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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Obryn" data-source="post: 6122768" data-attributes="member: 11821">With opposed rolls like this, any curve generated is incidental compared to the greater amount of variability you're entering into the equation.  Instead of 1d20 with a 1-20 possible range, you're looking at (essentially) 1d20 minus 1d20, which has a range of -19 to +19, with 0 still occurring exactly 5% of the time.  Yes, there's a peak in the middle, but it's no higher than your base rate of success under 1d20.<a href="http://anydice.com/program/21ae" target="_blank">http://anydice.com/program/21ae</a>I mean, let's take a pretty trivial example.  I'm rolling 1d20 with a +5 bonus against a DC of 10.5 (so I need an 11 to beat it).  If you want to simplify it, I am rolling 1d20 vs. a DC of (11-5) or 6.  I "win" 75% of these rollsIf I'm rolling 1d20 with a +5 bonus against someone else with a +0 bonus, I "win" as long as... (my d20 - his d20) is -5 or higher, assuming of course that I win on ties.  I "lose" if the d20-d20 comes up -6 or lower.  Checking the math, this situation occurs 26.25% of the time.  If ties are handled otherwise, it gets funky.Keeping down this path, if I'm rolling with a +10 bonus against someone with a +0 bonus, I "win" if the total is -10 or better.  This occurs less than 90% of the time.  It's an 11.25% chance I lose, which is hardly what I'd call "rare." <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  (Compare to a static DC, where this would be 1d20 vs. a DC of [11-10] or 1, or a 100% chance of success.)As far as I can tell, at no point is d20-d20 better for a character with the higher bonus than a straight d20 roll vs. a static DC.  In other words, curve or no curve, it's substantially more swingy, not less.Now, if you're changing things around so you're rolling (say) 2d10 instead of 1d20, the curve absolutely works in favor of the guy with a higher bonus.  That's not what you're proposing, though.Only if you're using a "one failure and you're done" model.  In which case, every die roll does indeed add more chances of failure.If you're using a model like 4e's skill challenges where you're counting successes vs. failures, the math works out differently.-O</blockquote>

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