Idle Scalability Notion

[zornwil]

Re: Alternatives to 3d6

 

I was assuming Phil wanted the probabilities reduced, so just shifting the center to this new curve is the only required change. I could see that. It would be interesting for a game where everyone has uber-skills so you want to slow down the high end of the curve. I could see it for the game I'm developing, all skills (like in Savage Worlds or even 1st/2nd ed. Champions) are fairly broad, so something like this would still allow for a certain omnicompetence with less radical probability gains for each +1.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Alternatives to 3d6

 

I was assuming Phil wanted the probabilities reduced' date=' so just shifting the center to this new curve is the only required change. I could see that. It would be interesting for a game where everyone has uber-skills so you want to slow down the high end of the curve. I could see it for the game I'm developing, all skills (like in Savage Worlds or even 1st/2nd ed. Champions) are fairly broad, so something like this would still allow for a certain omnicompetence with less radical probability gains for each +1.[/quote']I've always considered Hero to represent omnicompetence best by how it applies penalties to a situation. 17- is seems pretty good until you apply a -6 for trying to do it two steps down the Time Chart or because the task is inherently extremely difficult and you're suddenly trying to accomplish something critical with only a 11- (62% chance of success). So IMO true omnicompetence comes only with rolls in the 20's. That's why my PC Zl'f has a 22- Acrobatics roll: The extremely difficult becomes almost routine even with a -5 to the roll. "OK, I'm going to jump out, catch the falling baby, somersault and bounce off the side of the 20 story building, bounce again off that handy flagpole, and finally land on an awning over the hotel entrance and Breakfall at 18-. That's a total of -5 to my Acrobatics roll for 'Sheer Folly'? No problem." (And being a heroine, she'd have to try even with a 11-.)

[Chromatic]

Re: Idle Scalability Notion

 

In games where my characters have rolls over 20-, I've joked many times that I'd like to take my skill rolls on 4d6 instead of 3d6 as long as a failure was only considered absolute on a roll of 24.

 

rolling a 14 instead of 11 still lets the "world's greatest detective" succeed by +30 on his forensics, and if he rolls poorly and gets a 21 or 22? No matter, its still by half.....

 

So far no GM has agreed that this is a good idea.

 

Maybe, the right way to go about this is to make it an advantage to bump up from d6's to d8's or d10's. For the obscenely compentent it makes sense.

 

Lets see, Ubermench has all his sciences on a 27-, he pays 3 points for Scientist, has a 53 Int, and +10 to Science skill rolls, all his sciences are now 2 points for an Int based roll.

 

He opts for +1/2 to make his science rolls on a 3d8, 23 & 24 are the critical fail, to do this he paid 5 points for Scientist, 45 points for the 10 science levels, and 3 points for his sciences at Int base. Kind of pricey to just avoid the 18 on 3d6 (which although considered a critical fail, is actually making his roll by 9). Maybe make it a +1/4......

 

. . . .

 

When you only play in games where 16- or 17- is the peak skill capability, I don't see how this would ever come up and be an issue. But when you spent 1/3 of your hero's points on skills and end up rolling an 18 which fails in that important scenario which would have made the needed skill roll on by loads, its a bit annoying. Humorous to be sure, but annoying.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Idle Scalability Notion

 

When you only play in games where 16- or 17- is the peak skill capability' date=' I don't see how this would ever come up and be an issue. But when you spent 1/3 of your hero's points on skills and end up rolling an 18 which fails in that important scenario which would have made the needed skill roll on by loads, its a bit annoying. Humorous to be sure, but annoying.[/quote']If a character in our game had that level of expertise and failed only because of an 18 roll and not because they did something downright stupid or unheroic, I don't think any of our GMs would make it a catastrophic failure. They might not succeed, but we'd probably permit a second attempt or simply have the results of the failure be somewhat less dire. We view dice as our tools, not as masters. I just can't see the planet being destroyed because Wonder Dude blew his 17- Security Systems roll.

 

FTR, in our campaign only my PC has any Skills in the 20+ range, but 16- or 17- are not uncommon.

