What's bad about d% systems [Fantasy Flight W40k specifically]

[Genth]

Hi all, I've played both 3.5, Pathfinder and the Fantasy Flight 40k system, and I have to say -mechanically-, the FF40k system seems much better to me. I like how the d% system means it's the -character- who changes through the campaign, and that the DM has a much more easy way to balance things ("Do I want this easy [+10%] or hard [-10%]" etc) than having to come up with DCs, which takes a strong knowledge of how each player will play their character and how they're built. Especially with the Only War and DH2 style of leveling (with aptitudes linking to the cost of talents and skills, not the ability to get them at all, and with those talents and skills being almost universally available) characters aren't stuck in a single class.

I do see that 3.P has some advantages over FF40k, such as the sheer variety of 'stuff' there is to get, but I was wondering if there was (outside of the fact it's limited to particular IPs) any significant 'bad stuff' about the d% system people hate.

This is because I am thinking about homebrewing a campaign, adapting the FF40k system to it, which is an urban fantasy campaign.

[hifidelity2]

I have not played the d% system you mention but have other d% systems . The downside of d% is when the PCs get very high d%

e.g. Attack 99%, Parry 99%

Then the combat can go on and on and......as there is very little chance of actually hitting each other. There are ways around this either within the rules or house rules but you need to be mindful of the possible issue

[Kurald Galain]

I have not played the d% system you mention but have other d% systems . The downside of d% is when the PCs get very high d%

e.g. Attack 99%, Parry 99%

Then the combat can go on and on and......

That's why every d% system that I've seen has caps to Parry (or dodge or its equivalent), such as that it can be used only once per round. What you describe is not an actual issue in gameplay.

[Thatwarforged]

Personally the stick I have against d% though it maybe just a w40k thing is the sheer amount that players die. The other issue I found with w40k is its super easy to break, like if you toke 3.5 tome of battle on steroids. The only thing you can't really break is the hit point plus toughness. Though I personally enjoy the concept that is the d% system but the only one i have come across is w40k.

[Ravian]

I've found the more annoying part of d% systems is more when you GM them. It places a lot more pressure on the GM to figure out what the proper difficulty to things are. For example a 30 in a skill is typically presented as a somewhat basic level of proficiency, but applicably it only succeeds a third of the time. Obviously you have to keep in mind that some tasks are simple enough that you can had a few degrees to their rolls, but it still seems a little annoying to have to manually consider these additional layers to the game.

[Morty]

Let's be honest... "better than 3.x D&D" isn't exactly a high bar to jump. I've only played Warhammer Fantasy RPG 2e, which is similar but not identical to the 40K systems. The problem I found was that everyone had a small chance of, well, doing anything. It was especially visible in combat, which easily turned into a series of misses.

[Grim Portent]

Let's be honest... "better than 3.x D&D" isn't exactly a high bar to jump. I've only played Warhammer Fantasy RPG 2e, which is similar but not identical to the 40K systems. The problem I found was that everyone had a small chance of, well, doing anything. It was especially visible in combat, which easily turned into a series of misses.

That varies from system to system. Black Crusade has a high baseline for combat competance, but it can often result in a 130% hit chance vs a 100% dodge chance (once per round) and a 50% chance for a shield to negate the hit (ceasing to work on a 01-15). This makes action economy a key to high end combat.

There's a nice middle ground where characters can reliably hit, enemy cannon fodder hits sometimes and enemy bosses hit often, with players avoiding most hits and shrugging off the ones from cannon fodder and being pulped by boss hits.

[Genth]

I've found the more annoying part of d% systems is more when you GM them. It places a lot more pressure on the GM to figure out what the proper difficulty to things are. For example a 30 in a skill is typically presented as a somewhat basic level of proficiency, but applicably it only succeeds a third of the time. Obviously you have to keep in mind that some tasks are simple enough that you can had a few degrees to their rolls, but it still seems a little annoying to have to manually consider these additional layers to the game.

