Post by Abaddon on Jul 15, 2015 21:47:32 GMT -8
So the initial dice system in Valesk seems fair, and on-paper seems very accurate. But when we look into it, we often see the best fighters in the world (Rank 10, say) missing Clumsy Humans (rank 3 reflexes) often. Or, say, the Balwrath venom, on my old character Relanis. Even if my resolve was 10, I'd have been failing that venom save over and over again. Now, we want to preserve fairness and make sure people can still roll low, but we also want to have more reliable dice rolls that better represent our skills that we've specced into... Right?
Don't worry, good old Abaddon is here to save you!
"Ugh," you say at first, staring at my stupid little avatar. "Not you again." Oh, but I am--alright, I'll cut the shit. So I was thinking about the dice system and I remembered a little rule from my heavy D&D days, which was as follows: The more dice used in a roll, the more average the result will be. And I thought, "Huh, couldn't we apply that here?" Well, I certainly think so! Here's how it breaks down:
Say we're rolling 1d12. What are the chances of getting each result? 1/12. One in 12 times, you will do stellar, or you will fail miserably. Well, that's kinda disappointing. Shouldn't you more often just do average, since that's your skillset's average? Yes.
Shut up I like bolding things.
So, say we're rolling 2d6. Well, what are the chances of getting each result here? Maximum roll is 12, so that still checks out. Minimum roll is... 2? Ah, keen eye, reader. It is 2. That's important. The next question I want to ask is, how often do I roll 12? Well, the answer to that is easy. One out of every 36 rolls.
Say we're rolling 1d12. What are the chances of getting each result? 1/12. One in 12 times, you will do stellar, or you will fail miserably. Well, that's kinda disappointing. Shouldn't you more often just do average, since that's your skillset's average? Yes.
Shut up I like bolding things.
So, say we're rolling 2d6. Well, what are the chances of getting each result here? Maximum roll is 12, so that still checks out. Minimum roll is... 2? Ah, keen eye, reader. It is 2. That's important. The next question I want to ask is, how often do I roll 12? Well, the answer to that is easy. One out of every 36 rolls.
Ahem, don't worry, I have you covered:
"THIRTY SIX?!"
"THIRTY SIX?!"
Well, maybe it wasn't that surprising, but I wanted to feel cool. But, yeah, one out of every 36 rolls. Here's how the dice chart breaks down:
In order to roll a 2, the d6 must turn up two instances of 1. There is only one microstate representing this, and that's when both have turned up 1's.
So what about 3?
Well, that way, the d6 can turn up one 1 and one 2, and either can do it. Now, this means there are two microstates that represent this. Left d6 rolls a 1, right d6 rolls a 2. Or, left d6 rolls a 2, right d6 rolls a 1. Two microstates. Follow me on a magical adventure through a chart.
Rolling a two:
[1,1]
Rolling a three:
[1,2] [2,1]
Four:
[3,1] [1,3] [2,2]
Five:
[2,3] [3,2] [4,1] [1,4]
Six:
[1,5] [5,1] [2,4] [4,2] [3,3]
Seven:
[6,1] [1,6] [2,5] [5,2] [3,4] [4,3]
Eight:
[6,2] [2,6] [5,3] [3,5] [4,4]
Nine:
[6,3] [3,6] [4,5] [5,4]
Ten:
[5,5] [6,4] [4,6]
Eleven:
[5,6] [6,5]
Twelve:
[6,6]
In order to roll a 2, the d6 must turn up two instances of 1. There is only one microstate representing this, and that's when both have turned up 1's.
So what about 3?
Well, that way, the d6 can turn up one 1 and one 2, and either can do it. Now, this means there are two microstates that represent this. Left d6 rolls a 1, right d6 rolls a 2. Or, left d6 rolls a 2, right d6 rolls a 1. Two microstates. Follow me on a magical adventure through a chart.
Rolling a two:
[1,1]
Rolling a three:
[1,2] [2,1]
Four:
[3,1] [1,3] [2,2]
Five:
[2,3] [3,2] [4,1] [1,4]
Six:
[1,5] [5,1] [2,4] [4,2] [3,3]
Seven:
[6,1] [1,6] [2,5] [5,2] [3,4] [4,3]
Eight:
[6,2] [2,6] [5,3] [3,5] [4,4]
Nine:
[6,3] [3,6] [4,5] [5,4]
Ten:
[5,5] [6,4] [4,6]
Eleven:
[5,6] [6,5]
Twelve:
[6,6]
Follow me so far? More results are average because we're using two dice. This is represented by this pretty little rhombus above. Now, that's just with d6's. Imagine the possibilities with d10's, yeah? There will be even more average microstates towards the center, skewing the results more! Don't worry, I'm getting to my point. The d12 is like the current valesk system. Each result is just as likely to come up as the others, but it leaves us less satisfied with our scores. Now, if we went on to the patented (not really) Abaddon's Magical Dice Malady, we'd be using a system of d10's.
How do I mean? Well, the average, 0 rank roll of a trait would roll 10 d10's. This means the lowest possible roll would be a 10, highest would be 100, and the averages would be most likely. The average and most common number would be 55. Then it would bell-curve out from there. With a rank of 1, your average goes up by 5, so your average would be 60, your minimum 11, and your maximum 110. This trend continues towards Rank 10, whose average roll is 105, minimum is 20, and maximum is 200. This creates a nicely curved zone of averages that effects of spells, poisons, and other such things can be scaled to depending on which ranks we'd like to be most easily effected, and makes it so lower and higher results that might skew the system are more rare. Not only does this help our scores and stats be more reliable towards what we want, it doesn't stop the most legendary fighter of all time from tripping on a rock every now and again, and that's exactly what we designed the initial rolling system for in the first place.
How do I mean? Well, the average, 0 rank roll of a trait would roll 10 d10's. This means the lowest possible roll would be a 10, highest would be 100, and the averages would be most likely. The average and most common number would be 55. Then it would bell-curve out from there. With a rank of 1, your average goes up by 5, so your average would be 60, your minimum 11, and your maximum 110. This trend continues towards Rank 10, whose average roll is 105, minimum is 20, and maximum is 200. This creates a nicely curved zone of averages that effects of spells, poisons, and other such things can be scaled to depending on which ranks we'd like to be most easily effected, and makes it so lower and higher results that might skew the system are more rare. Not only does this help our scores and stats be more reliable towards what we want, it doesn't stop the most legendary fighter of all time from tripping on a rock every now and again, and that's exactly what we designed the initial rolling system for in the first place.