[lemming]

Re: Idle Scalability Notion

 

If a character in our game had that level of expertise and failed only because of an 18 roll and not because they did something downright stupid or unheroic, I don't think any of our GMs would make it a catastrophic failure. They might not succeed, but we'd probably permit a second attempt or simply have the results of the failure be somewhat less dire. We view dice as our tools, not as masters. I just can't see the planet being destroyed because Wonder Dude blew his 17- Security Systems roll.

 

FTR, in our campaign only my PC has any Skills in the 20+ range, but 16- or 17- are not uncommon.

Chromatic is still mentally scarred by the GM that made him make three+ acrobatics rolls to get over a fence.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Idle Scalability Notion

 

Chromatic is still mentally scarred by the GM that made him make three+ acrobatics rolls to get over a fence.

Judging from what I've heard of the campaign his namesake runs in, I doubt it was climbing the fence that bothered him so much as the 153 BODY he took for blowing the first two rolls and getting caught on the concertina wire.

[zornwil]

Re: Alternatives to 3d6

 

I've always considered Hero to represent omnicompetence best by how it applies penalties to a situation. 17- is seems pretty good until you apply a -6 for trying to do it two steps down the Time Chart or because the task is inherently extremely difficult and you're suddenly trying to accomplish something critical with only a 11- (62% chance of success). So IMO true omnicompetence comes only with rolls in the 20's. That's why my PC Zl'f has a 22- Acrobatics roll: The extremely difficult becomes almost routine even with a -5 to the roll. "OK' date=' I'm going to jump out, catch the falling baby, somersault and bounce off the side of the 20 story building, bounce again off that handy flagpole, and finally land on an awning over the hotel entrance and Breakfall at 18-. That's a total of -5 to my Acrobatics roll for 'Sheer Folly'? No problem." (And being a heroine, she'd [i']have[/i] to try even with a 11-.)

I'm speaking, though, of omnicompetence as in across very many skills and having them without paying so much as well, but wanting more granularity as to the increase in odds. Not speaking for how HERO is now, but rather for a game based on it, specific to a setting/genre.

[zornwil]

Re: Idle Scalability Notion

 

In games where my characters have rolls over 20-, I've joked many times that I'd like to take my skill rolls on 4d6 instead of 3d6 as long as a failure was only considered absolute on a roll of 24.

 

rolling a 14 instead of 11 still lets the "world's greatest detective" succeed by +30 on his forensics, and if he rolls poorly and gets a 21 or 22? No matter, its still by half.....

 

So far no GM has agreed that this is a good idea.

 

Maybe, the right way to go about this is to make it an advantage to bump up from d6's to d8's or d10's. For the obscenely compentent it makes sense.

 

Lets see, Ubermench has all his sciences on a 27-, he pays 3 points for Scientist, has a 53 Int, and +10 to Science skill rolls, all his sciences are now 2 points for an Int based roll.

 

He opts for +1/2 to make his science rolls on a 3d8, 23 & 24 are the critical fail, to do this he paid 5 points for Scientist, 45 points for the 10 science levels, and 3 points for his sciences at Int base. Kind of pricey to just avoid the 18 on 3d6 (which although considered a critical fail, is actually making his roll by 9). Maybe make it a +1/4......

 

. . . .

 

When you only play in games where 16- or 17- is the peak skill capability, I don't see how this would ever come up and be an issue. But when you spent 1/3 of your hero's points on skills and end up rolling an 18 which fails in that important scenario which would have made the needed skill roll on by loads, its a bit annoying. Humorous to be sure, but annoying.

I think there is an interesting germ of an idea here for uber-skills and dealing with the scale, possibly. Only would apply to skills, specifically, which puts skill levels for combat out of whack potentially (not necessarily) as that presumably remains the same.

 

Have to think more, but need to focus on Cyber Ninja Pirates in Space first.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Alternatives to 3d6

 

I'm speaking' date=' though, of omnicompetence as in across very many skills and having them without paying so much as well, but wanting more granularity as to the increase in odds. Not speaking for how HERO is now, but rather for a game based on it, specific to a setting/genre.[/quote']Our buddy DangerousDan wants to run a "jack of all trades; master of none" character in another campaign and we were discussing the difficulties of doing this within Hero after our Champions run Saturday. His original design of the character (for a 350 point game, mind you) was 600 points in Skills alone bought at 11-.