Huh, I find that interesting, actually, 'cos I find GMing that way a lot easier than having to find out DCs for everything the players do. You've got, what, 13 options to choose from, from -60% to +60%? As opposed from trying to design a DC which can be anywhere from 11 to 35?

[neonchameleon]

Hi all, I've played both 3.5, Pathfinder and the Fantasy Flight 40k system, and I have to say -mechanically-, the FF40k system seems much better to me. I like how the d% system means it's the -character- who changes through the campaign, and that the DM has a much more easy way to balance things ("Do I want this easy [+10%] or hard [-10%]" etc) than having to come up with DCs, which takes a strong knowledge of how each player will play their character and how they're built. Especially with the Only War and DH2 style of leveling (with aptitudes linking to the cost of talents and skills, not the ability to get them at all, and with those talents and skills being almost universally available) characters aren't stuck in a single class.

I do see that 3.P has some advantages over FF40k, such as the sheer variety of 'stuff' there is to get, but I was wondering if there was (outside of the fact it's limited to particular IPs) any significant 'bad stuff' about the d% system people hate.

This is because I am thinking about homebrewing a campaign, adapting the FF40k system to it, which is an urban fantasy campaign.

Honestly, mechanically 3.5 and Pathfinder are not particularly shining beacons. Unbalaced, fiddly, and focusing on slightly odd things - and a pretty heavy system with a lot of problems to run. I'd suggest looking further afield at what other people are doing. My recommendation list would be, I think:

• Star Wars: Edge of the Empire (Fantasy Flight Games)
• Firefly (Margaret Weis Productions)
• Dread (The Impossible Dream)
• Atomic Robo or possibly the generic Fate Core (Evil Hat)
• Apocalypse World (Lumpley Games) - Dungeon World if Vincent Baker's writing style is like chewing on tinfoil.
• Fiasco (Bully Pullpit Games) - watch the tabletop playthrough as it might or might not be what you want.

All of them should be a whole lot easier to GM than either 3.5 or W40k, and all are at least moderately popular systems.

[Kurald Galain]

Huh, I find that interesting, actually, 'cos I find GMing that way a lot easier than having to find out DCs for everything the players do. You've got, what, 13 options to choose from, from -60% to +60%? As opposed from trying to design a DC which can be anywhere from 11 to 35?

Practically speaking, you can do both with just five steps (very easy, easy, average, hard, very hard; or some synonyms thereof. These could map to -50%, -25%, 0%, 25%, 50% in a d% system, and to DC 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 in a d20 system, and the math would work out as comparable as well.

[Anonymouswizard]

I've found the more annoying part of d% systems is more when you GM them. It places a lot more pressure on the GM to figure out what the proper difficulty to things are. For example a 30 in a skill is typically presented as a somewhat basic level of proficiency, but applicably it only succeeds a third of the time. Obviously you have to keep in mind that some tasks are simple enough that you can had a few degrees to their rolls, but it still seems a little annoying to have to manually consider these additional layers to the game.

This is a problem with the game as much as the resolution mechanic. Unknown Armies characters will rarely have an attribute below 40, and most routine tasks automatically succeed if you have 15% skill. Additionally, unless you are under a decent amount of pressure you succeed if you roll under your attribute, and if you roll under your skill you simply do it better. This means most people succeed on challenging tasks in their area of expertise 55% of the time. It creates a difference between under pressure (roll under skill) and able to take your time (roll under attribute), while still applying degrees to represent difficulty (either a penalty to the attribute and skill or a minimum roll).

