Ruin Explorer
Legend
It's got nowt to do with power. With a different resolution mechanic you can easily have low-powered stuff that doesn't have this problem. It's entirely the resolution mechanic's fault.
D&D General Hot Take: Uncertainty Makes D&D Better
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
Ruin Explorer
Legend
LOL this supports my point. Think it through.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
The skilled guy succeeds a lot more than the unskilled guy at moderate tasks supports you? The unskilled, dump stat guy can't ever succeed at the hard tasks that the skilled guy does pretty often supports you?
You've been saying the opposite.
I know I'm stepping into a conversation tangential to the point of the thread, but here I go, stepping into a conversation tangential to the point of the thread.
I've made some edits in bold to Max's scenario. Is it more exciting now? If so, why?
Probably not exciting if the target still has 114 hp remaining after all those attacks. Probably pretty exciting if the target has 1 hp remaining after all those attacks.
Even the original series of misses would be exciting if I were the target and I only had a few hp remaining.
I'm seeing Max's point here. With D&D's abstract hit points and combat resolution, any excitement -- hit or miss -- has to come from the framing in the narrative. A successful attack can be described as a glancing blow. A miss can be described as a glancing blow. The difference is the hit points decremented, which is on its own no source of excitement for most of us.
I've made some edits in bold to Max's scenario. Is it more exciting now? If so, why?
Probably not exciting if the target still has 114 hp remaining after all those attacks. Probably pretty exciting if the target has 1 hp remaining after all those attacks.
Even the original series of misses would be exciting if I were the target and I only had a few hp remaining.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
I'm not talking about overall power level, but power difference between characters of different levels and-or skills.
If the highly-skilled higher-level character has an 80% chance of succeeding at task X while the unskilled low-level character has a 10% chance of succeeding at the same task, the way I'm defining it that's a +70% difference between those two characters.
Unless I've been reading you wrong (always a possibility!) you'd rather see the high-skill high-stat high-level character have a 100% chance of success while the low-level low-stat unskilled guy has 0% chance; ie. a 100% difference (which is the maximum possible). In other words, you're looking for a steep power curve.
And when comparing between otherwise identical characters of adjacent level, the size of that % difference taken as an average across all levels (to account for uneven jumps, tier advances, etc.) generally indicates the steepness of the power curve built into that system.
A real quick way to eyeball this at least for combat purposes is to take a typical low-grade monster (let's say, four Orcs) and figure out the range of character levels to which they'd present a viable threat without being either pushovers or a near-guaranteed TPK; and then to take a more significant monster (say, two Frost Giants) and repeat this process. A wider range of character levels points to a flatter overall power curve.
Another quick eyeball test is how well the system handles characters of different levels running in the same party. Flatter power curve = more tolerance for level variance.
3e had a very steep curve. 1e and 5e don't.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
More like I'd like the high-skill character to have 65% chance or so and the low-skill character to have only a 5% or lower chance of rolling higher than than the high-skill character - I don't actually mind much if both succeed so long as the low-skill character has a much lower total (though I prefer margin-of-success systems which just basically eliminate this issue without karma dice or the like, which means the low-skill guy is intentionally investing in succeeding at this roll). Unfortunately that's just not going to work with d20s involved unless you put huuuuuuuge mods on them.
Re: attacks I'm increasingly leaning away from liking the full hit/total miss model of D&D but that's a separate convo I think (I see MCDM is going this way too).
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Meta-currencies of any kind are a complete non-starter with me.
But OK, a 60% power difference isn't crazy. Once you put huge mods on the roll, however, you're largely defeating the purpose unless you up the DC (or equivalent) such that the success-fail cutoff still falls within the roll range. Otherwise, there's no roll - it's auto-success or auto-fail.
If you're using "average damage" and not rolling it then yes, it's pretty binary. But if you're rolling damage then success on the to-hit roll is just step one.
One thing we did ages ago in our system was to incorporate what we call "minimals", to cover the gap between doing no damage and doing potentially a big number after all the bonuses. How it works is this:
If your damage die (or dice) roll is minimum, you then add your bonuses etc. to get a number. You then roll a die of that number to determine the damage you actually did.
In practice: let's say Falstaff is a mighty warrior using a longsword; between the weapon's magic, his own specialization, and his strength he's putting +10 onto his damage rolls. To us it makes no sense that he either does 11 (or more) damage or none at all, so - to fill in that missing 1-10 gap even slightly - if he rolled a 1 on his d8 damage die he'd then roll a d11 for actual damage dealt. End result: no matter how mighty you are there's always a chance you'll do but one point of damage on a hit.
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
My players used to stress over their stats, until I pointed out that stat bonuses are overrated. Any ability score bonus is going to get absolutely swamped by the result of that d20 roll. Your 20 Strength with a roll of 2 is going to feel just like a 4 Strength with a roll of 10, and the odds of either happening are the same.
