In reply to Apeiros (msg # 1):

On one hand, I like the result-points-to-damage fix a lot, and probably prefer that as a general rule.

On the other hand, my character's built like a truck and can take multiple big hits before going down, and therefore might be even better off under the glass-jaw rules than now.

So . . . I guess I'm agnostic? I vote "Present"! :)

Why it's an issue

DIM AS=Attack Skill DS=Defense Skill BaseDamage=10 Toughness=10
For these examples we don't care what skill is used or why Damage and Toughness are 10.

Atack→Equall←Defense
AS=10 DS=10
           RAW
DR  1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20
DG  m  m  m  m  m  m  m  m  m   m   s   s    1    1    2   3    4    5   6   7

         ResPnts
DR  1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20
DG  m  m  m  m  m  m  m  m  m   m   s   s    1    1    2   3    4    5   6   7

Atack>Greaterthan>Defense
AS=18 DS=10
           RAW
DR  1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20
DG  m  m  s   s   s    s   s   s   s    s    s    s    1    1    2   3    4    5    6   7

         ResPnts
DR  1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20
DG  m  m  s   s   3   3   6   6   7   7    8    8    9    9   10  11  12  13  14  15

Atack<LessThan<Defense
AS=10 DS=18
           RAW
DR  1-20 21-25 26-30 31-35
DG   m . . . 8 . . . 9 . . . 10

         ResPnts
DR  1-20 21-25 26-30 31-35
DG   m . . . s . . . 1 . . . 2
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:00, Sat 18 July 2020.

Being more of a Dex-base than Toughness-base, at least, I was happy when I saw you were planning to use that rule.  And I don't think you weren't clear about it - I remember a big post right from the beginning.  I just think there's so much for everyone to relearn and keep track of.

In reply to Apeiros (msg # 3):

I hate making charts in this format
As demonstrated above, If your attack skill is equal to your targets defense skill, there's no real difference. If you are good enough to consistantly hit them with a nurf gun at 20 meters in the dark while dizzy and drunk but they are right in front of your stable, sober, shotgun weilding self, you might nickle and dime them forever by Raw, or Blow their head off with a mediocre roll by Result Points. And if you need a miracle to hit them, by RAW if you do its DE-double shwah-th death at first plink, where Result Points means a Graze is just a graze.

Now: Result Points is Much More Math, which I like to abreviate as "MMM!"

Looking at Pierre's nice shot:
AS 12 Gun +3(hit only) Auto +3 (hit & Damage) +3 CyberEye +4 roll=17  DS=12 BD=23 TO=10

to hit = 12+3+3+3+4=25 DS 12 → hit by 13
Damage RAW = 23 + 4(bonus#) + 3(auto) = 30 vs TO 10  → 20 result on table
Dmg ResPnts = 23 + 13(Hit By#) -3(GB¹) 0(Auto²) =33 → 23 result on table

Doesn't seem like a huge difference there, but it does take the target from merely dead to "A gotak can't raise them as zombies now"

or Ben's shot³

RAW
Attack 13 (Skill) + 3 (Boost Dex) + 1 (Roll) ... Total=17 Base dmg=18 (17+1 roll)
or Knockdown K 2 ...Spoiler, the Optant is Reality Rated.

ResPnts
... roll ...Total=17 (5 Result Points)
Ben has no bonuses that apply Only to hit or Only to damage in this roll
so Base dmg=22 (17+5 ResultPts) or Wound K 5 which the Optant may choose to Soak, or maybe not.
________________________________________________________

1: The Jamer specifically states its bonus is to hit only. As the +3 increases the Result points,  it has to be subtracted from the damage to compensate.
2: Auto Fire gives "+3 to hit and +3 Damage" as the +3 to hit has already increased the damage by 3, the "+3 Damage" is NOT added to the calcualtion again.
3: As Pierre took out all but the Optant and the one dancing with Jalia, he may want to edit his attack post.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:45, Sat 18 July 2020.

The Glass Jaw Ninja only matters if you are actually a glass jawed ninja. That means you have a fantastically high dodge and low toughness + no armour.

