[Shinobi Killfist]

It has been a while since statistics, but the 4 dice to 9 dice is one of the harder set ups available to the low skill guy.  If he had a 8 agility and was rolling 9 dice to the oppositions 14 I suspect it would be more than a 10% swing.  And I kind of think the 9 dice to 14 dice thing happens a lot more in games than the average attribute+skill happens.  And honestly it isn't about beating him, it is the not much better part of it the grabs me.  3 hits to 5 hits on average in my example, yeah 5 hits is better but it really doesn't feel that much better to me.  I'm not expecting him to beat the master, but I am also not expecting him to do almost as well.  What we have is sure its very rare for him to beat the master, but he usually does almost as well, and in a lot of cases all the master got was style points.  About the only place I see the extra dice pan out is in extended tests and even then not to the degree they should.  I just think a novice should be blown away by what a master can do, but with crap tons of your pool in fact most of your pool coming from other sources a novice is at best mildly impressed by a master. 

[Glorthoron]

Now here is another possibility.  I mentioned it before, and I really don't know how well it would work.  Heck, I probably wouldn't use it, but here's the jist of it.

Use the skill rating not only as dice, but as a limit for bonus dice from each individual source.

Therefore; a skill of 3 would only allow 3 of your 5 attribute dice, 3 dice from tech and 3 dice from magic.  Defaulting would be half the attribute.

Like I said, I don't know how it would work, but if someone is looking for something different, this could be an option.

[Lethe]

A couple of 100k-MonteCarlos telling me its 10% for the beginner, 15% tie, and 75% elite. 4 dice vs. 9 dice

Not that I don't believe you, in fact you are probably right, but can you show me the math?

I probably could, but no time and too lazy. That's why i used Monte Carlo in the first place.

If he had a 8 agility and was rolling 9 dice to the oppositions 14 I suspect it would be more than a 10% swing.

With 8 agility it would be Master vs. Ubermaster. Sure there is a difference in skill, or the description thereof. But it would be more then we could ever explain by RL experience. And getting other boni (through technology) that increase the dicepool, could easily be interpreted as an increase in skill. Also win/tie/lose ratio is only slightly shifted with 9 dice vs. 14 dice: 17%/13%/70%.

[Mirikon]

I don't imagine that swaggering swordsmen satisfying their ego about the quality of a blade, or rather doing so by slicing up unarmed and defenseless people, comes up real often during your average martial art training class (unless it's time to really break in the new students).

Whether or not he's mentioned it, that sort of thing did happen.  And it didn't only happen to criminals (hi there, Nanking).

Actually, it was a means of executing condemned prisoners and testing the quality of your sword at the same time. Feudal Japan was not a place you wanted to get on the wrong side of the law in.

[Glorthoron]

I don't imagine that swaggering swordsmen satisfying their ego about the quality of a blade, or rather doing so by slicing up unarmed and defenseless people, comes up real often during your average martial art training class (unless it's time to really break in the new students).

Whether or not he's mentioned it, that sort of thing did happen.  And it didn't only happen to criminals (hi there, Nanking).

Actually, it was a means of executing condemned prisoners and testing the quality of your sword at the same time. Feudal Japan was not a place you wanted to get on the wrong side of the law in.

Gotta give them points for efficiency though.

[Shinobi Killfist]

With 8 agility it would be Master vs. Ubermaster. Sure there is a difference in skill, or the description thereof. But it would be more then we could ever explain by RL experience. And getting other boni (through technology) that increase the dicepool, could easily be interpreted as an increase in skill. Also win/tie/lose ratio is only slightly shifted with 9 dice vs. 14 dice: 17%/13%/70%.

Yeah but 8 stats are fairly common in this game and since this thread is about a optional rule to increase the relevance of skills using more in game realistic numbers seems more appropriate than creating a set of numbers you wont find in the game very often and then saying everything is okay.  So in actual play the difference between a low skill guy and high skill guy comes across as kind of small to me, on top of the skill seeming to have less importance than I'd in the grand thing scheme of things.  Anyways that seems like a fairly large shift to me, but that is a matter of perspective, and besides as I said one of the issues is while the high skill guy will almost always beat the low skill guy he just doesn't do that much better.  he does 2 boxes more damage he escapes from manacles in 2 minutes instead of 3(using my 8 attribute, 3 instead of 8 with a 3 attribute) etc.   

[Lethe]

Yeah but 8 stats are fairly common in this game and since this thread is about a optional rule to increase the relevance of skills using more in game realistic numbers seems more appropriate than creating a set of numbers you wont find in the game very often and then saying everything is okay.  So in actual play the difference between a low skill guy and high skill guy comes across as kind of small to me, on top of the skill seeming to have less importance than I'd in the grand thing scheme of things.  Anyways that seems like a fairly large shift to me, but that is a matter of perspective, and besides as I said one of the issues is while the high skill guy will almost always beat the low skill guy he just doesn't do that much better.  he does 2 boxes more damage he escapes from manacles in 2 minutes instead of 3(using my 8 attribute, 3 instead of 8 with a 3 attribute) etc.   

You right saying it depends on the perspective, but same goes for the comparisons.

If you want the high skilled person to shine, you shouldn't compare him too a low skilled person based on an action easy for both of them. Shooting with a gun is very easy. Shooting at point blank range at a tin can, how much better can the elite be than a beginner, who will hit easily as well. Beating him with 2 boxes of damage, where there actually wouldn't be any improvement possible might seem like a miracle already.

But for a real comparison, to really see the difference in skill, you need to spice it up. "target moves modifier", "attacker moves modifier", "visibility modifier", "distance modifier". And suddenly you have a dice pool of 0 vs. a dice pool of 5, where it is impossible for the beginner to hit anymore, but for the elite its still quite easy.

Same for escaping manacles. "Being watched modifier", "carefully restrained modifier", and maybe even a "wound modifier" and the beginner can't escape at all, while the master is gone in 5 minutes. 5 dice can make a very big difference if applied to the right situation.


But the other argument here was, that high attributes can make up for low skill. For that i agree with other opinions here, that at least for skills which can't default, which means that skill can't be replaced, you could limit the hits to skill+1 or only use as many attribute dice as you have skill. Both are nice options to pronounce the importance of skill.

[Zilfer]

With 8 agility it would be Master vs. Ubermaster. Sure there is a difference in skill, or the description thereof. But it would be more then we could ever explain by RL experience. And getting other boni (through technology) that increase the dicepool, could easily be interpreted as an increase in skill. Also win/tie/lose ratio is only slightly shifted with 9 dice vs. 14 dice: 17%/13%/70%.

Yeah but 8 stats are fairly common in this game and since this thread is about a optional rule to increase the relevance of skills using more in game realistic numbers seems more appropriate than creating a set of numbers you wont find in the game very often and then saying everything is okay.  So in actual play the difference between a low skill guy and high skill guy comes across as kind of small to me, on top of the skill seeming to have less importance than I'd in the grand thing scheme of things.  Anyways that seems like a fairly large shift to me, but that is a matter of perspective, and besides as I said one of the issues is while the high skill guy will almost always beat the low skill guy he just doesn't do that much better.  he does 2 boxes more damage he escapes from manacles in 2 minutes instead of 3(using my 8 attribute, 3 instead of 8 with a 3 attribute) etc.   

No offense but 2 boxes of damage can make all the difference. xD trust me.