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View Full Version : 5d6 System Concept (PEACH and critsism wanted) (WIP)



Ralcos
2013-12-11, 06:29 PM
I recently thought of a simplistic system involving rolling 5d6 for every check, gaining points on the roll of each individual die.
- For each die that rolled a 5, add 1 point.
- For each die that rolled a 6, 2 points are gained.


Example of a check:
James the Coward wants to climb a stone wall. The GM decides that to climb the wall, James will need 8 points.
This DC is reduced by 2, 1 point because he is trained in Climb, and another point because he has a climbing kit.
James rolls 6 points (two 6s, two 5s, and a 3), and barely succeeds.

Note that this is a work in progress, and I just wish to know how good this idea is (I have several ideas on how to do combat, class-like "schools", etc.), and gain feedback and suggestions. Thank you in advance!

Seerow
2013-12-11, 06:33 PM
sounds like a typical dice pool system, without any way to expand the dice pool. As a simple rules light resolution mechanic, it should be fine.

Knaight
2013-12-12, 09:30 PM
It's pretty standard. The 6 as two points thing is unusual, but 6 as 1 point plus roll again isn't, which often works out to close to 1.5 points (depending on whether 5 and 6 is a success or 4, 5, and 6 is a success). Difficulty reduction instead of variable pool size is also a little unusual, but that also seems fine.

That said, your example numbers are a bit off. Having an 8 for a target difficulty should probably be reserved for really nasty tasks, as you can expect about 2-3 successes on 5 dice, and the model really doesn't work well for a high range of skill values.

Ralcos
2013-12-13, 02:21 AM
I realized that the numbers were a bit off, so I made the following changes:
- 4 gives 1 point
- 5 gives 2 points
- 6 gives 3 points.

This makes it so the task is a LITTLE easier to complete, but still difficult in the long run.

Also, I have a basic idea for character creation. That is, choose a set number of trrained skills (a la d&d 4e; Choose 4 or 6?), as well as starting with 15 Hits, 6 Vitality (Threshold of Pain, essentially), and 3 Endurance (Natural resistance to damage).

Also, I have it so combat is an opposed check, with the winner dealing damage equal to his gained points.

Not sure about advancement (or choice of race/species and/or "School of discipline") yet, but I'm sure i'll come up with something...

gr8artist
2013-12-13, 02:29 AM
I don't care much for dice pool systems like this. Scion ruined me, with its 100+ dice pools and 40+ automatic successes (in addition to the successes from dice).

Anyway, with a payout of 0/0/0/0/1/2 over 1-6, you average 1/2 a point per die rolled, so you might as well say "flip 5 coins, you need X heads to succeed."
WoD uses d10's in a similar way, with a payout of 0/0/0/0/0/0/0/1/1/1+ (roll 10's again) which is really stupid because it averages to 33.3% successes per die... could have just rolled d6's and counted the 5's and 6's.

Scion was d10's but with more successes than WoD: 0/0/0/0/0/0/1/1/1/2... which averaged out to 50% per die. I swear, white wolf games just wanted to sell more of their fancy d10's... because there's no other reason to run either of these systems.

Knaight
2013-12-13, 03:39 AM
I realized that the numbers were a bit off, so I made the following changes:
- 4 gives 1 point
- 5 gives 2 points
- 6 gives 5 points.

This makes it so the task is a LITTLE easier to complete, but still difficult in the long run.
This looks extremely swingy. Getting one six is as good as getting a full set of fours, and given the distribution of sixes expected luck will dominate this system. You might want to try something like this: 1 point per 4, 5, or 6. 1 point per excess six. Thus, 5 sixes (the best result) gets 9 point, well above what 4 or 5 can get, but generally speaking you'll be seeing the 2-5 range.

Ralcos
2013-12-13, 11:44 AM
The 6 giving 5 points is an error. Editing now.

Edit: Thanks for pointing that out.

I do like your idea of the "Exploding 6" (1 point on 4, 5, 6, adding 1 extra point per bonus 6 rolled). I'll crunch the numbers in a while and compare.