Success
From OberinWiki
By convention among players, the term success refers to a unit of measure for the advancement of a skill. A specific number of successes, given by formula, is required to reach each skill level. Successes in any of the prime skills also contribute to the class level.
The original intent was that a single use of a skill gives one success, if the skill does not fail. In the game, this is not always true. The actual unit of advancement continues to be a secret known only to developers and possibly GMs. Players have tried to make various skills fit the formula for successes, by describing a single use as giving multiple successes, or a fraction of one success.
When a character is starving, skills give zero successes. The skills continue to work; they do not always fail; but all advancement to the next skill level will stop.
[edit] Definition
A success is a unit of measure such that
- the number of successes required to reach level n is equal to 100×2(n-2).
- the number of successes required to advance from level n-1 to level n is equal to 100×2(n-3).
As a special case, the number of successes required to reach level 1 is zero (instead of 50), and the number of successes required to advance from level 1 to level 2 is 100 (instead of 50).
[edit] Table
In this table, the second column gives the successes to reach each level; the third column gives the successes to advance to each level from previous level.
| Skill Level n | Successes to Reach 100×2(n-2) | Successes to Advance 10×2(n-3) |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | | N/A |
| Level 2 | 100 | |
| Level 3 | 200 | +100 |
| Level 4 | 400 | +200 |
| Level 5 | 800 | +400 |
| Level 6 | 1,600 | +800 |
| Level 7 | 3,200 | +1,600 |
| Level 8 | 6,400 | +3,200 |
| Level 9 | 12,800 | +6,400 |
| Level 10 | 25,600 | +12,800 |
| Level 11 | 51,200 | +25,600 |
| Level 12 | 102,400 | +51,200 |
| Level 13 | 204,800 | +102,400 |
| Level 14 | 409,600 | +204,800 |
| Level 15 | 819,200 | +409,600 |
The table would continue forever, with no maximum level. The numbers in this table are consistent with those at Zee's Tables, Oberin Tables at Abashiri and S.R.C.N. Oberin Data.
[edit] Caveats
If a use of a skill provides no progress to the next level, then we say that the use gives zero successes. The following uses give zero successes:
- When the skill fails. For example, weapons miss, spells fizzle and some other skills give failure messages.
- When the character is starving.
- When using some skills repeatedly. Common examples include repeating Anatomy on the same few creatures, and repeatedly Tracking without moving. More info belongs in the individual wiki articles for each skill.
When a character dies, he or she loses progress in each skill that is at least level 5. Popular gossip provides that the loss is exactly 25 successes, but this might not be true for all skills.
If you take the numbers in the table as the number of times to use a skill, then for some skills, the numbers in table are off by a factor of at least 2. Because everyone uses the same numbers in table, we all compensate by saying that a single use gives multiple successes, or multiple uses give a single success. A single Mace made through Blacksmithing seems to yield about two successes; but weapon skills seem to require multiple hits to yield one success. A single weapon hit either gives a fraction of a success, or has a probability to give one success.
Someone might change the server so that the progress in advancing skills may soon work differently.
