Adventure Game Engine - Stunt Die and Advanced Tests
Although related to stunt points, the stunt die is the base of that system. Stunt points could be seen as stunt die doubles, which implies there could be stunt die triple perhaps theoretically. We will stick to stunt die and how it works with advanced tests.
Stunt Die Fundamentals
Here is the a graph of average stunt die result as compared to different TN values. The stunt die has the counter-intuitive pattern of higher results being more likely with success which is a result of that higher number contributing more significantly to the success itself
As the TN increases the overall average goes down, but the stunt die result on a success goes up. That's the un-intuitive part. Some key data from those curves are the TN 11 values.
- TN 11 Overall Average - 2.15
- TN 11 Success Average - 4.31
With those values we can start looking at pacing for advanced tests which take the sum of stunt die results over a number of rolls.
Advanced Tests
These type of tests represent longer tests over time. Instead of just counting the number of successes toward a goal Fantasy AGE counts the stunt die results toward that goal. This adds another layer of randomness to the outcome which is neither good or bad, it's just more and requires extra effort to understand.
The existing Advanced Tests table has five rows from easy to formidable with a success threshold of the total stunt die results needed to pass the test. The "easy" difficulty has a threshold of 9 in second edition. Using the TN11 Success Average of 4.31 we know that it will take 9/4.31 = 2.1 successful tests to complete. That by itself sounds reasonable but if your "easy" is for a TN11 test you will likely need twice as many rolls to account for failures. So in real time the player will need to roll on average about 4 times to complete an "easy" TN11 based advanced test. In contrast the "formidable" version requires a total of 30 which is about 7 success rolls or 14 rolls in total. For the five included in the rules:
- Easy - Threshold 9 - 4.2 rolls
- Average - Threshold 12 - 5.5 rolls
- Challenging - Threshold 18 - 8.3 rolls
- Hard - Threshold 24 - 11.1 rolls
- Formidable Threshold 30 - 13.9 rolls
I don't know if those "words" make sense to other game masters but I would rather design an activity around the number of rolls, or player effort needed. Another thing missing from the table is threshold given a TN difficulty. The previous example was for TN11 (or a test difference of 0, IE TN 13 but you have plus two is the same as a flat TN11). So lets build the ultimate advanced tests chart where the GM can pick the TN and the number of rounds for the test and it gives you the threshold.
Those numbers have a minimum threshold of 1 since you can't have a threshold of less than one on a success. I have also rounded up to the nearest threshold. There are some threshold really small so anything less than 0.5 is not reported as a legitimate advanced test. Maybe just stay away all the ones with a 1 threshold. From the table you can find a better match for the table in the FAGE 2e rules and give it an actual TN.
- Easy - Threshold 9 - TN 9 - 3 Rounds
- Average - Threshold 12 - TN 9 - 4 Rounds
- Challenging - Threshold 18 - TN 9 - 6 Rounds
- Hard - Threshold 24 - TN 9 - 8 Rounds
- Formidable - Threshold 30 - TN 9 - 10 Rounds
OK... I didn't do that on purpose. You can check the table yourself, the first 9 I found was on TN 9 and all the other ones also show up on that line perfectly as well. It may be coincidence or maybe it was designed, hard to say. Either way it seems to be either assuming a low level before level 6 where you are allowed to use your focus to add to the stunt die OR just assuming a +2 modifier in general. Let's look at the table with the plus two focus modifier. Go to the following google spreadsheet and replace the "plus" modifier in yellow with a 2.
AGE Advance Test Thresholds - Google Sheets
This table doesn't care where you get your modifiers. Let's say the first table is with +2 ability score and this table is with +2 focus so we can stay on the TN9 line and compare. What you will notice is that all the thresholds went up. It goes up because we are keeping the pace the same and you earn more stunt die points so the cost has to go up to compensate.
- Easy - up from 9 to 14
- Average - up from 12 to 18
- Challenging - up from 18 to 27
- Hard - up from 24 to 36
- Formidable - up from 30 to 44
On the other hand, keeping the original difficulty at TN9 and giving a +2 focus on top of that brings the difficulty down to a TN7. To see how much easier this made the original test we will look at the new TN7 row and try and find the number of rounds that best match the same threshold and round up to the nearest number of rounds.
- Easy - down from 3 to 2 rounds
- Average - down from 4 to 3 rounds (almost actually three since it was 11 threshold, but roundup)
- Challenging - down from 6 to 4 rounds
- Hard - down from 8 to 5 rounds
- Formidable - down from 10 to 6 rounds
Threshold for Multiple Participants
If several characters are contributing to the threshold I can recommend the following.
- If the intent is that the additional characters make the action faster, change nothing
- If the intent is to keep the difficult the same you can:
- multiply the threshold by the number of actions per turn
- add additional threshold specifically for each additional characters, so if some one really good comes in figure out the right threshold which will more than double the threshold, or if someone really bad helps, then the threshold amount will be smaller and less than double.
- If lots of people are supposed to help, then use your judgement for a TN that falls somewhere between the best and worst participant and find the right threshold and times by the number of participants.
Comments
Post a Comment