Rather than clutter the 6th ed thread, I decided to start a new one.



I've not read the whole thread, so apologies for reptition in advance

has any one considered a bell curved dice system instead of the single d20? what about 2d10 (criticals only on a double perhaps)?

I have always had a (slight!) problem with the single d20 roll for a game that seems so grounded most of the time.

obviously this would require a major re-write; like +5 for successful passions as just the most obvious example.


I think similar suggestions have been made in the past. I don't remember what the verdict was on them, but I have at times contemplated on the beauty of the bellcurve, too.

Lets first consider what this would entail.

1) Skill rolls will cluster around 10-11.
a) Criticals definitely need to be shifted off the 'exact match', or someone with Skill 10 will crit way more often than someone with skill 19.
-> Solution: make 10+10 the critical and 1+1 the fumble. If skill is above 20, add it as usual, and anything 20 or above becomes a critical. Note, this solution will make 21+ skill even better than before, increasing the criticals a lot (in comparison).
b) Will ties become more common, too? The off 10-11 probabilities drop, so that should balance things out. True, guys with skills of 11 will probably hit their swords etc together more often than guys with skill 9, but that was true before, too. I don't think it will be a huge effect, even though there is a bump near Skill 10-12 (not balanced by the misses 13-20), but for skill 20, things should be more or less the same. Not too worried about this, at least for now.
c) Fumbling chance drops by a lot, so Flails become safer and hence better. Also, non-swords will break more rarely, so that might favor them more.
-> Solution: Nerf flails a bit by giving them axe+mace bonuses, +1d6 vs. shield and +1d6 vs. chain, instead of ignoring shield totally. The lower fumble-breakage chance is at least partially counteracted by more ties around skill level 12, although that is not a very strong argument. Letting criticals tie, as much as I personally dislike that, will keep Swords the Kings of Battlefield at high skills.

2) Skill success probability
a) The low skills are even more useless than they are now. Skill of 1 is useless, and a skill of 2 is still useless, since 1+1 is now a fumble. Skill of 5 used to be 25% success rate, now it is 9% (10%-1% fumble chance).
-> Solution: Raise the starting skill level (to 5, equivalent of old 2, or 6, equivalent of old 3). Probably the simplest thing to do.

3) Trait & Passion rolls
- Same thing for traits as for skills... small deviation away from 10-11 will be huge.
-> Solution The religion modifier should probably be dropped to +1 (old +2) or +2 (old +4, more or less). I'd go with +1, personally, as I dislike the character coming pre-programmed to that extent by religion. I'd probably also drop the famous limit to 15, although it is no biggie if the experience rules are kept the same (see below).

4) Stat rolls
- Same as above, the stat rolls become more sensitive to 11+ stats. On the other hand, this make low DEX murderous! At least, a disincentive to the DEX minmax! :P

5) Experience rules
- I'd be tempted to keep the 1d20 for experience rolls. It is already glacial to get the skill up to 20 with experience rolls alone. I don't want to make it any harder.

6) Situational modifiers
- +5 is too big now, so make it +3, and +10 -> +6. Same for minuses.

I am sure that there may be other considerations, too, but I think the above ones would address most of them? Do let me know if you can come up with more ideas.


EDIT:
7) Staying on horseback & DEX rolls
a) This becomes very difficult to fail with reasonably low skills...
-> Solution: We probably should add a penalty based on the magnitude of the hit. I might go with simple -1 per 10 full points of damage. So 10 points is -1, 20 is -2, 30 is -3. 40 is probably going to knock anyone off the saddle automatically (SIZ 20). Quick math: 13->12 on a normal hit, so the probability of successful roll is 64%, about right for old 13. 14 -> 13, so 72%, almost the old 15. But we knew that would happen. It should be OK.

8) Yearly training
- Since higher skill is more efficient, should we limit the Yearly Training?
-> Solution: Capping the 'cheap' skills off at 13 instead of 15 works just about right. Requiring +1 / yearly training to increase to 20. It gives experience more more mileage, too, which I don't think is a bad thing.

Granted, most of the above is just 'rejiggering' the probabilities. I am not sure it would actually change the system all that much, save for making fumbles and crits rarer. Is that a good thing? I think I have been reading a discussion about that, that RPGs are generally 'interesting result'. It is more fun when crits and fumbles are relatively common, since they are BIG, interesting results, rather than simply hammering away at someone's armor uselessly.

Granted, most of the above is just 'rejiggering' the probabilities. I am not sure it would actually change the system all that much, save for making fumbles and crits rarer. Is that a good thing? I think I have been reading a discussion about that, that RPGs are generally 'interesting result'. It is more fun when crits and fumbles are relatively common, since they are BIG, interesting results, rather than simply hammering away at someone's armor uselessly.

I too am a big fan of the bell curve and have played around with both 2d10 and 3d6. My ultimate conclusion is that in Pendragon it just didn't really make things more "fun." The d20 *is* pretty random, but there are so many modifiers, passions,etc. built to work with the existing system I think it would take a complete re-write to make the bell curve work. As Morien pointed out, mechanically Pendragon seems to be about getting critical results. Any deviation from this breaks the existing systems down.

If I were building KAP from the ground up as a new rule system, I'd use 3d6 and make it more "Dungeon World" like. That's a whole lot of work for not a lot of payoff though. The existing systems work and are fun. They are also pretty backwards compatible, which is pretty awesome because you have years of materials that still "work." Personally, I don't think messing with the probabilities really offers a whole lot of value.

That being said, if you like the idea of the 2d10, my suggestion is to try it. You might like it! As long as you understand that it will change the crit probabilities, if you enjoy that better, I don't know that it's necessarily a bad thing. I just know for my taste I prefer the crits (and therefore the d20) as written.

