What is considered the Base skill level?

My reason is... if you have a skill that is one or two... the higher your attribute, the worse your result will most likely be.  And if skills start lower than three, your mook will have an advantage over the character.

Also the reason I gave the example was that you gave the example of someone having more successes than their attribute.  You indicated 4 successes with a speed of 3, which shouldn't be possible if you roll three dice.  (it also was a source of trouble with your original vs. roll)

What if you roll two colored dice for any attempt.  One representing attributes, one representing skill.  Your skill value determines the value that makes a success.  However, your attribute dice ONLY botch/count against you, when they roll a 6?

High attributes should generally only help you, (at least statistically) and become even more helpful as your skill goes up.  The skill points help raise the dice you roll to increase the ability to beat someone else's raw stat.

Just a thought.  Otherwise I would recommend any skill normally start at a min of 3 (potentially representing untrained, but doable, or 2 to represent normally requiring training, or someone subject to a disadvantage of some sort.)

Just some thoughts to consider as you scale things.

it's possible, but the player with a 2 could possibly get more successes than a mook that should be put against him in the first place (that is a mook that only gets 1 success ). I see I don't have a base skill level. Sounds to me like a good reason to say 4 points buys a 2 skill level, and 1 isn't worth fiddling with on skills. Subattributes are 1 though. So he's got a 33% chance of 1d6 succeeding out of the gate for a skill he purchased. I'm ok with those odds.


Probably just badly stating what I mean.


Nope. I want d6 dice pool with (possibly sub)attributes affecting your pool and skills affecting difficulty, and contests to be a resolution of who has greater successes (or a match against low successes in the case of mooks). This is non-negotiable.


Right, so 4 points gets you 2 skill it is. the suggestion of having 3 in something you're specialized in will be a statistically pertinent character creation suggestion rather than an outright rule.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:14, Mon 20 Oct 2014.

The issue is that if I have a skill of 2 and raise my attribute I have less chance of my action being an overall success.

With an attribute of one, it is a simple one-third chance.

Going to an attribute of two is particularly bad, giving you a one out of nine chance of success (granted it will be a two-step) success.  Of the times left four of nine will be a failure by way of a success and botch canceling one another.  The remaining 4 of 9 times it will be a double botch.

Next, at an attribute of three, your chance of at least some success is at least back up to 7 of 27 (still less than one third).  It is one chance in twenty seven of having a triple success and a six in twenty seven of getting a regular single success.  Twelve out of the twenty seven times I will have a one-level botch.  Eight out of twenty seven times (which is greater than the chance of any kind of success) you will come out with a triple botch.

If I were do the calculations, it isn't going to improve for higher attributes.  I think you need to make only a six be a botch normally. Technically your chance to fail per roll still outnumbers the chances of success, which is where the problem lies.  Adding extra chances just increases the chance of failure.

Another option that might reduce the bad impact of extra dice would be if you roll in order, and the individual gets to choose to use any number of dice they want except if the first die is a failure, they have to keep using the next until a success.  A little more complicated but doable perhaps.

I don't know how to satisfactorily answer your question.


At 3 dice, if you roll a success, you can't critical fail at all, because at the worst, a failure will cancel the success and you would only have 1 left over.

At 3 dice, you need all failures to get a crit fail. I'm fine crit failing someone with all failures.
At 4 dice, you must roll 3 failures in order to have 2 left over in order to critical fail. I'm fine crit failing someone with 3/4 failures.
At 5 rolling 3 failures gives you two successes, which cancel them out and you're left with an ordinary failure. I'm fine crit failing someone who failed 4/5 on their dice pool.

Best I can tell you is that all these statistical anomolies aren't something I have a problem with.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:37, Tue 21 Oct 2014.

I'll just go ahead and respond ot the other bit in a second post


I could change it to 2 sixes. Incidentally, another route that I just now thought of would be that 1s are critical successes, and you get a crit success if you roll even one after cancellations. That way, a 5 attribute has a better chance of rolling crit successes than a 1 attribute.

I am following the discussion, and from the sound of it you have a fairly stable method worked out. I'll admit to a knee jerk reaction to dice pool systems. Usually to the fist full of dice syndrome....HOWEVER it seems like the numbers you are working with wont exceed ten or twelve at worst.

Perhaps one method of dealing with success/botches is to set it up so that 1s increase the effect of the attack.

Such as a single one maxes rolled damage,2 ones doubles damage, and three ones triples damage all 1s deliver triple damage and knock the target down.

sixes cancel any bonus from ones, and reduce damage on successful hits...

one six without a one, minimum damage, 2 sixes without ones off balance, 3 sixes off balance and loss of next combat round. all sixes loss of next round( defense actions or movement only), knocked down, and loss of next combat action ( the character can not defend or stand up)

The dice pool will never exceed 5 dice under any circumstances. That would imply an attribute of 6.


