Given WotC's history with digital tools, Phase 2 will never come out of beta, Phase 3 will never come out at all, competing third-party tools will be hit with C&Ds, and then just as Phase 1 (maybe 2) gets really solid it will be time for D&D 6E and all the digital tools will be abandoned, though you're welcome to keep paying your subscription.
But man those bullshots will look awesomepretty good okay I guess.
Curse is pretty good about putting stuff out. I used to use Curse Voice all the time and it was pretty goddamn great.
But it's just Skype.
Literally it's just a skin on Skype with a game overlay.
The fact that DDB is a web tool and not a clunky program you have to download and run tells me that curse has evolved from back in the day. That's good at least.
I wonder if part of their twitch login requirement has to do with them planning on twitch integration for streamed games.
The fact that DDB is a web tool and not a clunky program you have to download and run tells me that curse has evolved from back in the day. That's good at least.
I wonder if part of their twitch login requirement has to do with them planning on twitch integration for streamed games.
I think they are generally trying to transition all their other Curse properties over to Twitch logins as well. Like the mods website and stuff has an option to merge your Curse and Twitch accounts. So I imagine all new properties will be Twitch logins, just to avoid all the duplication.
That said, the reason you don't have a "login with Facebook option" is almost definitely so that you can stream it on Twitch and not Go Live on Facebook.
I'm curious as to your thoughts on an idea I had for one of the players in my group.
Player has an amazingly poor rolling record, while I'm pretty sure it's confirmation bias it seems that 1s come up 9 times out of 10 on the d20. Doesn't matter what they're rolling for, if that d20 hits the table, chances are it's coming up a 1.
Detect traps: 1, you find a trap by tripping it. To hit: 1, your swing goes awry and you clip the paladin's leg. Investigate harmless rock: 1, turns out the rock is actually the piece of an eldritch alter to a dark god, roll a Wis save to see if you maintain your sanity. Wis save: 1... well, shit let's find that neuroses table. And so on.
Fumbles are fun on occasion, but when it seems that is all a player does they just start getting annoying. Not just for the player in question who gets frustrated, but for the other players at the table who just watched their careful sneaking go up in a jangle of ill fitting armor, and the DM who has to come up with fumble results on the fly.
My thought was a home brew feat letting the player substitute 3d6 for a d20 roll at will. That would eliminate the chance of a fumble, but also remove the two highest possible results on a 20 sided dice, as well as the chance of a critical success. I think the bell curve around the 10-12 range would be generous enough to make successes more common than failures but failures still a high possibility.
At a glance? Yes. As you just stated, probabilities become a bell curve in a game built and balanced from the ground up around linear probabilities*. Especially if it's only that one player, and everyone else is still on D20? Yeah, it would be a balance issue.
If you think on player is 'cursed'? Trust the Law of Large Numbers and keep rolling dice, don't fuck with the probabilistic underpinnings of the entire game system. If in the meantime the players find it overly annoying? Drop the fucking fumble tables IMO, that shit IS annoying and it's not in the rules for a reason.
I'm curious as to your thoughts on an idea I had for one of the players in my group.
Player has an amazingly poor rolling record, while I'm pretty sure it's confirmation bias it seems that 1s come up 9 times out of 10 on the d20. Doesn't matter what they're rolling for, if that d20 hits the table, chances are it's coming up a 1.
Detect traps: 1, you find a trap by tripping it. To hit: 1, your swing goes awry and you clip the paladin's leg. Investigate harmless rock: 1, turns out the rock is actually the piece of an eldritch alter to a dark god, roll a Wis save to see if you maintain your sanity. Wis save: 1... well, shit let's find that neuroses table. And so on.
Fumbles are fun on occasion, but when it seems that is all a player does they just start getting annoying. Not just for the player in question who gets frustrated, but for the other players at the table who just watched their careful sneaking go up in a jangle of ill fitting armor, and the DM who has to come up with fumble results on the fly.
My thought was a home brew feat letting the player substitute 3d6 for a d20 roll at will. That would eliminate the chance of a fumble, but also remove the two highest possible results on a 20 sided dice, as well as the chance of a critical success. I think the bell curve around the 10-12 range would be generous enough to make successes more common than failures but failures still a high possibility.
Thoughts? Would this imbalance the game?
