Suggestion: Improvement of DMFI and PC Tools dice rolls

A place to get to know each other. Think of this forum as a first date: No politics, no religion and no past relationships ;)
Post Reply
User avatar
Agog_Fr
Posts: 21
Joined: Sun Mar 20, 2022 10:14 pm
Location: Hitdark

Suggestion: Improvement of DMFI and PC Tools dice rolls

Post by Agog_Fr »

Suggestion: Improvement of DMFI and PC Tools dice rolls

Hello to you. I like to think about things and try to improve them. I'm going to tell you the situation about the dice rolls.

The DMFI allows you to roll skills and characteristics. It's a D20 + PC’s modifier.

These are public rolls, which means that the players present on site see the roll and the modifier. They can thus completely put the build of a player, and put the success or not of a player.

This is a first problem. Let's say I want to play a character who has a lot of Bluff, I want to be able to make a Bluff roll without others knowing that I am a PC who can lie well.

If I want to play a PC who is very smart but is making himself look like a jerk, I should be able to do that.

Also, the D20 choice is a bad thing. Let's say two PCs are arm wrestling. A gracile peasant girl with 08 in Strenght, and a half-orc with 16 in Strenght. Realistically, it is almost impossible for the orc to lose this arm wrestle. But with this D20 system it is very possible. If the peasant has 10 in strength, she has a -1 modifier, if the orc has 20 in strength, which is a colossal RP speaking strength, he only has +5 in modifier.

D20 - 1 vs D20 + 5, the probability of winning from the orc is only slightly higher, which makes no sense!

In short, chance has a massive part, while the native properties of the character has a small part.

To remedy this, and to value the real differences between the PCs, I propose to switch to this system:

D5 + Modifier.

A friend who knows the game very well knows how to change this D20 to D5, both with the DMFI and with the PC Tools Dices. It is very easy to do according to him, in the DMFI and in the PC Tools.

With such a change, the consequences would be simple: A person with 20 in Strenght, would do D5 + 5 vs D5 + 0.

The probability of failure becomes low. The DM may nevertheless decide that a D1 means automatic failure.

Note that I am only proposing this change for Abilities, not for Skills. Skills would stay on 20. For them it is normal since we have +33 at level 20, and that the third party modifiers can be huge (+60 and more).

Make dice rolls private

Another problem arises with dice. With DMFI, the rolls are public. All players see them, as mentioned above.

With PC Tools there is the option to make the rolls private (visible to DMs only). Unfortunately, the system does not work here at the moment. But it can be fixed according to my friend, he can explains how to do so.

There should be three ways to roll a dice:

- Public.

- Private.

- Reserved for DMs. The player would not see the roll! The idea is that he can't know if he made a critical failure, a success, nor the level of the roll. This is a subtle but important point. If a player character critically fails, for example, in order to understand the meaning of a ritual scheme, the player should not know this or else he will change his way of acting in RP!