I’m hauntingly late to the party, and can’t play much these days.

I’m hauntingly late to the party, and can’t play much these days.

I’m hauntingly late to the party, and can’t play much these days. But, I used to do a game design thing where I looked at mechanics and gave players suggestions for decisions: #dicenerdery ahead. Sorry if a repeat.

I’m only look at basic mechanics here, but special abilities shouldn’t change too much. I crunched numbers on dice, and here are the big points:

Key Takeaways

Rolling 2d and keeping the lowest … is a really bad idea. Just awful. Push it and get 1d if you can.

The shift from 1d to 2d is worth it.

Your character gets really effective at 4D (duh). Anything lower means failure or partial success is more likely.

Every die you add cuts your chances for a bad outcome in half! So, ask yourself, what’s good enough for this situation?

* Do you just want at least some success? Settle for about 3d.

* Do you really need full success? Shoot for 4d. It’s usually worth it.

Details below…

11 thoughts on “I’m hauntingly late to the party, and can’t play much these days.”

  1. Rolling 2d, keep lowest (don’t!)

    Bad outcome: 75.0%. 3 in 4 times!

    Partial success: 22.2% Less than a quarter

    Full success: 2.8% That’s only one time in 35! Almost half as often as you roll at natural 20 in D&D!

  3. Rolling 2d

    Bad outcome: 25.0% Or 1 in 4

    Partial success: 44.4% Less than half the time

    Full success: 30.6% Less than a third of the time

    Critical!: 2.8% Not even 3% of the time (Again, about 1 in 35, less than a D&D crit)

  4. Rolling 3d

    Bad outcome: 12.5% 1 in 8

    Partial success: 45.4% Less than half

    Full success: 42.1% Noticably less than half

    Critical!: 7.4% Almost 7.5% of the time

  5. Rolling 4d

    Bad outcome: 6.3% About 1 in 16

    Partial success: 42.0% Noticeably less than half

    Full success: 51.8% Slightly better than half

    Critical!: 13.2% More than 1 in 10

  6. Rolling 5d

    Bad outcome: 3.1% About 1 in 32

    Partial success: 37.1% Better than a third of the time

    Full success: 59.8% Basically 3 out of 5 times

    Critical!: 19.6% Almost 1 in 5

  7. Rolling 6d (watch out Devil!)

    Bad outcome: 1.6% Less than 2%! It’s almost skim milk

    Partial success: 31.9% Slightly less than a third

    Full success: 66.5% About 2 in 3

    Critical!: 26.3% More than 1 in 4!

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