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Killer Cyborg wrote:

Axelmania wrote:Dead Reign 38 also has "A fraction of one PPE point returns one SDC only"

Probably because "one SDC" is the minimum that can be returned.

Which is circular logic.
Saying that the reason that a fraction of a PPE gives any result instead of "a fraction returns no SDC" is because a fraction returns 1... is circular!
You can't claim that the reason something works a specific way is because it works that way.

eliakon wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Axelmania wrote:Dead Reign 38 also has "A fraction of one PPE point returns one SDC only"

Probably because "one SDC" is the minimum that can be returned.

Which is circular logic.
Saying that the reason that a fraction of a PPE gives any result instead of "a fraction returns no SDC" is because a fraction returns 1... is circular!
You can't claim that the reason something works a specific way is because it works that way.

I'm not claiming a reason: I'm pointing out evidence.
Do you understand the difference?

We have at least two cases where the rules go out of their way to avoid dealing with partial points of SDC, and we have zero cases where the rules use partial points of SDC.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

eliakon wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Axelmania wrote:Dead Reign 38 also has "A fraction of one PPE point returns one SDC only"

Probably because "one SDC" is the minimum that can be returned.

Which is circular logic.
Saying that the reason that a fraction of a PPE gives any result instead of "a fraction returns no SDC" is because a fraction returns 1... is circular!
You can't claim that the reason something works a specific way is because it works that way.

I'm not claiming a reason: I'm pointing out evidence.
Do you understand the difference?

I do. But this isn't that. You are not pointing out a neutral evidence you are making a value judgement on the evidence and explaining it... an explanation that IS the evidence itself.

Killer Cyborg wrote:We have at least two cases where the rules go out of their way to avoid dealing with partial points of SDC, and we have zero cases where the rules use partial points of SDC.

That is, again, your contention.
Which works perfectly if you define all other cases as not existing
When your form of logic is "all evidence that doesn't fit my preconceived notion is to be discarded as simply being wrong." then your stance doesn't look very solid.
Especially when you have to resort to logical fallacies and semantic word games to justify it.

I suppose that we should have expected that fractions would prove to be such a fractious issue.

dreicunan wrote:I suppose that we should have expected that fractions would prove to be such a fractious issue.

you win

eliakon wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

eliakon wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Axelmania wrote:Dead Reign 38 also has "A fraction of one PPE point returns one SDC only"

Probably because "one SDC" is the minimum that can be returned.

Which is circular logic.
Saying that the reason that a fraction of a PPE gives any result instead of "a fraction returns no SDC" is because a fraction returns 1... is circular!
You can't claim that the reason something works a specific way is because it works that way.

I'm not claiming a reason: I'm pointing out evidence.
Do you understand the difference?

I do. But this isn't that. You are not pointing out a neutral evidence you are making a value judgement on the evidence and explaining it... an explanation that IS the evidence itself.

Uh... no.

My main claim so far is that because the rules never describe fractional damage, it does not exist within the game rules.
This is a truism, but it's not circular logic.

As we've researched the issue, we've found further supporting evidence that my claim is correct, in that in every case so far where it would normally make sense to describe fractions of damage points, the writers have actively avoided doing so.
Which means it isn't just that no writers ever thought about the issue; it's that they've actively avoided it.

When your form of logic is "all evidence that doesn't fit my preconceived notion is to be discarded as simply being wrong."

I'm sorry...
What evidence exactly do you have FOR the existence of fractional damage...?

Killer Cyborg wrote:Probably because "one SDC" is the minimum that can be returned.

More like because 1 full PPE will restore 3D6 SDC + 1D6 HP.

Killer Cyborg wrote:We have at least two cases where the rules go out of their way to avoid dealing with partial points of SDC, and we have zero cases where the rules use partial points of SDC.

You're assuming to know author motives.

Assuming this was done to avoid partial SDC is assuming that partial SDC is the next logical step in progression, which simply isn't so.

Something like 0.9 PPE restoring at least 2D6 SDC, for example, would seem a perfectly reasonable progression, but that's not how it's done.

So this was not done because they refuse to do amounts lower than 1 SDC, but rather because they are simplifying amounts of PPE between 0 and 1 as having a minimal benefit.

Killer Cyborg wrote:My main claim so far is that because the rules never describe fractional damage, it does not exist within the game rules.

That's like saying the game rules never describe inflicting example 1,700 points of damage. Even if the particular example is never used, if mathematics as instructed lead us to that outcome, that does exist in the game rules, whether or not it was explicitly described.

Killer Cyborg wrote:As we've researched the issue, we've found further supporting evidence that my claim is correct, in that in every case so far where it would normally make sense to describe fractions of damage points, the writers have actively avoided doing so.
Which means it isn't just that no writers ever thought about the issue; it's that they've actively avoided it.

You're misinterpreting the Dead Reign example, fractional or even 1 SDC isn't the next logical step below 4D6.

One could also argue that aside from the Wujcik example in N+SS that authors actively avoid instructing us to round fractions up or down, meaning they've actively avoided guiding us to do that.

Axelmania wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:My main claim so far is that because the rules never describe fractional damage, it does not exist within the game rules.

That's like saying the game rules never describe inflicting example 1,700 points of damage. Even if the particular example is never used, if mathematics as instructed lead us to that outcome, that does exist in the game rules, whether or not it was explicitly described.

That doesn't follow from what he said. 1,700 is a whole number. A fraction isn't. Killer Cyborg has not argued against whole number damage at any point, only fractional damage.

Axelmania wrote: this was not done because they refuse to do amounts lower than 1 SDC, but rather because they are simplifying amounts of PPE between 0 and 1 as having a minimal benefit.

Quite possibly, seeing how much SDC/HP a single PPE can heal.
So that leaves us with only one case where the authors avoid fractional damage, and zero where they use it.

One could also argue that aside from the Wujcik example in N+SS that authors actively avoid instructing us to round fractions up or down, meaning they've actively avoided guiding us to do that.

If a rule is presented once, it doesn't need to be presented again.

dreicunan wrote:

Axelmania wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:My main claim so far is that because the rules never describe fractional damage, it does not exist within the game rules.

That's like saying the game rules never describe inflicting example 1,700 points of damage. Even if the particular example is never used, if mathematics as instructed lead us to that outcome, that does exist in the game rules, whether or not it was explicitly described.

That doesn't follow from what he said. 1,700 is a whole number. A fraction isn't. Killer Cyborg has not argued against whole number damage at any point, only fractional damage.

Yup.

Let's see what I can find...

RGMG 135
Blow Gun
Damage: None; the dart stings, but causes no damage unless coated with poison or drugs

RGMG 129
Tranquilizer Rifle
also
Dart Gun
Damage section only lists effects of drugs/poisons, not any damage for the needle poking a hole in you.

N&S 128
Fingertip Attack
Damage: 1 point

RUE 53
Wrist Needle & Drug Dispenser
Again, there is no mention of any damage for the needle, only the drugs/poison

RUE 283
A character with PS of 3-4 inflicts 1/2 damage on punches
If fractional damage were a thing, that would mean that a punch from one of these characters would inflict 1/2-2 points of damage instead of 1-4.
Characters with PS of 1-2 inflict 1 point of physical damage from punches, meaning that their weakest punch is 2x stronger than the weakest punch of somebody with 2-4x their PS score. IF fractional damage is a thing.

RUE 177
Bio-Manipulation: Pain
Victims lose 1 HP per minute.
NOT 1/2 HP per 2 melees.
NOT 1/4 HP per melee.
Another case of Palladium describing damage by the minimal timeframe it takes to get to 1 point of damage, instead of using a more typical timeframe and listing partial points of damage.

CB1 103
Faerie weapons inflict 1 point of SDC per attack.
(Which doesn't necessarily mean anything; just making a note)

HU2 235
List of kinetic weapons and their damages.
A Frisbee inflicts "no damage."
A marble or a snowball inflicts 1 point of damage.
There are no items that inflict a partial point of damage.
As always, there is a gap between 0 and 1, as if nothing in-between existed, even when discussing damage on a level of granularity along the lines of "which would do more damage, a marble or a Frisbee?"
They determined that a marble not only does more damage, but that it does infinitely more damage.
(as a side note: a softball inflicts 2 points of damage.)

HU2 262-266
Various insects are described, and virtually all of them inflict "no damage unless 30 or more individuals attack," then they list a damage by type.
29 Common Red Ants biting you inflicts 0 damage, for example, but when you add 1 more ant, the damage jumps up to 1d4/melee.
29 Carpenter Ants inflict 0 damage. 30 inflict 1d6/melee.
29 Wasps inflict 0 damage. 30 inflict 3d6/melee.
Yet again, we see the pattern: writes will assign ZERO damage to something again and again, rather than assign fractional damage.

A Greater Stag Beetle inflicts 1 point of damage per bite.

HU2 301
An ectoplasmic punch or kick inflicts 1 point of damage.
(just a fun fact)

HUGMG 191
Metaphorphosis: Insect
Non-poisonous bite does 1 point of damage.

...and that's all the stuff I've found so far.
I'll look in more books later.

gents I think this isn't going anywhere.

Prysus wrote:

Greetings and Salutations. I just want to go on the record and state that N&S does NOT have a rule against fractional damage. What N&S has is the same, unspecified, general wording as the other settings (or equivalent, a few words might be slightly different).

What N&S does have is an example of how that generic, unspecified rule works. I find it important to distinguish between the two. As an individual, I find the example far more important as it shows how the unspecified rule works without feeling the need to clarify the wording of the rule itself. Just my thoughts. Farewell and safe journeys.

Huh.
Excellent point!

The only place I've seen fractions is on page 17 of the modern weapons book. That book said that if you use the HP to Body Location breakdown that any fractions get rounded up to the nearest whole number (example given was 2.1 went to 3).

This however doesn't necessarily mean that damage was meant to be rounded up as well. In my first gaming group I recall we dropped fractions off entirely, but I don't know if this was a house rule or if it was written down somewhere.

EDIT: Doing a quick glance-through there's a couple places where it mentions that bleed-through damage does half, and one where it says quarter the damage rolled, but nothing about fractions.

dreicunan wrote:That doesn't follow from what he said. 1,700 is a whole number. A fraction isn't. Killer Cyborg has not argued against whole number damage at any point, only fractional damage.

If you're talking about "types" of numbers, then I could also argue we've never seen a damage example where it is possible to inflict a multiple of 683 damage. That is a "type" of number, just as "even" numbers are multiples of 2.

Killer Cyborg wrote:If a rule is presented once, it doesn't need to be presented again.

I see, would you apply that to other N&SS rules, like "roll with blow" being free (doesn't cost an attack), or "dodge" being a single roll which applies to anyone targeting you that round?

Killer Cyborg wrote:Let's see what I can find...

RGMG 135
Blow Gun
Damage: None; the dart stings, but causes no damage unless coated with poison or drugs

This simply means that there is some threshold (not necessarily 1.0, could be 0.1 or 0.001) below which damage is negligible and only painful.

Killer Cyborg wrote:RGMG 129
Tranquilizer Rifle
also
Dart Gun
Damage section only lists effects of drugs/poisons, not any damage for the needle poking a hole in you.

Not actually listing small amounts of damage because they don't seem important doesn't mean that small amounts of damage don't exist. Unless you're expecting someone to get hit with dozens of darts (which would be unusual for these weapons, where you might expect only 1 or 2 shots per target) , something that might do 0.1 SDC isn't going to make enough of a difference to bother with listing.

Interestingly enough, "Dart" does appear on various games illustrated weapons list (Miscellaneous) doing 1D4, but I expect that refers to the bar-room game and those are thicker than those used to dispense drugs.

Killer Cyborg wrote:N&S 128
Fingertip Attack
Damage: 1 point

Don't forget to add PS bonus!

I'm not seeing the point in listing this. Having a fixed (no dice) amount of damage doesn't mean anything, we also see that for Vibrating Palm.

Killer Cyborg wrote:RUE 53
Wrist Needle & Drug Dispenser
Again, there is no mention of any damage for the needle, only the drugs/poison

As above, these were all in the original RMB too.

Killer Cyborg wrote:RUE 283
A character with PS of 3-4 inflicts 1/2 damage on punches
If fractional damage were a thing, that would mean that a punch from one of these characters would inflict 1/2-2 points of damage instead of 1-4.

Correct.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Characters with PS of 1-2 inflict 1 point of physical damage from punches, meaning that their weakest punch is 2x stronger than the weakest punch of somebody with 2-4x their PS score. IF fractional damage is a thing.

So what? Their strongest punch is still twice as good.

Plus there's no telling when this "maximum 1" applies: does it apply before or after doubling for a power punch (RUE 345) ?

Chock that down to bad writing: 1D4 on a kick isn't any worse than 1/2 damage on kicks (RUE 345: 1D8 untrained) and there's no difference (1/2 damage in both cases) in the damage done with hand-to-hand weapons either.

Killer Cyborg wrote:RUE 177
Bio-Manipulation: Pain
Victims lose 1 HP per minute.
NOT 1/2 HP per 2 melees.
NOT 1/4 HP per melee.
Another case of Palladium describing damage by the minimal timeframe it takes to get to 1 point of damage, instead of using a more typical timeframe and listing partial points of damage.

That or it simply works in "waves".

Killer Cyborg wrote:CB1 103
Faerie weapons inflict 1 point of SDC per attack.
(Which doesn't necessarily mean anything; just making a note)

Agreed.

Killer Cyborg wrote:HU2 235
List of kinetic weapons and their damages.
A Frisbee inflicts "no damage."
A marble or a snowball inflicts 1 point of damage.
There are no items that inflict a partial point of damage.

There would be in an MKE v MKE duel. If you're hit with a metal discus that rolls 3 on 2D4, ability 1 will reduce that to 1.5

Realistically speaking a snowball isn't always going to be more damaging than a toy frisbee, so what's somewhat of a wonky chart... they probably mean it to be a "tightly packed" one like on pg 244 (APS Ice)

Killer Cyborg wrote:(as a side note: a softball inflicts 2 points of damage.)

I think you should have a serious problem with this, given that it does more minimum damage than the 1D4 that Darts do, basically the same problem that exists between the PS2 punch and the PS3 punch.

Killer Cyborg wrote:HU2 262-266
Various insects are described, and virtually all of them inflict "no damage unless 30 or more individuals attack," then they list a damage by type.
..
29 Wasps inflict 0 damage. 30 inflict 3d6/melee.
Yet again, we see the pattern: writes will assign ZERO damage to something again and again, rather than assign fractional damage.

That's just rules-wonkiness as usual. Obviously even without veering into fractions: if 30 do 3d6 then 20 should do 2d6 and 10 should do 1d6. The 29=fail means there's some strange cumulative aspect about wasps.

Killer Cyborg wrote:HU2 301
An ectoplasmic punch or kick inflicts 1 point of damage.
(just a fun fact)

What about HTH bonuses?

Axelmania wrote:

dreicunan wrote:That doesn't follow from what he said. 1,700 is a whole number. A fraction isn't. Killer Cyborg has not argued against whole number damage at any point, only fractional damage.

If you're talking about "types" of numbers, then I could also argue we've never seen a damage example where it is possible to inflict a multiple of 683 damage. That is a "type" of number, just as "even" numbers are multiples of 2.

You could make that arguement, but it would have no bearing on what is being discussed here, so why would you?

Axelmania wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:If a rule is presented once, it doesn't need to be presented again.

