D&D 5E 3d20 variant for 3d6/2d10 to replace d20. Thoughts?

[Don Durito]

Just use 3d20 for skills, which can't crit, and then use the basic d20 for attack rolls and saving throws.

Advantage/Disadvantage is more of a problem but I suppose you could role 4 dice and take the 2nd highest or lowest.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Just use 3d20 for skills, which can't crit, and then use the basic d20 for attack rolls and saving throws.

I would like to try removing some of the swinginess of the linear d20. Even if we try it or something else, who knows if we'll stick with it. I know others have used the 2d10 and 3d6 options and I am curious how they like those and what they thing of this.

Still working on how I want adv/disadv to work, but likely go with RAW and just 2d20, since it already makes it non-linear.

 

[Horwath]

3d6 works great.
Crits can also work very well if you take similar crit mechanics from PF2ndEd:
If you beat the AC/DC( ) by 5, it gets critical result(if able)

Advantage would be 5d6(drop 2 lowest), that is little weaker than 2d20 drop 1 lowest, but close enough.

It also leaves room for adding smaller bonus in 4d6 drop 1 lowest(for flanking IE)

opposite goes for disadvantage.

Elven accuracy is close with 8d6 drop 5 lowest, but that is a lot of dice to throw for every advantage.


but with 3d6 and crit being +5 over target, we can get back to small fixed bonuses that now actually means something.

3d6+2(or +3) would work very well as advantage.

 

[Don Durito]

I would like to try removing some of the swinginess of the linear d20. Even if we try it or something else, who knows if we'll stick with it. I know others have used the 2d10 and 3d6 options and I am curious how they like those and what they thing of this.

Still working on how I want adv/disadv to work, but likely go with RAW and just 2d20, since it already makes it non-linear.

Well yeah, but do you find it an issue in combat situations? Surely you already have a non-linear distribution there given that a whole series of multiple roles in used to resolve combat?

Are you finding combat to be swingy?

I suspect that if you introduce a futher bell curve into combat you will be narrowing the range of encounters that are threatening to PCs without being lethal.

 

[DEFCON 1]

As a user of the 2d10 for skill checks system (for Adv/Disadv roll 3d10 take higher/lower two), while I can understand the curiosity of something like 3d20 take middle... I personally have no need to make sure 1s and 20s are still on the table. My range goes from 2 to 20 plus modifiers and that I have not seen any reason to go against it. The only advantage a 3d20 take middle might give you is if you wanted to make Nat 1s and Nat 20s much rarer, as they would only occur 1 in 400 times as been said. As I don't feel the need for that in my games, I personally would not use that system.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Well yeah, but do you find it an issue in combat situations? Surely you already have a non-linear distribution there given that a whole series of multiple roles in used to resolve combat?

Are you finding combat to be swingy?

I suspect that if you introduce a futher bell curve into combat you will be narrowing the range of encounters that are threatening to PCs without being lethal.

Hmm. Excellent point. Since combat is typically a series of d20 rolls, the average result will resolve over the series of rolls.

As a user of the 2d10 for skill checks system (for Adv/Disadv roll 3d10 take higher/lower two), while I can understand the curiosity of something like 3d20 take middle... I personally have no need to make sure 1s and 20s are still on the table. My range goes from 2 to 20 plus modifiers and that I have not seen any reason to go against it. The only advantage a 3d20 take middle might give you is if you wanted to make Nat 1s and Nat 20s much rarer, as they would only occur 1 in 400 times as been said. As I don't feel the need for that in my games, I personally would not use that system.

Cool. Thanks for your input. Using the 2d10 or 3d6 for skills only introduces the idea of typical performance since only a single roll usually resolves the check.

So, you don't use this for saves though? I think if I suggest we go to 2d10 or 3d6 for skills, I might still also use it for saves as well. Saves aren't nearly as common as attack rolls, and neither are skill checks. Using a d20 variant for those won't be often so the additional complexity also won't be a constant "burden" to the mathematically challenged.

 

[Krachek]

It change a lot the “swing” factor.
but to give the ability to roll 3d6 instead of a d20 via an item can be an interesting power.
but I won’t make it permanent.

 

[Blue]

I would like to try removing some of the swinginess of the linear d20. Even if we try it or something else, who knows if we'll stick with it. I know others have used the 2d10 and 3d6 options and I am curious how they like those and what they thing of this.

Still working on how I want adv/disadv to work, but likely go with RAW and just 2d20, since it already makes it non-linear.

Wouldn't you want a curve the other way then?

Because really, you're generating a boolean succeed/fail. So what we're looking for to minimize swinginess (success change to fail and vice versa) is to minimize the change a +1 will make at the ranges you will most likely be rolling at. With bounded accuracy that's closer to the middle of the range.

So you shouldn't care that a 2 and a 3 are close to each other - they are both failures. What minimizes swinginess is if 10 and 11 are close to each other. So that a random +/-1 doesn't make a big difference in the results. So you want a distribution where the ends are common and the middle are rare. That gives you a good pass/fail with minimal amount of swinginess for small variations in your modifiers.

Don't care about the raw number rolled, that is an intermediary step in finding your pass/fail. So if you actually observe too much swinginess, the problem is in pass/fail getting thrown off.

 

[Esker]

Wouldn't you want a curve the other way then?

Because really, you're generating a boolean succeed/fail. So what we're looking for to minimize swinginess (success change to fail and vice versa) is to minimize the change a +1 will make at the ranges you will most likely be rolling at. With bounded accuracy that's closer to the middle of the range.

So you shouldn't care that a 2 and a 3 are close to each other - they are both failures. What minimizes swinginess is if 10 and 11 are close to each other. So that a random +/-1 doesn't make a big difference in the results. So you want a distribution where the ends are common and the middle are rare. That gives you a good pass/fail with minimal amount of swinginess for small variations in your modifiers.

Don't care about the raw number rolled, that is an intermediary step in finding your pass/fail. So if you actually observe too much swinginess, the problem is in pass/fail getting thrown off.

I thought the idea was to make bonuses matter more? This should accomplish that, but with the side effect of making hard DCs harder and easier DCs easier.

As @Blue said, I think the way to analyze a system like this isn't to look at the distribution of individual rolls, but rather to look at the success probability for different DCs at different bonuses. The average outcome on a d20 type roll doesn't mean anything by itself, since you're always comparing to a threshold.

I tend to agree that this system probably isn't appropriate for checks where 1 and 20 are special (i.e. attack rolls). It could be quite nice for skill checks, but I suspect some tweaking of DCs will be needed. Also if you leave advantage and disadvantage alone it makes them relatively more potent, so that will take some consideration.

I'm not sure about saves... I'm sure you could work out an alternative system for setting things like spell DCs, but you wouldn't want to accidentally create a situation where you have effectively no chance of making certain saves if you're not proficient / focused on that ability / have advantage.

 

[Blue]

As @Blue said, I think the way to analyze a system like this isn't to look at the distribution of individual rolls, but rather to look at the success probability for different DCs at different bonuses. The average outcome on a d20 type roll doesn't mean anything by itself, since you're always comparing to a threshold.

But we do need to do that in the context of bounded accuracy. There is a range of results near the middle of the dice that will end up (after modifiers) to be a success more often than not because of how 5e handles targets (like AC and save DCs) and the modifiers to the die (like attack bonus and save bonus).