Re: tumbling

[Greg Mowczko <mooch@ns1.cioe.com>]

> From: Joel Gunderson <belgarat@expert.cc.purdue.edu>
>
> The only problem I have with that method is that it makes it unnecessary
> for characters with a high agility to purchase the skill, as they will
> probably be taking off as much damage if not more with a default, instead
> of buying the skill.
>
> Joel

As Kris said all skills are like that. Someone this weekend asked me
why I have sprinting when my STR is a 16, why not just default. Answer:
I can roll 4 dice vs. my sprinting of 16 and go 100' a round where if
I defaulted I would have to roll 6 dice. As long as you max your skill
out you are better at having the skill than defaulting.

Steve and I had an idea at one point to build the default into the skill.
You take your skill and add it to your Stat and then roll dice vs. the total.
The problem with this approach is it requires ALOT more dice and the base
rolls would be hard to keep track of. Using the sprinting example I would
have to roll 6d6 vs a 32 to get an additional 4 feet of movement. Pain in
the ass to have to keep in mind how many dice are part of the effect vs. the
base. So we nixed it for the keeping to the current playability.

Back to the tumbling issue. If the skill weren't changed and you were defaulting
how do you do it? Do you roll the number of dice in the default and subtract
that from you AGI and then subtract what you have left? ( ie. AGI 16 roll 2d6
and get 7 so you subtract 9 points from your fall? )

							Greg

> On Sun, 27 Sep 1998, Steve Ames wrote:
>
> > > We ran into a snag on this last night.  By definition, tumbling is
> > > non-defaultable...anyone who has read the skill can see that this is
> > > pretty evident.  However, in the book, it is still defaultable.  I had
> > > thought we'd cleared this up months ago...however, i don't know if it ever
> > > made it into errata.  The way I saw it defaulted last night was for every
> > > extra d6 you make against the skill including the default requirement, it
> > > knocks a d6 off the damage.  I felt this was a bit rediculous, but that's
> > > just my opinion.  Anyway, somebody tell me if i missed an errata.  If i
> > > didn't, lets fix this.
> > 
> > a) It is and should be defaultable
> > b) since it is defaultable the wording on the skill should be changed
> >    to reflect that. As its written you don't even have to make a skill
> >    check. You just remove damage equal to your rank in the skill. That
> >    makes this skill an exception to AQ mechanics.
> > 
> > So while your right it needs to be fixed it needs to be fixed in
> > the other direction. I've done the 1d6 gets you 1d6 off ruling
> > before. falling damage is 1d6 per 10' (dunno if thats documented
> > anyuwhere but it is pretty much standard). So basically that says
> > that a 1d6 check per 10' of fall/jump will maybe save you from 
> > taking some damage.
> > 
> > 							-steve