I see, would you apply that to other N&SS rules, like "roll with blow" being free (doesn't cost an attack), or "dodge" being a single roll which applies to anyone targeting you that round?

Unless contradicted by later books or something, yeah.

But Prysus made an important distinction here:
viewtopic.php?p=3029515#p3029515

Prysus wrote:

Greetings and Salutations. I just want to go on the record and state that N&S does NOT have a rule against fractional damage. What N&S has is the same, unspecified, general wording as the other settings (or equivalent, a few words might be slightly different).

What N&S does have is an example of how that generic, unspecified rule works. I find it important to distinguish between the two.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Let's see what I can find...

RGMG 135
Blow Gun
Damage: None; the dart stings, but causes no damage unless coated with poison or drugs

This simply means that there is some threshold (not necessarily 1.0, could be 0.1 or 0.001) below which damage is negligible and only painful.

Then we agree that there IS a threshold.

A) If the threshold is NOT at 1 point, what's the likely candidate in your view?
B) We know that a marble inflicts 1 point of damage when thrown.
How much less damage does would a blowgun dart inflict than a marble, would you say?
Half as much? 3/4? 1/10th?

Not actually listing small amounts of damage because they don't seem important doesn't mean that small amounts of damage don't exist.

Agreed.
But since blowgun darts inflict 0 damage, the lack of damage stats for tranq guns indicates that they also inflict 0 damage.

Interestingly enough, "Dart" does appear on various games illustrated weapons list (Miscellaneous) doing 1D4, but I expect that refers to the bar-room game and those are thicker than those used to dispense drugs.

Actually, considering the damage, I suspect that they're even larger than standard barroom darts, something more like a Plumbata.

Killer Cyborg wrote:N&S 128
Fingertip Attack
Damage: 1 point

Don't forget to add PS bonus!

I'm not seeing the point in listing this. Having a fixed (no dice) amount of damage doesn't mean anything, we also see that for Vibrating Palm.

Fixing the damage at 1 full point instead of a partial point sticks with the overall pattern of avoiding partial points of damage.
Poking somebody with your finger does a full point of damage.
Why?
Most likely EITHER because the Palladium writers did a lot of numbers-crunching, and realized that physics-wise that kind of attack would inflict exactly 1 point of damage--not .9 damage, not .8 damage, not 1.000001 damage, not 1.1 damage, but EXACTLY 1.000000 points of damage...
OR because the writers decided that kind of attack would inflict the minimum amount of damage possible, and that minimum IS 1 point exactly.

Killer Cyborg wrote:RUE 283
A character with PS of 3-4 inflicts 1/2 damage on punches
If fractional damage were a thing, that would mean that a punch from one of these characters would inflict 1/2-2 points of damage instead of 1-4.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Characters with PS of 1-2 inflict 1 point of physical damage from punches, meaning that their weakest punch is 2x stronger than the weakest punch of somebody with 2-4x their PS score. IF fractional damage is a thing.

So what? Their strongest punch is still twice as good.

But the weakest punch from a weaker person should be weaker than the weakest punch from a stronger person.
So the stats don't make sense simulation-wise, as written, unless fractional damage is NOT a thing.

Killer Cyborg wrote:RUE 177
Bio-Manipulation: Pain
Victims lose 1 HP per minute.
NOT 1/2 HP per 2 melees.
NOT 1/4 HP per melee.
Another case of Palladium describing damage by the minimal timeframe it takes to get to 1 point of damage, instead of using a more typical timeframe and listing partial points of damage.

That or it simply works in "waves".

It works in "waves," sure.
But why does it work in "waves" of 1 minute, instead of any other time increment?
Because 1 is the minimum amount of damage possible, and inflicting that minimum takes a full minute.

Killer Cyborg wrote:HU2 235
List of kinetic weapons and their damages.
A Frisbee inflicts "no damage."
A marble or a snowball inflicts 1 point of damage.
There are no items that inflict a partial point of damage.

There would be in an MKE v MKE duel. If you're hit with a metal discus that rolls 3 on 2D4, ability 1 will reduce that to 1.5[/quote]

Realistically speaking a snowball isn't always going to be more damaging than a toy frisbee, so what's somewhat of a wonky chart... they probably mean it to be a "tightly packed" one like on pg 244 (APS Ice)

Yeah, I'm assuming they meant a rather sturdy snowball, but not an ice ball.

Killer Cyborg wrote:(as a side note: a softball inflicts 2 points of damage.)

I think you should have a serious problem with this, given that it does more minimum damage than the 1D4 that Darts do, basically the same problem that exists between the PS2 punch and the PS3 punch.

I certainly agree that this is an odd choice for damage, which is why I noted it.
I don't know of anything else that does a flat 2 damage; usually it's 1-2 damage.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Unless contradicted by later books or something, yeah.

So for example, when BTS gives random chances of psychic ability for ALL children (not just the ones who will grow up to be classified as Minor Psionics) we can assume this applies in all settings?

Or mages being able to draw on 3 people per level? Rifts' 2 per level and HU/PF 1per level are only affirmations and not denials, after all.

Killer Cyborg wrote:But Prysus made an important distinction here:
https://palladiumbooks.com/forums/viewt ... 5#p3029515

Prysus wrote:

Greetings and Salutations. I just want to go on the record and state that N&S does NOT have a rule against fractional damage. What N&S has is the same, unspecified, general wording as the other settings (or equivalent, a few words might be slightly different).

What N&S does have is an example of how that generic, unspecified rule works. I find it important to distinguish between the two.

There are more reasons than just the "free rolls" policy NOT to use N&SS as a precedent for how RWB applies in other games.

Have you looked closely at the numbers it uses in the combat example? It basically involves rolling under the DAMAGE rather than the strike roll.

Killer Cyborg wrote:How much less damage does would a blowgun dart inflict than a marble, would you say?
Half as much? 3/4? 1/10th?

Too many variables to answer, depends on the size/weight of the marble, the length/thickness of the dart, the strength you throw with, the strength you blow with, etc.

Of course, unless you have PS16+ to get a damage bonus, everyone throws stuff equally hard damage-wise in Palladium, so I don't know how sciencey we can really get here.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Fixing the damage at 1 full point instead of a partial point sticks with the overall pattern of avoiding partial points of damage.

Poking somebody with your finger does a full point of damage.
Why?

You're a bad-ass Akemi-using martial artist with years of training, that's why.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Most likely EITHER because the Palladium writers did a lot of numbers-crunching, and realized that physics-wise that kind of attack would inflict exactly 1 point of damage--not .9 damage, not .8 damage, not 1.000001 damage, not 1.1 damage, but EXACTLY 1.000000 points of damage...
OR because the writers decided that kind of attack would inflict the minimum amount of damage possible, and that minimum IS 1 point exactly.

The minimum amount of damage possible is 0, they could've chosen that if they wanted.

Killer Cyborg wrote:But the weakest punch from a weaker person should be weaker than the weakest punch from a stronger person.

No, it shouldn't, because as we see, they are tied in their ability to inflict damage with weapons.

I think maybe you're arguing that the minimum damage of a weak person shouldn't be higher than the minimum damage of a strong person?

Palladium has wonky PS rules sometimes, that's why (RUE 285) a Robot with a PS of 26 doing a restrained punch to a Promethean will hurt him more (6d6/2) than a robot with a PS 40 doing a full-strength punch (2d6).

Killer Cyborg wrote:why does it work in "waves" of 1 minute, instead of any other time increment?
Because 1 is the minimum amount of damage possible, and inflicting that minimum takes a full minute.

Interesting theory, but then why do we sometimes see stuff like bio-regeneration 4D6/minute instead of 1D6/melee?

There is clearly no minimum preventing higher-incidence waves here, yet it's delayed anyway. That's just how it is.

Killer Cyborg wrote:I certainly agree that this is an odd choice for damage, which is why I noted it.
I don't know of anything else that does a flat 2 damage; usually it's 1-2 damage.

[/quote]
I don't suppose you found hardball damage anywhere?

Axelmania wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:Unless contradicted by later books or something, yeah.

So for example, when BTS gives random chances of psychic ability for ALL children (not just the ones who will grow up to be classified as Minor Psionics) we can assume this applies in all settings?

Unless contradicted by later books or something, yeah.

Or mages being able to draw on 3 people per level? Rifts' 2 per level and HU/PF 1per level are only affirmations and not denials, after all.

A different number is a contradiction.

Killer Cyborg wrote:But Prysus made an important distinction here:
viewtopic.php?p=3029515#p3029515

Prysus wrote:

Greetings and Salutations. I just want to go on the record and state that N&S does NOT have a rule against fractional damage. What N&S has is the same, unspecified, general wording as the other settings (or equivalent, a few words might be slightly different).

What N&S does have is an example of how that generic, unspecified rule works. I find it important to distinguish between the two.

There are more reasons than just the "free rolls" policy NOT to use N&SS as a precedent for how RWB applies in other games.

You mean "not to use N&SS as a precedent" in THIS specific case, or as a general rule?

Have you looked closely at the numbers it uses in the combat example? It basically involves rolling under the DAMAGE rather than the strike roll.

No idea what you're talking about here.

Killer Cyborg wrote:How much less damage does would a blowgun dart inflict than a marble, would you say?
Half as much? 3/4? 1/10th?

Too many variables to answer, depends on the size/weight of the marble, the length/thickness of the dart, the strength you throw with, the strength you blow with, etc.

Go with an actual marble made of marble, not a glass marble.
And go with a standard low-tech amazon-type blowgun dart.

The strength you throw with is partly indicated by your damage roll, not by your base damage amount.
In this case, the damage is static, so the force doesn't matter; any force sufficient to count as a strike would inflict the set damage.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Fixing the damage at 1 full point instead of a partial point sticks with the overall pattern of avoiding partial points of damage.

Poking somebody with your finger does a full point of damage.
Why?

You're a bad-ass Akemi-using martial artist with years of training, that's why.

But not bad-ass enough to inflict 2 points of damage unless you crit.
It's always exactly ONE point, never a half-point, or 3/4 point, or 1.1 points.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Most likely EITHER because the Palladium writers did a lot of numbers-crunching, and realized that physics-wise that kind of attack would inflict exactly 1 point of damage--not .9 damage, not .8 damage, not 1.000001 damage, not 1.1 damage, but EXACTLY 1.000000 points of damage...
OR because the writers decided that kind of attack would inflict the minimum amount of damage possible, and that minimum IS 1 point exactly.

The minimum amount of damage possible is 0, they could've chosen that if they wanted.

An arbitrary, semantics-based claim that dodges the point:
Palladium never, ever, ever, EVER lists partial points of damage for anything.

Address the point.

Killer Cyborg wrote:It's always exactly ONE point, never a half-point, or 3/4 point, or 1.1 points.

Of course we've also seen exactly 2 points, as you pointed out, which proves that non-variable damage can happen without being mandated by some kind of minimum quantifiable amount.

I think the reason we don't see things with decimal damage capacity or decimal damage is because it looks clunky so they try to avoid it.

What you have to keep in mind is that with halving from RWB combined with pull punch (which can also do 1/2) you're looking at 1/4 damage which can already move you from 0 decimals to 2 decimals (0.25 increments) so if damage/capacity was already decimaled to begin with, you'd get even further into that, which is why I think they try to avoid it being an inherent property, so that when it does result from non-rounding fractioning instructions, the necessary amount of decimal places is limited.

You ROUND UP. (See my previous post)

Axelmania wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:It's always exactly ONE point, never a half-point, or 3/4 point, or 1.1 points.

Of course we've also seen exactly 2 points, as you pointed out, which proves that non-variable damage can happen without being mandated by some kind of minimum quantifiable amount.

That doesn't interact with what I was talking about, which is that we NEVER see fractions or decimals.
Damage is always a minimum of 1 point.
Damage is always in whole numbers: 1d6 damage, not 1d6x.1 or 1d6+1/2.

In Palladium's entire history, they don't seem to have EVER ONCE listed a fractional or decimal damage, for any weapon ever.
It
Is
ALWAYS
whole numbers.

So if you want to claim that Palladium intends--and/or has always intended--for there to be damage that occurs in less than whole number increments, the burden is on you to explain why this has never, ever, EVER happened or been demonstrated in their rules.

I think the reason we don't see things with decimal damage capacity or decimal damage is because it looks clunky so they try to avoid it.

Close.
Now try this:
"I think the reason there is no such thing as decimal damage capacity or decimal damage is because it looks clunky so the company only uses whole numbers."

What you have to keep in mind is that with halving from RWB...

Foul!
Circular logic.
Your claim is that halving damage results in fractional damage.
You're trying to support your claim by telling me that I have to keep in mind that halving damage results in fractional damage.
You cannot use your claim to support your claim.

We have N&S (which has the same rules for taking 1/2 damage when Rolling With Impact as other games) giving us an example of how that rule works: you round up the 1/2 damage.
In order to over-rule that example, you'd need to find a counter-example where fractional damage is shown to be the result of Rolling With Impact.
Or that it even exists within the scope of the game.
Let me know if you can find that.

Killer Cyborg wrote:That doesn't interact with what I was talking about, which is that we NEVER see fractions or decimals.

You were complaining and asking why a martial arts technique that requires years of training is able to do a point of damage.

For some inexplicable reason you have a problem with this, and you appeared to be implying that it ought to be a decimaled amount but that it got rounded up.

You were asking why it fell outside patterns.

One standard pattern is variable (dice) damage. So I figured perhaps you thought it ought to be something like 1d6*0.1 but perhaps you're thinking they represent that as fixed 1.0 due to up-rounding.

The reason I bring up the 2-damage implement is that it also serves as an example of non-variable damage which, even if up-rounding was a think (say 2d6*0.1) we would expect to see a range of 1-2, not a fixed 2.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Damage is always a minimum of 1 point.
Damage is always in whole numbers: 1d6 damage, not 1d6x.1 or 1d6+1/2.

BASE damage so far has been, sure. Probably for simplicity.

"Pull punch" has been able to divide damage for a long time, as has "half damage" protections, meaning that fractional damage has been a thing for decades.

Killer Cyborg wrote:In Palladium's entire history, they don't seem to have EVER ONCE listed a fractional or decimal damage, for any weapon ever.
It
Is
ALWAYS
whole numbers.

So is PPE cost for spells. It's just done for simplicity and convenience.

The math of fractions would be even more complicated if you had to apply them to already-decimal amounts.

Killer Cyborg wrote:So if you want to claim that Palladium intends--and/or has always intended--for there to be damage that occurs in less than whole number increments, the burden is on you to explain why this has never, ever, EVER happened or been demonstrated in their rules.

There is no reason to think standard mathematical rules would not apply to damage. We already know partial PPE exist, so there's no grounds for thinking partial SDC / partial damage don't exist either.

I mean, KC, let's talk about THE WEIGHT OF WEAPONS for a moment...

Have you ever noticed that weapon weights tend to be an exact amount of pounds?

How often do we see a gun that weighs fractional increments of a pound?

I'm sure it's happened occasionally with really tiny stuff, but I'm betting it's not something we see with larger weapons, because Palladium will just choose easy-to-work-with numbers for convenience, even though it's extremely unlikely to see such exact amounts with real objects.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

I think the reason we don't see things with decimal damage capacity or decimal damage is because it looks clunky so they try to avoid it.

Close.
Now try this:
"I think the reason there is no such thing as decimal damage capacity or decimal damage is because it looks clunky so the company only uses whole numbers."

