playswithfire
2010-03-27, 10:45 AM
For whatever reason, I spent part of this morning thinking of an alternative to the d20 roll for, among other things, attack rolls. Obviously, a d20 allows a horrible roll, a perfect roll and an average roll to be equally likely, which breaks from reality somewhat. I'm aware of the 3d6 option, but this restricts one to only 16 possible values and requires, if I remember right, a fair amount of finagling to rework the standard weapon threat ranges.
So, I submit a slight modification to the 3d6 roll: 4d6-3. I admit the -3 is weird, but it brings the numbers back to a more standard 1-21 range rather than 4-24.
Critical threat ranges are simple to recalculate; set the upper bound to 21 and reduce the lower bound by 2. The Improved Critical feat decreases the lower bound by one rather than doubling the range.
{table=head]d20 Range|4d6-3 Range|Imp 4d6-3
20|18-21|17-21
19-20|17-21|16-21
18-20|16-21|15-21
[/table]
I've given less thought to automatic hits, misses and fumbles, but something along the lines of:
Automatically hit and automatically confirm critical on 20+
Automatically hit on 19+
Automatically miss on 3 or less
Automatically miss and fumble on 2 or less.
I considered having the option to confirm a crit on a 21 and do triple damage instead of the standard double, since this only happens once every 1296 rolls, but it seemed unnecessarily complicated.
This whole thing may be unnecessarily complicated, but I'd appreciate any thoughts you'd all care to share.
So, I submit a slight modification to the 3d6 roll: 4d6-3. I admit the -3 is weird, but it brings the numbers back to a more standard 1-21 range rather than 4-24.
Critical threat ranges are simple to recalculate; set the upper bound to 21 and reduce the lower bound by 2. The Improved Critical feat decreases the lower bound by one rather than doubling the range.
{table=head]d20 Range|4d6-3 Range|Imp 4d6-3
20|18-21|17-21
19-20|17-21|16-21
18-20|16-21|15-21
[/table]
I've given less thought to automatic hits, misses and fumbles, but something along the lines of:
Automatically hit and automatically confirm critical on 20+
Automatically hit on 19+
Automatically miss on 3 or less
Automatically miss and fumble on 2 or less.
I considered having the option to confirm a crit on a 21 and do triple damage instead of the standard double, since this only happens once every 1296 rolls, but it seemed unnecessarily complicated.
This whole thing may be unnecessarily complicated, but I'd appreciate any thoughts you'd all care to share.