The Child of Savage Worlds and D20

[Michael Morris]

I originally posted this as part of a longer ongoing thread, but there were no responses so I figured I'd float this idea in a thread on its own. At the moment it's nothing more than a core mechanic which borrows the idea of having ability dice from the Savage Worlds system, and adds it to d20. The system is ability-centric, so most checks are an ability check. To check to force open a door roll a d20 + your character strength ability die, which will be a d4, d6, d8, d10 or d12.

If your character has a relevant skill, you roll the skill die as well. So to search a drawer for hidden key a player would roll d20 + d6 for intelligence + d6 for their search skill.

As the moment I haven't explored exactly what skills and abilities are in play. I am just toying with this basic concept.

Savage Worlds uses a single die to check, and the target number is always 4. I find this approach to be very inflexible. Modifiers to die rolls have very wild swings, and combined with Savage World's ace rule the math becomes wonky and hard to predict. I've ran SW quite a bit, and unless players and NPCs are rolling opposed checks I tend to just eyeball rolls very loosely.

This new system uses target numbers like d20, and while a GM could use every single number in the range of what the die rolls, there are only a few especially important target numbers spaced on multiples of 3.

12 is a very easy check. A character with minimum ability and no skill has an average roll of 13, so this is a DC that can be hit around 50% of the time by the most inept.

15 is an easy check. d20+2d4 has an average of 15.5, which represents a character with minimum training and minimum ability - yet they statistically will pass this check better than half the time.

18 is an average difficulty check. Accordingly, d6 represents average ability or skill, and d20+2d6 has an average roll 17.5 meaning such characters will succeed at these checks close to half the time (slightly less actually, but not enough to matter).

21 is hard, yet it is close to the average roll of excellent skill and ability (d20+2d10 = avg 21.5)

24 is very hard, but the very best can still hit this skill check around half the time ( d20+2d12 = avg 23.5). Note that 24 conveniently also lines up as the highest possible target number for someone with a minimal ability and no skill (d20+d4 = max 24), but thanks to bell curves their odds of hitting this DC are 1 in 800.

27 (formidable) and 30 (nigh impossible) are the last two target number that should ever be considered in normal play, and thanks to the magic of bell curves the odds with each point increase in this range increase very steeply. The highest possible DC, 44, has odds against it higher than being dealt a full house in poker.


At this point, this is just a concept. I think it's a sound one, and it may prove fun to play with, but I'd like some insight into it. The features of the system I haven't mentioned yet

• Bell curves mean outlier results decrease as characters go up in level. They can be reasonably certain of accomplishing tasks at their own skill level, but not too much higher. So a character with who rolls 2d6 on a certain check can be confident he'll almost never miss a very easy task, and rarely miss an easy one. It's basically a coin flip with average checks, but a hard check should give him pause and very hard checks probably should be avoided. Meanwhile the same character several levels later can laugh at all but the very hard checks, and attempt formidable and epic checks in the same manner he did when less experienced.
• If GM's want to they can stick to 3 core difficulties - easy (15), average (18) or hard (21) until they get a feel for the system, and only then add the more outlying checks.
• The system has built in limits that are understandable - there are only 5 degrees of skill and ability, and further they have physical representations in the dice themselves.

I have a couple of other ideas for this, but I want to stop for a moment and gather feedback.

 

[Wiseblood]

Interesting. I think I like it. Static bonuses have begun to rub me the wrong way.

 

[amerigoV]

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Savage Worlds uses a single die to check, and the target number is always 4. I find this approach to be very inflexible. Modifiers to die rolls have very wild swings, and combined with Savage World's ace rule the math becomes wonky and hard to predict. I've ran SW quite a bit, and unless players and NPCs are rolling opposed checks I tend to just eyeball rolls very loosely.

Well, Wild cards get two dice -- the trait die and a wild die (a d6) and take the higher. With the Acing dice, the d6 is a key element. (of course you might have been simplifying for the unwashed masses here).

Also, I would call this the child of Cortex and D20 -- Cortex uses Attribute Die + Skill Die vs a target number -- which is closer to what you are getting at.

 

[scourger]

I think it models increases in levels, too. The higher level the character is, the greater the die rolled in addition to the d20. It makes the results more random, though.

 

[Michael Morris]

Well, Wild cards get two dice -- the trait die and a wild die (a d6) and take the higher. With the Acing dice, the d6 is a key element. (of course you might have been simplifying for the unwashed masses here).

I am. Also, the wild die makes it that much harder to assess true odds of success, increasing the random luck feel of the rules.

Also, I would call this the child of Cortex and D20 -- Cortex uses Attribute Die + Skill Die vs a target number -- which is closer to what you are getting at.

Cortex is also very obscure, so I didn't mention it for that reason.

 

[Michael Morris]

Ok, next problem. If the strongest human fighter has a d12 strength, how strong is a giant? A dragon? In a system that handles the ability checks of mortals, how do you deal with fantastic creatures such as this? Superhero games are also a problem.

Here's my solution - When a d12 ability is raised you add another die, a d4, and then take the highest roll between them on the check. After 5 ability raises you'd be taking the best roll between 2d12. After 10 raises it's the best of 3d12.

This causes the success rate of the character to continue to advance at a slower rate without the target numbers needing to be adjusted. Also, on certain rolls you can add up all the dice - say damage rolls. So a giant may have 2d12 strength and when it rolls to hit you it takes the best roll of the two. When it rolls to damage you it adds the two dice. Same with a dragon that has 4d12 strength.

The only problem I see is that the dice need to be grouped. Suppose a superhero character with 2d12 skill at fighting and 3d12 strength. The solution is to color coding the dice.

Note that the majority of play with this mechanic would not occur with characters rolling buckets of dice this way. But it does allow characters to have an unbounded stat system without it collapsing into a mess.

Thoughts about this approach?