I’v been reading the QS3 teamwork rules and it has struck me that I would only provide an assist if the on-point character is unwilling to take stress and I have fewer than 2 dice in the relevant action. Otherwise, it would be preferable to declare a group action and get full use of my dice pool (vs. 1d in assist). Is this intentional? Am I missing something?
I’v been reading the QS3 teamwork rules and it has struck me that I would only provide an assist if the on-point…
I’v been reading the QS3 teamwork rules and it has struck me that I would only provide an assist if the on-point…
Yes, clearly you are missing something.
The point of the assist rule is… just that. To assist. To have a better chance of getting something done. Dice are really limited in Blades – the most dice anyone can reasonably expect to have on a given roll before they have some substantial crew improvements is MAYBE 3 (but 2 is going to be way more typical).
Therefore, spending 1 stress to give the leader one extra die can result in a very large swing in the chances of getting a positive result. Leading a group action only provides a markedly better chance of a good result when the whole team is good at what you are trying to do (unlikely, generally.) and can result in a lot more stress.
So yeah, if your team all have 3 dice in something, yes, you’re probably better off just leading a team action, but if your leader has 3 dice and no else does, assist is clearly the way to go.
An assist in real world terms is always a collaborative, i.e., group action.
From the rules you may select the participating PCs in a group action. Hence, it can be only 2 PCs not involving the remaining PCs. The group action is the best result out of all involved PCs’ rolls. If PC #2 has 2d the chance of success is 75% for that PC alone. If the on-point PC has 2d as well, the chance of success is 94% vs 87% with an assist. That’s better than the assist with only a 25% chance of incurring stress on-point compared to guaranteed stress on PC #2. Even if PC #2 has only 1d, the chance of being successful (though not critical) is the same between group and assist, except there’s only a 50% chance of incurring stress on point vs. guaranteed stress on PC #2.
Christopher Rinderspacher
What? No? 75% chance of success on two dice? Only for the most marginal of successes. You don’t want 4-5, you want 6’s. Preferably more than one.
[EDITs for precision]
a) You might want that, but I can live with partial success. Makes for good stories.
But,
b) the numbers change, the decisions don’t. Probability of a full success or better 2d+2d : 52%
Probability of a crit 2d+2d: 6%
Probability of a full success or better 3d: 42%
Probability of a crit 3d: 7%
[EDIT final case]
Probability of full success or better 2d+1d: 42% [EDIT]
Probability of crit 2d+1d: 2%
The values for stress don’t change.
“You” are the player in this circumstance, and no player I’ve ever met would willingly handicap his roll for “good stories”. Good stories are suppose to come about as a result of the players doing their best to play their characters competently.
The chance of a crit is NOT the same for this, because if one person rolls 1,6 and another person rolls 3,4,6, that’s not a crit on a group action.
I didn’t say the chance for a crit was the same. To clarify my termniology: xd is an action roll with x 6-sided dice. xd+yd is the group action result of PC#1 having xd and PC#2 having yd.
The crit numbers are 2% and 7% for 2d+1d and 3d, respectively. It’s 2% because that’s the probability of the player with 2d to roll a crit, while the player with the 1d can’t roll a crit. That’s also why 2d+2d is only ~6% instead of somewhere around 15%.
Secondly, you are exchanging 10%-points towards failure using 2d+2d for gaining 2%-points in chance of crit ; and that’s ignoring the cost of stress. You lose 5%-points in crits for 2d+1d, but you reduce the chance of stress, which is why I consider this borderline.
“no player I’ve ever met would willingly handicap his roll for \”good stories\””
I’m arguing that the players with 2d in an action and intent on doing their best will eschew using the assist mechanic, because they will fail an additional 10% of the time plus guaranteed stress. Period.
Hey Mike Pureka, I’m a player You’ve never met who would willingly handicap my roll for ‘good stories’, I’m fairly certain that John Harper, Stras Acimovic, Sean Nittner and Adam Koebel would too. Just sayin’.
Its about discovering what your character is about through play – what they are willing to risk and what they are willing to walk away from. (Unless you are just good at RPGs Like Adam is)
The point being that you’re supposed to be playing a character who WANTS to succeed, and therefore isn’t going to go “Well, I’m not really going to try on this.” There’s a difference between making sub-optimal decisions about WHAT you are going to do, and deliberately trying to not do well on what you are doing. The former happens a lot. The latter, not so much – because it really doesn’t make much sense.
Mike Pureka
I think you’re conflating the player’s choice of mechanic, which decides what happens on the meta level, and the character’s choice of method to achieve a goal.
This is particularly obvious with Actions (capitalized to indicate mechanics). The player chooses an Action and builds a narrative that establishes a method to achieve a goal by the character that justifies the Action, or you describe the method of how the character goes about achieving the goal and then interpret which Action fits it. The overlap in Actions clearly enables a player choice on top of a character choice.
If you want to shoehorn a less appropriate Action to improve chance of success that is your prerogative. Others (me) may choose story plausibility over the chance of success.
Yeah, Christopher, your analysis of the systems is correct. If you have 2d in the action and the leader is willing to risk the stress, a group action is a better move.
Note, also, that you can do both: you can roll in a group action and also take 1 stress to assist.
Now doubling up makes Assists really useful, although it might be difficult to find a narrative justification for participating in the Group Action and providing an Assist.
And thanks for chiming in John Harper
It’s just an extra effort. Similar to pushing yourself. You’re participating with the group, and also straining to help out even more. No need to narrate it too elaborately.
So an Assist is available for the brownnoser of the group to show more initiative than anybody else in class 😉