Natural 20 followed by a natural 20

[was]

We don't use the auto-kill rule. We also up the multiplier for successive natural 20's. However, it's still pretty rare.

 

[the Jester]

If folks'll forgive the slight 'jack:

Would I be right in thinking that there is no way of rolling 20 (or 40, 60) in your system? It's not going to come up very often, but there will be cases where there is no difference between adjacent ACs.

For example, if your attack bonus is +10, then there is no difference between 30 and 31. I realise that there is no difference in the core game either (or between them and 32, 33, etc), but I guess that is part of what you are trying to address.

What I am getting at is, have you considered adding the final roll to 19, 39, 59, etc as appropriate? And if so, why did you reject the idea?

Hmm, interesting. You make a good point. I guess you could say that we've never thought about it.

I think, as apesamungous points out, the math can get complicated pretty easily (at least for the, ahem, many gamers without a head for math).

 

[Brain]

Hmm, interesting. You make a good point. I guess you could say that we've never thought about it.

I think, as apesamungous points out, the math can get complicated pretty easily (at least for the, ahem, many gamers without a head for math).

I pointed it out one day, but had trouble explaining it for some reason.

 

[glass]

Well, I think the fact that you got the numbers wrong in your question (they should be 19,38,57,etc) - which didn't need to be done quickly during a game - explains pretty well why that idea would be rejected.

You're right, it would be 19, 38, 57. I still don't get why that should be cause for rejection.


glass.

 

[glass]

Hmm, interesting. You make a good point. I guess you could say that we've never thought about it.

I think, as apesamungous points out, the math can get complicated pretty easily (at least for the, ahem, many gamers without a head for math).

He did, but I still don't get how adding 19 to a die roll is more complex 'math' than adding 20 -it's simple arithmetic, either way.


glass.

 

[Gez]

Adding 20 is simple: you increase one number by 2.

Adding 19 is harder: you increase one number by 9, and then another by 1.

17+20=37. Simple. You just increase the 1 by 2.
17+19=9+7+20=36. More complicated.

In fact, it's simpler to use 17+20-1 than to use 17+19.

 

[the Jester]

...it's simple arithmetic...

I have always found that some gamers need a calculator for an operation like that. I don't need to slow my game down for increased granularity- there are already enough other things that can slow a combat down when the dice start exploding.

Adding +20 is easy for even the, uh, less math-minded of us.

(Personally, I'm good with numbers, btw.)

 

[Spatzimaus]

Well, we use exploding dice, so the way it would work would be like this.

That's exactly the same system we use. Any roll of a natural 20 has you roll another d20 and add the result. Any roll of a natural 1 has you roll another d20 and subtract the result. Repeat until your roll is neither a 1 nor a 20. The mean result is still 10.5, and the average number of rolls only increases by a factor of 1.111, but the players feel much better now knowing that nothing is completely impossible.

In theory this'd slow things down, but we also added a "Take Half" rule: any time you need to roll 5 or more of the same die, you can just use 1/2 the size of the die. Rolling 10d6 for your fireball? You can just call it a 30. If you actually rolled you'd probably get an extra 5 damage, but why bother?

As for the comment glass made:

Would I be right in thinking that there is no way of rolling 20 (or 40, 60) in your system?

It IS possible, just horrendously unlikely. The only reason it's possible is because you can reverse direction if you roll a 20 then a 1, or vice versa. For instance, let's say my chain of rolls is 1-20-20-19. The 1 triggers a second roll; the 20 is subtracted from that 1 to get -19, but now I'm back in "add" mode since I rolled a 20, so the next 20 adds (back to +1), and now the 19 takes me to +20 without triggering any more rolls.

Honestly, the fact that you can't hit 20 easily isn't a major flaw to me. It just further separates the "normally impossible" tasks (requiring 21+) from the rest of the field.

 

[werk]

I just up the criticial multiplier by +1. Seems to do well enough. Each successive 20 will do the same.

Thats what I do.

rolls 20
(threat a crit)
rolls a 20
(confirmed crit, threatens crit)
rolls a 20
(confirms second crit, and threatens third)
Rolls a 8
(may confirm third crit)

I had two of these in our last session. It was fun, after the second 20 everybody leans forwards and starts cheering, like you're playing craps.