YAUGS uses two resolution methods, one for resolving skill and attribute checks and the other for resolving combat or resisted checks. The first form is termed Target Resolution whilst the second Active Resolution.
Target resolution is the easier of the two resolution methods to understand, although it has the more complicated results method. The basis for target resolution is that percentile dice are rolled against a target, the target either being the skill percentile or the attribute percentile. Often there are modifiers for difficulty and/or environment factors.
Once the die roll has been made there are 6 possible results, Critical Success, Normal Success, Marginal Success, Marginal Failure, Normal Failure, and Critical Failure (Fumble).
A critical success is a roll less than or equal to 5% of the required target for success, with 01 always being a critical success. If the target for success is greater than 100% then the chance for a critical is increased by 1 per 5% above 100. Thus is the target for success is 60 a critical success occurs on a roll of 01-03 whilst if the chance for success is 120 a critical occurs on a roll of 01-09.
The effects of a critical success depend upon the GM and the task at hand. Suitable effects are significant reduction in time taken, superior construction, or significantly greater control or information obtained.
A normal success is a roll between the Critical Success and Marginal Success limits. It has no specific benefits or detrimental affects
A marginal success is a roll greater than or equal to 96% of the required target for success or a roll of 96 if the target for success is greater than 100. Thus if the target for success is 60, a roll of 58-60 is a marginal success.
The effects of a marginal success depend upon the GM and the task at hand. Suitable effects are a significant increase in the time taken to achieve success, inferior construction, or signicantly reduced control or information obtained
A marginal failure is a roll of target+1 to target + target/20% of the required target for success or a roll of 97 if the target for success is greater than 100. Thus if the target for success is 60 then a marginal failure occurs on a roll of 61-64.
The effects of a marginal failure depend on the GM and the task at hand, but should not have a significantly detrimental effect on the character. For example, the character failed to leap the ravine, but has managed to achieve sufficient distance to reach the far wall but several hundred feet below the lip and is now hanging on by 1 hand - all they have to do now is climb out! Alternatively they failed to hack the AI but its attention is focused elsewhere and it hasn't yet noticed the attempt giving the character a window of escape.
A normal failure is a roll between the Marginal Success and Critical Failure limits. The effects of a normal failure should be consistant with failure, the character failure to leap the ravine and is now falling to their death, they failed to produce the sword they were attempting to make and are now the proud possessor of a twisted and pretty much useless piece of iron.
A critical failure is a roll of 100 minus target/20% to 100 or 100 (00) if the target is greater than 100. In the latter case a roll on the fumble table is allowed otherwise the result is always the worst possible outcome for the character.
For example, on attempting to leap the reavine, the character slipped on takeoff, and is now plunging head first, having crashed to the ground, slid into the ravine and dropped whatever they were carrying (including packs, weapons, shields, etc), or the AI they were attempting to hack not only noticed but is now in the process of hacking the characters brain whilst legions of security guards are hotfoot to where the characters are hiding.
Active resolution is the more complicated resolution method although the result is far simpler - it is either a success or a failure.
As in Target resolution there are Fumble and Critical results although their determination is more complex. A Fumble can only occur on a Failure and a Critical can only occur on a Success no matter what the actual die roll is.
A Fumble occurs if the result is a failure and the D100 roll is less than 20 - the skill level of the character. A roll of 01 is therefore always a Fumble.
A Critical occurs if the result is a success and the D100 roll is greater than 100 - the skill level of the character. This range is doubled if the opponent fumbles! A roll of 100 is therefore always a critcal as is a roll of 99-100 if the defender fumbles.
Active resolution is used for resolving combat and for situations where there is an active resistance to a skill being exercised, for example breaking a strangle hold, pushing somebody off a roof, hacking an Artificial Intelligence.
In active resolution there are usually at least two parties although there may be more. One party is the attacker and the other the defender.
The Attacker rolls D100 and adds the skill or attribute percentile for the skill or attribute they are using plus any appropriate modifiers. The defender either uses their Active Defense or their Passive Defense or attribute percentile, adds any applicable modifieres, and in most situations, See Combat Resolution below, adds the roll of a D100. Whoever achieves the greater total succeeds, whilst the other party(ies) fail. The party which fails then checks for a fumble whilst the party which succeeded checks for a critical. If either result is indicated a roll is made against the appropriate table.
As previously mentioned combat is resolved using the Active Resolution method but there are a number of factor which complicate things, such as the use of blocking or parying devices, multile attackers vs a single defender, unseen attackers, and area affect weapons.
Each of these affect whether the targets active or passive defense are used
A target can actively defend themseleves when they are in a position both to move in response to an attack and are aware that the attack is happening. The awareness of an attack happening depends upon the character being able to see, sense, or otherwise know that an attacker has just initiated an action that may result in harm befalling them. The ability to move depends upon both the immediate free space around the character and their being no constaints that prevent them from physically moving into that free space, such as being bound to a post, stunned, or magically imobalised.
If none of these restrictions apply a character may use their active defense against an incoming attack.
A characters Acitve Defense is (AGL+AGL+SPA+REF)/4 plus their Passive Defense.
When using Active Defense a character always gets to roll D100 and add the value to determine the outcome of the attack
A character's passive defense is a defense against attack without the character consciously or actively attempting to block or avoid the attack. A characters passive defense is principly provided by what they are wearing, although there are certain skills and abilities that provide additional passive defense.
There are also situations where a characters passive defense is effectively zero because it has no impact on whether they are struck or not. The principle case for this condition is Area Effect Weapons.