 

We decided the only rational way was some sort of VPP: Skills; but to prevent it from making him omnicompetent Mentor suggested he should still have to buy 70 - 80 points of more commonly used Skills "the hard way." The rationale for that (which I agree with) is that if you're going to have a schtick, then it should be relatively costly. And any Skill would still have to have a rationale for how he had it and he'd have to have the Characteristics to make it fly (Nobody is going to have Acrobatics with a 10 DEX or Nuclear Physics with an 8 INT.) A Skill VPP with a 5 point Control Cost and a 10 Point Pool Cost just didn't fit that criteria when you consider how useful having any Skill at 11- would be in most campaigns. "KS:Obscure Alien Hyperspace Drive Engines? Of course I've got that. We'll have it fixed in a jiffy."

[lemming]

Re: Alternatives to 3d6

 

Our buddy DangerousDan wants to run a "jack of all trades; master of none" character in another campaign and we were discussing the difficulties of doing this within Hero after our Champions run Saturday. His original design of the character (for a 350 point game, mind you) was 600 points in Skills alone bought at 11-.

 

We decided the only rational way was some sort of VPP: Skills; but to prevent it from making him omnicompetent Mentor suggested he should still have to buy 70 - 80 points of more commonly used Skills "the hard way." The rationale for that (which I agree with) is that if you're going to have a schtick, then it should be relatively costly. And any Skill would still have to have a rationale for how he had it and he'd have to have the Characteristics to make it fly (Nobody is going to have Acrobatics with a 10 DEX or Nuclear Physics with an 8 INT.) A Skill VPP with a 5 point Control Cost and a 10 Point Pool Cost just didn't fit that criteria when you consider how useful having any Skill at 11- would be in most campaigns. "KS:Obscure Alien Hyperspace Drive Engines? Of course I've got that. We'll have it fixed in a jiffy."

 

He should probably borrow the skill "SCIENCE!" from GURPS: Atomic Horror. Or at least the idea. You buy a skill that can pertain to many other areas at very high levels and take minuses the more off the beaten path it is.

SCIENCE might be -15 to be able to fix an Obscure Alien Hyperspace Drive Engine.

Just takes a little handwaving from the GM. And of course if a character actually has that KS, they should still be more useful with it.

[zornwil]

Re: Alternatives to 3d6

 

Our buddy DangerousDan wants to run a "jack of all trades; master of none" character in another campaign and we were discussing the difficulties of doing this within Hero after our Champions run Saturday. His original design of the character (for a 350 point game, mind you) was 600 points in Skills alone bought at 11-.

 

We decided the only rational way was some sort of VPP: Skills; but to prevent it from making him omnicompetent Mentor suggested he should still have to buy 70 - 80 points of more commonly used Skills "the hard way." The rationale for that (which I agree with) is that if you're going to have a schtick, then it should be relatively costly. And any Skill would still have to have a rationale for how he had it and he'd have to have the Characteristics to make it fly (Nobody is going to have Acrobatics with a 10 DEX or Nuclear Physics with an 8 INT.) A Skill VPP with a 5 point Control Cost and a 10 Point Pool Cost just didn't fit that criteria when you consider how useful having any Skill at 11- would be in most campaigns. "KS:Obscure Alien Hyperspace Drive Engines? Of course I've got that. We'll have it fixed in a jiffy."

I think buying generalized skills and allowing (downward) modifiers for more niche knowledge could also work. There was a comment in Fantasy HERO about some modifier such as -5 or similar per "level" above or below one's knowledge - so, for example, if you have "Area Knowledge: United States" on 14/less, Texas Knowledge roll would be -5, and San Antonio (two levels down) would be -10. You could apply a similar logic to non-Knowledge skills (within reason).

