I love when you do these kinds of videos that really exposes the true mechanics. This is the stuff that anyone who DMs should love. Reduces all the overhead and simplifies it down to it's core allowing the game to move quicker and smoother.
Unfortunately some my D&D group LOVES the overhead because they're math nerds and will lose it if I try to simplify, but this technique works great with my young cousins.
I have to disappoint you, but this is not the "true math" behind it, but a very simplyfied view on it, which is only true in a very specific scenario...
On a d20 each number is 5%. You can decide a % of difficulty from 0-100 and quickly math out a d20 target number by dividing by 5. A plus or minus 3 is a 15% change. A plus or minus 2 is a 10% change. A plus or minus 5 is a 25% change! These are important considerations deciding if a dc is easy, moderate, or hard.
Yeah, this advice isn’t actually great because a lot of RPG players and DMs don’t like math. And people who do like math will realize each step on a D20 is 5% without being told.
This is like how Cypher System is based on "pick any number, 1-10, now multiply by 3. that's the DC" Though since Monte Cook left D&D part way through making 5E I'm sure there's no association...
The more I see rpg's evolving, but understanding the underlying base mechanic, the more I feel that they are a placation for the players in order to provide shinny bits to distract them, which sometimes detracts from the overall group story experience when they focus more on the next character 'treat' they are reaching for than the interaction of the group. Eh, or maybe I am just on old Grognard telling players to stay of my grass. Either way, the hobby is growing, and that is a good thing. Keep up the good hacking Deathbringer, villages don't burn themselves!
From that perspective the only difference I see between RPGs and real life is that you get the shinnies faster and more often in RPGs… …I’ve now come to the conclusion that I need to have a conversation with my life GM about the progression speed in their game. 😂 Time to level up. Grab your ketchup and crunch away my friends.
Nah, you're not that grognardy (grognardly? whatever). While rules can point a game in a particular genre direction, you don't NEED any of them. Or rather, you need just enough. If you're a Dungeon Craft Patron, you see some really great play with minimal rules in PDM's Spy Hard game.
@@rontalkstabletop Thanks again for the support! BTW--I'm answering your question about the D&D RUclips channel on the Live show and in summer "front porch lecture."
"Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and... Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten? Nigel Tufnel: Exactly. Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder? Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where? Marty DiBergi: I don't know. Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do? Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven. Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder. Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder? Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven."
This is one of my favorite videos you have done! Such a useful video for DM's and aspiring ones. I love your videos that focus on mechanics. This is why I started watching your channel in the first place. You definitely earn the "Professor" part of your name.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 that's such a drag that the algorithm is built this way. I remember you polled your patrons and they preferred content like this but your RUclips income is tied to clickbaitey titles and videos about WotC. That's a tough spot to be in.
WHAT! As a newbie to TTRPGs you have been my main source of GM knowledge and you have inspired how i run my games. But for once i am ahead of the curve on this one. I made a monster maker table with values, and i discovered that monster AC and spell DC were aproximately 8+ the players attack bonus. so i have used this for a long time. So validating to have you confirm my crazy. thanks.
The video is truly a great simple review for any DM/GM. As a DM/GM, I have developed a habit of subtracting the bonus from the DC when handling bonuses, allowing me to concentrate solely on the unmodified d20 roll. Your advice is excellent, although it does require the DM/GM to perform mental calculations swiftly unless they prefer to rely on improvisation, as you suggest.
Good points. You don't need any calculations to tell a fighter to roll an 8 to hit a monster and then tell the magic user she has to roll a 14 for the same attack so improvisation is likely to be much more fun especially if you allow players to do something creative after you give them a number to roll. For example, the magic user says "what if I slide under the monster and stab it in the groin where its hide is likely to be soft?" "Awesome idea. Then you'll need a 10." Encourage the kind of play you want with your rules design and the way you run your rules. Personally I find adding bonuses to dice rolls laborious anyway. To Hit AC 0 might have been clunky but it was easier to use than having to add to a dice roll then comparing the result to another number.
I remember playing old school DnD, it was like 1984 and we were 1st level and fighting kobolds. The fight took 45 minutes because neither the party nor the kobolds could hit the broad side of a barn. Fun times.
"Put the master in Dungeonmaster" 👍 I just started a new OSR campaign...after 3 sessions and probably 15-20 attempts my NPC still has not hit an enemy one single time..lowering all AC by 3 sounds really good I rolled so many 8s and 9s 😅
This is one of my favorite videos you've ever done. It's probably the most important aspect of running games: realizing ever die is a percentile die of varying degrees. Knowing how to wield that inforomation well and you basically don't need any game rules, as Gygax once said.
