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[ArgentAvenger]

I once again have another rules question.  With the disadvantage Bad Luck it increases the range that you can fumble on by two.  Meaning that you will fumble on a 5 or lower.  I was wondering how the modifiers are applied at that point?  On Pg. 6 it says that a 1 on a fumble give a +15 to the lvl of the fumble a 2 gives +0 and a 3 gives -15.  What should those become?  Similarly what you role for a fumble effect you init. as well.  Also, I wanted to make sure that you can still reduce what you fumble on by having mastery in something.  That I am assuming is the case since bad luck say it increases the range by two, so if your range would only be on a 1-2, it would increase it to a 1-4.  If that is the case, how would the modifiers apply then?

My thoughts would be to have a 5 and a 4 with Bad Luck be treated like a normal 3, a 3 be treated like a normal 2 and both 2 and 1 be treated like a 1.  I am a little more unsure about mastery.  It could become a 4 or 3 with Bad Luck and mastery would be treated like a 2 with mastery and a 2 or 1 with Bad Luck and mastery would be like a 1 with mastery.  The other possibility would be to have a 4 with Bad Luck and mastery be treated like a 3 normally, a 2 or 3 with Bad Luck and mastery like a 2 and a 1 like a 1.

I was hoping someone could tell me if there is an official ruling on this and if so what.  Or, barring that, if my interpretations seemed to make sense.

Thanks for the help.

[Zeru]

I'm pretty sure 1-2-3 are treated as normal, and 4-5 are treated as a 3 for the purpose of those penalties.

[Smilingknight]

I agree with Zeru. If two people are fighting, and they both roll a 3, the person with the Bad Luck disadvantage shouldn't have the better modifier.

[Lagnalok]

Just for the understanding: a + Modifier to the fumble level is a bad thing and makes things worse for the one that rolled it, not better. Treating the 4 and 5 fumble from bad luck the same as a 3 fumble would make things actually not that worse for a player.

There is even a way to get realy lucky and "unfumble" by roling a 3 for fumble and then anythign from 1 to 14 in fumble level- giving you a "fumble"-level of -14 to -1

For Fumble Levels:

Good Luck: -1 Fumble range
Mastery: -1 Fumble range, also eliminates the +2 increase to Fumble range from Complex Weapons
Bad Luck: +2 Fumble range
Compley Weapon: +2 Fumble Range

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
good luck & mastery	-15
good luck/mastery	0	-15
normal	+15	0	-15
bad luck & mastery	+30	+15	0	-15
bad luck / complex weapon	+45	+30	+15	0	-15
bad luck & complex weapon	+75	+60	+45	+30	+15	0	-15

I made this table based on the "mastery" rule from pages 6 in the core book where mastery reduces the fumble range to 1(0) and 2(-15). The trend used here should be clear so you should have no problems apply other modifieres to the fumble level like those you can get trough magic (arcana exxet: cahos sub-paht) or elan (Eriol: Altering the law of chance).

Uhh, even thinking about all these modifres makes me shiver... imagine a fumble level of 20 (1-20)(3(Standard)+2 (Badluck) +2 (Complex Rule) + 5 (100 Elan Eriol) + 8 (Arcan Alteration of Propabilities)) .... and a open roll range of 39 (61-100)(9 base +10(100 elan Eriol) +20(Arcan Alteration of Propabilities)) 

[ArgentAvenger]

Thank you very much for the table Lagnalok.  Would I be correct in assuming that you would follow a similar pattern for the penalty to init. for fumbling?  
                   1        2        3        4        5
Normal:   -125   -100    -75  
Bad Luck: -175   -150   -125   -100   -75

[Lagnalok]

Yes that is right =)

[Zeru]

I'm actually fairly certain what I posted was an official answer from an old thread, I'll try searching for it.

