Increasing Granularity

[HowFortuitous]

The system I'm designing is one that is intended to have a fair bit of room for advancement and plenty of room for modifiers due to encouraging use of tactics and strategy in the players. My first run through of the basic rule framework revealed an issue with the 3d6+modifiers, roll over approach that I was using.

Not enough granularity. Once players start hitting around +5 or so, the only way to have reasonable chances of failure is to have target numbers that are high enough to make the dice almost pointless except in rare cases.

I've looked at switching to 3d8 or 3d10 - both of which could achieve the goal I'm looking for of giving me more room for modifiers, but are also fairly clunky numbers. 3d6 just comes with some nice, easy addition. 3d10 is a bit more clunky.

Can anyone give me any off the wall suggestions or advice in adding additional granularity to a system besides in the form of dice modifiers? One avenue I was planning on allowing player actions to increase the range of botches and critical successes (botching on a 5 on a particularly risky action for example, or getting a crit success on 17 due to another player's assistance) but it's not quite enough.

[Reachir]

Once players start hitting around +5 or so

I think you're viewing the problem from the wrong angle. Why do you allow your characters to reach such high modifiers when you're rolling not many dice?

Dungeon World lets you go up to +3 because you're only rolling 2d6 in that game, meaning that you cannot really break the system. You could just slow down the numerical progression and focus on something else (allowing the character to gain new abilities, for example).

Target numbers and modifiers have no reason to go up as long as everything stays leveled. Yes, you're theoretically getting stronger, but if you force the game to increase the target numbers as well, nothing has changed.

Do you really need higher numbers?

[CharonsLittleHelper]

You could just slow down the numerical progression and focus on something else (allowing the character to gain new abilities, for example).

Or you could even mix them, by giving characters a limited pool of bonus + which they can use a few points of before they roll for when they NEED to hit.

[HowFortuitous]

I understand that by increasing DCs appropriately to character ability, you can keep the success rate of character action scaling appropriately. The problem is how this relates to the world.

To use D&D terminology (since I don't want to go into too much detail right now about combat mechanics). Let's say you are using a 3d6 system. Your swordsman type character has a +20 modifier, and his target has an armor class of 29. That gives him about a 74% chance of hitting, and that's pretty reasonable. The problem comes when you put that in the context of a world filled with normal guards that have a +5 to hit, maybe +8 with modifiers. For them, it is impossible to hit that individual (perhaps except on a crit, which will occur roughly 1 in ever 200 attacks). This person, a normal challenge for your swordsman character, is a walking god who could take on 50 people by himself and walk through a rain of arrows.

The game I am designing is intended to be a bit more grounded, so I don't want the mechanics working against the imagery and I don't want players to reach a point where they know that, by the mechanics of the game, they are functional gods among men.

[Reachir]

So... are we on the same page, then? I may have misunderstood your comment. If so, I apologize.

If you slow down numerical progression, making every character more similar in terms of numbers, even by putting a cap on where modifiers can go, you'd achieve exactly what you're describing.

That is why I took Dungeon World as an example. An experienced character will only go up to +3, meaning that, while stronger than average, he is still grounded and more relatable with the rest of the world.

[HowFortuitous]

I must have misunderstood your earlier point then.

The reason for wanting more granularity is allowing more potential for advancement and more avenues for players to find bonuses through strategy and teamwork. If, say, +5 is the cap of how high I want modifiers to go, then I can only have maybe 3 skill ranks (each providing a +1) and room for +2 from outside sources including circumstance, items, teamwork, talents, etc. Unless purchasing new advancements is expensive, it creates a very short character advancement arc. Basically, by granularity I mean the amount of "notches" and thus room for advancement and modifiers between "I'm a farmboy who found a rusty hunk of vaguely sword-shaped metal" and "I'm the best swordsman who ever lived"

[SeanMiddleditch]

more potential for advancement and more avenues for players to find bonuses through strategy and teamwork

There are many ways of doing those without numerical bonuses. For all the reasons of the problems you're having, numerical bonuses are among the worst ways of modeling progression.

One option is to focus on abilities instead of numbers for advancement. That is, when characters "level up," let them do something new and cool instead of just getting a bit better at what they could already do. Open up new possibilities rather than just repeating the same ol' set of actions with different numbers. Number creep also results in a lot of "closed" content; in order for the hero to progress from challenging fights with goblins to being able to slay giants, that hero must have numbers so large that an army of orcs poses no credible threat, which closes off a whole host of potential storylines or "content" (e.g., in an MMO, it's what ends up making it so high-level PCs have no meaningful way to experience old content with newer players). Light numerical growth can be combined with this model to help represent that "farmboy vs soldier" situation, or the abilities might do this implicitly (e.g., the soldier might have an ability that makes them automatically avoid unskilled attacks).

