11-24-2018, 02:11 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Jun 2012
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The 3D - 4D - 5D Heresy
Die rolls in TFT are based on bell curves, usually 3D6. But when the going gets tough, you don’t adjust the result of the die rolls, instead you just roll more dice. The bell curve for 4 dice is much higher than 3 dice. The average roll on 3D6 is 10.5, and an adjusted skill level of 10 will succeed 50% of the time. But on 4 dice that changes to 15.9%. That seems like excessively harsh. If you go to 5 dice the chance of success if your skill level is 10 is 3.24%.
Now, when SJ lost the rights to TFT, he started working on the Great Unnamed Role Playing System (AKA GURPS, I remember the great reveal that changed “Great Unnamed” to “Great Universal”). At this time SJ changed to using 3D6 for all rolls, and adjusted the results by +1, -2, or something. Still keeping an adjusted skill level of 10, 3D6 is still 50%. Adding 1 to the die results (an adjusted skill level of 9) gives 37.5%, +2 gives 25.93%, and +3 gives 16.2%. These odds seem more reasonable. It’s almost as if SJ was using experience from TFT to the design of GURPS. Now that SJGames bought the rights to TFT, reviving a beloved game from my youth, we’re back to adding dice. While it’s easy enough to house-rule 4D6 to 3D6+1 and 5D6 to 3D6+2, I’d like to see something official on this. I think it’s just too much for 50% odds to change to 15.9%. I know that SJ will probably be against this, which is why I’m calling it a heresy. SJGames could have a PDF that says: If the GM wants to change the odds of very hard feats he may want to change 4D to 3D6+2, and 5D to 3D6+3. There can be tables showing the effect this would have. What do you think? --- I got the percentages from https://anydice.com/program/9350 |
11-24-2018, 05:09 PM | #2 | ||
Join Date: May 2015
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Re: The 3D - 4D - 5D Heresy
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Now, I do think some house-rulers, and perhaps some of the new edition's rules, have a tendency to jump too quickly to "just add or subtract another die" mechanics without analyzing and reflecting upon the results of doing so, but I think most of the original places where 4 or more dice are used, are more or less appropriate in difficulty for what they are. Quote:
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11-24-2018, 06:02 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Aug 2018
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Re: The 3D - 4D - 5D Heresy
[QUOTE=bactram1;2224161]Die rolls in TFT are based on bell curves, usually 3D6. But when the going gets tough, you don’t adjust the result of the die rolls, instead you just roll more dice. The bell curve for 4 dice is much higher than 3 dice. The average roll on 3D6 is 10.5, and an adjusted skill level of 10 will succeed 50% of the time.
A beginning 32 pt. character has an average stat (ST, DX,or IQ) of 10.67, and would actually make an ability check more than 50% of the time. Of course your adjDX might be lower, but that trade off of armor and hits stopped vs. chance of success is a big part of what makes TFT unique. Also the game is designed so that you may rapidly gain your first several attribute points, so your chances of making 3D or even 4D rolls changes fast for those attributes you choose to improve. |
11-24-2018, 06:14 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pacheco, California
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Re: The 3D - 4D - 5D Heresy
The game requires GMIC-ary and that means there are characters with IQ 20 who have a 77% chance of passing a five die roll. Which IQ 15 characters only have a 30% chance of.
If instead you made this a 3d roll at -8 then the IQ 20 character would have a 74% chance while the IQ 15 character would be down at 16%. Adding dice makes for a more even playing field for the non-freaks than slapping on huge modifiers instead.
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11-24-2018, 07:55 PM | #5 | |
Join Date: Jun 2012
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Re: The 3D - 4D - 5D Heresy
Quote:
I suppose the heresy should remain a heresy. I'll stick with the 4D6 and 5D6 rolls. Thanks. |
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11-29-2018, 03:19 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: New Jersey
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Re: The 3D - 4D - 5D Heresy
As someone who's into statistics, I too thought that rolling 4d against an attribute is a very steep difference.
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11-29-2018, 03:39 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Austin, TX
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Re: The 3D - 4D - 5D Heresy
Another whopping difference is that the result tends more and more toward the middle values as the number of dice increases. That's a serous change, IMO.
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12-01-2018, 03:20 PM | #9 |
Join Date: May 2018
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Re: The 3D - 4D - 5D Heresy
For this, we had a discussion awhile ago about rolling 3 dice of one color and extra dice of a different color, with the 3 dice determining critical/automatic success/failure (for 2 die-rolls, roll two of one color and and extra one of another and ignore the extra one if it's not critical/automatic).
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