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[D&D Design Discussion] Preserving the "Sweet Spot"
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<blockquote data-quote="The_Warlock" data-source="post: 3018622" data-attributes="member: 21215"><p>So, I've been reading through this, and I have to admit that this is something that I have been looking for in a way. As much as I actually do enjoy the occasional dropping of a meteor swarm, or the carefully worded Wish, from both a player and DM viewpoint, I'm on board with the concept of maintaining challenge + randomness that seems to come with the low-mid levels. </p><p></p><p>When my current campaign completes (I keep saying that, and they keep taking longer to get to the BBEG...oy), my first step is switching to True20. I won't be a pusher, but having read and run it, it gives a baseline that's easier to tweak than the core rules, especially magic, which is in many ways an ad hoc system that was attached to the rest of D&D (which may be why it is such a focus for contention on manipulating the "sweet spot"). I also think it's simplicity and reorganization of skills would be assistive in the broadening concept people are talking about, and, Wulf, it has Conviction, which is an Action Point by any other name.</p><p></p><p>But I digress...</p><p></p><p>What I wanted to add to this is, what about changing the die rolling MECHANIC, to better simulate your bell curve?</p><p></p><p>Instead of...d20 + X to achieve DC, where X can with strong character build can equal or EXCEED 20, even within the "sweet spot", often relegating the d20 to near uselessness, what about setting the Target Number (TN for the rest of this) within the RANGE of the d20?</p><p></p><p>Here's the concept, and I admit it needs tweaking, but it's the one I've been thinking about a LOT lately, and this thread makes me want to share it, good, bad or indifferent:</p><p></p><p>There is a TN to succeed...the base TN is set based on the type of action - Untrained Skill Use, Trained Skill Use, Attack/Defend, Magic Use (if you changed from Vancian magic, or made unleashing your spells require a check)...</p><p></p><p>Let's assume the Hunter's Rule, ie, studies of predator animals and human hunter tribes suggests they succeed in a hunt 1 in 4 times (25%), as a start. I tweak that to 20% as my base for DIFFICULT tasks (like killing dinner on the run, or the orc next door), and I will somewhat arbitrarily set average tasks at 35%. What am I talking about? To succeed at a difficult task, the player needs to roll a 17 or higher on the d20, a 14 or higher for less onerous tasks. These are the Target Numbers. The character SUBTRACTS their appropriate attribute modifier (and possibly racial mods, haven’t decided yet) from the TN, making it easier to hit it. They ADD their skill, or BAB, or what have you to the roll, to get over it. (ie, a thief with a +4 mod from Dex, has TN’s of 13 and 10, respectively, to his Dex based skills).</p><p></p><p>Seems overly complex, yes? Here's the thing I've been working toward, it doesn’t matter how high over 20 you are, just whether or not you got over your TN. Further more, you are still adding relevant numbers to the roll, so higher is still better and you don’t have to retrain players in that regard. Also, you can now make a sliding scale of quality of success – Hitting the TN is success, and 20 is still a critical success, but in the example of the thief, the RANGE from 13 to 20 is 8, and you can say that if the thief rolls his check and gets a 17 or higher (which is the higher half of the RANGE), he has had some form of Excellent success relevant to the skill or check (more damage, picks lock in less time, etc). Thus, skills get you success, but talent (ie, ability and racial mods, and possibly feats…not sure) get you the effect of an enhanced “mini-crit” range.</p><p></p><p>The caveat is that you need to slow down the skill progression somewhat, since the 4x at the beginning of a characters life provides a base that would tip the system more than necessary. On the up side, the DM doesn’t have to come up with DCs, but simply modifiers based on the “difficulty” of the check, and tell the player to “subtract 4 from this roll” since it’s moderately difficult, or what have you. In the end, excessive skills will still get you near-auto success, but the player isn't necessarily rewarded for finding a way to jack his total skill mod to +37 and a half, since it's meaningless, but rather rewards them for diversifying.</p><p></p><p>But that’s the concept in the nutshell. I’m not trying to threadjack, but I wanted to drop this in here simply because from what I’ve been reading, it couldn’t hurt to reconsider the “core mechanic” as an out of the box thought, since the purpose of the discussion is how to alter the –mechanics- to stay “sweet”.