Probably yes. The big thing is that it turns a few +1's into massive shifts in the probability math. Each +1 becomes more valuable than the last. From +0 to +5 on a d20(target 11) is going from 50% to 75%. On 3d6 its going from 50% to 95%
The solution to your problem is probably two fold
1) Teach your player how to roll. Its not hard to "juice" d20's and your player might be doing that inadvertently.
2) give your player a different d20. The process by which d20's are made is not perfect. Some will exhibit tendencies. If they're coming up 1 a lot the dice could be imperfect.
What is juicing a d20 and how is that accomplished?
D20's roll pretty straight. Hold one side up and roll it in a straight line without hitting anything. Things on the edges are less likely to appear. Another one that is easy is spinning it. Pick the 6 on top you want likely to come up and spin it. Much more likely to land on those.
Its easier to see when someone tries this on a d6(though less effective for spinning). Its less obvious on a d20. If someone is rolling their dice like this inadvertently they can get consistently low numbers.
Even as simple as putting the 20 up and then rolling onto a soft surface can have the effect. You turn your hand over once as you roll. The 20 lands on the soft surface and doesn't much go anywhere. High liklihood of a 1.
The fact that DDB is a web tool and not a clunky program you have to download and run tells me that curse has evolved from back in the day. That's good at least.
I wonder if part of their twitch login requirement has to do with them planning on twitch integration for streamed games.
Amazon's just trying to consolidate logins for better data collection.
As for 3d6 vs 1d20, it probably wouldn't create any significant imbalance if you have everyone/thing rolling like that (in fact, I think that's specifically called out as an optional variant rule somewhere), but having only one player doing it is pretty odd.
The average outcome is the same, but his results are going to be significantly more weighted towards the average than everyone else's. He'd be critting a lot less than the other players, for one. Against mooks with low AC (where the mean result of an attack roll is a hit), he's going to perform much better than the other party members. Against bosses/big stuff with high AC (where the mean result is a miss), he'll perform much worse. Whether that player ends up at a net advantage or a net disadvantage probably depends on what the composition of most of your encounters is like.
As an example of how this impacts the math, consider the humble Orc. It's got 13 AC. Let's assume we're talking about a relatively low-level party, with +7 to attack. Means you need a 6 or better to hit the orc. For the players on d20s, they're gonna hit 75% of the time. The guy on a 3d6 is going to roll a 6 or better 95% of the time. That's a pretty huge difference, statistically about on par with having permanent advantage against targets with already-low AC.
Something tougher, like a Bulette, with 17 AC, will require a 10 or better. d20 players will hit 55% of the time; the 3d6 player will hit 62% of the time. A much smaller difference, but still a little better than getting a free +1 to attack rolls. That's as close as you get to parity.
A Roper, with 20 AC will require a 13 or better. By this point the advantage swings in the other direction pretty hard - the d20 players will hit 40% of the time, the 3d6 player is only gonna hit 25% of the time. (on top of the fact that the d20 players are critting literally ten times as often, all the way through the scale - 5% chance of a 20 on a d20, vs .5% chance of 18 on 3d6. Although if you wanted to keep the crit chances the same, you could achieve that by having the 3d6 players crit on a raw 16+)
Same math applies to skill check DCs, where the odds are probably way against the 3d6 guy because skill DCs of 20+ are way more common than monster ACs of 20+. 3d6 will pretty much autosucceed on low-DC checks but have effectively permanent disadvantage against higher-DC ones.
Also the math behind advantage/disadvantage gets really squirrelly - (dis)advantage already changes in value substantially based on the base odds of success (it's as good as getting a +/-5 if you need an 11 or better, but only as good as +/-2 if you need a 19 or better). Layering it on top of an already-normally distributed roll makes that value shift happen even more sharply (advantage is still worth about +5 if you need an 11 or better, but becomes basically meaningless if you need a 16 or better - or if you only need a 5+). Interestingly rolling 3d6 probably makes Power Attack a much less attractive option, because a -5 penalty will have a much larger impact on your chance to hit, to a degree that also makes the effect of advantage way too small to offset the penalty.
All in all I'd guess that the guy rolling 3d6 probably would probably have a noticeable edge in most combats (because players tend to fight stuff they can hit on an 8 or better much more often than they fight stuff that they can only hit on a 12 or better), a noticeable disadvantage in some combats (probably including a lot of 'boss' encounters), and a disadvantage on a lot of non-combat checks (because in my experience high DC checks happen more often than low DC ones, if only because DMs tend to just skip the check entirely if they know players only need like a 4 to beat it).
