I don't really like Rote actions

[amechra]

I don't know what it is about them - but I just don't like them. Also, I don't like the Advanced Action quality either - I'm not sure why it exists, given that it is practically identical to the Rote quality in terms of what it does to the probabilities.

Rather than whining about this, I decided to waste some time on this and came up with the following:

Routine Action: After long practice, you've become handily proficient with a certain task. When a roll has the Routine quality, each die succeeds on a 6+ rather than an 8+.

Anything that would give you the Rote or Advanced qualities on an roll instead gives you the Routine quality.

---

There; it essentially mucks with the chances of you getting successes in the same way that Rote does, while involving less rolling. Also, it feels a bit more hefty than Rote does, but that's just because Rote hides your chances a bit - it's a 70% increase in your expected successes, while Routine is a 67% increase.

[GibberingEloquence]

I like it. It makes more sense to me as well. Re-rolling failed dice felt more like a benefit that would be given by powers involving time or probability control.

Also, Routine + 8 Again is a lot less confusing than the original Rote + 8 Again.

[DarthMRN]

Also, I don't like the Advanced Action quality either - I'm not sure why it exists, given that it is practically identical to the Rote quality in terms of what it does to the probabilities.

I assume you have some math on this, since it sure doesn't seem very intuitive that rerolling the entire dice pool would be identical to rerolling only failed dice. Not even close.

[amechra]

Advanced Action and Rote are exactly the same if you roll no successes on your initial roll - Rote then reduces down to a case of "equivalent to the Advanced Action quality on X dice", where X is the number of failed dice. Due to dice pools following the Poisson distribution, this means that "expected successes" for the roll are identical.

Now, in practice, Rote is an upgraded version of Advanced Action, since you get to keep your original successes - however, that really doesn't mess with your expected results before you roll the dice.

Probability... tends not to be very intuitive.

[DarthMRN]

So you have created a homebrew solution for a purely theoretical problem?

Not that I see why the "expected successes" don't take into consideration the ability to keep successes on that first roll.

[amechra]

So you have created a homebrew solution for a purely theoretical problem?

Not that I see why the "expected successes" don't take into consideration the ability to keep successes on that first roll.

No, I made a solution to the fact that I hate taking longer than the minimum necessary time to resolve a dice-pool.

Completely different.

[Rani Neferet]

I'm not a fan of changing target numbers personally, why I'm not particularly fond of Mummy.

[nofather]

I always thought that was an odd choice to go with for Mummy.

[nikink]

I actually like the TNs changing for Mummies - I feel it gives them a 'godlike' excellence without simply adding more dice (and I say that as someone who is ok with handfuls of dice, too). I wouldn't want *every* splat, or the general rules to use floating TNs, but for one splat, and only under certain circumstances (must use this or that power etc) I think it works.

Mind you, I let roll-again target numbers stack in my house-rules too.

[amechra]

I'm not a fan of changing target numbers personally, why I'm not particularly fond of Mummy.

Unlike with Mummy (and with a lot of stuff that shifts target numbers in comparable games), this is a single. set shift that doesn't unduly interact with stuff. You don't have to worry about mixing and matching bonuses and penalties to TN, because there's just one.

Also, I think the roll-again target numbers do stack. Unless you mean something completely different.

[nikink]

Something different. Per the rules as written, only the best X-again applies - if you have 8-again and 9-again on the same roll, you get 8-again.

I take this a step further - if you have 9-again and 9-again, you get 8-again (instead of 9-again). If you get 8a and 8a you get 7a. 7a and 7a give 6a etc.

In practice it's really really hard to get two 8-agains. Let alone anything better! I do it to encourage the players to squeeze out advantages as much as possible, and this lets me modify equipment with x-agains to differentiate things beyond +/- dice.