Using whole numbers is a space-saver which makes math easier, so I understand why they do it when defining base item capabilities.

That's absolutely zero grounds for inventing an unwritten rounding rule. Math applies as instructed, except where exceptions are listed.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

What you have to keep in mind is that with halving from RWB...

Foul!
Circular logic.
Your claim is that halving damage results in fractional damage.

That's already established: that's how math works. Otherwise they say "divide and round X"

Killer Cyborg wrote:You're trying to support your claim by telling me that I have to keep in mind that halving damage results in fractional damage.
You cannot use your claim to support your claim.

The claim is the default operation of the system, you're trying to convince me that we should apply your rounding policy just because weapons happen to have whole-number damage assignments, each though they tend to have whole-number poundages.

If taking 10% damage from a 1D6 gun should be rounded up to 1 damage, does that mean a 6 pound bag reduced to 10% of its weight should be rounded up to 1 pound? Seems like the same logic to me.

Killer Cyborg wrote:We have N&S (which has the same rules for taking 1/2 damage when Rolling With Impact as other games) giving us an example of how that rule works: you round up the 1/2 damage.

I suggest you take a closer look at N&SS rules for RWB, they're incredibly different. Not just in their action cost, but in their implementation in a combat example.

Killer Cyborg wrote:In order to over-rule that example, you'd need to find a counter-example where fractional damage is shown to be the result of Rolling With Impact.

Wujcik is proven to have misinterpreted how RWB works, if you actually look at the numbers used in that example. Look very closely at them. They don't line up. He's not a reliable source on this.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Or that it even exists within the scope of the game.

It does because it is the only possible outcome we can get when applying math as instructed.

If there were no examples of a "0.5 pound item" or even no examples of decimal/fraction poundages at all (though I'm sure there are) a 1-pound item reduced to half its weight would still weigh 0.5 pounds. Examples aren't needed, it's just math. That's the rules.

Axelmania wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:That doesn't interact with what I was talking about, which is that we NEVER see fractions or decimals.

You were complaining and asking why a martial arts technique that requires years of training is able to do a point of damage.

Incorrect.
I was pointing out that the damage for poking somebody with a finger is exactly 1 whole point of damage, no more, no less.
It's not 1-2 points of damage.
It's not .2d6 damage.
It's 1 point exactly.

The reason I bring up the 2-damage implement is that it also serves as an example of non-variable damage which, even if up-rounding was a think (say 2d6*0.1) we would expect to see a range of 1-2, not a fixed 2.

It's not about damage being fixed.
It's about damage never, ever, ever, ever being fractional, and never being less than 1 whole point.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Damage is always a minimum of 1 point.
Damage is always in whole numbers: 1d6 damage, not 1d6x.1 or 1d6+1/2.

BASE damage so far has been, sure. Probably for simplicity.

And modified damage also is, and for the same reason: simplicity.
They're consistent in that: they don't go below 1 point increments, because it's simpler not to.

"Pull punch" has been able to divide damage for a long time, as has "half damage" protections, meaning that fractional damage has been a thing for decades.

Again, you're trying to use your conclusion as evidence of your conclusion.
This is circular logic, a fallacy.

Killer Cyborg wrote:In Palladium's entire history, they don't seem to have EVER ONCE listed a fractional or decimal damage, for any weapon ever.
It
Is
ALWAYS
whole numbers.

So is PPE cost for spells. It's just done for simplicity and convenience.

You're trying to discuss WHY the rules are this way, as if the reason meant that the rules were any other way.
But it doesn't, and they're not.

Killer Cyborg wrote:So if you want to claim that Palladium intends--and/or has always intended--for there to be damage that occurs in less than whole number increments, the burden is on you to explain why this has never, ever, EVER happened or been demonstrated in their rules.

There is no reason to think standard mathematical rules would not apply to damage.

You say that there's "no reason,"
BUT there are two very good reasons:
1. The demonstration from N&S
2. The obviousness by which Palladium determinedly sticks to 1 point of damage being the absolute minimum they ever use or show.

We already know partial PPE exist, so there's no grounds for thinking partial SDC / partial damage don't exist either.

Apples and oranges.
But also, partial points of PPE did NOT exist until it was added to the books, and the same applies to partial points of damage.

I mean, KC, let's talk about THE WEIGHT OF WEAPONS for a moment...

Have you ever noticed that weapon weights tend to be an exact amount of pounds?

How often do we see a gun that weighs fractional increments of a pound?

Pretty frequently.
Certainly more than "not once in any game in the history of the company.

Few examples:
RMB 224
Wilk's Laser Wand weighs 2 oz.

RMB 244
.38 Service-Six Ruger Revolver weighs "just under 2 lbs."
Barracuda FN Revolver weighs "slightly over 2 lbs."
7.65mm PP Walther weights "1 1/2 lbs."
Browning GP 35 "Just under 2 lbs."
7.62mm AK-47 9 1/2 lbs.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Now try this:
"I think the reason there is no such thing as decimal damage capacity or decimal damage is because it looks clunky so the company only uses whole numbers."

Using whole numbers is a space-saver which makes math easier, so I understand why they do it when defining base item capabilities.

You understand why the rules are the way they are.
But you deny that they ARE the rules.

That's absolutely zero grounds for inventing an unwritten rounding rule.

It's not unwritten, and it's definitely not invented.
It's demonstrated in N&S, and it's required by a lack of mechanisms or rules for dealing with partial points of damage.

Math applies as instructed, except where exceptions are listed.

Math applies as instructed, within the level of granularity allowed by the game rules.
And those rules do NOT allow for any granularity finer than 1 point of damage.
If they DID, then we'd see it somewhere.

Otherwise they say "divide and round X"

They do, in N&S, when they give a demonstration of the "half damage" rule in action.

Killer Cyborg wrote:You're trying to support your claim by telling me that I have to keep in mind that halving damage results in fractional damage.
You cannot use your claim to support your claim.

The claim is the default operation of the system,

Incorrect.
The default operation of the system is that anything less than 1 point of damage is 0 points of damage, and we see this operation universally applied.

Killer Cyborg wrote:We have N&S (which has the same rules for taking 1/2 damage when Rolling With Impact as other games) giving us an example of how that rule works: you round up the 1/2 damage.

I suggest you take a closer look at N&SS rules for RWB, they're incredibly different. Not just in their action cost, but in their implementation in a combat example.

Yes, the two abilities function differently as noted.
But ONLY as noted.
If you can find a note that they work differently when it comes to rounding, let me know.
Otherwise, they do not work differently, and you're inventing a rule that they DO work differently in that aspect.

Killer Cyborg wrote:In order to over-rule that example, you'd need to find a counter-example where fractional damage is shown to be the result of Rolling With Impact.

Wujcik is proven to have misinterpreted how RWB works, if you actually look at the numbers used in that example. Look very closely at them. They don't line up. He's not a reliable source on this.

He doesn't have to be reliable; he is canon.
Palladium as a company isn't reliable, but they are canon.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Or that it even exists within the scope of the game.

It does because it is the only possible outcome we can get when applying math as instructed.

Only if you ignore the instruction to round, and only if you ignore the fact that 1 point of damage is the minimum level of granularity in the rules.

If there were no examples of a "0.5 pound item" or even no examples of decimal/fraction poundages at all (though I'm sure there are) a 1-pound item reduced to half its weight would still weigh 0.5 pounds. Examples aren't needed, it's just math. That's the rules.

But there are .5 lb items.
Moreover, pounds are a real measurement of weight. When dealing with real-world things, real-world rules apply unless they conflict with game rules.
When dealing with imaginary game-world measurements like SDC/HP, real-world rules only apply as allowed for by the game rules.

Boiling it all down, what we're looking at is the following question:

Is it more likely that Palladium...
a) Intended for people to take partial points of damage in some situations, even though they never provide any rules for dealing with partial points of damage?
or
b) Intended for people to round damage off, indicated this at least once in N&S, and figured that everybody would know how things work?

Killer Cyborg wrote:Boiling it all down, what we're looking at is the following question:

Is it more likely that Palladium...
a) Intended for people to take partial points of damage in some situations, even though they never provide any rules for dealing with partial points of damage?
or
b) Intended for people to round damage off, indicated this at least once in N&S, and figured that everybody would know how things work?

I asked about fractional damage through Palladium's website contact form. We'll see what they say, but I don't believe for a minute that they ever intended damage to be fractional.

I get a kick out this section of the forum... "Palladium Books Games Q&A." It should read, "Palladium Books Games - Players' Opinions and Conjecture," because that's all it is. Person A asks a question and Persons B, C, D, etc. give answers based on their opinions, house rules or understanding. Unless someone cites a specific book and/or page number, it's all interpretation or preference. It's up to the original poster asking for guidance to sift through all the bologna and come up with their own conclusion.

Then we come across the posts wherein the original poster wants to start an argument or somehow make themself feel superior by baiting others into participating by posting a seemingly sincere "question." They'll get a few responses, then they answer their own "question" with whatever answer they've already given thought to prior to starting the thread. They then defend their wacky position, which is usually quite lonesome somewhere out in left field, no matter how absurd and nonsensical their reasoning is. They continue to do that even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary as well as several people telling them they're wrong and offering compelling reasoning. But I shouldn't be too hard on those folks... Let's not forget the endless entertainment they provide everyone else on the forum by spending countless hours at the keyboard quoting (and quoting and quoting) those poor souls over and over (and over and over and over again) who fell for the original poster's trap, actually thinking they were providing useful information to someone who was asking an honest question.

KC, lacking examples of granularity isn't the same as there being a rule against granularity.

I knew you could find examples of partial-poundage (are there also fractional-ounce objects?) but there is still a prevalent pattern of them rounding off to big numbers for simplicity.

As for the finger-poke, I just see it as an example of how specific and controlled that move it. Also note that it is in no way limited to just 1 damage, since it would also benefit from PS damage bonuses, HTH damage bonuses, bonuses from pumping chi into the attack...

Notice how those all add fixed numbers too, not dice? Why are you hung up on only the non-variability of base damage and not on the non-variability of bonus damage?

Killer Cyborg wrote:Intended for people to round damage off, indicated this at least once in N&S, and figured that everybody would know how things work?

KC since you seem to love this example so much, let's refresh the key parts of 125 to 126 to see what it tells us about RWB

Bruno decides to punch Kajo and makes a roll to Strike.
His Natural roll is a 3, normally a miss but he gets to add in his Strike bonus of 4.
That makes the total Strike roll a 7, which is a hit.
- -
Bruno's successful punch does 1D4 worth of damage.
Bruno rolls a puny 1, but his +4 bonus to Damage is added in to make the total equal to 4.
- -
Kajo attempts to Roll with Bruno's successful punch.
His dice roll is 12, easily better than Bruno's Strike of 5.
That means Kajo takes only half damage,
half of 5 being 3
(always round up for fractions)

Does anyone have an edition with different numbers? It seems like the entire thing is done with no consistency.

The "Strike of 5" more resembles the damage calculation (1+4 would be 5, which appears to be mistakenly entered as a 4... as we can see from "Half of 5" later) than the actual Strike of 7 from the first part.

This indicates whoever wrote the Bruno+Kajo examples (not sure of this was Wujcik or possibly put in by Kev as RPG Design Editor or editors like Alex/Randi/Florence) seem to not understand how it works, thinking you need to roll higher than the damage rather than higher than the strike roll, despite it being explained immediately above where they entered the example that it was the strike roll you need to beat.

Even if you ignore all that, "always" can simply mean in the context of using RWB (a defender reducing damage an attacker is doing to them) and I don't think there's any reason to think that this should apply to using Pull Punch.

Pg 132 allows Pull Punch to reduce to "half damage, quarter damage, a single point or no damage at all"

If fractions are ALWAYS rounded up, then "quarter damage" could only differ from "a single point" if you did at least 8 damage, which most people won't do anyway.

Given that Pull Punch allows for "no damage at all" we also know that you're not limited to a minimum of 1 damage on attacks. ANY attack can be made non-damaging.

It also shows that any attack can be made with fingerpoke-like precision to do a single point, if desired. No matter how variable it originally was.

The H/Q/S/N options might be viewed as implied reduction progression (50%/25%/??%/0%) where I expect KC will declare some kind of insinuation (much like the low-PS rules in RUE) that 1 damage should never exceed 25% and at worse be tied with it, but that's just speculatory.

Single-damage attacks are simply a recurring aspect of N&SS. Pg 124's Vibrating Palm might lead some to think 1 damage is the absolute minimum one could do because it's non-variable... but when it increases to 2, to 4, to 8, to 16... those aren't variable either!

Knockback also flutters between these: pg 122's Force Yell rolls variable feet for knockback, while pg 195's Push Open Hand does a fixed amount equal to chi. Alternating between fixedness and variability is such an observable trend of this game that the existence of a fixed "1 damage" attack does not serve as any sort of precedent of any sort. We see a 1 damage per 20ft when using Karumi-Jutsu (pg 124) for example, rather than 1d6 increments. Pg 120's Hardened Chi and Find Weakness both add fixed damage amounts instead of adding dice. The same applies to One Finger Chi (compared to Activate Chi in Mystic China, which inflicts dice) It's just how some martial arts stuff works.

Given that the passage ends up presenting one point or no point, that doesn't do anything to support the idea of fractional damage.

Axelmania wrote:KC, lacking examples of granularity isn't the same as there being a rule against granularity.

We have examples of granularity for damage.
Every single example is in whole numbers.

I knew you could find examples of partial-poundage (are there also fractional-ounce objects?) but there is still a prevalent pattern of them rounding off to big numbers for simplicity.

At the strongest, I might say "penchant," not "pattern."

As for the finger-poke, I just see it as an example of how specific and controlled that move it.

Oh, sure. It's exactly as specific and controlled as...
a thrown snowball
a thrown marble
Bio-manipulation: Pain
Etc.

As opposed to the uncontrolled damage of a blow gun dart, which always inflicts 0 damage.

Also note that it is in no way limited to just 1 damage, since it would also benefit from PS damage bonuses, HTH damage bonuses, bonuses from pumping chi into the attack...

Agreed, and it need not be brought up again.

Notice how those all add fixed numbers too, not dice? Why are you hung up on only the non-variability of base damage and not on the non-variability of bonus damage?

I'm not.
I'm entirely willing to discuss how all variable damage is likewise always in whole numbers, and in fact I have discussed that.
The reason why I bring up the cases where a single point of damage is inflicted is because that is where the granularity level of the game is most clearly shown.
We are given damages in the 0 range, and in the 1 range, with nothing ever in-between.
That's the level of granularity that exists in the game rules for damage, nothing more fine than that.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Intended for people to round damage off, indicated this at least once in N&S, and figured that everybody would know how things work?

KC since you seem to love this example so much, let's refresh the key parts of 125 to 126 to see what it tells us about RWB

Bruno decides to punch Kajo and makes a roll to Strike.
His Natural roll is a 3, normally a miss but he gets to add in his Strike bonus of 4.
That makes the total Strike roll a 7, which is a hit.
- -
Bruno's successful punch does 1D4 worth of damage.
Bruno rolls a puny 1, but his +4 bonus to Damage is added in to make the total equal to 4.
- -
Kajo attempts to Roll with Bruno's successful punch.
His dice roll is 12, easily better than Bruno's Strike of 5.
That means Kajo takes only half damage,
half of 5 being 3
(always round up for fractions)

Does anyone have an edition with different numbers? It seems like the entire thing is done with no consistency.

