I always thought the D20 systems suffered from their eponymous die of choice: 1 to 20 is quite a large range of result in relation to the flat bonus a character can generate in the beginning and the the fact that each result has the same probability hamper the capacity of players to estimate how their character would fare in face of a given threat.
And so I thought, why not makes the roll with 2D10 instead when the PC are in some way competent with what they must roll? This would bring the stability I was seeking and help players gauge their prospective performance as the can bet on the median result of 11 which as become far more probable.
The divers checks would get easier to beat but as stated the PC wouldn't get this benefit on all of them and I think about giving the same advantage to important foes and nemesis.
With that in mind do you think it could works without upsetting the balance of the game to much? As in being able to use AP without buffing encounters and challenges.
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The altered distribution would affect crit rate. How much this affects your game is dependant on how many builds choose to focus on criticals.
What you'll lose is some of the "swinginess" of the d20 system. The Pros and Cons are the same: You'll get a lot more "average" results, and very few extremes.
What this does mean is that combats will probably go longer, and you're a lot less likely to see a critical hit swing the course of a fight.
The other thing that you'll want to consider is that on a bell-curve system bonuses no longer have a flat +5% for each +1.
I don't think it will change the balance of the game, because both the PCs and the NPCs will have the same effect. But I think you'll find things become more predictable and combats take longer.
I had thought about crits but forgot to mention it.
I would translate the D20 probability of critical threat range to % and differentiate the D10 in the 2D10 to get a D100 reading thus keeping critical distribution the same without the need for additional dice roll.
You completely eliminate the possibility of a critical miss.
With 2d10, there is no way to roll a 1. The lowest roll is 2
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This is the closest you could probably get for critical rules:
Critical threat ranges change as follows:
20 becomes 18-20 (6% chance) and is considered a natural 20
19-20 becomes 17-20 (10% chance)
18-20 becomes 16-20 (15% chance)
17-20 becomes 15-20 (21% chance)
15-20 becomes 14-20 (28% chance)
A roll in the range of 2-4 is a critical miss (6% chance)
This stays fairly close to the traditional odds. It does give a slightly better chance of a natural 20 or critical miss, but you could always choose to reduce the range slightly if you feel it's a problem. Due to lack of granularity there is no way to map a 16-20 critical threat range to 2d10, but I don't think there's any way to actually get a 16-20 threat range so that's mostly academic.
CrystalSeas wrote: You completely eliminate the possibility of a critical miss.
With 2d10, there is no way to roll a 1. The lowest roll is 2
Sorry if I was not being clear, my precedent post also applied to critical misses as well, since the disappearance of the of the 1 result was not lost on me.
Dasrak wrote: This is the closest you could probably get for critical rules:
Critical threat ranges change as follows:
20 becomes 18-20 (6% chance) and is considered a natural 20
19-20 becomes 17-20 (10% chance)
18-20 becomes 16-20 (15% chance)
17-20 becomes 15-20 (21% chance)
15-20 becomes 14-20 (28% chance)
A roll in the range of 2-4 is a critical miss (6% chance)
This stays fairly close to the traditional odds. It does give a slightly better chance of a natural 20 or critical miss, but you could always choose to reduce the range slightly if you feel it's a problem. Due to lack of granularity there is no way to map a 16-20 critical threat range to 2d10, but I don't think there's any way to actually get a 16-20 threat range so that's mostly academic.
As said the roll would be two differentiated D10, the addition being the check result and the D100 reading informing on the possibility for a critical hit or miss. Therefore the critical hit or miss can be based on the same probability than with a D20 (or even tweaked if need felt).
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so now instead of 1 chance to get a miss you now have 5 chances to have a miss..... really doesn't seem fair to martials
One potential drawback is if you are doing something outside of your specialization you will have a significantly reduced chance to succeed through pure luck.
For example:
Fighter with +10 to hit against AC 18, this benefits him lots since he now has a 79% chance to hit vs a 65% chance.
Now let's say there is a scenario the whole party is down except the wizard, he is completely out of offensive spells, the BBEG with AC 18 is severely wounded and almost dead. The wizard heroically picks up the fighters weapon and attacks the bad guy. Lets give him a +2 (since the wizard most likely would be not proficient and would dumped strength ).