I suggested a "1=crit hit rule" in my last post.


What's this rolled damage business?


They do this but


They cause unsuccessful hits instead. I don't like reducing damage in general, and anything that makes a normal failure worse, just by the sheer presence of a single six bothers me. The way it is set up, after ones and 6s mitigate each other, critical failures only occur with 2 remaining sixes. Thus sixes must almost always be in the majority for a critical failure.


I originally started out flat out saying "nope". Partly because damage is only varied with application of different multipliers, but also for reasons I already stated. Secondly, heroes in Fable are so special they don't go off balance without an adversary having taken them off balance. It just doesn't happen. Same goes for being knocked down.

Enemies in Fable do tend to take cheap shots however, and have obnoxious footwork, so cheap shots and side step results are just the sort of thing to add flavor to any fable game, but they aren't the result of any thing the Hero does. Here's what I've come up with:

1) Sidestep: The opponent easily evades your blow, and you take a swipe out of air.
2) Trip: The opponent sticks a foot out as they evade your blow, and you stumble. I considered having that affect defense until the next turn, but that depends on response to my previous defense options.
3) Bury the Hatchet: Your weapon digs into the ground where your opponent was, and you miss a turn.
4) En Passant: Your opponent does a neat little spin with his sidestep, and now you've got a nice wound across your back to show for it. No defense for that particular hit, but you don't take further penalty.
5) Knocked Down: Your turn is over, and you spend your next one getting back up.

If I could come up with 1 more, I'd make it an official 1d6 chart. Mainly because I'm kind of leery about attaching it to the number of sixes.

Unrelated to Rules:I've always wanted to take a fan map, something like this: http://www.independentcreator....739_d40e9cc867_b.jpg and put all the towns from all 3 main games. So you'd have Oakvale, Oakfield, Bowerstone, Brightwall, Brightwood, Rookridge, Bloodstone, etc. Or at least a map that consolidates the three continuities geographically.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:18, Wed 22 Oct 2014.

It also occurs to me that I could switch everything over to Dice Pool totals flip the results of 1s and 6s (or scrap those rules in favor of some total relative to TN being used to determine criticals). and change the success requirements to target numbers of 5, 10, 15, and 20. At a glance, it seems like higher attributes are significantly elevated in their importance. If I did it that way, mooks would passively roll 3 on every dice, so they might have a Passive Defense of 9 for 3 speed and 12 for 4 Strength melee attack (as an example).
This message was last edited by the player at 19:53, Wed 22 Oct 2014.

Certainly, that makes the attributes much more beneficial.  (someone with an attribute 1 will statistically end up scoring one half that of someone with a stat of 2, the same true with a score an attribute of a 4 being statistically double the value of one with a 2)

Strictly speaking, the question would be what does the skill values affect?  If you are looking for a somewhat new mechanic to use in your game, perhaps the skill determines the values on dice which get to be counted as successes.  Sixes over-run your ability, and are called a botch and cancel the highest successful roll.

So someone with a skill of 2 and attribute of one, rolls 1 dice.  If they get a 1, they have achieved a success with value of 1, if they get a 2, they succeed with a value of 2.  (probably another basic success).  If they get a 3 through 5 they have simply completed a simple failure.  If they roll a 6, they 'over-reacted' and have a botch.. which without any success die, to cancel, will result in a botch.

You could have a simple success require 1 and often only useful in non-stressful situations.
You could have the next tier of success require a target of 4.  Then following that a tier 3 success would require a target of 9.  A tier 4 would need a target of 16, and a tier 5 a target of 25.  (nearly impossible)

This would mean a person with an attribute of 2 and skill of 2 could rarely get a 4, (1 out of 36) but at least succeed almost half the time (16 out of 36).  They would simply fail 13 out of 36 times, and do a 1 layer botch on sixth the time, or double botch the same chance as their tier 2 success.

When comparing two directly opposing result, the actual target numbers rolled can be compared directly to determine the winner.

This would make the skill just about as important as the attribute... and having both key to doing really well.  [it does however lower what target numbers you would be able to expect/require]

Missed that one. If I do target numbers, Skills might provide flat +1/level maybe?


That's kind of how they already work except that sixes cancel 1s, then 2s, then 3s, and so on until all successes are canceled. The only difference you've described is the order in which successes are cancelled and the impact of 1s.


I really like this difficulty scheme. If I go TNs, I will use it :D. Coupled with my Skill grants +1/L scheme, this swings your odds a little bit. I may need to rework criticals being a certain value relative to TN in that case. I'm not really sure where to begin on that.


