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<blockquote data-quote="davep123" data-source="post: 6868355" data-attributes="member: 93229">Like many DMs, I use a lot of house rules in my games. However, recently I was a player in a game that used the RAW for everything. Most of my house rules I was happy to live without, but the one house rule of mine that I constantly yearned for in the new game was using 3d6 for skills checks.&nbsp;3d6 gives the same average (10.5), but the results are clustered much more heavily in the middle range. This means that characters will more reliably succeed on the things they’re good at and fail at the things they’re not. It also means that even small differences in scores are significant. Using 1d20 for skill checks, especially at low levels, often leads to frail wizards successfully out-muscling fighters and dim-witted barbarians out-Arcana-ing wizards. With 3d6, those things can still happen, but they’re much less likely.&nbsp;When I was playing the RAW game, I found myself choosing not to attempt things my character wasn’t good at, e.g. kicking down a door with 8 Strength, even though my character had a reasonable chance of success and the fighter had tanked a few rolls, because I didn’t want to steal his spotlight by encroaching on his schtick. If we’d used 3d6, my character would have been almost guaranteed to fail and the fighter more likely to succeed, which is how I think it should be.&nbsp;Have any other folk tried 3d6 for skill checks or heard of anyone else who has? We’ve only played in the low-level zone, so I’d be interested to hear if anyone has tried it at higher levels and had any success or discovered any issues.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="davep123, post: 6868355, member: 93229"] Like many DMs, I use a lot of house rules in my games. However, recently I was a player in a game that used the RAW for everything. Most of my house rules I was happy to live without, but the one house rule of mine that I constantly yearned for in the new game was using 3d6 for skills checks. 3d6 gives the same average (10.5), but the results are clustered much more heavily in the middle range. This means that characters will more reliably succeed on the things they’re good at and fail at the things they’re not. It also means that even small differences in scores are significant. Using 1d20 for skill checks, especially at low levels, often leads to frail wizards successfully out-muscling fighters and dim-witted barbarians out-Arcana-ing wizards. With 3d6, those things can still happen, but they’re much less likely. When I was playing the RAW game, I found myself choosing not to attempt things my character wasn’t good at, e.g. kicking down a door with 8 Strength, even though my character had a reasonable chance of success and the fighter had tanked a few rolls, because I didn’t want to steal his spotlight by encroaching on his schtick. If we’d used 3d6, my character would have been almost guaranteed to fail and the fighter more likely to succeed, which is how I think it should be. Have any other folk tried 3d6 for skill checks or heard of anyone else who has? We’ve only played in the low-level zone, so I’d be interested to hear if anyone has tried it at higher levels and had any success or discovered any issues. [/QUOTE]

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