I've always wanted to try running a campaign with 3d6 replacing the 1d20, both because I think the lowered variance encourages and rewards tactical thinking and because I think it would make those shitty feel-bad "I rolled like shit all combat and basically just stood around while everyone else won the fight" situations all but impossible to run into, but if you're considering it I'd recommend only doing it if you're going to have everyone do it, and I'd be cautious about doing it in 5e in general because of the weird things it does to the value of the advantage/disadvantage system.
Yeah, a game designed around the normal distribution of 3d6 instead of a d20 would have some cool effects. But it flat out won't be D&D; that would be the point.
Makes me curious if there actually is a d6 based game design out there. Might have to poke around a bit.
So sunday was a fun day for my group; Wandering into Orc territory led them into an encounter with several would be assassins (Fangs of Shaggras) that would have crushed the party via persistent use of darkness and massed attacks if they hadn't been focused on getting a previously pilfered relic of theirs (the blade locks belt of giants strength) as opposed to straight murdering them, A Catobleas (which KO'd the NPC fighter with it's deathray attack for max damage (64 necrotic!)) that wandered into the party.
Further clues that something hinky was up with the orcs presented themselves in the forms of a dead eladrin that the orcs had left hanging as bait for a trap, evidence that the orcs had been their in signifigant numbers for an extended period of time (years in fact; which was odd since orcs were nomadic by nature and they were at the northern corner of an island that was hemmed in with mountains) and that they were able to apparently boss hill giants about (which is just... no). Upon reaching what appeared to be their base of operations (a wrecked castle that coincidentally held a banner they were looking for for their fighter NPC) and seeing the slew of orcs hanging around out front, they decided that going through one of the tunnel entrances off to the side would be a good idea for a more stealthy aproach.
Coming to a large portculis, the party's brawniest made an effort to force it open and were able to get everyone in before discovering that they had entered an arena of sorts; apparently the orcs had knocked out the flooring of the dining hall so that they could watch folks hash it out. Floks like adventurers who were going to be the entertainment for them and their apparent Boss... A Conjoined pair of Formorian twins with one being smart as a whip and leaning over her hulking brother's shoulder to give them advice and speak to the adventurers, and get them to fight.
Which brought a handful more monsters the party had never fought before; specifically a Mouth of Grolantor (a coked up hill giant) and a pair of tanarukks (who are just mean as sin).
My take away from this past week has been that Volo's guide makes everything way more fun that's for damn sure.
Yeah, I mean your player is not some wizard of bad dice luck. If they have a properly balanced d20, then over the course of time they're not going to roll 1s any more often than anybody else rolling it. I'd just stick with it, and if the player is an adept player have them play up the fact that they keep botching all the stuff they try in character. That can be fun too.
Yeah, a game designed around the normal distribution of 3d6 instead of a d20 would have some cool effects. But it flat out won't be D&D; that would be the point.
Makes me curious if there actually is a d6 based game design out there. Might have to poke around a bit.
The Dragon Age game from Green Ronin, and the Fantasy AGE system that's basically a system agnostic version of it uses 3d6+stat, with suitably adjusted TNs for checks, but still using binary pass/fail like d20 games. It also uses a stunt die system where one of your 3d6 is a different color, and if you roll doubles on any of the 3d6 you get stunt points equal to the number on the stunt die that you can spend to juice up attacks in different fun ways, like crits basically, with more powerful stuff costing more stunt points.
It's a pretty cool system, though I have only played a single one shot of Fantasy AGE that I ran for a bday party.
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AssuranIs swinging on the SpiralRegistered Userregular
edited March 2017
d6 is on old system. Star Wars d6 is my preferred version of Star Wars. It uses a wild die to introduce variable.
Edit note:
I'm running a one shot game this weekend. Has anyone played Tome of Tiberesh from Kobold Press? It was a Gen Con adventure and I'm wondering how it plays before I decide what I want to run.
Throw that "bad" D20 in the corner of the room and tell it go and think about what its done and use a different one. There's no need to roll 3d6 in its place. Its just not proper for D&D.
My luck was terrible through the entire campaign of the dnd game I mentioned a couple pages back, where I had the statistically impossible session. I actually tried using a deck of cards to simulate a d20. I took only ace through 10, and if the card was a black suit I added 10 to the value of the card to get the roll. Then I reshuffled every 10 rolls (or, every 1/4 of the deck) -ish. It successfully normalized my rolls, which was awesome, but it didn't last because the rest of the players at the table didn't like it, so I was forced back onto my d20's where I proceeded to be cursed and roll low and not hit stuff again.