Examples are:
* Nile empire with super skill dodge and a powerloss if wears armour
* Elven Monk with lots of points in 'extra dodge'.

I am not really aware that any of us are particularly glass jawed. Perhaps we aren't wearing armour, but this is our first mission... so we are inexperienced. Part of the problem with glass jawed ninja is the inability to wear armour


FN Jammer
is perhaps the single best tech 26 gun in the game that doesn't require a truck/super strength to carry it. It requires a ranged reality contridiction with one on many penalties. Pierre has a spell that the game designers have never seen so when the game designers came up with the rules and the balancing they couldn't take into account home brew spells that destroy that balance

Let's look at what would have happened if we were using the game as the game designers and most importantly the scenario designers had intended

Step 1: reality contradiction
* Means damage is 2 less and the defence is 4 less
* Means that Pierre would have to take damage of 25 - reality skill.

Example: Assume a decent reality skill of 13
Looking at this table I think we can deduce that the game designers felt the use of the fn jammer in any reality other the Cyberpapacy would not happen often.

The impact of the spell is to reduce the damage taken from the ranged contradiction check by about a wound on average)

Step 2: To hit
Assuming a base skill of 21 (which is quite high by the way)
The game/scenario designers assume the one on many modifiers. So they give their monsters attributes in line with that.

Pierre is doing 5 things: reality contradiction + 4 to hits. So his effect skill (for the scenario designers perspective)
Assuming bad guys are hit on a 10
first opponent: 17 so needs a five to hit
Second/third opponent: 15 so needs a five to hit
Fourth/Fivth opponent: 13 so needs a seven to hit

That's with a fantastic to hit of 21. If we look at most players the tohit is probably closer to 15. That means the game/scenario designers are expecting us not to do so much one to many. With a 15 skill (top end of all the published characters) we need to roll high die (1/4 times?) to hit so many targets

With the new spell, a 2 hits all of them.

Assuming average die, the results points from the perspective of the game designers would be
first opponent: 7
second opponent: 5
third opponent: 3

However the actual result points are 11 on average die. Which means by the way on average die with the glass jawed ninja rules, the gun is doing 11 more points of damage. I don't think the game/scenario designers planned for weapons to be doing 11 more points of damage.  The FN Jammer has just gone from base damage 23 (enormously high) to base damage 34. And it's about to get higher too

Damage
The one on many modifers for the five actions cause +4 toughness.

Thus from the scenario designers perspective assuming the normal damage rules.
Let's assume a toughness of 8 and an armour (which is pierced by the tech 26 gun) of 10
The base damage of 23 is reduced 19.
On average die that is  9 points of damage. which is a wound K 5

Let's look at the combination of house rules and house spells that we have done. We have lifted the damage on average die from 'wound K 5' to 'fertilizer'.

Let's also remember that in order to do so amazingly well (wound K 5 on four opponents) there is the required reality contradiction check which on a die roll of 1 using normal rules kills the user of the gun.

So the earlier 'the fn jammer has gone from damage 23 to damage 34'  was wrong. It's actually gone 'from damage 23 to damage 38' when used against four opponents.

I think we can safely say the game/scenario designers did not expect this combination of house rules, and the adding of 15 points of damage to the best hand portable weapon in the game


=======


Let's just summarise at the impact of the glass jawed ninja rule, combined with the elimination of one on many penalties.

With normal rules as per scenario designers understanding of how the game works, we are doing wound K 5
If we do result points of damage... then we are adding about 15 points or more of damage.

Let's suppose that one of us is the target, and without this rule we were going to take 5 points of damage. That's on O2. An O2 is a scratch... it's not even a flesh wound. With this rule we are adding perhaps another 15 points of damage so that's 20 points of damage. All of a sudden that is 'instant death'.


======

GMs options.

The scenario is not written with the assumption that a single one of us can turn four reasonably tough opponents into fertilizer in one combat round on average die. The combination of 'no one on many penalities' and 'result points based damage' have added 15 points of damage to the gun. It's gone from base damage 23 to base damage 38.

