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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pielorinho" data-source="post: 2523778" data-attributes="member: 259">Interesting OP!  Unfortunately, I've not seen any articles on this dichotomy, but it does seem like a real one.  I'm reading through the rules for Ars Magica these days in preparation for running a game, and it's much less unified than D20 (although still more unified than plenty of other systems).  I'm finding the rules alternately exasperating and wonderful, and I've still not decided whether I want to use them whole-cloth or try to form an unholy alliance between their rules and D20.Actually, on second thought, Ars Magica may be MORE unified than D20, inasmuch as you only ever roll D10s, and you only roll multiple D10s when a botch occurs (i.e., more than 90% of all actions int he game are resolved by a single D10 roll).  The downside of this is that you often have three or more disparate scores modifying that roll, and in many cases some of those scores are affected by multipliers, and in many cases some of those scores are themselves the results of other rolls.For example, damaging someone in combat requires two rolls:  I attack, you defend.  My attack roll is modified by my skill with a weapon, my weapon's attack modifier, and my dexterity.  Your defense roll is modified by your skill with a weapon, your weapon's defense modifier, and your quickness.  If the difference between my attack and your defense is positive, I then add the difference to my strength and my weapon's damage modifier, and then you subtract from that total your stamina and armor soak bonus.  If this difference is positive, it denotes the number of wounds that you take.Two dice rolls, twelve modifiers, for each attack in combat.  Granted, many of those can be pre-calculated; but at first blush, it looks pretty daunting.Daniel</blockquote>

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