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Change crits to be on a roll of 1

Discussion in 'Access Guide to the Human Sphere' started by Am Lash, Jun 18, 2021.

  1. Am Lash

    Am Lash New Member

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    You dont need to check if you see 1s. That's the whole point :-)
     
  2. Diphoration

    Diphoration Well-Known Member
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    It's the same for the reactive player, they know who will attack, the rangebands, the cover and every other mods before dice have to be rolled.
     
  3. Diphoration

    Diphoration Well-Known Member
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    If people start figuring mods after rolling, and make a habit of it because they can roll on 1, I think that seriously slows down the game more than it speeds it up. It makes people lazy and has chance to make the game state sloppy.
     
  4. QueensGambit

    QueensGambit Chickenbot herder

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    My apologies to all - there was an error in my conversion of the dice calculator to set crits to 1. Now that I've fixed it, I've rerun the numbers and the odds are indeed identical whether crits are on target number or 1.

    Thank you @Diphoration for inducing me to check my code after I couldn't find any flaws in your table!
     
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  5. VladimirHerzog

    VladimirHerzog Active Member

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    Its just better practice to calculate the needed value before rolling so that both players agree and its "locked in stone".
    You reduce the risks of "Oh, i rolled a 15 and i have BS12, lemme check if you were really in cover".

    And every single wargame i've played, i always calculate my needed value before rolling, to make sure i didnt do a mistake in my calculations and that my opponent agrees
     
  6. Ugin

    Ugin Well-Known Member
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    Ooh, thanks! I get it.
    So you can roll first to see if Crits happen or not, and then you get to calculate the Success values only when the Crit happens not.
    Then it might be slightly less comfort to calculate, especially when you roll multiple dice(since the chance to Crit is 22.63% when you roll 5 dice).
    Putting off the decision to call it 'huge' or not, I can say that is a gain.
    But would the gain surpass the price to change the rule? I would say negative.
    Excuse me for being skeptic, I don't feel like the change is necessary. I think the calculating process is kinda troublesome, but not to the level that the mechanism itself needs a major change.
     
  7. natetehaggresar

    natetehaggresar Senior Backlogged Painter Manager

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    No, if you're rolling multiple dice as is common, you still can have other successes cancelled by your opponents rolls.

    A simple I rolled a 1 gg doesn't work in all situations.

    I'm have a very strong status que preference because
    1. As stated you need to decide whether someone is in cover before the shot to avoid arguments, and
    2. As a matter of good play, you should be thinking in advance about what are good or bad choices, and knowing each target number before you commit the order is important vto improve your play.

    A rule that basically does nothing except allow people to more easily identify crits really doesn't seem like it fixes any problem. (And introduces a host of others such as exceptions or stats over 20.)
     
  8. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    There's validity in changing things to get a different effect without the change fixing a problem, but I don't see a reason to change things just to change them to have what's essentially the same effect...
     
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  9. Papa Bey

    Papa Bey Clueless Wonder. Still.

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    I need a calculated success value because my other dice may also be hits, not just the crit.
     
  10. Just a quick thought.
    If the probability of getting critical is exactly the same and the calculation of the, let's call it ,«target number» (the number that your roll must be less than or equal to (some might call it «crit number»)), it is necessary in both cases...
    Let me ask you. What is the benefit of this proposed change?

    ...
    ...

    And a quick last minute thought,... How do you calculate, with this new proposal, the critic with a «target number» greater than 20?
     
    #50 Pettynyt Pelaaja, Jun 18, 2021
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 18, 2021
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  11. borisgreymenace

    borisgreymenace killer heckler

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    man... friday stochastics... neat...

    i don't really buy the gain here and does seem like it has a veneer of simplicity but creates other problems. if we really wanted this mechanic, doesn't stargrave/frostgrave already have it? why bother to simplify the crit value, keep and keep all the other TN complexity in place? might was well just simplify the whole system, ditch range mods, and most equipment mods, and just have cover/smoke/something that nullifies smoke.

    even if we like all that complexity and depth but not the crit number, it seems like for a new player you'd still have to do 95% of the math work just to save a little bit of effort in (roughly) 5% of the single die outcomes. not much of a win when it requires redoing the entire crit mechanic on an edition that's a year old. fine for a house rule i guess but considering what this ask means in real terms for the company's costs to redo their ruleset and the community's work to relearn it, you need a better argument than "the odds are the same and the pictures on the faction dice mean more." (and no, cb is not going to make up the value of taking a bath on rules design and print layout/books through dice sales).
     
  12. Lawson

    Lawson Well-Known Member

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    Doesn't this start to get weird with CC greater than 20, though? Now you're adding numbers to the beginning of the crit range rather than subtracting from the end, so the math is still there... It's easy to imagine a 1 trumping everything, but having a CC 25 figure Crit-ing on a 6, let's say, when the opponent rolls much higher, is at the very least not any more intuitive than the current system.
     
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  13. psychoticstorm

    psychoticstorm Aleph's rogue child
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    Thread moved to a more suitable location.

    I would like to point out that first of all it is possible to be modified to 0 or under in a stat with modifiers and secondly that would ruin the simple yet effective mechanism of stats over 20, thirdly it is counterintuitive to have the lowest dice number win when the entire scope it to get just right this is a "blackjack" game mechanism.
     
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  14. Sungwon

    Sungwon Well-Known Member

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    I usually guess target values before I make decisions like "flash pulse or dodge?" or "which weapon to use?" to get better odds. Sometimes I guess wrong due to range or other mods, but generally works well for me and I think it helps me to be a better player. So I think there's little benefit from changing crit values. You'll calculate the target value anyway.
     