It's also written with the assumption that if you use a tech 26 gun you will probably do yourself significant harm and have to burn through possibilitys (xp in the original game) at a fast rate. And that even if you do, you will take two rounds (probably) to defeat the opponents

This means that the GM has to either let us walk through the scenario without breaking into a sweat or make the opponents significantly tougher / significantly more numerous.

My conclusions
* Personally I don't like the idea of a scratch being turned into dead as a side effect of adding a rule that helps an archetype that we don't have in the game.
* I think we can see the enormous impact of the home brew spell. I originally liked it, until I've seen just how game impacting it is. Especially given that it effects everyone
* Most importantly the scenario is not written with the assumption that a single person can turn four opponents to fertilizer in one combat round. It's not written with the assumption that we have a damage 38 weapon
This message was last edited by the player at 06:28, Sat 18 July 2020.

In reply to Sapphire (msg # 6):

When I first played TORG, I thought it was awesome that how well you rolled to hit determined how well you did at damage. This was revolutionary compared to D&D and on par with Rolemaster.

Then I noticed, Ace shots Still had to "waste" possibilities if they wanted to do damage: A Warhammer in the hands of an experiencd wielder with decent streangth (D 10) can hit a fly with a roll of a 2, and the fly looks up as if to say, "Are you flirting with me?" The Result Point option, to me, brings a bit more realism...Johny Rambo shouldn't be penalized in damage just because he's good enough to hit a lookout with a bow without even trying.

On the other side was the effect everyone was complaining about, when the target's "Dodge" was so high that it took a 26+ roll to hit, and now the dart has pierced the dragon's eye. To me, if you can barely hit, you don't deserve +9 to damage, regardless of the Ninjaness or the Jaw of the target.

Others have proposed different ways of handling damage and for various reasons. Eternity brought in the Bonus Dice, which feels too much like D&D to me (Sorry Eternity fans and GMs), though I have kept that mechanic in my Coup de Grace cards (mathmatically averaged out, 1-5+second-Exploding-5 is not significantly different from 3, but it is cooler)

As for the LRC (long range contradictions) the rules don't say you have to invoke one; they explicitly point out an Ord can't, so even though an Ord cybercop with a godmeter can shoot it in a Dominant LL zone, the bullet will not explode like it would in th CP...of course sending a CP ord to the LL is just mean. So, Pierre doesn't expend the energy to make the flechettes explode which makes them less efective, but lets visit the math without the spells

FC 9 +3 gun +3 Auto +4 roll w/out LRC =16 hits 2, damage 23 +3 Auto +4 roll we'll say 27 becaues loss of flchette spread vs T13 (oom) the 2 that are hit are Mortally Wounded, Knocked out, and Unconcious...except without the spells he might have decided he would need a possibility and planned to do the LRC, bringing the toughness boost to 4 but at a minimum, his bonus becomes 9 which has him take 1 shock LRC, boosts to hit to 24, hitting all three doing 35 vs 14 = 21 RPD 7wKO15, not zombiable
vs Result points
16 1st 4rp 2nd 2rp 3rd 0rp Damage 1st 20+4 2wK11 (v:inspiration will wake him up) 2nd 1wK9 and DownK5 both still fighting, except, Poss,LRC, 24 >>10, 8, 6 RP they are all out of combat but only one is dead.

Result Points method just feels better to me, especially in RoPL where no one has to whatch you or I pull out an abacus and astronomical tables to do the math, nor do they need to know that is what they are waiting on. However, I have learned that not everyone likes math as much as I do. In fact, there are many people who will not choose to go out of their way for the opportunity to do more math, can you believe it? Some go so far [gasp] as to actively avoid math [sorry, have to let my stomach settle after that].

Joking asside, this is a valid concern. If anyone is having trouble with the math of the ResultPoint rule. Feel free to PM Koharu Saito me and I will be happy to work it out for or with you and let you take credit for it in game.
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:46, Sat 18 July 2020.

I'll admit I read this thread and kinda lost you with all the rules and all.

In the end I think it is all about GM fiat.

Looking at your example the fact that Joe Rambo rolled a 2 and still scored a hit (where most people would miss) allows for it to be a glancing blow. After all something went bad that would make another lose its aim. When Joe Rambo roll 10+ he hits with vengeance.