The wizard normally would hit 25% of the time but with a 2d10 system he would only hit 15% of the time.
This would carry into anyone trying to do something they are not "good" at (Heavy Armour fighter rolling acrobatics, dex rogue making a strength check).
How much this would come into play would vary a lot though, depending on your GM style. If you don't make the PC's act out of their comfort zones/builds much it would come up a lot less.
Edit: I realized the wizard is a bad example since they most likely have an offensive cantrip...
Flamephoenix182 wrote: One potential drawback is if you are doing something outside of your specialization you will have a significantly reduced chance to succeed through pure luck.
For example:
Fighter with +10 to hit against AC 18, this benefits him lots since he now has a 79% chance to hit vs a 65% chance.
Now let's say there is a scenario the whole party is down except the wizard, he is completely out of offensive spells, the BBEG with AC 18 is severely wounded and almost dead. The wizard heroically picks up the fighters weapon and attacks the bad guy. Lets give him a +2 (since the wizard most likely would be not proficient and would dumped strength ).
The wizard normally would hit 25% of the time but with a 2d10 system he would only hit 15% of the time.
This would carry into anyone trying to do something they are not "good" at (Heavy Armour fighter rolling acrobatics, dex rogue making a strength check).
How much this would come into play would vary a lot though, depending on your GM style. If you don't make the PC's act out of their comfort zones/builds much it would come up a lot less.
Which is why I stated my intent to make the 2D10 roll exclusive to things PC are "competent" with in some way (to be defined), thus if you act in your specialty you stabilize your chance but acting out of it is akin to letting it up to luck.
For instance my first take on it was for class skill: if it's a class skill you get to roll 2D10, if not you get 1D20.
For attack roll I was hesitating: getting it with proficiency seems a bit too much but getting it with some class ability or feat (let's say weapon focus) a bit restrictive.
CrystalSeas wrote: You completely eliminate the possibility of a critical miss.
With 2d10, there is no way to roll a 1. The lowest roll is 2
I think you underestimate my capacity to critically fail at key moments... I'd find a way...
Enomiel wrote: Flamephoenix182 wrote: One potential drawback is if you are doing something outside of your specialization you will have a significantly reduced chance to succeed through pure luck.
For example:
Fighter with +10 to hit against AC 18, this benefits him lots since he now has a 79% chance to hit vs a 65% chance.
Now let's say there is a scenario the whole party is down except the wizard, he is completely out of offensive spells, the BBEG with AC 18 is severely wounded and almost dead. The wizard heroically picks up the fighters weapon and attacks the bad guy. Lets give him a +2 (since the wizard most likely would be not proficient and would dumped strength ).
The wizard normally would hit 25% of the time but with a 2d10 system he would only hit 15% of the time.
This would carry into anyone trying to do something they are not "good" at (Heavy Armour fighter rolling acrobatics, dex rogue making a strength check).
How much this would come into play would vary a lot though, depending on your GM style. If you don't make the PC's act out of their comfort zones/builds much it would come up a lot less.
Which is why I stated my intent to make the 2D10 roll exclusive to things PC are "competent" with in some way (to be defined), thus if you act in your specialty you stabilize your chance but acting out of it is akin to letting it up to luck.
For instance my first take on it was for class skill: if it's a class skill you get to roll 2D10, if not you get 1D20.
For attack roll I was hesitating: getting it with proficiency seems a bit too much but getting it with some class ability or feat (let's say weapon focus) a bit restrictive. Ah well then no issue there. Even then it's a minor issue, I have ran Iron Kingdoms RPG games which uses 2d6 base system and it worked fine. Just changes how the players play a little
Lady-J wrote: so now instead of 1 chance to get a miss you now have 5 chances to have a miss..... really doesn't seem fair to martials I am not an expert on probability so I might be missing something but I don't see the difference in treatment (1/20 vs 5/100).
Enomiel wrote: I don't see the difference in treatment (1/20 vs 5/100). There isn't any difference.
