Aid Another

TheWorid · Post by **TheWorid** » Tue May 18, 2010 8:19 pm

How does one make it exist in the space between "suck" and "overpowered"? Perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but are there any games that do this well?

I ask because I was working on a system of treating mooks as groups, but at small numbers, they would be better off if they rolled their attack separately, and in large numbers, they auto-hit. What I want is that combining their efforts is virtually (if not actually) the same as rolling separately, to save time.

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Tue May 18, 2010 8:24 pm

Perhaps a diminishing effects rule? Also, you would want to include the possibility of multiple successes to accurately represent a group effort.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue May 18, 2010 8:38 pm

Aid Another works alright in Shadowrun. You make your own test, and your hits add bonus dice to the next guy in the chain. It's good enough to do, but not so good that it explodes the RNG. But then, Dicepool systems are inherently better about adding "one more bonus" without all the way cracking open than fixed RNG systems are.

-Username17

TheWorid · Post by **TheWorid** » Wed May 19, 2010 2:22 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Aid Another works alright in Shadowrun. You make your own test, and your hits add bonus dice to the next guy in the chain. It's good enough to do, but not so good that it explodes the RNG. But then, Dicepool systems are inherently better about adding "one more bonus" without all the way cracking open than fixed RNG systems are.

-Username17

That makes sense. However, I'm interested in creating parity between combined checks and multiple checks, to save time. That method involves just as many checks as doing the same action separately.

A similarly themed question is how to reduce attacks to single checks. For example, if one used a Mutants & Masterminds-esque system of "roll to wound", one could combine Attack+Damage vs. Defense+Toughness, but that screws with the probabilities.

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Wed May 19, 2010 2:39 am

You could have the result of the aid another action add to the result rather than the resolution. In the case of aiding another during combat, instead of adding to the attack roll, the aid another action could add a status effect like trip, grapple, bull rush, or even just extra damage. The point is that while the aid another action eventually modifies the RNG in some way, it doesn't do so directly - it essentially magnifies the potence of another action already in play.

Emerald · Post by **Emerald** » Wed May 19, 2010 1:46 pm

You could have aid another grant a reroll instead of a bonus, first because a lot of luck-based things grant rerolls rather than luck bonuses (and aid another could easily be described in a way to make that work) and second because it doesn't send you off the top of the RNG with a bunch of people aiding another. This also has the benefit of simplifying groups of mooks, because assuming they all have the same stat block, you can roll attacks as normal and simply take the best 1/2 or best 1/3 or whatever. It doesn't reduce the number of checks, true, but "roll a bunch of dice and take some of them" is faster than "roll a few dice, add bonuses to other rolls, repeat."