This problem is pronounced in WH40KRPGs because many players don't realise how important stacking bonuses is. It creates an atmosphere of characters being innately helpless, reliant on clever thinking and technology in order to survive. For example, in a short campaign I ran a bunch of Acolytes fought a twice bound daemonhost and killed it because they had decent skills, their full gear, and decent luck. The next session they fought a daemonhost with the exact same stats, bt this one was based of the Slaneshi daemon and was far smarter, catching one of the Acolytes off guard and fighting all of them in a place where they couldn't use their guns. They only survived through me interpreting Perils of the Warp as applying to daemons (AFAIK the Dark Heresy rulebook doesn't specify). That campaign was run with a bunch of wargamers and a parody of the setting (HERESY AROUND EVERY CORNER!), but it introduced me to the true charm of the game (the Imperium is falling apart, and there's so much out there that we do not understand) which makes me loathe to run a parody campaign of it again. I actually dislike Deathwatch for not only taking the emphasis away from human characters (I preferred it when my players actually stole a ship to chase a bad guy due to them having no authority to when we just turned up to a battle site and the GM had us instantly be adored by the Imperial Guard. The Inquisitor also let them keep the ship as it was more convenient than buying them passage on civilian vessels) but also making I too easy to succeed at tasks and especially combat (when at rank one our devastator can defeat a swam of nearly 100 tiranids in nearly one round and focused firing and combat first aid allowed us to take down a hive tyrant at the end of that session I really see nowhere to go. The GM actually refused to read enough of the rules for us to se the parts that made us feel like a squad though). I love the WH40KRPGs because they take rules and actually use them to make it feel like humans can triumph over immortal horrors. I think the tendency for 'reasonably skilled' in the system to be at about 30% for a human is so that humanity seems smaller, and the game has a feel of 'skill and quick thinking defeat raw power', which makes the enemies that think actually terrifying (I have learnt from experience that even if you put out a character that takes no damage from the PCs attacks and deals half their health per swing they won't be afraid at all. For this reason I plan to soon unveil a genius evil mastermind who spends all his time in the shadows and uses clever use of resources to annoy the PCs).

[Knaight]

Huh, I find that interesting, actually, 'cos I find GMing that way a lot easier than having to find out DCs for everything the players do. You've got, what, 13 options to choose from, from -60% to +60%? As opposed from trying to design a DC which can be anywhere from 11 to 35?

In practice, it's more along the lines of any multiple of 5 from 10-35, which is 7 options. Plus, it's not like d20 is the only other system out there.

Personally, my big issue with d% is that it is needlessly precise. It's not like there's any meaningful mathematical difference between a roll under system and a roll vs. DC system, and while there are things I find appealing about d% (the 0 center of the difficult scale is nice), they're replicated elsewhere. Then you have NPC creation, where you either end up using a multiple of some sort for everything anyways (at which point the whole percentage scale is pointless and you're using artificially inflated numbers for no reason), or you end up having to decide whether a 63% investigation or a 64% investigation fits better.

By comparison, look at something like a 3d6 roll under scale. There's an effective range of 10, as 8-18 will be used for just about everything, but it can be extended for truly exceptional cases. That seems like plenty of mechanical differentiation to me, and implementation is generally faster, as the dice are faster to read and the arithmetic slightly faster in practice. Alternately, look at Fudge or Fate, which use a 0 baseline for skills, a 0 baseline for difficulty, and a 0 centered dice scale. It's got the convenient default, it's precise enough to work, and thinking up DCs is easy. There just seem to consistently be better options out there. I also generally dislike flat distributions with die mechanics, which the d% is.

[Telok]

I've played Warhammer Fantasy a few times, never did quite enjoy it. Low starting rolls in a couple of stats usually limited my characters to prevent taking the professions that could lead to stacking the numbers. I usually ended up with 50%s when others were at 80%+ and things that threatened them often stomped me by accident.

The d% system I've had more luck with is the BRP/CoC system. Characters can start with higher skills but nothing over ~80% and improvement is based on a failed skill roll between adventures. Adjustments can be the +/- type or double/half your skill. Easy but not automatic is normally done at double your skill. Skills over 100% are unusual but don't assure success in difficult situations.
I fell that the CoC d% handles human level stuff pretty well where the WFRP pushes you more towards "super or goober" characters.

[Stellar_Magic]

Well there are a number of things that appeal to me about percentile systems in general, but they're basically balanced out by some of the issues with the exact way the mechanics work in WH40K.

The roll under mechanic for example... it intuitively makes sense for skills being 'tested' in a situation, where the only thing that really matters is your skills. Unfortunately it falls a bit flat when you apply such mechanics to things that should be everyday things or combat, especially combat.

