[8-bit]

So really, why would anyone ever want to buy hits?

The average amount of hits you get when rolling is 1/3 of your dice pool. Buying hits isn't even 1/4 of your dice pool, it's 1 hit per 4 dice. There's a difference.

Let's say we have 19 dice. If we were to roll average, we would expect 6.33 hits; rounded down to 6 hits. Buying hits would only result in 4 hits, as you don't round up your dice pool to get that final hit. 2 hits is a fairly large difference, and those 6 hits are if we roll average, we could roll above average and get more! While it's true you can roll below average, buying hits doesn't seem to be an excuse to me, because it's already below average.

I've heard the argument that people would rather take less hits than risk a glitch. Except the times when you would buy hits, you are extremely unlikely to glitch. Let's see a few examples.

- 20 dice; 5 hits when you buy hits; 6.67 hits average (rounded up to 7) | The chance to get a glitch = 0.0000000534% (1 in 1,871,953,121); a critical glitch = 0.000000000538% (1 in 185,752,092,672)
- 10 dice; 2 hits when you buy hits; 3.33 hits average (rounded down to 3) | The chance to get a glitch = 0.00103% (1 in 96,745.88); a critical glitch = 0.000134% (1 in 746496)
- 5 dice; 1 hit when you buy hits; 1.67 hits average (rounded up to 2) | The chance to get a glitch = 0.322% (1 in 311); a critical glitch = 0.116% (1 in 864)

The chances of glitching are not really that high until you get down to 1-8 dice, but you would be unlikely to buy hits in those cases anyway.

The last reason to cover is time. It takes less time to buy hits than roll dice, and I agree. Except that rolling dice does not take that long. If you know the number of dice, then using a dice roller is extremely quick. If you have to use physical dice, it still does not take too long to roll dice, plus, it's kind of fun. I can see, from a GM perspective, why buying hits would be useful, but I don't see why a player would ever purposefully gimp themselves on the odds just to save 5-30 seconds.


So, to conclude.

Buying hits gimps yourself of hits, since even average is better than buying hits, due to the way they completely removed rounding from the equation. Unless you manage to get extremely below average, you're already below average with buying hits. Glitching is extremely rare, except in the 1-8 dice range, but you probably wouldn't be buying hits then anyway. It's also faster, but less useful for a player, so there is pretty much no reason to buy hits ever.

Again, why would anyone ever want to buy hits, since all of the above is true? The only honest answer I can come up with is that it is faster, but I just really cannot see why someone would purposefully play to lose with their dice; as that's just guaranteed to put you in a bad spot. If you're guaranteed to succeed on a test with bought hits, then rolling shouldn't even come up; and I guess that's the point of the rule: to quantify when you shouldn't even bother rolling. Other than that, it seems completely useless.

The only way I could ever see myself buying hits is if they at least use the Shadowrun rule of rounding up. That way 17 dice becomes 5 hits, instead of 4, or 19 dice becomes 5 hits, instead of 4. That would keep it much closer to average, while still being slightly off due to the convenience and inability to glitch. That way, you don't start losing 2 hits (compared to average) just because your pool is 1 die off of getting the next hit.


So, anyone have any ideas? Because, clearly, I cannot see the point of the rule.

[Kincaid]

It speeds up gameplay when you would otherwise have to roll dice to accomplish trivial tasks.  My face can buy 4 hits for most social rolls, so for non-plot related interactions, we just use that as a benchmark for what he can do walking around without putting much thought or effort into things.  He buys 2-3 hits for a ton of languages, so we use that to represent the level of complexity with which he can speak without a problem (obviously, if he's trying to use a social skill, other rules apply).

[Malevolence]

1. If excess hits are unnecessary and you can auto-succeed by buying hits, it makes a safe means of just performing a task. If there is a risk of failure and failure has a consequence other than taking more time and time is not of the essence, this allows foregoing a roll. If failing carries meaningful consequence, the GM is unlikely to allow you to buy hits anyway.
2. For missions, or other cases where you may have multiple GMs and need to perform actions that provide semi-permanent results, it helps prevent abuse and cheating. Essentially, any roll not done in the presence of a GM should be done with bought hits, and for things like missions, downtime rolls must use bought hits so that things remain consistent.


Case one is the only case where a player would opt to buy hits. All other times would likely be the result of GM requirements. There might be some odd edge cases where a player would benefit from it, but I can't think of any.

