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Message no. 1
From: Luke Kendall <luke@********.CANON.OZ.AU>
Subject: Fumbling (Was: Re: unarmed/melee combat)
Date: Wed, 3 May 1995 09:39:42 +1000
>>More than half the dice ones? PLease help me my players are killing me!

Timothy Little writes:

> This one comes out a bit bad, too.
>

> Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
> Fumbles 16.7% 2.8% 7.4% 1.6% 3.5% 0.9% 1.8%
>

> As you can see, the chances of failure are somewhat erratic.

I don't think you've got that right; look at the `2' case: the ways
of rolling one or more 1's with two dice are 6 + 5 + 1 out of 36
permutations; for a 33% chance.

For 2n dice, the probability is higher than for 2n-1 (but note that
2n+1 has a lower fumble probability than 2n).

We used this, and it worked pretty well, except for the 1, 2, and
3 dice cases - fumbles happened unpleasantly often. For the rest,
it was okay. (Heh - I managed to fumble an 11-dice roll, one night.)

luke
Message no. 2
From: Craig S Dohmen <dohmen@*******.CSE.PSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fumbling (Was: Re: unarmed/melee combat)
Date: Wed, 3 May 1995 11:39:55 -0400
On Tue, 2 May 1995, Luke Kendall wrote:

> > Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
> > Fumbles 16.7% 2.8% 7.4% 1.6% 3.5% 0.9% 1.8%
>
> I don't think you've got that right; look at the `2' case: the ways
> of rolling one or more 1's with two dice are 6 + 5 + 1 out of 36
> permutations; for a 33% chance.

Actually, it's 11/36.

(1,1) (2,1) (3,1) (4,1) (5,1) (6,1) (1,2) (1,3) (1,4) (1,5) (1,6)
= 11 possiblilites.

--Craig, picking nits. :)
Message no. 3
From: Timothy Little <t_little@**********.UTAS.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: Fumbling (Was: Re: unarmed/melee combat)
Date: Sat, 13 May 1995 13:42:44 +1000
>> Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
>> Fumbles 16.7% 2.8% 7.4% 1.6% 3.5% 0.9% 1.8%
>
>I don't think you've got that right; look at the `2' case: the ways
>of rolling one or more 1's with two dice are 6 + 5 + 1 out of 36
>permutations; for a 33% chance.

>>>More than half the dice ones? PLease help me my players are killing me!
----
This is why both the dice needed to come up 1's. You are using "At least
half the dice ones".

>For 2n dice, the probability is higher than for 2n-1 (but note that
>2n+1 has a lower fumble probability than 2n).
>
>We used this, and it worked pretty well, except for the 1, 2, and
>3 dice cases - fumbles happened unpleasantly often. For the rest,
>it was okay. (Heh - I managed to fumble an 11-dice roll, one night.)

At 0.46% chance, that's not outrageously unlikely. We've had a (normal
rules) fumble on 5 dice, and a case of 7 out of 8 dice coming up six (it
would have to be a drain resistance test, though - we call it the "mage's
curse", getting higher rolls on drain resistance (usually needing 2's) than
on the casting).
Our highest roll on a single dice was 38, and the highest target number
reached (as opposed to just rerolling 6's on a low-TN test) was 20 (learning
a Force 9 spell from a formula).

--
Tim Little
Message no. 4
From: Mark Steedman <RSMS@******.EEE.RGU.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Fumbling (Was: Re: unarmed/melee combat)
Date: Mon, 15 May 1995 18:47:40 GMT
Timothy Little writes
>
> At 0.46% chance, that's not outrageously unlikely. We've had a (normal
> rules) fumble on 5 dice, and a case of 7 out of 8 dice coming up six (it
> would have to be a drain resistance test, though - we call it the "mage's
> curse", getting higher rolls on drain resistance (usually needing 2's) than
> on the casting).
Yes the quantity of 5's and 6's rolled for drain. The other option is
rolling half ones when you put a couple of extras in over normal to
ensure no drain.

> Our highest roll on a single dice was 38, and the highest target number
> reached (as opposed to just rerolling 6's on a low-TN test) was 20 (learning
> a Force 9 spell from a formula).
>
I don't want to start a long mess on what foks have rolled so no
numbers but the record on 1 dice is stupidly high and the record
target number is by situation after someone dropped an IPE offensive
grenade in a 2m wide corridor (poor corp goons).

> --
> Tim Little
>

Mark

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