A good thought experiment for combat is this...

Imagine a squirrel... it's a lot harder to hit a squirrel then a person, right? At the same time, there's always a chance that you'll succeed... How is that represented by rolling % verses your ballistics skill? The answer is that it isn't. This is why the D20 mechanic of to hit verses AC (and natural 20s always hitting) makes more sense in a number of cases (ignoring the whole... Armor reduces hit chance thing).

So... yeah, I've got mixed feelings on the WH40K D% system. Now, I'd liked to see a D100 system with D20 style combat (to hit vs target difficulty), the level-less nature of WH40K's advances, and the pretty simple hit location system that WH40K uses.

[Destro_Yersul]

Imagine a squirrel... it's a lot harder to hit a squirrel then a person, right? At the same time, there's always a chance that you'll succeed... How is that represented by rolling % verses your ballistics skill? The answer is that it isn't. Size penalties.

Fixed that for you.

[hifidelity2]

That's why every d% system that I've seen has caps to Parry (or dodge or its equivalent), such as that it can be used only once per round. What you describe is not an actual issue in gameplay.

I agree although if you only have 1 Att and 1 Parry (dodge) then it makes no difference - although ganging up on someone become VERY effective

That varies from system to system....

There's a nice middle ground where characters can reliably hit, enemy cannon fodder hits sometimes and enemy bosses hit often, with players avoiding most hits and shrugging off the ones from cannon fodder and being pulped by boss hits.

Agree - we have used a house rule in various system to keep the game in this sweet spot

What we have done is restrict the parry to a max of 60%

However for each % of your parry above 60 you reduce that from the opponents attack roll

Example
PC1 is fighting monster 1

Both have Att / Parry of 99%
So the battle could last forever

Under these rules

Both have a Parry of 60% BUT their attack in now 60% (99-39) as well
This gives them a good chance to hit and parry but not the very drawn out battle

Where it works well is if

PC1 Att / Parry 99% is being attached by 2 monsters both with say Att / Parry 50%

So PC1 can now reduce the attack % of Monster 1 to 11% (50-39) and can concentrate his Att /Parry against Monster 2 knowing that he has little chance of being hit by Monster 1

[Winter_Wolf]

My biggest problem with d% is that the d10 is extraordinarily unkind to me. Really that's about it, though. If it weren't for an almost sentient, malicious intent that the d10s have to screw me over, I'd be very happy with a percentile based system. I can't imagine that an actual d100 would be any less unkind, and would eventually probably roll under the book case or some other dark hiding place.

[Knaight]

My biggest problem with d% is that the d10 is extraordinarily unkind to me. Really that's about it, though. If it weren't for an almost sentient, malicious intent that the d10s have to screw me over, I'd be very happy with a percentile based system. I can't imagine that an actual d100 would be any less unkind, and would eventually probably roll under the book case or some other dark hiding place.

Actual d100s are terrible, terrible dice. Even the d20 is pretty bad about rolling for too long, and the d100 is far worse, as it's basically a ball. Incidentally, my entire group has had this problem - we were using z9 dice (d10 where the 0 is actually read as 0), which should have a mean of 4.5. What actually happened was a mean of about 2.3, after way more rolls than that's all that likely for. That's obviously no indication of future performance (unless all of my d10 are weighted towards low numbers, which seems unlikely as I have 50 of them), but it does pretty much kill any chance of people wanting to try a d% system.

[VincentTakeda]

I tend to like heroes unlimited and ninjas and superspies whose skill systems are all percentages, but whose battle mechanics are not. In this instance it was pretty much fine.

When I played warhammer 1e, battle mechanics were attribute based and also percentage based. While this didnt on its face seem like it would be a problem, it did create low level characters who failed more than they succeeded by a 20 or 30% margin. We actually rephrased what we wanted to do as 'attempting to avoid doing' things we didnt want to happen because there was a 70% chance we'd fail and instead, do that very thing.