On the other side, the super ninja with Dodge 26, well that guy is so good that only the deadliest well aimed attack hit him. Anything else will just end up in miss, torn sleeves or minor cuts the game doesn't factor. I also agree with Sapphire, that said ninja didn't invest in Toughness in any way.

So to sum it up, I am cool with whatever the GM decide :)

I thought that one roll demonstrated beyond any possibility of doubt the terribleness of the result points rule, and our other house rules.

The game, the scenarios, everything... is balanced about the standard numbers.

If you want to do more damage with your tohit you can: it's called vital shots. You also can do one on many with your higher skill. Having a high skill is great: it means that you don't miss. It gives you options.

What kills the game is someone being able to do on every single shot +15 damage over what the scenario is designed to handle. +15 damage turns a scratch into 'you are so very dead'.

The value of rules is that they give a framework that we can play within. This rule reduces the size of that framework we can play in. There's no point actually continuing this encounter: we shouldn't bother RPing out and taking time when the bad guys have this little chance. We could summarise it as 'Four Eidenos per round turned to fertilzer move on'. With a roll of a 2, the Eidenos are killed dead.

But sure: you are the GM if you think you can give us some opponents that we don't just laugh at, that won't kill the rest of it, go do. I don't think I could: not without killing the rest of us.

@Ben
Summary: If you use the result points rule and our other house rules, then some players will be doing +15 damage per shot over what the weapon normally does. +15 damage turns a scratch into 'so very dead'.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:48, Sat 18 July 2020.

I actually prefer an 'overs' system (result points in this), as I consider it more realistic. A 'glancing blow' with a tacnuke will still kill a man very very dead, wheras the same with a bb gun will maybe irritate him.

Several options that has been used elsewhere:

Cap the amount of bonus to damage, in some games you can't do more than double the damage. In other you can't do more than +5.

Translate the score over the effect as if it was a second roll.So for example, if Ben rolled 17 vs. Defense of 10. His Damage roll would be 7 or -2 to the damage. Now this mean you'd need to score very high to reach basic weapon damage.

Two options,

1) keep it this way in which case the base damage represent the usual cap of the weapon not the base damage.

2) Don't start at zero, if for example we take roll over + 5, Ben attack from above would be considered 12 or just base damage.

Sapphire makes some very excellent points, about how the custom content has changed the overall balance of the game regarding threat levels. I was actually kind of shocked at how easily those three edeinos were turned into hamburger. And Sita has been able to carve up every single edeinos she's gotten her hands on, no matter how low the die roll has been. I had some strong characters from back when I played oTorg, but I don't remember it being quite this easy to just demolish everything.

So I guess I'm changing my vote to minimizing custom content as much as possible, for the sake of game balance. However that ends up looking.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:25, Sat 18 July 2020.

Sapphire, could you run that example without Pierre's custom spells?  I felt like overall it had more to do with the penalty elimination (and possibly our boosted stats) than with the result point rule.  It's been a long time since I've dealt with any of this, but as I remember the whole point of the result point rule was to avoid turning scratches into instant death.

OK, looking at the rule in the R&E rules, they suggest that indeed it can cause super high damage rolls, and I can see that -- when a roll that generates a +4 bonus means a +13 to your damage, that is pretty significant.  But the fix they propose is to just use "the lower of both ways", which I think makes sense, but looking at the example we have in Pierre's attack we actually have that since Pierre did it the old way and then Apeiros went back through and redid it with the RPR.

That made the Edeinos very slightly less dead, but didn't for a moment stop him from obliterating a handful of them with one shot.

If I follow his attack without the custom spells, it would have been...
Dex 7 (? - he said 10 boosted, and I remember him suggesting just the simple +3 to everything, but if he uses the Push Table method for himself that might be a 6) + FC 2 + Auto 3 + EyeKill 3 + rolled 4 = 19, -6 for the OoM makes it 13.

I'm not actually sure what their Dodge is but looking at Apeiros's original breakdown, probably 12.  So... that's either a +1 on the Bonus Chart or +1 Result Point.  Either way, 24 damage to a Toughness of 10?  So that's 3 WND KO 7.  And if it would have been Tou 13, that's still 2 WND KO 6.  So... as far as I can tell, they died no matter what rules we're using.