You'll get better mileage out of things that force a reroll, like Halfling Luck or rolling with Advantage. So my "power gamer" advice: roll 4d6 for your stats, and put them where they make the most sense for your character. Then later, instead of a +2 bonus to a stat, grab the Lucky feat.
You'll get better mileage out of things that force a reroll, like Halfling Luck or rolling with Advantage. So my "power gamer" advice: roll 4d6 for your stats, and put them where they make the most sense for your character. Then later, instead of a +2 bonus to a stat, grab the Lucky feat.
Vaalingrade
Legend
Gotta love systems where nothing you do matters to your chances of success!
Enrahim2
Adventurer
Let us do some math, shall we? The assertment that dump succeed while skilled succeed is less than 20% is true if we look at only a single check situation over very many rolls. The actual chance is just over 11% (0.25*0.45). However the proposition that it might happen 1 in 5 times might still be very reasonable. If the dumper and the skilled is trying some task 5 times, the chances for the dumper succeeding at least once when the skilled fail is 45% (1-0.8875^5).
Moreover the assertion by @Ruin Explorer was not neccessarily tied to a single check situation. If we for instance have a contested situation that only resolves if one fail and the other succeed (both succeed or both fail is rerolled) the chances of the dumper winning actually boosts to 21.4% ((0.25*0.45)/(0.25*0.45 + 0.75*0.55)).
You are correct in that higher DCs skew the math to the benefit of the skilled, but easier checks skew it the other way around. My take is that the proposition that stat is overrated in D&D 3+ is right, and that you should be carefull to try to counter claims about statistics before conferring with the devil first. (It is amazing what statistics can justify depending on how it is spun)
(Edit: corrected the last calculation)
Last edited:
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Those numbers are also at 1st level. As soon as proficiency starts going up, the skilled guy gets better and better where the other guy just treads water.
Enrahim2
Adventurer
In D&D3 skill could indeed make a character superior. In 4e level could make a character superior. In 5ed both are heavily watered down due to bound accuracy. My assessment that stat is less important than some might think still stands in either case.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
I totally agree with you there. I've argued the same thing more than once here.
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
Yeah, that's frustrating. I still prefer it over the multiple stacking bonuses of 3.5E/Pathfinder, though.
Which TTRPG system would you recommend?
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Thank you for doing the math for me, that's genuinely kind, and also you seem to be better at math than me!
I agree, but it's long time before a real distance opens up. Too long imho.
Edgar Ironpelt
Explorer
My experience is that increased randomness generally appeals more to DMs than to players.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
This is my experience too, though I will say a lot of players have a perverse, moth-to-a-flame attraction to highly random "critical fumble" rules which end up absolutely wrecking them.
Neonchameleon
Legend
I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I make them opt in in 5e using the 4e Dark Sun weapon breakage rules. On a natural 1 you may re-roll and if you succeed you succeed and if you fail it's DM's choice and you literally can't say you didn't ask for it (and got the reroll for it). Some players take the gamble on principle.
Remathilis
Legend
A long time ago...
During the design of Star Wars Saga, there was an article about the failure of the wound/vitality system previous Star Wars d20 had used. A quick recap: vitality worked like HP, and wound was an extra pool equal to your Con score. Vitality healed quickly, wound needed medical treatment and you were fatigued if you had wound damage. The important thing though was that critical hits didn't multiply damage, they bypassed vitality and went straight to wound. That, coupled with blasters that did 3d8 damage and lightsabers that did between 2d8 and 6d8 damage on a hit meant most wound strikes were lethal. Effectively speaking, most fights came down to who rolls a crit first.
The article mentioned this phenomenon, stating that PCs often were the most negatively affected by this. A GM might have a few NPCs or villains die to crit, but PCs were far and above more likely, and the likelihood increased with level as damaged and crit range increased. They figured they in a 1-20 campaign 75% of all PCs would die to crit. And that high lethality was at odds with the Star Wars tone, or at least the tone of the movies. A movie series known for swashbuckling action, epic duels and character drama was not a fit for a system of that kind of one-hit kills.
I bring all this up because it highlights that PCs overbear the brunt of randomness. A DM has less attachments to a random monster or npc than a player has to their PCs (typically). A 1 hit kill is fine to despatch a mook or random encounter, but felt anti-climatic to take out boss monsters and really felt bad when your PC went down to a chump hit on a d20 10+ levels of play.
Again, there might have been games where this play style was important, but it certainly wasn't Star Wars. The fact that as you progressed in level, your character dying to a crit increased (due to higher damage and a longer career of being attacked) is a good example of when randomness gets in the way of good play.
Anyway, Saga used traditional D&D hit points after this.
Neonchameleon
Legend
Mine is that DMs love things that are simple to use to riff off because it unloads part of the work. Random's a good way to get that and DMs are not short of control. Players love both control (because they are short of it) and to be the centre of attention (because they are short of it with five players to one DM).
Similar Threads