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  15. Domino25

    Domino25 Well-Known Member

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    I'm coming around on this one. for high numbers I would propose editing the rules:

    "In other cases, a high Attribute or positive MODs to an Attribute can cause the Success Value to be higher than 20. In this case, consider the Success Value to be 20, but with the peculiarity that the player adds the amount by which the Success Value exceeded 20 to his result on the die (a Success Value of 23 would add 3 to the result).

    In these cases, any result greater than 20 on the roll is a Critical, if applicable. Success Values above 20 (either from positive MODs or plainly stated in the Unit Profile) increase the chance of obtaining a Critical result."


    That said, I do see how this would speed up play, specifically if there is no "decision" and you haven't memorized the relevant stat for examples:

    1. Interventor attempts to hack my HI, my only real choice is reset if I'm not a hacker. He knows his Interventor's wip, so when we roll he will know if he hit. If I'm less than him and not 1, or if I roll high like 18 then I don't need to look up this particular units wip. Game moves on without me opening my app or looking at a page.

    2. The swiss guard drops a template on my mixed salad of a link team and I tell my poor fools to dodge. Now there's 5 rolls with 5 different target values to calculate, with 1 as a crit I only need to look up ph for them if he missed or I matched or exceeded his roll.

    3. My warband moves in lof of several units with weapons in bad ranges bands that you haven't quite memorized but are worth taking pot shots with. We could look up the range bands, or just roll to see which ones might matter.
    In each case you still determine cover, and measure distance before the roll. In a simpler game I would see the benefit of doing the math till you remember the related stats and ranges, but that's a big ask for infinity. All things being equal, I'd probably say 1 makes a better crit value. However, I don't know how to judge the value of that improvement vs the cost to change how we do things.
     
  16. solkan

    solkan Well-Known Member

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    Try saying that the way that uses probability:
    5 percent of the time (when you roll a one) there is no need to do any math.
    95 percent of the time (because you didn’t roll a one), you still have to do the math, but now it’s more complicated because in order to preserve probabilities you have to treat equaling the target number losing to all other face-to-face values.

    That’s only a good bargain if you’re using loaded dice. :P

    To point out the issue:
    You’ve got a target number of 15, the other player has a target of 10. You roll a 15, they roll a 9. You’ve changed the probability distribution if that 15 still wins the face-to-face roll against the 9.
     
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  17. Domino25

    Domino25 Well-Known Member

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    If their target number is 15, and crits are on 1 then

    105/400 or 26.25% of the time, they will hit and I don't need to look up my attribute value because I rolled less than them, which is either canceled or an obvious crit.

    20/400 or 5 % of the time, they crit on 1, and I don't need to look up my attribute value to know if I crit or lost

    76/400 or 19% of the time, they didn't crit, and I rolled 17 or over, I don't need to look up my attribute value because I would know if my trooper was anywhere near that amazing at dodging (cough Tuetons cough)

    15/400 or 3.75 % They missed and I rolled a 3 or less. I don't need to look up my attribute value because who fails a dodge with a 3?

    That's a total of 54% of the time I don't need to look up my attribute value, so if 5 guys got hit I'm only trying to recall or look up half of them, which does save a little time/effort.

    High burst face to faces would benefit much less , so we are still talking about a small fraction of the time.


    Look at the table Diphoration, filled out on page 2. I think that's the proof that the probability distribution didn't change.


    *EDIT* Missed the they roll 20 row in my math, updated numbers.
     
    #57 Domino25, Jun 23, 2021
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2021
  18. Diphoration

    Diphoration Well-Known Member
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    You guys wasted more time in this thread than you'd ever save by not looking up your stats when you crit on a 1.

    Stop being lazy, have good etiquette, and figure out your target numbers before rolling the dice so the game state stays clean.

    Lol.
     
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  19. Ugin

    Ugin Well-Known Member
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    Oh yeah, this is important. The more you play, you just get to calculate anyway to find out better odds.
    And so another significant reason to stick to the current system.
     
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  20. Domino25

    Domino25 Well-Known Member

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    Okay.... you nailed it with that one. I'm totally guilty, to which I have the sunk cost fallacy to blame.

    That said:
    1. I don't know what time-traveling machine you rode in here on, but for those of us who got here via 2020, the value of time you have available to actually play in person infinity is a much higher than value of time you have available to spend in front of you computer.

    2. Since you put the time in to do the math on the probability distributions, you should probably change that "You guys" to "Us Guys"

    3. I mean, I'm cool talking about something else infinity related, what would you rather spend our "arguing with strangers on the internet time" discussing. Nomads OP and Mixed fireteams OP seem like popular arguments? I'm really not so much emotionally invested in this as bored.

    4. If we really want to talk about time management, don't we all have unpainted minis we should be dealing with before posting here.

    Pending your response to my previous point #3, and given how far I've fallen to the sunk cost fallacy, I'm going to reply to this as well:

    "figure out your target numbers before rolling the dice so the game state stays clean." implies that crits on 1 would introduce mistakes that lead to bad game states. In the swiss guard pie plate example you can just as easily get into a situation where you realized a turn later that the 7 your fusilier lt rolled was actually a crit because of surprise shot, and so instead of losing to a 14 and dying on the armor saves he should be alive and well. Yes we should remember and properly calculate all rules and target values.... and it does get easier... but the cognitive load isn't trivial.
     
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