But if players are not very mathy, they might make the same error and (irrationally) feel like the odds have be fiddled with.
if you make it so they fail on a 2-5 in addition to 1 something that could have hit on a 2 now misses
Lady-J wrote: if you make it so they fail on a 2-5 in addition to 1 something that could have hit on a 2 now misses They would fail on five result out of the hundred possible on the D100, making it the same chance to fail than one result out of twenty (the 1 on 1D20).
This should not be the classic 01 to 05 to avoid high addition result being fail though (since 0 = 10 on the D10). So maybe something like 11, 12, 21, 13 and 31 being the fumble with this system.
i still stand by the minimum number value and only the minimum number value should be considered in automatic miss territory and the maximum and only the maximum value should be in automatic teritory
Lady-J wrote: i still stand by the minimum number value and only the minimum number value should be considered in automatic miss territory and the maximum and only the maximum value should be in automatic teritory Well you are of course free to think this, but my post was about tweaking the D20 system with some use of 2D10 in certain circumstance, the consequences of such tweak, possible problems and their solutions.
Your principle of critical miss/hit being reserved to the minimal/maximal number value is all well and good, but it's all it is: a principle. It doesn't address the points we were talking about, nor does it bring any new one into light and is therefore irrelevant to the question at hand.
Enomiel wrote: Lady-J wrote: i still stand by the minimum number value and only the minimum number value should be considered in automatic miss territory and the maximum and only the maximum value should be in automatic teritory Well you are of course free to think this, but my post was about tweaking the D20 system with some use of 2D10 in certain circumstance, the consequences of such tweak, possible problems and their solutions.
Your principle of critical miss/hit being reserved to the minimal/maximal number value is all well and good, but it's all it is: a principle. It doesn't address the points we were talking about, nor does it bring any new one into light and is therefore irrelevant to the question at hand. in a 2d10 system 2 would be the most minimum value so 2 would be a miss, and 20 would be an auto hit just like in 1d20 systems making 2,3,4,5,and 6 count as an auto miss just because you want to switch up the rolling system is going to screw over the martials way more then just the single d20 only failing on a 1, and adjusting the critical threat range on the higher end will make crits way to available which may seem like a boon to the martials at 1st but will mean they will be taking a lot more crits to the face during the campaign meaning they are more likely to die as they are generally the ones taking the hits for the party so the game turns into i either crit this thing for lots of damage or i miss horribly with little to no middle ground or normal hits
Lady-J wrote: ...in a 2d10 system 2 would be the most minimum value so 2 would be a miss, and 20 would be an auto hit just like in 1d20 systems making 2,3,4,5,and 6 count as an auto miss just because you want to switch up the rolling system is going to screw over the martials way more then just the single d20 only failing on a 1, and adjusting the critical threat range on the higher end will make crits way to available which may seem like a boon to the martials at 1st but will mean they will be taking a lot more crits to the face during the campaign meaning they are more likely to die as they are generally the ones taking the hits for the party so the game turns into i either crit this thing for lots of damage or i miss horribly with little to no middle ground or normal hits I thought you were just being adamant on cirts being reserved for min/max number value, but in fact you seem not to understand the way I suggest to determine critical hit and miss range, which gives the exact same chance to get a critical hit/miss than with a D20 while using 2D10.
Try reading again my suggestion and ask for explanation on the points you didn't understand but as long as you do not get what I meant your contribution will amount to nothing as it will be based on mistaken premises (or you are just trolling and it amounts to nothing either way).
The more I mull this over, with the expanded range for criticals, the more I think you might be better off simply expanding the amount of tasks that characters can take 10 or take 20 with.
A separate d20-based game (Mutants & Masterminds) had an ability (akin to feats) called "Skill Mastery" that allowed you to Take 10 even in stressful situations. Perhaps that could be ported over for all class skills (that the character has at least one rank in)?
I think the math is solid for the expanded range of criticals - but at the same time, I think it'll be far less intuitive for the players and will lead to a lot of confusion (as we can see with Lady-J).
AaronUnicorn wrote: The more I mull this over, with the expanded range for criticals, the more I think you might be better off simply expanding the amount of tasks that characters can take 10 or take 20 with.
