Blog (A5E) A Quick Look At Skills

[tetrasodium]

Now I'm curious what guidance might look like

OK, now the actual post.

I once suggested 2d10 on reddit and got downvoted to oblivion. I personally kind of like the idea, since even a teensy curve is better than total randomness. The only real issue that would need to be addressed is critical hits, which would be bit rarer. As crits are especially useful to paladins and rogues, this could possibly be addressed entirely in a feat (perhaps one with a higher-level prerequisite) that would allow anyone to increase their crit range by 1.

The expertise die, however, is not really "half-assed." Something like it is already used in D&D: guidance, resistance, and bless already grant an additional d4, as do House abilities in Eberron. Something akin to the expertise die was suggested, IIRC, in an older UA, although I can't remember which one or how it was implemented.

The expertise die isn't one where you can't roll until you know the modifiers because the modifier is simple enough that you could record it on your sheet. At worst, you have a case where you would make your roll and half an hour later suddenly exclaim, "Dammnit, I had a d6 expertise die, not a d4." Which is no different than "Dammit, I had a +4, not a +2."

I've played in games that tried 2d10 as well as dice pool games like shadowrun fate & modiphius' 2d20 systems & the 2d10 winds up feeling particularly bad as you have bob with two same colored dice who either slows the game rolling one by one or always seems to roll high low but never low high, meanwhile everyone else has the added frustration of "if only I had said blue was tens instead of green" or whatever on top of the chance for bad rolls. A dice pool is good, but the system needs to be designed for it & expertise dice are a nice middle ground between 1d20+mods & the kind of fluid opposed rolls you tend to see with combat in dice pool systems

 

[leozg]

the 2d10 winds up feeling particularly bad as you have bob with two same colored dice who either slows the game rolling one by one or always seems to roll high low but never low high, meanwhile everyone else has the added frustration of "if only I had said blue was tens instead of green" or whatever on top of the chance for bad rolls

Isn't it d100 or d%?

 

[tetrasodium]

Isn't it d100 or d%?

typically yea but almost nobody has a d100 for anything but novelty & it's tough to read even if you do so the problem with 2d10 remapped with math/with some system finagling

 

[Faolyn]

typically yea but almost nobody has a d100 for anything but novelty & it's tough to read even if you do so the problem with 2d10 remapped with math/with some system finagling

You're confusing 2d10 read as percentiles and 2d10 read as producing a range from 2-20.

 

[tetrasodium]

You're confusing 2d10 read as percentiles and 2d10 read as producing a range from 2-20.

No I'm not, I explained my experience with it in #33

 

[Faolyn]

No I'm not, I explained my experience with it in #33

Yeah--except that if you're rolling 2d10 and adding them, it doesn't matter if one is the tens or the ones.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah--except that if you're rolling 2d10 and adding them, it doesn't matter if one is the tens or the ones.

Oh. I'm not sure how that would play out but can't imagine anything
1d20 avg 10.5
2d10 avg 5.5&5.5
At this hour, after that drink... satistically they are going to be pretty similar I think

 

[mcmillan]

Oh. I'm not sure how that would play out but can't imagine anything
1d20 avg 10.5
2d10 avg 5.5&5.5
At this hour, after that drink... satistically they are going to be pretty similar I think

Average is similar, but distribution is pretty different
See distribution here AnyDice

 

[Horwath]

Oh. I'm not sure how that would play out but can't imagine anything
1d20 avg 10.5
2d10 avg 5.5&5.5
At this hour, after that drink... satistically they are going to be pretty similar I think

that is why you go with 3d6.
it gives a true bell curve not a chevron like 2d10 and average is 10,5 as with 1d20.

and I would also like to keep default 5E expertise instead of fiddling with 1d4/1d6/1d8 extra dice.

 

[Starfox]

An expertise die creates a truncated pyramid distribution that makes extremely high and low results less likely (2, 3, 4, 22, 23, 24). I agree that the end distribution of 1d20 is troublesome and you do get around that problem here. I might like it if I try it.

My personal homebrew uses one exploding d6 MINUS another exploding d6 (from Feng Shui). This has the advantage that the median result is zero, so two values in the same range can be directly compared to one another.