Tell me more ×
Role-playing Games Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for gamemasters and players of tabletop, paper-and-pencil role-playing games. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 4 down vote favorite

In a lot of games of roll-under you can max a stat by specialising in it, making the roll auto-succeed.

Example: I played an angel of Novalis with a high will. As an after thought I bought Aikido (lots of people in the player groups I play with are Jitsukas, and give a few of their characters Jiu-jitsu as a skill, I thought I'd break the mold), to 4. That mean my roll to attack with Aikido was 12, in a game that's Roll-under with 2d6. I couldn't fail.

I tried not to abuse this, but I'm sure it must happen. How can you counteract this in In Nomine and other games with a similar mechanic?

share|improve this question
Does In Nomine feature something akin to contested actions? It seems odd that an attack would succeed without the opponents input in any way. – Wesley Obenshain Jan 5 '12 at 17:15
If I remember correctly I think there is. But in most of the situations I was rolling my dice against them as a counter attack, They'd sometimes get under their number to hit, but I'd always roll-under to counter them. – Pureferret Jan 5 '12 at 17:29

2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Well, the quick solution would be to modify the target number based on a difficulty. Other options include always failing on the highest possible roll or changing your conflicted action system to require rolling under the number but higher than your opponent. I think the real question is, why bother throwing a problem at a player that you know they'll automatically succeed at (and still looking at it as throwing a problem at them)? It's kind of hard to defend against a bullet from a kilometer away with Aikido, for instance.

The other part is, a specialization should not be usable for everything that the value it specializes is usable for. For most things this is pretty straightforward (pharmacology as a specialization of science or medicine). This is particularly hard to do with when talking about martial arts, though, as most styles include offensive and defensive maneuvers. Still, one could rule that the specialization can only be used in their 'primary capacity'. Aikido can only be used when counter-attacking with non-damaging locks and throws, for instance.

share|improve this answer
up vote 9 down vote

This question is tagged , which means that system-specific suggestions are acceptable. In In Nomine, your degree of success is determined by the third die rolled in the d666; even if it's mathematically impossible to fail that roll, a 1 or a 2 on the check die means that your success is weak or incomplete. Also, rolling an infernal intervention — 6, 6, 6 — means disaster for any angel.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.