I've got to believe that this has already been suggested, so apologies if I am repeating someone else's idea. One of the problems with Proficiency ranks of T E M L is that they do not convey a real sense of improvement. How about:
Each level of Proficiency adds a die roll and you take the best result.
So Trained gives you 2d20, Expert 3d20, etc. You take the best roll. Or, start the extra die on Expert instead of trained, so Legendary you get the best result from 4d20. Keep the -2, 0, 1, 2, 3.
This would preserve the mechanic whereby someone Untrained might still be able to succeed at almost any task, but it would dramatically improve the chance of someone with Legendary Proficiency at simple tasks, especially if Paizo is not going to have T10 for free.
I'd also argue that letting players roll more dice on skill checks will make skills more enjoyable in and of themselves.
Yes, I am aware that D&D 5e does something like this called Advantage, only I'm suggesting this for Skills only, not combat. I haven't played 5e, only heard about it.
I think that out of 4d20's you'd almost always crit, and while that's fun for a while I don't think it's sustainable.
Perhaps something like they use for the Investigator where you have an Expertise die. Maybe you start out with an additional d6 for your expert level, a d8 for master and a d10 (or d12) for legendary. I mean d12's gotta be good for something other than greataxes.
Then again, doing this would completely wreck the low-digit DC rating chart that they're using now and would provide too wide a range of success variables to make things balanced.
fritterfae wrote: I think that out of 4d20's you'd almost always crit, and while that's fun for a while I don't think it's sustainable. 4d20's would be Legendary, that wouldn't start until 15th level. At 15th level, a low DC is 32. That means you'd need a total score of 42 to crit. So you've got to be a 17 with modifiers. Not an auto crit, but . Even it it happened at a 80% rate, you're talking about Low DC at Legendary skill ability. Extreme is 40, so you've got to score a 50 to crit. Which means you'll need to come up with a 35 on die + modifiers.
And if 4d20 is too good, them make it 3d20.
Quote: Perhaps something like they use for the Investigator where you have an Expertise die. Maybe you start out with an additional d6 for your expert level, a d8 for master and a d10 (or d12) for legendary. I mean d12's gotta be good for something other than greataxes. Maybe, but it seems more confusing and would start to slow the game down a tad as people fetched dice and had to recall which die to use.
Quote: Then again, doing this would completely wreck the low-digit DC rating chart that they're using now and would provide too wide a range of success variables to make things balanced. Range doest change, that's the beauty of it. An Untrained can still succeed, but has a far less chance of out rolling a Legendary.
kpulv wrote: I've been thinking about this as well. Untrained: 2d20 keep lowest. Paizo doesn't want to do that, because they want Untrained to still be viable in many situations. They want more participation from the table. 2d20 keeping lowest, would be demoralizing and annoying for a player. The point isn't to punish Untrained, the point is to make increased Proficiency better without increasing the DC so high Untrained can't hit it.
Quote: Changing your proficiency in a skill would feel way more valuable and important, as right now I feel like it's hard to even care about getting a +1 from moving up in your proficiency. That's what I think, and it would do it without actually expanding the gap on modifiers. You could still give the +1 for level Rank.
I do enjoy rolling a lot of dice at once...
kpulv wrote: I could also see the merits of a system where your proficiency is a scaling up die system. d20 for untrained. d20+d4 for trained. +d6, +d8, +d10, and maybe +d12? Rolling extra dice for being good at things adds a physicality to your character's abilities. The problem here is that you're increasing the max a player can roll. With 4d20's, the max you can roll is 20. With d20+d12, you can get a 32, and hit scores that scenario may not want you to hit. Consider Athletics and skills like Long Jump. You don't want the PC to be able to add some random 1d12 to the roll. Adding d20's improves success rate without improving range result. Players want more success at Proficiency higher levels, not a greater range of results.
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I don't think it's a good idea, it's probably better to change the +1/lvl to everything and make it half level rounded down for Untrained and introduce more gatelocking for Legendaries and Masters so there's actually meaning in specializing
Ghilteras wrote: I don't think it's a good idea, it's probably better to change the +1/lvl to everything and make it half level rounded down for Untrained and introduce more gatelocking for Legendaries and Masters so there's actually meaning in specializing I don't see what that accomplishes. Paizo wants Untrained to still have a shot a doing something. Why? Because that way a scenario can require certain skills, and still reasonably expect the party to succeed, even if no one is trained, but four or more people are rolling. There already is gate locking. Skill feats often require higher levels of Proficiency and some skill uses require Trained. And again, the problem with too much gate locking is scenarios can't then require those skill/abilities.
Remember, Paizo wants more table participation (which means a narrow range of outcomes/lower target DCs) and players want to fee a greater sense of ability with higher Skill Proficiencies. So the obvious way to accomplish that is to increase the rate of success without adding bigger modifiers = more d20 attempts.
I kind of like your Idea. It will need some work since it will basicly scew the ratio of natural crits/crit fails by up to 4. and in this kind of system we would "Have to" aply the same rules to combat wich would scew balance even more.
The only scenario in which it makes sense for Untrained to only be 5 points away from Legendary is if you gate lock most of activities with ranks, which is pretty hard to do as people can be very creative and you'll never find a way to gate lock everything. Even if they manage to do that imagine how a character that can sport a +20 at Untrained skills would feel frustrated because that large bonus would be effectively useless.
Ghilteras wrote: The only scenario in which it makes sense for Untrained to only be 5 points away from Legendary is if you gate lock most of activities with ranks, which is pretty hard to do as people can be very creative and you'll never find a way to gate lock everything. Even if they manage to do that imagine how a character that can sport a +20 at Untrained skills would feel frustrated because that large bonus would be effectively useless. "I have +20 in acrobatics.... but the only thing i can do is cartwheels... :'( "
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