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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 3373850" data-attributes="member: 172">Simply this: Linear odds are easy to eyeball.Multi-dice bell curves, dice pools, and more esoteric means are not.As a GM, if I feel it is appropriate for a character with a given skill level to succeed one quarter of the time, it's pretty easy for me to figure: a roll of 16+ on d20. Add the skill modifier I am interested in scaling that against, and I have a DC.Now were I to need to figure something I want the players to succeed on one quarter of the time on, say, 3d6 + mods >= Target Number it's less clear. I'd have to dig out a table of probabilities. And unlike linear odds, I can't do simple math to figure out how players with less or more than the target skill modifier will be affected. Due to the bell shape of the curve. I couldn't say, right off the top of my head, whether a +2 modifier is a 10% or 50% increase in the odds.Dice pool methods and more esoteric methods are more complicated still. Unlike the multi-die bell curve, one table is no longer good enough. You need a multi-dimentional table that takes in all your different die numbers.I feel that having a good idea what the odds are is instrumental to designing challenges and knowing what their effect will be.</blockquote>