3.5/P Edge Rolls?

[Hanuman]

Hi guys, anyone happen to know if there are any good "edge roll" systems for 3.5 or P?

Edge rolls are basically an on-table luck roll for "if bad things happen out of the players control", the way this is different than black curtain DMing is that the players can have finite luck bonuses that effect events that the DM constructs in the background such as guard patrols and the like.

If there isn't one then I'd like to construct one.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

To my knowledge I have never seen such a thing. I'm a bit wary of it though, to be honest. I'm not sure I like having dice dictate how my campaign runs. I'd be much more comfortable with Fate points or some such mechanics that players can spend to avoid or create certain situations and turn the game into something they'd enjoy more.

In my mind, the power should be in the DM's hands and/or the player's hands. I'd rather keep dice out of the picture entirely, since they already dictate success and failure. Having them have a hand in the plot as well seems...to random, I guess.

[Km0nk3y]

Shadowrun 4e uses an Edge system, I believe that is what he is talking about.

Unlike DnD where an ability score is 3-18, in Shadowrun it is 1-6. A special ability in Shadowrun is called Edge, which somewhat represents luck or action surges (Humans get +1 edge as their only bonus).

In SR, you can "Use Edge" a number of times per day equal to your Edge score, and each time you do you get a bonus equal to your Edge score to what you are trying to do. You can also use Edge to make a SR equivallent of a nat 1 (a glitch or crit glitch) stop being a nat 1. You can use it to take an extra action, or you can even permanently burn 1 to avoid an otherwise lethal occurence.



If I am understanding you correctly, then it sounds similar to what Luck feats are in 3.5 (rerolling under certain circumstances) or Action points in 4e (extra action for a turn, humans get +1 AP).

I use a variant of Action Points in my 3.5 campaign that I find works very well. Every player gets a maximum of 1AP per session. If the character does something which they are very trained at, and the action is so intense/important that the entire party wants them to succeed, but they fail due to a random die roll, they can spend the AP to reroll at a +2 modifier. (However, bosses get an AP or two as well, mwahahahahaha).

tl;dr - Edge is a mechanic from Shadowrun 4e that I enjoy very much. I adopted some of its usage by adding a variant of the DnD 4e Action Point rule into my low-level 3.5 campaign.

[DaTedinator]

I don't have anything very formal, but I will occasionally have players make "luck rolls:" just a plain d20 roll, higher is better for them, lower is worse. I give them a +1 bonus to the roll for every luck feat they have, and yes, they can expend a luck reroll to reroll a luck roll. :smalltongue:

Luck rolls generally happen in my games in one of two ways. First, it'll happen if the players want to do something that depends on something else entirely outside their power. For example, if they come up with a plan that will only work if the castle has loads of glass vases, I'll let them make a luck roll; 2-5 means no, 6-10 means the castle has some, but not a lot, 11-15 means there are a decent amount, and 16-19 means there are a lot.

1 and 20 are both special numbers for luck rolls; a 1 means something dreadfully bad happens (the castle had a lot of glass vases, but the king recently outlawed them, and now there are none to be found anywhere in the kingdom), and a 20 means something absolutely wonderful happens (Not only are there tens of thousands of glass vases in the castle, the party gets enlisted to ship a thousand more inside, giving them a nice opportunity for their plan).

Alternatively, luck rolls happen if the players are stuck and I need to give them a hint or something. In these cases, there is no "failure," per se, it's more about how costly the hint is. For example, if the party just hasn't been able to put the pieces together and realize that the crown prince is the BBEG, I might give them a luck roll; 2-5 means they get kidnapped by him, 6-10 means they get ambushed by him, 11-15 means they hear the BBEG is a member of the royal family, and 16-19 means they overhear him talking about how evil he is.

Again, 1 and 20 are special. 1 might mean they get kidnapped and the prince initiates his plans before they have a chance to stop him; 20 might mean they overhear him explaining his plans in detail to an underling.

An important note, though, is that I don't really use predetermined dice ranges like "if it's 2-5, X happens;" I just look at the die and decide what a 4 means. The dice ranges above were just for examples. Moreover, where the die is specifically can affect things. For instance, if I'm using the example above about the prince, and they roll a 10, I might send a handful of mooks at the party, one of which has a note from the prince; if they roll a 6, I'll probably send a pair of elite assassins, whose origins can only be traced to the castle.