In our latest session, we fought a necromantic Bone Dragon and it's horde of undead minions. We spent four or so rounds fighting the horde before the dragon decided to drop in on us. Now as I think I've mentioned, I play a Cleric and the DM is notoriously bad at making his saves. Unfortunately, so I am. So I spent three rounds unable to overcome a DC10 Charisma saving throw. Then I switched dice and rolled over 15 on every throw for the rest of the encounter, on a D20 that's usually highly unreliable. Dice are weird.
I'm curious as to your thoughts on an idea I had for one of the players in my group.
Player has an amazingly poor rolling record, while I'm pretty sure it's confirmation bias it seems that 1s come up 9 times out of 10 on the d20. Doesn't matter what they're rolling for, if that d20 hits the table, chances are it's coming up a 1.
Detect traps: 1, you find a trap by tripping it. To hit: 1, your swing goes awry and you clip the paladin's leg. Investigate harmless rock: 1, turns out the rock is actually the piece of an eldritch alter to a dark god, roll a Wis save to see if you maintain your sanity. Wis save: 1... well, shit let's find that neuroses table. And so on.
Fumbles are fun on occasion, but when it seems that is all a player does they just start getting annoying. Not just for the player in question who gets frustrated, but for the other players at the table who just watched their careful sneaking go up in a jangle of ill fitting armor, and the DM who has to come up with fumble results on the fly.
My thought was a home brew feat letting the player substitute 3d6 for a d20 roll at will. That would eliminate the chance of a fumble, but also remove the two highest possible results on a 20 sided dice, as well as the chance of a critical success. I think the bell curve around the 10-12 range would be generous enough to make successes more common than failures but failures still a high possibility.
Thoughts? Would this imbalance the game?
The real question is, assuming we're talking 5E, why you're using the concept of fumbles at all. It's not a thing. The only thing rolling a 1 does is cause a miss, regardless of modifiers, if you're rolling to hit. A '1' on a skill check or a saving throw just does whatever it does once modifiers are added. Your player will be fine if you just stop forcing this homebrew fumble thing on him.
Personally I don't even make 1s automatically miss. Missing sucks enough as it is.
I still rock the 1's always fail rule.
I'm also using the alternative proficiency rules from the DMG which have you rolling dice rather than getting a flat bonus so at our current level players rolling a 2 on the d20 often still succeed because they are also rolling a d8 next to that d20 (the rogue is a halfling so basically can't fail rolls that he has expertise on).
1's always failing is in some cases the only way a player can fail a roll.
Also my players are very good about setting themselves up for advantage in a lot of instances so they rarely hit 1s.
I don't do critical fumbles, except in rare cases.
I use nat 1s on attack rolls miss, and in 13th Age they also don't deal miss damage even on attacks that normally do. It's IMO a suitably fine "punishment" for rolling the opposite of the exciting thing, the crit. But yeah, for skill checks or saving throws, forget the nat 1s and nat 20s. I mean it's already RAW for D&D5.
Honestly, having nat 1s and nat 20s mean nothing on skill checks is a good way for GMs to help themselves learn when to call for skill checks and when not to. Besides "say yes or roll," and things of that nature, understanding that the guy with the +15 to stealth can beat most enemy's passive perception even on a 1 or remembering that you shouldn't have somebody roll a check if there's no chance for success no matter what they roll are good lessons to learn.
Though I do understand why people like doing "crit success" on skill checks and stuff. Part of the fun of d20 is critting, and we're just conditioned to be excited by nat 20s.
Well, except at my table, where the players roll nat 20s on skill checks or initiative or whatever and just immediate moan a bit about how they wasted it on a roll that can't crit. =P
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I'm excited for D&D tonight. My friend's daughter just turned two, and she loves helping her dad DM, so I got her a 3" foam polyhedral dice set. Now she can roll dice with the rest of us, and not accidentally swallow them.
I feel like rolling a 1 is sufficient punishment for rolling a 1.
In the rare case where a player has stacked up such a ridiculous array of bonuses that they beat the DC for whatever they're attempting even with a nat 1, they have fully earned the right to say "Aw, I rolled a 1...and I beat the check anyway, motherfuckers"
Forcing an autofailure at that point just feels like robbery.
