A look at Risky Actions

[kurionta]

As I was setting up a campaign for my friends I looked closer at the 'Risky Action' rules. 

"If the player rolls more 1s than he does 6s when a character is attempting to perform a Risky action, then the character has fouled up." p17 of the INQ rule book

Calculating the probability of failing a risking action I found a humorous trend.

Speed of character  1      2      3      4       5      6
%chance of failing   17% 25% 30% 32% 34% 36%

The more Initiative you have the more likely you are to trip over yourself or drop a grenade.  Theoretically if Slaanesh itself with Infinite Initiative tried to walk across a slippery pond it would fall on its butt half the time.  Looking at it another way, Slaanesh would be three times as likely to fall on its butt than Fumbles the Elephant with Initiative zero. 

Moral of the story:  If you are tired of dropping grenades then shoot yourself in the foot and you will be less likely to fail a risky action!

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As a note for my personal campaign you must roll at least one 5 or 6 to pass a risky action.  This produces the following chances of failing your risky action

Speed of character  1      2      3      4       5      6
%chance of failing   67% 44% 30% 20% 13%  9%

According to the INQ rule book on p15 Initiative "is also used for determining if he can react to a sudden threat and how nimble he is at performing physical activities, such as jumping and dodging."  Yet the only contribution to jumping Initiative makes in INQ right now is making you more likely to fail a jump(forgoing special abilities such as catfall).  I personally think a more nimble character should have less of a chance of messing up a jump. 

As a character is severally beaten up they reduce their speed.  A character beaten to the point of only one speed should have a hard time doing anything risky.  Hence the 67% chance of failure.  Breaking someone's knee caps should not make them better at jumping or ice skating.

Also now the theoretical case of an infinite Initiative god visiting the characters would never fail a risky action.

(I purposely avoiding making the condition "a character must have at least one 4, 5, or 6"  This would result in every failed risky action turn having the minimum of one action.  Players would abuse this by never placing a risky action as their first action 'I meditate first, then teleport')

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If anyone is interested in the combinatorial formulas I used go ahead and ask.  Also let me know if you have any other suggestions to deal with the humorous trend.

[MarcoSkoll]

I did note this some time ago, but as I figured it, a higher speed character can declare a risky action later in the turn, in which case there's a good chance they'll get to miss it all together.

What you've calculated there is the risk of the first action being failed. Obviously, as a risky turn requires at least one 1, and will probably have a lower than average number of actions (as at least one is failed), then actions later in the turn are less likely to be failed, because they're less likely to be reached.

I never bothered figuring it out, but my guess was that if you assume a game is a random sequence of risky and non risky actions, and the character will attempts their maximum number of actions each turn, then while the higher speed characters will fail more (as they're managing more actions), they will fail the same proportion of their risky actions, because those actions can be later in the turn, thus never get reached.

Although that was based on no guaranteed action each turn - I imagine that the guaranteed action would change it, but fairly trivially.

[Ynek]

I hear that in Inq.2, risky actions are dealt with in a far simpler way. The GM essentially assigns every risky action a 'risk value' of between 1 and 10. The character must then take a risk test. If he rolls less than the risk value, he fails the test.

I think it was something like that, although my mind is much blurred by the veil of time.

[kurionta]

A very interesting idea MacroSkoll.  I calculated out the percentage of failed risky actions being completed if every action was declared to be risky.  You had the right intuition that it all averages out.  The results were

Speed   1      2      3       4      5      6
%fail     17% 13% 12% 12% 13% 14%

The safest speed is 3 (~11.87% chance)for randomly firing plasma weapons or randomly casting psychic powers.

So players should not worry all that much about Initiative as it relates to Risky Actions when creating characters.
 
I do have to semi-disagree with your statement

What you've calculated there is the risk of the first action being failed.

It is also calculating the probability that an entire turn of actions will be risky.  Coming at this from a GM's point of view this disappoints me.  When I place characters in a situation where they have to do multiple risky actions successfully, it is the high Initiative characters that are more likely to fail.  Some examples include: defusing a bomb, chasing a mutant on beams in a high rise.  Jumping out of a building that is collapsing, sneaking by multiple guards into a complex.  Characters cannot wait to roll five successful actions in these scenarios.

