Jamesps
2016-08-19, 12:00 PM
One of my main problems with any D20 system is the ever present issue with the distribution of successes based on a single roll. In combat this isn't much an issue because winning or losing a combat is based on oftentimes dozens of rolls, and over the course of combat you'll have a lot of exciting swings up or down due to the random distribution of those rolls.
For skill checks it's significantly less interesting. Roll a D20. If you get inside one set of numbers you succeed. Get beneath that, you fail. The end. Furthermore, success tends to depend more on a single random roll than it does on the talents of the character. At low levels, having a background career entirely based off of doing one particular skill only gives you a 10% higher chance of performing it successfully as compared to someone who just tried it for the first time today.
The following is a system that complicates skill and ability use somewhat, but gives a much more nuanced set of results and ones that depend a lot more on character skill than the current system.
Hombrew Rule:
When a character attempts an action that has a reasonable chance of failure the GM picks three skills that will likely contribute to successfully performing that action. For complicated actions this might be three separate skills. For simple actions it will likely be three rolls all using the same skill. Roll all three skill checks and determine the level of success based on how many succeed.
***
3 Successes: Total (or critical) success. You have done the thing as well as could be reasonably expected.
2 Successes: Partial (or normal) success. You did the thing. You could have done X, Y or Z to get somewhat better results, but it was the heat of the moment and the important thing is that the thing is done. Moving on.
1 Success: Partial failure. People make mistakes, and you made one too many to really count this as a success. That said, it could have been worse.
0 Successes: It's worse. As bad as one could reasonably fail at this thing, you failed at this thing. Those people, they're laughing at you not with you.
***
The DC of the rolls can be all the same, or they can be scaled to show how much expertise in the skill is necessary to contribute, depending on how complicated you want to make it.
It should be noted that almost regardless of what you set the DCs at, this system weights the results towards partial successes and partial failures. A character that has a 50% chance (needs 11 or higher) to succeed at a given DC will have only a 1 in 8 chance of completely flubbing it, and only a 1 in 8 chance of pulling it off perfectly. A character that is reasonably competent, say needing only a 6 or higher (75%) to succeed in a task will experience abject failure only 1 in 64 times. This is meant to be a feature of the system, as competent people rarely completely fail at tasks.
Furthermore this system allows the acknowledgement that characters with broad training are going to be better suited for certain types of tasks than characters who only have one skill amongst the necessary skillset.
Need to know something about an ancient artifact? Well the wizard with arcana and history is likely going to do a better job than the fighter who just knows about history or the sorcerer that only studied arcana.
Some examples for how to use the system:
*A bard is giving a performance at a tavern involving singing and dancing. The crowd's not in the best of moods, so the DC is a little higher than usual.
Roll 3 performance checks, DC 13.
3 successes: The crowd's mood is changed. People come out of the woodwork to buy you drinks. You may crowdsurf to the bar if you wish.
2 successes: Pretty good. You got paid, people didn't complain too much.
1 success: They let you finish before they booed you.
0 successes: This is the reason you wear your armor under your robes when you perform.
*The bard goes to a different tavern, a somewhat higher class establishment, and gives a performance. Unlike before, folk here tend to respect the arts a bit so the bard opts to pull out his trusty lute while he sings.
Roll 2 performance checks, DC 10. Roll one lute check DC 10.
The distribution here is determined by what the crowd is most interested in. It's a tavern, so ultimately showmanship is going to count for more than technical prowess. If you were giving a concert at a bardic college it would likely be swapped with 2 rolls for the lute and 1 roll for performance.
(See above for a rough example of success levels)
*The bard finishes their tour with a street performance. This involves singing, it involves dancing, and it involves a daring act of acrobatics.
Roll 1 performance check DC 10, Roll one lute check DC 10, and roll one acrobatics check DC 10.