The "Strike of 5" more resembles the damage calculation (1+4 would be 5, which appears to be mistakenly entered as a 4... as we can see from "Half of 5" later) than the actual Strike of 7 from the first part.

This indicates whoever wrote the Bruno+Kajo examples (not sure of this was Wujcik or possibly put in by Kev as RPG Design Editor or editors like Alex/Randi/Florence) seem to not understand how it works, thinking you need to roll higher than the damage rather than higher than the strike roll, despite it being explained immediately above where they entered the example that it was the strike roll you need to beat.

I think it shows that they were easily confused with numbers, which is not the same as easily being confused with game rules.
They typoed a 4 instead of a 5, then they confused the strike roll with the damage roll.
That doesn't mean that they don't know how the rules work, only that they messed up the numbers.

(The numbers in my book are the same as in yours. Mine is a 2nd Printing edition from 1991. There are probably newer editions, and those may or may not have edited things.)

Even if you ignore all that, "always" can simply mean in the context of using RWB (a defender reducing damage an attacker is doing to them) and I don't think there's any reason to think that this should apply to using Pull Punch.

Pg 132 allows Pull Punch to reduce to "half damage, quarter damage, a single point or no damage at all"

Look at the bolded part, because once again it shows the level of granularity in Palladium's damage system.
1 or 0, with nothing in-between.

If fractions are ALWAYS rounded up, then "quarter damage" could only differ from "a single point" if you did at least 8 damage, which most people won't do anyway.

Lots of attacks inflict more than 8 points of damage.
A power punch with no PS bonus inflicts 1d10 damage, not counting PS or other damage bonuses.
Battle axes and many other weapons inflict 2d6 damage, not counting PS or other damage bonuses.

Given that Pull Punch allows for "no damage at all" we also know that you're not limited to a minimum of 1 damage on attacks.

We know that from blowgun darts as well, and other attacks that inflict zero damage, even if they penetrate the flesh, even on a critical strike.
The argument has never been that you cannot inflict less than 1 point of damage on an attack, but rather that anything less than 1 point of damage is 0 points of damage.
That's what's always shown in the rules.

ANY attack can be made non-damaging.

Well, any hand to hand attack.

It also shows that any attack can be made with fingerpoke-like precision to do a single point, if desired. No matter how variable it originally was.

Being able to only inflict 1 point of base damage is not precision; it's just a low base damage.
Being able to Pull Punch to reduce damage is an example of precision.

Single-damage attacks are simply a recurring aspect of N&SS. Pg 124's Vibrating Palm might lead some to think 1 damage is the absolute minimum one could do because it's non-variable... but when it increases to 2, to 4, to 8, to 16... those aren't variable either!

As I've said, it's not that the damage is non-variable.
It's that the damage is NEVER anything other than whole numbers.
The minimum damage inflicted by an attack is consistently shown to be 1 or 0, depending on how you define damage (as 0 damage could be defined as no damage at all).
It's never ONCE anything in-between.
Because whole numbers are the level of granularity that the system uses for damage.

Again, your entire argument seems to boil down to this:
Palladium always intended for us to use partial points of damage,
even though they never once show us partial points of damage in action,
even though they ascribe things like snowballs and marbles a full point of damage, where realistically they'd at least sometimes do less than 1 full point,
even though the ascribe things like blowgun darts 0 points of damage, where realistically having a dart penetrate your flesh should reasonably be counted as >0 damage,
and when they flat-out tell us to always round up damage, it's only because they were confused when they wrote that part, so it's not really a rule.

How and why does that seem more reasonable to you than this:
Palladium's level of granularity when it comes to damage only deals in whole points

dreicunan wrote:Given that the passage ends up presenting one point or no point, that doesn't do anything to support the idea of fractional damage.

I never said it supported it, I said the passage is full of nonsense and isn't a good candidate to support anything.

KC wrote:The reason why I bring up the cases where a single point of damage is inflicted is because that is where the granularity level of the game is most clearly shown.

You seem to be arguing that the lowest example of raw damage rollable is somehow the lowest possible...

So if we had a game where the weakest attacks did 2D4 damage, would that mean that 2 is the minimum level and RWB could not halve it to 1?

I think I've already offered a very plausible reason as to why damage tends to begin as even numbers: because it's the easiest math. If it began with single-decimal numbers then halving it further could lead to double digits, and halving it again could lead to triple digits.

Beginning with a tendency for easier-to-work with numbers is in no way a prohibition against going below those original guidelines.

For example: with big weapons we usually see x10 or x100 or x1000 multiples to dice, because that's very easy to work with. It doesn't mean that modifiers we are instructed to apply cannot mess with some kind of fixed 0 or 00 or 000 at the end.

Look at the bolded part, because once again it shows the level of granularity in Palladium's damage system.
1 or 0, with nothing in-between.

Except that 1/2 of 1 or 1/4 of 2 can certainly result in numbers in between there.

The "power of 1" is basically the hard-to-fathom ability of all pull-punchers to do a fixed 1 damage regardless of how much their original attack did, even if it was some kind of 2d4x100 rune sword, but not be able to do a fixed 2. In the rune sword case, they might manage, at 1/4 of 200, to do 50 damage as the next step up.

Lots of attacks inflict more than 8 points of damage.
A power punch with no PS bonus inflicts 1d10 damage, not counting PS or other damage bonuses.

Why would you make a power punch to double your damage only to quarter it?

Well, any hand to hand attack.

As for axes, I'm now wondering if the "hand to hand attack" PP is intended for is actually weapons (why not "melee attack"?) or actually just hands (given it's pull PUNCH and not pull HIT)

It's that the damage is NEVER anything other than whole numbers.

Occam's Razor is that it's for convenience. For the most part, weight has been in full numbers too, with some exceptions like the ones I knew you could find.

PPE is also listed in whole numbers too, despite it being possible to weedle it off gradually as well. RUE 186 limiting someone to draining 1% of someone's PPE per second wouldn't be much of a limitation at all for your average targets if you could just round that up, because 1 PPE per second for someone with 10 PPE is more like 10% per second.

Prior to actual examples of this being the case to convince you, you could have argued PPE was indivisible using the same logic... and would thus have been proven wrong to assume that.

they ascribe things like snowballs and marbles a full point of damage, where realistically they'd at least sometimes do less than 1 full point

Palladium has a history of ascribing more-lethal-than-expected damage to a lot of stuff. 1D4 punches in original Palladium RPG was incredibly lethal. It might still be in PF2/HU2 for those who don't even have an OCC to get an SDC base from.

when they flat-out tell us to always round up damage

"always" meaning "when using Ninjas and Superspies special version of Roll With Blow"? If it was important, we'd see it in more than just that book.

Axelmania wrote:

KC wrote:The reason why I bring up the cases where a single point of damage is inflicted is because that is where the granularity level of the game is most clearly shown.

You seem to be arguing that the lowest example of raw damage rollable is somehow the lowest possible...

Incorrect.
I'm arguing that the lowest level of granularity for damage in the game rules is whole numbers.

I think I've already offered a very plausible reason as to why damage tends to begin as even numbers: because it's the easiest math.

1 is not an even number.
1 is an odd number.

If it began with single-decimal numbers then halving it further could lead to double digits, and halving it again could lead to triple digits.

Correct.
And again, you seem to be saying "the reason why the game rules only ever use whole numbers for damage is because it's easier, and it keeps things from spiraling out of control," while also saying "But I think that Palladium wants US to use partial point of damage, even though it's harder, and things could spiral out of control."

Why does that make more sense to you than:
a) Palladium only ever uses whole numbers for damage because it's easier, and it keeps things from spiraling out of control
and also
b) Palladium intends for US to only use whole numbers for damage, because it's easier, and it keeps things from spiraling out of control.

Your entire stance seems to hinge on Palladium doing things the easy way, while wanting us to do things the hard way, while never TELLING us that's how they want us to do things, and on at least one occasion telling us NOT to do things the hard way.

Look at the bolded part, because once again it shows the level of granularity in Palladium's damage system.
1 or 0, with nothing in-between.

Except that 1/2 of 1 or 1/4 of 2 can certainly result in numbers in between there.

You're ignoring the point, jumping ahead into your circular logic again.
Set aside the 1/2 damage stuff from now.
Look only at the fact that every time Palladium sets the damage, it's in whole numbers.
They NEVER have anything inflict anything between 0 and 1 points of damage, even when it would make sense.
It's either a needle/dart that inflicts 0 damage even though it breaks the skin, or it's a marble that inflicts 1 point of damage.
It's never 1/2 point of damage.
EVER.

The "power of 1" is basically the hard-to-fathom ability of all pull-punchers to do a fixed 1 damage regardless of how much their original attack did, even if it was some kind of 2d4x100 rune sword, but not be able to do a fixed 2.

The reason why it's 1, and not 2, is because 1 is the weakest amount of damage, the mildest a scratch can be without being 0.
2 is not.

In the rune sword case, they might manage, at 1/4 of 200, to do 50 damage as the next step up.

And if somebody pulls punch with a rune sword, inflicting 1/2 damage on an attack that would normally do 21 MD, how much mega-damage would the target take?

Lots of attacks inflict more than 8 points of damage.
A power punch with no PS bonus inflicts 1d10 damage, not counting PS or other damage bonuses.

Why would you make a power punch to double your damage only to quarter it?

"Why" doesn't really matter.

It's that the damage is NEVER anything other than whole numbers.

Occam's Razor is that it's for convenience.

YES.
And Occam's Razor is also that Palladium intends for us to do things the same way they do, rounding off for convenience sake.

PPE is also listed in whole numbers too, despite it being possible to weedle it off gradually as well. RUE 186 limiting someone to draining 1% of someone's PPE per second wouldn't be much of a limitation at all for your average targets if you could just round that up, because 1 PPE per second for someone with 10 PPE is more like 10% per second.

Prior to actual examples of this being the case to convince you, you could have argued PPE was indivisible using the same logic... and would thus have been proven wrong to assume that.

Prior to the actual examples of fractional PPE, I would have argued that PPE was indivisible, yes.
But I wouldn't have been proven wrong when examples came out, because Palladium changes their rules quite frequently, and this may well be one of those times.

when they flat-out tell us to always round up damage

"always" meaning "when using Ninjas and Superspies special version of Roll With Blow"?

That's you reading more into the sentence than is there.
The sentence says "always."

If it was important, we'd see it in more than just that book.

Oh, man.
That's not how Palladium works.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

when they flat-out tell us to always round up damage

"always" meaning "when using Ninjas and Superspies special version of Roll With Blow"?

That's you reading more into the sentence than is there.
The sentence says "always."

If it was important, we'd see it in more than just that book.

Oh, man.
That's not how Palladium works.

No, KC, I think we're on to something here. If rounding to whole numbers is that important, we'd definitely see it in the combat section of all the core books... just like how fractional damage is mentioned so prominently. Oh, wait... sorry... I just realized that fractional damage mentioned in FEWER books than rounding to whole numbers is mentioned... fewer, as in NONE. Does that mean since it's NEVER mentioned, it's even LESS important than something that IS canon and is at least mentioned ONCE? Isn't something that appears in NO books at all simply considered to MADE UP? I mean, sheesh... if we're going to ascribe importance to a rule based on how many times it's mentioned in Palladium books, then the notion of fractional damage is DEAD ON ARRIVAL. Rounding, however, is real. If someone doesn't like that, just house rule it for the fractions. I feel sorry for the poor slob sitting at the same table as someone who insists on fractional damage. I'm sure no one warned him to bring his scientific calculator along with his dice and character sheet.

Hey... instead of making the outcome of the rolls fractional, what if we made the actual dice rolls themselves fractional? Let's use fractional dice! (I'm on a "roll" now!) Ya, damage could be determined by using dice that are a fraction of their usual size! I have these little dice that are about 2/3 the size of standard dice. I also bought my daughter some really teeny tiny dice at GenCon that are at least 1/3 the size of standard dice! Then I've seen these dice online that are each about the size of a pea! They're SUPER fractional! I know a guy who'd LOVE those!

And for 1/2 damage, well, we could just use a coin for a D4, a D3 (yep, it's a thing) for a D6, a D4 for a D8, a D5 (yep, it's also a thing) for a D10, a D6 for a D12 (Although Palladium doesn't give the poor D12 much love), and a D10 for a D20 (can't remember the last time I saw a weapon do 1D20 damage, though...)! If we half the amount of damage we inflict on the front end, we'll never have to worry about trying to half a roll of a 5! Hold on a second, that actually makes a little bit of sense... so, scratch that last part.

Killer Cyborg wrote:I'm arguing that the lowest level of granularity for damage in the game rules is whole numbers.

The lowest level of granularity for BASE damage has been whole numbers so far, but that granularity has no hold upon the quotients created by applying divisors as instructed to those bases.

The lowest granularity for PPE costs assigned to spells has also so-far been whole numbers.

Any argument that this means a granularity restriction on quotients-as-instructed would be similarly flawed: Casting a 5 PPE spell using a Ring of Elder, since it doesn't say to round up or down, would be exactly 2.5 PPE, not 2 PPE and not 3 PPE.

Any arguments to the contrary on the basis of granularity (entirely unsubstantiated) fall apart when we finally do get explicit examples of partial PPE points being used by bees/slouchers.

Killer Cyborg wrote:1 is not an even number.
1 is an odd number.

Nice catch, clearly I intended "whole" but made a goof.

Killer Cyborg wrote:you seem to be saying "the reason why the game rules only ever use whole numbers for damage is because it's easier, and it keeps things from spiraling out of control," while also saying "But I think that Palladium wants US to use whole numbers, even though it's harder, and things could spiral out of control."

Er, you're close, did you possibly intend "But I think that Palladium wants US to use decimal numbers" in the 2nd part?

In the 1st part, rather than "game rules" I would say "base damage stats" as applied to various attacks / weapons / spells.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Why does that make more sense to you than:
a) Palladium only ever uses whole numbers for damage because it's easier, and it keeps things from spiraling out of control
and also
b) Palladium intends for US to only use whole numbers for damage, because it's easier, and it keeps things from spiraling out of control.

Quotient damage (which is: a base damage which has been divided by a number) simply would not spiral out of control, because it doesn't happen very often.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Your entire stance seems to hinge on Palladium doing things the easy way, while wanting us to do things the hard way, while never TELLING us that's how they want us to do things, and on at least one occasion telling us NOT to do things the hard way.

This is a false dichotomy KC, because there isn't merely easy/hard. Your proposed "easy" is whole-to-begin and whole-quotients, while my proposed whole-to-begin flexible-quotients is a MODERATE proposal. The actual "hard" mode (which neither of us supports) would be starting with decimal base numbers and then making them even more complex decimals by applying divisors.

Killer Cyborg wrote:You're ignoring the point, jumping ahead into your circular logic again.

It's the RAW, so it's not circular logic. You have a burden to prove we must ignore mathematical instructions and apply unwritten ones.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Look only at the fact that every time Palladium sets the damage, it's in whole numbers.

Irrelevant and I've already explained that: every time Palladium sets other quantities like PPE costs for spells, it's also in whole numbers, but that doesn't in any way mean we must round to the nearest number if we are instructed to divide the PPE cost for a spell in half.

