So are you against to hit rolls or for them. Because what you just said would be a good way to describe THAC0. The fencer's level of training determines how easily he can parry or step out of the way of the attack which would be reflected in his AC, the other fencers ability to shove pointy object into a meat sack would be the to hit stat. The die roll reflects the subtle nuances that determine how well each of them did, because i am guessing in your example Fencer A doe snot always side step the blow perfectly nor does Fencer B always hit despite an attempted parry.

I am for to hit rolls and preferably damage based on how well you hit. Now D&D used a d20 to determine a to hit roll, I don't like it. It is too random. I've been out of statistics longer than a lot of you have been alive so forgive me if I no longer remember the terms. But a d20 has a flat probability, you are just as likely to roll a 1 as a 20. Something like the hero system has a more bell curve based system since it uses a 3d6 roll. You are frequently going to be rolling in the 8-14 range but the crit rolls or crit fumble rolls will happen rarely. I prefer something like that.

The die roll should be reflected in the game by an animation. Heck Dragon Age 2 uses die rolls, now they removed the ability to miss, but a bad roll got you a glancing blow. While it can be paused for a turn based feel, it is not a turn based RPG it is very action oriented. Now I understand there are a decent number of non-rpg types who get irritated that their fantasy FPS game had some weird miss thing happening despite them lining up the perfect shot, but that is what makes the difference between a shooter and a RPG. Without the to hit roll you have the same massive fail that was the oblivion lock picking mini-game where skill 5 characters could routinely open the hardest locks on the planet. The other option ends up being just as bad I think, you can remove the to hit roll and make the damage based on skill. I am not sure it adds anything to the game to always hit the neck when you want but only hit for 1 point of damage with your 2 handed sword. I don't see that as any more satisfying for non roll types but maybe it is.

But put a sword in the hands of a 10 year old with neither training in the occult nor in melee weapons and he can hit someone with it. Moreover, whether or not he misses depends entirely on the location of his sword compared to the location of his target at a given instant of time.

EDIT- your SKILLS should not be "percent to hit" ....

I have no stake in your argument, but again, what you said is far from the truth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

Only if they were tied up. :laugh:

The thin is... with character based RPG's... The concept is that you are not in physical control of the PC. In most RPGs you indicate where they should try to move to ~and they try. You indicate who they should attack, and they try. Its awkward in First Person, but even Fallout 3 & NV still do a bit of this, because they are character RPG's. The PC shoots gun in the general direction you indicate, to the best of their ability. :shrug:

It should be if you want the game you've designed, to have the character attempt an action to the best of their ability.

It's still not chance. If any of those people choose not to go to that coffee shop, they won't have all meet there.

Are you saying the Heisenberg uncertainty principle proves me wrong? No it doesn't. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle was invented to try and understand the seemly random behavior of electrons, and the fact that they are moving too fast to see.

There behavior isn't random; it's controlled by the laws of physics. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is the only why of comprehending what the electrons is doing, but it's still not random, and therefore chance is just a way of explaining what’s going on, because the human can’t really understand what is going on.

Its awkward in First Person, but even Fallout 3 & NV still do a bit of this, because they are character RPG's. The PC shoots gun in the general direction you indicate, to the best of their ability. :shrug:

That is false. Their speed has nothing to do with it. What field of science do you claim to study? The HUP is a result of the physical nature of reality and is not in any way dependent upon observation techniques or observational weaknesses.
That is so false. It's because of the nature of waves. The location of a particle is related to the amplitude of its matter wave. By "compressing" the wave, you gain knowledge about location. However, by doing so you essentially are adding together sine waves, and it's momentum is proportional to the wave number of one of them, but could be ANY of them. Amplitude gives location, wavelength gives momentum. A single point constitutes an indefinite wavelength (i.e. ZERO knowledge of momentum and 100% knowledge of location). One the other hand, an infinite regular periodic oscillation (like the sine function on a calculator) gives 100% knowledge about wavelength => i.e. momentum, but since the wave is not concentrated in any one point, there is zero knowledge about location.

