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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 5819100" data-attributes="member: 3192">Here's the thing. I think some may be confusing flat with flattened. Zero advancement progression isn't the suggestion here, at least by my reading.Here's some more on OD&D's bell curve + linear combat progression.[sblock]Die AC20 019 118 217 316 415 514 613 7 12 811 9[/sblock]Die rolls have a 50% chance to hit the average unimproved human. As combat rank increases, 1 for 1 for the best combatants: fighting-men, this % decreases to 5%. They have a 5% miss chance on the same figure at 10th level.However, at 1st level they have a 5% chance to hit the average unimproved 10th level opponent. Neither the low end nor the high end ever receive automatic hits or misses.This is flattened without being flat. There is improvement and a diminishing top end to it, but no opponent is ever absolutely irrelevant. Nor is any opponent absolutely impossible to beat. Even group additions in mass numbers stop this. The system works at both ends too, but the die roll odds always diminish down to levels not worth gaming. The play of the game itself becomes about increasing or decreasing roll probabilities, never an "I win" by declaration.How does this work out with improvements? What modifiers do is shift the roll average, not the result. Let's look at AC and to hit modifiers. Chainmail +1 gives a -1 to an attack roll. An axe +1 gives a -1 penalty to AC for an opponent. By moving the roll average in this way the referee rarely, if ever, needs to worry about odds smaller than 5%. If you do need to worry about hits above 20 or misses below 1 on a roll, then make another d20 roll or a percentile one. Here's the start of the sequence, to get started.[sblock]AC & consecutive rolls:21 = 20 +25%22 = 20 +11%23 = 20 +6%24 = 20 +4%25 = 20 +2%[/sblock]</blockquote>

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