Piecemeal System Reviews: Saving Throws in D&D and related systems

First Encounters

To be honest, I didn't hate saving throws at first. D&D was the only RPG I'd ever played, so I figured that saving throws were how you handled certain things.

Sadly, it was the vagueness of what those "certain things" were what initially gave me trouble. Unless it was explicitly stated in the rulebook, I didn't call for saving throws. And because of that it was hard for me to judge when -- in an adventured I'd created -- something would get a saving throw unless such a thing was stated in the monster description, or spell description, or magic item description.

I was very young back then, didn't really get the idea of 'guidelines' as opposed to 'rules', and even when that was brought up, didn't know when you could 'guidelines' something or stick to the rules because the other folks I played with would then attack with very rudimentary rules lawyering arguments.

Failed Save = Death

Eventually, a growing dissonance between the hit point mechanic and the saving throw mechanic emerged in my mind. It was too easy to die by failing a saving throw in comparison to melee combat.

You had two chances to avoid certain death: (1) a botched attack roll; or (2) a low enough damage roll, as opposed to the classic "save vs. poison or die" scenario, where a single die roll decided everything.

It was because of this, and the fact that I didn't really understand when a given saving throw would be applicable ("don't I get a saving throw vs. death every time I'm about to die?" "do I save vs. wands or save vs. magic in this instance?") I eventually began playing to avoid any situations where a saving throw might be needed - but still held the mechanic in contempt.

Departure and Return

Saving throws become a non-issue when I eventually left the system and began my march through many different RPG systems, some of which stayed with me (HERO), some of which I never wrapped my mind around (Cyborg Commando).

Then 3rd Edition happened, and there were only three saving throws -- Fortitude, Reflexes, and Willpower -- which didn't matter so much to me as a simplification, but as a revelation. I finally realized the whole character class + racial bonus/penalty = your chance to avoid something nasty. After that, I had little issue with saving throws as a mechanic.

Expanding on the Saving Throw (M&M, True20, C&C)

I've actually been interested in some of the variants on the saving throw rule since. In particular, I like Mutants & Masterminds / True20 and the way that the extended the saving throw rule to handle damage and eliminate hit points. I also like the way Castles & Crusades extended the number of classic saving throws to six so that there could be a correlation with each stat.

I wonder what other uses this old mechanic has in store in the future?

Piecemeal System Review: Top Secret / S.I.

There's not a lot I remember about this RPG. I think remember it more for the default setting it tried to create around it -- and I remember I was more interested in the F.R.E.E.Lancer setting which was more meta-human paramilitary operatives rather than movie-style espionage by the Orion Foundation against the evil super-agency called WEB.

I remember that I liked the percentile mechanic in combat -- regular roll tells you if you succeed or fail, the 1's dice in the same roll indicates the hit location.

I wasn't as much a fan of the full %, half %, quarter % mechanic that they advocated for handling skill difficulties, because I wondered why unskilled people didn't suffer as big a penalty in difficult situations as really skilled people did!

I mean, a guy with 80% skill is dropped by half to 40%; that's a -40%! Whereas a dabbler with a puny 2% skill is dropped by half to 1%; that's only a -1% penalty! The dabbler sucks so badly that increased difficulty in combat still gives him about the same chance?

Of course, at least in this game the martial arts rules were changed from the original table-based combat system for HTH. And I remember that I felt the font size (though I didn't know the term at the time) was too large for the book. I felt that I'd gotten less rules for what I'd paid for.

Piecemeal System Review: Damage in Fuzion

Rules Pedigree

Fuzion Core Rules (at least, the last official version of the rules, which was 5.02), inherited rules from two sources: the Hero System (by Hero Games), and the Interlock System (by R. Talsorian). This ruleset owes much to both, and there was even a conversion system with some designer's comments on the rules decisions.

And I was a fan of both. Interestingly, I was more of a Hero System fan than an Interlock System fan BUT, I loved the settings that R. Talsorian came up with. The parallels between the systems were interesting, but I found that the most interesting things for me in the system were some of the ways they handled damage.

Basics

As far as damage is concerned, it's split into two types of "hit points": Stun and Hits.

Stun is the amount of stunning damage you can take before being knocked unconscious.
Hits are the amount of killing damage you can take before you start dying.

Both are x5 multiplier on another Primary Stat, quite different from another lesser "damage stat" called Resistance which is based on a x3 multiplier.

Aside from that, on the basic level, it's not much different from hit points mechanics-wise.

Why do I like it? Well, I've always liked this damage philosophy from the early Champions / Hero System days, because at some point I became dissatisfied with hit points and some different mechanic for handling knocking someone out (Gasp! Blasphemy!) and the whole percentile system for assassination.