So yeah, that went into more depth than I'd originally anticipated. TL;DR: I roll a d20, high is good for the players, low is bad, but anything generally helps guide them.

[Lappy9001]

Shadowrun 4e uses an Edge system, I believe that is what he is talking about.

Unlike DnD where an ability score is 3-18, in Shadowrun it is 1-6. A special ability in Shadowrun is called Edge, which somewhat represents luck or action surges (Humans get +1 edge as their only bonus).

In SR, you can "Use Edge" a number of times per day equal to your Edge score, and each time you do you get a bonus equal to your Edge score to what you are trying to do. You can also use Edge to make a SR equivallent of a nat 1 (a glitch or crit glitch) stop being a nat 1. You can use it to take an extra action, or you can even permanently burn 1 to avoid an otherwise lethal occurence.



If I am understanding you correctly, then it sounds similar to what Luck feats are in 3.5 (rerolling under certain circumstances) or Action points in 4e (extra action for a turn, humans get +1 AP).

I use a variant of Action Points in my 3.5 campaign that I find works very well. Every player gets a maximum of 1AP per session. If the character does something which they are very trained at, and the action is so intense/important that the entire party wants them to succeed, but they fail due to a random die roll, they can spend the AP to reroll at a +2 modifier. (However, bosses get an AP or two as well, mwahahahahaha).

tl;dr - Edge is a mechanic from Shadowrun 4e that I enjoy very much. I adopted some of its usage by adding a variant of the DnD 4e Action Point rule into my low-level 3.5 campaign.Actually, Action Points (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/actionPoints.htm) do exist in 3.5 as a variant rule, and Eberron heavily encourages their use.

We've used a couple of variants; in one, each player got a special dice that they could give back to the DM in order to change an action. There wasn't a lot of hard rules, the dice let you convince the DM for a reroll or a bonus on a certain action.

We also used a karma system where you could alter your fate in your favor, but would suffer a negative effect later on in the game.

[Hanuman]

Interesting take on the d20 luck rolls (welcome back btw djinn), generally I just use normal skillchecks intrinsic with their luck roll-- for instance if the players need something they use an appropriate skill and that roll's base die number as part of it's luck variable.

SR4.0 does have a decent system put in place.

The thing about my usage is that I want to get something concrete down as my system currently uses unused AP as a passive party-wide "we're doing OK" luck bonus, if I see their AP is full it's basically the part of the movie where they're getting shot at by stormtroopers with fully opaque helmets on, or hopping into the biplane as 20 spears go into the plane's hull right after they jump in with the golden statue.

Right now it's 2AP at level1 and +1AP at all levels you get attribute points at, making the party totals:

Level 1: 8AP
Level 4: 12AP
Level 8: 16AP
Level 12: 20AP
Level 16: 24AP
Level 20: 28AP

There's a few options as well, instead of Flaws, a character can burn up to 2 AP gaining one feat per AP burned, so 1AP = 1Flaw in terms of balance.

At levels 4+ players instead can burn their AP and immediately change it into a more specific luck bonus, I'm thinking triple that AP's effectiveness at a certain task, such as if a level 4 party wants to find treasure, maybe one player burns 1AP and puts it into treasure luck, making the total AP 14 for treasure and 11 for everything else.

At any time a player can also burn an AP to gain a hero point, which is pathfinders potent cousin of the AP, allowing even a level 1 player to cheat death if they really want or need to, though I've restricted all other forms of gaining hero points except GM generosity which I do occasionally hand out (very good for rewarding players for good ooc behavior, makes groups stable).

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Hate to say it, but a 0 - 8 - 28 - 84 variable model looks like a d100 cap to me.

So that means 1AP = 1% party luck bonus, and that means that luck means something really good happens?

What say you, playground?

[Hanuman]

The real problem with granting passive bonuses to players for unused things is that it encourages them not to use it-- so I've devised this:

Reward players for using their AP, and have that reward scale off how little they've used it (self balancing system).