[prestidigitator]

Re: Alternatives to 3d6

 

I think buying generalized skills and allowing (downward) modifiers for more niche knowledge could also work. There was a comment in Fantasy HERO about some modifier such as -5 or similar per "level" above or below one's knowledge - so' date=' for example, if you have "Area Knowledge: United States" on 14/less, Texas Knowledge roll would be -5, and San Antonio (two levels down) would be -10. You could apply a similar logic to non-Knowledge skills (within reason).[/quote']

Yeah. Agreed. I think this is also explained in the core rules, actually, although with less specific mechanics. I'd let a character buy, "KS: Everything," and, "PS: Jack of all Trades," and, "SS: Science," but they would suffer pretty monumental penalties for just about anything (and I'm not sure whether I'd let them serve as Complimentary Skills, at least in the normal fashion; they don't exactly represent specialties or flavor at this point). So buy a ton of normal skills and a couple really huge Background Skills (I don't know, 40-?). That sounds a lot better to me than buying 200-300 Skills for 600 points!

 

The other idea, of course, is to go the Universal Translator route of using Detects and what have you, at least for the KS aspect of it. Then you can apply a RSR with Power: Universal Knowledge an be done with it.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Alternatives to 3d6

 

I knew that would get a rise out of people! And yes, I really did work out all the probabilities (it was easy: I used an Excel spreadsheet). Lemming saved me the trouble of having to post them here.

 

Interesting. To make such a system work you'd really have to rework the entire system' date=' including combat. So a roll of 3, 4, or 5 on 3d12 would be an automatic hit or success, and a roll of 34,35, or 36 would be a miss/failure.[/quote']

What's to rework? All you have to do is change the base of how rolls are determined: 11- becomes 20- (or 21- if you prefer); 9+(CHA/5)- becomes 18+(CHA/5)- (or 19+CHA/5- if you prefer); 8- familiarity becomes 16- (or 15- or 17-, adjust to taste). For combat, instead of hitting on 11+OCV-DCV or less, you hit on 20+OCV-DCV or less.

 

Those are the only changes you need to make. Sure, if you like, you can reduce the cost of extra plusses of skills +1/1 point for regular skills, +2/1 point for background skills. Is that so tough?

 

Also, if you want, you can change the rolls for Activation and Disads, etc., but those changes are all fairly obvious when you look at the chart Lemming posted (or at my speadsheet).

 

I don't think it would be worth the trouble, especially since you'd basically have to rewrite every skill and character in the books. And if 3d12 is less granular, why not use 3d20 to be even smoother? 3d100?

If all you do is "multiply everything by 2," then no, it isn't worth it. The main reason why I came up with this is for combat to hit rolls, not as much for skills.

 

And yes, 3d20 would be even more granular. I actually worked out the odds for 3d4, 3d8, 3d10, 3d12, and 3d20. I just liked 3d12 best - it was easiest to convert from 3d6 since the bell curve is "spead out" exactly by a factor of 2. 3d10 or 3d20 both work out nicely with all probabilities being multiples of 1/1000 and 1/8000 exactly. I didn't bother with 3d100, since you'd have to roll 6d10 and know which are "tens dice" and which are "ones dice." At that point the "ones dice" make little difference, so you might as well go back to using 3d10.

 

The problem, as I see it, is that using the current 3d6 system, a small disparity in CV makes a huge difference in combat. A difference of one means that the high-CV guy (say 9) hits the low-CV guy (8) 50% more often than vice-versa. For the 6 points worth of DEX that the low-CV guy saved, can he really make his attacks do 50% more damage to compensate?

 

A difference of a mere 3 CV between opponents, say 10 CV vs 7 CV, results in the higher CV hitting 3.5 times as often as he gets hit. To be balanced, the lower-CV guy needs to be able to get 3.5 times the effect out of each his less frequent hits.

 

And when OCV penalties (such as Range Modifiers) are added in (or subtracted out, rather), the problem gets even worse.

 

This problem leads to CV "arms races." I wouldn't ever want to have a character that was more than 1 CV below the average opponent, or more than 2 or 3 below the highest CV opponent. The 3d12 system lessens this disparity.

[Storn]

Re: Alternatives to 3d6

 

Our buddy DangerousDan wants to run a "jack of all trades; master of none" character in another campaign and we were discussing the difficulties of doing this within Hero after our Champions run Saturday. His original design of the character (for a 350 point game, mind you) was 600 points in Skills alone bought at 11-.