So it does average out for random bad things that your Initiative should not influence such as a daemon eating your brain.  However Initiative hinders what it should help such as movement and risky actions that require quick reflexes.

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Ynek, that sounds good to me.  The main reason I like the idea of individual checks is because it avoids the hilarious situation I have seen of a skilled character with quick draw freaking out and throwing as many grenades as possible at a genestealer.  Because the character rolled one '1' and four 4's and 5's they ended up throwing grenades all over their teammates and themselves.  I have named failing a turn full of risky actions the "No good, very bad day" scenario. 

I do hope the rules for INQ2 come out.  Sounds like a nice improvement. 

[MarcoSkoll]

Characters cannot wait to roll five successful actions in these scenarios.

Well, in those cases, these characters can take advantage of their extra actions and declare a pause for breath at the start of the turn. You get to see all your action dice, and know exactly whether you're about to screw up. (Although at the cost of an action.)

This does sometimes mean that your dice come up snake eyes and you have to just call it quits and leave it for another turn - but I tend to house rule this problem by allowing characters who've paused for breath to ignore one of their 1s to work out if the actions they want are still risky (representing them spotting the danger and taking steps to avoid it). Not foolproof, as if they need to cancel two or more 1s, then even extra time and care wouldn't avoid a catastrophe!

[precinctomega]

I was going to make MarcoSkoll's point that the PfB distorts the statistics, too.  Faster characters can afford to perform more PfBs than slower characters, making them able to avoid declaring risky actions when the dice are against them.

Ynek is correct that, in INQ2, you only roll for a risky action when you reach it.  The default risk value is 4+ (you must roll a 4+ on a D10 to perform the action).  Although GMs can amend this value for more insanely risky things, I found that in playtesting GMs were making fairly trivial actions into 2+ risks, or other more ambitious ones into 8+ or 9+ risks, which both slowed down play time and discouraged players from attempting the more cinematic actions.  Hence I settled on a basic 30% chance of failure as large enough to lead to occasional cinematic fails, but small enough to encourage the effort.

I recommend testing it in your current games.  We found that it cleared up a lot of problems with risky actions in the current rules (being able to "foresee" failure with a PfB, not reaching a risky action when failed and how to handle combined risky actions, for example).

R.

[Morcus]

I've always thought this is one of the cases where PfB actually makes sense in game. If you can afford to use an action then you can't be in that much of a hurry so it represents the character getting psycked up and assessing the situation and just how dangerous it is, If you'd fail the RA then this represents the charater bottling out and deciding it's not going to work. Obviously this doesn't cover all RAs but it covers alot and makes sense to me, but this is just my opinion.

[GAZKUL]

i know that this is probably wrong but possibly it's because the fastest characters rush through stuff as apposed to "Fumbles the Elephant" who might take a slower and more careful action therefore being less likely to screw up.

[Holiad]

I've always thought this is one of the cases where PfB actually makes sense in game. If you can afford to use an action then you can't be in that much of a hurry so it represents the character getting psycked up and assessing the situation and just how dangerous it is, If you'd fail the RA then this represents the charater bottling out and deciding it's not going to work. Obviously this doesn't cover all RAs but it covers alot and makes sense to me, but this is just my opinion.

It might justify a slightly decreased chance of a risky action with something like a plasma gun, psychic power, or grenade, where an action could be usefully spent checking the dangerous equipment, but negating the risk completely feels too easy, which highlights what I feel is a big flaw in the original rules-an action is either risky or completely safe, with no degree of risk involved, and therefore little allowance for bonuses or penalties. Even a reduced risk feels inappropriate for a lot of actions, such as running across dangerous and uncertain terrain, and assumes the character has enough expertise to assess the risk accurately in the brief time of a single action(remember, an action is only a few seconds). Where a character is that skilled at a certain type of risky action, they can have a skill to represent it, but it shouldn't be automatic on every type of risky action going. It also feels wrong to me that either speed or the number of previous actions in a turn should have so much influence on risky actions.
The other reason I prefer the inq2 rules is how much easier it makes it to write skills for characters-in the original rules, heroic combines a greater ability to carry out risky actions with a slight edge in speed, and because the action roll and heroic action rolls are combined, seperating the two parts is fiddly and difficult, as is writing any other skill that affects the action roll without skewing the chances on risky actions in the process. In inq2, with the two rolls seperate, writing skills for either is much easier and neater.