For example, in Through the Glass Darkly 22 it says Mirror Mages can cast spells at half cost. Certain odd-numbered base costs lead to the following for Mirror Mages:

Sense Nightbane costs 1.5 PPE
Sense PPE costs 1.5 PPE
Mystic Alarm costs 2.5 PPE
Teleport: Lesser costs 7.5 PPE
Banishment costs 32.5 PPE
Summon Nightlord costs 212.5 PPE

If a Mirror Mage had a Ring of Elder, these amounts would then be 0.75 / 1.25 / 3.75 / 16.25 / 106.25

If you think that having consistently whole-numbered base amounts required consistently whole-numbered quotients when applying divisors, then you should disagree with me on the above. Do you?

Killer Cyborg wrote:They NEVER have anything inflict anything between 0 and 1 points of damage, even when it would make sense.
It's either a needle/dart that inflicts 0 damage even though it breaks the skin, or it's a marble that inflicts 1 point of damage.
It's never 1/2 point of damage.
EVER.

Not as a base amount, which I chock up due to hand-waving and not much time being spent on things.

If you take half damage from kinetic energy then you very much will take 0.5 damage when struck by that 1-damage marble.

Rounding that down to 0 SDC is giving a non-instructed power boost to the defender, and rounding that up to 1 SDC is giving a non-instructed power nerf to the defender.

Killer Cyborg wrote:The reason why it's 1, and not 2, is because 1 is the weakest amount of damage, the mildest a scratch can be without being 0.

According to your house rule.

Killer Cyborg wrote:if somebody pulls punch with a rune sword, inflicting 1/2 damage on an attack that would normally do 21 MD, how much mega-damage would the target take?

The effect of 10.5 MD? *checks RUE 355* "One Mega-Damage point inflicts the equivalent of 100 S.D.C." So it would seem to me that this ratio means it would inflict 1050 SDC on an SDC target and deplete 10.5 MDC from an MDC target.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Occam's Razor is also that Palladium intends for us to do things the same way they do, rounding off for convenience sake.

Palladium deciding for simplistic base amounts doesn't in any way mean they intend for fans to know some unwritten intention for rounding numbers, and beyond that to know which direction to round them in.

KC, I just checked RUE 268 and the Wilks 320's 1000ft range apparently is more like 304.8 metres but the parenthesis lists 305 metres. On the next page, 10ft (~3.048m) is merely written as 3m.

Do you think that actually means that Wilks weapons have shorter firing ranges when playing using the metric system? Or just that Palladium opts for simplified basic stat listings even to the point of inaccuracy?

We know they are able to use decimals, since they do that for the KG conversions from pounds for weight, but they won't use a decimal place for the metres when converting from feet.

Rather than this meaning a special rule exists for firing Wilks laser weapons in a metric-based game, I would assume there aren't any special unwritten rules at all, and it's just writer fiat.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Prior to the actual examples of fractional PPE, I would have argued that PPE was indivisible, yes.
But I wouldn't have been proven wrong when examples came out, because Palladium changes their rules quite frequently, and this may well be one of those times.

Except there is no evidence at all this was a change: because we were never told that PPE can only be measured in whole-number amounts, that it must come in discrete quantities rather than continuous quantities.

You're now making an argument about damage being discrete because you can't win when making it for PPE. But why would damage be limited to discrete values when PPE isn't?

Killer Cyborg wrote:That's you reading more into the sentence than is there.
The sentence says "always."

Sentences must be read in context. You might salivate over the statement "always round down SDC damage" being present on RUE 288, for example, but it's clearly in the context of when applying SDC damage exceeding 100 to deplete MDC amounts, just like this is only in regard to using Roll With Blow in Ninjas and Superspies.

- - -

Jack Burton wrote:fractional damage mentioned in FEWER books than rounding to whole numbers is mentioned... fewer, as in NONE.

That's like saying that damage in multiples of 23983 isn't mentioned in any books. That would in no way mean it is impossible to inflict 23983 damage. You don't need specific examples of every instance of how mathematics work to calculate outcomes using it.

We do, however, have examples of Palladium accepting mathematical measurements to at least one decimal place, so that is clearly an acceptable thing to do when using math to play a Palladium game.

That would apply whether it is weight (as where we find these examples) or distance or damage or PPE. There is no reason to complicate things by assuming unwritten rules to apply mathematics differently for different variables when we aren't instructed to.

Jack Burton wrote:I feel sorry for the poor slob sitting at the same table as someone who insists on fractional damage. I'm sure no one warned him to bring his scientific calculator along with his dice and character sheet.

I don't see how a scientific calculator would be of any use here. Are you making some kind of graph?

If someone needs even a basic calculator to do simple things like divide by 2 or 4 or 5 or 10 then I'm not sure they're mentally mature enough to be playing in most of Palladium's settings.

The major difficulty is when dealing with divisors like 3 which would lead to repeating-decimal outcomes, in which case it would be simpler to just write the fraction rather than a decimal.

Jack Burton wrote:And for 1/2 damage, well, we could just use a coin for a D4, a D3 (yep, it's a thing) for a D6, a D4 for a D8, a D5 (yep, it's also a thing) for a D10, a D6 for a D12 (Although Palladium doesn't give the poor D12 much love), and a D10 for a D20 (can't remember the last time I saw a weapon do 1D20 damage, though...)! If we half the amount of damage we inflict on the front end, we'll never have to worry about trying to half a roll of a 5! Hold on a second, that actually makes a little bit of sense... so, scratch that last part.

Those don't lead to the same averages, you're essentially adopting a "round up" policy using this approach (0.5 and 1.0 are 1, 1.5 and 2.0 are 2, using the 1D4/2 vs 1D2 example) which actually conflicts with KC's argument that we round damage down based on N&S' RWB mess.

Axelmania wrote:Er, you're close, did you possibly intend "But I think that Palladium wants US to use decimal numbers" in the 2nd part?

There isn't a single game system that I have played that has ever used decimals. The Palladium games I have played are no exception. There is always some sort of rounding going on.

Maybe you just enjoy the argument, but your statements are looking incredibly silly, and I doubt you are convincing anyone. Not that you have to let that stop you from keeping up the fight for decimals and fractions everywhere.

@Axelmania: apparently the satire was lost on you.

Kraynic wrote:

Axelmania wrote:Er, you're close, did you possibly intend "But I think that Palladium wants US to use decimal numbers" in the 2nd part?

There isn't a single game system that I have played that has ever used decimals. The Palladium games I have played are no exception. There is always some sort of rounding going on.

I'm not sure why you quoted that part. KC was attempting to paraphrase his impression of my opinion but I think perhaps made a small grammar error like I have recently.

BTW you're wrong since as has been pointed out, Palladium has used decimals for weight in kilograms.

Kraynic wrote:Maybe you just enjoy the argument, but your statements are looking incredibly silly, and I doubt you are convincing anyone. Not that you have to let that stop you from keeping up the fight for decimals and fractions everywhere.

Calling something silly without explaining why is non-convincing.

The issue here is whether or not damage is a discrete measurement system (like ?) or a continuous measurement system like we know distance/weight/PPE to be.

dreicunan wrote:@Axelmania: apparently the satire was lost on you.

Satire where?

Axelmania wrote:I'm not sure why you quoted that part. KC was attempting to paraphrase his impression of my opinion but I think perhaps made a small grammar error like I have recently.

BTW you're wrong since as has been pointed out, Palladium has used decimals for weight in kilograms.

Oh, so this thread has been about weight instead of HP, ISP, SDC, and any other game mechanic currency? Interesting. I guess you are really just trolling instead of trying to convince anyone. That makes more sense than you being serious by this point.

Axelmania wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:I'm arguing that the lowest level of granularity for damage in the game rules is whole numbers.

The lowest level of granularity for BASE damage has been whole numbers so far, but that granularity has no hold upon the quotients created by applying divisors as instructed to those bases.

Incorrect.
We have examples of damage being rounded off in canon.
We do NOT have any examples of damage quotients in canon.

Rounding is canon.
Quotients are not.

Killer Cyborg wrote:you seem to be saying "the reason why the game rules only ever use whole numbers for damage is because it's easier, and it keeps things from spiraling out of control," while also saying "But I think that Palladium wants US to use whole numbers, even though it's harder, and things could spiral out of control."

Er, you're close, did you possibly intend "But I think that Palladium wants US to use decimal numbers" in the 2nd part?

Yup.
Fixed it.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Why does that make more sense to you than:
a) Palladium only ever uses whole numbers for damage because it's easier, and it keeps things from spiraling out of control
and also
b) Palladium intends for US to only use whole numbers for damage, because it's easier, and it keeps things from spiraling out of control.

Quotient damage (which is: a base damage which has been divided by a number) simply would not spiral out of control, because it doesn't happen very often.

It would come up in the game any and every time there was an intersection between:
a) an odd number base damage being inflicted
and
b) partial damage being applied

Partial damage occurs any time somebody:
Rolls with Impact
Pulls a Punch/attack
Is Resistant to a kind of attack (heat, cold, poison, magic, lasers, etc.), and is hit by that attack
Is caught in the area of effect for an explosion
And so forth.

That actually happens pretty often in a game.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Your entire stance seems to hinge on Palladium doing things the easy way, while wanting us to do things the hard way, while never TELLING us that's how they want us to do things, and on at least one occasion telling us NOT to do things the hard way.

This is a false dichotomy KC, because there isn't merely easy/hard. Your proposed "easy" is whole-to-begin and whole-quotients, while my proposed whole-to-begin flexible-quotients is a MODERATE proposal.

I'll rephrase:
b]Your entire stance seems to hinge on Palladium doing things the easy way, while wanting us NOT to do things the easy way, while never TELLING us that's how they want us to do things, and on at least one occasion telling us NOT to do things the hard way.[/b]

Killer Cyborg wrote:You're ignoring the point, jumping ahead into your circular logic again.

It's the RAW, so it's not circular logic. You have a burden to prove we must ignore mathematical instructions and apply unwritten ones.

Incorrect.
RAW is "always round up for fractions."

Killer Cyborg wrote:Look only at the fact that every time Palladium sets the damage, it's in whole numbers.

Irrelevant

It's entirely relevant, because it shows us how Palladium intends the game to work.

and I've already explained that: every time Palladium sets other quantities like PPE costs for spells, it's also in whole numbers, but that doesn't in any way mean we must round to the nearest number if we are instructed to divide the PPE cost for a spell in half.

Yes, it does, unless we are SHOWN otherwise.
You're arguing on one hand that it's irrelevant what Palladium shows us, and on the other hand that it's relevant what Palladium shows us.
That doesn't fit together.

If you think that having consistently whole-numbered base amounts required consistently whole-numbered quotients when applying divisors, then you should disagree with me on the above. Do you?

That's how things would be run until partial points of PPE were shown to exist, yes.

Killer Cyborg wrote:They NEVER have anything inflict anything between 0 and 1 points of damage, even when it would make sense.
It's either a needle/dart that inflicts 0 damage even though it breaks the skin, or it's a marble that inflicts 1 point of damage.
It's never 1/2 point of damage.
EVER.

Not as a base amount, which I chock up due to hand-waving and not much time being spent on things.

That gets back to the point: you believe that Palladium takes the easy way, while they intend without telling us that we should NOT take the easy way.
Which doesn't make sense.

Killer Cyborg wrote:The reason why it's 1, and not 2, is because 1 is the weakest amount of damage, the mildest a scratch can be without being 0.

According to your house rule.

It's not my house rule.
It's not MY rule at all.
It's how Palladium does things.
Unless you can find an example of them doing things another way...?

Killer Cyborg wrote:Occam's Razor is also that Palladium intends for us to do things the same way they do, rounding off for convenience sake.

Palladium deciding for simplistic base amounts doesn't in any way mean they intend for fans to know some unwritten intention for rounding numbers, and beyond that to know which direction to round them in.

Incorrect.

Do you think that actually means that Wilks weapons have shorter firing ranges when playing using the metric system? Or just that Palladium opts for simplified basic stat listings even to the point of inaccuracy?

Both.
Palladium doesn't bother to accurately translate to and from the metric system, but the stats for the weapon ARE the official stats for the weapon.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Prior to the actual examples of fractional PPE, I would have argued that PPE was indivisible, yes.
But I wouldn't have been proven wrong when examples came out, because Palladium changes their rules quite frequently, and this may well be one of those times.

Except there is no evidence at all this was a change

There is no evidence that it was NOT a change.

Killer Cyborg wrote:That's you reading more into the sentence than is there.
The sentence says "always."

Sentences must be read in context.

And the context here is a demonstration of how the rules for "half damage" work.

Kraynic wrote:

Axelmania wrote:Er, you're close, did you possibly intend "But I think that Palladium wants US to use decimal numbers" in the 2nd part?

There isn't a single game system that I have played that has ever used decimals. The Palladium games I have played are no exception. There is always some sort of rounding going on.

This is a pretty good point, especially since the Palladium system started off as Dungeons & Dragons, with Kevin adding house rules until he effectively had his own game.
Unless Kevin consciously added a rule somewhere along the line that included partial points of damage, there wouldn't be any, because there were never any in Dungeons & Dragons either.

Killer Cyborg wrote:We have examples of damage being rounded off in canon.
We do NOT have any examples of damage quotients in canon.

Rounding is canon.
Quotients are not.

Semantic point KC: a quotient is merely a result of division, whether it is represented as a whole or decimal number, so I think your point is more that we have an example of a rounded quotient (N&S RWB) and no example of a non-rounded quotient?

We could represent that as RUQs (rounded-up quotients) RIQs (rounded-inferior quotients) and URQs (un-rounded quotients) in which case the N&S example would be a RUQ.

Most quotients, like even numbers which are halved, would be URQs (whole un-rounded quotients, or WURQs) so a subset of that would be DURQs (decimal un-rounded quotients) which I agree we have not seen in an example, but I don't believe that means there is a rule against them.

Much like there is no example of damage being rolled as a multiple of 96 being a rule against rolling 96 damage, no example of damage resulting in 6.9 doesn't mean there's a rule against damage being 96.

In which case I think the accurate wording for your intended claim would be "rounding up quotients is canon, not rounding quotients is not" I think?

My objection to this is that there is only a localized instruction to round up for a particular ability's mitigation of damage.

The parenthesis used there seems clearly intended for use with Roll With Blow (which we know operates uniquely in N&S in other regards) and there is no implication that this is a standard rule for rounding in general.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Partial damage occurs any time somebody:
Rolls with Impact
Pulls a Punch/attack
Is Resistant to a kind of attack (heat, cold, poison, magic, lasers, etc.), and is hit by that attack
Is caught in the area of effect for an explosion
And so forth.

That actually happens pretty often in a game.

Depends on the game I guess. In any game but N&S, I think doing a roll with blow (which costs a melee attack in every other game) would be rarer, and the primary use I can see for using a Pull Punch is if you're trying to score a natural 20 knockout without killing someone (still not sure why the Conversion Book / GMG juicer example isn't described as attempting that...)

Resistances probably happen more in HU/Rifts than in something like BTS/PF I think.

Killer Cyborg wrote:I'll rephrase:
b]Your entire stance seems to hinge on Palladium doing things the easy way, while wanting us NOT to do things the easy way, while never TELLING us that's how they want us to do things, and on at least one occasion telling us NOT to do things the hard way.[/b]

Dealing with increments of 0.5 is actually pretty easy IMO, so I wouldn't personally describe it as hard.

Dealing with a world of "there's no point at all trying to use Roll With Blow against 1-damage punches!" is actually harder, which is why it is convenient (and justified) to throw out that error-ridden paragraph which makes no collective sense, since it has you try to roll above the damage D6 to halve it instead of rolling about the strike D20.

