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+]>
+<chapter id="sactions" revision="$Revision: 1841 $ $Name$"
+ vendor="1.39" xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2003/XInclude">
+ <title id="stactions">Action Resolution</title>
+
+ <para>For resolving an action in Harmonies, three aspects must be
+ determined. The first one is the type of action, the second its
+ difficulty, and the last is the <link
+ linkend="scompniveau">Competency Level</link>. Those details must
+ be determined by the Game Master and, again, the rules are simply
+ there to help her or to suggest some solutions. She can do
+ everything she want with.</para>
+
+ <section id="sdifficulte">
+ <title id="stdifficulte">Action Difficulty</title>
+
+ <para>The action difficulty give the chance of success of an
+ action for a typical character (one with zero in all her
+ attributes and competencies). A typical character will have 50%
+ to succeed an action of difficulty zero. An action with a
+ positive difficulty (low) will be easier to succeed than an
+ action with a negative difficulty (high).</para>
+
+ <para>The principle is simple. Choose first the Competency and
+ Attributes that will be used. The Game Master then choose the
+ difficulty for this particular action. This difficulty is the
+ same for everyone, whatever their level. It's the action
+ difficulty. Then, the Game Master can add or remove to the
+ difficulty depending on particular situations, like the ground
+ or the current visibility. For example, it's far more easy to
+ do an acrobatic jump on a flat and dry ground than on a wet
+ floor.</para>
+
+ <para>This is very similar to what we used for Attributes. When
+ an action is twice as difficult <emphasis>to succeed</emphasis>,
+ the difficulty is higher of 3 points (in Value, this mean that
+ we subtract 3 points to the difficulty of the action). If the
+ action is three time more difficult <emphasis>to
+ fail</emphasis>, it's mean that we <emphasis>add</emphasis> 5
+ points to the difficulty. The final difficulty is calculated by
+ adding the action difficulty, adjusted with the current
+ situation, to the <link linkend="scompniveau">Level of
+ Competency</link> of the character.</para>
+
+ <example id="xdifficulty">
+ <title id="xtdifficulty">Action Difficulty</title>
+
+ <para>A character with a Competency of +2 in Acrobatic try to do
+ a simple flip. The Game Master decide that this jump is a +3
+ difficulty (remember, the difficulty is for a caracter with 0
+ in Acrobatic, and a simple flip must be
+ <emphasis>easy</emphasis> for an acrobat). However, since it
+ rained all the afternoon, the Game Master add a adjustment of
+ -5 to the difficulty for a total of -2. Hopefully, the
+ character has +2 in Agility and +1 in Maneuver, this give him
+ a Level in Acrobatic of +5. The final difficulty will then be
+ ( +5 + -2 = ) +3.</para>
+
+ </example>
+
+ <para><xref linkend="treussites"/> resumed the
+ <emphasis>approximated</emphasis> probabilities of success in
+ percentile for the final difficulty. They are, however, not
+ exact and should only be used to give an idea on the odds for a
+ given action.</para>
+
+ <table frame="all" id="treussites">
+ <title id="ttreussites">Probabilities of success of an
+ action</title>
+ <tgroup cols="11" align="center">
+ <colspec colnum="1" colwidth="1in" align="left"/>
+ <colspec colnum="2" colwidth="0.55in"/>
+ <colspec colnum="3" colwidth="0.55in"/>
+ <colspec colnum="4" colwidth="0.55in"/>
+ <colspec colnum="5" colwidth="0.55in"/>
+ <colspec colnum="6" colwidth="0.55in"/>
+ <colspec colnum="7" colwidth="0.55in"/>
+ <colspec colnum="8" colwidth="0.55in"/>
+ <colspec colnum="9" colwidth="0.55in"/>
+ <colspec colnum="10" colwidth="0.55in"/>
+ <colspec colnum="11" colwidth="0.55in"/>
+ <tbody>
+ <row rowsep="0">
+ <entry>Difficulty</entry>
+ <entry>-20</entry>
+ <entry>-19</entry>
+ <entry>-18</entry>
+ <entry>-17</entry>
+ <entry>-16</entry>
+ <entry>-15</entry>
+ <entry>-14</entry>
+ <entry>-13</entry>
+ <entry>-12</entry>
+ <entry>-11</entry>
+ </row>
+ <row>
+ <entry>Odds</entry>
+ <entry>0.5%</entry>
+ <entry>0.6%</entry>
+ <entry>0.7%</entry>
+ <entry>1.0%</entry>
+ <entry>1.2%</entry>
+ <entry>1.5%</entry>
+ <entry>2.0%</entry>
+ <entry>2.5%</entry>
+ <entry>3.0%</entry>
+ <entry>4.0%</entry>
+ </row>
+ <row rowsep="0">
+ <entry>Difficulty</entry>
+ <entry>-10</entry>
+ <entry>-9</entry>
+ <entry>-8</entry>
+ <entry>-7</entry>
+ <entry>-6</entry>
+ <entry>-5</entry>
+ <entry>-4</entry>
+ <entry>-3</entry>
+ <entry>-2</entry>
+ <entry>-1</entry>
+ </row>
+ <row>
