Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Athenna 06-02-04, 07:44 PM	As finally coming back to the game from having life take over, i have thought hard on this subject. I was thinking of changing 20's and 1's from automatic hits and misses to +10 -10 respectively, with my players permission of course. My reason behind this is that a collosal red dragon shouldn't be hit by a level 1 halfling throwing a rock and take 1d3 damage from that. If it hits it would be like a pebble being thrown at me, lightly. But at the same time there are flukes, so on a 20 you have to roll again for confirmation, well, make it so that 2 twenties in a row is a garanteed hit, instead of 1 in 20 chance it's now a 1 in 400. Then, on the other end also, At the higher levels you could roll anything, even with a -10 penalty, and still hit something very low level. So the same thing, if you get 2 ones in a row then you automatically miss. However, the bottom end idea sort of screws up the failure thing, having the player roll to see if the weapon is dropped. I'll have to think on that one. Anyway, what do you think of this idea? I'm looking for suggestions or critique on why this will or won't work. Thanks!
Edymnion 06-02-04, 07:50 PM	Thats fine, -10 and 30 is actually a varient rule presented in the Epic Level Handbook. Far as non-epic goes, its essentially the same. I'd drop the confirmation auto-hit and auto-fail though. Either play with the autos, or don't, but mixing and matching is going to slow things down too much, IMO. Especially considering you have to confirm the auto-hit, then confirm the critical hit.
PenderGrass 06-02-04, 08:17 PM	Better yet, just make all Skill Checks, Attack Rolls and Saving Throws open-ended. This means a 20 or 1, yields another d20 roll (with a '1' giving the follow-up roll a minus 20, and a natural '20' adding another d20 atop it). This allows easy progression to levels higher than normal (read - Epic Levels), where die rolls of 50+ may become a standard roll needed.
Edymnion 06-02-04, 11:26 PM	Sweet Mother of Malox, what do you do when somebody wants to take 20 on something and effectively gets an infinitely high result?
Athenna 06-03-04, 12:04 AM	I don't think it would add many (if any) extra die roles to the game. I'll try to show with 2 examples. Example 1: PC LV1 vs. Kobold Very simple, what number is displayed is what the d20 roles Roll 1: 16, hit. Not in crit range, and beats the armour Roll 2: 20, hit. Since we know it beats the armour with a 30, we just roll to see whether or not the crit hits Example 2: PC LV1 vs. Red Dragon Great Wyrm (AC 41) Rather unbalanced, but just to show what i mean. Roll 1: 16, miss. Not much to explain here Roll 2: 20, miss. A roll of 30 doesn't beat that 41, but under the other system, a 20 is an automatic hit. So we roll again (we would roll anyway, to confirm the cirt). Roll 2b: 10, miss. No damage is done BUT lets see what would happen if another 20 is rolled... Roll 2b: 20, hit. We actually hit the dragon! But we only deal regular damage instead of the extra critical though. To me, this makes sense, because it's possible that a level 1 character could aim a stone and hit the dragon right in the eye, or the perfect slice to a mm of exposed flesh. The same thing the other way. Even the most experienced warrior will miss an attack occasionally.
Athenna 06-03-04, 01:09 AM	After thinking about it, It does get a bit confusing (though it does add a bit more realism IMO) so i won't implement it.
Nom 06-03-04, 01:48 AM	(1) -10/+30 is also included as a variant in the 3.5 DMG. (2) A variant I've considered (but never had opportunity to implement) is to roll even when taking 20. A natural 1 implies a 10. A natural 20 implies a 30. Anything else is 20. No rerolls. This preserves the chance of obtaining an exceptional result, while still allowing taking 20 to work as normal.
Gothic_Demon 06-03-04, 07:47 AM	Sweet Mother of Malox, what do you do when somebody wants to take 20 on something and effectively gets an infinitely high result?Easy, their first roll is a 20, guaranteed. Now get rolling for the rest. Or, the first roll is a 20, and if they want another guaranteed twenty, that also takes 20 times as long as a normal try (so currently at 40 times a normal try length), and so on and so forth. Yeah, you can reach any DC, given long enough...
RainCloud 06-03-04, 11:50 AM	if you wanna go that way its fine. but imo, using that rule creates one small problem level 10 party goes into kobold lair - there are 5,000 of them in the dark recesses of the mountain side where the lava pits heat the rock just right. The PCs go in and wipe them out. Why? They can't be hit. And are you telling me out of 5,000 kobolds, not even one can get a good shot in? This is why I like the instant death variant. It keeps PCs from destroying your world as no one is going to mess with 5,000 kobolds as it only takes one to get a lucky shot.
PenderGrass 06-03-04, 12:18 PM	Sweet Mother of Malox, what do you do when somebody wants to take 20 on something and effectively gets an infinitely high result? I don't allow Take 20 in my game - it is a stupid rule. If something is simple enough to accomplish by saying "I Take 20" then I am willing enough to just say "You tie your shoes very well" and skip the whole stupid thing that way. But, that is all listed under the thread - TAKING 20 IS STUPID Now, if I were to have it in my game, I would follow Gothic_Demon's advice - except I would only allow one '20' per skill check. But, then again, the Take 20 rule is stupid. Did I mention that? Taking 20 is stupid. :D
RainCloud 06-03-04, 12:51 PM	this probably shouldnt be here...but Ill say it anyway I think taking 20 is fine, it takes one minute and provokes AoO each round. So thats 10 rounds of beatings in combat, and a concentration check each time to continue the action. So please....take 20 :devil:
Dravenous 06-03-04, 03:01 PM	You can take 20 only on skill checks and auto success and fails do not apply to skill checks.