Here is the killer for that idea, though...

Since Pendragon looks just at the absolute value rolled, not the 'success margin', using the bell curve DOES NOT MATTER. You are still rolling about 8-13, and it is almost random who rolls better in any given round. If anything, you are squishing the probability distribution towards the center, making the problem worse, and skills 16-20 almost worthless.

You'd have to either start giving the bonus earlier, in which case you have just rescaled the 20 to 15 or so, and 15 to 13, making the range smaller. Or you'd have to switch to a margin of success mechanic (both roll 10 , skill 12 has a margin of success 2, skill 15 has a margin of success 5, 15 wins). This adds to the effort of the calculation, though.

While different mechanical approaches to any sort of task/skill/combat resolution are always interesting to discuss, one must consider and weigh potential changes with the particular RPG experience. Some RPGs are fun because of the material, while others are fun because of the mechanics. Still others derive fun in combining the two.

In Pendragon's case, it's all about the genre and source material, with a simple mechanic to help facilitate play. At least that's how I see it.

While changing to 2d10, 3d6 or even a 4d6-4 (think JAGS) might seem interesting on the surface, I think the change, however seemingly minor, would profoundly detract from the Pendragon experience itself, which I'm almost certain is not one of GS's design goals. Given Pendragon has historically been hailed, and rightly so, as the best at what it does, a potential change like this would do nothing to improve on what is already a hall of fame RPG.

A change like this would, as previously remarked, drive substantial changes elsewhere. This might open up Pendragon to a larger audience, but would also change the essence of the game. I'm not sure the tradeoff is worth the price.

Changing the basic game system like this would also make all of the past supplements unusable.

Changing the basic game system like this would also make all of the past supplements unusable.


Another very good reason to not do it.

Like I said i the above, you'd pretty much have to dismantle the whole game system to make the change WORK, and at that point, most of the benefits of a bell curve have already been lost.

Changing the basic game system like this would also make all of the past supplements unusable.


And this, more than anything, speaks volumes to where the community stands. As evidenced by its leadership, its primary motivation is to respect the source material and build on its extremely solid foundation, not make money through endless editions and contrived splat books ad nauseum. That loyalty and dedication reflects throughout both the material and people who choose to partake in and support Pendragon.

That said, if you make I WILL BUY IT! ;D

wow, amazed my off the cuff remark generated so much interest.

many thanks to you all, especially Morien, for taking the time on this.

The backwards compatibility doesn't seem to onerous to me (base skills boosted, +/-5 becomes +/-3 etc.) but I can see how it would become annoying.

I still think there is something in there though, but agree the loss of what we in our group have lovingly come to call the 'tink-tink-BOOM!!!' of Pendragon criticals in combat would change the flavour of the game lot. For that reason alone if the change was ever made i would argue against the 3d6 route. Maybe a different setting with less import on armoured combat would be better suited to the adaption of the KAP system? Robin Hood and musketeers maybe?

Its always struck me as odd that there was never a 2d10 system out there (I will happily be corrected if there is one!)

The single biggest problem with creating a bell curve vs. a linear is it is center oriented. Although changes and adaptations can be done to make it very workable, any new gm will be overwhelmed with the amount of changes/modifications he will have to do to take an older book and bring it up to date. And, if someone gets it workable, nails all the bonuses and penalties, then that someone (or someone else) will need to put it in a printable format. By the way, just ask a math person just what this would do to complexity. A bonus of +1 as it is now, is not the same as +1 under a bell curve.

Great idea, as it might help out some problems, but it will create dozens of others.

My thoughts on 2d20 are already in the previous posts. I'll just note that bellcurve doesn't do anything about the randomness unless you change from straight comparison of rolls to margin of success (or roll+skill). And at that point you are talking about a totally different system.

Inverse log! Inverse log!

(We now return you to your regularly scheduled forum...)

Inverse log! Inverse log!
(We now return you to your regularly scheduled forum...)

Har har
you just made my head spin
Math not being my strongest point (we can provide plenty of proof of this), I looked it up
Anything that starts off with

The logarithmic function is the function , where b is any number such that .
is equivalent to
The function is read "log base b of x".

is a bit much for me.
Bjut thanks for the head-spinning! :)

Har har
you just made my head spin
Math not being my strongest point (we can provide plenty of proof of this), I looked it up
Anything that starts off with

The logarithmic function is the function , where b is any number such that .
is equivalent to
The function is read "log base b of x".

is a bit much for me.
Bjut thanks for the head-spinning! :)


Look up: Multivariate Autoregressive State Space Model...if you want your head to explode...

Look up: Multivariate Autoregressive State Space Model...if you want your head to explode...

No thanks
My neck already hurts plenty from my head spinning around

Inverse log! Inverse log!
(We now return you to your regularly scheduled forum...)

Har har
you just made my head spin
Math not being my strongest point (we can provide plenty of proof of this), I looked it up
Anything that starts off with

The logarithmic function is the function , where b is any number such that .
is equivalent to
The function is read "log base b of x".

is a bit much for me.
Bjut thanks for the head-spinning! :)


Glad to be of service!

I would not for one second actually expect anyone to try using a log function, but its beauty is that it gives you the inverse of an exponential curve. In other words, the difference between successive values diminishes as the values increase. So it makes a lot more difference to increase from skill 1 to skill 2 than from say skill 15 to skill 16. That way, a 1d20 roll could represent a check against a threshold representing a potentially open-ended skill where each successive increase in skill offers a marginally smaller improvement compared to the last.

But I personally agree that 1d20 works well. Layering modifiers for things like terrain or passions seems to be most effective on a linear model.