A separate d20-based game (Mutants & Masterminds) had an ability (akin to feats) called "Skill Mastery" that allowed you to Take 10 even in stressful situations. Perhaps that could be ported over for all class skills (that the character has at least one rank in)?
I think the math is solid for the expanded range of criticals - but at the same time, I think it'll be far less intuitive for the players and will lead to a lot of confusion (as we can see with Lady-J).
I own M&M so I'm familiar with this solution, I thought about it but the complete suppression of a roll didn't sit well with me, we tried before but it proved somewhat of a mood killer. I think it's indeed simpler though.
I'm not worried about my usual players, they all have a solid understanding of math and the idea of this modification came from our discussions about boardgames with dices. Newcomers might be put off but I usually don't include home rule with them unless they are a necessary fix to the game as written.
I had same idea about making the characters more regular, by adding more dices that add up to 20. 1d20 => 2d10 => 2d6+1d8 => 2d6+2d4 => 5d4 , and so. They also increase the expectation of the roll. Furthermore it does not generate a gap so quick between levels, which is a far more realistic option.
As some people has stated the main problem is the criticals. If you fix the critical at something like 17 it is much better. But of course this arises other problems.
You could also keep 20 but add 1 to each crit multiplier.
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The way I've imagined the automatic success/failure working using the 2d10 system is treating the 20 and 2 as 20 and 1 respectively, but expanding critical range to keep the odds about the same (as Dasrak did). Point is reducing the luck factor without breaking the mechanics after all.
Taking 10 should probably be boosted to taking 11 using this, since the average roll is now 11 rather than 10.5. Taking 20 I feel would be fine to still take the same length of time to do.
You might want to consider increasing basic DCs of everything by 1 for the same reason that you should take 11. That is, base AC is 11, save DCs are 11 + level + modifier. It's kind of an awkward toss up between making things slightly easier by having a higher average and making things harder by effectively reducing the highest value you can get.
Probably the biggest and most obvious change is power gaps, which become much more pronounced. Say you hit on a 4+. That's a 6% chance of missing. A +1 bonus drops that by 3%, while a -1 penalty raises it by 4%. If you need an 11, +1 bonuses and -1 penalties change it by 9% or 10% respectively.
Basically, if you're behind, it takes a lot to catch up, and if you're about even, it takes very little to shift the balance in your favour. You'll probably find boss fights become much harder and see more tactical play. Taking that move action to jump on the table for the +1 high ground bonus is more worthwhile when it boosts your 10 to an 11, changing hit odds from 45% to 55%, compared to the standard 45% to 50%. Dropping prone to avoid arrows could reduce that 45% chance of hitting you to 15%, an effective +6 to AC using the d20.
Aid another becomes fairly valuable, since even a lightly trained character will be able to succeed easily and a +2 bonus can be up to a +19% chance of success.
Think that's about all the things I've considered when I looked at it myself. Haven't actually tried it though, so how valid any of this is in practice is debatable.
This seems like it will result in a less enjoyable game.
Skills: There is already the option to take ten if you need an average result, so this just hurts the option of gambling on getting a good outlier.
Attacks: Pathfinder combat eventually only misses on low numbers for initial attacks. This greatly reduces the odds of missing by making results average. Haste and archery builds get even better, and combat begins to get predictable.
Saves: Opposite problem here. Often, saves need to be something better than average. Multi-save save-or-die spells that give a couple chances to not die become stronger, because those good rolls become rarer. Boosting DCs becomes huge, because each point of DC is even more powerful than the old system.
Overall: There is more rolling, more addition, and fewer compelling/memorable/exciting rolls. Nobody misses, and casters are pushed to cheese their DCs as high as possible.
Recommendation: Use 2d10 as a replacement for taking 10. It’s a little more interesting, and does a good job of representing doing something carefully. Combat and saving throw math are more finicky.
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Thanks for all the comments. Wolin's bit on the maths behind it was particularly insightful as I didn't crunch the numbers myself yet.
I'll see to implement it for my next table if the players are interested to experiment a bit and report how it goes thereafter.
Hadn't thought about it, but reroll spells and effects are fairly terrible with this since you don't get the large swings. Or less rewarding or satisfying, anyway. You can get interesting mechanics you couldn't with a d20 though. Reroll a die of your choice would have to be the quirk (Although you may want to do/allow both, depending on the quality of the roll).