'I want to avoid stabbing him in the chest with this haphazardly and novicely thrown spear'... rolls against a 30% success chance... gets a 49. FAILURE! You clumsy novice spearman.

Fire a warning shot! oops! Man we suck at this...

Sure its technically cheating, but its about the only way we could make those early stages fun and funny. Plus it used the godawful fate point system... But thats a rant of a different color.

[mvpmack]

My problem with these systems is non-combat task resolution.

A typical character with some basic proficiency might have a 30 or 40% in something, and let's just pick a task out of our hat and say cooking. What d% systems want me to believe is that a character with 30% (actual training) can fail to cook something like instant noodles (+60%) at least 10% of the time. What is up with that? The same applies with driving. A normal person probably has less than 30% on driving but even on a +60% bonus, that generally means a car accident or crash on your way to work 1 out of 10 times.

Compare d20 systems where driving to work is ~DC5; you'll only screw it up if you're impaired or under stress due to take 10 mechanics.

The other problem with roll low is impossible tasks. A character with a 30% can succeed on checks that he is not trained for by rolling extremely low. Part of this is a problem with critical successes on skill checks in general, but it seems weird to me that a character can succeed in synthesizing a cure for cancer on a sufficiently low chemistry check, even if he lacks the skills or expertise.

[BWR]

My problem with these systems is non-combat task resolution.

A typical character with some basic proficiency might have a 30 or 40% in something, and let's just pick a task out of our hat and say cooking. What d% systems want me to believe is that a character with 30% (actual training) can fail to cook something like instant noodles (+60%) at least 10% of the time. What is up with that? The same applies with driving. A normal person probably has less than 30% on driving but even on a +60% bonus, that generally means a car accident or crash on your way to work 1 out of 10 times.

Compare d20 systems where driving to work is ~DC5; you'll only screw it up if you're impaired or under stress due to take 10 mechanics.

The other problem with roll low is impossible tasks. A character with a 30% can succeed on checks that he is not trained for by rolling extremely low. Part of this is a problem with critical successes on skill checks in general, but it seems weird to me that a character can succeed in synthesizing a cure for cancer on a sufficiently low chemistry check, even if he lacks the skills or expertise.

I think you're strawmanning a bit. Speaking from my limited experience with BRP:
First of all, everyday stuff doesn't require rolls, just like in D&D. Driving to work doesn't require a roll, just like cooking instant noodles doesn't. The rolls come in when something interesting is occuring storywise and when failure means something. Do you need to speed up to follow a car and dodge traffic? Drive. Do you need to make a fancy dinner quick? Cooking. Fail the Drive roll and you crash or get caught violating traffic laws or merely lose the car you were following. Fail the cooking and dinner doesn't taste very good and you embarrass yourself infront of your boss.
Second, modifiers for skills which can drastically improve chances, e.g. Easy rolls double your base skill before other modifiers are added on. In BRP at least you can get base skills in excess of 100% and with modifiers can get much higher than that. Similarly, rolls can be made very difficult to near impossible with the right modifiers, even if your base skill is 80% or more.
As for impossible tasks, well, the GM has final word what is possible. Impossible tasks are impossible and you ismply won't be allowed to roll. Without the GM's express permission, you aren't curing cancer, or throwing a tank around or dodging a nuclear blast or anything. Most game designers don't assume their players are stupid or jerks.

[Zombimode]

I like how the d% system means it's the -character- who changes through the campaign, and that the DM has a much more easy way to balance things ("Do I want this easy [+10%] or hard [-10%]" etc) than having to come up with DCs, which takes a strong knowledge of how each player will play their character and how they're built.

I don't follow. DCs are based on the task, not the character.

[fallensaviour]

Well there are a number of things that appeal to me about percentile systems in general, but they're basically balanced out by some of the issues with the exact way the mechanics work in WH40K.

The roll under mechanic for example... it intuitively makes sense for skills being 'tested' in a situation, where the only thing that really matters is your skills. Unfortunately it falls a bit flat when you apply such mechanics to things that should be everyday things or combat, especially combat.

A good thought experiment for combat is this...