It's not a failure of human understanding. It's a failure of the previous human model. Humans assumed certain things about the universe (that particles behave classically) that turned out to be false.

Why not have the randomness instead be caused/represented by the particular skills of the player: i.e. a low level swordsman will have a slower swing than a high level one, and as a result will miss more than the high level. That's just one example. You could add numerous affects that are directly related to avatar skill level: power of swing, balance (i.e. recovery time after strike), location of armor on opponent, quality of armor of opponent, speed/agility of opponent, awareness level of opponent (including effects of blinding spells), distance to target/location with respect to target (whilst target attempts to move out of the way), location of where the swing lands (a strike to armor will either glance off or only cause minimal damage, while a strike to an unprotected area will cause high damage), and so on.

There are numerous ways the randomness of battle can be simulated, and some are far closer to reality than others. A sword hitting an enemy in the face and registering zero damage is HORRIBLY UNREALISTIC, whilst a slash to the face that misses because THE ENEMY DUCKS is FAR MORE REALISTIC. Ecetera, ecetera.

Because you then end up with the security mini-game fail. The player will quickly adapt to the slow swing and then know how to always hit with that limitation.

What about quantum effects? (inb4 correspondence principle) Regardless, the classical model of the universe is wrong. Having all knowledge of every particle in the universe at a given time not only will not give you the ability to in principle predict everything, it is in fact NOT POSSIBLE to have all knowledge about every particle in the universe. You can't even know both the exact location and exact momentum to 100% precision of a single particle... :celebration:

That is false. Their speed has nothing to do with it. What field of science do you claim to study? The HUP is a result of the physical nature of reality and is not in any way dependent upon observation techniques or observational weaknesses.



That is so false. It's because of the nature of waves. The location of a particle is related to the amplitude of its matter wave. By "compressing" the wave, you gain knowledge about location. However, by doing so you essentially are adding together sine waves, and it's momentum is proportional to the wave number of one of them, but could be ANY of them. Amplitude gives location, wavelength gives momentum. A single point constitutes an indefinite wavelength (i.e. ZERO knowledge of momentum and 100% knowledge of location). One the other hand, an infinite regular periodic oscillation (like the sine function on a calculator) gives 100% knowledge about wavelength => i.e. momentum, but since the wave is not concentrated in any one point, there is zero knowledge about location.

It's not a failure of human understanding. It's a failure of the previous human model. Humans assumed certain things about the universe (that particles behave classically) that turned out to be false.

Because you then end up with the security mini-game fail. The player will quickly adapt to the slow swing and then know how to always hit with that limitation. A die roll is a great way to reflect your skill level. The key in FP rpgs is to try and have the animations reflect the die rolls outcome better. So the enemy should duck the blow, but what determines if they duck, parry, block, dodge should be a die roll. I roll a 5 to hit, but I need a 10 that cues the animation appropriate for that creature. A animal might dodge, a warrior block, a unarmed brute might shift his body so the deflects off him.

Yes it's true that you can't know where every particle is at all times. That's why you have to use probability to comprehend what is going on, but it's still not random. If you could know, you could predict everything, but you can't know, so you have to make up a probability of model. For instance my dice example, if you know all the variables you can not only predict where it lands, but know exactly where it lands, but there's why too many variables to consider, so it can't really be done. What I was trying to explain was that what it lands on is not governed by chance, but by the laws of physics.

none

I hope the damage is so seamless that we don't need "numbers" on them anymore.

If it's a min max system I want to be able to see the numbers slowly float above the bad guys head.

That would be un RPG like.

Are you aware of the existence of Action RPG's and how they differ from traditional RPG's? (if not that would be a little ironic since that's exactly type of game that TES are)

Or is it just that you don't consider Action RPG's to be "RPG-like?"