Argyle King
Legend
How does this ability interact with special abilities and magic items which boost results? An example which comes to mind is the Deva racial ability.
Skills Get Sea'd
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Rel
Liquid Awesome
I don't see any reason to change stuff like the Deva racial ability. All other item or power bonuses were typically added as normal.
I do say this from the perspective of a GM who was running a game that was mostly a PHB1 game so I'm not familiar with much of the material in the later books that might have other implications. But off hand I can't think of anything that would be problematic.
I do say this from the perspective of a GM who was running a game that was mostly a PHB1 game so I'm not familiar with much of the material in the later books that might have other implications. But off hand I can't think of anything that would be problematic.
Wow, I never even noticed the first bunch of replies to my thread, let alone the fact that the thread itself got necro'd! A couple days after posting the original and having seen no responses I just stopped looking at it. This is cool that it actually generated response, and useful response at that.
To answer the question, yes I also went ahead and made this change in my campaign. My target numbers were every three points, so they'd be 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24 and so on. I did keep in the skill modifier and 1/2 level bonuses, and took those into account when generating my DC "chart" for the characters. It seemed to work well and the PCs liked it... and it also generated little character moments where a PC would make some insane roll, and I might grant them a continuing boon because of it. (Like my paladin player rolled an insane Athletics check to Jump... like one 6 exploded 5 times or something... so I went ahead and granted the character the Long Jumper feat for free just because).
After a while though... it became a little bit of a hassle in that the d6s just exploded a little too often for my tastes. Trying to assign useful DCs became just a little too fidgity, plus I got those insane explosions a bit too often where it lessened the impact of them. Exploding d10s in 7th Sea seemed rare and exciting when they happened... exploding d6s occurred often and became commonplace. I just lost the taste for using the system for D&D skill checks. I went back to using the standard d20 + mod rolls, but just changed things up where I never assigned DCs for things meant to be found by Passive skills (thereby telling me even before the party arrives whether or not they were going to be successful in perceiving/insighting said thing), and instead had said thing roll its own check against the PC's Passive Perception / Insight as the DC.
To answer the question, yes I also went ahead and made this change in my campaign. My target numbers were every three points, so they'd be 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24 and so on. I did keep in the skill modifier and 1/2 level bonuses, and took those into account when generating my DC "chart" for the characters. It seemed to work well and the PCs liked it... and it also generated little character moments where a PC would make some insane roll, and I might grant them a continuing boon because of it. (Like my paladin player rolled an insane Athletics check to Jump... like one 6 exploded 5 times or something... so I went ahead and granted the character the Long Jumper feat for free just because).
After a while though... it became a little bit of a hassle in that the d6s just exploded a little too often for my tastes. Trying to assign useful DCs became just a little too fidgity, plus I got those insane explosions a bit too often where it lessened the impact of them. Exploding d10s in 7th Sea seemed rare and exciting when they happened... exploding d6s occurred often and became commonplace. I just lost the taste for using the system for D&D skill checks. I went back to using the standard d20 + mod rolls, but just changed things up where I never assigned DCs for things meant to be found by Passive skills (thereby telling me even before the party arrives whether or not they were going to be successful in perceiving/insighting said thing), and instead had said thing roll its own check against the PC's Passive Perception / Insight as the DC.
Rel
Liquid Awesome
Interesting.
I found that this system actually provided encouragement to the players to pick up additional Trained skills as well as a few Skill Focus skills as the campaign progressed. I think without the extra d6's and the attendant increased chance of them exploding they would have opted for other feats.
knightofround
First Post
I wonder if 2d8 would be a better match for such a system. A 1 in 6 chance of exploding is going to happen almost 2x as often as the 1 in 10 chance you thought worked well with this system.
1d20 avg = 10.5
1d8 avg = 4.5
2d8 avg = 9
"Exploding 8" avg = (1/8) * 4.5 + (1/8)(1/8) * 4.5 + (1/8)(1/8)(1/8) * 4.5 = 0.6416
2 x "Exploding 8" avg = 1.283
2d8 avg + 2 x Exploding 8 avg = 10.283
Which is very close to the 1d20 average.
And then to apply this function to D&D's crit hit and crit miss system, using the rule "if you get a 7 or 8 on both dice you crit"
Chance to get natural 20 = 0.05
Chance to get 7 then 8 = (1/8) * (1/8) = 0.0156
Chance to get 7 then 7 = (1/8) * (1/8) = 0.0156
Chance to get 8 then 7 = (1/8) * (1/8) = 0.0156
Chance to get 8 then 8 = (1/8) * (1/8) = 0.0156
Chance to get 7 or 8 then 7 or 8 = 0.0625
Which is also very close to the natural results...crits (both hits and misses) would happen 20% more often, which I kinda like.
If you want it to be less, you could make the rule "if you get an 8 and either 7 or 8 you crit", so the chance to crit becomes 0.0469, which is closer to the current d20 average.
1d20 avg = 10.5
1d8 avg = 4.5
2d8 avg = 9
"Exploding 8" avg = (1/8) * 4.5 + (1/8)(1/8) * 4.5 + (1/8)(1/8)(1/8) * 4.5 = 0.6416
2 x "Exploding 8" avg = 1.283
2d8 avg + 2 x Exploding 8 avg = 10.283
Which is very close to the 1d20 average.
And then to apply this function to D&D's crit hit and crit miss system, using the rule "if you get a 7 or 8 on both dice you crit"
Chance to get natural 20 = 0.05
Chance to get 7 then 8 = (1/8) * (1/8) = 0.0156
Chance to get 7 then 7 = (1/8) * (1/8) = 0.0156
Chance to get 8 then 7 = (1/8) * (1/8) = 0.0156
Chance to get 8 then 8 = (1/8) * (1/8) = 0.0156
Chance to get 7 or 8 then 7 or 8 = 0.0625
Which is also very close to the natural results...crits (both hits and misses) would happen 20% more often, which I kinda like.
If you want it to be less, you could make the rule "if you get an 8 and either 7 or 8 you crit", so the chance to crit becomes 0.0469, which is closer to the current d20 average.
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ZephyrTR
First Post
I think if you really want to use this system, a d6 will, yes, explode too often. The math of a d10 will be more in line with what you want. A 10% chance to explode seems more balanced than a 17% chance to explode.
My problem with the system, though, is that 'exploding' dice suggests anyone could THEORETICALLY break an olympic world record -- not from training and all that, but just from trying enough times.
It may seem 'boring' to some people, that characters have a hard limit of 20+whatev for how well they can roll, but that's reality. :-\
My problem with the system, though, is that 'exploding' dice suggests anyone could THEORETICALLY break an olympic world record -- not from training and all that, but just from trying enough times.
It may seem 'boring' to some people, that characters have a hard limit of 20+whatev for how well they can roll, but that's reality. :-\
Well, the one caveat I had to using exploding dice was that you only got a single roll. You couldn't 'try' to do something more than once or roll more than once. So you either can do something or you can't. But that kind of rules theory comes right out the the 7th Sea roll and keep system that I adapted the rules from anyway.
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