When did bell curves become ok? It messes with your dice probabilities. Thats bad. The dice probabilities cannot be messed with. Thats like one of the ten commandments of D&D. The dice determine your fate. I don't want to consistently roll around the DC all the time. I want to fail miserably or pass with flying colors more often than like "8.53%" of the time. It adds character to the game. I like to grab that d20 and know that a 15 has to pop up or else I'm screwed. With skill dice, I feel a bit like I'm losing that suspense. I don't know the minimum I need to roll on both dice because there are so many combinations to get that minimum result.
See... This I don't understand.... abject failure(or complete incompitence) OR godly overachieving, and no middle ground? I'd MUCH rather have a character I know will more often than not be able to get a small set of numbers without having to worry, say(15-20) without having to worry about completely failing something that should be easy/mundane for a skilled person.
You'll still need a 15 there will simply be more ways to get a 15.
Preferences... Not where they should be.
Asking someone if they're Trolling you is in violation of section 3 of the Code of Conduct.
That is my opinion. I feel that the dice are important to the game. There are other playes who feel like the dice are being devalued, its not just me. It might be a slight devaluation, but sometimes slight is important. I'm voicing my opinion about it because most of those guys who agree with me are silent because of people who will tell them that their opinion doesn't mean anything.
Claiming that there are other players who feel the way you do is an appeal to a (silent) majority; it is a logical fallacy even when these other players can be proven to actually exist. Your argument, your opinion, must be able to stand on its own logical merit. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. What you are saying is mathematically fallacious. The d20 die is not made any more or less important than it was before. Claiming otherwise is flat out untrue. Even claiming that the d20 die is “slightly” less important is untrue.
As I pointed out earlier, using a flat modifier system, the progression of a d4 to a d12 maps out roughly to a bonus of a +3 to a +7. The standard deviation is slightly larger with the skill die system. That means that strictly speaking the number range you will commonly roll is actually slightly more random—not less random as you are claiming (of course, as I pointed out above, your chance of passing any giving skill check in the standard deviation is roughly the same to within less than a 5% variance between the two systems, so it does not actually work out to becoming a more swingy system, but that is a topic for another post); by the time you have a d12 you will have a mean roll of 17 and a standard deviation of 6.72. With a flat +7 you will have a mean roll of 17.50 and a standard deviation of 5.77. That means that with a 1d20+7 you will commonly roll between the range of 11.37—23.27; with a 1d20+1d12 you will commonly roll between the range of 10.28—23.72. Meanwhile, your chance of rolling between 11.37—23.27 with a flat math system is 59.5%; your chance of rolling within that same range with a skill die is 57.3866%. That means that you are actually 2.1134% more likely to roll outside of that range with a skill die system. The importance of the dice has not been removed at all.
The top of the bellcurve has a flat 5% of you rolling any given number (the same as you would on a d20+a flat modifier). That means that you have the exact same chance of rolling between 13—21 with a +1d12 as a flat +7. The only individual numbers you are actually less likely to roll are the ranges between 8—12 and 22—27. Of course, you are more likely to roll between 2—7 and 28—32 (which you could not roll before), so that evens things out (and makes you slightly less likely to roll within the standard devation of the flat math's mean, though not of failing anything other than the most trivial skill checks). You are flat out wrong. You don’t seem to understand how the math works.
I won’t ever tell you that your opinion doesn’t mean anything. But, you are not giving an opinion. You are making a claim about an objectively observable mathematical phenomenon. Your claim is flat out untrue.
I do understand that this is a possible solution to making skills more relevant at higher levels, however, you could scale down 3E and accomplish the same thing. The 3E system gave too many points as the levels increased and let the skills get inflated. I sat down with a sheet of notebook paper Monday night and came up with a skill systems that gives you a maximum of +6 at 10th level and a maximum of a +15 at 20th level. Its based on a shrunken 3E skill system (really similar to 4E, but going a little further). The only drawback right now is that as the numbers get smaller it makes it possible for 2nd level character to pass 10th level DCs by rolling a 19 and I wanted to make him have to roll a natural 20. It was actually a little more intuitive than this "bounded accuracy" system. I then attempted to use a D12 instead of a D20 for skill checks, which worked well, but it would be at the expense of the "natural 20" and the "botch".
