A thing I sometimes want to do is "roll twice; if zero rolls succeed the effect is X, if one succeeds the effect is Y, if both succeed the effect is Z". This has something in common with both advantage (it's the same if Y and Z are the same) and disadvantage (it's the same if X and Y are the same), but it's neither one. Is there any mechanic like that?
Not in Dungeons & Dragons, however there are other game systems which employ a similar mechanic of using dice pools and counting the number of successes. One example would be the World of Darkness series.
In D&D, the closest thing I can think of is Chaos Bolt.
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In D&D, effects with varying levels of results are typically phrased as having different effects based on the final roll - e.g. if you pass a roll you get one effect, if you fail it you get another, if you fail it by more than 5 you get something even worse. Those aren't common but I've seen them in adventures.
In D&D, effects with varying levels of results are typically phrased as having different effects based on the final roll - e.g. if you pass a roll you get one effect, if you fail it you get another, if you fail it by more than 5 you get something even worse. Those aren't common but I've seen them in adventures.
The catoblepas has an effect like this with its death ray. Success on the save is half damage, fail is normal, and fail by more than 5 is max damage. You could use something like that to approximate the effect
Yeah I can’t think of all the sources, but there are several “fail by more than 5” effects. I’m not certain whether there are any “succeed by more than 5”?
While 5E may not take much advantage of that system, banding success grades based on high succeed/succeed/fail/very fail is the 5E version of what you’re describing, and it was present in 4E and 3.5 as well. I’m not sure whether your multiple dice rolls were in those prior systems at all.
Panta, it sounds like you're just describing a DC chart where the results are tiered.
If what you're trying to do is convert a DC chart down to a # successes chart, I'd recommend you parameterize 1 "success" as equal to a DC 5 result, and scale your resulting table up from there for additional successes. Most systems using this call a "success" rolling 0 on a d10, but whatever method you want to use works.
The tricky thing is figuring out what a reasonable amount of dice for a player to roll is, and I don't have a good conversion ratio for that off the top of my head. :/
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Actually wait, I know where # of successes comes from! 4E Skill Challenges, the thing that everyone hated for some reason that was never really made clear!
Oh, **** me, I've shoved basically all knowledge of 4e into the deeeepest recesses of my memory. Nobody wants to remember that. XD
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Actually wait, I know where # of successes comes from! 4E Skill Challenges, the thing that everyone hated for some reason that was never really made clear!
I hated skill challenges because they broke the math -- it was supposed to be a way to get all the PCs involved in an investigation, but the actually mechanical optional solution was to have only the one person with the highest chance try to roll.
Note that the equivalent does exist in two areas in 5e: death checks are a challenge (3 successes before 3 failures), as is resisting Contagion.
Skill Challenges didn't allow one person to make all the rolls, or one skill to be used repeatedly, so I don't feel that's really a valid criticism of that system. It encouraged the guy really good at Flute to consistently make Flutes a thing, the nerd to bring History up other than in the library, the scary guy to find chances to Intimidate that didn't piss off the rest of the party, etc etc.... overall, I think that it was one of the things that 4E hands down did better than D&D before and after.
Skill Challenges didn't allow one person to make all the rolls, or one skill to be used repeatedly, so I don't feel that's really a valid criticism of that system. It encouraged the guy really good at Flute to consistently make Flutes a thing, the nerd to bring History up other than in the library, the scary guy to find chances to Intimidate that didn't piss off the rest of the party, etc etc.... overall, I think that it was one of the things that 4E hands down did better than D&D before and after.
The rules for skill challenges did not require multiple PCs to roll, and did allow reusing any primary skill (though at higher DC if done by the same character), nor did they have clearly defined time limits. The limits on skill reuse did mean that you likely wanted more than one PC, but still left lots of PCs where their most valuable possible contribution was to stand quietly doing nothing.