But it is true that without those custom spells, his rolling a 17 was actually important; two less and he would have missed.  With the combined automatic bonus from his spells, he would have had to roll a 4 or less to miss.

Given that with his bonuses, the RPR moved his result from "hamburger" to "fine mist" and then back to "hamburger" when Apeiros remembered the ranged contradiction thing... I don't think the RPR rule is what's at fault.  I think Pierre is an expertly built character who takes the system apart and starts juggling with it.  I don't think he's the only solidly designed character in the group and I'm not at all convinced that's a "fault" (though I admit, a lot of custom effects makes me leery, with my GM Hat on.)  I think it's more something that Apeiros will adjust to as the game goes on, and we may eventually reach a point where Koharu doesn't feel comfortable sipping tea while y'all Handle It.  (No, she doesn't actually have tea.  But that's totally the vibe I'm going for.)


Though having dug into everything, this still wouldn't change anything that happened, but Pierre, how did you have zero penalties?  Three targets should be -6, and to get +6 on the Power Push Table seems to need 15+ Result Points.  Subtracting your Mind from 17 can't have left you 15 Result Points.  I think you still should have had a -3 or -4?  I'll admit, my brain is feeling like spaghetti right now after trying to jump back and forth through all of these hoops so I could be totally misunderstanding everything at this point.

I'm also not sure why the spell would affect the Toughness penalty side of that at all, honestly, but that's up to Apeiros.

I'm sorry if this is a complete mess.  The oTORG rules are even more different from Eternity than I remembered; Sapphire and Pierre very definitely understand them better than I do, so if I have this all upside-down and backwards... shrug  I'll figure it out eventually!  Probably!  Maybe.  Someday?  Or give up.  Totally one of those two.

If you reread the post in game, RAW→Result Points increased damage by 3 points not 15 (30→33).

The Jammer is a Noice weapon, and like the time my Troll Physical Adept almost died from a direct hit by a rocket launcher in Shadowrun, it may require some rethinking of how the rules apply; ie, it has 7 ammo capacity and fires auto only, having shot at 3 targets (9 rds of ammo normally required) do I now say it is out until he can reload unlike Normal ammo rules(you aren't out of ammo 'till I say you're out of ammo; don't care if that was the 12th time you fired that revolver)?

The 3rd or 4th game of TORG I ran one of the players liked the Hospitaler Template which comes with a CP rocket launcher type weapon. If the enemy wasn't spread out, he blasted 2 or 3 or 5 with every shot. It got boring. That was using RAW (I wasn't big into LRC back then and really should have been for him). Point is, the complaint about the ultimate result of ending the combat has merrit; the Result Point method of damage was not a significant part of that.


To me,
RAW = "lucky hit IS good hit, Skilled hit IS Grazing"
Res = "Skill MAKES good hits, Lucky hit IS lucky to be a hit"

In the end it all is about what happens when it is used against the PCs.

We can mow down through dozens of NPC enemies but each of us has a single character and if all things are equal than the same tactic the PCs are using would be applied to NPCs as well.

...and unlike NPCs that can be invented on the spot by Aperios, PCs are rare (about one per player) and thus their survival is more important for the story.

So I am in favor of the method that would ensure higher survival rates for PCs, if it would mean we'd have to double shoot each enemy so be it.

Re Spells
When Pierre proposed the spells in question, all I had were base names and 'they boost' squads. Admittedly, I rushed into play without requiring more.

As a result of this combat, I am rebuilding these Spells and they will be different, probably significantly less powerfull than Pierre has them going into it. As has been discussed Custom spells can get extremely overpowered. And I understand Pierre wants to eventually be able to Actually Create such spells. In the Time scince magic and Cyber have been on his planet, there is no way ANYONE could have created these two spells, let alone at the potency he had them set. These 2 spells Implanted into Pierre like his Cyberware when he trabsformed. I dislike sharing character backstory when they haven't, but feel it is important for everyone to understand These spells are a reflection of Pierre's unique connection to-from-to his Old-New Reality.

