D&D 5E Going for 3d6 instead of d20

[JValeur]

I actually kind of like the 2d10 idea. Make standard advantage 3d10 drop lowest, and allow players to stack advantage for 4d10 drop lowest 2, which actually has about the same chance of scoring 15+ as normal advantage, if my math doesn't betray me. The problem with 3d6 is that you would have to change a lot of DC's and AC's all around, while 2d10 simply gives more flexibility and reduces chance less drastically. Would have to find a fix for critical hits, however.

 

[Fanaelialae]

advantage with 2d10 would be 3d10 drop lowest. 4d10 drop 2 lowest is too much.

Why do you feel it is too much? It gives about an average +1 compared to 5e advantage, but has only about half the crit chance of 5e advantage. Given that higher DC checks are harder under this change (since the probability curve is altered), I'm not sure that a "+1" is out of order. You could easily make half advantage the standard, and reserve full advantage for those times when a creature has an overwhelming advantage (3 or more sources of advantage, for example).

Obviously, it's your game so do whatever is right for you and your players. I'm just playing devil's advocate.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Get ready for slogs. Also the Champion will not like having their signature ability nerfed.

 

[Ratskinner]

I'd go with 2d10, myself. Ranges stay closer. Maybe make champion trigger off doubles instead?

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[TallIan]

I generally like "more dice" systems because of all the reasons the OP says, but I think if you wanted to do this you would have to seriously rethink target values (ie skill DCs and ACs).

As people have already pointed out, your roll is now capped at 18, so your highest possible score after bonuses is 2 lower. But also the lower probability of rolling high means that higher targets are that much better than with d20. Imagine how little the Full Plate wearing; Shield wielding and Defensive Style BSF is going to get hit. Now throw in some magic bonuses to that too.

 

[Yunru]

I was going to say have a critical be double 10s, and the Champion move it to a single 10.
But then I realised that was very dumb, as a regular critical has a 1% chance and the Champion has a 19% chance.

Although if you don't mind higher crit chances, having any double be a crit and any 10 be a crit for the Champion it's not too bad.
You'd end up with 10% chance of a crit for regular people and 28% chance for the Champion.

You'd still have to find something different for Superior Critical though. Maybe more damage?

 

[Nine Hands]

I actually kind of like the 2d10 idea. Make standard advantage 3d10 drop lowest, and allow players to stack advantage for 4d10 drop lowest 2, which actually has about the same chance of scoring 15+ as normal advantage, if my math doesn't betray me. The problem with 3d6 is that you would have to change a lot of DC's and AC's all around, while 2d10 simply gives more flexibility and reduces chance less drastically. Would have to find a fix for critical hits, however.

In my current campaign, the player's slew the goddess of Luck (Tymora/Beshaba) and I converted the game mechanics to 2d10. For natural 20s, I just go with rolling doubles on the dice and hitting with the total. For 19-20, I just did any time you roll doubles, hit or miss. As higher level champions (18, 19, and 20), I don't have a solution yet and I don't think I will need to worry about it for the game.

Advantage and disadvantage is add an extra d10 and take highest/lowest ones. That works fine for us.

 

[Yunru]

What about just using 1d10?
Take away the 10+ to ACs, either -8 or -10 Spell Save DCs, etc.

 

[happyhermit]

I played around with this before, thread was lost in the crash apparently. I settled on 2d10 as well, it kept a lot of the same feel in terms of numbers and the dice still having a meaningful role and overall worked pretty well. It actually opened up some design space for interesting things because of always rolling two dice and sometimes more, but wasn't overly complicated or slow. In the end though, I can't say the games were any more fun because of it so I'm using d20's now. Might give it a go again sometime but I am fairly certain now that it won't make any huge improvements for my players.

 

[Horwath]

No worry about the champion.

Even as crit chance is slightly lower in 19-20 range for d20, with advantage it skyrockets.

with 2s10 crit can be 18-20(6%) chance champion 19-20 on d20(10%) can be 18-20(10%) and 18-20 on d20 can be 17-20 on 2d10(15%)