Videos that peel back the veil like this are always great to watch! It's easy to forget that even the DMG had some fluff in it to make DMs think there's some method to the madness.
I'm making a point to go back and rewatch all of my old favorites of your videos. And this remains one of the best pieces of advice on the mechanics of running games I've ever seen. Thanks professor!
Fun fact with advantage/disadvantage: the difference is actually a little over 5 (along with nearly double odds of a nat 20/nat 1). I recall the +3/-3 was mostly because that's what Hankerin' Ferinale felt was sufficient to be considered statistically significant (about a 15% difference in either direction, or 30% from easy to hard).
This is a great way to run a more loose version of the game for people who care less about the simulation of the world and its challenges and more for a plug an play experience. I started out D&D where when we wanted to do something we would roll a d20 ourselves against the DM's secret d20 and we had those small +1's or +2's from our stats and overall we progressed a story and goofed in the world. As me and my friends got more into the game we found ourselves wanting more consitency from the system and feeling more that the choices we made in character creation had weight. Overall, we found all these numbers to be more fun for us in 5e.
This reminds me of Savage Worlds-I’ve been reading through Savage Pathfinder and the rolling mechanic looks really fun. Target to hit is usually 4, sometimes one up or down depending on bonuses, cover, etc. But the fun part is that all the lower dice are used to roll-d4 through d12. You can roll untrained at d4 and have a one in four chance of success, but all important characters (PCs and BBEGs) also roll a d6 “wild die” to improve their chances. As you level or gain proficiency through your character bonuses, you go up a die type-d6, d8, d10, etc. You can’t go up so high that the game becomes trivial, but you can tell whenever you roll whether or not you hit the target number-usually 4. Bennies can be spent (think inspiration) to get another die to roll, but you can only ever use one result. Also, games use a full deck of cards as initiative and if you get a joker when you’re dealt a hand, you and all your crew get to go first. Enemies have three wounds and bennies can soak up wounds before you’re incapacitated and out of the fight. Sounds really fun, but I don’t have a game group yet to play it with!
SW also has exploding dice, which works out really interestingly with the way stats work. Since your stats are rated as dice, the lower it is, the lower you will likely roll, yes, but the higher your chance to explode. A d4 has a 1-in-4 chance of exploding while a d12 has only a 1-in-12 chance. So the better your character is, the more reliable they are at succeeding, but the less likely they are to have a random stroke of luck. It creates this fantastic pulpy feel. No matter how bad you are at something, there's always a chance (however small it may be) that you'll get an incredible hot streak on the dice and pull a crowning moment of awesome out of thin air. It's a delightfully cinematic system. There's really nothing else quite like it.
I've GMed SWAdE for a couple of years now and have to say it was the variety of encounter types to resolve challenges like standard, chase, dynamic that really made it interesting for me, beyond the core dice mechanics I mean. At first the dice mechanics were really cool to me but now I feel they may have over simplified them a little. A TN of 4 seems easy but the game is designed to have most things happen after TN 8 with their "raise" mechanic. Generally speaking an exploding die has an average of about one higher than non exploding. So with the "wild die" added in you're pretty much ensuring non failure at a skill you're minimally trained in, but that doesn't necessarily mean any meaningful effect will happen. Players usually quickly figure out you need to gamble for the swingy exploding die result to get that one lucky super hit to end an encounter. Which means focusing on chance to explode rather than simple success. So most veteran players seem to keep their skills at around a d8 and just work out ways to add more d6s to their damage roll. 😅 You should check out Earthdawn too. Their mechanic works quite well and once you get use to the difference it's actually quite simple and quick in game. It has exploding dice too! 😊 Also the setting is awesome.
Trevor Duvall did an entire solo season using Savage Worlds rolling everything randomly. You see the system at work and it is a highly entertaining show ruclips.net/video/I9ag6U3a8eM/видео.html
This comment is to help feed the algorithm and make your "non-clickbaity" videos shine. Not that the "click-baity" ones bothered me in the slightest. You offer a nice variety of information and insight all linked to the hobby, and I look forward to each and every one. Great stuff.
