SIFRP Balancing

So I'm running a SIFRP game and I'm really trying to wrap my head around some of the balancing issues that the game seems to have. So, primarily, it comes down to the fact that even starting characters have extraordinarily high odds of success at whatever they're good at, like >99%, even with the highest baseline difficulty check.

For those unfamiliar, it's a dice pool system where you have an Ability and Specialties, you roll both and keep Ability. By RAW characters can easily start with a 6 or 7 in whatever primary Ability they want, and then they add Specialty dice on top of that and they're looking at like 10d6k7, which produces an average of 30 or so, when the most challenging difficulty rating is 21, reserved for something truly outstanding like rediscovering how to forge Valyrian steel.

I ran a demo game and saw how broken that was, so in the game I'm running now I restricted characters to a maximum of 5 in Ability and Specialty, but even then the dice pool of something like a combat roll for a fighter is like 9d6k5 and that averages like 22, which effectively guarantees a critical hit and multiple degrees of success (which multiply damage).

It seems like the system is fundamentally broken, but I do want to play it because the Mass Combat, Intrigue, and House Creation/Management components are actually fun.

What would you recommend, Veeky Forums?

Touhoufag please go.

Just give me the full name of the system, please.

Also, isn't It fine for players to be extraordinarily good at something for once?

Surely that means that they are quite terrible at other things, and now the roles are clearly defined.
This kind of setting makes It quite easy to plan a game in a way where you can easily cater to them and give them a challenge at the same time

Pretty sure it's the Song of Ice and Fire RPG, judging from the mention of Valyrian Steel.

To comment on this, Jaime Lannister has a 5 in swordfighting. Robert Baratheon has a 6 in smashing your head in with a hammer. They are considered some of the greatest fighters of the setting.

You can have your character be among the greatest fighters of the setting, and that's perfectly fine as far as the game goes. Rarely can every issue in Game of Thrones be solved with just one skillset though. A swordsman will hit a brick wall when politics bring a mob upon him, or he's stripped of titles and holdings. A politician will be undone by a dagger in the night.

I wish there was a brown 2hu, dude.

As a DM, I already try to emphasize every single skill as good as I can in every game I run. You are free to put all your points into one basket, but don't come crying if you drown in a river because you fell from a cliff and put no points in climbing or swimming.

Now, in some systems that's not enough, because the players can still make broken characters and be decent in everything else. There, starting with less points than reccomended often does the trick.

Some systems are just fundamentally broken, though, and there's nothing you can do to change it.

I understand the concept of having a narrow skillset, but it doesn't really play out that way in the game because achieving a 5 in an ability just isn't that expensive, and furthermore, it's recommended that the GM create "Secondary Characters" with at least one ability at 5 so it's not uncommon to have that level of skill. In addition, Specialty dice dramatically improve the odds of success even with a low Ability rating and when you put them together the character is almost certain to succeed at any task.

The problem I have isn't even really with the fact that characters will almost always succeed at what they're good at, it's with the way this is applied in combat.

Whenever you beat your opponent's Combat Defense by multiples of 5 you earn degrees of success, which straight up multiply your damage. Exceptionally high Combat Defense (5s in all the stats that contribute to it with no armor penalty) is 15, which is not only a guaranteed hit for someone who's skilled at fighting, but oftentimes a guaranteed degree of success, meaning double damage, which is going to be /at least/ 8, where the average player character probably has 9 HP. But against something like bandits, the PCs are swinging against 9 Combat Defense, and if they're averaging 22-30 on their Fighting check that's two to three degrees for triple damage or quadruple damage, AND a critical hit, and characters like bandits aren't allowed to use the Injury and Wound mechanics that stave off death.

A character who is even semi-competent at combat will /almost certainly/ kill any non-primary NPC in one hit.

What I'm thinking about doing is reworking the degrees of success thing so that one degree gives you +50% damage, two is double, three is double and armor piercing 3, four is +2 to critical results. I'm also thinking about giving everyone a flat +3 to Combat Defense before any statistical modifiers so that it's harder to earn two degrees.

>A character who is even semi-competent at combat will /almost certainly/ kill any non-primary NPC in one hit.
So your complaint is that soldiers, martial noblemen, mercenaries, etc., etc., can slaughter the peasantry and soft-handed merchants with ease?

That doesn't sound like a problem to me. Combat training and weapons fuck over those without them. It's why those without them have guards.

I have serious problems with the holdings system. Settlements are tied to land instead of population, and the land is already overpriced. It is easy for even just trained troops to have 5 dice in fighting. Troops are also overpriced, as are banner houses, meaning that even supposedly great houses cannot muster the number of men they could in the books. Really, everything seems overpriced.

From what is sounds like, though, is that a semi-competent PC doesn't instakill an untrained character, but supposedly a guard or soldier of lower importance.

>Exceptionally high Combat Defense (5s in all the stats that contribute to it with no armor penalty) is 15, which is not only a guaranteed hit for someone who's skilled at fighting, but oftentimes a guaranteed degree of success

That part sounds kinda screwed.