Imagine a squirrel... it's a lot harder to hit a squirrel then a person, right? At the same time, there's always a chance that you'll succeed... How is that represented by rolling % verses your ballistics skill? The answer is that it isn't. This is why the D20 mechanic of to hit verses AC (and natural 20s always hitting) makes more sense in a number of cases (ignoring the whole... Armor reduces hit chance thing).

So... yeah, I've got mixed feelings on the WH40K D% system. Now, I'd liked to see a D100 system with D20 style combat (to hit vs target difficulty), the level-less nature of WH40K's advances, and the pretty simple hit location system that WH40K uses.

rifts...but that has it's own giant bag of problems

[oshi]

I think the thing that NEEDS to be said is this, because most people are glossing over it: A test at +/- 0 (That is, a test against only the things in your character sheet, with no situational modifier) is not the default, with the 30%chance to succeed people have mentioned... That test is described as "A challenging task." If you were for some reason rolling to cook dinner, you'd be doing something in the order of a +30 or +40 test, and the game has a "Degrees of failure" concept so that even when you somehow mess up dinner, you probably barely messed it up because of the bonus. It's burnt but edible, the kitchen wasn't consumed in a firestorm or anything silly like that.
Some of you have mentioned running into 100+% success rates, which is likely a combination of bad gear balance, being in an extremely late game situation, over-specialisation (Very easy to do) and I suspect, incorrect challenge ratings. If the characters have more than 100% chance to succeed a non-combat task, it's probably time they moved on from cooking their own dinner to cooking a five course feast that has to be perfect to avoid an interplanetary incident.
My issues with FFG games is not with the system, I'm pretty happy with it, all told, although I prefer less swing-y dice (Actually I prefer them to be less swing-y than d20 as well, I love me some Iron Kingdoms). However... Their wording, balancing, and errata'ing could use work, the books are set out in a frankly insane order that means it still take us minutes to track down some of the more obscure rules... And for building encounters the GM's pretty much entirely on his/her own because there's no CR or similar system to fall back on.

[sreservoir]

Actual d100s are terrible, terrible dice. Even the d20 is pretty bad about rolling for too long, and the d100 is far worse, as it's basically a ball. Incidentally, my entire group has had this problem - we were using z9 dice (d10 where the 0 is actually read as 0), which should have a mean of 4.5. What actually happened was a mean of about 2.3, after way more rolls than that's all that likely for. That's obviously no indication of future performance (unless all of my d10 are weighted towards low numbers, which seems unlikely as I have 50 of them), but it does pretty much kill any chance of people wanting to try a d% system.

surely there are roll-under d% systems? because tbh roll-under for a % system seems nice in principle: you number to roll under is the same as the % probability?

[Beleriphon]

I actually dislike Deathwatch for not only taking the emphasis away from human characters (I preferred it when my players actually stole a ship to chase a bad guy due to them having no authority to when we just turned up to a battle site and the GM had us instantly be adored by the Imperial Guard. The Inquisitor also let them keep the ship as it was more convenient than buying them passage on civilian vessels) but also making I too easy to succeed at tasks and especially combat (when at rank one our devastator can defeat a swam of nearly 100 tiranids in nearly one round and focused firing and combat first aid allowed us to take down a hive tyrant at the end of

In fairness, Space Marines are the kind of badasses that can do stuff like that. I mean in the fiction three of them in Terminator Armour cleared a planet of a genestealer infestation. The percentages play that out as well. Mind you from what I remember the monsters the Deathwatch are supposed to be fighting mano-a-mano are stuff like ork warbosses on the vein of Gahzgul Thraka.

[Lord Torath]

In fairness, Space Marines are the kind of badasses that can do stuff like that. I mean in the fiction three of them in Terminator Armour cleared a planet of a genestealer infestation.

Which Chapter? The Dark Angels are the ones usually credited with this, but the actual story (Deathwing from Space Hulk 2, I believe) has it several squads of terminators (I got the idea there were 30 or so) plus a terminator librarian. And "cleansing a planet" really amounted to "cleansing one city." Never played (or even read) any of the 40k RPGs, so I can't comment on the relative power level, but just figured I'd set the record straight.