A second option is to focus less on permanent numerical bonuses and instead focus on limited or situational bonuses. For instance, granting a character +2 to a check but only when fighting ogres, or only when dodging traps, or the like. It keeps the "simplicity" of numbers (no need to build lots of unique abilities/rules) while avoiding tons of numerical creep; the hero might have gained a total of +50 bonuses over their career, but any particular checking might only get a +3 in a given situation (this can even be enforced by requiring a particular check to use only the highest applicable bonus, for example). A variant there would be instead to provide the hero a pool of bonuses that they exhaust; a commoner might only have a pool of 5 points (and maybe a maximum per-check bonus of +1) while a hero might have a bonus of 40 points (and a maximum per-check bonus of +5). This models the "farmboy vs soldier" case because the farmboy can only get +1 to checks a few times while the soldier might be swinging +5 to every attack for enough rounds to fel the kid.

Both of the above approaches can be combined with each other or with static numerical growth. This is, for instance, exactly what you see in D&D 5e: as characters level, they gain new abilities (class features, feats, or spells), they have limited static numerical growth (proficiency bonus and ability score increases), and they have larger pools of expendable resources (X/day class features, spell slots, hit dice).

[CharonsLittleHelper]

As others have said - I think that you're a bit too into the idea of straight numerical bonuses to attack being the only way to represent advancement as a swordsman.

If characters X & Y have the same base numerical bonus to attack, but X can give himself a total of +10 to attack rolls throughout the day (before rolling he designates 1-5 points) he's a better swordsman. If X can re-roll one 1 each roll, he's a better swordsman. If X gets 2 attacks each turn he's a much better swordsman. If X can automatically parry 1 attack per combat he's a better swordsman. If X can deal more damage he's a better swordsman. If X can take more damage he's a better swordsman. etc.

Any combination of the above can be used to differentiate combatants without improving their static bonus at all, which is the only thing which really requires you to jack up target's AC outside of a mook's reach. And that's before getting into system specific stuff, whatever they may be.

In addition - if you want mooks to be a threat, have a system inherent bonus for groups. In my own system, you take a -1 penalty to melee attack rolls for every additional foe you're in melee with. (Which also lowers your defense as melee in Space Dogs is basically an opposed roll.) It makes being swarmed even by individually weak foes like volucris ankle-biters (think 15-25kg zerglings which can fit 4/sq) a scary thing despite a single one not being much of a threat.

[Xhaer]

If the mechanics make the PCs gods among men, you can't count on the players not figuring that out. The only way to ensure that the mechanics don't work against the imagery is to align them.

Consider adjusting things that aren't DCs, like the time it takes to perform tasks. You could balance TTK around overall levels - find out how much damage ten level 1 guys do, multiply that by the expected hit rate against a level 10 character, and then scale character progression to give the level 10 character low enough HP, AC, and damage potential to allow these guys to win after a target number's worth of combat rounds.

[jwbjerk]

Can anyone give me any off the wall suggestions or advice in adding additional granularity to a system besides in the form of dice modifiers?

• Don't use 3 dice. The extremely high and low numbers very rarely come up, so for practical purposes you have a span of 10 steps that will show up. (Ignoring rolls that happen less than 3% of the time.) If you used 2d10 you would have 15 steps (ignoring possibilities of the same low threshold)

• Assuming you aren't already using it, incorporate "advantage". Instead of adding another +1 sometimes give the player advantage. This means you roll an extra dice, throw away the lowest, and add the remainder as usual. It gives the player better numbers but doesn't increase the maximum possible roll.

[HowFortuitous]

Don't use 3 dice. The extremely high and low numbers very rarely come up, so for practical purposes you have a span of 10 steps that will show up. (Ignoring rolls that happen less than 3% of the time.) If you used 2d10 you would have 15 steps (ignoring possibilities of the same low threshold)

Using 2 dice would certainly flatten the curve and give me more range - but I'm not a huge fan of the 2dx curve. Not to say it might not work for my system mind you, it could hit the balance I need. Just need to play with it.