 So, note to all: do not be expecting this level of boost in the near future.  I expect the Squad Tactical Boost to be a +1 or +2 max and it will probably not include Spirit (sorry Pierre) and Shorten OODA Loop will cap out at "1.5" actions...a reduction of up to 3 points from the OoM penalties. Also note, these spells appear more powerfull than they should be, because they are...Even if Pierre Teaches these spells to Sapphire or Matthew, or anyonr else in the group so far, they WILL NOT WORK outside of the Cyberpapacy, they USE the Law of Heretical Magic in a way that the Hunted Witch template indicates SHOULD be done by Anti-Church CPers. They are not powerful enogh to boost any normal Storm Knight without that world law.

@Ben
Partly true. It's certainly the major point

In this case, under the rules we were operating on at the time of posting,  the FN Jammer could have shot every bad guy  and on about a 5 on the die would have killed them all.

So then the issue is that the GM has to put either tougher bad guys in, more of them, or the rest of us do nothing. If one shot using one/many rules can kill every bad guy on low die rolls... perhaps the impact of this rule on the difficulty level is a bit wrong.

@Apeiros

• Let's assume the defence is 10
• Let's assume that we have a skill of 21

 The damage takes is now 'die roll + 23 + to hit skill - defence', or in this case 23 + 11 + die roll

The reason I said '+15' was the the one on many rule which would normally have applied didn't, so we were doing 4 more points of damage

If there is a mistake in this calculation let me know. It's entirely possible that I have misunderstood how it works. I think it works that you take the base weapon damage, add the results points (skill - defence + die) and that's the damage. I did read it again, but it's easy to make a mistake

Basically the effects of this rule are:

• There is no longer any point in the vital blow manuver. Instead of subtracting 2 to hit for 1 damage, we automatically get +1 damage for every surplus. So it's like getting an optimised double strength vital blow on every attack
• There is no point to buying strength. It is always better to get dex. Dex adds to 'to hit' and 'defence'. And now it adds to damage as well, since every result point gives another point of damage.  Which means that dex now adds to 'to hit', 'damage'and 'defence'. There is literally no point in adding to strength if you could have a point of dex instead. Goodbye a whole category of heros that have a lot of strength and average to hits.
• Every weapon gets a free damage bonus of 'to hit skill - defence'

The rule was added to solve a problem that we don't have in this group, and there are much better solutions anyway.

I think this rule is a fine example of a not play tested optional rule. We experimented with solutions to the glass jawed ninja (we had one: an elven monk) and discovered that his particular mechanism was terrible. We've just seen how terrible. +11 damage changes a scratch to dead... and yet if we did the best possible vital blow, the same level of skill in the original game would only add +4.



Summary
I am only commenting on this because we are in a thread about it. Ben has it mostly correct. Whatever we go with I'm cool.

This is a bad premise. Even in my Wild examples I stuck to only 8 difference, which is unlickly, but possible...more laterAccepted, but not valid against the Result Point rule as it's impact would have been the same RAW or ResPnt.I would write the math as:
D-RAW=(BD+B#) while ResP=(BD+B#+AS-BS)This is wrong, understandably so. The mathe gets beautiful wierd. Like I must change "Auto" from "+3/+3" to just "+3" Vital Blow goes from "-8/+4" to "-8/+12"This deserves an entire post of its own. I will address it belowAs oppsed to every weapon just getting the bonus number from the die roll :wink:It was proposed, and included in R&E, as a "fix" for a problem I don't think WAS a problem; True. I like it because it fixes a different problem that others, possibly including you, never saw as a problem: My Experienced Soldier of Fortune with Tag Skill bumped twice FC of 16 can actualy shoot someone for no damage because he can hit with a negative Bonus number, but Pacefist Sister Mary Theresa transformed to Aylse, who has never handled a firearm before and has a dex of 6 kills EVERYTHING she hits because she Has to roll a +9 B# to hit anything at all. Our definition of "Scratch" is different.
In my example charts I went with Skills of 18 max because ATR 12 +TS 3 +EXP(15) 3 =18, new, but some experiemce. 21 is not beleivable in Newish characters, and probaly won't be facing 10s as adversaries, and the party members who have not advanced in the same way will ned to be making use of cover and Interactions and other options which they will have had time to develope, tatically, during their advancement

No Point to Strength:
This argument is like orange juice after toothpaste to me. So many of the people I have had to game with have been M&Ms (MinMaxers) who would pry out every bonus they could get without regard to how that made their character look. [note: If any of you felt I was over critical of your character choices in design, I was friends with the creator of the Mutant Weasel Juicer. Forgivr my pain] The idea that someone would not want to play a Bruiser just because "Dex is favored" turns my stomach. Like other people's vomit, I know it's out there, but I don't want my face rubbed in it.

