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2d10 for Skill Checks
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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 7583808" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>Main reason is that there is a much wider range of numbers being used in skill checks than there are in attacks.</p><p></p><p>I mentioned it above, but for my tables (and I imagine for most tables) almost every attack roll whether it be weapons or spells is going to be made with proficiency. Making an attack without being proficient in the attack is so rare that it will really only ever come up if you as a DM have forced the story into a place that the PCs are stuck having to fight with whatever they have available and it just happens to be they aren't proficient in it. On top of that... almost all PCs have their highest ability score in their attack stat, whether that again be weapon or spell... and if its not the highest, then it'll most likely be second highest. As a result, you would be hard-pressed to find many PCs (and none at my tables) that are making attacks whose bonuses at 1st level are not +4 or +5. And if it's not +4 or +5... its because they are +6 or +7 and the player took the Archery Fighting Style.</p><p></p><p>So because almost every attack bonus at our table is within 1 point of each other (except for the rare Archer fighter or ranger)... there is no real need to make the modifier have more impact in the result. There's only a point of difference between all the PCs... so for us using the d20 is fine.</p><p></p><p>It's the skill checks when the bonuses can range from -1 all the way to like +7 that I wanted there to be a more obvious success rate for those who are at +7 compared to those at -1. And using a bell-curve/pyramid distribution for these cases is what assists in that. A PC with a -1 goes from a 25% chance of succeeding on a DC 15 check on a d20 down to 15% on 2d10. And the +7 PC goes from failing 35% of the time on a DC 15 check on a d20 down to 21% on 2d10. And from what we've experienced... these percentages do matter when it has come to the perception of success. Sure, we still get the outlier experiences of a -1 succeeding when the +7 fails... but those are much fewer and further between.</p><p></p><p>Like I said originally... there numbers and percentages might not matter or even be noticeable to some tables and the d20 could be fine. For me it wasn't and my players have gone along with me asking us to try it this new way. And thus far it has been successful (in that it hasn't completely ruined the game.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 7583808, member: 7006"] Main reason is that there is a much wider range of numbers being used in skill checks than there are in attacks. I mentioned it above, but for my tables (and I imagine for most tables) almost every attack roll whether it be weapons or spells is going to be made with proficiency. Making an attack without being proficient in the attack is so rare that it will really only ever come up if you as a DM have forced the story into a place that the PCs are stuck having to fight with whatever they have available and it just happens to be they aren't proficient in it. On top of that... almost all PCs have their highest ability score in their attack stat, whether that again be weapon or spell... and if its not the highest, then it'll most likely be second highest. As a result, you would be hard-pressed to find many PCs (and none at my tables) that are making attacks whose bonuses at 1st level are not +4 or +5. And if it's not +4 or +5... its because they are +6 or +7 and the player took the Archery Fighting Style. So because almost every attack bonus at our table is within 1 point of each other (except for the rare Archer fighter or ranger)... there is no real need to make the modifier have more impact in the result. There's only a point of difference between all the PCs... so for us using the d20 is fine. It's the skill checks when the bonuses can range from -1 all the way to like +7 that I wanted there to be a more obvious success rate for those who are at +7 compared to those at -1. And using a bell-curve/pyramid distribution for these cases is what assists in that. A PC with a -1 goes from a 25% chance of succeeding on a DC 15 check on a d20 down to 15% on 2d10. And the +7 PC goes from failing 35% of the time on a DC 15 check on a d20 down to 21% on 2d10. And from what we've experienced... these percentages do matter when it has come to the perception of success. Sure, we still get the outlier experiences of a -1 succeeding when the +7 fails... but those are much fewer and further between. Like I said originally... there numbers and percentages might not matter or even be noticeable to some tables and the d20 could be fine. For me it wasn't and my players have gone along with me asking us to try it this new way. And thus far it has been successful (in that it hasn't completely ruined the game.) [/QUOTE]
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