</p><p></p><p>The One Warlock</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The_Warlock, post: 3018622, member: 21215"] So, I've been reading through this, and I have to admit that this is something that I have been looking for in a way. As much as I actually do enjoy the occasional dropping of a meteor swarm, or the carefully worded Wish, from both a player and DM viewpoint, I'm on board with the concept of maintaining challenge + randomness that seems to come with the low-mid levels. When my current campaign completes (I keep saying that, and they keep taking longer to get to the BBEG...oy), my first step is switching to True20. I won't be a pusher, but having read and run it, it gives a baseline that's easier to tweak than the core rules, especially magic, which is in many ways an ad hoc system that was attached to the rest of D&D (which may be why it is such a focus for contention on manipulating the "sweet spot"). I also think it's simplicity and reorganization of skills would be assistive in the broadening concept people are talking about, and, Wulf, it has Conviction, which is an Action Point by any other name. But I digress... What I wanted to add to this is, what about changing the die rolling MECHANIC, to better simulate your bell curve? Instead of...d20 + X to achieve DC, where X can with strong character build can equal or EXCEED 20, even within the "sweet spot", often relegating the d20 to near uselessness, what about setting the Target Number (TN for the rest of this) within the RANGE of the d20? Here's the concept, and I admit it needs tweaking, but it's the one I've been thinking about a LOT lately, and this thread makes me want to share it, good, bad or indifferent: There is a TN to succeed...the base TN is set based on the type of action - Untrained Skill Use, Trained Skill Use, Attack/Defend, Magic Use (if you changed from Vancian magic, or made unleashing your spells require a check)... Let's assume the Hunter's Rule, ie, studies of predator animals and human hunter tribes suggests they succeed in a hunt 1 in 4 times (25%), as a start. I tweak that to 20% as my base for DIFFICULT tasks (like killing dinner on the run, or the orc next door), and I will somewhat arbitrarily set average tasks at 35%. What am I talking about? To succeed at a difficult task, the player needs to roll a 17 or higher on the d20, a 14 or higher for less onerous tasks. These are the Target Numbers. The character SUBTRACTS their appropriate attribute modifier (and possibly racial mods, haven’t decided yet) from the TN, making it easier to hit it. They ADD their skill, or BAB, or what have you to the roll, to get over it. (ie, a thief with a +4 mod from Dex, has TN’s of 13 and 10, respectively, to his Dex based skills). Seems overly complex, yes? Here's the thing I've been working toward, it doesn’t matter how high over 20 you are, just whether or not you got over your TN. Further more, you are still adding relevant numbers to the roll, so higher is still better and you don’t have to retrain players in that regard. Also, you can now make a sliding scale of quality of success – Hitting the TN is success, and 20 is still a critical success, but in the example of the thief, the RANGE from 13 to 20 is 8, and you can say that if the thief rolls his check and gets a 17 or higher (which is the higher half of the RANGE), he has had some form of Excellent success relevant to the skill or check (more damage, picks lock in less time, etc). Thus, skills get you success, but talent (ie, ability and racial mods, and possibly feats…not sure) get you the effect of an enhanced “mini-crit” range. The caveat is that you need to slow down the skill progression somewhat, since the 4x at the beginning of a characters life provides a base that would tip the system more than necessary. On the up side, the DM doesn’t have to come up with DCs, but simply modifiers based on the “difficulty” of the check, and tell the player to “subtract 4 from this roll” since it’s moderately difficult, or what have you. In the end, excessive skills will still get you near-auto success, but the player isn't necessarily rewarded for finding a way to jack his total skill mod to +37 and a half, since it's meaningless, but rather rewards them for diversifying. But that’s the concept in the nutshell. I’m not trying to threadjack, but I wanted to drop this in here simply because from what I’ve been reading, it couldn’t hurt to reconsider the “core mechanic” as an out of the box thought, since the purpose of the discussion is how to alter the –mechanics- to stay “sweet”. The One Warlock [/QUOTE]
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