I think it will help, sure... have to re-look at all of that... but maybe psychologically knowing that 30 is 30% is worse than just not knowing the DC, because if I have a +4 at level 1 in Pathfinder I think, hey, that's pretty good for this level... might be able to hit something with a little luck. In this game I don't have 50% in most things... more like 30-40, and I think, wow, that's not very good. It'll be a miracle if I get under that.
The +4 is ADDED to the roll, you know, so it seems like extra, and in Pathfinder I also start out with 10s in my attributes without having to spend anything... so I start out with a 50% chance (or at least psychologically it seems so since that is half of a d20) rather than worse than that.
Hmm. So even if the math more or less plays out in a similar fashion, the fact this one is percentile gives an impression of hopelessness? It's not something I'd considered, but I guess it's why some of the games I've seen using D100 tend to be horror or darker.
I'm not sure if much can be done about it, though. I suppose it could be used to play into a slightly grittier setting where you're not gonna end up a floating god of devastation? I'll try and think of how to turn that into something more positive.
Yeah, doesn't necessarily need to change... I liked what Shada was saying about bringing the different challenge levels to the forefront, make that part more obvious. Not sure how on that either. With play by post you are going to have people trying to roll their own stuff, and how will we know what kind of challenge rating the DM considers something? Should we just guess and say, well, since this seems like something anyone can do with enough time, I am going to consider it easy and take a +20 for this roll? That way, we could still feel like we do in Pathfinder at first level, that we could definitely take down a commoner or a rat, but you know... if it is a soldier or a dire rat, maybe we should think about it. :)
I suppose the simplest method would be to list the difficulty including Normal (+0) when asking for a roll, and maybe expanding the list of modifiers, perhaps adding ways for players to make a roll Easier or Harder? Something akin to Aid Another?
That might help... sounds interesting.
Yeah, I really agree that it's mostly a mental thing. Knowing WHEN you have a better than average chance to succeed would be helpful, when possible.
But honestly, I also think my not rolling complete crap every single time would help too. Shada hasn't rolled less than 32 so far and has an average roll of 63.33. That kind of rolling is going to suck in any system. Nothing you can do about it.
Yeah, the dice gods of Paizo just know hate and spite.
I'll work on an Aid Another idea tonight, hopefully. Got some other stuff to do.