d20 vs. 3d6 "dice heresy" by Chris Sims

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

True, but I think that the issue also involves synergy. For example, there are powers that involve infliciting a penalty to hit (Psions, for example) that are low level and easy to use. In the d20 version of the game, a -4 penalty is harsh but still leaves a functional opponent (say if it was hitting on 11+, moving to 15+ is a serious hit but still leaves it as a threat). In 3d6, the same numbers might very well create a helpless opponent.

Or at least one with a very, very low chance to hit. Aye. I can see that.

OK, so there are probably more things to adjust than top end defenses.

 

[MortonStromgal]

The problem with the d20 and misses is that the d20 counts for too much. If you used a single d10 and scaled the difficulties for a d10 your stats would matter much more. Likewise if you raised the stats to count for more the d20 wouldn't alter the success level as much. If a first level character has +10 to +20 then the roll on the d20 just isn't as significant. I personally like my curves and die pools but I understand where they are slow. Systems like Desolation that use Xd2 dice pools are still a tad slower to calculate than a d20+bonus (though dice pools can be faster if you don't have that bonus pre-calculated for your d20 game)

 

[ST]

A 3d6 approach works much better in games like GURPS where a fight could be settled by a single hit (due to the penalties, equal to damage IIRC, that the victim takes the next round). So there you want to make sure that luck doesn't dominate because fights are over fast. In a modern world version of GURPS, I recall a rifle that does 7d6 damage (hit points are an ability score with a normal person having 10 and exceptional peopel having 18) that could be used for called shots to the head -- if a character with a gun skill got to aim and fire in any sort of clear setting the opponent was simply dead with a single shot. Here you want to reduce variability because so much depends on one roll.
.

I think that's a good point, but it's particular to GURPS. The HERO system also uses 3d6 roll under target number, but depending on the genre you can have fights that last quite a while. (Champions super-level fistfights between bricks, for example.) I do agree that a bell curve system does push more of the "What happened" part of resolution to the damage roll. Killing Attacks in HERO in particular are extremely swingy.

Most of my teenage gaming was done in either HERO or GURPS, so I don't get personally worried about modifiers swinging the rolls off either side of the bell curve; typically those systems had lower modifiers as a result. That the traditional breakpoints (8-, 11-, 14-) roughly correspond to 20%, 50%, and 80% probability makes it pretty easy to eyeball, too.

Heh, I guess I'm saying I don't necessarily disagree with you, even though I thought I did. It's totally true that keeping large modifiers a la 3e/4e would have some funky results on a 3d6 curve.

 

[carmachu]

I have another way to put it. The die-roll result is too important and too unpredictable. Chance plays too big a role in the game.

The author then comletely misses the point of the game then. No one ever talks about "hey I'm not hitting enough" or " I'm not hitting consistantly". But in every game I played or folks talked about, for years after, that critical hit or critical fumble that came at the right(or wrong) time....

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Now I'm getting curious, because I had considered in the past running a D&D lite for the nephews at some point, but I'm likely to have nothing buy d6s available if I do.

High defenses are clearly an issue, but I might be lowballing those for the tots anyway.

Powers that alter to hit by more than, say.... +2? Likely to be a problem area.

What else springs to mind?

 

[clearstream]

The problem with the d20 and misses is that the d20 counts for too much. If you used a single d10 and scaled the difficulties for a d10 your stats would matter much more. Likewise if you raised the stats to count for more the d20 wouldn't alter the success level as much. If a first level character has +10 to +20 then the roll on the d20 just isn't as significant.

Just as a related observation, when choosing numbers for power+chance mechanical arrangements (where power is strength or skill or whatever: the fixed value; something you might call constant+variable) you often find that the chance needs to be at least roughly equal to the constant to yield a satisfying result, where higher power does not make contests unwinnable/uninteresting.