 

We decided the only rational way was some sort of VPP: Skills; but to prevent it from making him omnicompetent Mentor suggested he should still have to buy 70 - 80 points of more commonly used Skills "the hard way." The rationale for that (which I agree with) is that if you're going to have a schtick, then it should be relatively costly. And any Skill would still have to have a rationale for how he had it and he'd have to have the Characteristics to make it fly (Nobody is going to have Acrobatics with a 10 DEX or Nuclear Physics with an 8 INT.) A Skill VPP with a 5 point Control Cost and a 10 Point Pool Cost just didn't fit that criteria when you consider how useful having any Skill at 11- would be in most campaigns. "KS:Obscure Alien Hyperspace Drive Engines? Of course I've got that. We'll have it fixed in a jiffy."

 

Nah, such an easier way. But 30 pts of +3 with all levels. Then buy a bunch of 1 pt KS at 8-.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Alternatives to 3d6

 

Nah' date=' such an easier way. But 30 pts of +3 with all levels. Then buy a bunch of 1 pt KS at 8-.[/quote']

What's, "a bunch." The character obviously already had hundreds of Skills.... Besides, you can't apply Skill Levels to a Skill with which you are only Familiar. If you could, it would be WAAAAYYYY too cheap!

 

EDIT: You could, however, buy some Skill Enhancers and get some of them to 11- for only one CP....

[zornwil]

Re: Alternatives to 3d6

 

(snip)

 

The other idea, of course, is to go the Universal Translator route of using Detects and what have you, at least for the KS aspect of it. Then you can apply a RSR with Power: Universal Knowledge an be done with it.

 

That just hurts...

 

[zornwil]

Re: Alternatives to 3d6

 

I knew that would get a rise out of people! And yes, I really did work out all the probabilities (it was easy: I used an Excel spreadsheet). Lemming saved me the trouble of having to post them here.

 

 

What's to rework? All you have to do is change the base of how rolls are determined: 11- becomes 20- (or 21- if you prefer); 9+(CHA/5)- becomes 18+(CHA/5)- (or 19+CHA/5- if you prefer); 8- familiarity becomes 16- (or 15- or 17-, adjust to taste). For combat, instead of hitting on 11+OCV-DCV or less, you hit on 20+OCV-DCV or less.

 

Those are the only changes you need to make. Sure, if you like, you can reduce the cost of extra plusses of skills +1/1 point for regular skills, +2/1 point for background skills. Is that so tough?

 

Also, if you want, you can change the rolls for Activation and Disads, etc., but those changes are all fairly obvious when you look at the chart Lemming posted (or at my speadsheet).

 

 

If all you do is "multiply everything by 2," then no, it isn't worth it. The main reason why I came up with this is for combat to hit rolls, not as much for skills.

 

And yes, 3d20 would be even more granular. I actually worked out the odds for 3d4, 3d8, 3d10, 3d12, and 3d20. I just liked 3d12 best - it was easiest to convert from 3d6 since the bell curve is "spead out" exactly by a factor of 2. 3d10 or 3d20 both work out nicely with all probabilities being multiples of 1/1000 and 1/8000 exactly. I didn't bother with 3d100, since you'd have to roll 6d10 and know which are "tens dice" and which are "ones dice." At that point the "ones dice" make little difference, so you might as well go back to using 3d10.

 

The problem, as I see it, is that using the current 3d6 system, a small disparity in CV makes a huge difference in combat. A difference of one means that the high-CV guy (say 9) hits the low-CV guy (8) 50% more often than vice-versa. For the 6 points worth of DEX that the low-CV guy saved, can he really make his attacks do 50% more damage to compensate?

 

A difference of a mere 3 CV between opponents, say 10 CV vs 7 CV, results in the higher CV hitting 3.5 times as often as he gets hit. To be balanced, the lower-CV guy needs to be able to get 3.5 times the effect out of each his less frequent hits.

 

And when OCV penalties (such as Range Modifiers) are added in (or subtracted out, rather), the problem gets even worse.

 

This problem leads to CV "arms races." I wouldn't ever want to have a character that was more than 1 CV below the average opponent, or more than 2 or 3 below the highest CV opponent. The 3d12 system lessens this disparity.

Are you using or have you used this? How have the results been? How have the players felt?

[DangerousDan]

Re: Alternatives to 3d6

 

I've been thinking about trying 3d12 instead of 3d6. Just thinking! I don't actually own any d12s. The idea is to allow for finer granularity while keeping the bell curve. The shape of the bell curve is exactly the same regardless of the type of dice used, as long as you use three of them and their all the same.

