Re: Mechanical discussion

[Theomore Tullison]

So that +2 is lost if your mount is attacking?

[Reader]

+2 damage from mount is only if the mount isn't moving, so doesn't occur in the joust. Still not 100% decided on whether to just do +2 damage for mount not moving or let mount attack separately. I'm inclined to just use the +2 damage and not let mount attack.

Open to debate.

[Theomore Tullison]

The +2 is probably cleaner.

[Reader]

Agreed!

[Baelon Drakeson]

I'm for cleaner.

[Lady Corrine Marsten]

What does DoS mean?

And how do the bonus dice work?

[Athelstan]

Degrees of Success

[Reader]

Bonus dice are added to total rolled but not kept.

4 persuasion, 2 charm = roll 6, keep 4.

[Lady Corrine Marsten]

Gotcha. How much is a degree of success?

[Gwyneth Drakeson]

Degrees of success mean that every few points you exceed the minimum success threshold, your success is more significant. More damage, more composure loss, better gains, etc.

Bonus dice are a little confusing. They add to the number of dice you roll, but you still only keep the number of dice equal to your base skills.

Example!

Gwyn has a skill of 4 dice in Persuasion. But she has 2 bonus dice when she uses Charm. So she rolls 6 dice when using Charm, but she still only KEEPS 4 dice (because her base skill of Persuasion is 4 dice). She discards any 2 dice...most likely the lowest two rolls.

This biases the results of her pool upward, without modifying the maximum possible result. She still can't get better than 24...but she will roll on average better than the 14 that 4d6 would normally grant.

[Reader]

Hitting the tn = 1 DoS
Every 5 in excess = another DoS.

Roll 14 against tn 9 = 2 DoS.

[Lady Corrine Marsten]

Thank you very much! I understand now.

So glad to have found a pleasant and helpful group.

[Baelon Drakeson]

What does DoS mean?

And how do the bonus dice work?

As Athelstan said, they are "
Degrees of Success"
, which is a pain to type out every time.
Mechanically, hitting the target number gives 1 DoS, and every additional 5 above the TN that you roll gives you an additional DoS, to a maximum of 4.
So against a TN of 9:

Code:

0-4 | Critical Fumble | 0 DoS and bad things happen
5-8 | Failed | 0 DoS, but nothing especially bad happens (unless otherwise specified)
9-13 | Success | 1 DoS
14-18 | Better Success | 2 DoS
19-23 | Amazing Success | 3 DoS
24+ | Overwhelming Success | 4 DoS

Well, I see lots of people have beaten me to it, so I'll not go into a lengthy bit on bonus dice, but here are two points that probably won't come up for you, but might:

Gwyn has a skill of 4 dice in Persuasion. But she has 2 bonus dice when she uses Charm. So she rolls 6 dice when using Charm, but she still only KEEPS 4 dice (because her base skill of Persuasion is 4 dice). She discards any 2 dice...most likely the lowest two rolls.

Point 1: I don't believe you can actually choose which dice to discard, it is always the lowest;
this is one of the differences between this system and L5R, which I know Gwyn, Reader, myself, and several other players have played before. However, unlike in that system, in this game a high roll should never be a bad thing. For instance, if Athelstan's player had not wanted Athelstan to kill Roddrick, then an outcome other than 'death' could have been chosen, and the amount of damage done becomes irrelevant.

Point 2: under normal circumstances, bonus dice are capped at your attribute. So in Gwyn's example above, if she was getting extra bonus dice from somewhere (benefits, consider action etc.) she would still max out at rolling 8 and keeping 4 (often written as 8k4) unless any of the sources specifically state that they exceed the normal limit. So for instance, let's pretend that she has the 'favored of the nobles' benefit, which gives a +1B to persuasion tests against characters with 4 or more status. That would mean that against Lady Isobel, Gwyn would normally be rolling 7k4. If Gwyn takes the 'consider' action (grants +2B on one test in the next exchange) in an intrigues with Lady Isobel, her next exchange she would be at 9k4, but because of the limit, would actually only get the 8k4 I stated before.

[Gwyneth Drakeson]

Ah, thanks! I missed those nuances even for myself.

[Nathaniel Mason]

Point 1: I don't believe you can actually choose which dice to discard, it is always the lowest;
this is one of the differences between this system and L5R, which I know Gwyn, Reader, myself, and several other players have played before. However, unlike in that system, in this game a high roll should never be a bad thing. For instance, if Athelstan's player had not wanted Athelstan to kill Roddrick, then an outcome other than 'death' could have been chosen, and the amount of damage done becomes irrelevant.

I would have to disagree with this. The rules state on page 28. "
Once you roll the dice, sum the ones you choose to keep and add or subtract any modifiers. The total is the test result."
If only the highest dice have to be taken, then it is not a choice, and I'm not aware of any rule that specifies you must choose the highest dice that you roll.

I regularly discard 6's in certain combat situations to avoid unfortunate circumstances on the critical hit table.

[Reader]

Think it says somewhere early in the rules that you should keep high dice (so Baelon is right0, but this is silly, for the reasons Nathaniel points out.

I'm happy for people to keep low dice (deliberately fall off horse in a joust, miss a shot on purpose etc).

[Theomore Tullison]

p. 27 says keep best dices.

But the only instance where you'd maybe want to keep lower dices would be for house fortunes tests.

[Baelon Drakeson]

I stand corrected. I had interpreted the 'best dice' to mean the 'highest', which in hindsight is not necessarily true.

[Jon Cobb]

p. 27 says keep best dices.

But the only instance where you'd maybe want to keep lower dices would be for house fortunes tests.

The description of bonus dice on p. 30 says:

A bonus die is an extra die rolled during an ability test, but then a number of low dice equal to the number of bonus dice rolled is dropped from the test before the remaining dice are added to determine the result.

I'd say that means always drop the lowest dice - how else are you going to determine what a "
low dice"
is? Add the description of penalty dice and I think it's pretty conclusive:

A die subtracted from the test dice (starting with the lowest first) after any bonus dice have been discarded but before the dice are summed to determine the result.

Low, lowest. I'm convinced you always keep the highest rolls.

[Reader]

My ruling: you can keep low dice if you want (miss a shot, fall off a horse etc). Not even controversial enough to be a house rule.

[Yoren longshore]

Maybe it would be smart if people could not cherrypick on bonusdice when it comes to house fortune rolls, as they are not linear?
just a suggestion.

[Reader]

Maybe it would be smart if people could not cherrypick on bonusdice when it comes to house fortune rolls, as they are not linear?
just a suggestion.

Indeed and good point, that specifically won't be allowed.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

That does make Stewardship bonus dice next to useless, however, given how rarely house fortunes rolls come up relative to any other roll, and how they might actually be more harmful than helpful. I actually thought cherry-picking would be allowed, at least in this one instance, specifically as a balancing mechanism against this (utility vs frequency). Else something like Charm, convince or a weapon skill would be a much, much better use of XP.

[Jon Cobb]

That does make Stewardship bonus dice next to useless, however, given how rarely house fortunes rolls come up relative to any other roll, and how they might actually be more harmful than helpful. I actually thought cherry-picking would be allowed, at least in this one instance, specifically as a balancing mechanism against this (utility vs frequency). Else something like Charm, convince or a weapon skill would be a much, much better use of XP.

Aren't you overstating the problem a bit? While the top end of the House Fortunes table isn't completely free of poor results, the positive results are certainly more frequent the higher the roll.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

Maybe. I've never rolled on the table before. All I know for sure is that there's a definite chance that a bonus die jumps you from a good result to a bad one, which, given the rarity of rolls, kind of makes a poor return on investment.

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