Say there's an average roll of 11 with a 10 and a 1. Rerolling both isn't particularly fabulous: there's a 10% chance of nothing happening, 60% chance of being up to 4 higher or lower, leaving 15% each for a good 16+ roll or an awful 6- roll.
If you can force someone to reroll just the 10, or reroll your own 1, this becomes rather better. Now it's a 10% chance of nothing, a 40% chance of being 4 higher (or lower) and a 50% chance of one of the rare 16+ (or 6-) rolls. And, importantly, a 10x higher chance of getting an automatic success from the 20 or failure from the 2.
For comparison, on the d20, the same roll is 5% of nothing, 20% a little better, 25% each for a little worse, 5- and 16+. You're less likely to do well, but more likely to get something fabulous compared to rerolling both, and rerolling 1 is strictly better.
With this in mind, you might like to make reroll effects more common as a means of getting to high or low numbers more easily/at all. I've toyed with the idea of giving immediate action rerolls based on charisma to make it a more useful stat (and since it's the most thematically close to luck).
Other thing you could do is unusual stuff with doubles. If you're familiar with Shadowrun's glitch system you could use a variant of that. Basically, it's a "You succeed, but..." or a "You fail, but..." kind of system. At its simplest, you could keep odds of critical success/failure the same as d20 and make, say, double 1-5 auto fails and double 6-10 auto success.
There's a degree of narrative addition that it can make it more interesting, if you're creative, or gives you an easier way of rewarding players who try something cool or inventive but fail because of a bad roll. Or punish players who do things like insult people to their face but still succeed on the diplomacy check because they have +56415338 to their check.
Lady-J wrote: so now instead of 1 chance to get a miss you now have 5 chances to have a miss..... really doesn't seem fair to martials It’s not about the number of rolled results that would be auto-misses. The important metric is the probability of those results being rolled when it comes to being fair.
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I tried a one shot with every check as 2D10 rather than 1D20, as a test run and thought of reporting it here. My players were the usual people I play with as GM or PC and veteran gamer in tabletop RPG and board-game.
As a result the checks throughout the session seemed to be resolved with more ease, but I think it's a matter of how it felt rather than a statistical result. Indeed the players all have computer related job which gave them technical insight on the consequence of switching D20 for 2D10s and with this knowledge they planned their actions with a more reliable average result of the dices, securing less bonus to ensure their success (they can get very creative). Personally I felt not much difference for game balance but it might indeed change how some players tackle challenges on. I didn't fell the need to change the base difficulty (including AC) from "10 + modifiers" to "11 + modifiers".
As a whole I think the change can work, but to preserve the original ambiance of D&D/pathfinder style games it should be better to apply it selectively. My original idea was to grant the 2D10 to beat a check when the PC are "competent" in the thing being checked and get them stuck with 1D20 when they are not.
So now I want to discuss the criterion under which to class the PC as competent or not, let's try to get them all in order:
Skill check: Easy one, they should get the 2D10 for class skill with at least one rank.
Ability check: As it works as a skill check (base ability modifier) with no skill associated they should never get 2D10 on such raw power contest, but a case could be made when a class special abilities gives a bonus to an ability check specifically (I'm thinking about some barbarian archetype which gives bonus to break things with strength check).
Attack check: I'm a bit stuck on this one, to gives the 2D10 with the used weapon's proficiency seems a bit too good as everyone would basically have it, but to restrict it to some criteria like a feats (weapon focus seems a good candidate) seems too stringent (and pointless as everyone would auto-take it). Maybe I will chose to apply the former since combat comes with the territory for adventurers, it makes more sense flavor wise to me.
Maneuver check: Easier as it is specialized enough, 2D10 would comes with a feat. The question is to make it part of the existing feats which levy the penalty for attempting the corresponding maneuver, to make it a custom feat with the former as a prerequisite or maybe part of the "grater [insert maneuver]" feats benefits (a bit too limiting in my opinion as they all have a BAB +6 prerequisite).
