Here's a similar probability list to the one listed above starting at a -4 dice pool (taking only the lowest number) up to a 14 dice pool with their corresponding chances of succeeding against a difficulty of Easy (2) up to 1st Edition's difficulty of Nigh Impossible (15). Dice Pool Probabilities (...

I do have one character in my game that has (unless I've drastically misinterpreted things) a reliable 12 dice for casting Magic, Witchcraft spells (Level 5 Magic, Witchcraft + Level 5 Smart), but that's also while he's in a Transformed state, and the character's basically been set up specifically ...

OVA, as written, was designed to pretty much cap out at 12 dice. That requires TWO +5 Abilities, which is really unlikely. That said, if you’re using a digital dice roller, there’s no real reason you can’t chuck fistfuls of virtual dice. So if that’s what works for a group, great! I think a chart l...

If a player is rolling more than 10 dice, I have to think something has gone incredibly wrong in your game. Ridiculous numbers of dice are the norm in my games. However, it is interesting how good 6 is as a target number. If you want to favor characters with a certain ability without punishing thos...

In my quest to be a better Game Master, one thing I give a lot of thought to is difficulty. Unsatisfied with selecting difficulty numbers arbitrarily, I devised a way to choose difficulty that brought some of that arbitrariness under control: using playing cards to indicate how many dice I should ro...

1) Poker decks are heavily weighted to values higher than you typically see in OVA. Unless your PCs are extremely powerful, a hand of face cards will pretty much stomp them out of achieving anything. If you drop the face cards, your difficulty will cap out at 12 dice, which has the benefit of both ...

USING PLAYING CARDS TO DECIDE DIFFICULTY AS A GAME MASTER by Rawle Nyanzi As GM of my OVA gaming group, I decide the challenges that my players face. Some are trivially easy, while others take far more effort -- and dice -- to accomplish. The typical way to decide a task's difficulty is to simply t...

Very interesting! A fan made a similar (but not nearly so colorful) chart many years ago, and I’ve been prone to linking to it when people ask about OVA dice probabilities. I think I’ll have a new thread to link to now! :) Including the python script for generating them was also pretty cool. Thanks...

And finally, here are two charts for the average damage dealt by opposed rolls, assuming a DX of 1. This first one rounds the averages to the nearest hundredth, while the second one rounds them to the nearest whole number. http://s12.postimg.org/5yq3osd8t/OVA_Average_Damage_Chart_DX_1.png http://s23...

Nice charts! I once made a similar table some time ago, but it wasn't as big because I was calculating the probabilities exactly instead of by simulation, and it didn't have the nice coloring. Glad you like the charts. I enjoyed building them. What surprises me a bit about the second chart is how l...

EDIT: I have replaced the original opposed roll chart with an easier-to-read version. EDIT 2: I have replaced the original difficulty chart with a revised version made from my more recent dice-rolling code. I've GM'd a number of OVA sessions with my gaming group, and they have been fun for the most...

I have game mastered OVA! It’s always fun, though since I spend so much time writing, I often like to “relax” by taking the Player role. Still, when I do GM, it’s usually to teach people the game. This lends itself to simple scenarios like “fight the dragon!” that inexperienced players can easily g...

I had a similar problem in my previous two campaigns, but we were having the time of our lives, so we didn't care. Our next campaign, though, will be more by-the-book, but I'll use my computer to help keep track of things. I'm more of a physical book type. I begrudgingly use an iPad, simply because...

We haven't quite figured out how to make sure everything works out, but then we're also pretty sure we're not doing the Magic system right either. But we're having a blast anyway, so... I had a similar problem in my previous two campaigns, but we were having the time of our lives, so we didn't care...

I could never do GM-owned player characters in my campaigns. Since I'm my group's designated GM, I have inside knowledge which would give me too many advantages. It just wouldn't be the same as playing a non-GM character, since they have to go off of limited knowledge and dodge the obstacles the GM...