I concluded some time back that the only thing that really changes is the name of the monsters being fought. Goblin-Orc-Gnoll-Ogre…the game is built around maintaining a similar game experience when we slap more intimidating paint on the same monster we were fighting in the first session. MMO’s don’t even bother changing the paint sometimes. They just Velcro a “Level 42” onto the same kobold model you fought before you got your first signature ability. In my own design, I’m working with only six different character levels, and I may cut it down to three, folding some of the leveling bonuses into character specialization at the beginning. Great analysis.
I actually use BOTH the easy/hard and advantage/disadvantage at the table. My players don’t get the math but they do understand when something is easy or hard… but they get super excited or scared to get advantage or disadvantage respectively. Plus, if they have disadvantage on a hard roll… it clicks they’re doing something stupid, or potentially amazing.
I'm glad they worked on keeping the relative numbers mostly static and closer together. They used to diverge to the point where anything but your specialty was useless.
@@stefanjakubowski8222 For instance, in 3rd edition, BAB and Saves went up at faster rates if they were primary, and slower rates if they weren't. For example, at level 1, a fighter would have 1 for BAB, +4 for STR, +1 for weapon proficiency and have +6 on their attacks over a Sorcerer with 0 BAB, 0 STR bonus, and no weapon proficiency. By level 20, the fighter has 10 higher BAB, at least 5 higher strength bonus, and a +3 to +5 on their weapon and now you could be fighting something the fighter would only miss on a 1, and a sorcerer would only hit on a 20. And yes, a sorcerer usually isn't attacking, but AC, and saving throws also diverged so you could only play to your strengths and secondary aspects became more and more useless.
@@andyreichert499 sorry I was being a wee bit facetious as a classical player, my apologies, and yes WOTC has really warped things, have an awesome week
Another amazing video Professor - I’d actually love to hear more about the stuff you’d change in Old School Dnd, I have been finding the AC way too high but didn’t feel like I could change that without breaking the game. If you’re looking for video idea I’d find that really interesting, you’d need that vest of protection tho! 😂
You know you can just tell players what they need to roll instead of giving them an AC. So at the start of the session say "Today we're doing things just a little different. I've taken notes on all your characters so I know all your bonuses, skills etc. Tonight I'm just going to tell you the number you need to roll to hit in combat with everything included. Buckle up because combats are going FAST tonight!" Using professor DMs scale: 7-8 For someone skilled (in combat that's a fighter or a thief backstabbing) 9-12 For someone for whom it's a secondary skill (in combat that's a cleric or thief) 13-14 for someone who is unskilled (in physical combat that's a magic user) If it's an easy monster you might go one below the bottom of the range. If it's a hard monster you might go one above the top. So for a fighter an easy monster would require a roll of 6 but a hard monster would require a roll of 9. Ultimately it doesn't matter. A 5% increase or decrease in percentage chance really doesn't change the percentages in any significant way. What makes more sense is to give players a better chance if they do something creative and cool. In other words, reward them for the kind of play you want to encourage.
Using targets from ICRPG in my homebrew game, especially writing it on the mat during the game for everyone to see, has been one of the steps I've taken to dramatically speed up the game, there's no confusion and everyone can plan faster
One thing that I've been thinking to implement our campaign its a battle variant system that I've found. In few words, it continues progress in battle even with a miss, so I can throw high AC enemies and cause less statements. The idea its to create a EC(Evasion Class), a value lower than AC, but not giving a 100% chance to hit, when the attack doesn't hit the AC it can hit the EC, but hitting EC does half damage or less. The way to the players and mobs not abuse to the system its to keep it working only for close combat and physical attacks, so magic still have its power and ranged attacks can still just zone the enemies.
I've always known that RPGs are, at the end of the day, a number treadmill, but wow I never expected them to be so consistent about it. Its kind of incredible to be honest just how well they've hidden it behind DCs and bonuses and all that.
To be fair, this does sort of depend on the RPG *and* it doesn't account particularly well for the more intangible stuff outside of just straight forward rolls, but yeah, it's pretty common. The games that don't are the ones that people tend to think of as unbalanced in some range. Reason why is simple. Let's say that we're making a game and we determine through play testing that we have an optimum set of numbers to make a combat encounter feel good and balanced. I.E. It's just where our game feels the best it can. Adding bonuses to the players *or* making the game harder will then actively work to the game's detriment. There is an out but I'm not so sure that people would be down with it in general.
Great video - I like this type of content. Understanding the game design/mechanics at play hidden behind all the bonuses really helps when you're running a game. Another example - when I understood 5e's concept of bounded accuracy it suddenly made sense to me why characters had such high hit points (even though I disagree with this game design, at least it made sense). Thanks again!
