: Randy Campbell Reply to: rolemaster@tower.clark.net To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: High attack-rolls

Jason Mulligan wrote:
> 
> > The option of choice in my campaign is as follows:
> 
> In our games, when a attack goes over the 150 mark we just subtract 150
> from the total and then go back up the total and add the results together.
> It seems to work fine. We also for a period used the rule from RMCI which
> worked fine, but slowed the game down when calculating additional hits.
> 
> We only used there for melee attacks though, never for natural weapons or
> elemental attacks. I've been wondering why lately and havent really come to
> any conslusions.
> 
> -
> Jason Mulligan

OK, you guys are making me feel like I'm using the weirdest system in the world. Wasn't the original Shadow World rules different? This is what I'm using and I thought it was standard - now I feel like I've gone insane...

Over 150:
1)  Max is 300 for a high open-ended result after DB.
2)  For each interval of 30 above (180, 210, 240, 270 and 300) you get 
       an extra crit level added to the 150 result (usually an "E").
       This is an extra 5 levels max, so E to J, or C to H if you have a
       Dagger vs AT20.
3)  For extra hits, you divide the amount over 150 (let's say 41) by the 
      "hit interval" (which is the number of times the highest amount of 
      damage repeats at the top of the table, for this example, let's say
      the table ends 25E, 26E, 26E, 26E, 26E.  So 4 repeats.)  This would
      give 10 extra hits (41/4 = 10).  

Here's my question. Was this never the way? Was this the old way and it was dropped because it was too ugly? Anyone???

----------------------------------------------------------------
Randy Campbell
Great-West Life Assurance Co.
60 Osborne St. N., Winnipeg, Mb, R3C 3A5
Email: rcam@gwl.ca
Phone: 204 946 8273
Fax: 204 946 2921
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From steve@leventhal.comMon Jun 9 13:59:23 1997 Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 22:19:39 -0500 From: Steve Leventhal Reply to: rolemaster@tower.clark.net To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: High attack-rolls
>3)  For extra hits, you divide the amount over 150 (let's say 41) by the
>      "hit interval" (which is the number of times the highest amount of
>      damage repeats at the top of the table, for this example, let's say
>      the table ends 25E, 26E, 26E, 26E, 26E.  So 4 repeats.)  This would
>      give 10 extra hits (41/4 = 10).

You can find this in RMCI. I have used this system in a few campaigns, but I have found that although the crits work pretty well (people actually use daggers and rapiers--you can get an E crit vs AT20), the hits modification breaks down quickly vs the lower ATs.

Find any two-handed weapon vs AT1, and it probably repeats every 2 (hit interval). If your net roll is 200, that's 25 more hits. This nearly doubles the concussion damage from a weapon. Add Strength to it, and back off.

If you are running an epic, high-powered game, this is just the ticket to insure tremendous amounts of carnage. I have been there, and it isn't pretty. (Strength IV, two-handed sword, haste, bladeturn makes a nasty combo.)

As a follow-up: I think using the same roll for all crits delivered by one attack is better for game balance than rolling for every crit. The lethality goes up geometrically when you roll again (two chances to roll 81+ for an E crit).

Steve


From schrompf@orplid.shnet.orgMon Jun 9 13:59:35 1997 Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 01:48:52 -0500 From: Matthias Darkow Reply to: rolemaster@tower.clark.net To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: High attack-rolls

In article 32BE997F.4EFE@gwl.ca you wrote:

> OK, you guys are making me feel like I'm using the weirdest system in the
> world.  Wasn't the original Shadow World rules different?  This is what
> I'm using and I thought it was standard - now I feel like I've gone
> insane...

Well, in our campaign we always use the old breaking 150 rule. If the roll (after substracting the DB) is higher than 150, you landed an additional hit. Substract 150 from the total result and look up the additional damage/critical hits on the weapon table. So if you're extremely lucky (or have a very high OB) you can get 2x maximum damage and 2x Critical Hits. (If after substracting the opponent's DB you still have 300+ as an OB) Since this rarely occurs in our campaigns, we haven't limited the times you can break 150 like some other GMs have.

-- 
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0069-"Where'd that thief go now?"


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