+ <entry>Odds</entry>
+ <entry>5.0%</entry>
+ <entry>6.0%</entry>
+ <entry>8.0%</entry>
+ <entry>10%</entry>
+ <entry>12%</entry>
+ <entry>15%</entry>
+ <entry>20%</entry>
+ <entry>25%</entry>
+ <entry>30%</entry>
+ <entry>40%</entry>
+ </row>
+ <row rowsep="0">
+ <entry>Difficulty</entry>
+ <entry>+0</entry>
+ <entry>+1</entry>
+ <entry>+2</entry>
+ <entry>+3</entry>
+ <entry>+4</entry>
+ <entry>+5</entry>
+ <entry>+6</entry>
+ <entry>+7</entry>
+ <entry>+8</entry>
+ <entry>+9</entry>
+ </row>
+ <row>
+ <entry>Odds</entry>
+ <entry>50%</entry>
+ <entry>60%</entry>
+ <entry>70%</entry>
+ <entry>75%</entry>
+ <entry>80%</entry>
+ <entry>85%</entry>
+ <entry>88%</entry>
+ <entry>90%</entry>
+ <entry>92%</entry>
+ <entry>94%</entry>
+ </row>
+ <row rowsep="0">
+ <entry>Difficulty</entry>
+ <entry>+10</entry>
+ <entry>+11</entry>
+ <entry>+12</entry>
+ <entry>+13</entry>
+ <entry>+14</entry>
+ <entry>+15</entry>
+ <entry>+16</entry>
+ <entry>+17</entry>
+ <entry>+18</entry>
+ <entry>+19</entry>
+ </row>
+ <row>
+ <entry>Odds</entry>
+ <entry>95.0%</entry>
+ <entry>96.0%</entry>
+ <entry>97.0%</entry>
+ <entry>97.5%</entry>
+ <entry>98.0%</entry>
+ <entry>98.5%</entry>
+ <entry>98.8%</entry>
+ <entry>99.0%</entry>
+ <entry>99.2%</entry>
+ <entry>99.4%</entry>
+ </row>
+ </tbody>
+ </tgroup>
+ </table>
+
+ <para>In our preceding example, the +3 difficulty give a 75%
+ chance of success to our character.</para>
+
+ <note userlevel="adv">
+ <para>Someone said to me that the right probabilities to compare
+ two values is equal to the Measure of the Attacker divided by
+ the sum of both Measures. In our system, this give us that
+ for A <= B, if A = B, the difficulty is 0, if 0 < B-A
+ <= 3, the difficulty is -B-1, if 3 < B-A <= 6, the
+ difficulty is -B-2, and if B-A > 6, the difficulty is -B-3.
+ In the case that B is lesser then A, invert A and B. This
+ method is complicate and I don't find that it add something
+ needed. The remark is however right and that's why I put it
+ here.</para>
+ </note>
+ </section>
+
+ <section id="smarge">
+ <title id="stmarge">Margin of Success</title>
+
+ <para>The margin of success determine at which degree a character
+ have succeed or failed. This margin can influence the results
+ for the will of the Game Master, and this can go from the
+ apparent ease in the accomplishment, to the quality of the final
+ result. However, the margin of success shouldn't be used to
+ modify the action that the character try to accomplish. For
+ example, a character who try to do a simple flip will not do a
+ double flip if she got +3 degrees of success. Instead, her jump
+ will be simply more <emphasis>elegant</emphasis>.</para>
+
+ <para>The success margin is easy to find. When the final
+ difficulty is found, the player rolls the dice and add the
+ result to it. The total is the margin of success. If the
+ margin of success is equal or greater than zero, the action is
+ successful. If it's less than zero, the action has failed. We
+ can then also talk about a failure margin. For example, a
+ success margin of -3 is equivalent of a failure margin of
+ +3.</para>
+
+ </section>
+
+ <section id="sacttypes">
+ <title id="stacttypes">Action Types</title>
+
+ <para>The type of action help you to find how an action will be
+ resolved. They are mostly suggestions that make the game more
+ interesting and offer a kind of challenge to the players. There
+ are many types of actions presented here:</para>
+
+ <itemizedlist>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>The <link linkend="sactsimple">simple actions</link> are
+ those that we can only success or fail and that only depends
+ on the ability of the character.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>The <link linkend="sopposition">actions in
+ opposition</link> are those that encounter a resistance from
+ one or many opponents.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>The <link linkend="sconfrontation">actions in
+ confrontation</link> permit a parry from the
+ adversary.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para><link linkend="sactmult">Simultaneous actions</link> is
+ when the character try to do many things at the same time.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </itemizedlist>
+
+ <section id="sactsimple">
+ <title id="stactsimple">Simple Actions</title>
+
+ <para>Simple actions are those that directly oppose a difficulty
+ to the character's <link linkend="scompniveau">Competency
+ Level</link>. This difficulty can be choose by the player
+ (for example, "Do I try to do a great meal or a simple soup?")
