16 thoughts on “Has anyone experimented with stats of +4 and above?”

  2. We have a couple +4 capable Archetypes in Urban Shadows. Works out pretty well, players feel incredibly potent in that one avenue, but we also add the caveat that if you roll 12’s or higher with those stats you need to mark corruption. So there is a bit of a control there.

  3. Once we got to consistently available +3’s in dungeon world it put the campaign on a quick timetable for conclusion. Same thing in Monster of the Week. A lot of the fun of the sessions prior came from things getting complicated and when your average throw produces consistently uncomplicated (unalloyed success) 10+ results that’s not happening.

    IMO the key, I suspect as is being alluded to in the above statement about Urban Shadows, is to make sure that your particular PBTA implementation doesn’t let 10+ (or 12+) results get away with being uncomplicated.

    Also IMO this is the one area where highlighting for experience edges out experience on a fail, if and only if the folks in charge of the highlighting are deliberately focusing the highlights on stats that will consistently roll 9 or less total, in the hands of players who will consistently choose to take actions using those highlighted stats. 

  4. The Derelict Adrift playset for tremulus has some wackily powerful PCs going on, balanced only by the might of stellar horror and the unforgiving vacuum of space.

    While I don’t think anyone can get a permanent +4 or higher, there are some modifiers that have seen two sessions with some consistent high-rollers. One of the PCs (Saffron Grinder, The Killer) has a +3 in their attack stat, a gun that gives +1 to “attack rolls”, and in Derelict Adrift PCs can spend “Data” to get +1 on a roll. So fully powered-up, Saffron rolls+5 to Resort to Violence.

    In actual play, that’s pretty much “unstoppable force” level of competence. There’s no chance of a miss with a +5 so my options to break the gun or do much else in a direct confrontation are minimised. I find it a bit frustrating since partials and failures kind of drive things in interesting ways that continuous clean successes do not. Basically I’m waiting for them to run out of Data, or trying to find ways to work around the god-stat.

    Oh, and since I let them off the reins when buying gear, one of the characters bought a 6-armor suit. So far I haven’t managed to pry it open or dissolve it, but it has proved an inconvenience when navigating a cramped space hulk.

  6. Fred Hicks Re: Highlighting, what would you think of a scheme where you choose your own highlights (or maybe someone else picks one of them) but you have to change them each session and you can’t highlight the same two as last time?

    Or perhaps you choose one and someone else picks another, but between them they can’t add up to more than +2?

  8. Yea highlighting stats is a fine default, but I feel like there have been some great evolutions in this area that it’s a bit bland now. (see Sagas of the Icelanders for just one example of this)

  11. I find it’s less about where it moves the minimum (2+stat) than where it moves the average (7+stat) on a 2d6 toss. So for me the problems start at +3 when the average toss gets you in the 10+ bracket.

  12. I think it is worth noting that the system needs to have a 13+ result to keep high level Stat rolls from becoming staid. I LOVE the AW advanced moves, and having that extra gradation of result makes for a less predictable narrative outcome. It also was the narrative thing the players were shooting for.

    As a side issue, when the players missed I made as HARD a move as I liked, and for some reason when they had such high stat mods, the MC moves were hard indeed.

  14. Steve Mains  There’s no XP in Sagas. You mark your relationships when you interact (mechanically) with those people and when you mark four different ones you erase the marks and advance.

    The reward cycle of the game is based on getting characters together.

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