Goodman Games

There are a lot of places where negative penalties are assigned to die rolls where it might make more sense for the entire die roll to be rethought. DCCRPG already does this in the two-weapon fighting rules. Instead of using the rules of 3e directly: -6 primary -10 secondary, it drops the die size to d12 primary d10 secondary.

Magic does this. You can attempt to read a scroll as a non-wizard by rolling a d10 instead of a d20. Multiple actions per round are modeled this way, too.

So why isn't this integrated more fully into the system? Armor should not cause Agility Check penalties, it should change the die rolled for Agility Checks. Same thing with arcane penalties for armor.

Rolling initiative for two-weapon wielders should be d16s, not d20-4.

Circumstance modifiers will always exist. But the one nice thing about this is it tends to keep negative numeric results out of the charts.

I agree with you, let's use the dice types whenever possible. Elegant and simple.

Yep! way less math when the number is in front of you.

I like this (and credit to Talnath for having suggested it for initiative w/ 2H weapons*). My one concern is the all too common -2 and how to port that over.

I guess you could use 2 "d9"s (standard d10s, read the "0" as zero unless you roll double 00, which counts as 10).

* viewtopic.php?p=40384#p40384

I think it would be cool to do this with the penalty for being untrained in a weapon. Make it so you roll a 16-sided die instead of taking a -4 penalty.

It would give us another chance to use our nifty new dice. I really can't wait to roll the 16 sided.

+1d30.

I totally agree.

I think this is a great idea, jmucchiello. The more use we get out of the die types, the less gimmicky they will seem.

Great idea, if we use the funky dice, we should use them to their full potential

I should add, the only important point here is this should not apply to situational modifiers imposed by the Judge. The player should ALWAYS know what die they are supposed to use to make any kind of ability check or attack roll. They should not reach for the d16 and have the Judge say, "Oh, no, he has an weird aura that forces you to roll a d14 instead." Doing otherwise will cause combats to take forever as ever time someone is about to roll they will be inquiring of the Judge if they have the right dice?

I think the solution to this may be a nod to the Alternity RPG, which instead of using flat modifiers for task resolution checks, used a 1d20±xdx system. It would work something like this in the DCC RPG:

So you have all these dice. d3⇔d4⇔d5⇔d6⇔d7⇔d8⇔d10⇔d12⇔d14⇔d16⇔d20⇔d24⇔d30

d3 is the lowest die possible and at the "bottom", while d30 is the highest die possible and at the "top", and the top to bottom or bottom to top organization of these dice is called the chain. When you move up or down from one die to the next one in the chain, you are moving one "step".

From there, you can describe dice modifiers in term of steps. For example, if you use a two-handed weapon, your initiative die suffers a -1 step penalty. Roll 1d16 instead of 1d20.

Elves receive a +1 step bonus when rolling perception checks. Roll 1d24 instead of 1d20.

I am not suggesting this is an implementation, but this seems to be a logical extrapolation of this discussion, and is something to think about.

Agreed--an excellent idea, and coupled with Talath's "step modifier" above, simple and easy to remember.

(Until even more varied dice are created and inserted into the line-up ... )

I think the Serenity game had a stepped die system along those lines, but I didn't get to play it enough to remember it clearly...

I wouldn't worry to much about who did or didn't do it before. My only concern is that sometimes you want a minor modifier. It seems like you'd need to tag whether a modifier was "minor" (+/- 1 ) or "step" (up or down a die on the chain). Actually, I think that could be pretty cool.

It would even give you a chance to simplify calculations by saying that you should only apply the single largest positive and single largest negative modifier to each check (with +S and -S cancelling out).

From the Judge's Screen file posted earlier, with a few interpretations and charging added: [Sorry about the formatting, can't seem to preserve the columns, even using the 'code' setting]

Armor AC Bonus Check Penalty Speed* Cost in gp
Physical Arcane
Padded +1 – – – 5
Leather +2 -1 -1 – 20
Studded leather +3 -S -S – 45
Hide +3 -S -1 – 30
Scale mail +4 -S -S -10’ 80
Chain mail +5 -S -S -10’ 150
Banded mail +6 -2S -2S -10’ 250
Half-plate +7 -2S -3S -10’ 550
Full plate +8 -3S -4S -15’ 1,200
Shield* +1 -1 -S – 10

Attack Roll Modifiers
Condition Attack Roll Modifier
Melee Missile Fire
Missile fire range is…
Short range – –
Medium range – -S
Long range – -2S

Attacker is…
Charging +S –
Invisible +S –
On higher ground +1 +1
Squeezing through a tight space -S -S
Entangled (in a net or otherwise) -S -S
Using an untrained weapon -S -S
Firing a missile weapon into melee* – -S
* And 50% chance of “friendly fire” if attack misses.

