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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mokona" data-source="post: 5802866" data-attributes="member: 24891">A gap of +2 does not equal a 10% better chance to hit in most situations. If the d20 needs to be 11 to succeed for +0 and 9 to succeed for +2 that is a 20% "better" chance to succeed. If the d20 needs to be 17 to hit for +0 and 15 to hit for +2 that is a 50% better chance to hit. Each '+1' increment is a +5 "percentage point" improvement but that is a relatively meaningless number by itself.When we're talking about game design, and not some fixed universe, the Target Number (TN) for the outcome is not yet determined. Once designers decide that Character Ability (aka Modifier or M) is relatively large compared to the range of Fate value (1d20), then they just raise TN to negate the impact of M.We've been talking about the impact of a large M (in the d20 >= TN-M equation) on the character who is expected to tackle the task and for whom the TN was set in order to create a "fun / exciting" probability of success.The true impact of large M or a steep growth curve in character ability is for characters who are not normal. Some characters try to specialize for certain TN situations (skill focus is for these people) and other characters are less proficient than the average skilled person. These groups are heavily impacted by the scaling issue of how big M is relative to 1d20.For example (4e), an archer ranger with a Dex 20 and bow expertise has a +3 better chance To Hit than a melee ranger with Str 16. Against an AC that requires a 12 on the die roll for the specialist, the weaker to hit roll character will be 33% less likely to succeed. That is, for every 3 times one character hits the other will only hit 2 times. Since those rangers are making two attack rolls per round by the time five rounds are over we'll have 10 rolls * 45% = 4.5 hits versus 10 rolls * 30% = 3 hits. Over the course of three fights thats 13.5 hits versus 9 hits. One of those players is going to feel a noticeably worse at hitting & having fun than the other. In this case the AC's I used were too high, really, but I wanted to be able to run the math in my head. Also, one of the players chose to have less fun in combat because he wanted to play a certain class + a certain race and didn't back down when the rules penalized him for his choices. Note: 4e melee rangers are just more MAD (multiple attribute dependent) than 4e archer rangers because the archer build can afford to have horrible attributes in everthing but Dex while melee needs Str + Dex + Con to survive.The DM will have a hard time balancing encounters for characters where there are large gaps between the "best" to hit rolls in the party and the "worst" to hit rolls in the party. The big number syndrome where attack rolls grow quickly / on a steep curve makes this problem worse.A more common problem is skill checks. If it takes a +8 to be stealthy then no one in the party (+0 to +1 typically) other than the rogue can ever be stealthy. These kind of large gaps close off lots of interesting innovation by parties outside of combat and lead to a "break down the front door" scenario over and over again. This is, in fact, why 4e gives people modifiers even on skills they "don't know". In order to fix the broken problem of large M the designers gave people default bonuses to skills across the board. This default capability ruined verisimilitude for some players and added a lot of needless bookkeeping to the game. The alternate solution would have been to slow down the progression of numbers for skilled characters (this solution appears to be the choice as of now for D&D Next).</blockquote>

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