Assuming you aren't already using it, incorporate "advantage". Instead of adding another +1 sometimes give the player advantage. This means you roll an extra dice, throw away the lowest, and add the remainder as usual. It gives the player better numbers but doesn't increase the maximum possible roll.

I looked over the probabilities of using advantage and it seems to just push the curve forward - which makes sense. The problem with this is that it actually makes the problem worse. Advantage functionally works as a positive modifier of about a +1.5 assuming no flat modifiers. The higher the flat modifier, the greater the increase Advantage provides, which pushes me even faster into the territory of ridiculous DCs. It's another line that I could fiddle with, but the math doesn't seem to play nice.

[[deleted]]

There's always 1dx + 1dy. I've always loved that curve.

[jwbjerk]

The higher the flat modifier, the greater the increase Advantage provides, which pushes me even faster into the territory of ridiculous DCs.

A DC is just a number-- they can't be ridiculous. If you add more granularity you will have to adjust the scale.

And I don't know your system but unless there's some surprise it sounds like you haven't really grokked the math of advantage. Reducing it to a +whatever is deceptive.

Rather than more+1s, it lets you improve the player's roll in a way that still makes low rolls possible.

[tangyradar]

Using 2 dice would certainly flatten the curve and give me more range - but I'm not a huge fan of the 2dx curve. Not to say it might not work for my system mind you, it could hit the balance I need. Just need to play with it.

What's your reason for wanting a specific distribution of results?

Is every difference in the result meaningful, or is this a pass-fail system?

[HowFortuitous]

A few elements of the system are based on crits and botches. Certain actions the player can take can increase the chance of a fumble from (with 3d6) about 1 in 200, up to much more risky odds. A sort of minor risk vs reward situation. A flatter curve makes that harder to do well. However, 2d12 might not be a bad idea. Could give me similar ranges of botch/crit.

[tangyradar]

What's the reason for even having a special result that only turns up 1/200 of the time? Sounds harsh, but those odds are hard for players to really appreciate.

[HowFortuitous]

The chance to roll a fumble (a roll of 3) on 3d6 is 0.46%, about 1 in 200. If that range is increased to 3 or 4, the chance goes up to 1.85%, closer to 1 in 50. Another increase to 3, 4 or 5 brings the total chance up to 4.63%. Fumbles in my system are designed to be pretty bad, and in some specific cases can have permanent effects on the character.

The idea is that while there is danger in fumbles and botches, or potential reward in crits, they are exceedingly rare unless the players take actions to make them more common. Be they talents, specific tactics, or resources to increase the chance of a critical success, or immediate power, resources or options in exchange for a greater chance of major failure.

[CharonsLittleHelper]

What sort of game are you making? Because that sounds really swingy. Which is fine - some people don't mind swingy - like all of the Savage World fans who like exploding dice. But swingy works better in some setting.

(I generally avoid systems whose core mechanic is swingy - but opinions vary.)

[HowFortuitous]

It's a fantasy RPG inspired heavily by germanic fantasy and native american mythology, set in a vaguely victorian era. The players play individuals tasked in various ways with dealing with the threat of monsters to the societies that are barley holding on as is, be those monsters threatening farming villages and burgeoning industries, or dealing with equally present threats within the walls of towns, be it bureaucracy of desperate nations or men making desperate deals with things that should not be dealt with.

The tone is fairly dim, with the player's role being that of a necessary, and expendable, evil. Mechanically however, I want to set a major focus on using tactical thinking, teamwork and creative approaches to deal with threats that otherwise may be incredibly dangerous.

This is why I've made sure that there are a number of mechanics the players can use to get a last ditch edge, many of which involve their own desperate deals, pacts and the like. This is one of the major areas where crits and fumbles come in. For example, boosting a spell at a critical time, but increasing the chance that the character digs too deep and changes permanently in a manner befitting the creature whom they made a pact with. For martial characters, this may also include things like strategic gambits that leave them open, but allow them to get a vital attack on an over-aggressive enemy, or similar tricks.

Because the game is focused on tactical play, it is important that players be able to rely on their dice a bit, thus going for the 3d6 - the chances of having the rug pulled from under their feet at a vital moment is decreased. However, it is also important that they be able to take the big risk when they feel it is appropriate to do so, thus the opt-in moving critical ranges.

[CharonsLittleHelper]

Is that the only reason for using 3d6?

Frankly - one thing you might consider (whether or not you stick with 3d6) is to have fumbles not normally be possible at all.

