April 27, 2004

Risk Applications

One of the main things that I want to accomplish with the risk rules is to be able to balance stuff without crippling the chance of success.

Sadly, a -1 penalty is a pretty decent-sized penalty in this system. A -4 is crippling, reducing the best folks rolling max down to the point where an average roll by a similarly competent foe would beat them.

Risk should allow me to add minor penalties.

For weapons, I'm thinking of something like this:

  • Natural weapons, simple hand-held weapons: risk 1.
  • Oversized weapons, two-handed weapons and awkward ones (like flails). Also single-shot guns: risk 2.
  • Weapons that are both awkward and oversized and full-auto firearms: risk 3.
  • Taking a particularly slow and cautious action: -1 risk.
  • Trying something dangerous like firing into melee (without hitting a friendly): +1 risk.
  • Making two attacks in one round: -1 to your roll, +1 to risk.
That last one is an example of a mixed penalty... rather than giving a crippling penalty to your roll, we give a minor penalty and an increased risk. Unfortunately, it'll probably take a lot of playtesting to work the correct values out, but I like the basic idea.

Posted by Kiz at April 27, 2004 11:39 AM
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