Next, STR is your Lifting, Jumping, Climbing, as well as Base Damage. Hulk looks pretty stupid if he can hit for 30 damage because he focussed on Dex per this rule but can only Jump 3'.

Finally, Str weapons were always poor choices, a STR 14 character barely competed with a .38 using his best weapon. Plus there was a STR Max to each weapon. Plus you Still need DEX to even land the hit to be able to use your STR.

Ugh! the Alerts on my game of RL are warning me If I don't spend some timr there I'll get kicked off all games :(
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:31, Sun 19 July 2020.

@Apeiros  Thanks for taking the time that you do from your other “game” to run all this, and field our questions, and work through all  the growing pains that come with doing something new and different.

@Sita, your Appreciation is appreciated :)

For the record, I don't actually Love the Result Points method...it isn't perfect.

I just can't unsee the RAW problem of the experienced shooter occasionally hitting for no damage while every little 4 year old with a sling shot must be named David. I quit playing Risk the day I was forced to see that Luck rules Everything in that game (best strategy, best initial placement, best reading your opponent and figuring out Their plans... useless if they have the best luck) and I don't want Luck to be more important than Skill in this game.

I am toying with some ideas for tweaking this rule, but for now, it will stand.

If the defence was 8 not 10 then all the numbers are 2 worse, and the damage is too higher



Yes. They still get it. But now they get a free (huge) damage buff. That the scenarios are not set up for

...

I could continue, but I think the following captures it

Summary
* You are the GM. Go with what you want
* I read your details results and it's clear you have decided you like the rule. I detest it. I detest the results, I detest the fact it makes strength pointless (sorry your argument was specious: there is literally no point in getting a point of strength until you have maxed dex)... strength is about damage: I don't think we need trouble the scorer with climb.
* If the idea of players doing 13 more damage than the scenario can handle doesn't cause you problems, and the realisation that we can just annhilate everything in the scenario without you buffing the bad guys (and you need to do that because the poorly play tested optional rule just ROFL-stomps on them as written) then I can't really imagine what will
* But sure just go with it.

Sap, at least part of all the math in this thread was people pointing out that the PSW's were dogmeat regardless of which rule was used. You are being completely unfair here when you imply that Ap is 'only getting away with it' because he is the GM. That is simply not true as well as unjustifiably rude.

Yes you are right. I am sorry

But this example isn't what I am worried about. Even if they had had 13 more points of toughness they would have been ROFL-stomped. That's ... a lot. That means that even if the GM adds 13 toughness to everything we still ROFL stomp them. And that's because of the rule that we have been asked to comment on

I just don't know how to express how poorly designed the rule is, and how clearly unplay tested it is, if that example didn't just make it utterly obvious

I'm still finding the current example relates more to Pierre's custom spells (which Apeiros said are being adjusted after seeing them in action) than the RPR.  I know you're getting the +21 from that, but as you pointed out in your first breakdown, 10 points of that came from his spells; then he had effectively six from the Jammer and five from his cyber (including his base skill adds; he said "chipped".)  From that 11, Apeiros addressed the bonuses that are only supposed to apply to the attack roll, so only +5 - his Skill Adds and his EyeKill - apply to damage, which... again, I don't see why reducing the OoM penalty would also have eliminated their OoM Toughness bonus, so that's effectively +2 in this case.

That doesn't seem unreasonable to me.  If the spells are brought down to max out at +2 to Dex and -3 on the penalties, that would still have been a +7, which is a lot in TORG's system, but significantly changed enough from +21 that if I were the GM, I would indeed need to see it in action again to reevaluate.

