Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 lkwpeter Aug 09, 2014 12:11:21	Hey there!   We are thinking of taking two D10 in exchange of one D20, because we don't like the dispersion of the D20. Sometimes it kills the whole game, because some one has got bad luck. The chance of "bad luck" is just smaller with two D10.    Well, normally this seems to be a very inconspicious change, but I think there is a lot to think of.    a) So what needs to be taken into account when changing dices?    - Amor Class of monster/players? - XP of encounters? - Fixed bonuses of Feats and features?    b) Are there even more things to consider? Is it hard to convert these things or is it just possible to build a table with stats that can be taken in exchange (e.g. all monsters with AC 14 get AC 15 because of the rolling >14)?   c) Is worth to translate all those stats or should we keep them like they are?   Would be glad about answers!   Kind regards, Peter
#2 TDarien Aug 09, 2014 15:08:12	If I were to change from using 1d20 for rolls, I would use 1d8 + 1d12 over 2d10.  That give a much flatter curve than 2d10, as you can see here.
#3 Proletheus Aug 09, 2014 15:17:50	I'm not sure this will work out too well. 2d10 has a much higher chance for a middle-ground result than 1d20. Therefore, overcoming hard challenges would be tougher and easy challenges would become a riskless joke imo.
#4 DM_HEEGZ Aug 09, 2014 15:31:59	What would you do with your d20 then? This is pretty much a d20 game and the mechanics are built around it. Why stop at 2d10 and not go to 5d4 ?   I'm sorry for not addressing your points, but I can't get past the idea of not using the d20. There are other game systems.
#5 AaronOfBarbaria Aug 09, 2014 16:07:19	You've got to take the "Rolling a 1 or a 20" rules into consideration. Automatically missing an attack roll, scoring an automatic hit and a critical hit, suffering 2 failed death saves at once, and being able to regain 1 HP while dying key to rolling a 1 or a 20 on their respective rolls.   That means a 5% chance that each of those things happens.   If you simply switch to 2d10 and replacing rolling a 1 with rolling a 2 (minimum result on the related dice) you are reducing that 5% chance to a 1% chance, and if you leave rolling a 20 you are doing the same thing on that end.   And if you want to keep the same chance... well... that gets complicated. The easiest way I can think of to do it is mandate that one of the d10 be declared the "first" die, and the other the "second" so that you can have the rule be if the first d10 rolls a 1 (10% chance) and the second rolls odd (50% chance, combined with the earlier chance is 5%) then the "rolled a 1" effects take place, and if the first die rolls a 10 and the second rolls odd then the effects of "rolling a 20" take place.   ...and then features like the Champion's improved critical range increase the numbers that can be rolled on the first d10 (specifically, an 19-20 critical range would be 9-10 on first die, odd on second, and an 18-20 range would be 8-10 on the first, odd on the second).
#6 mrpopstar Aug 09, 2014 20:08:11	Something to consider: Using 2d10, how would you address Advantage and Disadvantage?
#7 RCanine Aug 09, 2014 20:15:10	This site does a nice job at illustrating the different distributions in possible results:   http://anydice.com/   For example, with 2d10 you have a 44% chance of rolling between 9 and 13, and only 10% chance of rolling over 16. With 1d20 those numbers are 25% and 20% respectively. Go ahead an try it, but I think it will make the game less exciting.
#8 Overpromises Aug 09, 2014 20:38:38	lkwpeter wrote:
#9 Sherman Aug 09, 2014 23:05:48	Heh. The game has been out a day and you're breaking a core mechanic. This feels like trolling. If you're serious, I too seriously recommend another game.
#10 Aexalon Aug 10, 2014 4:50:50	For low and high systemic ranges (1, 20, 19-20, 18-20) on 1d20 you can use the following conversions: 1 (5% in d20) -> 2-4 (6% in 2d10, 6.25% in 1d8+1d12) 20 (5% in d20) -> 18-20 (6% in 2d10, 6.25% in 1d8+1d12) 19-20 ( 10% in d20) -> 17-20 (10% in 2d10, 10.42% in 1d8+1d12) 18-20 (15% in d20) -> 16-20 (15% in 2d10, 15.63% in 1d8+1d12) As for advantage/disadvantage, I'd add a d10 to both 2d10 and 1d8+1d12, and in case of advantage, use the best 2 of the 3, and in case of disadvantage, use the worst 2 of the 3. Calculating the result table for that one is going to take a while, though (1000 results for 2d10, 960 results for 1d8+1d12, vs 400 results for 1d20)... some experimenting with anydice.com for 2d10 leads me to believe that this sort of advantage would be a fair bit different (hard to call it stronger or weaker) than the regular advantage for 1d20: mean 13.82 in d20 <-> mean 13.48 in 2d10 1 (0.25% in d20) <-> 2-4 (1.1% in 2d10) 20 (9.75% in d20) <-> 18-20 (14.9% in 2d10) 19-20 ( 19% in d20) <-> 17-20 (23.4% in 2d10) 18-20 (27.75% in d20) <-> 16-20 (32.7% in 2d10)
#11 lkwpeter Aug 10, 2014 6:30:18	Hey all,   first of all thanks for your active commentation.    I read some posts aksing why we are going to change the core game. And some even named it "trolling".   Well, we played D&D 3.5E for a long time. Besides the advantage/disadvantage changes the "core system" (rolling DCs with a D20) is still the same in 5E. So within all that years playing we had a lot of evenings, where some of us felt disappointed because of "bad luck" or rather "bad rolling". And we discussed about that.     We came to the point where we thought that the D20 just makes the game to much dependend of luck. Then some one said that there was a rule alternative in 3.5E giving the possibility to play with 2x D10 instead of one D20 and we considered that. (I didn't find it anymore, but instead I found a 3D6 alternative for example: http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/resources/systems/pennpaper/dnd35/soveliorsage/unearthedRolls.html)     To quote Aexalon, we considered to use it exact the same way, he described it (I deleted the D8 variant):     Aexalon wrote:
#12 alienux Aug 10, 2014 8:18:16	lkwpeter wrote:
#13 Elendur Aug 14, 2014 13:15:12	Usually the pain of bad luck is balanced by the joy of good luck.  Has it not been the case in your experience?  Rolling a 1 at the wrong time is at least memorable.  And nothing beats a 20 when you need it the most.
#14 mycroftb Aug 14, 2014 19:47:45	I totally support hacking the game.  If you and your players are having a good time, don't let anyone tell you it's badwrong fun.  Sure, there are two dozen ways to combine regular lego bricks, but you can also drill a hole and make keychain danglies.   I can't think of anything else to add, except to echo the advice on keeping an eye on encounter difficulty.  By making it less swingy, it's more attritiony, so easy encounters will be easier and hard encounters will be harder.   I swore there used to be a houserules / homebrew forum, and this type of thing would be better posted and discussed there, instead of a forum about actual rules, but I don't see one.  Only a Homebrew Setting forum, which this isn't.