Talk:Balanced Skills (3.5e Variant Rule)

Ratings

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	Dice pools done right.

Graphs

Me likey the graphs. I think graphs for a fixed pool of dice (like 4, 8, and 12 or whatever) and your chances of hitting varying numbers of successes might also be helpful for seeing how the system scales. Any chance you could whip those up since it looks like you've already got the numbers sorted? - TarkisFlux 00:04, January 11, 2010 (UTC)

Sure, though it's a pain since I'm using OpenOffice's crappy graph-maker. That said, before I do that, let me link you here, where you can check it out yourself if you like; the % you want to look at is next to the heading "Cumulative Probability: P(X > 1)". Let me know if that's good enough, or if you still want the graphs. --Ghostwheel 00:11, January 11, 2010 (UTC)

Nah, I can figure them out easily enough, I just figured that the alternate graphs would help complete the big picture with these and help others better see how a specific pool achieves different targets. Don't do it if it's a pain in the ass though, I'll just excel it (which is not a pain in the ass), put them up later, and let you know when they're done so you can link them in if you want. - TarkisFlux 00:51, January 11, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll be happy to put 'em up. So what do you think overall now that we have a graphical representation and actual numbers? :-D --Ghostwheel 00:58, January 11, 2010 (UTC)

And it's here. I haven't looked at the numbers very closely to make sure that they're where they're supposed to be, so I don't have much to add overall yet. - TarkisFlux 01:23, January 11, 2010 (UTC)

Aight, lemme know what you think when ya get a chance to look at 'em. --Ghostwheel 01:37, January 11, 2010 (UTC)

While the rules are statistically sound, I would like to propose a couple of limitations to keep things in with the flavor of certain skills. First of all, only characters with the trapfinding ability can detect traps requiring more than two successes. This could be extended to disabling traps with as well, especially magical traps. Also, a character should only be able to get one success at most for a Knowledge check unless he/she has trained in the skill. These skills represent in depth study and understanding of concepts, something hard to pick up by just watching fellow adventurers.--SiraLinari 03:37, January 15, 2010 (UTC)

Sure, I could see that--I'll add it as one of the suggestions. --Ghostwheel 08:19, January 15, 2010 (UTC)

DC

Changing every DC up to 24 to a requirement of a single success is quite major. For lower level characters, that corresponds to all difficulties from easy to very hard. I think this system has a far lower resolution of difficulties. A lot of feats increase some DC by only one, are those useless in your system? And what should happen to opposed skill checks in this system? -- Iferius 18:06, January 15, 2010 (UTC)

Could you give an example of feats that increase the DCs by one? Since you said "a lot", could you mention... say, three feats?

Spell Focus, Psionic Endowment, [psionic augments], Fist of Heavens, Arcane Consumption.. Very well, there aren't a lot of feats (about one per book), but Spell Focus for instance is not exactly a silly, discardable feat. --Iferius 15:00, January 18, 2010 (UTC)

At least the first two, and perhaps the last two (don't remember them off-hand) are completely horrible examples--notice that they're for DCs of saves, not skill checks. This variant governs skill checks, not saves. --Ghostwheel 15:09, January 18, 2010 (UTC)

After having looked up the last two (in BoED and PHB2 respectively), I stand by the above statement just as strongly. Those all have to do with the DCs of abilities, not skills, would be unaffected by this system, and have nothing to do with it. For a good example of a feat that would lose power under this system, you'd need to go to Stealthy or Alertness instead--but then again, virtually no one takes those feats anyway, though I'll add a caveat for them anyway. --Ghostwheel 19:17, January 18, 2010 (UTC)

That said, it's true that it's a single success required for all the DCs of fairly low-level characters; however, most characters can do DC 15-20 stuff with a masterwork tool (50 gp, +2 to the skill) on top of their usual ability scores--and a +3 magical item costs only 900 gp over that. The people who actually want a good chance of success are going to have higher modifiers, since only once you hit +10 mod before level 5 are you going to reliably (~80% of the time) succeed on a task that requires a single success.

So it works--just from a different point of view, allowing more characters to be less useless while still allowing a character to shine if they invest in a specific skill.--Ghostwheel 13:50, January 16, 2010 (UTC)

I do not agree. There should be a difference in difficulty in hearing people talking next to you while you are distracted(DC 15) and hearing a cat stalk through a door(DC 24). --Iferius 15:00, January 18, 2010 (UTC)

So grant people an extra two dice to hear someone talk if you feel it's unfair and desperately want to use the system. If it really irks you, you can always say that things with a DC of 20 or higher require two successes--the system's very flexible that way. The thing is, people by level 5 can get +10 to +15 to skill modifier just from ranks, ability modifiers, and magical items, and those people are going to be able to do the first one under the original system without any trouble, and not have too much difficulty with the second (being able to take 10 for the most part). That said, if you still see it as a problem, do you have any constructive suggestions that might be used to fix the problem under the framework presented in the variant? Would a good "fix" to your concerns be lowering the DCs appropriate successes, so that 10-19 required one success, 20-29 two success, 30-39 three successes, and so forth? --Ghostwheel 15:09, January 18, 2010 (UTC)

I agree, it is very flexible. But since I can't see a way to fix what I see as a problem at lower levels (this should work perfectly at higher ones), I wouldn't use it. I am trying to tell you constructively why I wouldn't do so, but I don't have any solutions at the ready that don't require heavy DM involvement.