Save check: I would simply replace the benefits of the "improved save" line of feats (one re-roll on the corresponding save per day) with the benefit of granting 2D10 on the corresponding save check (powerful but still needs to invest two feats).
That's all I could thought of for now. Please give me your take on this: is it a good idea, is it balanced enough? Did I forgot some checks which needs to be decided upon, does some criterion needs clarification? Any feedback is welcome.
I think there are a number of things you have not considered which would make me as a player think very hard before wanting this.
1) It make the effect of Penalties/bonuses harder to predict. Normally a -2 penalty reduces your hit chance by 10%, here it depends a lot on where you are on the bell curve. As there are a lot of ways to get bonus and penalties it could make any specific encounter a lot harder or lot easier than RAW
2)It really magnifies the effect of differences. For instance iterative attacks , if the to hit number was 11 for the first attack (50/50) then normally the iterative would have been 25% now its 15%. That hurts pc classes more than monsters as many of them have multiple attacks at a fixed value.
I think essentially though this is why I prefer flat probability models to bell curves because of the 'randomness' that giving a bonus or penalty is on a bell curve.
Your experience with the group though is the opposite effect it would have on me I would be striving to maximise every bonus as I would fear dropping of the probability cliff on the bell curve. (I know this from playing games with bell curve mechanics)
That's cool, having the feedback on that. Was interested to see how it worked, and cool to see that it basically did. Which of the various suggestions that people made above did you end up using?
I feel like a longer play test might not be a bad idea for longer term effects; it's relatively easy to build around certain mechanics in a one-shot. It's what you can actually manage in practice though.
Liking the idea you're putting in on making it something trained people can do. I think the flavour you kind of need to put it in for the spectrum is
Taking 10/11: It's an easy task and you're sticking with tried and true methods. No sense in any risk.
2d10: You know what you're doing and trying to be safe, but trying out a few new things you read about, are improvising a little, or you're threatened or in danger (this makes it a kind of take 10 in combat option)
1d20: standard risky option.
Putting it like this, there's a definite kind of appeal in giving at least an option of 2d10.
Linking it to feats seems reasonable, with the exception of the skills, where I like your take on it. Combat expertise (urgh) is probably the most sensible option to start doing it for combat options, and possibly also Precise Shot. My group don't really use the improved save line of feats, so I'd personally make it an option for a save as soon as you take the feat for that save. Once a day at least, before at will on the improved one. Caster level checks might want things like a school focus or spell penetration or combat casting, depending on what variety of check you're making.
Ability checks though? That's a tough one. Just a positive modifier? If it's a key ability for you? Even just always on, to make your actual score more relevant (Because it's just embarrassing, if hilarious, when your 5 strength wizard breaks down a door the raging barbarian has just failed to). Although might want to keep the 1d20 option for stabilisation rolls.
Methinks that if you use a range of 2-5 as an "automatic miss" your probability of missing actually becomes 10% instead of 5% on using a 1 on a d20.
With a 2d10 to calculate a "miss", you have to add all the probabilities of the combinations you can make with the two dice that count as a miss.
There are a total of 100 different combinations you can make with 2d10. A roll of 2,3,4 or 5 results in the following 10 combinations that represent 10% of the possible rolls provided below:
number: first die, second die
2: 1,1
3: 1,2 2,1
4: 1,3 2,2 3,1
5: 1,4 2,3 3,2 4,1
This means that the probabilities are as follows:
2: 1%
3: 2%
4: 3%
5: 4%
Therefore to calculate an "automatic miss" you need to consider the possibility of rolling 5 OR a 4 or a 3 or a 2 which is 1+2+3+4 = 10 or 10%
Similarly you would have the same thing on the high side for crits.
@JohnHawkins: Indeed the flat bonus ends up being of varying impact with the bell curve, I guess it didn't show much since it was one session with low level character and correspondingly low CR monsters. My group ended up having an opposite reaction because they always makes plan considering they will roll no better than 5 with a D20, just to be on the safe side, but that's the board-gamer in them showing, so with a bell curve system they tend to assume better average roll in their plans.