Defender is…
Behind cover -S -S
Blinded +S +1
Entangled +1 +1
Helpless (paralyzed, sleeping, bound) +S +S
Kneeling or sitting +S -S
Prone +S -S
Squeezing through a tight space +S +S

In this system I'd suggest crit on natural 20 or 24 and always fumble on a 1. That does mean that a d24 gives you a 1/12 shot at a crit roll, and no crits if you are rolling d16 or less. I like this. It also makes charging freakin' awesome because you usually get to roll that d24...

[Halflings of course can keep their special crit/fumble rules 'cause they are lucky. Although, I'd just make it so they crit on a natural 16 when two weapon fighting.]

Very, very cool. Putting those weird dice to work.

//H

I would like to point out the downside to this discussion, but I would first like to say that I liked the idea and I did an analysis of this a while ago to see how it worked out.

For combat: Criticals are determined by rolling a max on the die roll. If you start to decrease the dice too much, you end up with a much higher chance of criticals and at higher levels, they can be unbalancing/brutal.

Outside of combat: For each +1 you need to drop the die by two die slots to keep the same progression. (i.e. d20->d18->d16->d14->d12->d10->d8)... so a -6 is really a d8 roll and not a d14. That keeps the same average chances of success for the mid-line numbers (i.e. average goes from 10.5 to 4.5). The problem with using that progression is that rolling with rolling a d8 and adding bonuses you will ALMOST never achieve a result of 15 or above.

Where if you roll a d20-6+bonus, you still have a good chance to make a DC of 15 or higher.

Remember shifting dice down causes a bell curve change on the probabilities of success and makes a major change to the chances of success. Where leaving the dice at a d20 keeps the + and - modifiers to be a linear change the the probabilities.

Plus, the purpose of DCC RPG is not to make it more complex on the fly, but instead to simply use the funky dice. What does that mean?

All funky dice are pre-written on the character sheet and you can build a dice pool before your session. You quickly roll your pool and add any extra bonuses or penalties. No hunting for dice or extra math to calculate the dice required.

(Yes I know that he is using d20/d16/d14 for combat, but the combat system is a special use case right now because AC is not really a linear progression because tougher opponents do not ALWAYS have a higher AC. They can be represented by extra HP, etc).

Definitely the idea can have downsides.



I'll note that my recommendation was that a 20, and 24 only are crits (and a 30 if you go up that high). Otherwise, I suggest you can't get a crit. This actually leads to slightly more, but not unreasonably more crits if you get the really big dice.




A few points:
I don't believe there is a d18 in the progression, which really makes the smallest shift effectively an average -2 from a d20. That is part of the reason I left a +/- 1 in the system.
I also modified the shifts in combat table with your statements in mind. I think that in general you shouldn't have more than a one die shift up, or two die shift down for most checks. That is why I suggested that only the largest modifier should apply.
When designing the modifiers you need to keep in mind that both the average, and the highest possible result are changed. For example, I think that rolling a d14 while in banded mail or a d12 while in plate mail instead of a d20 is an appropriate change given that the DC will usually be 10 or 15. d12+bonus is definitely a different curve than d20+bonus-8, but for a situation with a +1 ability bonus a 15 is impossible in either case and a 10 is possible 33% of time with d12+1 and 20% with d20-8+1. I'm okay with that probability shift, but agree it is a change.



I like the changing probability curve, and I don't think grabbing a different die because of a combat modifier is that complex. I think it would be fun to be able to say "I Charge" and grab the d24.

As much as anything I think this unifies the game systems because you do checks to hit and checks to take other actions exactly the same way.

However, I'll acknowledge some other drawbacks while I'm here:

Not giving crits when you are rolling dice less than a d20 makes taking a 1 step decrease on an attack die rather significant. Not sure I like the idea that cover prevents crits. I would probably suggest cover grant a change in AC in a system like this.

