Dicing Guide

From Mizahar Lore

Overview

While Mizahar is primarily about the writing and the stories involving the characters that inhabit it, it is also a game. As such, there are instances where some formal structure is required in order to encourage the idea of chance, the importance of skill and of course, contest. To address these game elements, the following guide is offered as an aid in such ventures. It is meant only as a guide for those who wish to have a more uniform system of dicing for use in their threads. It is NOT a mandatory part of the game and is meant only to be a tool for players to use. That said, it is still highly recommended and may be made mandatory in certain instances by Storytellers, Founders and players alike.

Dice Rolls

Dice rolls are made in Mizahar's Discord Channel. See Discord for more details.

Occasionally, for a variety of potential reasons, a dice roll may be desired to determine the results of a particular action. When determining the success of these actions, a standard 1d100 is required. This can be accomplished by using the dicing tool in Mizahar’s Discord chat. In the case of Player vs Player threads, rolls should be witnessed by a staff member and only the first roll made for a particular action counts; thus, no rolling until you succeed. What sort of actions may warrant a dice roll? Player vs Player contested actions, Player vs Non-Player (NPC, flora/fauna, environment), instances of chance and luck.

Dice rolling is not mandatory but can be a useful tool for those who want to add a bit of unpredictability or even a more random chance of success and failure to their threads. Dice rolling can also serve as a great way to maintain fairness in contested actions within your threads which may otherwise be difficult to do without unintentional or even intentional bias.

Skill Check

Most uses of dice rolls involve skill checks. Skill checks are usually tests of skills between two opposing forces using relevant skills against one another. Often this takes the form of combat but it is not limited to just that.

How Does It Work?

When engaging in contested actions that require a skill check dice roll, each individual and/or environmental (flora/fauna/etc.), rolls 1d100 and adds the skill points they have in a relevant skill. The one with the highest result wins that particular action or round.

Special Results

When rolling 1d100, a roll of a 1 is an automatic failure regardless of what your skill level is. A roll of 100 is an automatic success regardless of how skilled the opponent may be.

Examples

Player vs Player: Character A is engaged in combat with Character B. Character A has a Weapon: Longsword 41. Character B has a Weapon: Battleaxe 23. Each rolls a 1d100 and adds their weapon skill points to the total. In this case, Character A rolls a 25 + 41 = 66, Character B rolls a 54 + 23 = 77. Character B succeeds in that particular round of fighting.

Player vs NPC: Character A is trying to sneak past an NPC. Character A has Stealth 29 and the NPC has an Observation 42. Character A rolls 1d100 and a staff member rolls for the NPC. Character A rolls a 50 + 29 = 79, the NPC rolls 30 + 42 = 72. Character A succeeds in sneaking past the NPC.

A variety of skills may offer differing results when paired against others. For example, if you are simply trying to avoid the attacks of another by dodging or leaping out of the way, you may use a skill like Acrobatics against the skill they are using to attack you with.

When Isn’t a Dice Roll Needed?

If a character is performing actions that are not otherwise contested, they do not need a dice roll as long as they are acting within their skill level or you are comfortable writing threads without dicing. This involves taking the responsibility in your writing to make contested encounters come off as fair without the assumption that your character is always going to succeed.

Difficulty

Difficulty is used when a player engages in contested actions where the opposition does not have a write-up and/or listed relevant skill. NPC’s who have their own write-ups normally only have listed the skills that are most important to who and what they are. That doesn’t mean they don’t have other unlisted skills that may be relevant to opposing a player character. Also, wild animals do not have listed skills although they are obviously skilled. This is where Difficulty comes into play.

Difficulty is broken down into four categories with an associated point total. Notice that it looks a lot like how skills are setup.

Easy/Novice 1-25

Average/Competent 26-50

Hard/Expert 51-75

Very Hard/Master 76-100

Dice rolls involving Difficulty levels are handled just like they would be with a Player vs Player except that instead of one Player Character against another it is a Player Character against a Non-Player.