This was incredible advice. I play Pathfinder 2e and I am playing with the variant rule to not include a players level with most of their dice rolls. I did this for a few reasons but most of all the math while easy just seemed so wrong. To hear something like my AC is a 35 and I have a +22 to hit, just seems wrong on so many levels. Now I know the magic number of 8 and can rule a LOT faster on the fly as well. Now I do also try and mix up monsters and events to help some of the characters shine a bit, and give resistances to monsters to make battles a bit unique as well. This advice is perfect now, as there are quite a few times where I get the question "Can I jump across that pit?" or some other skill and yes Pathfinder has a rule for that, one that I don't really want to look up. Now I can just quickly figure out that the pit would take someone who is very good at athletics (trained +2, Strength +4) a 65% chance of success. I can then set the roll to a 14 and as you said, it can be adjusted EASILY. Thanks again.
Haha, that was awesome. It's like you took all the math and calculations which make up the supercar of 5e, lifted the hood, and showed us the lawnmower engine that powers the whole thing. 🤣 Great video.
As an OSR junkie, I'm amazed at how inconsistent the bonuses are around systems that are supposedly "compatible" with old school TSR modules. The thing is, the monsters in those adventures just have their HD, rolled Hit points, (descending) Armor Class, and Damage recorded. You are expected to have an attack bonus graph to cross-reference, which the players can do on their character sheet, but I have to ask: *Was a Dungeon Master Screen with rules charts REQUIRED back in the old days?* I've compared the attack and saving throw bonuses of OSRIC, Basic Fantasy, Old-school Essentials, and OED (Original Edition Delta, a house set from Delta's D&D Hotspot blog for Whitebox OD&D that sets the DC for every d20 roll at 20, with bonuses from your level, class, and opponent's AC). Each one is slightly different. OSE is actually closer to 5e's proficency bonus, with every class getting the same bonus, only smaller and it scales slower. In OSRIC, some classes THAC0 improves every 5 levels, some 3, and some every single level, and OED has a similar system, just with an understandable bonus that doesn't need a graph. The basic fantasy fighter gets an extra +1 to hit only MOST of the time s/x/he levels up, but at 3rd, 6th, 9th, 10th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 19th, and 20th level, the attack bonus stagnates in a way that is unpredictable and you need the thrice-damned chart to reference your attack bonus, and every single monster (whose attack scales faster with HD than the fighter's corresponding level) needs to reference this chart, too! ITS. MADDENING. My favorite is OED (though OSRIC is more complete) because its seriously the easiest to remember that the bonus is your character level or your thief level, or a level +4/+3/+2/+1/+0 for the saving throw categories. No DM screen needed. Though it does feel like I could turn the whole system into a stripped-down clone of 3e with minimal changes...
This will come in handy in the next campaign I will be DMing, because I never run premade modules and need to craft from scratch. Sure, I've read about those numbers in the DMG, but I never managed to remember them. Your explanations were a whole lot more straightforward and thus easier to remember. That's a great help for amateur game design. Thank you.
Thanks for the tips. With our group, we're on our 2nd campaign. The group is still learning since I asked them to change races & classes & I've only DMed as long as they've played. In our 1st campaign we had a fight last for over an hour with 6 PCs & 3 goblins. Horrible rolls & low levels crippled us. I had to adjust or TPK them, one, but your strategy here would have made that a LOT simpler & will simplify our future games. THANK YOU!
I'm getting ready to run my ten year old daughter through her first RPG and I chose Shadowdark for its stripped down rules light approach and in prepping her to go through B1-B2-B4 in that order. This approach will help me convert those modules quickly and easily. I want to make her first RPG experience challenging, fun and fast flowing. Thx Prof!
Im not sure why you are converting much. Just go play. Now if you are running a 5e campaign, there will be some work to do because the ACs are buffed so much and the buffs the monsters have in order that they may last a round or two vs all these superhero charactes running around. B1 kinda sucks. We can admit it among friends.
In my home brew, low-fantasy game I use a modified version of ICRPG and Mork Borg. I simply have three target numbers easy (9), normal (12) and hard (15). Ability bonuses max at +3 and Classes at their level to appropriate tasks. This keeps the math super simple.
