How we Roll in DSS
October 10th, 2007
When you look at your sheet, you may note that you have a BASE and an ADJ number by your skills and attributes. And if you’re like me, you’ve wondered how the hell that gets calculated. And you’ve also probably wondered what the hell am I rolling and how hard is it?
Here’s the short answers:
Adjustments
Your Attributes are adjusted based on any feats you have. Your skills are adjusted per their +sinfo (when it says your adjustment is based on 25% Foo, it means 25% Foo (or foo * .25) added to 75% Skill (Skill * .75) are added together for 100% of Adjusted).
Rolls
There are no dice. The command (+taskroll
THE LONG ANSWER
We start by looking at the sheet:
=[ Attributes ]=============================================================== | Attribute Adj Base Attribute Adj Base Attribute Adj Base | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | | Agility: 45 45 Intelligence: 45 45 Technical: 45 45 | | Strength: 35 35 Charisma: 35 35 Perception: 45 45 | =[ Skills ]=================================================================== | Adj Base Skill Adj Base Skill | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | | 26 20 Bargain 38 35 History: social | | 28 20 Catch 41 39 Spot | | 42 40 Dodge 41 39 Value | ==============================================================================
The BASE is what you bought with your XP. The ADJ is where the fun comes in.
Your attributes will only have an ADJ different from BASE if you have a
feat that affects them.
Your skills all have adjusters based on their +sinfo. For example, Sally Serenity here has a BASE bargain of 20. Per +sinfo Bargain, this skill is adjusted 25% Charisma, 5% Intelligence and 5% perception, which adds up to 35%, leaving 65% for the skill itself. Therefore her adjusted Bargain is
(.25 * Charisma) + (.05 * Intelligence) + (.05 * Perception) + (.65 * Bargain)
Everybody get 26.25? Those of you who didn’t can stay after class and clean the erasers. Sally, meanwhile, should have worked her Charisma more.
It looks like if you have a .75 or higher, it rounds up, but I could be wrong, having only a limited sample to check with.
Now, how this affects your rolls is obvious! A higher ADJ means a better chance of a success in a roll.
But how do rolls WORK?
Most of us are D10 gamers. We do WoD, we do Buffy, we even do Shadowrun. We may dabble in D&D, but when it comes down to it, we play with d10 and call it a day. Forget the dice. There ARE no dice! There is no spoon, there are no pants. Okay? Good.
The ‘average’ roll is made to a difficulty of 40. That means the computer picks a number between 1 and 40. Yes, that’s right, there is no zero. If you roll LOWER than your adjusted number, you are successful. The magnitude of your success is governed by how much lower the roll was to your stat.
For example, Sally Serenity is playing catch with Jayne. He throws a ball at her, base diff is 40.
Sally will then roll:
+taskroll catch at 40 You test your Catch against a 40 difficulty. The result is unsuccessful (-2).
Whoops, Sally rolled a 30. River picks up the ball and drops it into Sally’s hands.
+taskroll catrch at 1 You test your Catch against a 1 difficulty. The result is successful (27).
This time, Sally rolled a 1. She catches the ball.
Of course, no one in their right mind rolls a 1, that’s a gimmie. If the roll is ever below or equal to your skill/attribute, you’re going to be successful, end of story.
What happens with challenged rolls, though? It can’t have escaped your notice that there’s only one roll to attack. That’s because a dodge is auto-factored in. So is damage! When someone attacks, it rolls their attack, your dodge, adds the two and then divides by two. If the resultant number is under your skill, you hit. Certain weapons raise or lower your chance of doing damage (shotgun is 70% of causing damage, but causes more than a pistol, which is 100% to hit, and does minimal damage). That gets complicated. Sorry.
Damage is also auto-calculated, though not applied. It suggests what the damage should be, and a staffer then picks what’s right. Which gives a little more flexibility for drama.
I hope this explains how rolls and skills work on SerenityMUSH. And if you’ve made it this far, watch this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx5KDyvlG3Q
Categories: Smart Things