As for difference's effect and iterative attacks you pointed a very valid problem. How about ruling that a one attack action is carefully aimed and should get to roll 2D10 but using multiple attacks in one round is favoring quantity over quality and should consequently roll 1D20 for each attack, this way the big monsters are not unfairly advantaged and the low end of iterative attack still get a decent chance for a lucky punch. Would this amend the problem? Tell me what you think.
@Wolin: Glad you liked the feedback, I found everyone's comments very helpful too. I did a test run simply using 2D10 for every check just to get a proof of concept and see if a major problem would arise immediately and it didn't. A longer test with some of the twist I exposed above will indeed be necessary if we are to see all the consequences of such change and I intend to get my group through the good old Rise of the Runelord campaign.
I like your way of describing each option between taking10/2D10/D20. Even if it doesn't works for every check in the system in the end, I might still keep it for skills in the way you put it. For combat and considering JohnHawkins's thoughts on the consequence on iterative attacks I think it might be better to allow it as long as one is proficient with the weapon used and making only one attack, but to not allow it with multiple attack and maybe also ban any movement in the same round, so that the option exist but must be chosen over other equally appealing possibilities.
I hadn't thought about all things related to magic beyond saving throws, caster checks seems to go well with school focus indeed and spell penetration for attempt to overcome SR, I'll have to check all situation when a caster check is called for to sort this out. For ability checks your example made me realize that I was maybe looking at it the wrong way: indeed as it is a check on raw power it should perform with some form of stability since one should be used to one's body/mind performance and so maybe it should be 2D10 most of the time, except for situation when you must go over your limit like stabilization roll as you pointed.
@Rovewin: seems like this critical miss/hit misunderstanding will be a recurring topics. The way I suggested was a bit obscure and had problems of it's own that I didn't realize at the time (though not the one you pointed to me as it is irrelevent), so I'll change it for a new form with the same idea: The fumbles would be on the five lowest results with a 1 in the roll, that would be 1:1 1:2 2:1 1:3 and 3:1, which makes five results out of the hundred possible with 2D10 making it the same probability than getting 1 on 1D20. Similarly the critical hits would happen on the five highest results with a 10 in the roll, that is 10:10 10:9 9:10 10:8 and 8:10 which makes five results out of the hundred possible with 2D10 making it the same probability than getting 20 on 1D20.
Lady-J wrote: what about 2:2 and 9:9 Very different odds.
You need rolls that are the same mathematically. Same odds, same probability, same chance. Those are much rarer events than what he described.
Enomiel wrote: @JohnHawkins: Indeed the flat bonus ends up being of varying impact with the bell curve, I guess it didn't show much since it was one session with low level character and correspondingly low CR monsters. My group ended up having an opposite reaction because they always makes plan considering they will roll no better than 5 with a D20, just to be on the safe side, but that's the board-gamer in them showing, so with a bell curve system they tend to assume better average roll in their plans.
As for difference's effect and iterative attacks you pointed a very valid problem. How about ruling that a one attack action is carefully aimed and should get to roll 2D10 but using multiple attacks in one round is favoring quantity over quality and should consequently roll 1D20 for each attack, this way the big monsters are not unfairly advantaged and the low end of iterative attack still get a decent chance for a lucky punch. Would this amend the problem? Tell me what you think.
Not sure how their characters dare to get out of bed with that attitude :(
I find it not uncommon that against high powered opponents players may end up needing 15 or so to hit which would make your rules change suck in that fight.
Your suggestion would help alleviate the problem, although I can think of circumstances where it would be advantageous not to use 2d10 on a single attack so you could let players choose , but that will slow everything down as it sounds like your players are the sort to do methodical statistical calculations to decide which to roll.
I would also be concerned that your change will hurt characters which are less optimised than the rest of the party .normally if your attack total is 3 less than the best other melee fighter you are hitting 15% less , here if the best is at 50& your -3 drops you off the bell curve cliff and you are I think 25% worse(sorry its late and I can only do maths when I am awake)
JohnHawkins wrote:
I find it not uncommon that against high powered opponents players may end up needing 15 or so to hit which would make your rules change suck in that fight.
Your suggestion would help alleviate the problem, although I can think of circumstances where it would be advantageous not to use 2d10 on a single attack so you could let players choose , but that will slow everything down as it sounds like your players are the sort to do methodical statistical calculations to decide which to roll.