[kurionta]

I have to say that as a GM I agree with Holiad.  I have always frowned upon pyskers,etc pausing for breath every turn to eliminate the aspect of risk.  It was just an abuse that I always ask characters to tell me "Why does this make sense."  My general rule is, if you can explain it, you can do it. 

precinctomega 30% does sound like a reasonable risk.  Calculating out the number of failed Risky Actions that were randomly determined each turn there is a trend in favor of higher speed characters.  This is simply because higher speed characters have more actions that they declare but tend to never get.  Also comparing 30% with 20% and 40% I do have to agree that 30% is the best fit to %chance of failing in the original Inq. 

GAZKUL I can see what you are saying about, characters more in a hurry being more at risk of making mistake.  However the INQ rulebook describes it as, 'a character's reaction time, his observational abilities, and general dexterity and agility'.  This seems to be describing the character's general finesse and ability to avoid disaster.  Daemons of Slaanesh, and Assassins should be graceful, while severely wounded characters should have difficulty handleing a grenade safely.  This is at least how I interpret the rules.

precinctomega I will admit I am still hesitant to adopt the standard 30% for risky actions simply because I feel high Initiative characters should be better at avoiding disaster.  Though I suppose as Holiad said, GMs can always write special rules to aid characters in averting disaster.  I will have to try it out.   

[MarcoSkoll]

I have always frowned upon pyskers,etc pausing for breath every turn to eliminate the aspect of risk. It was just an abuse that I always ask characters to tell me "Why does this make sense."  My general rule is, if you can explain it, you can do it. 

Psyker: concentrates, feeling the currents of the warp to see if they are calm/stable enough for them to safely manifest their powers.
Bear in mind, a psyker not failing their risky action does not necessarily guarantee their brains won't start bleeding out of their ears - they can still fail the WP test.

Plasma gun: The character spends an action chanting obeisances and checking the weapon's gauges to see if the Machine Spirit is properly appeased and willing to fire.
Actually, the next version of the Revised Armoury, will modify the Plasma Weapon rules (where failure is currently based on rolling a hit roll ending in 5, not on the action dice and is therefore not modified by PfBs) to allow a player to "Show proper reverence to the machine" and gain a short term bonus to their rolls on the failure table, reducing the severity of failures, or perhaps even mitigating them entirely.

... avoiding most Risky Actions can be explained quite easily if you look at PfB as first checking it's safe, rather than just rushing in and doing it.
You swap the risk of failure for the risk having not rolled enough actions to get there, which seems a reasonably fair tradeoff to me.

[Myriad]

Plasma weapons are a good example of an action I've always felt should carry a lesser risk though - who would really use a weapon that overheats 30% of the time?  the GM can always alleviate a risk roll at his discretion if you take time to concentrate.

[kurionta]

MacroSkoll, I do like your explanations.  However, I am a grumpy GM and I would not allow it.  1st of all, providing a way for taking risk out of the game makes me just plain sad.  Second, an inquisitor turn is about 10 seconds of real time by INQ rule book.  To be able to perfectly understand a plasma weapon, or the warp in a mere 2-5 seconds takes some considerable skill.  I would allow players to do that if they purchased a skill beforehand for their character.  So thank you for that idea!

[Kaled]

I'd say that most psykers we see in the game are sufficiently well trained that a couple of seconds peering into the warp is enough to mitigate the risk of using their powers. Likewise, most characters who carry a plasma gun will know enough to be able to spend a second or two to see if it's at risk of overheating.

If the character isn't well trained or knowledgeable enough to do these things then the player shouldn't have them attempt it. Thus I don't see any need to 'purchase' special skills to mitigate risk - it's all included in roleplaying your character properly. Some are cautious enough to check before doing something risky and others aren't. Potentially wasting an action checking is sufficient penalty for being cautious IMHO, and I wouldn't want to fill up my character sheets with extra info about which risky actions my character is able to mitigate.