D&D 5E Using 3d6 for skill checks

[Li Shenron]

And that die happens to be a d20, to ensure the die roll truly matters: that every hero can fail and every hero can succeed! Sure, the fighter might succeed more often, but it's not like in real life where one person would realistically always win and another person always lose.

But this is not what I want.

Rather, I want challenges where one person would sometimes win and another person always lose. As in "if the Rogue doesn't pick this lock, nobody will". But I still don't want the Rogue's success to be automatic!

The d20 RAW makes this hard to achieve, because in order to make the unskilled person always fail you need to increase the DC in a way that then it makes the probability of success too low also for the skilled person (so it's not anymore just the occasional 'fun' failure for the skilled person, it becomes too often that it isn't fun anymore). If you decrease the DC to re-instate a reasonable success chance for the latter (but definitely not too near an auto-success), you give enough chance of success to the unskilled PCs so that anyway the party as a whole will easily succeed even if the Rogue fails, making it (as you say) pointless to even roll dice.

[I am not considering cases when I am fine with just an auto-success. I am strictly referring to when I do want randomness in the outcome. And no, they don't always need to be larger-than-life tasks for me to want them random. I thrive on adventures where the plot has myriads of micro-twists and turns depending on both player's decisions and a bit of luck.]

It might be an unsolvable problem, because of too many different things crammed under skills. For stuff like moving silently past the guard, climbing out of danger, swimming across a river, walking a narrow ledge etc. where everybody must succeed, you get into the problem that you don't want a huge disparity between characters, otherwise what is trivial for some is nearly impossible for others (this happened easily in 3e where you could have more than a 20 difference at high levels, was mitigated in 4e with auto-progression of skill bonuses, and mitigated again in 5e with bounded accuracy). But then for other skills a large disparity is beneficial, and that's presumably why they introduced Expertise.

 

[pdzoch]

I haven't house ruled skill checks yet, but if I do, I'd use d8 + d12: less dramatic change in probability distribution than 3d6, you can still get a result up to 20, and more uses for the neglected d8 and d12 dice

I think I got miss-attributed here.

Nevertheless, using and d8 and d12 is an interesting idea, but one that actually worsens the odds of rolling a 10 or greater (51% versus 55% on a d20). And chances to roll a critical drop from 5% on a d20 to 1% on a d8 and d12. On the plus side, critical fails disappear (unless you made that number a 2 and that would still only be 1% chance).

 

[pdzoch]

Is there anything wrong with the old "take 10" rule? When time is not an issue, that seems to be the most reasonable way to play to character strengths.

another idea would be to use the aid from another character as an advantage when it seems logical (e.g. two characters work together to list a gate -- roll 2 d20s and take the highest toll and the best skill rating; add another die for each help).

 

[I'm A Banana]

Like many DMs, I use a lot of house rules in my games. However, recently I was a player in a game that used the RAW for everything. Most of my house rules I was happy to live without, but the one house rule of mine that I constantly yearned for in the new game was using 3d6 for skills checks.

3d6 gives the same average (10.5), but the results are clustered much more heavily in the middle range. This means that characters will more reliably succeed on the things they’re good at and fail at the things they’re not. It also means that even small differences in scores are significant. Using 1d20 for skill checks, especially at low levels, often leads to frail wizards successfully out-muscling fighters and dim-witted barbarians out-Arcana-ing wizards. With 3d6, those things can still happen, but they’re much less likely.

When I was playing the RAW game, I found myself choosing not to attempt things my character wasn’t good at, e.g. kicking down a door with 8 Strength, even though my character had a reasonable chance of success and the fighter had tanked a few rolls, because I didn’t want to steal his spotlight by encroaching on his schtick. If we’d used 3d6, my character would have been almost guaranteed to fail and the fighter more likely to succeed, which is how I think it should be.

Have any other folk tried 3d6 for skill checks or heard of anyone else who has? We’ve only played in the low-level zone, so I’d be interested to hear if anyone has tried it at higher levels and had any success or discovered any issues.

You'd be fine, but one of the thing I'd note is that this hurts the ability of "everyone" to contribute to a given check and thus silos experts, making group contribution more difficult.

In RAW 5e, because even the dumb barbarian has a chance at Arcana, you'd be generally OK forcing everyone to make an Arcana check to avoid a trap or something - even the dumb barbarian has a chance to get lucky or be heroic and succeed. Group Stealth checks or the like are fair game.

With this, it means that the roll becomes less relevant - now if you make everyone take an Arcana check, only the experts are likely to succeed.

This has the effect of limiting character choices - now, the player needs to think about what the party needs in addition to what they want to play, and the former might take precedent.

For my mileage, less average results - more swing back-and-forth - is generally a Good Thing. Sometimes, the rogue makes noise while the paladin in full plate sneaks effortlessly. It adds unpredictability and thus surprise and delight to the game. I like that!

But, you know, it's a good system if everyone's on board that "making sense" here trumps character options (or if they just don't feel the sting of the latter as much)!