[Whiskeyjack]

It's just a way to speed things up. I usually do it to speed up the process of recovering from Drain after a summon/bind session. In most cases it's a lot easier to just say "oh I heal 3 stun an hour with buying hits, so I'm fine after a three hour nap" than it is to roll to heal until you're full up. You don't get anything from healing over your box cap after all.

[incrdbil]

Its often for a 'make this check or else' type test, where success means you maintain the status quo, and you get no meaningful benefit from extra successes.

The reason for the reduction is that you are (and should) pay a price for the security of a guaranteed result. After all, there is an element of risk; you aren't assured 1 success per three dice, its just an average. You trade your 33% chance of a success per dice to a lower rate of 25% per dice because you are eliminating fluke luck: its sort of like paying insurance against evil dice gods giving you a ridiculous numbers of ones and no fives or sixes on a high dice pool.

[LordGrizzle]

In my experience it is also about psychology and luck. I do have players who just buy hits because they had an unlucky streak that evening. Even IF statistically they should succeed in a task I have seen players roll 1 hit on 15 dice more than once in quick succession, sometimes the odds are just against you. And in such situation that player will start buying hits whenever he or she can.

[Marcus]

If you don't roll you can't Glitch. Remember that Glitching and success is possible, and the lower your pool the more likely you are to glitch. So if one hit is a success, and you have the pool to buy, its safer to just buy the hits, then risk the glitch.

[firebug]

I see it used for two reasons:

1) When an action with a large dice pool is being attempted, but we know the player will be successful.  An example being a melee troll breaking down a door with some 20+ dice.  As GM, I know if the threshold is 5 or less, that there's not much point in rolling and will tell the player his character succeeds.  This is also used in things like when the hacker is, during downtime, doing something non-illegal but relatively minor like looking up something for fun.

2) When a player knows the can do well enough by buying hits, and isn't willing to risk getting unlucky.  The thing about average is that it is the most common, but also that it is equally as likely to roll higher as it is lower.  Or am I wrong?  My point is, I have at least one player who, especially when dealing with hacking (where getting extra hits is not as useful as failing is detrimental) would rather know there is an absolute 100% chance he will get this many hits, rather than risk whatever the chance is of him getting less.

I put them in order of how reasonable I think they are.  I personally would only do it to save time for the reasons I have above.  But the rule needs to exist as such, because the idea is that it isn't supposed to replace rolling your dice.  That's why the exchange is worse.  If it were always your average, then it'd replace normal rolling more than the designers want.

[ZeConster]

The thing about averages is that they're only just that: averages. You can still roll poorly. As a quick example, with 16 dice you still have a 16.59% chance of not hitting a threshold of 4. Buying hits reduces that to 0%.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Pretty much what ZeConster said - 'average' means that roughly one time in six (apparently) you're going to be getting whacked across both kneecaps and get under what you could have bought.  Glitch, no, but simply and severely sub-optimal rolling.  Everyone who's played shadowrun has seen it happen - the 12- or 15- or 25-dice-pool roll that not only failed to hit one in four, but came up with only 1 or 2 hits total.  Buying hits can dodge that bullet.

[Belker]

For that matter, I've seen an 18-die pool Critical Glitch in one of my games recently - no successes, and ten 1s. Fortunately it wasn't the character wielding the monowhip.

[jonathanc]

buying hits is a time-saving manuever. It's essentially a guideline for GMs to determine when they can simply handwave a test instead of making the players roll.

[Tirwalker]

Pretty much what everyone else has said.  You don't buy hits for high stress situations like combat.  Its a quick measure of what a character can do in a typical low stress situations.  For example, if a character can but a hit with etiquette I take it to basically mean they have basic social pleasantries down, and thus you don't have to make them roll unless its an unusual situation, like trying to convince the receptionist in the corp office that you really are from headquarters downtown. 

[8-bit]

Hmm, so it's basically the equivalent of Take 10 from D&D. Just a way to measure when rolling dice is unnecessary or perform decently well without a chance of a screw up.

I suppose that makes sense. Thanks for all the answers, everyone!

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Hm.  Can you buy hits in combat?  I never gave it a thought, but if you think about it, like a 'Taking 10' in D&D, bought hits can (or could) be used as a benchmark for how readily you can do any particular thing - your baseline average, or even minimal, level.  For example, someone with the 16 dice that ZeConster mentioned can be understood to do '4-hits well' without really trying.  Granted, that's without being unlucky, too, but ...