The d30 system

[Thanee]

What will have to be changed: ...

The shape of the dice. Rolling them is a pain.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Crothian]

The shape of the dice. Rolling them is a pain.

Bye
Thanee

I found that with good physical exercise I was eventually able to be able to roll the d30 without the pain. But don't be a hero and just start rolling without first stretching and proper warm ups. And lift with the legs, not the back.

 

[Ferrix]

An attack roll is randomness; a saving throw is randomness. If you don't want encounters that are completely trivial from a gameplay point of view, you must have an element of randomness.

The problem with high-level play (and D&Dg exacerbates this) is that encounters often _aren't_ random enough. It's easy to create a character with attacks that are impossible to resist by other characters. This occurs for a number of reasons, but ultimately, when your modifiers get up to +50 or +60 for attacks, AC and save DCs, the relative contribution of the d20 roll becomes insignificant. Thus either you win without taking a scratch, or you lose without standing a chance.

The topic of high-level campaigns being very hard to manage has been brought up multiple times. Everything has to be tailored to the party's abilities, if you don't want things to be a complete walkover (for either side). So far, I haven't seen anything that makes me think that Epic-level play will be any different -- in fact, it's probably going to be worse.

As to whether replacing a d20 with a d30 roll is the right solution, I'm not sure. It postpones the point where the die roll is superfluous, but brings with it its own problems, especially at low levels.

The problem really is the binary nature of most task/conflict resolution rolls -- either you succeed, or you fail. Some sort of gradated system might work better for high-level play. For example, instead of having the result of a disintegrate spell be either death or 6d6 damage, maybe you could have a range of possible results, depending on how well you made your save:
- death, if you fail by more than 20
- loss of half your hit points, if you fail by 11-20
- 6d6 damage (but not more than half you hp) if you fail by 1-10
- 3d6 damage (but not more than 1/4 your hp) if you succeed by 1-10
- no damage, if you succeed by 11+.

Something similar could be done for combat rolls and skill checks. This would be a major system redesign, obviously.

Care to expand on this Hong? I'd be interested in it and maybe even help a bit. Perhaps a community project?

 

[The_Warlock]

See, here's the thing, I like the d20 system, but I can see the problems inherent in its bonus progression (even in my current game that I run). You want characters to be able to get better at what they do, but sometimes the equal scale causes the higher end of the system to break down. Not to mention, the base number you work off of is a static range (1-20), and isn't that large of a range either. Increasing the range, as others have said, only extends the time until the random effect is outshone by static bonuses, unless the range is somehow skilled with the difficulty. I'm intrigued by this dice scaling method that Hautamaki mentioned.

I think what I might do is harken back to a game system with a skill system I loved, but had so many other complexities that it made it hard to play. That was Alternity. The whole concept that your target numbers were within the range of the die somehow felt right, while including a quality of success mechanic based on a range that changed as you improved in the skill. Then you can either apply static difficulty mods or scaled dice to modify your chance of success. I've been thinking of adapting a skill mechanic like that to Green Ronin's True20.

Very interesting conversation, regardless of the outcome, though. Makes the gears inthe head turn...

 

[Sravoff]

Speakign of other systems, I love shadowrun, but found it too hard to adapt to fantasy fro some reason. Ok, but back to the task at hand.

I like the idea of scaling the dice rolled. To keep the random factor and bonus's in proportion.

 

[captcorajus]

In general, in the D20 system, once your pluses reach +19, rolling becomes meaningless. Its why upper level play becomes less satisfying as the chance of failure on even the more difficult tasks is unlikely. Its why, in general, play only goes to level 20.

Logically, therefore, a D30 would take play to level 30. I kinda like the idea.