The only fumble rule I like is from dark sun 4e. (Alternate rule)
When you roll a 1 you have the option to attack recklessly. If you do not take the option you miss as normal. If you do take the option you may attack again, if you hit then you do damage as normal, if you miss then your weapon breaks (i.e. you fumble).
It turns a 1 into an opportunity and risk
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
The only fumble rule I like is from dark sun 4e. (Alternate rule)
When you roll a 1 you have the option to attack recklessly. If you do not take the option you miss as normal. If you do take the option you may attack again, if you hit then you do damage as normal, if you miss then your weapon breaks (i.e. you fumble).
It turns a 1 into an opportunity and risk
Note for folks who haven't played Dark Sun, weapon breakage and other wear mechanics are a thing in that setting. It's a pretty cool setting. I love me some Dark Sun.
Personally I don't even make 1s automatically miss. Missing sucks enough as it is.
Last night my paladin tried to shove prone a yakman and we had a contest of my atletics skill vs his str. Both dm and i rolled a 1, so even though my + was more, i failed to shove.
Personally I don't even make 1s automatically miss. Missing sucks enough as it is.
Last night my paladin tried to shove prone a yakman and we had a contest of my atletics skill vs his str. Both dm and i rolled a 1, so even though my + was more, i failed to shove.
And that's why the rules have it so that a 1 isn't an auto-fail. You should have won that check.
Eh...
Is your str higher than the yakman's strength?
I sort of feel that it should have been str vs str rather than athletics vs strength. Or even athletics vs athletics if you want to factor in throwing-yaks training.
Personally I don't even make 1s automatically miss. Missing sucks enough as it is.
Last night my paladin tried to shove prone a yakman and we had a contest of my atletics skill vs his str. Both dm and i rolled a 1, so even though my + was more, i failed to shove.
1 -> miss only applies to attack rolls and (iirc) saving throws.
It does not apply to skill checks, skill contests, or ability checks. A shove is a skill contest and not an attack roll (even though it takes the place of an attack)
That is, you should have shoved him even if he had rolled a 2 due to your higher athletics check.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
A natural 1 is usually going to be a problem all on its own. Whereas a natural 20 is generally going to assure success...all on its own.
It's like the natural range of the d20 tends to enforce things that, for some reason, people create rules for.
The big thing we do is on a Nat20 you roll the D20 again, and stop once you stop getting nat20s. So on a 2nd 20 something really awesome happens, and on a 3rd you get a permanent increase on something related to what you're trying to do. We usually see the double 20 show up every couple months, but have only seen the triple 20 show up once. The DMs wife rolled it like her 2nd session ever playing, trying to kill a great purple worm. It was pretty awesome.
A natural 1 is usually going to be a problem all on its own. Whereas a natural 20 is generally going to assure success...all on its own.
It's like the natural range of the d20 tends to enforce things that, for some reason, people create rules for.
In prior editions (and even sometimes in raw 5th) it was possible to get attacks to hit on a 1. I run with escalation die and we have both a cleric and bard in the party.
The cleric casts bless and the hard inspires. That is attack +1d4 +1d6 to hit. A fighter who decides to use an attack with an ability that grants +1d8 to hit from his die pool could have a total of +18 to hit on top of str/dex and proficiency. Which could force a 1 to hit, absent the rule.
Granted it's edge case but I have had my players hit on a 3 without resorting to the bonus from escalation.
Eh...
Is your str higher than the yakman's strength?
I sort of feel that it should have been str vs str rather than athletics vs strength. Or even athletics vs athletics if you want to factor in throwing-yaks training.
My strength is 17, and i have proficiency in Athletics. DM said the yakman doesn't have Athletics so it's straight strength. He didn't say what the yakman's strength was, but I'd guess he's at least somewhat beefy.
It didn't make or break the encounter, we still rolled over their whole village easily (they work for fire Giants and keep naked slaves in cages high up in the mountains) by being sneaky and essentially doing an airdrop in. I was just curious especially in the context of the ongoing d20 discussion.
Your DM was in error. Pushing is explicitly an athletics context (if the target is not trained it's athletics score is simply its strength, monsters stats will not list untrained/non-bonuses skills for this reason). 1s don't matter on skills.
Posts
Literally it's just a skin on Skype with a game overlay.
I wonder if part of their twitch login requirement has to do with them planning on twitch integration for streamed games.
