But then I thought - why not tax the party's time?
In OSR games, time is a finite resource - same as light, rations, or hit points - that must be managed by the party, spent one turn at a time to progress the adventure. Puzzle preventing forward movement? Takes time to solve. Guardians in wait that have to be fought or circumvented? Takes time - both options.
In this spirit of the game, I submit the intentional Time Tax Thief.
Thief Skills as a Time Tax
When resolving a Thief skill, roll a percentile die as normal: however, when identifying the potential to succeed, multiply the Thief's chance of success by their level - hence referred to as their net success rate - making a note of each multiple. The roll succeeds if it is equal to or less than the calculated net success rate - however it takes a number of turns (or other appropriate increment of time) equal to the multiple corresponding to the roll. For example, a Thief of level 3 attempting to Move Silently through a 120' space, a span equating to 1 turn of movement in a dungeon, would roll accordingly:
- A result of 1 to 30 would succeed, taking 1 turn.
- A result of 31 to 60 would also succeed, taking 2 turns.
- A result of 61 to 90 would likewise succeed, taking 3 turns.
- A result of 91 to 100 would result in a failure.
A natural roll of 100 on the percentile dice will always result in a failure, typically on the first turn of the attempt, but subject to the discretion of the referee.
Likewise at the discretion of the referee, the failure may take a number of turns proportional to the margin of failure - though for simplicity, the referee may be encouraged to set the time-tax for failure at a single turn.
If a total failure occurs - that is, the roll is a natural 100 or outside the net success rate of the rolling Thief - the Thief fails as normal, per rules as written.
Uncertain Timing (optional)
Instead of having the player roll the percentile skill, the referee rolls the dice for the player in secret. Then, according to the roll, they reference how many turns are required for success: counting up, allowing the player the choice to continue or to stop trying. For example, a level 3 Thief is attempting to remove a trap. In secret, the referee rolls a 67 - resulting in a failure:
The player opts to continue.
"A further ten minutes pass; the mechanism is more complex than most. You still do not feel it is disarmed."
The referee rolls for a wandering monster - a 5: undisturbed to continue.
"Do you continue?"
The player opts to continue.
"A final ten minutes pass - and you are able to determine the trigger, itself, is embedded deeper in the wall. You will be unable to disarm this trap. Caller, how does the party proceed?"
If the referee, in this situation, had rolled a 57 instead of 67 - of course
- on the third turn would inform the player that the trap
was disarmed: as a 57 would be within a level 3 Thief's net success
range.
Exploding Failures (optional)
Instead of treating a natural roll of 100 as an automatic failure, instead, the referee may opt to have the Thief - or, the ref themselves, may - roll again: adding the second result to the first. This continues on each subsequent roll of 100, likewise adding to the final result, increasing the net chance to succeed above 100% for Thieves of sufficient level.
For example, a level 6 Thief attempting to remove a trap has a chance of succeeding after between 1 and 3 turns:
- 0-40, 1 turn
- 41-80, 2 turns
- 81-99, 3 turns
- Failure on a roll of 100
Using the Exploding Failures option, the Thief could take as many as 6 turns to succeed (or to fail!):
- 0-40, 1 turn
- 41-80, 2 turns
- 81-120 (the dice having exploded at 100), 3 turns
- 121-160, 4 turns
- 161-200, 5 turns
- 201-240 (the dice having exploded again at 200), 6 turns
- Failure on a roll of 241 or above
Under this option, Thieves of 4th level and higher are even less likely to
fail than in the standard method: but the potential time tax imposed on them
for that higher success chance likewise increases - stretching even for
hours!
Some skills, under this method, make more thematic sense than others; it is at
the referee's discretion as to how and where they best apply at their table.
More notably - however - this creates a situation where the lamp oil and
henchmen's nerve slowly whittle away without an abundance of re-attempts:
streamlining on a single toss of the dice.