That still leaves the problem of no missile weapon crits at medium/long range. Whether that bothers you, or even would come up much in play, is probably a question of taste.

A system like this would make it harder for folks confused about the underlying math to quickly convert special case modifiers in non-DCC written adventures to an appropriate number of dice steps. (Although the rule of thumb of 1 step for the first +/-2 and a step for each +/- beyond that is close enough in my opinion.)

What it really comes down to is whether the design desire is to come up with a unified system that embraces the funky dice, or to come up with a unified system that has the funky dice sprinkled in occasionally for flavor, or to come up with different subsystems depending on what you are doing. Right now I think things are pretty solidly in the third option but moving at least towards the second.

Reread my original proposal and then make your criticisms. I specifically state that only "standard" actions should modify the ACTION die: using two weapons, being 0-level, etc. Situational modifiers imposed by the Judge would not affect the die roll because the last thing you want in the player constantly asking "What die do I roll?" THAT sentence if of utmost importance for this idea. (Notice the title of the thread even says "most".)

Increased critical hits are offset by increased fumbles. Fumbles generally hurt more than critical hits so I fail to see a problem with this.

I hate the idea of die shifts as it will again lead to "what die do I roll?" syndrome. I guarantee nothing will kill a game faster than the players own feelings of inadequacy caused by constantly being told they are using the wrong dice.

CORTEX, yeah, it does (system also used for Battlestar Galactica, Smallville, Supernatural, Leverage, maybe a few other games too).

Not counting the "d10000" and "d1000", the "highest die" on the market is the d120 or 124 (don't own one myself so not sure which it is), and the "dEverything" same die but more options AFAICT).
Below that you've got d100 (Zoccihedron or d00/d10).
Then there's a d60; I've never see one in person but know they exist.
Below that d34*
d32*
d30
d24
d20
d16
d14
d12
d10
d8
d6
d4
d5
d3
(Also http://www.dicecollector.com has some even STRANGER stuff on some of the in-between numbers).

Put listing a die "shift" modifier instead of a penalty (possibly instead of a BONUS too) might be a great way to go...

*I own one of these, but not the other and can never remember WHICH one - bought it from the BTRC guys at GenCon one year, before they admitted that they designed it for the Norwegian Lottery (that wouldn't have changed my decision to buy if they'd mentioned it first... but they didn't...).

I actually disagree with this statement. Take a look at the Critical hit table for a fifth level fighter and tell me that the fumbles are worse than criticals.

I could see that statement holding water at level 1, but not at higher levels for warriors/dwarfs.

The warriors and dwarfs wouldn't be using the smaller dice to attack. And like most things in the game, you have to survive to 5th level before you can do those amazing criticals.

A warrior uses a d20/d14 already (point of concern).

If they go two weapon fighting, that can further change to d16's, etc.

I am pretty much against adjusting the action dice because of complexity and the possibility to introduce further chances to min/max abuse the system.

The example of using a d24 for a charge... while sounds cool only works if you are using one weapon. What die do you now use if you are using two weapons? Using over sized weapons? Right now you need to know two sets of dice (if you are using two weapon fighting). --- one for using one weapon and one for two weapons. That is pretty simple and on the character sheet. If you add charge? Now you have four sets of dice to write on the sheet.

I would like to avoid anything more than a simple (d20 if using one weapon or d16 if using two) type scenario. If you have to start to reach for different dice based on your actions (i.e. charge, etc) you are starting to create extra complications and you change the percentages around.

For example: on a d24 for a warrior... the crit range would be 22-24 (or about 12.5% for crits). At a d20, it would be 15%.

I never proposed changing charge to d24. The original post says only modify the dice for permanent modifiers not for all modifiers.

This sounds like a good idea. using the lower die types for using untrained weapons, initiative checks when wilding a great sword, and other "static" mods that are not situational sounds like a great way to give the game a bit of its own feel and utilize those cool dice more often. I will change these up a bit in the play tests and see how it goes.

Sounds good but I don't think it works as well in-play for Hamakto's reasons.

Changing a few dice here and there (ie. when dual wielding) we can work around but I'm not sure i want this pervasive in the system. Save those for the damage rolls, chart rolls etc.