This wasn't the intent of the rules, but it was how they were written. My solution was generally to have per-character Bad Stuff instead of a universal "it fails at 3"; thus, extra characters were likely to be a net asset just because they could soak up more Bad Stuff.
Really? Huh, that does kind of suck. Not necessarily any more than a system which only allows one skill check from the group (optionally with someone else Helping), but certainly not as good as I remembered it being.
A thing I sometimes want to do is "roll twice; if zero rolls succeed the effect is X, if one succeeds the effect is Y, if both succeed the effect is Z". This has something in common with both advantage (it's the same if Y and Z are the same) and disadvantage (it's the same if X and Y are the same), but it's neither one. Is there any mechanic like that?
Not in Dungeons & Dragons, however there are other game systems which employ a similar mechanic of using dice pools and counting the number of successes. One example would be the World of Darkness series.
In D&D, the closest thing I can think of is Chaos Bolt.
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In D&D, effects with varying levels of results are typically phrased as having different effects based on the final roll - e.g. if you pass a roll you get one effect, if you fail it you get another, if you fail it by more than 5 you get something even worse. Those aren't common but I've seen them in adventures.
Pathfinder does something like that with regards to saves, in that it has varing degrees of making them. But in regular D&D, nothing like it.
The catoblepas has an effect like this with its death ray. Success on the save is half damage, fail is normal, and fail by more than 5 is max damage. You could use something like that to approximate the effect
Yeah I can’t think of all the sources, but there are several “fail by more than 5” effects. I’m not certain whether there are any “succeed by more than 5”?
While 5E may not take much advantage of that system, banding success grades based on high succeed/succeed/fail/very fail is the 5E version of what you’re describing, and it was present in 4E and 3.5 as well. I’m not sure whether your multiple dice rolls were in those prior systems at all.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Panta, it sounds like you're just describing a DC chart where the results are tiered.
If what you're trying to do is convert a DC chart down to a # successes chart, I'd recommend you parameterize 1 "success" as equal to a DC 5 result, and scale your resulting table up from there for additional successes. Most systems using this call a "success" rolling 0 on a d10, but whatever method you want to use works.
The tricky thing is figuring out what a reasonable amount of dice for a player to roll is, and I don't have a good conversion ratio for that off the top of my head. :/
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Actually wait, I know where # of successes comes from! 4E Skill Challenges, the thing that everyone hated for some reason that was never really made clear!
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Oh, **** me, I've shoved basically all knowledge of 4e into the deeeepest recesses of my memory. Nobody wants to remember that. XD
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
I hated skill challenges because they broke the math -- it was supposed to be a way to get all the PCs involved in an investigation, but the actually mechanical optional solution was to have only the one person with the highest chance try to roll.
Note that the equivalent does exist in two areas in 5e: death checks are a challenge (3 successes before 3 failures), as is resisting Contagion.
Skill Challenges didn't allow one person to make all the rolls, or one skill to be used repeatedly, so I don't feel that's really a valid criticism of that system. It encouraged the guy really good at Flute to consistently make Flutes a thing, the nerd to bring History up other than in the library, the scary guy to find chances to Intimidate that didn't piss off the rest of the party, etc etc.... overall, I think that it was one of the things that 4E hands down did better than D&D before and after.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
The rules for skill challenges did not require multiple PCs to roll, and did allow reusing any primary skill (though at higher DC if done by the same character), nor did they have clearly defined time limits. The limits on skill reuse did mean that you likely wanted more than one PC, but still left lots of PCs where their most valuable possible contribution was to stand quietly doing nothing.
This wasn't the intent of the rules, but it was how they were written. My solution was generally to have per-character Bad Stuff instead of a universal "it fails at 3"; thus, extra characters were likely to be a net asset just because they could soak up more Bad Stuff.
Really? Huh, that does kind of suck. Not necessarily any more than a system which only allows one skill check from the group (optionally with someone else Helping), but certainly not as good as I remembered it being.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I loved the idea behind skill challenges. It's just the implementation that lost me.