So, endgame, you would get a flat +15 bonus to your skills. At level one you are going to have something smaller than a +6 bonus (as that is what you would have at level 10). That means that the skill DCs you use at level one become completely irrelevant. In fact, some of the DCs you would be able to use at level 10 would become completely irrelevant (as you will pass a DC of 16, the DC that you will pass about 50% of the time at level 10, with a 100% success rate). Congratulations, you have just reintroduced the treadmill that bounded accuracy is trying to get away from. Seeing as I hate unbounded accuracy and love bounded accuracy (subjective opinions), I think your idea is terrible (also a subjective opinion); it would actually be a deal-breaker for me, as I thought that the unbound systems of 3e and 4e were awful. Meanwhile, as I really like bounded accuracy, and think it is far more intuitive than what you are suggesting, I think that the existing skill system is just about perfect. The only real thing I would like to see them add is the ability to choose to broaden your skill selection instead of further specializing your existing skills.
Its not just about differentiating classes either. I think we lose another bit of flavor when we say two characters at the same level are just as good as each other at all times in a skill they have in common.
But they are not. I mean, they can be, but they don’t have to be. There are a host of skill related feats. Feats are how you specialize a skill above and beyond the norm. Like I said though, I would like the ability to choose to spread out my training between more skills if I so desire. Still, the existing system is very close to being perfect for my needs. It only needs slight tweaks. And, considering the fact that bounded accuracy is one of those things that is here to stay, my needs are the stated design goals…
Man, you have the patience of a saint. I've seen you lay out the math showing how the skill die works. I've read your explanations of how probablity with the skill die improves chances of success while staying within the parameters of bounded accuracy. IIRC, you've even straight out told people how they can use a static modifier and not break the system, if that's what they prefer. And you keep on doing this, over and over, when their only real objection is that they just don't like it. Maybe it could use some tweaks, though those can easily be house-rules, if you understand the math (and the way you've laid it out, I don't see why anyone can't, if they try). But it is damned near perfect, as is.
Anyways, my thanks for going to all that trouble to bring others around to a system which solves an issue of previous editions so elegantly, and which deserves to be defended. It would be a great loss to the entire community to see this idea go by the way-side, just because it's shouted down by people who refuse to give it a chance. (pun intended)
Cyber-Dave, you just explained to me what I already know. Again. I'm letting that go...
This "silent majority" (not majority, but they are many) are the players like my uncle and his group, who have been playing since before it was called D&D. They have no patience or time for forums. These folks are the ones I'm talking about. They are also dice purists, and the ones who have the money and will buy all the "5E" books when they come out. They settled on 3E since about 1999 and tried 4E back in 09, but didn't really like it from the beginning. They didn't even like the idea of maximizing a dice for critical hit damage. They still wanted to roll it and double it or triple it. (I have come to love the maximization thing as a player because its a little more consistent, but we still play sever/crush/peirce rules with large or smaller creatures)
As for the "bounded accuracy" system, I'm not saying I don't want to give it a chance. I can, however, forsee a lot of player-related "flavor loss" in the future if it isn't tweaked. Its losing elements that make the most of your imagination, IMO.
This skill focus is completely screwed up (IMO). Treating all rolls <9 as a 10? Isn't that a little too powerful? As stated before, I don't like doing anything to the die rolls. I'd rather add a small bonus than change the roll.
Cyber-Dave, you just explained to me what I already know. Again. I'm letting that go...
This "silent majority" (not majority, but they are many) are the players like my uncle and his group, who have been playing since before it was called D&D. They have no patience or time for forums. These folks are the ones I'm talking about. They are also dice purists, and the ones who have the money and will buy all the "5E" books when they come out. They settled on 3E since about 1999 and tried 4E back in 09, but didn't really like it from the beginning. They didn't even like the idea of maximizing a dice for critical hit damage. They still wanted to roll it and double it or triple it. (I have come to love the maximization thing as a player because its a little more consistent, but we still play sever/crush/peirce rules with large or smaller creatures)
As for the "bounded accuracy" system, I'm not saying I don't want to give it a chance. I can, however, forsee a lot of player-related "flavor loss" in the future if it isn't tweaked. Its losing elements that make the most of your imagination, IMO.