In D&D power obviously increases, but I think one would find that anything less than a 1-20 range for the chance component would feel unsatisfying in the paragon and epic tiers. The design move you could make would be to use different dice at each tier: say d10 at heroic, d20 at paragon, and something else at epic. I think you would find that undesirable, partly because it's more rules and explaining for little gain, and partly because it might harm SOD (suspension of disbelief) for reasons associated with those that trouble some players related to overly smooth mechanical scaling.

In any case, and as many have mentioned, it requires a large amount of work for possibly negligible gain to switch to an Xd base roll. The point, I suppose, being that CS' initial and later reasons for making a change all turn out to be badly thought through. Battle outcomes do fall on curves, due to the many rolls involved; and if you just want to hit more often, give all players a permanent buff. Better yet, make it an item with charges that does it so that when you change your mind you can switch back with no disruption.

-vk

 

[Nymrohd]

Personally I think the problem with hitting is not so much the lack of success on a miss but rather the very binary nature of attacks in 4E. 3.5 and before, at least for spellcasters, provided several interesting combat option other than attacks. In 4E almost everything is adjucidated with an attack roll in combat and the results are largely binary (with the exception of daily powers, and still only from PHB2 and after). What I like about computer RPGs (and I guess MMOs like WoW) is the emphasis on mitigation of attacks rather than avoidance. Attacks hit very often but rarely do they land for the full ammount.
In short, in 4E attacks are exciting (damage, criticals, ongoing damage, energy damage, butloads of afflictions, aftereffects), while defenses are boring (binary target numbers or saves, rarely resistances). And the thing is that the very logical, programmer code of the 4E power system could have handled system complexity (in providing with more defenses) rather well without slowing down the game. The system still feels swingy not so because the d20 creates linearity but because binary defenses do not allow for degrees of failure.

 

[adaen]

At the risk of opening the can of worms even further from recent threads (ie. status effects annoying players, "ego-gamers", why must numbers go up, etc ....), here's an article by Chris Sims which proposes replacing the d20 with 3d6 in the basic rolls of 4E D&D, as a way of increasing the probability to hit.

Loremaster - Dice Heresy by Chris Sims

Wonder what to make of this, in light of recent discussions.

Wow, I'm still working my way through all the responses here, but wanted to offer some comments of my own. The steeper the bell curve, the more predictability a mechanic has. The more predictable it is, the easier it is to assure PC survival (or mortality if the DM is a bastard). Intermediate to the flat d20 and the 3d6 is the mid20 (that is roll 3 d20's and take the middle result). It also removes the "extra addition" 3d6 has.

I've written about the mid20 and its TriDie parent on my blog. There's lots of other interesting things that can be done with the high and low results as well.

Search Results mid20 « High Adventure Games

 

[pawsplay]

As far as the original article itself,... a 90% hit rate is a good thing, how?

People say "bell curve" like it's magic. First of all, bell curves come in all sorts of steepness. Second of all, the bell curve lives within d20.

Using a 3d6 instead of a d20 does NOT institute a bell curve. Whatever the number if you need to hit, you either make it, or you don't. Whether you use a 3d6 or a d20, your chance of success is a single fraction. All systems involving target numbers are equivalent to a percentage chance of success.

What 3d6 does, however, is to steepen the curve. If you have a +10 to hit and you need a total of 20, both are roughly equivalent. If you suffer a -2 penalty to hit, with a d20 you lose 10% of your chance to hit. With the 3d6, you lose more. Those small variations, close to the averate go hit bonus, are the most common variations in 4e. In other words, using 3d6 may overall make characters more accurage, simply because the target number now rests under the bell curve, but it actually accentuates differences in to-hit between PCs, in a certain sense, restoring the fighter-wizard disparity found in 3e. Instead of martial-magic disparity, however, you see optimized-unoptimized disparity, and single-attribute vs. MAD disparity.

 

[Nifft]

Second of all, the bell curve lives within d20.

How so?

, -- N