On second thought, maybe I do. How about changing the dice below DC20? Rolling a D4 instead of a D6? And a D3 below DC 15, and a D2 below DC10? You can still require a single success which scales with greater skill, and the rest of the system can go unchanged. Of course, you already use D3's.. --Iferius 08:37, January 19, 2010 (UTC)

How about increasing the "range" by one for DCs below 15? That is, 4-6 count as a success rather than 5-6? --Ghostwheel 08:48, January 19, 2010 (UTC)

That would work. You'd have to do the statistical math, but I think it would be fair (with only one die it would effectively be the d20 system with a d6). -- Iferius 12:28, January 19, 2010 (UTC)

Implemented. --Ghostwheel 01:28, January 20, 2010 (UTC)

Balanced at lower levels?

Take a look at a 1st level rogue, trying to open an "Amazing Lock" (Open Lock DC 40). This would require him to make 3 successes from his dice pool. He gets 2d6(base)+1d6(16 DEX gives +3, 4 ranks makes 7, rounds down to 1d6)=3d6 dice pool. He has to roll a 5 or 6 on all 3 of his dice. That's a 1 in 27 chance of succeeding, right? (My statistics knowledge is pretty terrible, so feel free to just point out where I'm making my mistakes). Looking then at a 5th level rogue he'd have a dice pool of 5d6 (2d6 base, +2d6 for having a +10 in Open Lock, +1d6 for level 5). To perform the same task (DC 40 by normal rules) he'd have to succeed 3 of his 5d6. I think the problem with that is a 1st level rogue shouldn't have a 1 in 27 chance of doing something with a DC of 40, he should be crossing his fingers and praying to succeed a DC 25 skill check. Or is the point of this variant rule to allow for low level characters to do something beyond extraordinary? While I'm totally in favor of this at higher levels (The party /expects/ the 15th level rogue to find /every/ trap, and rolling a 1 can be a real hassle), I find it hard to justify it at lower levels. I hope I'm not coming off as some cranky old gamer yelling "Back in my day, we didn't expect to open locks until we were level 6, and we were grateful!" to some neighborhood hooligans. --The Badger 07:12, January 20, 2010 (UTC)

The way I see it, there are a couple options here; first, the DM puts this as an actual challenge which he expects the PCs to pass. In this case, everything's fine and dandy--they're supposed to pass this. And then there's the possibility that it's a door that they're not supposed to be able to unlock no matter what, in which case the DM can say, "No, it's beyond your ability" and be done with it. Either way works decently. Note that the PCs would actually have to *roll* that 1/27 chance, since they would never be able to open it even if they got lucky--that 1/27 chance if the tiny miracle possibility, and has an even smaller chance of happening than critting on a specific hit. It's enough standard deviations away from the middle that one can simply call what it is, an outlier, and ignore it for the most part, concentrating on skill checks that PCs are actually expected to pass compared to their level. Let's look at one of those--something that would normally be DC 15-20. The trained rogue, in the above example, would get 3 dice, and need one success; he's got around a 70% chance of doing so successfully, which sounds like what a rogue should be getting for a specced check at his level IMO. And it doesn't bar other characters from trying and having a vague chance of succeeding either if we're not talking about trained-only skills, allowing the party to get by without having a dedicated party "face" or allowing all the characters to be able to cross the slippery log over the moat in an anti-magic field without having most of them automatically fail despite them being level 20 adventurers. --Ghostwheel 08:13, January 20, 2010 (UTC)

I think the major concern comes down to the DC ranges for the conversion, which you mentioned in the above post. I think 9 is probably too big of a range between high and low ends of each DC Class. Maybe 5 would be better, I don't know. As mentioned above, the difference between DC 15 vs DC 24 is dramatic. I'd probably go with a "<15 takes 1 success, 15-19 needs 2, 20-24 needs 3, 25-29 needs 4... system", at which point you'd have to rework how often you get dice (every +4 modifier, and every 4 levels, perhaps). That way you'd need 7 success to do a DC 40 action, which you'd only be able to do if you trained that skill. In your example of the slippery log, my math says that's DC 15. So a 8th level character should be able to pull that off without being trained in Balance (having 4d6 to make 2 successes), and a trained character (with max ranks would have 7d6 and need 2 successes) should have no trouble at all. Then the problem of having to roll a fistful of dice every door becomes a bigger challenge, as a 20th level rogue maxed in Balance with a 22 DEX would be rolling 14d6. Of course, at this point I have pretty much rewritten your entire Variant Rule... --The Badger 00:19, January 21, 2010 (UTC)

The Graphs

They are missing. --DanielDraco (talk) 10:45, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

They're on the old wiki (wikia, I think). --Ghostwheel (talk) 11:22, 27 December 2012 (UTC)