[ArgentAvenger]

I would like to find an official ruling if there is one.  I rather quickly searched to see if I could find anything about it and was unsuccessful.  It was a quick search though so I might have just missed it.  What Lagnalok posted seems to make a lot of sense giving how big a disadvantage some of the other  one point disads are.  If you could point me in the right direction for the earlier post I would appreciate it, but, while an official ruling would be preferable, if I don't find an official answer I will probably use Lagnalok's.

Thanks for all the help, I really appreciate it.

[Cathar the Great]

No harm in using house-rules over official rulings if it makes more sense to you 

[Destroy1]

For my self i was using 1 = +30 2 = +15 3 =0 4 = -15  5 = -30

as the pattern seems clear to me. Because no matter how lucky/unlucky you can be you can only be that lucky or that unlucky. There is no way a very skilled doctor, even if not master but near it would have such a bad luck that on a 1 he would actually have a average of -125 to his skill which would lead to terrible result. (just a remember that 90 + is fatal error, and he have an average of 125. Terrible.

[Lagnalok]

First of:
The average fumble is actuall only 95 (50 average roll +45 from rolling 1 one while being unlucky)

Second:
Luck has absolutly nothing to do with skill, even the most skilled person in a subject can mess it up and loose to someone that has never done this before, or even the most skilled doctor can mess up, also often having more "skill" also results in greater consequnces when you make a misstake.

Also, luck constist of two parts, the first is thnigs that you can influence, like everything you do, the other part are things you can't influence, like events in your environment (normaly that is, but mages tend to mess these thing up) or if you win in the lottery.

Meaning there is not realy something like limits of (un)luckiness.

Now to the problem of your approch:
fumble range 5: 1 = +30 2 = +15 3 =0 4 = -15  5 = -30
fumble range 7: 1 = +45 2 = +30 3 = +15 4 = 0  5 = -15 6 = -30 7 = -45
fumble range 9: 1 = +60 2 = +45 3 = +30 4 = +15 5 = 0 6 = -15 7 = -30 8 = -45 9 = -60

Looking at this, the lower fumble levels (the rolls near the end of the fumble range) are... laughable, they reduce the fumble level that much that unfumbling will become a actuall possibility and not just somethign you have to pray for.

The other problem is with even fumble ranges, what are you doing about these?
fumble range 3: 1 = +15 2 = 0 3 = -15
fumble range 4: 1 = +30 2 = +15 3 = -15 4 = -30 
fumble range 5: 1 = +30 2 = +15 3 =0 4 = -15  5 = -30
Somthing like this will make a too huge jump inbetween.

And finally it feels kinda unbalnaced taken openrools into account, lets take the extreme example I made in my first awnser: Fumble range 20, open roll range 39
fumbles:
1=+150 | 2=+135 | 3=+120 | 4=+105 | 5=+90 | 6=+75 | 7=+60 | 8=+45 | 9=+30 | 10=+15 | (11=-15) | 12=-30 | 13=-45 | 14=-60 | 15=-75 | 16=-90 | 17=-105 | 18=-120 | 19=-135 | 20=-150
(so fumble 17-20 end up auto unfumbling and maybe gining even rolls greater than 100)
Upen Rolls:
61-10
now leaving only 21-60 as normal rolls this is 40%, another 40% is reserved for open rolls and the remaining 20% that where meant for fumbles are only 10% fumbles, 6% maybe fumbles and 4% are autmaticly unfumble and become rolls arround 100.

Now take in a high natura and you get something like this: 65% openrolls, 36% normal rolls, 10% fumbles, 5% maybe fumbles and 4% automatic unfumbles with possible end rolls of arround 100 - where can i sing up to play this char?

[Korochun]

In terms of game mechanics, a fumble is bad regardless of whether it's a 1 or a 5. As a DM, I see no reason to further penalize players for what is already a pretty horrifying disadvantage.

It doesn't seem like much, but that's still a 2% increased chance to instantly die in combat against any competent adversary, or at least suffer massive trauma. Or get run through by a peasant with a pitchfork.

In my opinion, things like that should not be made even more dangerous, especially for players who create characters they care about and develop.