This skill focus is completely screwed up (IMO). Treating all rolls [less than] 9 as a 10? Isn't that a little too powerful? As stated before, I don't like doing anything to the die rolls. I'd rather add a small bonus than change the roll.
I agree with you on Skill Focus. I think it and Skill Supremacy should be switched, as advantage seems to have less of an effect on bounded accuracy than automatically getting a 10. I may be wrong about that, statistically, but I'm not as good at calculating probabilities as Cyber-Dave is.
Cyber-Dave, you just explained to me what I already know. Again. I'm letting that go...
Obviously you did not, or you would not have claimed that using a dice modifier instead of a flat modifier devalues your d20 roll or makes the result of your skill check more static than a flat modifier system. It does neither. All I did was provide hard mathematical proof of that. Your stated "opinion" over the course of a number of posts was directly contrary to what I explained.
This "silent majority" (not majority, but they are many) are the players like my uncle and his group, who have been playing since before it was called D&D. They have no patience or time for forums. These folks are the ones I'm talking about. They are also dice purists, and the ones who have the money and will buy all the "5E" books when they come out. They settled on 3E since about 1999 and tried 4E back in 09, but didn't really like it from the beginning. They didn't even like the idea of maximizing a dice for critical hit damage. They still wanted to roll it and double it or triple it. (I have come to love the maximization thing as a player because its a little more consistent, but we still play sever/crush/peirce rules with large or smaller creatures)
Again, you claiming as much means absolutly nothing. Everyone here has some anecdotal evidence about what D&D players actually want. Not so surprisingly, they always seem to want what the poster him or herself wants. I mean, there are players like your uncle and his group. But, there are also players that make up the majority of posters in this forum. Despite a few nay-sayers, they seem to really like the skill die. I am sure that they will buy all the 5e books when they come out too. I mean, I own almost every single 2e book (if I can ever get them back from the place where I put them in storage), many 3e books, every d20 Modern book, every Star Wars Saga book, almost every 4e book, every Eclipse Phase book, and many Shadowrun books. I also have a half-a-dozen random books for various games (like Monte Cook's World of Darkness). When I look at the skill die, what I see is one of the most brilliant and inovative additions to the D&D system ever written. It is so good that I doubt I would still be intrested in the system if they reneged on it (though who knows--one should never say never).
Neither my position, your's, nor your uncle's proves anything. WotC will have to do its own polling to figure out what people actually want. Anyone who doesn't "have the time" for the polls is a non-entity. Its like not voting in an election. You lose the right to complain about the result. Meanwhile, all we can discuss here is the evidence and logic behind our aesthetic tastes. So far, I find yours very lacking.
As for the "bounded accuracy" system, I'm not saying I don't want to give it a chance. I can, however, forsee a lot of player-related "flavor loss" in the future if it isn't tweaked. Its losing elements that make the most of your imagination, IMO.
And I disagree on every point. Can you back up any of those claims, logically or mathematically speaking?
As far as I can tell, your opinion amounts to this: "I don't like it because it is not what I am used to." Ok, fair enough. But, I don't agree, and I have many reasons why the math of the system is quite good for the game.
I think it and Skill Supremacy should be switched, as advantage seems to have less of an effect on bounded accuracy than automatically getting a 10. I may be wrong about that, statistically, but I'm not as good at calculating probabilities as Cyber-Dave is.
They really should not be switched (in my opinion). You are kind of wrong about that. What they do is just very different. You can see the probaility graphs at anydice.com by using this function for the focus feature:
function: nonneg NUMBER:n{ if NUMBER < 10 { result: 10 } result: NUMBER}
output [nonneg (1d20)]+1d12
Use this function for the advantage/mastery feature:
output [highest 1 of 2d20]+1d12
Basically, long story short, advantage/mastery helps you more when you are trying to roll high numbers and rolling a minimum of 10 on a d20 helps you more when you are trying to roll lower numbers. If you are trying to roll 23 or higher then advantage is a much bigger help (as the other function doesn’t help you at all). Meanwhile, if you are trying to roll a DC that is 22 or lower, the automatic roll of a 10 on a d20 helps more. Advantage + 1d12 gives you a mean roll of 20.32 and a standard deviation of 5.84. The focus mechanic gives you a mean roll of 19.25 and a standard deviation of 4.86. As hitting the high numbers is more exciting, and advantage is a much bigger help when it comes to hitting the higher numbers, I think that they should leave things as they are.