Killer Cyborg wrote:RAW is "always round up for fractions."

In context of using N&S unique version of Roll With Blow, correct.

Killer Cyborg wrote:It's entirely relevant, because it shows us how Palladium intends the game to work.

If presenting initial damage in whole amounts shows us how Palladium intends the game to work, then by the same logic, presenting initial ranges in whole amounts must ALSO show us how Palladium intends the game to work.

For example: if a gun has a range of 25 feet, then if some ability halves the range of that gun, we must round that gun's range to either 12 or 13 feet rather than using 12.5 feet.

If you dispute this comparison, then on what grounds?

Killer Cyborg wrote:

and I've already explained that: every time Palladium sets other quantities like PPE costs for spells, it's also in whole numbers, but that doesn't in any way mean we must round to the nearest number if we are instructed to divide the PPE cost for a spell in half.

Yes, it does, unless we are SHOWN otherwise.
You're arguing on one hand that it's irrelevant what Palladium shows us, and on the other hand that it's relevant what Palladium shows us.
That doesn't fit together.

If anyone had assumed that PPE only existed in discrete quantities rather than continuous quantities simply because of example costs, then you would ALWAYS been wrong about it, not correct until an example came along disproving your assumption.

Tell me this: if all spell costs had happened to have been in multiples of five (5,10,15,20,etc.) then would you have assumed that PPE could only exist in multiples of 5 and that half-cost spells could only reduced 15/20 to 10, 25/30 to 15, or 35/40 to 20?

All BASE spell costs happen to be in multiples of one (1,2,3,etc) but that wouldn't mean that PPE itself could not exist in multiples of smaller quantities.

Killer Cyborg wrote:That's how things would be run until partial points of PPE were shown to exist, yes.

Based on what? There was never any basis for asserting a Discrete-Only policy for PPE. Assuming that spell costs meant that is like assuming that whole-feet weapon ranges means that distances can never matter in terms of inches.

Killer Cyborg wrote:you believe that Palladium takes the easy way, while they intend without telling us that we should NOT take the easy way.
Which doesn't make sense.

I dispute "without telling us" because the instruction to divide a number by itself is an instruction to do math normally.
Five divided by two is two point five.

Your argument appears to be that even though explicitly told when to add the additional step of rounding (whether up or down) in certain isolated situations, that somehow there is some generic un-written rule regarding rounding up or rounding down that we should assume is in play.

Killer Cyborg wrote:It's not my house rule.
It's not MY rule at all.
It's how Palladium does things.
Unless you can find an example of them doing things another way...?

Examples don't exist regarding every single rule out there being applied, relying on us being able to interpret the letter of non-exampled rules.

How they do things simply seems to lack examples on what to do with halved amounts except in the situation of roll with blow in N&S, which is notable for being an unreliable passage with rules inconsistent to other games.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Palladium deciding for simplistic base amounts doesn't in any way mean they intend for fans to know some unwritten intention for rounding numbers, and beyond that to know which direction to round them in.

Incorrect.

So, to modify my above statement per your disagreement...
Palladium deciding for simplistic base amounts means they intend for fans to know some unwritten intention to rounding numbers up.
Does that resemble your belief?

Killer Cyborg wrote:Both.
Palladium doesn't bother to accurately translate to and from the metric system, but the stats for the weapon ARE the official stats for the weapon.

That would give most weapons two different canonical ranges then. I think I would give priority to the non-parenthesized imperial ranges as being more canonical than the rounded-off metric estimates put in parentheses, personally. Of course, ideally Palladium should be using a tilde symbol (~) next to their parenthesized metric estimates to indicate "approximately" to make that clear.

Otherwise we kind of have "Imperial Rifts" and "Metric Rifts" as entirely separate games.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:Prior to the actual examples of fractional PPE, I would have argued that PPE was indivisible, yes.
But I wouldn't have been proven wrong when examples came out, because Palladium changes their rules quite frequently, and this may well be one of those times.

Except there is no evidence at all this was a change

There is no evidence that it was NOT a change.

For it to be a change, you would need an explicit policy otherwise which it explicitly over-rode.

Do we have some support for discrete (non-continuous) PPE where rounding has been used for PPE?

This is entirely possible, it feels like maybe something I could've seen, but I can't come up with any particulars.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:That's you reading more into the sentence than is there.
The sentence says "always."

Sentences must be read in context.

And the context here is a demonstration of how the rules for "half damage" work.

[/quote]
My interpretation is more narrowly "how RWB-halved damage works in N&S".

If you want to read things out of context, applying examples for specific situations as some kind of general rule without instructions to do so, then RUE288's "always round down SDC damage" is more recent and would over-ride N&S.

No matter what, we're always going to have many situations of halving-without-rounding-instructions. Even if one accepted your "all damage" proposal, we still have halved skill %s, halved Spds, halved bonuses, halved PPE, halved ISP, halved ranges, halved durations, etc. I believe these all operate as continuous quantities rather than discrete quantities.

Axelmania, have you ran your interpretation of Palladium's rules by the folks you play with? Are they in favor of using fractions/decimals for damage, ISP, PPE, etc? What did they say?

Axelmania wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:We have examples of damage being rounded off in canon.
We do NOT have any examples of damage quotients in canon.

Rounding is canon.
Quotients are not.

Semantic point KC: a quotient is merely a result of division, whether it is represented as a whole or decimal number, so I think your point is more that we have an example of a rounded quotient (N&S RWB) and no example of a non-rounded quotient?

We could represent that as RUQs (rounded-up quotients) RIQs (rounded-inferior quotients) and URQs (un-rounded quotients) in which case the N&S example would be a RUQ.

Most quotients, like even numbers which are halved, would be URQs (whole un-rounded quotients, or WURQs) so a subset of that would be DURQs (decimal un-rounded quotients) which I agree we have not seen in an example, but I don't believe that means there is a rule against them.

Much like there is no example of damage being rolled as a multiple of 96 being a rule against rolling 96 damage, no example of damage resulting in 6.9 doesn't mean there's a rule against damage being 96.

In which case I think the accurate wording for your intended claim would be "rounding up quotients is canon, not rounding quotients is not" I think?

My objection to this is that there is only a localized instruction to round up for a particular ability's mitigation of damage.

The parenthesis used there seems clearly intended for use with Roll With Blow (which we know operates uniquely in N&S in other regards) and there is no implication that this is a standard rule for rounding in general.

We have examples of damage being rounded off in canon.
We do NOT have any examples of partial points of damage in canon.

Rounding is canon.
Partial points of damage are not.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Partial damage occurs any time somebody:
Rolls with Impact
Pulls a Punch/attack
Is Resistant to a kind of attack (heat, cold, poison, magic, lasers, etc.), and is hit by that attack
Is caught in the area of effect for an explosion
And so forth.

That actually happens pretty often in a game.

Depends on the game I guess.

Not really, no.
Those things are all pretty common.

Resistances probably happen more in HU/Rifts than in something like BTS/PF I think.

You think wrong.
BtS has common spells and psychic powers that halve certain kinds of damage, and so does Palladium Fantasy.

Killer Cyborg wrote:I'll rephrase:
b]Your entire stance seems to hinge on Palladium doing things the easy way, while wanting us NOT to do things the easy way, while never TELLING us that's how they want us to do things, and on at least one occasion telling us NOT to do things the hard way.[/b]

Dealing with increments of 0.5 is actually pretty easy IMO, so I wouldn't personally describe it as hard.

Are you now claiming that .5 is the lowest damage increment, and that .25 isn't an option if somebody, for example, Rolls With Impact for half damage while in the blast radius (half damage) of an explosion?

Dealing with a world of "there's no point at all trying to use Roll With Blow against 1-damage punches!" is actually harder,

It is not harder to not roll with punch on certain attacks.
It's a lot simpler.

Killer Cyborg wrote:RAW is "always round up for fractions."

In context of using N&S unique version of Roll With Blow, correct.

N&S doesn't have a unique version of Roll With Punch/Fall/Impact.

N&S 132
Roll With Punch/Fall/Impact:
Hand to Hand combat fighters can reduce the damage from blows, explosions and falls by rolling. If the defender is successful, only half damage is taken. Victims must roll higher than the attacker's roll. Falling characters must roll a 14 or higher on a twenty-sided die, to roll with the fall. Roll with punch/fall does not work against energy blasts, bullets, fire, bladed weapons, psionics or radiation.

RMB 36
Roll With Punch/Fall/Impact:
Hand to Hand combat fighters can reduce the damage from blows, explosions and falls by rolling. If the defender is successful, only half damage is taken. Roll with punch/fall does not work against energy blasts, bullets, fire, bladed weapons, psionics or radiation. Victims must roll higher than the attacker's roll. Falling characters must roll a 14 or higher on a twenty-sided die, to roll with the fall.

The versions of Roll with Punch/Fall/Impact are the same from game to game; the descriptions for the ability are identical.

The difference is that in some games (N&S, HU2, etc.) there is an additional rule that requires Roll With Punch/Fall/Impact to take an attack, and in other games there is not.
Do you understand the distinction?

It's akin to how in some games a character starts with 2 attacks more than the base from training, and in some games they don't.
The games where people start with 2 extra attacks do NOT have "a unique version of Attack."
What they have is "different rules about how many attacks people start with."

Killer Cyborg wrote:It's entirely relevant, because it shows us how Palladium intends the game to work.

If presenting initial damage in whole amounts shows us how Palladium intends the game to work, then by the same logic, presenting initial ranges in whole amounts must ALSO show us how Palladium intends the game to work.

Incorrect.
Ranges are statted out using real-world measurements, and can therefore be assumed to work the way that real-world measurements do unless otherwise specified.
Damage is statted out using made-up in-game measurements, and can therefore only be assume to work in the ways that they are stated to work.
We know from the real world that 1/2 a foot is 6".
We know from the game world that 1/2 of 1 HP is 0.

If anyone had assumed that PPE only existed in discrete quantities rather than continuous quantities simply because of example costs, then you would ALWAYS been wrong about it, not correct until an example came along disproving your assumption.

There are two possibilities in that kind of situation.
1. If the partial points of PPE were not originally intended by the writers, but later the writers decided to make a change, then the person assuming that they did not exist would have been correct until the change.
2. If the partial points of PPE were originally intended by the writers, but it was never stated, then the person assuming that they did not exist would have been incorrect.

There's no way to say whether the person was correct or not unless we know whether partial PPE points are a Change or a Clarification.
Either way, until there is in-game demonstration that they exist, the more logical assumption is that they do not.

Killer Cyborg wrote:you believe that Palladium takes the easy way, while they intend without telling us that we should NOT take the easy way.
Which doesn't make sense.

I dispute "without telling us" because the instruction to divide a number by itself is an instruction to do math normally.
Five divided by two is two point five.

We are never told to divide 5 by 2.
We're told that certain attacks inflict half damage, and in N&S we're told to always round up.
Rounding IS normal math. They teach it in grade school.
It's incredibly common, to the point of being standard in this kind of case.
Look at any other game, D&D for example.
Do you think that partial points of damage are standard in all RPGs that include half-damage situations, unless specified otherwise?
If so, please spread this argument out among other gaming forums, and see what the consensus is.

Your argument appears to be that even though explicitly told when to add the additional step of rounding (whether up or down) in certain isolated situations,

Incorrect, because it's not "in certain isolated situations."
We're specifically told that wen Rolling with Punch/Fall/Impact, to always round up.
That's not a certain isolated situation--it's exactly the situation you're claiming to ask about.

Killer Cyborg wrote:It's not my house rule.
It's not MY rule at all.
It's how Palladium does things.
Unless you can find an example of them doing things another way...?

Examples don't exist

Correct.
So what we're left with is that you have this theory that Palladium intends for us to ignore their canon rule for rounding up,
and also that Palladium intends for us to instead use partial points of damage which they never show anywhere in their game,
and which (as you acknowledge) they themselves NEVER use because it's easier to just round off.

Palladium deciding for simplistic base amounts means they intend for fans to know some unwritten intention to rounding numbers up.

a) The rule IS written. It's in N&S.
b) Yes. Even if the rule wasn't written, then it's clear that Palladium intends for us to only deal in whole numbers when it comes to damage.
IF you doubt me, then ASK THEM.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Both.
Palladium doesn't bother to accurately translate to and from the metric system, but the stats for the weapon ARE the official stats for the weapon.

That would give most weapons two different canonical ranges then.

Correct.

Otherwise we kind of have "Imperial Rifts" and "Metric Rifts" as entirely separate games.

Not as entirely separate games, but rather as separate kinds of distance measurements in Rifts.
Palladium seems to assume that people will use either/or, not mix and match, and AFAIK they're right.

For it to be a change, you would need an explicit policy otherwise which it explicitly over-rode.

Incorrect.
The rule need not be explicit in order to be changed.

Killer Cyborg wrote: the context here is a demonstration of how the rules for "half damage" work.

My interpretation is more narrowly "how RWB-halved damage works in N&S".[/quote]

Your interpretation is wrong.

If you want to read things out of context, applying examples for specific situations as some kind of general rule without instructions to do so, then RUE288's "always round down SDC damage" is more recent and would over-ride N&S.

I don't want to read things out of context.
The context of the N&S passage is specifically Rolling with Punch/Fall/Impact.
The context of rounding down SDC damage to MDC objects is specifically SDC damage to MDC objects.

*edit: fixed a quote tag

KC, I'm getting a sense you have a kind of "a rule in N&S applies everywhere else" take on ARUFF? (that being the parenthesized always round up for fractions statement on N&S 126 which is part of the Roll With The Punch section)

If so, page 15 mentions "Lost SDC are regained at a rate of five per hour of rest and relaxation".

This too, must also apply to all other games, because the other games do not explicitly contradict it.

Sure, other games list DAILY amounts of SDC restoration, but they are never mentioned as being mutually exclusive with hourly SDC restoration rates: so taking your approach the only logical thing to do (never being told to discount floating N&S procedure over) would be to combine them: you recover SDC hourly, and then a bonus amount at the end of the day.

Of course, it's worth pointing out that there is no N&S procedure to "always round up for fractions" when you beat a strike roll, the policy is clearly to round up only when you can only beat the DAMAGE roll. This is obvious when you read the example:

Bruno decides to punch Kajo and makes a roll to Strike
His Natural roll is a 3
he gets to add in his Strike bonus of 4
That makes his total Strike roll a 7
..
That doesn't beat Bruno's Strike roll of 7
..
Bruno rolls a puny 1
his +4 to Damage is added in to make the total equal to 4
..
His dice roll is 12, easily better than Bruno's Strike of 5
Kajo only takes half damage
Half of 5 being 3

There is clearly an undetected typo there (1+4=4 should be 1+4=5) but past that point, it is clear that the explanation is completely disconnected from both itself and external rules, and can't be relied upon for any reason. It is an unreliable source.

The very same paragraph you think proves damage always gets rounded up, ALSO proves that you have to roll better than the damage (5) and not the strike roll (7).

To be consistent you have to take it altogether, not conveniently discount one inconsistent rule while embracing another inconsistent rule immediately adjacent to it

Another place where this example conflicts with the rules is in explaining how rolling with a death blow works.

Pg 126

Successfully rolling with a death blow results in half of all the victim's remaining SDC and hit points

Pg 129

If the roll with punch is successful, then the victim's hit point damage his reduced by half.