The Math Part
Notably, at first level, this method does not help the Thief at all. A first level Thief is still unlikely to be able to succeed in almost any of their given skills under pressure. However, because the rate of net success rather than immediate success increases rapidly thereafter, an added emphasis is placed on the Thief's generous experience progression table.
The net chance of success - that is succeeding, but not necessarily on the first turn - is as follows:
|
|
By level 4, under this system, the Thief is virtually guaranteed - 99% chance, running by the standard suggested approach - to succeed at every skill they have... eventually.
But how long will it take them to succeed? By level, a Thief will take an average number of turns to succeed (assuming a success) as follows:
|
|
These numbers are close, but approximate - for example, Open Locks or Remove
Traps at level 3, being capable of failure,
should have an average turns to
succeed of 2, as each multiple of the base chance has an equal chance of being
rolled - but I only have so much patience debugging Libre Calc macros and
these numbers are close enough to provide a weighted gauge.
If the reader is better at statistics than the author, as always, please feel free to pipe up!
Considering this average, how long can a task skill check to succeed? Depending on level, a skill success will take between 1 and 4 turns. For example, Open Locks and using the B/X + OSE Thief progression succeeds as follows:
- The minimum number of turns required is 1. This represents a traditional success.
- The maximum number of turns that can result in success is 2 or 3 at levels 2 and 3, respectively.
- The maximum number of turns that can be taken by any Thief to accomplish a task is 4 at level 4: a roll of 0-30 taking 1 turn, a roll of 31-60 taking 2 turns, a roll of 61-90 taking 3 turns, and a roll of 91-99 taking 4 turns.
- The maximum number of turns for a Thief of level 5 or 6, following the arithmetic, is 3.
- From level 7, the percent chance of a first-turn success exceeds 50% for the first time and - thus - will take a maximum of 2 turns to succeed.
-
At level 14, when the percent chance reaches 99 - the maximum threshold -
the Thief will take 1 turn to succeed or will fail.
You said "B/X + OSE Thief progression." Why? To some referees, the prospect of an auto-success in average 2 turns may seem a bit overpowered. For that reason, those tables are encouraged to reduce the base success chance: knowing that the focus is less on success and failure, success chance rising exponentially and the focus thus aiming at the amount of time it takes. The most obvious existing product with which readers may be familiar that does exactly this is the Mentzer Basic line - BECMI, as independent booklets, or compiled in the Rules Cyclopedia.
Using the latter, a Thief - levels 1 to 14, comparing apples and apples to the B/X level range - can expect a net chance of success as follows:
|
|
... over an average number of turns as follows:
|
|
Notably, "Find Traps" and "Remove Traps" are two skills in Rules Cyclopedia, whereas B/X provides only "Remove Traps" - but a dive into that conversation is peripheral to the purpose of this post. More relevantly, we see that the level at which a Thief reaches 99% success rate in all of their skills has increased to 5, rather than 4, and comparing Open Locks to Open locks, you're still looking at between 1 and 4 turns to succeed: with level 5 marking the shift in the curve, taking at most three turns:
- 0-35 succeeds in 1 turn
- 36-70 succeeds in 2 turns
- 71-99 succeeds in 3 turns
- 100 results in failure
What we do see, the average turns to succeed - using a reduced progression as
BECMI is to B/X - curves downward more gradually after its peak.
For example,
looking at Move Silently, the peak average time tax occurs at level 4 - 2.24
turns - but by level 8, the B/X progression results in an average time tax of
1.36 turns where a BECMI progression results in an average time tax of
1.49 turns.
How much of a difference would that make? Depends on how often Moving Silently comes up during your sessions. Moral of the story? It means they will take longer to do it - they will consume more torches, they will encounter more wandering monsters, and they will have to consider accordingly before pulling the skill trigger: and that's a better injection of player agency.
Delve on, readers - may the percentiles fall in your favor!
Public domain artwork retrieved from OldBookIllustrations.com or the National Gallery of Art and adapted for thematic use. Attribution in alt text.
No comments:
Post a Comment