I realized at that age I was looking for a game system that somehow hewed closer to my limited understanding of combat physics. Now while I couldn't really handle Phoenix Command / Living Steel / Stalking The Night Fantastic rules (too complicated), the AD&D and then AD&D 2nd Ed rules abstractions seemed to run counter to my tastes.

Complications

Fuzion follows the philosophy that armor should reduce damage, as well as the philosophy that there is inherent toughness that reduces damage -- as opposed to the D&D philosophy that it be bundled with the To Hit resolution.

Stun Defense reduces stun damage. Formula is Stun damage minus Stun Defense equals Stun taken.
Killing Defense reduces killing damage. Formula is Killing damage minus Killing Defense equals Hits taken (well, they didn't use Kills because that's reserved for high level megadamage as per Mekton -- an Interlock game for giant robots).

I also like this, because I appreciate the way you can differentiate creatures that can be super-tough vs. punches and kicks yet totally defenseless against guns -- while other creatures can bounce bullets but not rocket launchers and so on.

Fuzion also brings in the concept of damage statuses from Hero:

• take more than 1/2 Stun from a single attack, and you're Stunned -- lose your next Action;
• take more than 1/2 Hits, and you're Impaired -- take a penalty to your Primary Attributes.

And there's the concept of damage rollover from each type of damage into the other:

• for every 5 points of Stun taken, take 1 point of Hits damage;
• for every 5 points of Hits taken, take 1 point of Stun damage.

The logic is plausible, and is a bit more simplified than same concept in the Hero System.

I also enjoy these in the game, because they add some interesting combat texture and tactical concerns for the  player. Plus the plausibility helps reinforce that sort of "action movie" logic for an RPG.

Overall, I liked these rules elements, though I feel that the rules could have been written more consistently and clearly.

Piecemeal System Review: Sanity in Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu

Everyone knows that in the Call of Cthulhu RPG, when you see something sanity-blasting: a murder, a giant severed head falling down from the heavens, a fairy, or even Great Cthulhu himself, you lose sanity from your Sanity stat. When you drop down to zero, you go insane. Kind of like hit points, right?

Not quite.

Starting Sanity and Hit Points
While Sanity and Hit Points operate largely the same (you can pretty much operate at full capacity while you have some points in either). However starting values are different. In the RPG, your hit points are based on the average between two stats -- which normally top out at 18, while your Sanity is based on a single stat (POW) multiplied by 5. In general, you have way more Sanity Points than Hit Points but jumping to the conclusion that it's easier to die than go insane is misleading; there are extra rules governing one's sanity.

When you take physical damage, you roll the damage dice, total it up, and subtract it from your current hit points. If you have any left, you're alive and can keep on keepin' on.

The first Call of Cthulhu
book I ever owned 

When you see something sanity-threatening, you're asked to make a percentile roll against your current sanity value. If you make it, you lose sanity equal to the lower sanity loss dice of whatever you saw. If you don't make it, you lose sanity equal to the higher sanity loss dice of whatever you saw.

For example, if you saw something truly nasty, the ratings are (1D10/1D100) Sanity loss. Make the sanity check, and you only lose a maximum of 10 sanity from your total. Blow the sanity check, and you could lose 100 sanity. That's bad because...

Permanent Insanity and Temporary Insanity
The maximum possible value for your sanity is 99 (more on why later). Lose 100 sanity points means instant permanent insanity and NPC-dom for your former Player Character.

But even if you do make your Sanity roll, and lose only 10 Sanity... there a chance you could go temporarily insane. You compare your total Sanity loss in a short time period against one of your stats (which doesn't go higher in normal characters than either 18 or 21 -- I forget which -- and averages around the 10 to 12 range) and if it exceeds... you must check if can FAIL an Idea roll.

An Idea roll is an interesting old school mechanic meant to reflect that while the Player may not be able to think of something, his or her smarter character might. If after losing too much Sanity a PC FAILS the Idea roll, he or she does NOT understand the full import of what was seen and is okay. If the PC succeeds the Ideal roll, the he or she does and goes temporarily insane.

In other words, remaining sane in this game is not only a mixture of prudence and cunning game play, it's also a matter of luck and some timely (or inherent) character stupidity.

Maximum Sanity
The maximum possible Sanity for a PC is 99 minus the amount of Cthulhu Mythos knowledge the character has. This means that the more a character learns about the secrets of the mythos, the less likely he or she is to be sane. To be an expert in Cthulhu Mythos is to threaten one's sanity.

I bring this up, not only because I'm fascinated how the mechanics have been able to echo the logic seen in the stories, and how being too smart and too brave and too knowledgeable in the game can threaten one's character. All these things are important to successful completions of adventures, but in a game where you really can die quite easily, there's a mechanic that makes you question whether or not you really do need more information, and whether or not you can handle it -- or if some other character should shoulder the burden for at least a little while.