Why "Roll under" Ability checks really are the best of checks
Why "Roll under" Ability checks really are the best of checks
An OSR Blog about fantasy world building and rules analysis for D&D. Also home of the B/X inspired 5e-clone "Into the Unknown."
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Have to confess to not reading all that article BUT when I first played with the percentile checks from Basic Role-Playing, by the time I'd untrained the DnD logic from my brain I was fairly happy that it was a preferable way to do it. Rolling within your percentage ability to achieve something is simple, and you don't have to calculate anything which can slow the game down
Do systems like that account for the difference in difficulty between different tasks with the same skill? Skimming the article makes it sound like the author wants to eliminate DCs, but those strike me as important. Otherwise the acrobat in the party is equally likely to fail to vault a railing as they are to perform their complicated high-wire routine.
I'd also like a good answer. I feel like the author would say "you don't even roll to vault a railing, you just do it". But that still leaves a complicated but rehearsed high-wire routine versus "I run on water". I wonder if the author would simply say no?
From my experience with CoC you can adjust the difficulty by making a specific thing eg +20% harder or easier
It's quite easy to adjust since it's percentage chance, and you have more wiggle room than dc30
Most roll under percentile systems like GURPs / Call of Cthulhu have the concept of difficulty.
In those two systems, the GM can call the check "regular", "hard", or "extreme".
On a hard check, you must roll under 1/2 your skill. On an extreme check, you must roll under 1/5 your skill.