>So your complaint is that soldiers, martial noblemen, mercenaries, etc., etc., can slaughter the peasantry and soft-handed merchants with ease?
No, it's that player characters can slaughter soldiers, martial noblemen, mercenaries, etc. with ease. Offense is so much better than defense that combat boils down to who gets the most degrees of success on their guaranteed hit. I could give NPCs the player's damage output by increasing their Fighting Specialty dice, but that just creates a MAD situation instead of making combat more evenly matched.

The only solution I can see is to simultaneously weaken offense and strengthen defense, and I think the reduction to the effectiveness of degrees of success and the flat bonus to Combat Defense may help in that regard.

Yeah settlements should definitely be based on population and land costs way too much, but I don't think the Power holdings are that bad. Of course you do run into the same problem with Mass Combat as exists in regular combat with the power of offense, but there's the strategic layer of combat with formations, flanking, and standing orders that gives weaker armies options if they use their brains. That said, I think it is a good idea to similarly cap the Abilities of armies at creation to 5.

Banner houses are too expensive but troop prices aren't that bad. The main issue with the House Resource stats is thinking of them on a scale of 1-100, as the book wants you to, since that just can't make sense. It's better, I believe, to not have a cap on House Resources, so like the Lannisters might have 300 Power or something.

Played SIFRP alot so I will try and give my take on it.

Yes characters can have crazy good fighting RAW, as a fix I never allow a charater to have more than one stat at rank 5 or higher at creation and rarely ever actually above 5. I also allow all enemies the ability to take injuries and fatigue (though not wounds), I also tend to ignore the campaign guides pregens, Jaime in mine has 6 fighting and Selmy has 7.

Another fix is to make gaining a 6 or 7 more costly and difficult, in order to raise an ability my players have to pay both experience points and some speciality dice, and to get a 7 in fighting for instance they have to have defeated the likes of Khal Drogo or selmy in single combat.

>No, it's that player characters can slaughter soldiers, martial noblemen, mercenaries, etc. with ease.
Ah, when you said non-primary NPC I assumed you meant minor and weak characters.

In that case, just up defense some and nerf offense like you intended.

If one of your players chose to be the best in the party at close-quarters combat, then they shouldn't have to worry about dealing with a bunch of rando bandits and mercenaries. Save the tougher stuff for when they're dealing with the actual heavy-hitters, in which case taking them out in combat might not be the best option. Just because someone conceivably could kill Gregor Clegane doesn't mean they're in a position where doing so isn't a horrible idea that will have horrific consequences. If someone's the best at combat, great. Let them have that. Being the best at combat only means anything when you can find a way to use your combat to get yourself and your house another rung up the ladder.

boobs

What is this setting and what does it have to do with giant titties? I ask because I am an ardent supporter of giant titties.

>Exceptionally high Combat Defense (5s in all the stats that contribute to it with no armor penalty) is 15, which is not only a guaranteed hit for someone who's skilled at fighting, but oftentimes a guaranteed degree of success, meaning double damage, which is going to be /at least/ 8, where the average player character probably has 9 HP
You forget Armour and shields.

If you're status is 2 higher than someone else, they have to listen to you.

Well yes, armor exists, but it penalizes your Combat Defense, and unless you're wearing bringandine or higher the trade off really isn't worth it since the degrees of success and multiplicative damage are far more deadly than base damage attacks which can be shrugged off with a single injury or ignored outright.

>By RAW characters can easily start with a 6 or 7 in whatever primary Ability they want
Sure, but doing so will leave them without enough experience points to even get their defenses up to par. Sure you can give your character a 7 in fighting, and he'll be REALLY fucking good at landing hits on guys, but his Athletics, Agility, and Awareness will be shit, and so will his Combat Defense. Giving your guy fighting 7 does NOT make him a good combat character. He can't sneak up on a balanced fighter and when he meets them head-on he'll lose initiative and go last and because both his combat defense and endurance are shit chances are good he'll die before he even gets to take a turn.

Nobody min-maxing would ACTUALLY give themselves a 7 to start. Ability scores are too interconnected for that to make sense.

I made a character with 7 Endurance, 14 CD, 5+1 Fighting, 13 Damage and Shattering 2.

Sure, they have 1 stealth and suck in Intrigues, but don't pretend that doesn't completely wreck any combat encounter the group faces.

As someone who has played a game using the system, it's really fucking easy to cheese, even unintentionally.

I was playing a third son of a minor noble house who was good at archery and some court stuff, and without intentionally minmaxing I became a combat monster just by picking some archery traits that sounded neat. One of our players lost a character and he proceeded to make a character who was so good at talking he could convince Tyrion and Tywin to blow him at the same time.

Your best bet would be to enforce caps on stats and skills to keep them setting appropriate. I'd also take a good look at the sheets of each of your PCs before the game starts, though this should be standard practice.

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