I would argue that advantage/disadvantage makes much more difference than a +3 or -3, because when throwing more than one dice increases the chance of an average result. It is also much more satisfying when playing rather than adding an additional addition/substraction, of which there's plenty already. My 2 copper pieces ;)
I always bump a single boss’s AC up a bunch instead of adding hit points. Since the characters usually hit around 60% of the time, suddenly missing a lot is very dramatic. This boss is tough and you sick solo compared to them. They get frustrated and fearful of their impending doom. So when they eventually defeat the baddie they are high diving each other and need an emotional recovery period. Drake makes fun. If it’s always 8 that just as boring. I make 4 swings and 2-3 of them hit. Making bosses counter your spells, teleport out of range just as you’re about to smite, all that is actually fun for players. I run 4 games and the nights they talk about later, the sessions they remember, are the times I make it really hard to do damage. This happens about every 6th session or so on average, maybe slightly less, and it works.
That’s why there has to be more to combat than just combat. Always present a sense of urgency to go along with that agency. This is how dynamics makes gameplay more fascinating, keeps combat from becoming magnetic chess, increases tactical options, and everyone gets something to do.
Great video. I've found lower the AC but raise the hit points from stock stats. Make the monsters easier to hit but have them be able to soak up some damage so they don't die too quickly. That makes the fights exciting because the players get to roll damage but also it doesn't feel like a pure steamroll because the monster actually gets to live long enough to hit back.
@@charles_pensamentocritico yes, but am I telling them roll 8 and they add their mods to the roll? Or am I telling them "mods included in DC, now roll 8"? It's important, it's one of those little details that matter :)
One of the things I really like about pathfinder 2e is the fact that a lot of things add your level as proficiency bonus. Monsters add their level to AC, fighters to their to hit bonus and it basically disguises the fact that for most things you have a 55% chance to succeed baked in the core mechanics of the game.
This is also what lets pf2e have more consistent solo boss monsters, as they "bleed" the PCs actions with lower hit chances so it isn't just these flat math attrition based 65% always hits which side has more actions math.
Glad to see you posting another video. Hopefully that means you're feeling better. Also, appreciate the advice (as usual) and digging the chonky black d20.
This video convinced me that the lack of NPC input on roll difficulty in Dungeon World is fine. Literally, you're just setting the DC so that someone doing what they do best needs an 8+ on a d20 (65% chance of success), which is slightly better than what you get in PbtA games, but the middle ground is the most fun anyway, so (58.5% chanvce of a 7 on 2d6, +3 = 10 so success 58.5% of the time at max ability, BUT 97.2% chance of a partial success, so all good)
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Goodman Games van, well that doesn't sound creepy!!! My mom warned me about getting in vans with someone offering to show me puppies or give me free candy.
Thank you for making this video. It just shows the truth about all RPG's, and that its the story and the collaboration between players/GM that makes the game.
As with the majority of the concepts and rules alterations you discuss, I Dig this! I’ve always strived to run my games faster and more proficient and pick a number and run with it…. It’s the story that flows forth that is important for my players and myself
This video helped me a ton. Been working on my own system and I was really struggling with the complexity of the mechanic/math. This simplified it a lot. Questing Beast did a similar video for Knave2 and with both it opened my eyes s lot.
This is one of the most useful pieces of advice all DMs should know. I don’t care how well you have memorized the phb and the dmg. I don’t care if you are a mental-math wizard and embrace the calculation crunch in all of its glory- if you DM long enough, you will end up using this advice. At some point, your players will do something that falls into a “rules grey area” and you will have to rely on just picking a DC that “makes sense”. And this “rule of 8” will be the baseline to go off of.
I use just one ten sided for all rolls for all my non dnd ttrpgs. Rolled twice for percentage. GM controls all % success/failure. So much easier to understand but does take practice.
Thank you for the terrific analysis Professor DM. It's a great rework and expansion of a couple of your earliest videos. As someone who loves to tinker with game mechanics, I appreciate your insights. The final scene of this video was humorous and put a grin on my face. Have a good one!
I like the idea of simplicity to hit numbers. Classic Traveler does something like this, to hit an enemy in combat you have a basic roll of 8+ on 2d6. Armor of the target provides modifiers if I recall correctly, and of course you get mods for your skills, but in Traveller you don’t have many of those and they’re just +1 maybe +2 or rarely +3. But it’s always tied to that generic “roll 8 or more.” No matter what the attack is.