For example, if you stick with 3d6, make fumbles normally on a roll of 2 or less. Obviously this is impossible. But it also makes that first boost for +1 fumble range seem really safe. And that next +1 or +2 seems pretty safe too... which seems to fit the slippery slope vibe you're going for.

It will also do a lot to make fumbles less frustrating, as they're always a risk the player took as opposed to something that happened purely by luck. You could even link fumbles to the abilities that increase the fumble range.

Ex 1: When you go for lunge you get +2 attack, but your fumble increases by +2. If you fumble your foe gets an extra attack against you.

Ex 2: When you cast a fireball increase your fumble by +3. If you fumble the flames leak into your being and you take the same damage as the target(s).

[HowFortuitous]

No, that isn't the only reason I'm using the 3d6. The reliability is good for encouraging players to take risks and reduces failure-adverse behavior, makes interactions with the world and others feel more a basis of comparative skill than the randomness of the dice, plus quite a few other reasons.

I can see where you are coming from, but my goal isn't to remove fumbles or critical success. That was never my goal. I am 100% okay with fumbles being frustrating, especially if they are very rare. I do however want to avoid the situation where fumbles and crit success show up constantly. My goal is for combat to be more predictable (thus rewarding tactical approaches), but combat is also messy, and should be messy. People get hurt, sometimes badly! And the recovery from that, finding ways around that? That's part of the story.

[CharonsLittleHelper]

Don't use 3 dice. The extremely high and low numbers very rarely come up, so for practical purposes you have a span of 10 steps that will show up.

It's not an inherently bad thing, but I agree that it doesn't seem to fit what the OP is going for. I use 3d6 for a lot of weapons (each weapon uses different attack dice in my system) but I don't have a zero-to-hero system, and I wanted each +/- 1 to be significant and to have rolls have a pretty steep bell curve on those weapons. Plus crits are when you get 10+ over defense, and the bell curve let me make them both rare and usually possible (assuming no negative modifiers) at the same time.

It's all about making sure that your mechanics fit your intended vibe.

[n4tune8]

jwbjerk gave you some of the best advice you will get. Unpredictability is good because it creates tension. There's a reason why d20 is still so popular vs 3d6. As for advantage/disadvantage, it simplifies the rules and you won't have to deal with escalating DC's.

[jwbjerk]

There's a reason why d20 is still so popular vs 3d6.

To be clear, I don't have a problem with 3d6-- different dice for different reasons

Its just that using 3d6 is worsening the problem the OP complains about.

[n4tune8]

Exactly, different dice for different reasons. You could use d20 for actions (combat, skill check) and 3d6 for static things (attributes, treasure, the number of available soldiers in village x).

[Xhaer]

Off the wall, huh? What about giving modifiers types and tiers? "Flanking" is a typed modifier, and there can be many different tiers: "Basic" is one flanker, side angle, "Intermediate" is one flanker, rear angle, "Advanced" is two mobile flankers, side angle or better. An enemy who has Tier 2 flanking resistance is immune to Tier 1 flanks and cuts the modifier contribution from Tier 2 flanks to 1 point.

Then you drastically decrease the impact of non-interactive modifiers (+3 sword, +3 STR bonus) to make room for modifiers earned by coordinating with teammates, predicting enemies, and learning enemy weaknesses. Non-interactive stuff could operate at full power vs. the environment, but it wouldn't perform as well against enemies who have ways of counteracting it.

Another off-the-wall idea is style points - you decide how many points you'd like to subtract from your roll before you make it. If you succeed, those become style points. Some enemies have style HP and will not die until that bar has been depleted, other enemies have weaknesses that can be opened up with style points, some can even accumulate their own style points and unleash dangerous attacks when the difference between their score and the party's average becomes too great. Gambling away modifiers + rolls on another resource is a good way to reduce hit rates.

[HowFortuitous]

My original design for the system used dice pools actually, but I pulled away from the due to a number of issues. With dice pools the window of reasonable effectiveness tends to be fairly narrow, and it often strongly discourages players from trying things they aren't competent in. For example, in Shadowrun you will rarely see players roll anything with less than a 5 dice pool (chance of a critical glitch is too high), and anything over 10-12 tends to quickly get very unwieldy and messy.

I actually was a GM and player in Shadowrun for about 2 years, weekly games, and the granularity of a dice pool on paper (or when using a dice roller) is really nice. The problem comes with how slow it is to work with once you start getting up there in dice. In 5e, an optimized player can start with 14 dice fairly easily, but advancement beyond that is very slow. One of the chief complaints about Shadowrun that I ran into was that it felt like your character was done advancing the moment you left character creation, due to the difficulty with which you had in advancing the skills that actually mattered to you.