I think they are generally trying to transition all their other Curse properties over to Twitch logins as well. Like the mods website and stuff has an option to merge your Curse and Twitch accounts. So I imagine all new properties will be Twitch logins, just to avoid all the duplication.
That said, the reason you don't have a "login with Facebook option" is almost definitely so that you can stream it on Twitch and not Go Live on Facebook.
Player has an amazingly poor rolling record, while I'm pretty sure it's confirmation bias it seems that 1s come up 9 times out of 10 on the d20. Doesn't matter what they're rolling for, if that d20 hits the table, chances are it's coming up a 1.
Detect traps: 1, you find a trap by tripping it. To hit: 1, your swing goes awry and you clip the paladin's leg. Investigate harmless rock: 1, turns out the rock is actually the piece of an eldritch alter to a dark god, roll a Wis save to see if you maintain your sanity. Wis save: 1... well, shit let's find that neuroses table. And so on.
Fumbles are fun on occasion, but when it seems that is all a player does they just start getting annoying. Not just for the player in question who gets frustrated, but for the other players at the table who just watched their careful sneaking go up in a jangle of ill fitting armor, and the DM who has to come up with fumble results on the fly.
My thought was a home brew feat letting the player substitute 3d6 for a d20 roll at will. That would eliminate the chance of a fumble, but also remove the two highest possible results on a 20 sided dice, as well as the chance of a critical success. I think the bell curve around the 10-12 range would be generous enough to make successes more common than failures but failures still a high possibility.
Thoughts? Would this imbalance the game?
If you think on player is 'cursed'? Trust the Law of Large Numbers and keep rolling dice, don't fuck with the probabilistic underpinnings of the entire game system. If in the meantime the players find it overly annoying? Drop the fucking fumble tables IMO, that shit IS annoying and it's not in the rules for a reason.
*Yes, Advantage, I know.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fumbles.
Like, forever.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Probably yes. The big thing is that it turns a few +1's into massive shifts in the probability math. Each +1 becomes more valuable than the last. From +0 to +5 on a d20(target 11) is going from 50% to 75%. On 3d6 its going from 50% to 95%
The solution to your problem is probably two fold
1) Teach your player how to roll. Its not hard to "juice" d20's and your player might be doing that inadvertently.
2) give your player a different d20. The process by which d20's are made is not perfect. Some will exhibit tendencies. If they're coming up 1 a lot the dice could be imperfect.
D20's roll pretty straight. Hold one side up and roll it in a straight line without hitting anything. Things on the edges are less likely to appear. Another one that is easy is spinning it. Pick the 6 on top you want likely to come up and spin it. Much more likely to land on those.
Its easier to see when someone tries this on a d6(though less effective for spinning). Its less obvious on a d20. If someone is rolling their dice like this inadvertently they can get consistently low numbers.
Even as simple as putting the 20 up and then rolling onto a soft surface can have the effect. You turn your hand over once as you roll. The 20 lands on the soft surface and doesn't much go anywhere. High liklihood of a 1.
Specifically, fuck fumbles forever because low-chance high-impact events give the most benefit to the side at a numerical disadvantage.
And that's probably the whole of Team Monster.
As for 3d6 vs 1d20, it probably wouldn't create any significant imbalance if you have everyone/thing rolling like that (in fact, I think that's specifically called out as an optional variant rule somewhere), but having only one player doing it is pretty odd.
The average outcome is the same, but his results are going to be significantly more weighted towards the average than everyone else's. He'd be critting a lot less than the other players, for one. Against mooks with low AC (where the mean result of an attack roll is a hit), he's going to perform much better than the other party members. Against bosses/big stuff with high AC (where the mean result is a miss), he'll perform much worse. Whether that player ends up at a net advantage or a net disadvantage probably depends on what the composition of most of your encounters is like.
As an example of how this impacts the math, consider the humble Orc. It's got 13 AC. Let's assume we're talking about a relatively low-level party, with +7 to attack. Means you need a 6 or better to hit the orc. For the players on d20s, they're gonna hit 75% of the time. The guy on a 3d6 is going to roll a 6 or better 95% of the time. That's a pretty huge difference, statistically about on par with having permanent advantage against targets with already-low AC.
Something tougher, like a Bulette, with 17 AC, will require a 10 or better. d20 players will hit 55% of the time; the 3d6 player will hit 62% of the time. A much smaller difference, but still a little better than getting a free +1 to attack rolls. That's as close as you get to parity.