[Anonymouswizard]

In fairness, Space Marines are the kind of badasses that can do stuff like that. I mean in the fiction three of them in Terminator Armour cleared a planet of a genestealer infestation. The percentages play that out as well. Mind you from what I remember the monsters the Deathwatch are supposed to be fighting mano-a-mano are stuff like ork warbosses on the vein of Gahzgul Thraka.

But when the group of 6 can kill a Hive Tyrant without much trouble (bare in mind neither of our melee characters got anywhere near it, and we still took it down in 2/3 rounds at rank 1), where do you go from there? Taking on a greater Daemon without trouble? I can see a group of rank 4/5 Deathwatch Marines managing to take them down without smart tactics, whereas in Dark Heresy you have to earn the right to take it down. I've noticed that a lot of WH40KRP combat comes down to equipment, a group of gangers with pistols and the occasional shotgun or lasgun cannot beat a group of acolytes with a bunch of rifles, but in Dark Heresy my players were using tactics and decent armour to take down 1-2 guys per round while avoiding most of the damage. In Deathwatch we only had to use basic tactics (aim the heavy bolter at the horde, focus fire on the big guy) to win combats, which just made us seem like too much like invincible heroes.

The end boss of the second mission that GM was running was a greater Daemon by the way. We decided we were bored with easy combat by the session just before that though, especially when the GM denied us talents that he let us take ("I'll just pick up a meltagun on the military ship, signature gear says I have one in addition to requisition" "no you munchkin, you can wait until the next mission"), or just straight up ignored the roleplaying sections to get into combat (we had come up with a way to stealth in without acting unlike Space Marines, and he said that we were just being sent in a drop pod). It's really put me off playing Space Marines in the system, although a good GM could change that.

I also want to get enough books to create a non-techpriest transhuman character (probably going noble birth+'enhanced genetics'+various good quality or better cybernetics), but that would require a lenient GM. Until then, I have various Arbitrator, Cleric and Tech-Priest concepts to pull out if I get the chance.

[sleepy]

I think you're strawmanning a bit. Speaking from my limited experience with BRP:
First of all, everyday stuff doesn't require rolls, just like in D&D. Driving to work doesn't require a roll, just like cooking instant noodles doesn't. The rolls come in when something interesting is occuring storywise and when failure means something. Do you need to speed up to follow a car and dodge traffic? Drive. Do you need to make a fancy dinner quick? Cooking. Fail the Drive roll and you crash or get caught violating traffic laws or merely lose the car you were following. Fail the cooking and dinner doesn't taste very good and you embarrass yourself infront of your boss.
Second, modifiers for skills which can drastically improve chances, e.g. Easy rolls double your base skill before other modifiers are added on. In BRP at least you can get base skills in excess of 100% and with modifiers can get much higher than that. Similarly, rolls can be made very difficult to near impossible with the right modifiers, even if your base skill is 80% or more.
As for impossible tasks, well, the GM has final word what is possible. Impossible tasks are impossible and you ismply won't be allowed to roll. Without the GM's express permission, you aren't curing cancer, or throwing a tank around or dodging a nuclear blast or anything. Most game designers don't assume their players are stupid or jerks.

Even if we're rolling for everyday tasks, the GM still gets to decide what failure means. Say we take that +60 bonus/30 base stat check to cook your instant noodles and you fail it. If I'm your GM? Whoops, you overcooked them. They are soggy. That's sad times, but it's hardly an immersion-breaking experience when it happens.

[Thrudd]

The only difference between using a d100/% and a d20 for resolving actions is that the d20 works on 5% increments. The gm can adjust the difficulty of tasks in exactly the same way, by assigning bonuses and penalties or making the target number higher or lower. In a lot of ways, using a d100 for everything can be more fiddly. Does that extra 1 or 2% really make a difference? I find that functionally, there is little call for using smaller than 5% increments except in the case of randomization tables.