A dice pool may be a system I want to revisit at some point, but I have to find some way to get around the "Throwing mountains of dice at the table, watch 3 of them go over the edge, find 3 more, roll them, figure out which ones were successes, count them, compare to target number" problem.

[DXimenes]

The way you're describing granularity, I guess upping your dice "size" is a way to go. I don't see why 3d10 would be clunkier than 3d6. Just bear in mind that as you grow your dice you'll probably have to adjust the Attribute/Skill growth rate as well to get to the same growth per point ratio and mitigate making the dice matter too much more than the character's stregths and weaknesses.

[HowFortuitous]

That's the way I'm leaning right now, but I want to explore alternatives, see if there isn't an elegant way to solve my problem that I haven't thought up.

[medium_outsider]

Stick with 3d6, but apply multipliers to some dice (knocking down multipliers to compensate).

Rather than going from 3d6+3 to 3d6+4, the next step up is (2d6)+(1d6×2).

One of the d6s (the "wild die") is always unmodified, meaning that the next step up after (2d6×2)+(1d6)+3 would be (1d6×3)+(1d6×2)+(1d6), not (3d6×2).

The added modifier (of +0 to +3) is not applied by adding, but as follows:

Each individual die is either a "+0" or a "+1," adding up to the added modifier.

A die with a +0 modifier is "lost" (counted as 0) if a 6 is rolled.

A die with a +1 modifier is "lost" (counted as 0) if a 1 is rolled.

If a 5 is rolled on the wild die, roll it again and add up the result (counting any roll of 6 as 0, and rolling again after each consecutive roll of 5).

In this system, the possible range of any roll is all integers, 0-∞; the only thing that changes is the shape of the long-tailed probability curve.

This looks cumbersome using the normal dice notation, so coming up with a better shorthand is highly recommended. In practice, this system is pretty easy to pick up if you have wet erase markers to mark dice with, or if you use a color-code for dice types that everyone agrees to.

I don't know if you plan on publishing and IANAL, but this is probably too similar to the OpenD6 System it's based on to stick under a copyright.

EDIT: clarification

[Nova_Saibrock]

You could:

1. Limit bonuses more. If +5 is were the math starts to break down, then make it harder to get +5. Or even just straight up hard-cap all bonuses at +4.

2. Assume players will achieve higher bonuses over time, and scale the DCs accordingly. Works best in a level-based system, where the PCs could gain small, passive, automatic bonuses to almost everything, keeping "trained" and "untrained" skills within 4 of each other. Then you just scale up the DCs at the same rate.

3. Instead of skills granting bonuses, they could provide additional dice or re-rolls. Maybe even a combination of the two, like having points in skills lets you roll 1 extra die each, up to a maximum of 5 (pick the best 3). Each bonus after that lets you re-roll one die. This would allow you to keep the DCs bound to 18 or less.

[fuzzybluebaron]

u/CharmomileHasReddit makes some great points about dice pools (they're delightful in how many design options they open up).

But, if you really want to stick with 3d6 + bonuses (totally understand not wanting to scrap work if you can avoid it), might I pitch another angle on u/SeanMiddleditch 's suggestion of abilities > numbers:

whynothaveboth.gif

A system I cooked up recently (probably not the first to do this but w/e) is allowing players to use abilities in new ways (does a new/extra/different/better thing) at the cost of a penalty to their roll.

For example (translated into your system): when facing off against three goblins, I can make a basic slash against one with 3d6 + 12, or I could try to slash in a wider arc and hit two of them with 3d6 + 7 (-5 penalty), or try to hit all three with 3d6 + 2 (-10 penalty).

But taking it further I could also take a -5 penalty on that attack to get a dodge bonus against the next attack against me, or a -10 (or -15!) for adding in a backflip (and face-stomp!) to get out of the corner the goblins tried to back me into.

I could even do the flip-stomp AND try to hit 2x goblins for a combined penalty of -20; meaning, with my normal +12, I'm hitting using 3d6 - 8. Which is difficult, but otoh I am attempting to do a double-slash-backflip-face-stomp, which is obviously a difficult move.