 

Every once in a while, I get annoyed that 10- is 50% and 11- is 62.5%, which is a 12.5% difference for a +1! That's a 1/8 difference.

 

With 3d12, 19- is 50%, and 20- is about 56.2%, not quite so big a leap.

 

Just a thought, I probably won't ever bother actually doing this in a game, but it does make the curve smoother, without changing its shape.

 

I once ran a game (not Hero, and only very distantly related to D&D) where the typical die rolls were 3D20. The curve was smoother, but totaling the dice took longer. If I'd realized it would make that much difference, I'd have limited myself to 3D10 or 4D10. And then, there is the sage comment by the Von D-Man:

It would be cool' date=' but reworking and recosting the skill system would be a female dog in extreme heat.[/quote']

 

<chart omitted>And would redoing skills be a simple matter of saying skills have a base of 18+(Char/5)?

edit:Getting the percentages was easy, formatting the chart, yech.

No, It would be much worse than that, because with one single change, you've made increasing the roll on skills more expensive relative to everything else, and now you have to recost Perks, Talents, Powers. How much is a 14- activation roll worth now? Or Requires a Skill Roll? You've just changed the active point penalty on RSR: 10 Active points makes a smaller difference in the RSR die roll. Becha hadn't expected that. This is why I must agree with Von D-Man's comment.

 

Actually, I'm fairly sure that you get a bell curve if you have at least three dice, and they don't even have to be the same size: 1D4 +1D6 + 1D8 + 1D10 + 1D12 + 1D20 gives you a decent curve, and possibly headaches too. 6D6 also gives you a bell curve. One billion D6 still gives you a bell curve, but it takes months to count up the total, and a really big dump-truck to roll the dice.

 

What you could do (but I'd bet that you won't) is make skill rolls (6d6)/2 (without rounding which makes the bell curve finer grained, without changing its shape) and figuring out a way to charge for half-points of skill.

[zornwil]

Re: Alternatives to 3d6

 

No' date=' It would be much worse than that, because with one single change, you've made increasing the roll on skills more expensive relative to everything else, and now you have to recost Perks, Talents, Powers. How much is a 14- activation roll worth now? Or Requires a Skill Roll? You've just changed the active point penalty on RSR: 10 Active points makes a smaller difference in the RSR die roll. Becha hadn't expected that. This is why I must agree with Von D-Man's comment.[/quote']

 

Actually I'm pretty sure he expected that and wouldn't recost the activation rolll, as doing the 3d12 thing is basically an immediate contention that skill granularity is too poor and additional skill points are under-costed.

 

I think this holds a lot of water in a skills-based game, where skills are really important and even primary, as opposed to powers, and where skills basically are powers, they are rather broad and/or powerful. I'm considering it heavily for my Cyber Ninja Pirates in Space Game which features broad skills and the ability to specialize in certain uber-skills.

[Phil]

Re: Idle Scalability Notion

 

In games where my characters have rolls over 20-, I've joked many times that I'd like to take my skill rolls on 4d6 instead of 3d6 as long as a failure was only considered absolute on a roll of 24.

Now that *is* an interesting idea. Then again, the automatica failure rate of 1/216 is far less than most games, which go for a 1/20, 1/36 or 1/100, so I wouldnt entertain it either.

[Phil]

Re: Alternatives to 3d6

 

One billion D6 still gives you a bell curve, but it takes months to count up the total, and a really big dump-truck to roll the dice.

Hate to be a pedant, but... aww, ok then. I love being a pedant. If you count 10 dice every second, it'll take you around 190 years to count them all. Maybe that's how the Gods keep themselves entertained for those countless millenia.

[Chromatic]

Re: Alternatives to 3d6

 

Hate to be a pedant' date=' but... aww, ok then. I love being a pedant. If you count 10 dice every second, it'll take you around 190 years to count them all. Maybe that's how the Gods keep themselves entertained for those countless millenia.[/quote']

 

Bzzzzt. thank you for playing please try again.

