From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Alan
Kellogg
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 12:43 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [ogf-d20-l] Playtest Opportunity
<<
Hit Points Outside of Combat
In this case the DM assigns two values to a task, Difficulty class
and Hit Points. DC is used as a measure of how difficult it is to
make progress at a task. Hit Points are used as a measure of how long
it will take to actually succeed. Every time a PC succeeds at making
progress, the player rolls "damage" according to the tool or tools
being used. Improper tools give a D3 or D4 in "damage. Proper tools
give a D6 or D8. Masterwork tools give a D10 or perhaps even 2D6
E.G.: The player wants his PC to carve a wooden statue for a friend
using mahogany. The PC has Craft, Sculpture, Wood at a rank of 3, a
dex of 13 for a +1 and a standard set of wood carving tools for no
modifier positive or negative. Mahogany, being a rather hard wood,
has a DC of 18 to sculpt; and since he wishes to do an involved
sculpture, the DM assigns a hit point score of 60 to finish the task.
With his dexterity and skill, the PC succeeds in making progress
every time the player rolls a 14 or better on a D20. Since he is
using standard wood carving tools, but not ones designed specifically
for work with woods such as mahogany, he rolls a D6 to see how much
progress he is making. Since he does 3.5 points of "damage" times a
35% chance of making progress, for each round he works on the statue
he will do 1.225 points of "damage" per round. Which means it will
take 49 rounds to complete the sculpture. >>
I like it, if for no other reason than that it will likely reduce the impact
of what I se as one of the most troublesome rules in D20: Take 20.
With this rule, anyone who wants can succeed at easy or even moderate
difficulty tasks without having to have any real skill, just by taking some
extra time. Thus, there is little reason to take any significant non-combat
skills: in a pinch, a Fighter with Rank 1 (Rank 0, if the skill may be used
untrained) can replace the character who specialized in the same skill. And
it's not like, "Gee, can I ever do as well as he would?" It's, "Ho-hum, we
have time, so I'll just Take 20 and succeed." Meanwhile, there's no
equivalent of Take 20 for combat: "Yeah, I know I have a +0 Attack Modifier.
So I'll take 20, and slice him open!" A good GM will watch over Take 20 VERY
carefully, and introduce all sorts of complications for Heroes who abuse it
(AND scrupulously enforce the "20 times the standard time" rule, rather than
just saying "two minutes"); but BOY, is it prone to abuse!
But with your system, the difference between a skilled and unskilled
character becomes more apparent. Why do I believe this? Because challenging
tasks will have more "Difficulty Points" than you can roll in a single
success. So the time involved in Take 10 and Take 20 will get amplified. It
will become impractical to Take 20 over several rolls: the skilled character
could probably achieve 10 or more successes while the unskilled character is
busy with 1.
Martin L. Shoemaker
Emerald Software, Inc. -- Custom Software and UML Training
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.EmeraldSoftwareInc.com
www.UMLBootCamp.com