This further proves this example is not written reliably or consistently with other materials, and must be discounted as any kind of authority.

It can't even agree with 3 pages later whether succeeding in RWB against a death blow means one of the following

1) 50% of the dice rolled to HP instead of 100% the dice rolled to HP
2) both HP and SDC reduced to 50% regardless of basic damage of Death Blow

We also see that Roll With Blow works differently in subsequent games. Page 65 of HU2 for example, is EITHER half remaining SDC or half remaining HP only if SDC is entirely gone.

Speaking of which: do you consider ARUFF to apply in these cases? If someone has 9 SDC remaining are they left with...

A) 4 SDC (because the loss of 4.5 SDC is effectively 4.5 damage, rounded up to 5 damage)
or...
B) 5 SDC (because the effective remainder of 4.5 SDC is rounded up to 5 SDC)

Killer Cyborg wrote:We have examples of damage being rounded off in canon.
We do NOT have any examples of partial points of damage in canon.

Er, I remember 1 example, not plural.

You've already been over this though: one aspect of a flawed example for 1 system's unique version of a specific technique is not any kind of general ruling.

Outside of that context there are no general rulings, so the RAW thing to do is apply standard mathematical law, which does not involve rounding.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Are you now claiming that .5 is the lowest damage increment, and that .25 isn't an option if somebody, for example, Rolls With Impact for half damage while in the blast radius (half damage) of an explosion?

No: dealing with 0.25 increments is slightly harder (though still pretty easy) and double-halving won't come up as often as single-halving.

I'm getting the impression that you're taking some kind of universal always-round-up stance so that if there was a 1 SDC explosion, no matter how many times it was divided, no matter how low the result, will always round up to inflicting 1 SDC on the target?

For example if there was an explosion and
*they dodged but were in the blast radius (1/2 damage)
*they rolled with impact (1/2 damage)
*they had Impact Resistance (PU1) having taken 20+ damage that round (1/2 damage)
*they have HU2's major Stretching (1/2 damage)

All in all this is 1/16 damage. Do you think the 0.0625 damage they should be taking from that still gets rounded up to 1 point of damage?

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Dealing with a world of "there's no point at all trying to use Roll With Blow against 1-damage punches!" is actually harder,

It is not harder to not roll with punch on certain attacks.
It's a lot simpler.

Talking 'bout conceptual difficulty here, not it being less difficult to not apply rules which won't benefit you.

Sort of like how it would be less mechanically difficult to house-rule "you can't parry anymore" because it would speed up combat, but it's conceptually difficult since parrying is a thing we expect to happen.

Killer Cyborg wrote:N&S doesn't have a unique version of Roll With Punch/Fall/Impact.
..
The versions of Roll with Punch/Fall/Impact are the same from game to game; the descriptions for the ability are identical.

The difference is that in some games (N&S, HU2, etc.) there is an additional rule that requires Roll With Punch/Fall/Impact to take an attack, and in other games there is not.

Do you understand the distinction?

What exact quantities of text constitute a "rule" or various aspects of a rule aren't exactly spelled out in the books.

N&S doesn't happen to be one of the books which specifies it costing an attack... in fact as best I can remember all books except N&S specify it costs an attack. Please correct me if I'm wrong about that.

There is of course the potentially-confusing description of Automatic Roll on page 132 which gives some insights:

Normally, a character can only roll with one attack in each melee round action.
With Automatic Roll, the character can roll away from an unlimited number of attacks.

It's possible that might be read as mimicking the cost of 1 attack in other games. I'm actually not sure mechanically how you'd deal with multiple opponents who both punched you in the same turn in other games: could you spend TWO of your upcoming actions to roll with both attacks?

Killer Cyborg wrote:It's akin to how in some games a character starts with 2 attacks more than the base from training, and in some games they don't.
The games where people start with 2 extra attacks do NOT have "a unique version of Attack."
What they have is "different rules about how many attacks people start with."

I don't agree with the comparison: the cost variable of using an ability is basically part of that ability. That's different from defining how much of that cost variable a character has available to them.

For example if I defined a PPE cost for Call Lightning, that's part of the rules for that spell, while the amount of PPE a spellcaster has would be the separate rule.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Ranges are statted out using real-world measurements, and can therefore be assumed to work the way that real-world measurements do unless otherwise specified.
Damage is statted out using made-up in-game measurements, and can therefore only be assume to work in the ways that they are stated to work.

The way it's stated to work is via the mathematical instruction given. Rounding instructions must be present in respect to a proper context. N&S special RWB is not a universal rule.

N&S RWBs are special, and so is that combat example's rulings on RWB as they are inconsistent with how RWB operates elsewhere in the same book.

Another way RWBs operate differently in N&SS is they can be used to change the distance between you and an opponent (pg 128, Combat Range) which isn't how RWB operates in other systems either.

Killer Cyborg wrote:We know from the real world that 1/2 a foot is 6".
We know from the game world that 1/2 of 1 HP is 0.

Firstly, there are MULTIPLE game worlds.

What are you referring to regarding 1/2 of HP being 0 again?

Killer Cyborg wrote:There are two possibilities in that kind of situation.
1. If the partial points of PPE were not originally intended by the writers, but later the writers decided to make a change, then the person assuming that they did not exist would have been correct until the change.
2. If the partial points of PPE were originally intended by the writers, but it was never stated, then the person assuming that they did not exist would have been incorrect.

I think this is potentially a false dichotomy KC. You're talking about "intended" v "not intended", but a lack of intention by writers has never made anything illegal.

There are many creative ways that spells can be used alone or together, for example, and we can't reasonably think that writers had conceived of every single one of them. Here's a different take on your dichotomy:

Killer Cyborg wrote:There's no way to say whether the person was correct or not unless we know whether partial PPE points are a Change or a Clarification.
Either way, until there is in-game demonstration that they exist, the more logical assumption is that they do not.

No, it is more logical that we perform mathematical operations as instructed.

It was never logical to assume PPE was a discrete-only measurement system and that we were expected to know that 1.5 PPE was either 1 PPE or 2 PPE without any kind of instruction.

Killer Cyborg wrote:We are never told to divide 5 by 2.

Saying something "half damage" is an instruction to HALVE the damage, which means to divide it by 2 or multiply it by 0.5 or however it is you want to operate. Either way you get the same result.

Killer Cyborg wrote:We're told that certain attacks inflict half damage, and in N&S we're told to always round up.

N&S 126's ARUFF (let's picture cute puppies to try and remember this acronym) parenthesis doesn't mention damage at all. It mentions "fractions", actually.

So either a universal rule about "fractions" (not fractional damage) exists, or you must acknowledge that we must look outside the parenthesis for CONTEXT as to WHICH fractions.

We know a universal rule about fractions doesn't exist: the 0.5 PPE animal someone mentioned earlier, the Dead Reign zombies who get healed by fractions of 1 PPE being two cases which disprove it.

Due to the necessity of looking outside the brackets: we know it applies in the following situation:

when a defender (such as Kajo) rolls a number (such as 12) which is higher than the amount of damage (such as 5) that an attacker (such as Bruno) rolled
when using Roll With Blow
in Ninjas and Superspies
in a situation which the "Combat Terms" definition of how Roll With Blow works

Killer Cyborg wrote:Rounding IS normal math. They teach it in grade school.
It's incredibly common, to the point of being standard in this kind of case.

It wouldn't be N&S-exclusive in the most error-ridden section in the book if it were standard.

There are also multiple ways to round, rounding to the nearest integer (whole number) is only one way.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Look at any other game, D&D for example.
Do you think that partial points of damage are standard in all RPGs that include half-damage situations, unless specified otherwise?
If so, please spread this argument out among other gaming forums, and see what the consensus is.

Consensus is not universally agreed upon by most intelligent people as the absolute determinant of what is truth, even if the consensus amongst all people happens to be that consensus is the best way.

If you want to look at other game systems, they will specifically tell you when you should be rounding stuff, and which way to do it.

For example, GURPS 4E page 9 mentions "round up for point costs .. round down for character feats and combat results .. special cases are noted explicitly".

"Player's Basic Rules" for D20 say "Whenever you divide a number in the game, round down if you end up with a fraction, even if the fraction is one-half or greater."

The pattern is that when rounding is desired, rounding is instructed.

ARUFF is an instruction present in an error-ridden section for a unique version of RWB in a particular game, not an omnipresent instruction that applies to all division in all Palladium games.

Killer Cyborg wrote:it's not "in certain isolated situations."
We're specifically told that wen Rolling with Punch/Fall/Impact, to always round up.
That's not a certain isolated situation--it's exactly the situation you're claiming to ask about.

My post is in the general Q&A because I'm asking for all games, that's why I didn't create it in the N&S section.

Furthermore, I reached the character limit on the thread title, you can see in the original post I included the rest of the title: "or anything else which might halve damage"

It is the most important example since 0.5 is exactly halfway between two numbers so we can't take a "round to the nearest" resolve without a special rule on how to deal with exactly-between.

Of course there is a broader curiosity with how to deal with 0.1 and 0.9 too.

Killer Cyborg wrote:you have this theory that Palladium intends for us to ignore their canon rule for rounding up

ARUFF is only a canon rule in the context that it applies when you have to doll above DAMAGE on the d20 when using this very special ending to the combat example which is inconsistent with both itself and with Combat Terms 3 pages later.

You're not arguing with consistency if you cherrypick which parts of "Kajo and Bruno" examples you want to call canon.

Btw, speaking of that, on pg 119 why at the end did Bruno get a +5 bonus to his extra coma roll? That appears to match the chi Kajo spent healing his HP after dispelling the negative chi, but the description of Chi-Atsu only mentions giving an extra coma roll, not giving a bonus to it... not to mention "extra chance to recover" would logically be interpreted as another 3 rolls (best 2/3) not getting a 4th roll (best 2/4) which would require remembering that you got 1/3 rather than 0/3 earlier.

Killer Cyborg wrote:and also that Palladium intends for us to instead use partial points of damage which they never show anywhere in their game,
and which (as you acknowledge) they themselves NEVER use because it's easier to just round off.

I said it was easier to define baseline damage in integers, I never said that was rounding off.

It's the same reason we tend to see divisors/multipliers in terms of 1,2,3,4,5,10,20,etc. because it's easier math. If we have seen sextuple/septuble damage or divisors of 6/7/9 anywhere, I'm sure it's pretty rare.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Palladium deciding for simplistic base amounts means they intend for fans to know some unwritten intention to rounding numbers up.

a) The rule IS written. It's in N&S.

So you think that Palladium expects players of all their other games to own a copy of an obscure discontinued 1980s book and put faith in the Bruno+Kajo example that is ridden with errors?

Killer Cyborg wrote:b) Yes. Even if the rule wasn't written, then it's clear that Palladium intends for us to only deal in whole numbers when it comes to damage.
IF you doubt me, then ASK THEM.

Personal descriptions of intent by a company or person in 2019 are not necessarily accurate descriptions of those intentions in 1989.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Not as entirely separate games, but rather as separate kinds of distance measurements in Rifts.

It gives different range ratios between different weapons in ImpRifts v MetRifts.

RUE269-wise, you're talking about whether the Wilks 447 has a range 200x longer than the Laser Torch, or a range that is 203⅓x better.

It's a subtle difference but it's there.

Killer Cyborg wrote:The rule need not be explicit in order to be changed.

Okay then: so there is no requirement at all to find text that explicitly tells us not to ARUFF.

Instead: the non-explicit consistent absence of ARUFF instructions outside N&S means that it was changed back.

Killer Cyborg wrote:[quote=me][quote=you]the context here is a demonstration of how the rules for "half damage" work.

My interpretation is more narrowly "how RWB-halved damage works in N&S".[/quote]
Your interpretation is wrong.[/quote]
If you interpret ARUFF to be expansive by taking the approach of ignoring adjacent context, then it wouldn't apply just to "half damage" because it says "all fractions".

If you want to restrict that to damage by looking to adjacent context, then you must accept ALL adjacent context: which goes by these steps:

1. not all fractions, but only fractional damage
2. not all fractional damage, but half damage
3. not all half damage, but damage halved by RWB
4. not all RWB-halved damage, but RWB-halved damage from rolling above damage instead of strike
5. not all RWB-halved damaged rolled above damage, only this when done in the N&S world where SDC replenishes hourly and there are 2 ways to Roll With Death Blow

Why did you choose to stop at step 2 and not steps 1/3/4/5 which were also options?

What are your terms for determining the boundaries of where written context ends?

Killer Cyborg wrote:

If you want to read things out of context, applying examples for specific situations as some kind of general rule without instructions to do so, then RUE288's "always round down SDC damage" is more recent and would over-ride N&S.

I don't want to read things out of context.
The context of the N&S passage is specifically Rolling with Punch/Fall/Impact.
The context of rounding down SDC damage to MDC objects is specifically SDC damage to MDC objects.

There is an observable shift between what you said in recently:

A) how the rules for "half damage" work
B) specifically Rolling with Punch/Fall/Impact.

Where technique-specific halving should be considered is with the "Breakfall" technique, which can halve damage on a failure, for example.

Just because RWB-halving means rounding up the damage (in N&SS... when you are in the rules-breaking world of Bruno and Kajo where Rolling With Death Blow works differently and you Roll v damage instead of Roll v strike) wouldn't mean that BF-halving also means rounding down, for example.

If you have moved in the direction of accepting narrower context, it is possible to continue and recognize that this is not merely technique-specific but also game-specific, particularly due to N&S'RWB differing from other games' RWB in other aspects, like the absence of a stated cost per use (although there does seem to be an implied 1-free-use-per-turn in where it differs from Automatic Roll).

Perhaps an argument could be made that RWB costs an action in N&S due to the definition for "Automatic" under combat terms, which in being not costing an action implies that anything it's appended to normally costs an action... but then we are only given Automatic Body Flip and Automatic Dodge in the examples for that... and Automatic Dodge actually does cost the 1st action of the melee, unlike other games... so yeah.

Axelmania wrote:KC, I'm getting a sense you have a kind of "a rule in N&S applies everywhere else" take on ARUFF? (that being the parenthesized always round up for fractions statement on N&S 126 which is part of the Roll With The Punch section)

I've explained this quite a few times already:
The rules for Roll With Punch is the same in every game, phrased identically or almost identically.

What Ninjas & Superspies gives us is an example of the rules in action, and that demonstration shows rounding, then flat-out tells us to always round.

Do you understand the difference between "a rule in N&S" and "a demonstration that happens to be in N&S?"

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Axelmania wrote:KC, I'm getting a sense you have a kind of "a rule in N&S applies everywhere else" take on ARUFF? (that being the parenthesized always round up for fractions statement on N&S 126 which is part of the Roll With The Punch section)

I've explained this quite a few times already:
The rules for Roll With Punch is the same in every game, phrased identically or almost identically.

What Ninjas & Superspies gives us is an example of the rules in action, and that demonstration shows rounding, then flat-out tells us to always round.

Do you understand the difference between "a rule in N&S" and "a demonstration that happens to be in N&S?"

The rule is in the parenthesis, and then the demonstration is adjacent to it.

It only "happens to be" in N&S because the rule itself (to round up) is only found there.

Just one of several unique rules for Roll With Blow we see there. I don't agree that other books are even "almost" identical, because that is only the case when you look at basic glossary introduction, and not when you look at how it works with Death Blow / Knockout.