I would also be concerned that your change will hurt characters which are less optimised than the rest of the party .normally if your attack total is 3 less than the best other melee fighter you are hitting 15% less , here if the best is at 50& your -3 drops you off the bell curve cliff and you are I think 25% worse(sorry its late and I can only do maths when I am awake)
I think in a strict 2d10 system, as a GM, since things do become rather harder when you fall off the probability curve, you'll need to careful with opponent choices. For example, by Bestiary guidelines, AC increases by 2-3 every 2 CR or 4-5 every 3. If you're working off needing an 11 to hit a CR=Level creature (55% hit rate), 2CR higher is a ~32% hit rate or a ~18% rate for 3CR higher (or ~8% for 4CR). Or in other words, at CR2+ your hit rate halves, and halves again each CR after that.
Even if you're looking at a 6 for a CR=level creature, your hit rate drops from 90% to ~75% at CR+2, ~60% at CR+3 or ~40% at CR+4; your miss chance more than doubles 2CR up and quadruples for 3 up.
Basically, you kind of need to drop the CR of things you're willing to drop on your PCs by 1. It probably actually kind of makes the recommended CR table accurate.
You are right in that you do need to optimise a lot more: keeping on top of the curve in your specialisation is a good aim, but you kind of need to acknowledge that your weak spots are going to be very weak unless you put fairly significant resources in keeping them passable.
All your comments are very useful to me, they make me realize how much of an impact it could have to make those changes. The main problem is indeed that even if the average performance is stabilized by the bell curb, the highest result being less probable it naturally makes hard task even harder.
I will have to try it on a longer test but it might still work well with me: it counteract the natural action inferiority of a lone BBG and makes optimization and creative thinking to get a bonus all the more rewarding.
@JohnHawkins: I might have exaggerated a bit the tendency of my crew, but still their fearfulness of the occasional unfair low roll is what made me think about a bell curb system as they complained about it on some occasion.
@Lady-J: I guess you mean "why not 2:2 and 9:9 since they add up to the same result as 1+3 and 10+8 respectively?" This would be to keep the same odds to get a fumble or critical as with 1D20 which is 5%. To get this exact % I had to choose five different results since there is 100 possible result with 2D10, to keep the spirit of the D20 system in which the lowest result, that is 1, is fumble and the highest, that is 20, is crits I thought about making it the three lowest results are fumble and the three highest results are crits with 2D10. But that makes 6 results for each meaning 6% chance to roll it, so I had to exclude one result in each series to keep the same odds as with 1D20 and so to make it easy to remember I excluded 2:2 and 9:9 as there was a common point between all the other in their respective series: that is the roll including a 1 for lowest and a 10 for highest.
More things I hadn't considered:
Consider enforcing sticking with 2d10 or 1d20 with ongoing uses once someone's made a decision on which to use. I'm primarily thinking of full attacks (It's beneficial to use the safe roll on your highest bonus and the risky d20 on later attacks which need higher rolls), but you could also do it with ongoing saves from poison/disease/spell effects. Alternatively, 1d20 as default, but can swap to 2d10 at any point in that same thing. Kind of like how power attack works: once it's activated, you've got to use it until your next turn. Usually this isn't a good option, but sometimes it can be a save if you've been rolling awfully (I have had a character die from a 1d3 con poison he initially needed a 6 to save on).
Critical Focus is quite strong since that +4 bonus is a huge probability boost. Ditto Improved initiative and combat casting. Even Mobility becomes rather more useful.
Could try a variant where a feat that gives you a bonus to some d20 roll allows you to lose that bonus in exchange for using 2d10 instead. Any later iterations of a feat like that should probably give it back if you use that though. Bonus decrease by 1 if you're more generous.
Continued thinking on crits and saves, I'm not sure moving crits around is necessary. It makes crits much more unlikely, but that can be kind of a consequence of using 2d10. There's a certain appeal in keeping odds the same though. Regardless, those auto pass/fails should remain limited to the 20 and 2 for the same reason. Not much point in changing the system if you keep all the probabilities the same.
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