Granted, the Jammer already starts at stupidly high damage, and one strong argument I do see against the RPR is that it allows a stat bonus to weapons that weren't intended to have one -- there's a reason guns aren't supposed to add to your Strength, as they tend to start around the same maximum damage you can get from melee weapons if you're really pushing for it.  I don't know if there's a graceful answer to that.

I guess, Sapphire, I would say that the problem with your example is that it's based on an attack that would have killed them even if we applied all of the rules in the least advantageous possible way, so it doesn't demonstrate any real advantage gained from any of them.


Ammo is a tricky question because it does get fiddly.  I would note that they clarify that for weapons that can only fire at full auto (like the Jammer) the capacity is already counted in bursts, not bullets, so he'd actually have 4 shots left, not -2.  Looking at my above comment to Sapphire - I do feel that ammo is about the only option there is to limit the Jammer, but I'm not sure I can really even comment on this.  Business doesn't even use ammunition.  I mean, not usually.

I also feel like what we have seen is Pierre stomping on them.  I have absolutely no doubt that when we actually see Sita's rolls in action we will be similarly gobsmacked - the shapeshifting rules in oTORG were so very abusable.  Fun, but they basically mandate min/maxing your character in and out of combat.  And I'm sure Sapphire will render us all obsolete in many circumstances -- elves just do that, whether they mean to or not.  (One of my favorite oTORG characters was an elven jeweler who Really Meant Well.  One of her quotes was, "I'm sorry, did you really have to train for 30 years to get this good with a... what do you call it again?  Rapier?"  Their base stats are just ridiculous.)

TORG has never been a game of moderation.

I think you are looking at an extreme cases and making it the common.

IMO a great marksman who hit when everyone else would miss. Sure it might be only a grazing hit but still, 9 out of 10 people would have missed at the same spot. So it is still pretty great.

The other case, well once in a blue moon you'd get David with his slingshot, but lets look at the odds, the chances of an unskilled, Ord to score a really high hit is so low to just reflect the fluke of getting that killer shot by mistake.

Yes, even in RL sometimes the best highly trained people suffer from bad luck, they don't say no battle plan survived contact with the enemy for nothing.
The highly trained people they might get a bad luck once in awhile but a)they'd be trained enough to still get a marginal success of it and b) are experienced enough to improvise and try something else.

If you want to remove the element of the dice, well I don't think TORG is the system for you (although I did considered once running it dice-less and just letting people spend Possibility to increase their chances).

Another option I considered was using Feng Shui dice roll, it is basically d6-d6, with exploding six (so you roll and add), so most scores run from -5 to +5 and its super rare to get anything above +15 or below -15 and most rolls just average around the +/- 2 of your base score.

Of course this would mean more house rules and more balance problems so perhaps it would be best just to leave things as they are and enjoy the role play and not the roll play? but that is just my two cents :)

In reply to Ben Altman (msg # 25):

To some extent I agree with you. But to the same extent, the RSP method is neither better nor worse than RAW. The only thing that is definitely lost in RSP is the chance to do less than base damage.

FTR, no one ever talks about low Defense High toughness creatures, say a rock golum Def 6 Tou 30. Yes, you can take a Vital Blow, IF the creature has vital areas; an animated pile of rocks might not. Under RAW, everyone has pretty much the same chance to hurt this thing based on similar base damage. So unless Someone is packing explosives, it's all about the luck. With RSP, higher skilled individuals have a better chance of hitting in ways that make a difference, actually chipping of pieces of rock instead of just hitting.

Yes, this is another edge case. And again, I don't hate RAW. (And I am not pushing for diceless, though that works fine for Amber).

And I never considered the GJN problem to be a problem, if the Non-Ninja (Ninja have an absolute requirement of Secrecy in TORG, if anyone finds out they are a Ninja they are in serious trouble) in the group is focused on "I don't get hit" without regard to taking a hit, they deserve what they get.

It just seems more Cinimatic to me that the person who doesn't know the trigger from the safety is the one who gets the grazing shots,("It's a good thing you're a terrible shot, Wally") and not Expert Marksmen.