So this will
probably be the quickest turnaround of a review I’ve ever done. Also, hey! Not
dead yet. Just lazy.
I was at IPMS Avon in Thornbury last
Sunday (still not too sure what IPMS stands for) helping with the B&B run
by Lincombe Barn Wargaming Society.
Wandering the halls I discovered Black
Ronin Games and their display for their upcoming release The
Infected Dead. Slightly tautological name aside, the creator sold me when he
said it was a hybrid RPG/wargame.
I’ve always
wanted to inject more RPG into my table top, and while it looks like my Post-Apocalyptic
Adventures are moving that way, it’s nice to have a solid, simple ruleset to do
it with, short of actually playing d20Modern on a 6 by 4.
The slimmed
down free sample rules came out yesterday and it looks good.
It’s got
issues but most of them stem (presumably) from this being an abridged edition.
Note that this was not promoted as a beta so I’m not giving it any slack. Little
issues like typos, duplicated modifiers and inconsistent rules as well as
entirely missing rules (e.g. +3 for a headshot, but no description of what a
headshot actually does, the behaviour of zombies, increased difficulty to
hit if target is moving quickly or running but no indication of what
constitutes either) provide a constant niggle but I have faith that they will
be rectified in the full release.
The artwork’s
consistently good, if a bit grungy and busy for my tastes. Readability is good,
assisted by a clear, printer friendly layout.
So this must
be a solid little system right, with a definite recommendation behind it,
right?
Well there
is the small matter of the gaping hole in the core mechanic…
It’s broken
is such a way that I think either something was excised from the abridged
rules, or not enough thought was put into the core mechanic.
TID uses a rather
seductively elegant mechanic. A character’s abilities are determined by their
attributes Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence and
Charisma Strength, Prowess, Endurance, Awareness, Wits and Charisma
(incidentally ardour is not a synonym for endurance, neither prowess for
reflexes…) and related skills such as Edged Weapon, First Aid, etc.
If you use a
skill untrained, the example given is of swinging an axe without prior
experience then you roll (a d10. Yay for d10!) using you attribute against a base
difficulty of 12 getting your attribute as a bonus (so STR X+d10 vs. 12). If
you use a trained ability you roll a number of dice equal to your ranks (up to
5) choose the highest and add your ranks (So Edged Weapons X roll Xd10 pick the
highest + X). The game also features exploding dice, and a fumble system (1’s
cancel out successes)
It all
appears pretty nice and elegant until you really think about.
There are no
rules for character creation but the average stat of the pre-gens supplied with
the rules is 5 with a distribution of 3 to 8.
My
suspicions were confirmed when I got home and did some maths. If you have an
attribute, buying a single point of a related skill actually makes it harder
for you to do anything. This is self-evident for first rank skills. Why would you
want to roll d10+1 against a 10 rather than d10+(3-8) against a 12? An attribute
of 3 gives you the same odds and anything higher gives you better odds. By
buying that skill, you’ve actually made things harder for yourself. Obviously
this becomes more complicated at higher levels.
Here’s the
maths
Let us regard
the chances of hitting and killing a zombie and hitting and killing a zombie
using a headshot (again no rules, but my discussion with the creator indicated
that a headshot is the only way to permanently stop them – good man) using both
attributes and skills, all other things being equal.
When using skills:
P(kill) = 1 - P(survive)^n
Where:
P(kill) is the probability of
a kill
P(survive)
is the probability of surviving a single shot
n is the number of ranks
We
get the following chances to hit:
1 Rank
|
2 Ranks
|
3 Ranks
|
4 Ranks
|
5 Ranks
|
|
Base
(10)
|
20%
|
51%
|
78%
|
94%
|
99%
|
Base
+3 (Headshot)
|
9%
|
17%
|
27%
|
59%
|
83%
|
Using
attributes is obviously simpler, giving the following chances to hit:
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
7
|
8
|
|
Base
(12)
|
20%
|
30%
|
40%
|
50%
|
60%
|
70%
|
Base
+3 (Headshot)
|
9%
|
9%
|
10%
|
20%
|
30%
|
40%
|
As
we can see, buying a single rank in any skill makes at best, no difference to
your performance, and at worst, actually significantly worse at performing a
given task. Even someone with an average attribute of 5 has to buy 2 ranks
before they pay off. Meanwhile, “Dead-eye Mike Jones, one of the supplied
pre-gens with the maximum prowess of 8 is going to be hamstrung making
headshots, with a 3 rank skill check, compared to his chance of hitting using
his raw attribute.
The
problem seems to be that there is no link between attributes and skills, unlike
say, d20, where ‘attributes’ give a bonus to skill checks. Here you could be
the most dexterous person in the world, but as soon as you put some training
into firearms, blam! your chance of actually hitting something plunges right
down.
In
the end the problem is easy enough to work around, just be careful where your
putting your skill points. In fact, it might be worth making your high attributes
the ones you use the least, like Charisma, keeping your combat attributes low,
and spending as many skill on them as possible, thus meaning your chances in combat
are the best possible, while still being able to talk your way out of a tight
spot.
I
hope there’s something missing from the rules, or I’ve misunderstood something,
because otherwise this system seems great, and I’m still going to invest when
the full edition comes out.
N.B.
The diplomacy skill seems rather niche. It’s used to mediate between two
parties, not directly interact with anyone. The only skill for directly
influencing others is Charm, which is explicitly stated to be the ability to use flirting
and seduction…