Man, you have the patience of a saint. I've seen you lay out the math showing how the skill die works. I've read your explanations of how probablity with the skill die improves chances of success while staying within the parameters of bounded accuracy. IIRC, you've even straight out told people how they can use a static modifier and not break the system, if that's what they prefer. And you keep on doing this, over and over, when their only real objection is that they just don't like it. Maybe it could use some tweaks, though those can easily be house-rules, if you understand the math (and the way you've laid it out, I don't see why anyone can't, if they try). But it is damned near perfect, as is.
Anyways, my thanks for going to all that trouble to bring others around to a system which solves an issue of previous editions so elegantly, and which deserves to be defended. It would be a great loss to the entire community to see this idea go by the way-side, just because it's shouted down by people who refuse to give it a chance. (pun intended)
My objection is quite a bit more than that. I made a list earlier in this thread detailing my issues, and they aren't based on emotion. My initial repsonse (probably page 5 or something) was to show that BA removes a sense of progression and mastery. That isn't some irrational argument. Bounded accuracy changes an age-old paradigm wherein a level 20 character will always beat a level 1.
Later in this same thread I came to a realization. The separation that I am looking for does not need to be directly rerlated to the binary results of a skill check, but should instead be qualitative. Mastery would, then, would occur as a qualitative improvement over the capabilities of the untrained. So, two characters might attempt the same skill, and both may succeed (even with the same total check result) but the character with training does it better. (They are still both successful)
I am not going to run through the full list I provided earlier... if you are interested, you could go back a few pages. But it addresses this concern: Character X is trained in skill X and many levels higher than Character Y who is untrained. Both attempt an action requiring a skill check. Both succeed. How does the game reflect Character X's mastery in a Bounded System?
You see.... the thing about getting to a high level and investing into a skill is, that many players feel that they should then be able to do things that a low level character without training couldn't do. On a large enough set of numbers, the trained/higher level character will be more succesful more often, but this does not alleviate the above concern on a case-by-case basis.
So I think it would be prudent to create a system that makes qualitative differences beyond simple success/failure.
So Character Y might succeed on a track check to follow his quarry, but when Character X succeeds at the same check he might be able to follow those tracks faster and even be able to get some information about his quarry. (even if they roll the same reesult)
Character X: "The depth of these boot prints suggest that they are heavily armored... one of them is wounded and walking with a very slight limp... the leader is carrying something heavy, I'll bet that's our hostage."
Character Y: "Three sets of tracks... heading north by northwest"
If you make these differentiations, you can qualitatively separate levels of training without preventing the untrained from participating.
Character X is trained in skill X and many levels higher than Character Y who is untrained. Both attempt an action requiring a skill check. Both succeed. How does the game reflect Character X's mastery in a Bounded System?
The game reflects character X's mastery by giving him a far greater probability of success. Over time, he will succeed far more often. Whether that is acceptable or not is purely a matter of aesthetic taste. Personally, I think a far greater probability of success is more than enough. The game also does offer a qualitative advantage. Character X will pass the skill check with higher rolls more often. Higher rolls can and should grant additional advantages. Tracking with a DC 10 pass only lets you know Y amount of data; passing that same check with a DC 25 pass should give you more data.
I just addressed this exact thing in the same post that you are quoting.....
Like 5 seconds ago....
And without putting any clear guidelines for these qualitative differences in the rules you will keep seeing this same argument, because skills as presented are binary pass/fail. You either disable the trap or you don't. You open the lock or you don't. Intuition and DM discretion can overcome as always... I don't know how I can say it better except to repost my whole list.