I've detailed a base concept with a retention mechanic based on the figures from my earlier post, and for the retention mechanic I've halved the passive AP figure and kept the burned figure the same (except it's stacking loss) as the burned figure is balanced where I like it, but the passive figure would simply be too strong as that would essentially give players a 30-40% AP sustain at higher levels without any loss to their current power.
As-Is at high level it's a 10-20% sustain bonus at full AP, or 5-10% sustain at half AP // or 5-10% at low level full AP and 1-5% at low level half AP which in my books is right on the money.

If one burn is taken with a level 1 party (8AP made 7AP) this grants a 2.5% (burn) x 7 (total AP that can be effected) = 17.5% chance for an extra +1-6 to any roll per rotation, meaning on average about a +0.6 modifier to any roll per rotation aka per dungeon, ect. (to a maximum of a +1).

For something equivalent to a feat, this still seems a bit lackluster.

---=-=-=-=-=-=---

(After some additional thought and a revision:)

To give additional incentive to players to use their AP and to bolster the Auspicious Combo burn passive I simply added a 5% bonus AP to the burn's passive in the form of a crit bonus.

If you nat20 on an AP enhanced roll, the burn passively grants you a +1AP bonus to your pool. You can't get both the +1 and the retention as that would push you over your AP max so it rewards low AP.

To stack this effect, it increases range of the natural trigger by +1, so another combo burn grants +1 AP on a nat19 or nat20.

So to recap, now a level 1 party (7ap and 1 combo burn) grants an 11% AP compound retention (7/2=3%, +3%, +5%crit) at max AP or 19% retention with 2 combo burns, ect. By granting a +1 to the crit separately I've punished the efficiency of floating the unused %.

With 1 combo @ lvl1 burn that's an average party bonus of about 40-70% chance of +1-6 mod on any roll or +1-2.6 average usable party luck modifier per dungeon which looks reasonable.

With 2 combo @ lvl1 burn = avr party bonus of 20-70%ish chance of 2 +1-6 mods on any roll // +2-4 avr party luck modifier per dungeon.

With 0 combo @ lvl8 = avr 0.5-2.8 bonus AP/dungeon (+1.25-7 modifier avr)

With 1 combo @ lvl8 burn = avr 1-5 bonus AP/dungeon (+3.5-17.5 modifier avr)

With 2 combo @ lvl8 burn = avr 2-7 bonus AP/dungeon (+7-24.5 modifier avr)

This mechanic starts to stack exponentially, and makes the sustain of constant bonuses quite easy, for this point I'll introduce a cap at 20% retain for the passive, and only have the burn stack 4 times.

To finish this, the maximum retain is 20% which is a number only possible at high levels (passive at 40AP aka level 16 with no burns, no used AP and no AP loss).
The maximum retain is 40% with 4 burns.

If a +7-25 modifier/dungeon looks scary for an average figure, mind you that's powered a dozen unspent feats which grant other minor bonuses, supplemented by some spent ones specifically for the bonus.

As an end note, in my campaigns I allow 1AP to be burned at any time and made into a pathfinder Hero Point, so I don't expect my players to have their originally issued full AP at higher levels, as yaknow, **** happens.


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Implementation:

Auspicious Combo [Party Wide Passive]
-Every 2 points of unspent AP the party has, they gain a 1% chance of retaining any single AP point whenever it is used, after which the % changes if needed.
-By burning 1 AP, you gain a permanent 3% passive increase to the party's AP retention and whenever a party member rolls a natural 20 on an AP boosted roll they receive +1AP to their pool. This burning stacks both in the % granted and it increases the natural range by 1.
-These passive effects can never exceed a total 20% chance of retention.
-Only 4 burns stack.

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Precipice of Clarity
Divination
Level: All Casters1
Casting Time: 1 fullround action
Range: Long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)
Target: Party
Duration: 1 round
Saving Throw: Harmless
Spell Resistance: No

Until the start of your next turn you increase the AP retention of the Auspicious Combo passive.
For each caster level you have, you increase Auspicious Combo's retention by 2%, and for the spell's duration increase the maximum to 80% AP retention.

Precipice of Clarity
Clairsentience
Level: All Manifesters1
Display: Visual, Olfactory
Manifesting Time: 1 fullround action
Range: Long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)
Target: Party
Duration: 1 round
Power Points: 1

Until the start of your next turn you increase the AP retention of the Auspicious Combo passive.
For each manifester level you have, you increase Auspicious Combo's retention by 2%, and for the power's duration increase the maximum to 80% AP retention.