 

 

1,000,000,000 dice /10 /second == 100,000,000 seconds

100,000,000 / 60 seconds / minute == 1,666,666.66 minutes

1,666,666.66 minutes / 60 minutes / hour == 27,777.77 hours

27,777.77 hours / 24 hours / day == 1157.40 days

 

Just a bit over 3 years.

 

Even if you did 1 a second, its only 31.7 years.

 

Now if you were really slow, and did 1 die / 6 seconds, THEN you would take like 190 years.

 

and you think _you're_ being pendantic?

[Phil]

Re: Idle Scalability Notion

 

DOH! It's those crazy minutes and seconds that got me confused. We, er, dont have those in the UK (yeah, good excuse....).

[paigeoliver]

Re: Idle Scalability Notion

 

A billion d6 would TECHNICALLY be a bell curve, but in reality every single roll you ever did would end up in between 3,499,999,950 and 3,500,000,050. The more dice you use the smaller and smaller the standard deviation becomes.

 

In the past I have actually experimented with replacing the standard 3d6 roll with a single D20 roll. If you play that way you don't have to worry nearly as much about balancing the OCV and DCV levels between various characters and baddies.

 

Earlier some people were commenting about not knowing what to spend XP on without breaking their character concept. That one is easy, general skill levels, just keep buying them. Whenever I am making a character and the character is "done" with points to spare I just start piling on the general skill levels.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Alternatives to 3d6

 

No' date=' It would be much worse than that, because with one single change, you've made increasing the roll on skills more expensive relative to everything else, and now you have to recost Perks, Talents, Powers. How much is a 14- activation roll worth now? Or Requires a Skill Roll? You've just changed the active point penalty on RSR: 10 Active points makes a smaller difference in the RSR die roll. Becha hadn't expected that. This is why I must agree with Von D-Man's comment.[/quote']

No, that's not the idea. You don't change the cost, you just change the roll required. A 14- Activation for instance, is worth the same thing as always, it's just a 27- now instead of 14- (or whatever it should be).

 

Actually, I'm fairly sure that you get a bell curve if you have at least three dice, and they don't even have to be the same size: 1D4 +1D6 + 1D8 + 1D10 + 1D12 + 1D20 gives you a decent curve, and possibly headaches too. 6D6 also gives you a bell curve. One billion D6 still gives you a bell curve, but it takes months to count up the total, and a really big dump-truck to roll the dice.

Sure, but all those different bell curves have different shapes. The more dice, the steeper the bell curve. For example, you could generate the familiar 3-18 range with 5d4-2, which creates a bell curve no smoother and no finer than 3d6, but it's much steeper. The standard deviation is much lower, which means you're much more likely to get average rolls and much less likely to get high and low rolls. About 1/200 to get an 18 on 3d6, about 1/1000 to get an 18 on 5d4-2.

 

The size of the dice changes the size of the bell curve proportionally, i.e., without changing its shape. The number of dice changes the shape as well as the size. And when you mix different size dice together, you also change the shape in more complicated ways - you get "plateaus" in the bell curve - arguably becoming no longer a true "bell curve" (but that's not necesarily a bad thing if that's what you want for your game). I have also calculated the odds curve for d4+d6+d8 and some other variations which also give a 3-18 range. They all give slightly wider, shallower curves with higher standard deviations (fewer average rolls).

 

What you could do (but I'd bet that you won't) is make skill rolls (6d6)/2 (without rounding which makes the bell curve finer grained, without changing its shape) and figuring out a way to charge for half-points of skill.

This actually changes the shape of the bell curve dramatically! I'll leave it as an exercise for the student to determine the odds of rolling an 18 with 6d6/2 as opposed to 3d6. Advanced students can work out the standard deviations of 6d6/2 and 3d6 to see how different they are.

 

The more dice you use the smaller and smaller the standard deviation becomes.

Well, relative to the range of possible rolls, that is. IIRC, the standard deviation increases with the square root of the number of dice. So as the number of dice goes up 4x (max roll 18 --> max roll 72; average 10.5 --> average 42), the standard deviation goes up only 2x (stddev ~2.5 --> stddev --> 5). So while most rolls on 3d6 will be between 8 and 13 (covering 3/8 of the range), the same portion of rolls on 12d6 will be between 37 and 47 (covering only about 1/6 of the range).