We begin the game with lots of questions that we slowly begin to learn, part of the overall game design for Forgotten Realms Play-by-Mail is a built-in ambiguity as to how the game works. The rulebook do touch on some aspects but is generally very vague about it. The intention is that all players should learn the game by themselves and, of course, try to interprete the rules by themselves.

Try asking any member of the RSI team about certain rules, you are quite likely to get the right information and sometimes disinformation depending on their mood. Remember ambiquity is part of the game, they are as likely lie to you about the mechanics of the game as they will tell you the whole truth. So two players who ask the same questions will quite likely to get totally different answers.

Indeed, there are certain explicits rules that are very clearly stated and some not at all. This article does attempt to put some benchmark and numeric definitions to ranking values that are used to describe skills and attributes of the game.

RATING TABLES & VALUES

Rating Table Rating Bonus Base None 0 4 Low 5 9 Adequate 10 14 Fair 15 19 Good 20 24 Very Good 25 29 Fine 30 34 Great 35 39 Excellent 40 44 Superior 45 49 Mighty 50 54 Reknown 55 59 Fell 60 64 Dire 65 69 Peerless 70 74 Supernatural 75 79 Supreme 80 84 Ultimate 85 89 Divine 90 94 Maximum 95 99

Lets take a close look at the rating table of the Ability Quality Scale from the last pages of the rulebook, its quite scary isn't it since you can't really tell if FINE is better than VERY GOOD from memory or even guess how much better if at all; or when you look at RESEARCH REPORT on a unit statistics. Here's an example:   Priest (UT2) Races Allowed Smallest Community: village drow Gold Cost 35 dwarf Hits: 1 elf Movement: 70(3) gnome Magic Great (Fair) half-elf Missile: Low half-orc Melee: Adequate (Fair) halfling Magic Resistance: Superior (Excellent) human Defense: Excellent (Good) lycanthrope   It is interesting to note that the Ability Quality Scale in the rule book ends its value at DIVINE. For veteran players, or players who manages to summon an avatar on turn 20, will notice that in the Avatar Design Sheet you can actually raise an ability beyond DIVINE under a column noted as Maximum. Hence, the reason why I have a rating named Maximum at the end of the table. New players will be surprised at this since it is not stated in the rulebook.. Why do I have two different numeric values for each ability rating? The answer is quite simple, since FRPBM is a computer moderated play-by-mail system the values must be interpretable by logic and mathematical formulas; having a base value starting of NONE equates ZERO will force many of our calculations off and won't make any sense.

Throughout my research and trials and gameplay, I have determined that the best rating I feel that can be represented is through numeric percentages. Also, during our occasional games, we found instances of units without magic ability (in other words, having a magic rating of NONE) begin to participate in magic combat, when they carry items that provide magic bonuses. Initially, I worked on a table rating based on John Holt's Rating Table, I found it to be very difficult to explained such occurence, and even more difficult to calculate new adjusted abilities of each unit. Also, at some point, some players actually thought that items could fight by themselves and causing hits. I found that to be very difficult to accept. Since all items that I researched provided only bonuses, to say that they fight by themselves don't make sense to me.

This led me to experinment with changing the numeric values and so on, I have rationalize that if a deity/avatar had a value of maximum and still needed a chance to be fail, the value should be 99% and not 100%. This is to be consistent with the story lines in the TSR's Times of Troubles Storybook series, avatars and Gods can be killed. If value of 100% is given to any value for example 100% defense, then how can they take damage. And thus working backwards from 99% the base value percentages are derived. Using the same principal for items and bonuses. A value of NONE cannot be the same as the value for BASE VALUE's NONE rating, if it did then it won't make sense again. Hence the two rating values.

USING THE VALUES

How do you use these values? First of all, it allows you to make a quick objective valuation and comparison of units. Secondly, it allows greater ability to calculate and determine what kind of bonuses you need to bring a unit's ability to your desired level. The formula used is very simple. All bonuses are cumulative and applies to the unit that provides that bonuses, with the exception of AVATARS. Avatars do not get any bonuses at all, but gives bonuses.

If you had a unit with the base value of NONE for magic (numeric percentage is 4%), and wishes to raise its ability to FAIR that is 19%; you would have to add a total cumulative bonuses of 375% worth of bonuses. That is equivalent to 25 Priests(Priest Magic Bonus is 15% (25 x 15 = 375) or any other combination. Some simple spreadsheet calculations will help you do just the job. Of course, if you had 25 priests together in a stack, since priests also benefits from the bonuses, that would have boosted their magic rating to the maximum level - meaning you will had 25 almost perfect shots in the magic phase per round coming from the priests themselves ...

Knowing your enemy chances of success, the modified/adjusted values of each unit in the enemy's stack(group) sometimes helps you decide what kind of army you will need to use to defeat him; and really know what you are up against.

Please refer to the article on Combat - The Gory Details, for more on combat phases, and how each unit is determine if it lives or dies.

Download the FRsimulator

Here are two Excel Spreadsheets: 1) Avatars and 2) FRsim. These spreadsheets are made available to those who are interested in working out the finer details of the game. The spreadsheet on Avatars is the spreadsheet I use to choose my avatars base on my own prefered criterias, within the spreadsheets are annotations for you to get creative and modify them to your own desire. The second spreadsheet which I call FR simulator, it is not a real simulator per say - it is just a spreadsheet that helps me size up an enemy or potential target, use it at your own risks; again there are notes explaining how to use the spreadsheet, once you have understood how it works you can modify it to your own criterias - the neat thing is the hardwork is already done.

With this contribution, I hope that I have achieve what I set out to do - level the playing field. Good Luck and Enjoy.