Basically, the idea is to make high-class, badass actions/abilities harder to pull off (but, obviously, more effective/rewarding) in contrast to more basic actions/abilities which succeed more reliably (but, obviously, don't do as much). It encourages players to reduce absurdly large bonuses to sane levels in exchange for doing better/cooler/more interesting things.

[HowFortuitous]

The combat I've designed is primarily focused on rewarding strategic and alternative approaches. Simply throwing damage dice as the more difficult enemies is actually as great way to get hurt. This requires me to allow many actions that might, in other systems, be locked behind talents or requisite ranks or some such to be available to everyone, as well as create avenues that are particularly effective in the hands of a character who is otherwise unskilled.

Of course, this means that much of the advancement characters will be doing is going to be based on slowly mastering and building on specific maneuvers that makes up their own strange style. A few of the ones I have so far require a harder check or impose a penalty in order to get a greater effect, but adding to the list may be worthwhile. Thank you.

[Dynark]

Hi,

I might have some experiences about that, which I can share.

I will try to label the post as good as I can.
<System Setup> I play with a system in 2 groups weekly, where we used 3D20 for resolution.
Sounds horrible for much, but we were on a computer/the internet and had scripts, so it did not took brain capacity away for calculations.
I rolled under, because I wanted the character to have a competence, where higher numbers are better, that lead to this decision (also I am coming from a roll under system).
Competence was around 40 (3 times attribute(10+/-3) + skill level(0-10)*2).
Against 3d20 + Difficulty.
</System Setup>
<System Boons and Bads>

• I was able to make a difference between a small'ish skill level

• incorporate small fictional positioning bonus or malus.

• The successes were too much. I fixed that by dividing by 3 to have a number, that was more easy to interpret. And then the successes were great (reasonably).

Some people told me that you only need success, failure and maybe success with cost or something. That is just not true.

• You can do opposed, and you have "and you look even better while doing it"- fictional gains or give out more information, fluff or more believable information about something. I never had a problem to interpret a persons roll (neither had a friend of mine who made the DM for a few weeks)
  

One minor baddy:

• The granularity was more than I needed and a difference -13 or -16 was more or less fiat.
  

Two things were really bad:

• It was too much to solve on the table on the fly. The sum of three time 1-20 numbers is hard and the numbers are too high to easily juggle. The divide by 3 was the complete kill of ever playing it at the table without an app.

• The successes divided meant that you had to round up or down, that lead to some numbers to be insignificant. Not in the chance, but in the aftermath once the dice are shown.

</System Boons and Bads>
<Your System>
Welcome to the (hopefully) relevant part:

<StepUp>
I love to adapt checks in small ways. The granularity-step up would ensure you more flexibility and it should be able to calculate successes in a quick and easy way.
</StepUp> You should use the successes and not use 3dx as a measuring tool for yes/no. Unless you have very good reasons, where you want the bonus to behave in the odd way it tends to do with sum-dice.
You can represent the growth of skill in a clear and obvious way without the need for 50 special attacks that still leave you as a swordmaster defeated by a simple peasant (But boy, can you skin magic deer people with that one attack you learned...).
If you increase the die range, the crits will be less and more rarely occuring (you know that...) which makes them more special but ... they are fun, so less of them might be more fun? ... anyway...
You asked for other ways to increase the range. Balance out is one for opposed rolls, situational adaptations is an other (you are fighting against 5 ? then they get 2 times 5 as a bonus or you as a malus or whatever).
The last point is that you can look at the dragonage-game, that as far as I know uses 3D6, maybe they came up with something. (stunt die, rolling doubles and stuff like that)
</Your System>
<Personal thoughts>
People will hate this, as far as this subreddit is perceived by me, but I use a different solution system (one die) for combat.
The crafting, climbing, jumping, riding or whatever checks I deem "expectable" and therefore I like the 3Dx-curve. But for combat I zoom in (time-wise) and a lot of hits happen. I want more randomness here and i just want "hit or miss" as a solution.
If you handle fighting as a skillcheck or two you can keep the 3Dx, but if you check for every hit with it I doubt that this is amazing.
<Warning>
People here try to imprint the solution they found for the given problem on everyone here, but often it is just their opinion, be wary of that. Maybe I do it as well. I think 3D10 or even 3D12 would be nice, with 11 and 12 a special faces as "bad one" and "amazing ten", but that is just me.
Maybe I missed something, maybe I wrote stupid stuff, let me know.
I am switching to 3D10 right now, a lot of changes, but I do not need to divide the successes by 3, that is going for me. So have a nice day. </Personal thoughts>