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9littlebees
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Hacking the Skill Dice

Sun 04 Mar 2018, 12:03

I'm considering doing this for my own hack - but want to hear your thoughts on replacing Skill Dice with a stepped die mechanic, similar to Artefact Dice. Let me explain...

First off, I would cap Skills at rank 3 (Novice, Journeyman, Master), with each rank granting a D6, D8 or D10.  Experience costs for upgrading would have a serious overhaul (I'm currently thinking 5 times the new rank, with rank 3 also requiring a significant in-game story to justify becoming a master of your craft).

As for modifiers, in the RAW they add or remove dice to the Skill Dice pool, and any 1s on them are ignored for pushed rolls.  So modifiers here would upgrade or downgrade the Skill dice, with the minimum being none, and the maximum being D12.  So the steps would go: None, D6, D8, D10, D12.  I've toyed with the idea of going D12+1 and D12+2 where the +1 and +2 are added to the D12's roll result (so a 10 on the dice equals a 12), but I think this gets too extreme and a bit too crunchy.

Multiple successes would follow how things are done on the Artefact Dice.  So 6-7 = 1 success; 8-9 = 2 successes; 10-11 = 3 successes; 12 = 4 successes

Here is a table of probabilities, showing probability of rolling a single success on existing Skill Dice pools, versus the new version:

Image

OK, so why would I want to do this?
  1. Far fewer dice to roll (IMO a big draw, especially for characters with significant experience).  Players would only need about about 5 each of Base and Gear Dice, then one each (D6, D8, D10, D12) from an existing polyset.
  2. Each upgrade to the Skill Die gives a much bigger jump in probability of success than an extra D6, making Skills a bit more powerful (This should be balanced by capping how many can start at Level 2 during Chargen). On the flip side, maxing out on a skill only gives a D10, which gives less probability of success than 5D6. This makes "higher-level" PC's a little bit less certain of success, hopefully prompting more pushed rolls.
  3. Capping the modifiers to a D12 removes the possibility of excessive pools of skill dice. This does somewhat hurt the certainty of success, but it should also help things move a little bit faster at the table. Example, a PC has a Skill rank of 2 (a D8 on the Skill Die). An applicable talent then grants a +1D (taking the Skill Die to a D10), and a situational modifier gives her another +1D (taking her to a D12). Rather than searching for even more possibilities of adding positive modifiers, she is at the cap and so gets on with the roll.
Anyway, there are a few other things I could comment on, but those three are the biggest reasons. So what do you all think?
I make YZE games (https://drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?author=Matt%20Kay) and produce predominately Free League content on my YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/@3skulls)
 
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Klas
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Re: Hacking the Skill Dice

Sun 04 Mar 2018, 12:25

I suppose you still add base dice as RAW?
 
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9littlebees
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Re: Hacking the Skill Dice

Sun 04 Mar 2018, 14:33

I suppose you still add base dice as RAW?
Yes, and Gear Dice, too (though I wouldn't use Artefact Dice).
I make YZE games (https://drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?author=Matt%20Kay) and produce predominately Free League content on my YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/@3skulls)

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