Yakk
2014-11-09, 01:22 PM
This was inspired by something Mearls said about 5e.
Get rid of the flat proficiency bonus, bring back the proficiency die.
Second, I have observed that bonuses to hit generate exponential amounts of power. If we want that to grow at roughly the same rate HP/damage does, it has to happen logarithmically often. So:
Level Proficiency
1 d4
2-3 d6
4-7 d8
8-15 d10
16+ d12
does both of these things. When you roll something you are proficient in, you roll d20+Proficiency.
Next, all of those doubling of proficiency bonuses end up ruining the high end DCs in 5e. So instead we can add specialization.
If you are specialized in the task, when you roll your proficiency die and it lands on a 1, you replace it with the max for the die size. This is a nice perk, but it is worth less than a +1 bonus on average (it does lower your variance).
We can also tie in some critical hit mechanics. If your d20 and your proficiency die land on the same value, and you succeed, the success is critical. This gives a nice bonus for "doubles" that rewards higher accuracy/easier tasks.
The next problem I see is that the bonus from attributes is linear (well affine). For PCs this isn't a problem, due to the 20 "hard cap", but for monsters if you give them a 38 strength the DCs they generate become undefeatable without the players stacking bonuses in extreme ways. And really, dragons should be strong.
Again, I'll resort to the fact that bonuses to d20 rolls are exponential in impact (well, hyperbolic, but exponential is a much better approximation than linear).
Here is a bonus system where it takes 1.5x as much attribute to gain another +1 compared to the last:
0-3 -3
4-6 -2
7-8 -1
9-11 +0
12-13 +1
14-16 +2
17-20 +3
21-26 +4
27-32 +5
33-41 +6
42-56 +7
57-78 +8
79-111 +9
112-161 +10
etc
And no, I don't expect there to be creatures with 150 strength very often. But with the above system, you could have such a creature -- the tarrasque might have such strength, and it might have a more realistic carrying capacity.
In theory, we could have linear bonuses "to damage" with logarithmic bonuses "to hit" and the game might play a bit smoother (assuming, of course, you keep multiple-hit spam under control).
5e uses multiple-hit spam to generate super-linear bonuses from damage on attributes right now (which is mainly restricted to the fighter). With a system where attributes aren't capped (such as the above logarithmic one to-hit and damage), we'd be able to have super-linear attributes if we want to on a character without the game breaking down.
However, flat bonuses to damage are pretty boring. An approach to damage that does not rely upon flat bonuses might be to have your level and your attribute determine how many dice to roll for damage. So a given weapon or spell might deal d8 damage. Adding your level to your strength might result in you rolling 7d -- the result being 7d8 damage. As a side benefit, we could transition from Xd to 1d *5 and 1d*10 that way smoothly (rolling 10d causes your damage variance to bottom-out). Spells then have a damage die like weapons would.
Such a table would also be neatly old-school as a bonus, yet have a solid mechanical underpinning. The goal might be to have your damage scale in such a way that it stays a roughly similar percentage of your character's HP.
This brings us to HP. Another benefit to the above logarithmic table is that constitution bonuses per level can come off it. And at level 1 we can offer "full con score" HP base. This both provides us with a source of more HP at level 1 without cludges like "maximize your HD value", and keeps your con from dominating your HD for your total HP as you get to higher levels. Logarithmic grows with the sum of 1/n, and your con can grow roughly linearly with level, and the impact of a con bonus on your HP grows linearly with level: the product of the two means that a level-appropriate con bonus (say +Level*X) grants (+Level*X/Level*Level) HP, which if your HP grow linearly with level gives you a similar percentage-wise amount of HP from a level-appropriate amount of con bonus. Whew that was a few too many nested clauses.
Anyhow, no system here, just some meanderings on mechanics.
Get rid of the flat proficiency bonus, bring back the proficiency die.
Second, I have observed that bonuses to hit generate exponential amounts of power. If we want that to grow at roughly the same rate HP/damage does, it has to happen logarithmically often. So:
Level Proficiency
1 d4
2-3 d6
4-7 d8
8-15 d10
16+ d12
does both of these things. When you roll something you are proficient in, you roll d20+Proficiency.
Next, all of those doubling of proficiency bonuses end up ruining the high end DCs in 5e. So instead we can add specialization.
If you are specialized in the task, when you roll your proficiency die and it lands on a 1, you replace it with the max for the die size. This is a nice perk, but it is worth less than a +1 bonus on average (it does lower your variance).
We can also tie in some critical hit mechanics. If your d20 and your proficiency die land on the same value, and you succeed, the success is critical. This gives a nice bonus for "doubles" that rewards higher accuracy/easier tasks.
The next problem I see is that the bonus from attributes is linear (well affine). For PCs this isn't a problem, due to the 20 "hard cap", but for monsters if you give them a 38 strength the DCs they generate become undefeatable without the players stacking bonuses in extreme ways. And really, dragons should be strong.
Again, I'll resort to the fact that bonuses to d20 rolls are exponential in impact (well, hyperbolic, but exponential is a much better approximation than linear).
Here is a bonus system where it takes 1.5x as much attribute to gain another +1 compared to the last:
0-3 -3
4-6 -2
7-8 -1
9-11 +0
12-13 +1
14-16 +2
17-20 +3
21-26 +4
27-32 +5
33-41 +6
42-56 +7
57-78 +8
79-111 +9
112-161 +10
etc
And no, I don't expect there to be creatures with 150 strength very often. But with the above system, you could have such a creature -- the tarrasque might have such strength, and it might have a more realistic carrying capacity.
In theory, we could have linear bonuses "to damage" with logarithmic bonuses "to hit" and the game might play a bit smoother (assuming, of course, you keep multiple-hit spam under control).
5e uses multiple-hit spam to generate super-linear bonuses from damage on attributes right now (which is mainly restricted to the fighter). With a system where attributes aren't capped (such as the above logarithmic one to-hit and damage), we'd be able to have super-linear attributes if we want to on a character without the game breaking down.
However, flat bonuses to damage are pretty boring. An approach to damage that does not rely upon flat bonuses might be to have your level and your attribute determine how many dice to roll for damage. So a given weapon or spell might deal d8 damage. Adding your level to your strength might result in you rolling 7d -- the result being 7d8 damage. As a side benefit, we could transition from Xd to 1d *5 and 1d*10 that way smoothly (rolling 10d causes your damage variance to bottom-out). Spells then have a damage die like weapons would.
Such a table would also be neatly old-school as a bonus, yet have a solid mechanical underpinning. The goal might be to have your damage scale in such a way that it stays a roughly similar percentage of your character's HP.
This brings us to HP. Another benefit to the above logarithmic table is that constitution bonuses per level can come off it. And at level 1 we can offer "full con score" HP base. This both provides us with a source of more HP at level 1 without cludges like "maximize your HD value", and keeps your con from dominating your HD for your total HP as you get to higher levels. Logarithmic grows with the sum of 1/n, and your con can grow roughly linearly with level, and the impact of a con bonus on your HP grows linearly with level: the product of the two means that a level-appropriate con bonus (say +Level*X) grants (+Level*X/Level*Level) HP, which if your HP grow linearly with level gives you a similar percentage-wise amount of HP from a level-appropriate amount of con bonus. Whew that was a few too many nested clauses.
Anyhow, no system here, just some meanderings on mechanics.