Firstly, here are the problems: 1) New system does very little to reflect mastery over a skill or really make a player feel awesome at something without feats. 2) Skills leveling automatically reduces player choice and character customization 3) The OLD system made skill mastery a quantitative issue that barred characters from attempting a lot of checks, or trivialized them. Lots of auto-pass and auto-fail which is not dynamic or fun. Bounded accuracy fixes this, but also somewhat trivializes training. So here is my fix. It keeps with bounded accuracy, but makes qualitative differentiation between different characters and their different levels of training in a skill. I provide loose examples below. Proficiency ranks three to four levels of proficiency for each skill. (low, medium, high...whatever you want to call them is cool) Don't have it can't use it. Each character would start, however, with basic proficiency in most skills. Climb, Swim, Survival, Sneak, Spot, Use Rope.... anything that a regular person genuinely could attempt using their intuition. (I would really only bar off things like specific knowledge skills, performance, maybe disable device and sleight of hand.... things that genuinely require training and that a novice would have no real chance of doing. The following solution does not make this assumption, however and assumes that all players can use all skills with or without training) At each proficiency level, the character would get access to new skill usages and a bonus based on his proficiency level. This helps to further differentiate the skilled from the unskilled without barring players from reasonable actions within a bounded system. So, the first rank of proficiency just lets you use the skill. The next 3 would give you a bonus of +1d4 each. Here are some example skills: Heal lvl 1 - You can apply first aid to stabilize a dying creature. You can use a Healer's Kit to allow up to 10 characters under your care to spend one of their hit dice to recover. lvl 2 - You can use a Healer's Kit to allow up to 10 characters under your care to spend any number of hit dice to recover. You know how to set bones and create makeshift splints. lvl 3 - Your knowledge of anatomy and toxins allows you to attempt to treat poisons, although the DM may require you to have access to certain herbs or other materials to do so l vl 4 - You are a fully competent physician and may use the Heal skill to treat diseases and even invent cures. You may even be able to delay the effects of magical diseases. Disable Device lvl 1- You know the basics of mechanical devices, and can attempt to pick locks but when you do so, they are permanently damaged and cannot be reused or reset. You can disable traps by springing them harmlessly. Traps that reset are damaged enough by this process that they no longer reset. l vl 2 - You can pick locks without damaging the internal mechanics and they can be reused and leave no trace of your presence. You can disable traps without setting them off, rendering them useless and broken. lvl 3 - You may choose to set off a trap, disable it permanently, or disable it so that it can be reset in the future. If you disable and then reset a trap, you may choose to leave no trace of your presence. lvl 4 - Your mastery over traps allows you to attempt to disable even magical traps, In addition, if you can improvise the effects of a set of thieves tools by using any number of common items (slivers of metal, pieces of bone or glass etc.)
Track lvl 1 - you can use this skill to find and follow markings left by creatures in the last 24 hours. Recent snow or very hard ground makes this impossible. When you are tracking, you must move at half of your normal travel speed. lvl 2 - You are an avid huntsman and can track your quarry at full speed. You can determine a rough estimate of the number of creatures that you are tracking, and can identify tracks as Humanoid or non-humanoid. You can also determine the size category of anything you are tracking. lvl 3 - You can find and follow tracks even in recent snow or firm ground by moving at half speed. You can identify tracks that you are following by making a knowledge check related to the type of creatures being tracked. You also know exactly how many creatures you are following and whether or not they are encumbered, traveling lightly, or wearing heavy armor. You can find and follow tracks that are up to 3 days old. 1v1 4 - You can track creatures in areas that would otherwise be impossible to track in. Even through crowded city streets. You can tell if the creatures you are following are wounded or healthy (full health, more than 50% or less than 50%) and accurately determine their land speed. You can estimate the approximate age of tracks to within 2 hours. So these are just some thoughts, and I expect that a module could do this... but I think that a system like this could help to spread out skill training and create real incentives for high levels of training without barring characters from using these skills in their more generalized forms. You can keep the bounded accuracy for a lock, for example, but the way that characters with different levels of training deals with it could be modified. This way you can make a qualitative differentiation for skill training rather than just a quantitative one. Bob the barbarian might be able to disable a lock and get into a house, but Robby the Rogue can do it without leaving a trace, and can lock up once he leaves even though the DC is the same for both of them. I really like this solution, and would love to see something like it implemented.