The Non-Player (Character or Otherwise) is assigned a difficulty/skill level and point total from the associated range. While there are no set parameters in assigning difficulty or skill level, it should be relative to the entity that it is assigned to. For example, you wouldn’t assign a nuit an Expert level in sword just as you wouldn’t assign a seasoned Syliran Knight a Novice level in that same skill.

A full-grown tiger, a creature that does not have assigned skills or levels, could be considered as being a Hard Difficulty or perhaps a higher end Competent when it comes to combat, hunting and other relevant skills.

Wounds

What happens if a player character is in combat and gets wounded? In order to throw in the element of danger to a combat thread, a dice roll can determine just how serious a wound is. This is done by rolling 1d100 and consulting the following:

1-25: Minor Wound. This could be a flesh wound/scratching/abrasions, bruising or minor burn depending on the nature of the cause of the wound. Generally heals on its own with no attention needed save for maybe cleaning or light bandaging.

26-50: Moderate Wound. This could be a shallow cut, broken finger(s), crack rib/minor bone fracturing or heavy bruising depending on the nature of the cause of the wound. Not life-threatening with even minor attention to the wound.

51-75: Serious Wound. This could be a stab wound, broken arm/leg, heavy concussion, piercing wound or serious burn depending on the nature of the cause of the wound. Immediate attention to the wound or it could become critical.

76-99: Critical Wound. This could be a severed limb (arm/leg), stab wound, cracked skull, horrific burn all depending on the nature of the cause of the wound. Immediate attention to the wound or death.

100: Deadly Wound. This could be anything listed under a Critical Wound except that the result is death.

Armor

Armor offers some protection in combat and can reduce the severity of wounds one may suffer. The protection armor offers depends on whether it is Light, Medium or Heavy. Depending on which of these the armor is classified under, the severity of wounds can be reduced to a minimum of a Minor Wound. Deadly Wounds cannot be reduced. For the sake of fairness, Armor can only reduce the severity of a wound a number of times before it becomes compromised and ceases to adequately protect. The number of times is indicated in parenthesis below.

Light Armor (3): Reduces the severity of a wound by one category (Critical becomes Serious, Serious becomes Moderate, etc.)

Medium Armor (5): Reduces the severity of a wound by two categories (Critical becomes Moderate, Serious becomes Minor)

Heavy Armor (7): Reduces the severity of a wound by three categories (Critical becomes Light)

Shields: Having skill in the use of shields allows for added protection based on skill level. A shield stacks its effects with any other armor worn. Thus, a competent shield bearer gains and extra 2 instances of wound severity reduction.

Competent (2) – Acts as a piece of light armor

Expert (3) – Acts as a piece of medium armor

Master (4) – Acts as a piece of heavy armor

Racial Properties

Some races possess natural physical properties that offer some amount of modification to dice rolls in some instances.

Charoda - Although flexible, the Charoda have rather fragile bones and thus do not take blunt trauma well. Successful blunt strikes against a Charoda results in minor wounds automatically upgrading to moderate.

Dhani - In their full, giant snake forms, Dhani enjoy the equivalent of light armor due to their thicker, scaled skin. In snake form, successful strikes against a target that cause minor wounds are upgraded to moderate.

Ghost - Ghosts suffer no physical damage unless harmed by creatures of objects capable of touching them.

Isur - Due to their thick flesh and dense bone structure, Isur ignore minor wounds from successful slashing, piercing or blunt attacks. Such successful attacks made BY the Isur (using their metallic arm) result in minor wounds upgraded to moderate.

Jamoura - Successful unarmed strikes by a Jamoura have minor wounds upgraded to moderate.

Kelvic - Some Kelvic, depending on their animal forms, may experience modifications to damage taken and damaged caused in combat. Generally speaking, those Kelvic with animal forms that are thick-skinned will ignore minor wounds while those who are especially strong or large will have all minor wounds they cause to another, increased to moderate.

Nuit - As the Nuit's body is especially fragile, they are highly susceptible to physical damage. All minor wounds are upgraded to moderate. Also, due to their physical weakness, all physical wounds a Nuit may cause to another person are downgraded by one level.

Symenestra - Due to their thin, somewhat delicate forms, all Symenestra have successful minor wounds against them upgraded to moderate.[/indent][/frame]