That's how I'd run opposed contests regardless of default TNs. For example if you had Attribute 2 (TN 4) you wouldn't just roll TN 4 all day against hobbes. You'd roll better than them. But of course they don't roll (being mooks) so it would be down to deciding whether they just use the default target numbers or assume rolls of 3. If they have an attribute of 2, that would be a base TN of 4, but they might have skill 1-2 anyway, so that'd be pretty close to the same. thing. At level 3, using your TNs would be anywhere from 1-3 points disadvantage for a monster. At level 4, base would be 12, but skill could be 1-4 so there's that. At 5, base would be 15, so adding 1-5 skill would be disadvantageous to using your TNs.

So how about Attribute dice + Skill points. If you succeed, count your 6s. If they exceed your 1s you have a critical success, or if you fail, and your 1s exceed your sixes, it's a critical failure?

I've changed it to reflect Attribute+skill. I think the only thing left is to decide whether to make the table in Message 41 official and add a 6th result, or leave it as is, or scrap that and set a fixed critical result (for both critical successes and critical failures).

A thought to consider is that you have skills and (sub)attributes having the same cost, but adding a point to your subattribute will add 1-6 points (average) while adding 1 to the skill adds 1 point, and will have a more limited scope.  (granted the attribute can actually come out a 1 which might contribute a critical fail, but there would be an equal chance of coming out a 6 potentially contributing to a critical success.

I originally thought that you were going to continue to filter which dice contributed to towards the target number, by using their skill.

(with that in mind you also might want to adjust the difficulty targets up a tad)
easy 4, average 9, hard 16, heroic 25, legendary 36

I'm sorry, I don't get it. Everything already does have the same cost. Skills add points, (sub)attributes add dice (except in rare instances where using two of them makes one of them add dice and the other add points). unless you're talking about something other than a 1-5 scale, which isn't really in keeping with Fable 2 or 3 (and in Anniversary it was more like 1-7 but I prefer this as I want d6 dice pools).


Nah, I'd just drop it back down to having 4 levels of difficulty, going from 4-25

Incidentally, I'm thinking I want to also include some professional skills outside combat. Probably:
Smithing
Lute
Gambling

Probably won't include Bartending, wood chopping, or baking though. They don't seem like they would be useful for making reasonably quick money, or impressing some high ranking socialite (or for that matter, a demon door). Maybe baking at a festival... hard to say.

I might go into playtesting if that's it. I won't advertise for it here, obviously, but if enough people PM me with interest it's a possibility.

Sorry, in response to your question above about not getting it.

My point was why advance a skill, when it costs as much as an attribute, it has a smaller scope (Affects fewer rolls) and will tend to have approximately 1/3 or less the impact.  It would seem that in those conditions, the skills should probably cost less.  (or did I misunderstand, and skill addition gets added per die rolled?

Does that explain the thought/concern any better?

Nah, skills are added on a 1/1 basis. I see no point adding as much as 25 to a roll flat out just because skill and attribute are both 5. Also, it would be pointless to have TNs in the 25 to 36 point range at that point.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:22, Sat 08 Nov 2014.

This message was deleted by the player at 16:28, Tue 11 Nov 2014.

How About Old Score Multiplied by New Score (min 1)?:



I'm thinking if I were to include non-combat skills like Smithing, Gambling, or Lute, I'd make several points on a success roll equal to an experience point. Not sure how many just yet.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:50, Sat 08 Nov 2014.

Here's how gambling worked in F2


so even though the math doesn't work out the same, I could probably get by with "wager 2500xCurrent Level to get 1 point win or lose". Some people might not like the win or lose that Fable 2 allowed so it could get you 2 points on a win.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:07, Mon 10 Nov 2014.

Using this table I could say Margin Of Success=Chains. Every 10 chains is 1 point.

Couple thoughts...

You could tie skill experience acquisition to critical successes and critical failure with that particular skill.

Another thought occurred to me.  I noted that you could only get a botch, in cases where you failed by Target Number, and could only have a Critical success in cases where you succeeded in your Target Number.  You might consider allowing someone to succeed by Target Number, but have a Complication added if they have more 1s than 6s and you could have someone who fails still have some kind of 'advantage' granted if they roll more 6s than 1s.

Just some thoughts.

DING! DING! DING! WE HAVE A WINNER! Yep. I'm using that. Not critical failures. If you need something to compensate I'm open to ideas though.


I thought of counting sixes or 1s depending on whether your base roll was a success or failure. That's probably too complicated.

How about +/-(Skillx2) for criticals. So 1 skill means success or failure by 2 is critical, 2 skill means success or failure by 4 is critical, Skill 3 means success or failure by 6 is critical, and so on up to +/-10?
This message was last edited by the player at 00:00, Wed 12 Nov 2014.

Alright, so provided that I do end up using critical successes for skill accquisition and this:



and message 53, is there anything else I'm missing before I consider running a playtest?

It's official! I have found a map: http://th01.deviantart.net/fs7...iomcaife-d3csg92.png