A Roper, with 20 AC will require a 13 or better. By this point the advantage swings in the other direction pretty hard - the d20 players will hit 40% of the time, the 3d6 player is only gonna hit 25% of the time. (on top of the fact that the d20 players are critting literally ten times as often, all the way through the scale - 5% chance of a 20 on a d20, vs .5% chance of 18 on 3d6. Although if you wanted to keep the crit chances the same, you could achieve that by having the 3d6 players crit on a raw 16+)
Same math applies to skill check DCs, where the odds are probably way against the 3d6 guy because skill DCs of 20+ are way more common than monster ACs of 20+. 3d6 will pretty much autosucceed on low-DC checks but have effectively permanent disadvantage against higher-DC ones.
Also the math behind advantage/disadvantage gets really squirrelly - (dis)advantage already changes in value substantially based on the base odds of success (it's as good as getting a +/-5 if you need an 11 or better, but only as good as +/-2 if you need a 19 or better). Layering it on top of an already-normally distributed roll makes that value shift happen even more sharply (advantage is still worth about +5 if you need an 11 or better, but becomes basically meaningless if you need a 16 or better - or if you only need a 5+). Interestingly rolling 3d6 probably makes Power Attack a much less attractive option, because a -5 penalty will have a much larger impact on your chance to hit, to a degree that also makes the effect of advantage way too small to offset the penalty.
All in all I'd guess that the guy rolling 3d6 probably would probably have a noticeable edge in most combats (because players tend to fight stuff they can hit on an 8 or better much more often than they fight stuff that they can only hit on a 12 or better), a noticeable disadvantage in some combats (probably including a lot of 'boss' encounters), and a disadvantage on a lot of non-combat checks (because in my experience high DC checks happen more often than low DC ones, if only because DMs tend to just skip the check entirely if they know players only need like a 4 to beat it).
I've always wanted to try running a campaign with 3d6 replacing the 1d20, both because I think the lowered variance encourages and rewards tactical thinking and because I think it would make those shitty feel-bad "I rolled like shit all combat and basically just stood around while everyone else won the fight" situations all but impossible to run into, but if you're considering it I'd recommend only doing it if you're going to have everyone do it, and I'd be cautious about doing it in 5e in general because of the weird things it does to the value of the advantage/disadvantage system.
Makes me curious if there actually is a d6 based game design out there. Might have to poke around a bit.
Further clues that something hinky was up with the orcs presented themselves in the forms of a dead eladrin that the orcs had left hanging as bait for a trap, evidence that the orcs had been their in signifigant numbers for an extended period of time (years in fact; which was odd since orcs were nomadic by nature and they were at the northern corner of an island that was hemmed in with mountains) and that they were able to apparently boss hill giants about (which is just... no). Upon reaching what appeared to be their base of operations (a wrecked castle that coincidentally held a banner they were looking for for their fighter NPC) and seeing the slew of orcs hanging around out front, they decided that going through one of the tunnel entrances off to the side would be a good idea for a more stealthy aproach.
Coming to a large portculis, the party's brawniest made an effort to force it open and were able to get everyone in before discovering that they had entered an arena of sorts; apparently the orcs had knocked out the flooring of the dining hall so that they could watch folks hash it out. Floks like adventurers who were going to be the entertainment for them and their apparent Boss... A Conjoined pair of Formorian twins with one being smart as a whip and leaning over her hulking brother's shoulder to give them advice and speak to the adventurers, and get them to fight.
Which brought a handful more monsters the party had never fought before; specifically a Mouth of Grolantor (a coked up hill giant) and a pair of tanarukks (who are just mean as sin).
My take away from this past week has been that Volo's guide makes everything way more fun that's for damn sure.
The Dragon Age game from Green Ronin, and the Fantasy AGE system that's basically a system agnostic version of it uses 3d6+stat, with suitably adjusted TNs for checks, but still using binary pass/fail like d20 games. It also uses a stunt die system where one of your 3d6 is a different color, and if you roll doubles on any of the 3d6 you get stunt points equal to the number on the stunt die that you can spend to juice up attacks in different fun ways, like crits basically, with more powerful stuff costing more stunt points.
It's a pretty cool system, though I have only played a single one shot of Fantasy AGE that I ran for a bday party.
