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Hey there!

I have had a few ideas floating in my head about the way certain things are handled with dice and I figured I would share.



#1 - Rolling a Natural 20 on checks /////

Have you ever rolled a natural 20 on something and gone "man, that was a bit underwhelming"?

Typically, in the tabletop game, if you were to do something like this,(such as rolling a nat20 on lockpicking a chest) your DM might say "and you noticed something next to the chest as well" as basically a "good job" for rolling a crit on a check.

Basically, depending on how high you roll on something, different things could happen.

Maybe rolling a nat20 on any perception could spawn an RNG item from a list of items specifically meant for this kind of thing.


#2 - Different things happen the higher you roll /////

Another thing that we would do with our plays, is depending on how high you roll, different things could happen.
For instance, if the game is calling for a 5, did you roll right at 5? Or did you roll 10 or 17?
Your roll determines how well you performed your action, so if it only required a 5 and you rolled a 17, it would indicate that you performed it quite well.
In certain circumstances, it would be really neat to see this be considered. I think even doing what I suggested in #1 would be the first step in this.



#3 - Critical Hits and Fumbles /////

One fun thing that we introduced to our campaigns was a 100 point list of critical misses and critical hits that we played with, that allowed us to have really good or really bad things happen to us when these circumstances arose. Here is an example of the list for anyone interested:
https://www.angelfire.com/dragon3/vinifera/critical_hit_table_2e.pdf

I think it would be really nice to at least have this as an option. This really spiced up gameplay and I think it would translate really well into Baldurs Gate.

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Originally Posted by Criminon
#2 - Different things happen the higher you roll /////

Another thing that we would do with our plays, is depending on how high you roll, different things could happen.
For instance, if the game is calling for a 5, did you roll right at 5? Or did you roll 10 or 17?
Your roll determines how well you performed your action, so if it only required a 5 and you rolled a 17, it would indicate that you performed it quite well.
In certain circumstances, it would be really neat to see this be considered. I think even doing what I suggested in #1 would be the first step in this.
+1

Degrees of success and degrees of failure seem important in a D&D videogame where the DM can't adjust to the party's expectations/composition/skill chosen/weird decisions on the fly. Especially since 5e has bounded accuracy with a d20 system, resulting in wildly varying rolls where the d20 has a HUGE effect.

A 4 stage system could work well:
- roll 6+ below the DC? Terrible outcome
- roll 1-5 below the DC? Moderately bad outcome, possibly you get what you want but with a penalty
- roll 0-4 above the DC? Moderately good outcome, basic goal met.
- roll 5+ above the DC? Great outcome. Get what you want and even more!

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+1

Great ideas

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+1

Yep, good ideas.

When I see the 20 roll up, it conjures up a sense of good fortune and success...but nothing different happens than if you needed a 10 and rolled exactly a 10.

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Great idea.

Last edited by fylimar; 12/07/22 06:17 AM.

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Thanks everyone!

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Im sory, but i have to say that i dont like it ...

For one, it seems like invisible change ...
If i pick lock on some chest, and get exceptionaly good roll ... and then there would be some extra reward, i would never think "HA! I just lockpicked this so well, so another 200 gold coins materialized here!" ... i would just think "Hey, good chest.".

For two, it doesnt make sense from narative perspective ...
Yes, we dont "know" (unless its our 107th playthrough) what is in any chest until we open it, but its really weird to have different reward based on your roll.

For three, consisency ...
When i roll for lockpicking ... what i expect is lockpicking result, so any "oh and also you noticed another bag nearby" ... no i didnt, or at least i should not ... i was focused on lockpicking and if there is something to notice, that should be separated-perception roll. :-/

But i dont think it have to be necesary bad idea ...
Back in the days when lockpicking actualy consumed our lockpicks (i must admit that im not entirely sure, but i believe it doesnt anymore) there was an idea that nat 1 should make the lock stuck > therefore make it unlockpickable (unless you reroll using your inspiration) ... nat 20 should make our lockpicking so perfect, that we would not even damage our tool ... and everything in between would be normal, aka abowe DC > unlock for the price of lockpick, under DC > dont unlock AND loose lockpick for trying.

I liked that idea much more to be honest.


If my comments bother you, there is nothing easier than telling me to stop.
I mean ... I won't ... but it's easy to say. wink

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