If you are viewing the "costs an attack" other games have as a unique add-on which is absent in N&S, then why exactly can't the "round up" N&S has be a unique add-on which is absent in the others?

Prysus wrote:So you find it clear and obvious that "strike" (what the sentence states) and damage (your claim) are the same thing?

It's important to pay attention to all the places that five is referenced. Your excerpt didn't paint the full picture:

Bruno's Strike roll of 7
..
Bruno rolls a puny 1
his +4 to Damage is added in to make the total equal to 4
..
His dice roll is 12, easily better than Bruno's Strike of 5
Kajo only takes half damage
Half of 5 being 3

As the strike roll is already established to be 7 (3+4) the writer is instead writing as if "Strike" refers to the damage rolled (1+4). As in "strike of 5 damage".

Prysus wrote:If you don't think Strike and Damage are synonymous, then you're presenting an intellectually dishonest case.

I disagree: I personally do not view them that way, but that example is written as if that is true.

If you reject that is true, you must reject this example.

You'd probably understand this better if 12 wasn't higher than both 7 and 5.

If for example, the strike roll had been 14, and the 12 succeeded in halving the 5 damage by rolling above 5, the problem would be more apparent.

Prysus wrote:There are various statements in Palladium telling us to round up or down (sometimes with damage, but also when regarding bonuses and percentiles), just not relating to Roll with Punch (which is what this thread was about). For instance, rounding S.D.C. damage down when converting to M.D. has been discussed in this thread alone.

If you are referring to RUE 288, pretty sure I'm the one who introduced that to the thread.

I think I understand what happened here. When KC wrote "examples of damage being rounded off" I mistook that as "examples of damage being rounded up" since rounding partial points of damage upward (5/2=3) is what we were talking about doing with RWB.

The reason I brought up RUE 288, is that is does the opposite: it rounds partial damage DOWN. As in 190 SDC inflicts 1 MD not 1.9 MD.

I did that to show that no universal rounding rules exist: only local ones do. So far as established:

1) round down SDC/100 to determine MD
2) round up SDC/2 to determine RWB in N&S (if d20 exceeds Strike damage)
3) otherwise do not round unless otherwise instructed (since we can't possibly know whether to go up or down)

Prysus wrote:This can be found in RUE, and if you need the material to literally say "example" then that was quoted earlier from the original Rifts main book. So Killer Cyborg's statement is accurate. Axelmania's statement is inaccurate.

I know it was quoted earlier: I'm the one who quoted it.

This is a localized irrelevant conflict resulting from me misreading "rounded up" (what we were discussing) when KC wrote "rounded off".

Yes: more than one example of rounding exists in Palladium.
1) as established by me: damage rounds DOWN when converting SD>MD
2) as established by KC: damage rounds UP when using RWB in N&S

For all other situations (blast radius, resistance, pull punch) no rounding instructions exist: ergo you do NOT round, because precedent exists that we will be told to round (and in which direction to round) when it is to be done.

Prysus wrote:Basically, Palladium as usual. So ... Palladium Books must be discounted as an authority on Palladium Books?

Palladium in the 80s is certainly no authority on Palladium in the 90s/00s/10s.

Prysus wrote:Axelmania has claimed the word strike "clearly and obviously" is the same as damage, or completely disconnected from his own arguments.

Incorrect: I've shown that Strike is being used to refer to damage. That's because the strike roll was 7, and instead they refer to the damage, which was 5. Regardless of saying "the Strike" the example calls upon the damage the Strike does.

Prysus wrote:Axelmania claimed there's only one example of damage being rounded, which shows a clear disconnect from the external rules.

I think it's obvious to anyone who reads my comment in context (ie pay attention to the previous exchange with KC) that I meant only one example of damage being rounded UP.

Given that I myself introduced the RMB/RUE example of damage being rounded DOWN immediately prior to this, it wouldn't make sense for me to discount that.

"Off" actually implies "up" based on our previous conversation. If KC did intend that to mean more broadly, then I mistook his intent.

There being two opposite (UP/DOWN) examples only shows the lack of consistent rules existing for rounding, and that we need not just localized instruction for DIRECTION, but also to round AT ALL since we know "always" was intended locally (for RWB in N&S) and not universally (for every instance of non-integer quotients).

Jack Burton wrote:Axelmania, have you ran your interpretation of Palladium's rules by the folks you play with? Are they in favor of using fractions/decimals for damage, ISP, PPE, etc? What did they say?

That's what I thought.

Fun thing regarding the topic of universal rulings, N&S 126 mentions "All characters have a natural A.R. of 4". I just think that's cool. Like if you had something which added +1 to AR, you'd have an AR of 5

Also interesting I dug up looking for examples (not pertinent) on pg 60 of TMNT (Carol playing Shela) was an explicit "you can't roll with a bullet" (in case anyone was wondering)

Interesting is that when Whitey Smith parries her katana, Carol is under the impression he should be hurt anyway...

The GM replies "No, he used his pistol to Parry with".

That seems very interesting to me since I don't recall if we ever got rules for using pistols to parry with, or any kind of requirement that you would take damage by parrying swords unarmed. The closest I can think to the latter is in one of the core books (I think PF2) you would roll without bonuses (or was it half?) if parrying weapons unarmed.

Prysus wrote:Your stance is that fractions are almost as easy as whole numbers, and that Palladium intends us to use them because they're so easy.

I believe we are intended to perform the mathematical operations we are instructed to perform.

There's actually no need to go into the "why" of these instructions. I believe this only came up when people began proposing we began doing un-written operations (rounding) in situations we're not told to.

Prysus wrote:Then you point out that Palladium failed at adding whole numbers and got 4+1=4.

A typo (finger slipping too far to the left, undetected) seems more likely than an actual failure in addition. They do correctly represent the damage as 5 later, after all.

Prysus wrote:You then ignore what they say, and come to the conclusion of 5.

That conclusion is supported by their later use of 5 as damage.

Prysus wrote:You then use what you ignored of what they said to prove a different number they use means a different game mechanic than the game mechanic they state, because the number they used doesn't match the game mechanic they're stating.

I'm not ignoring anything: they later say the damage is 5, affirming the 4 was a typo.

I guess you could push an alternate theory that Bruno actually had a mere +3 damage bonus, that 4 was the correct sum, but then "half of 4 being 3" wouldn't really mesh well with that.

Prysus wrote:And you're then using their incorrect numbers to prove that Palladium thinks math with fractions is very basic and every can handle it, even though you're attempting to discredit an explicit statement by arguing against their ability to use math even with whole numbers.

No: I think Erick Wujcik knows that 1+4=5, I just think 1+4=4 was a typo. Easy enough to miss since it was spread out written in sentence form rather than condensed into an equation.

It's not an argument against his ability to do math, but moreso against the effort put in by the editors, given that it's still there even by May 2000's 7th printing.

Prysus wrote:Then you claim this is clear and obvious to their intent because you read between the lines, while arguing Palladium needs to explicitly state things for it to be used.

Recognizing 1-key-off typos isn't something I would call reading between the lines. Whatever level of inference may be involved there is vastly less than assuming some kind of universal rule being present about rounding up all decimals in all situations.

Prysus wrote:I get what you're saying and why. It's just your argument is just so disconnected from itself that it's nonsensical and has little to no attachment to the external rules.

I'm not sure what you mean by external rules, the rules in non-N&S games?

Prysus wrote:Actually, I quoted the example from the original Rifts main book. Anyone who looks back earlier in the thread can clearly see that, despite your current claims. This just happened earlier in the thread, and you're making mistakes. Yet, you're faulting Palladium for making mistakes earlier in their books.

It appears we are both thinking of different passages. I went back to try and find out what you were talking about.

August 18th is when you referenced RMB 11's example.

When I brought up RUE 288 on Oct 8th I quoted the "always round down SDC damage" part which first appeared on the Combat Note at the bottom of page 11, which wasn't one of the parts you quoted.

You were quoting from the earlier paragraphs midway through the column, prior to the five bullet-points, which wasn't what I was referencing.

So basically, we both quoted from that page (you did indeed quote from the 11th page first) but I was remembering my quote from it, having forgot that you quoted a separate part of it.

In retrospect, your use of if you need the material to literally say "example" must have seemed clear to you that you meant your quote about number 4, but you would have a better memory of your own posts and of what posts you imply than others would.

Prysus wrote:

Axelmania wrote:This is a localized irrelevant conflict resulting from me misreading "rounded up" (what we were discussing) when KC wrote "rounded off".

Well, at least you admit you're wrong. And as your stance is an inaccuracy invalidates that source material, that invalidates your stance.

No, I am not saying I was wrong wrong to interpret "rounded off" as "rounded up" because that was a pre-established context.

For example, if I was told to walk forward ten yards and someone asked me to "walk another ten yards" I would naturally assume that to be forward too, even if it actually was intended to also allow for me to walk backwards or sideways.

I'm just explaining the nature of how KC could say something intending a broader context but without conveying that broader context strongly enough to make it through to me.

Prysus wrote:

Axelmania wrote:Yes: more than one example of rounding exists in Palladium.

Then you shouldn't have claimed otherwise.

I said "I remember 1 example", with the previously established context of "rounding up" in mind when I read "rounding off".

Even if there were 100 examples of rounding damage up, I would still be correct in saying "I remember 1" if that is all I can remember.

My claim was about what I was aware of, not an absolute declaration of knowledge.

KC's initial May 18 answer was "You round down the amount of damage taken" 10 days after Burton posted the May 8th reference to N&S 126. KC doesn't appear to have pivoted to take up the
round up" cause until September 18th

That was the context I meant. "Round off" actually isn't a cohesive concept at all: round up / round down are polar opposites to each other, and result in outcomes more divergent from the other than raw un-rounded fractions would be from either.

Prysus wrote:You've shown a theory. A theory hinged on Palladium being great with numbers despite ignoring their math mistake, except for when it's convenient for you.

I don't consider typos to be math mistakes any more than I consider them to be spelling errors.

If Wujcik had written "dog" as "dgo", I wouldn't think he didn't know how to spell the word, just that his finger slipped and the editors didn't catch the slip.

Errors like this have nothing at all to do with people's proficiency in math/spelling and more to do with inevitably transcription mistakes.

Prysus wrote:

Axelmania wrote:Given that I myself introduced the RMB/RUE example of damage being rounded DOWN immediately prior to this, it wouldn't make sense for me to discount that.

Killer Cyborg originally brought up the rounding of M.D. attacks, and eliakon responded to it. I brought up the example in Rifts main book to show the rule in action.

Yes, back in Aug 16-18, and then everyone started talking about bees and knockout darts.

I think the main point here, is that you brought up this example as if I was ignorant from it, even though I quoted from the very same section on October 8th. The only difference is that I cited the page it was on in RUE.

The RUE ruling being more pertinent to the topic since it now applies to all damage and not the "rare cases" of "missiles and explosives" which were the only initially know nexceptions.

Prysus wrote:As for what sense it makes to the argument, I think we're well past that point since your argument relies on Palladium being good enough at math that they intend to include fractions and yet bad enough at math they can't do addition and subtraction with whole numbers,

Let's be frank here: Erick Wujcik is the author of Ninjas and Superspies (so we can stop with the "Palladium" all the time) and I'm 98% confident he wrote that section, and I think he is fully capable of doing addition and subtraction.

I don't think we can reasonably think he thinks 1+4=4, that's a 1-key slip. He correctly writes 5 later.

If you want to argue that writing 5 instead of 7 is ALSO a slip, that's fine: but that would be a TWO key slip, and that's a greater stretch... to the point where it might feasibly be a mental slip rather than a dextrous one.

If we're at the point of it a mental slip being more feasible than a manual one (rolling v strike damage instead of rolling v strike roll), then mixing up whether to round down or round up is also a simple enough thing to do.

The October 1987 debut of Ninjas and Superspies was 11 months after the November 1986 debut of the Robotech RPG, and page 7's right column has "Always round S.D.C. down when assessing damage" so we could look at that a couple ways:

1) Wujcik ignored this TOTALLY UNIVERSAL rule about how SDC must ALWAYS be rounded down....
2) Wujcik recognized that this was a localized rule which only rounded SDC down when converting it to MD, and decided to introduce a localized rule which only rounded SDC down when halving it with Roll With Blow.

Funny enough, you can find a very similar contrast in GURPS: MA98's "Roll With Blow" technique has a special instruction to "(round up)" the halved damage, despite B9 normally rounding down combat damage fractions.

Prysus wrote:and that Palladium must remember everything they wrote and be error free

Not at all: I am proposing that Wujcik's instruction to round up could be an error.

If you acknowledge that future Palladium core book writers don't remember things written in previous games, then that would mean they wouldn't expect people to round halved damage upward (as Wujcik does with Rolling Ninjas) based upon knowing what was in that example: that they clearly don't expect any rounding at all to be done, since they never ask for it.

Prysus wrote:yet you don't have to remember everything you wrote and can make errors all the time

I believe I have debunked that: the mixups with KC & yourself were as least as much an error on the vagueness of writers as much as it is an error in inference by myself as the reader.

Prysus wrote:and that whatever Palladium writes must be taken as one whole or discounted but you can pick and choose which of your statements count, and that Palladium must explicitly state their intent but we have to read between the lines on your statements.

No: I'm okay with taking Wujcik's parenthesis as a localized world-specific rule for ninjas rolling with blows.

To understand the context of my replies, and what I inferred from the statements I replied to, you only need look to earlier context.

That's not reading between the lines, it's reading the directly preceding lines.

Palladium does habitually explicitly state intentions, we've two examples of them telling us two specific situations where rounding is done: once down (Robotech) and once down (N&S) with Rifts reprinting Robotech's round-down rule.

If there was some kind of universal rounding rule (there isn't) then it was initially down (Robotech) then up (Ninjas) then down again (Rifts).

Since we can reasonably understand there wasn't: there instead exist localized rounding rules that exist in specific universes (Ninjas and MD settings) in specifics contexts (Roll With Blow and Mega-Damage).

This means there is not yet an affirmative answer to my "anything else which might halve damage" inquiry regarding possibly overlooked rounding instructions. I'm still hoping (not because I like rounding, but because I like knowing rules) that someone might still find something.

One thing I did just come upon, Splicers 208...

Hit Point/S.D.C. creatures can roll against S.D.C. based attacks and Mega-Damage attacks. However, unless the character is wearing M.D.C. armor or is an M.D.C. being, even the reduced Mega-Damage (half) will kill him.

That's a pretty interesting statement, as I'd thought high-SDC beings might potentially survived 1 MD. Pg 207 mentions:

a single point of M.D. (the equivalent of 100 Hit Points/S.D.C. damage) will kill most ordinary humans, and two M.D. (the equivalent of 200 Hit Points/S.D.C. damage) most certainly will.

It seems like you could roll with 2 MD (loss of 200 SDC/HP) to make 1 MD (loss of 100 SDC/HP) but would you figure that rolling with 1 MD would mean taking 50 SDC/HP?

The "will kill him" phrasing just seems so weirdly certain, since it is possible to survive 1 MD.shots. Roughnecks begin with 60... I can't remember the max you can get from physical skills, but there's SDC armor suits out there which could take that.

207 also has an interesting variation on Rifts so-called GI Joe rule:
As a kind-ness and final warning to the player character, if there are at least two M.D.C. points left in the armor, I will let as much as 20 M.D. be deflected by it (21 or more points zaps the armor and the person inside),

I guess this means Bellaire's Splicers is a more hardcore/deadly game than Rifts?