Edit note:
I'm running a one shot game this weekend. Has anyone played Tome of Tiberesh from Kobold Press? It was a Gen Con adventure and I'm wondering how it plays before I decide what I want to run.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
The real question is, assuming we're talking 5E, why you're using the concept of fumbles at all. It's not a thing. The only thing rolling a 1 does is cause a miss, regardless of modifiers, if you're rolling to hit. A '1' on a skill check or a saving throw just does whatever it does once modifiers are added. Your player will be fine if you just stop forcing this homebrew fumble thing on him.
I still rock the 1's always fail rule.
I'm also using the alternative proficiency rules from the DMG which have you rolling dice rather than getting a flat bonus so at our current level players rolling a 2 on the d20 often still succeed because they are also rolling a d8 next to that d20 (the rogue is a halfling so basically can't fail rolls that he has expertise on).
1's always failing is in some cases the only way a player can fail a roll.
Also my players are very good about setting themselves up for advantage in a lot of instances so they rarely hit 1s.
I don't do critical fumbles, except in rare cases.
Honestly, having nat 1s and nat 20s mean nothing on skill checks is a good way for GMs to help themselves learn when to call for skill checks and when not to. Besides "say yes or roll," and things of that nature, understanding that the guy with the +15 to stealth can beat most enemy's passive perception even on a 1 or remembering that you shouldn't have somebody roll a check if there's no chance for success no matter what they roll are good lessons to learn.
Though I do understand why people like doing "crit success" on skill checks and stuff. Part of the fun of d20 is critting, and we're just conditioned to be excited by nat 20s.
Well, except at my table, where the players roll nat 20s on skill checks or initiative or whatever and just immediate moan a bit about how they wasted it on a roll that can't crit. =P
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
In the rare case where a player has stacked up such a ridiculous array of bonuses that they beat the DC for whatever they're attempting even with a nat 1, they have fully earned the right to say "Aw, I rolled a 1...and I beat the check anyway, motherfuckers"
Forcing an autofailure at that point just feels like robbery.
When you roll a 1 you have the option to attack recklessly. If you do not take the option you miss as normal. If you do take the option you may attack again, if you hit then you do damage as normal, if you miss then your weapon breaks (i.e. you fumble).
It turns a 1 into an opportunity and risk
Note for folks who haven't played Dark Sun, weapon breakage and other wear mechanics are a thing in that setting. It's a pretty cool setting. I love me some Dark Sun.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Last night my paladin tried to shove prone a yakman and we had a contest of my atletics skill vs his str. Both dm and i rolled a 1, so even though my + was more, i failed to shove.
And that's why the rules have it so that a 1 isn't an auto-fail. You should have won that check.
But that Yak robbed you. If he also rolled a 1, then he failed too! And failed worse than you did!
Is your str higher than the yakman's strength?
I sort of feel that it should have been str vs str rather than athletics vs strength. Or even athletics vs athletics if you want to factor in throwing-yaks training.
It's like the natural range of the d20 tends to enforce things that, for some reason, people create rules for.
1 -> miss only applies to attack rolls and (iirc) saving throws.
It does not apply to skill checks, skill contests, or ability checks. A shove is a skill contest and not an attack roll (even though it takes the place of an attack)
That is, you should have shoved him even if he had rolled a 2 due to your higher athletics check.
The big thing we do is on a Nat20 you roll the D20 again, and stop once you stop getting nat20s. So on a 2nd 20 something really awesome happens, and on a 3rd you get a permanent increase on something related to what you're trying to do. We usually see the double 20 show up every couple months, but have only seen the triple 20 show up once. The DMs wife rolled it like her 2nd session ever playing, trying to kill a great purple worm. It was pretty awesome.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
In prior editions (and even sometimes in raw 5th) it was possible to get attacks to hit on a 1. I run with escalation die and we have both a cleric and bard in the party.
The cleric casts bless and the hard inspires. That is attack +1d4 +1d6 to hit. A fighter who decides to use an attack with an ability that grants +1d8 to hit from his die pool could have a total of +18 to hit on top of str/dex and proficiency. Which could force a 1 to hit, absent the rule.
Granted it's edge case but I have had my players hit on a 3 without resorting to the bonus from escalation.
My strength is 17, and i have proficiency in Athletics. DM said the yakman doesn't have Athletics so it's straight strength. He didn't say what the yakman's strength was, but I'd guess he's at least somewhat beefy.
It didn't make or break the encounter, we still rolled over their whole village easily (they work for fire Giants and keep naked slaves in cages high up in the mountains) by being sneaky and essentially doing an airdrop in. I was just curious especially in the context of the ongoing d20 discussion.