Final Caveat: This will tend to make skill checks take longer. Given this it is probably best that you use this system only in noncombat situations. Combat has more than enough complexity to it, and tends to take up a lot of time just with rolling. This system is meant to be inserted into a part of gameplay that normally has very little time dedicated to rolling dice.
For skill checks it's significantly less interesting. Roll a D20. If you get inside one set of numbers you succeed. Get beneath that, you fail. The end. Furthermore, success tends to depend more on a single random roll than it does on the talents of the character. At low levels, having a background career entirely based off of doing one particular skill only gives you a 10% higher chance of performing it successfully as compared to someone who just tried it for the first time today.
The following is a system that complicates skill and ability use somewhat, but gives a much more nuanced set of results and ones that depend a lot more on character skill than the current system.
Hombrew Rule:
When a character attempts an action that has a reasonable chance of failure the GM picks three skills that will likely contribute to successfully performing that action. For complicated actions this might be three separate skills. For simple actions it will likely be three rolls all using the same skill. Roll all three skill checks and determine the level of success based on how many succeed.
***
3 Successes: Total (or critical) success. You have done the thing as well as could be reasonably expected.
2 Successes: Partial (or normal) success. You did the thing. You could have done X, Y or Z to get somewhat better results, but it was the heat of the moment and the important thing is that the thing is done. Moving on.
1 Success: Partial failure. People make mistakes, and you made one too many to really count this as a success. That said, it could have been worse.
0 Successes: It's worse. As bad as one could reasonably fail at this thing, you failed at this thing. Those people, they're laughing at you not with you.
***
The DC of the rolls can be all the same, or they can be scaled to show how much expertise in the skill is necessary to contribute, depending on how complicated you want to make it.
It should be noted that almost regardless of what you set the DCs at, this system weights the results towards partial successes and partial failures. A character that has a 50% chance (needs 11 or higher) to succeed at a given DC will have only a 1 in 8 chance of completely flubbing it, and only a 1 in 8 chance of pulling it off perfectly. A character that is reasonably competent, say needing only a 6 or higher (75%) to succeed in a task will experience abject failure only 1 in 64 times. This is meant to be a feature of the system, as competent people rarely completely fail at tasks.
Furthermore this system allows the acknowledgement that characters with broad training are going to be better suited for certain types of tasks than characters who only have one skill amongst the necessary skillset.
Need to know something about an ancient artifact? Well the wizard with arcana and history is likely going to do a better job than the fighter who just knows about history or the sorcerer that only studied arcana.
Some examples for how to use the system:
*A bard is giving a performance at a tavern involving singing and dancing. The crowd's not in the best of moods, so the DC is a little higher than usual.
Roll 3 performance checks, DC 13.
3 successes: The crowd's mood is changed. People come out of the woodwork to buy you drinks. You may crowdsurf to the bar if you wish.
2 successes: Pretty good. You got paid, people didn't complain too much.
1 success: They let you finish before they booed you.
0 successes: This is the reason you wear your armor under your robes when you perform.
*The bard goes to a different tavern, a somewhat higher class establishment, and gives a performance. Unlike before, folk here tend to respect the arts a bit so the bard opts to pull out his trusty lute while he sings.
Roll 2 performance checks, DC 10. Roll one lute check DC 10.
The distribution here is determined by what the crowd is most interested in. It's a tavern, so ultimately showmanship is going to count for more than technical prowess. If you were giving a concert at a bardic college it would likely be swapped with 2 rolls for the lute and 1 roll for performance.
(See above for a rough example of success levels)
*The bard finishes their tour with a street performance. This involves singing, it involves dancing, and it involves a daring act of acrobatics.
Roll 1 performance check DC 10, Roll one lute check DC 10, and roll one acrobatics check DC 10.
Final Caveat: This will tend to make skill checks take longer. Given this it is probably best that you use this system only in noncombat situations. Combat has more than enough complexity to it, and tends to take up a lot of time just with rolling. This system is meant to be inserted into a part of gameplay that normally has very little time dedicated to rolling dice.