Rather, I want challenges where one person would sometimes win and another person always lose. As in "if the Rogue doesn't pick this lock, nobody will". But I still don't want the Rogue's success to be automatic!

By way of example, the upthrust of this is that if no one bothers to be a rogue or get proficiency in theives' tools (because it just doesn't appeal to them for whatever reason), no one can pick locks, and that takes an entire aspect of D&D off the table for the party. This encourages people to play rogues because "we NEED a rogue." IMO, that's kind of a problem - I want people to play the characters they WANT to play, and if none of those characters happen to be expert lock-pickers, I still want the group to be able to try and pick the occasional lock, relying on intrinsic skill rather than training.

 

[Li Shenron]

In RAW 5e, because even the dumb barbarian has a chance at Arcana, you'd be generally OK forcing everyone to make an Arcana check to avoid a trap or something - even the dumb barbarian has a chance to get lucky or be heroic and succeed.

...

By way of example, the upthrust of this is that if no one bothers to be a rogue or get proficiency in theives' tools (because it just doesn't appeal to them for whatever reason), no one can pick locks, and that takes an entire aspect of D&D off the table for the party. This encourages people to play rogues because "we NEED a rogue." IMO, that's kind of a problem - I want people to play the characters they WANT to play, and if none of those characters happen to be expert lock-pickers, I still want the group to be able to try and pick the occasional lock, relying on intrinsic skill rather than training.

Well we certainly need to keep in mind that we have different ways of running the game so that the context into which the rules of choice operate can vary a lot.

For example, one element of my own context is to never place a skill check (or ST, etc.) at a critical point of the adventure such that failure in the check means failure in the adventure. So whether you don't have a Rogue, or your Rogue fails at lockpicking, the game won't be screwed up. If you really need to get past that door, there are always many alternative, and if all you can think during our game, is a thieves' tools check, then you're not thinking enough

I also don't encourage people to design the party cooperatively at all costs. I rather encourage cooperation during the game, but not beforehand, because I don't like to force latecomers feel they have to comply with leftover roles.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think I got miss-attributed here.

Nevertheless, using and d8 and d12 is an interesting idea, but one that actually worsens the odds of rolling a 10 or greater (51% versus 55% on a d20). And chances to roll a critical drop from 5% on a d20 to 1% on a d8 and d12. On the plus side, critical fails disappear (unless you made that number a 2 and that would still only be 1% chance).

There are no criticals in skill checks, unless you house rule them in.

As for the probability of rolling 10+ are you sure?? I get 60/96 so more than 60%, which is actually an increase.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There are no criticals in skill checks, unless you house rule them in.

As for the probability of rolling 10+ are you sure?? I get 60/96 so more than 60%, which is actually an increase.

According to AnyDice, you are correct, Li Shenron. (Just to be safe, I made a quick matrix in Excel and confirmed--60/96 possibilities are 10+). I suspect pdzoch made a similar mistake to what I've made in the past, when trying to analyze the statistics of two different-sized dice--forgetting that you can have the smaller die produce a value bigger than the larger die, or something of that nature.

 

[jayoungr]

Is there anything wrong with the old "take 10" rule? When time is not an issue, that seems to be the most reasonable way to play to character strengths.

I still use that rule from time to time, as well as not calling for rolls in a case where a character could take 20.

 

[pdzoch]

There are no criticals in skill checks, unless you house rule them in.

As for the probability of rolling 10+ are you sure?? I get 60/96 so more than 60%, which is actually an increase.

Argh! Curse my bad math! Yep -- it is 61%.

Thanks for the reminder on the "critical rolls" in skill checks. However, I have considered the degree of success and failure in the storytelling and effectiveness. Succeeding by 5 of more points is a solid success, whereas succeeding on the exact roll is a marginal success (e.g. the guard accepts the story, but is doubtful about his decision to accept the story). Succeed by 10 or more is an overwhelming success (usually with flourish and praise for the skill), and double the value is superior success (varies by skill). However, in the end, a success is still just a success in the mechanics of the game.

 

[pdzoch]

Well we certainly need to keep in mind that we have different ways of running the game so that the context into which the rules of choice operate can vary a lot.

For example, one element of my own context is to never place a skill check (or ST, etc.) at a critical point of the adventure such that failure in the check means failure in the adventure. So whether you don't have a Rogue, or your Rogue fails at lockpicking, the game won't be screwed up. If you really need to get past that door, there are always many alternative, and if all you can think during our game, is a thieves' tools check, then you're not thinking enough

I also don't encourage people to design the party cooperatively at all costs. I rather encourage cooperation during the game, but not beforehand, because I don't like to force latecomers feel they have to comply with leftover roles.

I agree with your approach on the story and party building. The skill check should create a story building element, but it should not be a road block. (It reminds me of some video games where a certain chest can not be opened without a certain skill/item, but whatever is inside is not critical to the success of the mission because it was just random treasure.)

I also allow my players to play whatever they want. It is their game too. As the DM, I adjust the adventure to the build of the party. Current party I'm running doesn't have a rogue. There are still traps and locks, just none in critical areas that would destroy the party or block story progression just because they did not have the right character in the party.