This is combat with weapons that are either designed to be thrown, propelled, or which fire projectiles or energy beams at distance of greater than that of the "Point Blank" classification for the weapon. Combat at point blank range is considered to be melee combat. If a range weapon does not have a point blank range catagory it means the weapon cannot be used for melee combat other than as a club!
Provided that none of the exception conditions below apply range combat is resolved using the targets Active Defense and a D100 roll.
This is combat using either hands, feet, tentacles, claws, wings, teeth, weapons held in any apendage, or range weapons at point blank range.
Provided that none of the exception conditions below apply range combat is resolved using the targets Active Defense and a D100 roll.
There are two aspects to multiple attackers vs a single defender, how many attackers can attack simultaneously, and how many attackers can be defended against simultaneously.
Assuming that there are no restrictions to a combat caused by obsticles or the size of a building, room, corridor, then the number of attackers is governed by the distance of the attackers from the target, the size of the attackers, and the size of the target.
In terms of distance, for mansized attackers and defenders at 10 feet (3m) or less combat is generally resolved by melee combat whilst beyond that by ranged combat. For ranged combat the number of attackers should be successively doubled for each range increment, short, medium, long, thus for man-sized attackers vs a man-sized target, 12 attackers can attack at short range, 24 at medium range, and 48 at long range.
In terms of attacker and defender size attempting to make hard and fast rules, for melee combat, is difficult but common sense should prevail. It is generally regarded that for man-sized attackers vs a man-sized target a maximum of 6 attackers can attack simultaneously, whilst a for a dragon or giant only 1 could realistically attack a man at a time.
In terms of how many attackers a defender can defend against, several factors have an influence. Firstly, is the defender capable of giving ground or do they choose to do so, ie the defense against the attack is by the simple expedient of backing away from it. Next what is the defender using to defend against the attack. A weapon can typically only block 1 attack, but a shield, dependant upon its size may block several. Note also that if a waepon is being used to block/parry it cannot be used to attack in the same round - see parry/blocking below and counter attacking.
Whilst these factors influcence a defender's capability to defend there is a physical limit imposed by the defender's own physical capability, determined by their Agility. This limit is called the "Opponent Quotiant" and is calculated as the Agility Attribute Skill divided by 20 {AGL(SK)/20}.
The opponent quotient is the maximum number of attacks that the defender can attempt to block or parry. The defender can attempt to avoid by giving ground, where possible, more than this number by making an Agility Attribute Skill check with a target of the highest agility of the attackers plus 15% per attacker greater than the opponent quotient plus 1. This increases the Opponent Quotient by 1. The Quotient can additionally be increased by 1 by forgoing any attacks in that round.
Until a defender has blocked or parried or retreated from a number of attacks equal to their Opponent Quotient or modified quotient if they made their Agility Attribute Skill check, all attacks are resolved using the Defenders Active Defense. Once this limit is reached all further attacks are resolved using the defenders Passive Defense.
The simple rule is if a defender cannot see their attacker they cannot defend against the attack, hence the attack is resolved using the defenders Passive Defense.
However, as with any rule there are exceptions, and it is the exceptions that add the complexity.
The first exception revolves around being able to visually or otherwise detect the attack before it impacts. Usually this applies to slow moving ranged attacks such as javelins, knives, and bottles, but there are skills and abilities that extend this to faster projectiles such as arrows, and even to bullets and energy blasts.
This effectively breaks down into 6 cases
A weapon or shield or limb may be used to either attack or defend during a single combat round, it cannot do both except where a defender rolls a critical defense - see Resolving Opposed Rolls (Counter-Attack) below.
The difference between parrying and blocking is one of semantics. A blow that is parried is deflected, usually by a weapon, whilst a blow that is blocked is stopped dead by the blocking object. This means thats an object used to block a blow must be sufficiently resilient to be able to absorb all the damage from a blow, whilst a object used to parry can be considerably weaker.
Typically cutting blows can either be parried, blocked, or dodged, puncturing blows must be blocked or dodged, and crushing blows can either be parried, blocked, or dodged. Area affect weapons can generally only be dodged, unless the blocking object is sufficiently large and suitable to completely shield the defender from the affect - gas grenades can only be dodged or the effects avoided by the use of a gas mask.
Weapons or objects specifically designed to block have a bonus which is added to the skill roll to determine if the blow is avoided. Having determined if a blow will hit - successful attack roll, the defender can attempt to block or parry the attack. To succeed the defender must make the appropriate skill check for the weapon or object being used, and must beat the original attack result. If the result is less the attack succeeds and the defender takes what ever damage their armour/clothing doesn't absorb.
Auto defense covers a number of abilities and skills possessed by certain character classes that enable them to avoid certain types of attack. The difference between any auto defense ability and a resistance ability is that the former decreases the chance of the attack hitting whilst the latter decreases of nullifies the damage done when an attack hits
Depending on the specific skill or ability the characters Passive defense alone is increased or the character's Passive Defense is increased and the character is allowed to add a D100 roll in a situation where normally a roll would not be allowed, such as being shot at from behind or facing more than their Opponent Quotient simultaneously.
| Attackers Result > Defenders Result |
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| Defenders Result > Attackers Result |
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| Both Results Equal | No Result - Neither Party can Fumble or Critical |
From the table it can be seen that there are three results which aid the defender in some way, either by allowing them to disengage from the attacker, allowing them to attempt to disarm the attacker, allowing them to make a free counter-attack, or by providing an improved defense against the attackers next attack. The Disarm, Disengage, and Counter-Attack options are detailed below.
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| Yet Another Universal Games System (YAUGS) |