Converting FASA to 3d6

[Falconer]

I devised a formula for converting FASA ability scores to a range that I could use in STAGFF. After much experimentation, here’s the result:

FASA	3D6
1	1
2	1
3	1
4	1
5	1
6	1
7	2
8	2
9	2
10	2
11	2
12	3
13	3
14	3
15	3
16	3
17	4
18	4
19	4
20	4
21	4
22	5
23	5
24	5
25	5
26	5
27	5
28	6
29	6	Kirk’s Psionic Potential
30	6
31	6
32	6
33	7
34	7
35	7
36	7
37	7
38	8
39	8
40	8
41	8	Spock’s Luck
42	8
43	9
44	9
45	9
46	9
47	9
48	10
49	10
50	10
51	10
52	10
53	10
54	11
55	11
56	11
57	11
58	11
59	12
60	12
61	12
62	12	Spock’s Charisma
63	12
64	13
65	13
66	13
67	13
68	13
69	14	Kirk’s Strength
70	14
71	14
72	14
73	14	Spock’s Dexterity
74	15
75	15
76	15
77	15	Kirk’s Endurance
78	15
79	15	Kirk’s Dexterity
80	16
81	16
82	16	Spock’s Endurance
83	16
84	16	Kirk’s Intellect
85	17
86	17
87	17
88	17
89	17
90	18
91	18
92	18
93	18	Spock’s Strength
94	18	Kirk’s Charisma
95	19
96	19
97	19	Spock’s Psionic Potential
98	19	Kirk’s Luck
99	19
100	20
101	20
102	20	Spock’s Intellect
103	20
104	20
105	20

The forumla in Google Sheets is =INT((x-1)*19/99)+1 [replace x with a cell reference, eg., A2]. As you can see, 1⇒1 and 100⇒20 (but not 96⇒20 as in a simple division by 5 rounded up).

There are oddities related to generation, by which I mean a human PC generated by FASA rules and then converted will have no score (other than LUC or PSI) below a 9, and might have one or more 19s. But in the end it doesn’t work to try to compensate for this, and I believe the converted stats signify what they are meant to signify. I think it was a FASA design choice that PCs would have no score below “9”. NPCs, at least non-humans, seem to employ a wider range of scores. I recently ran an adventure with lots of combats with lots of different types of foes (the “Safari in Violet” scenario) using this formula, and it worked perfectly.

[Stan]

Looks intriguing. I've been looking at building my own home-brew game that I could convert both Star Trek Adventures and FASA to.

What is 'STAGFF'?

[blackbat242]

Nov 14, 2020 14:58:37 GMT -5 Stan said:

What is 'STAGFF'?

Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier

STAGFF: Falconer’s ReviewSTAGFF: Falconer’s Review

Information, discussion, etc can be found in this section of the Old School Trek board:
Heritage Star Trek (1978)

[Stan]

Ah! Thanks for the reply. I am still getting up to speed on all the historical Star Trek RPGs! :-)

[finarvyn]

An interesting scale, but it doesn't look like it matches the "bell" shape of 3d6, it goes as low as 1, and it caps at 20 instead of 18. I assume you took the two games and matched up the key stats listed rather than just creating a direct conversion of the numbers.

In other words, the thread title is misleading. "Converting FASA to 3d6" should read "Converting FASA to 1d20" shouldn't it? (This is probably a dumb statement and I will confess that I haven't looked at STAGFF in a long time. I had just associated 3d6 with some D&D variant of Star Trek when I saw the thread title.)

If you have done this, it's brilliant. Taking two separate games and matching their scales into one equation is really hard. I know this because I have tried to match two grading scales in my classroom and it can give me fits.

[Falconer]

You’re right, the mention of 3d6 is perhaps misleading; I just meant it to convey general range. Characters in STAGFF are, indeed, generated with three six-sided dice, but the actual range possible for PCs BTB is 1-23 due to racial bonuses, and even higher for NPCs. (I have tinkered with the racial bonuses in my own game, so no PCs should have anything higher than 20.)

So really the goal here was just to convert FASA’s range to STAGFF’s range. I have considered this from a hundred different angles and tried a hundred different formulas. I tried taking into account the differing generation methods, mapping the probabilities inherent in 3d6 against the probabilities inherent in 3d10+40+[bonus points] (FASA). But at the end of the day I had to discard this strategy. As I sort of mentioned in my original post, what matters more when converting characters from one system to another is that the numbers have equivalent meanings. FASA PCs aren‘t going to have lower than 43 in most attributes, but NPCs can have as low as a 1, so to me that means 43 is a pretty decent score; it’s lousy in the same way a 9 is lousy in D&D/STAGFF—just regular lame and boring lousy, not totally sucky like a 3 or a 4 or a 5. So that’s why I put Kirk and Spock’s scores in there—partly for fun, but partly to help me eyeball things.

[finarvyn]

Well explained. It's been decades since I looked at my old FASA stuff (do I even still have it?) and honestly haven't spent much time with STAGFF either. I am clearly a Trek-slacker.