+ or imposed by the Game Master (in a precision shot for
+ example). We determine then the <link
+ linkend="scompniveau">Level of Competency</link>, roll the
+ dice and add the result to the final difficulty to get the
+ degrees of success.</para>
+
+ </section>
+
+ <section id="sopposition">
+ <title id="stopposition">Opposition Actions</title>
+
+ <para>Opposition actions put the character in front of an
+ obstacle able to resist her, her adversary. They can be done
+ in one or two rolls. The difficulty is always zero. With two
+ rolls, each adversary roll dice and the one with the greatest
+ margin of success win. With only one dice roll, the roll is
+ made with a difficulty equal to the Competency Level of the
+ character minus the Competency Level of the opponent. If the
+ degrees of success is greater than zero, the character wins.
+ If they are less than zero, the opponent wins. If the result
+ is exactly zero, nobody wins, it's a draw.</para>
+
+ </section>
+
+ <section id="sconfrontation">
+ <title id="stconfrontation">Confrontation Actions</title>
+
+ <para>Those actions permit a parry from the victim of the
+ action. An action in confrontation is a variant of the
+ opposition action and are done in two steps. We begin with a
+ simple action with, often, a basic difficulty determined by
+ the player that roll the dice. If the action fails, nothing
+ happen. But if the action succeed, the adversary can parry
+ the action by taking the same difficulty but not always the
+ same Attributes, Competency and adjustments.</para>
+
+ <example id="xconfrontation">
+ <title id="xtconfrontation">Confrontation Actions</title>
+
+ <para>A player decide to fast talk a merchant to get a better
+ price by making him believe that she's not interested by the
+ item. With the Game Master, they decide that's worth a -3
+ difficulty and so the players roll under Intuition +
+ Maneuver + Fast Talk. Since her character have respectively
+ +2, +3 and -1, this give her a total difficulty of +1. The
+ player rolls the dice and obtain 6 on her fortune dice, and
+ 5 on her misfortune one. The margin of success is +2 and
+ so, the player have give a good fast talk. The merchant,
+ played by the GM, can however parry. The GM decide to roll
+ under Intuition + Precision + Fast Talk, for which the
+ merchant has a total of +5. With the -3 difficulty of the
+ lie of the player, this give him a final difficulty of +2.
+ If the merchant fail, he will think that the player is less
+ interest and will <emphasis>may be</emphasis> put down his
+ prices to interest him a little (or may be he has something
+ else to show to the player?). If he gets it, the merchant
+ we have see clear in the player lie and will refuse to put
+ down his price, being sure that the player is interested to
+ buy.</para>
+ </example>
+
+ <para>It's important to note that it's really the difficulty
+ choose at the start by the player and not her degrees of
+ success that's the difficulty of parry. So, even if in the
+ previous example, the player has made a success margin of +10,
+ the difficulty for the parry will still be the same: -3. To
+ make the roll more difficult for the defender, the player
+ would have choose a greater difficulty, like pretending to be
+ a church man with high influence to the lord of the region.
+ The lie will be more difficult to make believable (a more
+ difficult roll for the player) but also, if succeed, more
+ difficult to refute by the merchant ("To lie that's good, it
+ must be true!").</para>
+
+ <note userlevel="adv">
+ <para>This rule is not intend to be realistic but fun. In
+ real life, the simpler solution is often the best, but there
+ is no pleasure without risk.</para>
+ </note>
+
+ </section>
+
+ <section id="sactmult">
+ <title id="stactmult">Multiple Actions</title>
+
+ <para>Multiple actions happen when a character try to do many
+ things at the same time, when she usually can only do one.
+ Each supplementary action will augment the difficulty of
+ <emphasis>all</emphasis> actions by three points. So, if a
+ character try to do three action at the same time, the
+ difficulty of each action will be increase by 6 points.</para>
+
+ </section>
+
+ </section>
+
+</chapter>
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