My magic numbers are 7, 11 and 14. Pretty close to your chart. Or if were goinf with ICRPG style the magic bumber is 11, -4 to the Difficulty for Easy and +4 for Hard
The main point to the numbers is to help make characters who specialize in something better than those who don't at a glance, or within a modular system where each DM doesn't need to adjust things. It's easier to port flat numbers in an adventure path, after all, or use as a reference point to set DC's at a glance. After crunching some numbers with Heath's Geekverse a while back, I reduced the DC's for skill tests by 5, and it does a good job of allowing characters who specialize in something to be consistently successful at average tasks out of the gate and improving to be reliable at Hard tasks when they level up, but still requiring Expertise to have a decent chance at pulling off the most daring feats of skill, which preserves the niche for Rogues and Bards.
Prof. DM does not believe in characters that specialise in things. If you have put a lot of points in Lockpicking, that just means that your difficulty will be that much higher at his table.
I think this type of thinking where you boil it down to "what needs to come up on the d20?" is what really pulled me in about Modiphius's Fallout TTRPG. It takes the math out of the to hit roll and you just know what your dice should come up as. Fallout TTRPG is a 2d20 system where lower = better, and you're aiming to roll at or below a target number, with a 1 being 2 successes and 20 adding a complication (even if you succeed on the other dice, you just complicate the success which I find interesting). And then you just add together your attribute and skill. Making an attack with a club? Strength + Melee = your target number, roll the dice, see how many successes you get, difficulty of the task is based on how many successes are needed vs the number itself. I know a while back I used a system similar to your player facing rolls so that players would roll for their saving throw spells and enemy attacks instead of me, and rather than explain to them how it all worked, I just said "here's how the math works if you want to verify, but I'll just tell you what you need to roll" and it worked ok. Granted, I personally didn't like it because I like rolling dice, so taking that away from myself made it unfun for me, but it did make things a bit simpler just telling them a number to roll and taking the mid combat math out of the roll.
I think modifiers to the roll only make sense when you actually have control over those modifiers and there's an actual choice of not maxing those. If the best case scenario is always maxing your modifier, it doesn't matter at all. But games that tend to focus too much in the mathematics behind, tend to have one optimal solution.
I was reading the fallout Roleplaying game by Modiphius, when I discovered there pattern to using the D20. They would divide the D20 into 5 sections then each section being added for easier difficulty. 1-4 hardest, 1-8 hard, 1-12 normal, 1-16 moderate, 1-19 easy. 20 was reserved for Crit Fails.
This is perhaps one of your best/most useful videos. I run Cypher System, but the math can be applied across systems. I'll take a break once in a while, and let one the players run a min-campaign for the table, and I've forwarded this to him (He's asked for advice on GMing, which is a lot harder to give than you would expect). This vid is an excellent peek-behind-the-curtain for GMs to absorb, and the principles can also be applied to skill-heavy games. I've bookmarked it, and will definitely watch it again, writing up a half-sheet cheatsheet to laminate and keep handy. After those numbers, all the other rules are really just trappings ...
Great video, once again! I disagree with one point @3:41 where you talk about “the illusion of improving” The concept is that you are better at taking on more challenging foes and much more likely to wade through a swathe of minions like goblins or skeletons So it might border on actual improvement and illusionary improvement, but there is actual progression. Thanks for your thoughts and all your perspectives Blessings!
Another great video, thanks! As a compulsory note from the resident DnD sceptic: this (not so?) common truth is the main reason why I keep preaching that DnD is too rule-fat. If it dared to replace the hundreds of specific monster, armor or item stats with a few simple tables of generic difficulty/bonus guidelines, anyone could remember them easily and there'd be no (well ok, less) pauses during the game to discuss exactly how do you roll for something, or how difficult a grey-wolf-with-a-purple-spot-on-its-butt should be to beat with a semi-automatic-gnome-hand-crossbow-with-a-magical-flashlight for a half-elf-rogue-star-druid-in-chalice-wildshape-with-a-guidance-spell, if they can use it in the dark and is turning the flashlight on a bonus action. But then, of course, it would be much harder to sell us new books or subscriptions to digital tools that remember all that for us... On a side note, I know some would argue having every single combination of player-monster-environment-item down in writing is how you avoid conflicts over the rules in the first place. I agree to a degree ;). Once you get over a certain size (and I feel like DND got there long ago, trampled on it and boldly went where no one has gone before), finding these rules stops being worth the time. I know GMs who limit the number of books that can be referenced in their game simply because they have a life. And others who, just like demonstrated in this video, adjust things a lot on the go to make the game fun and the difficulty levels applicable to circumstances and the story... because DnD is too rule-fat, you know ;D.
Very interesting video in comparison with Ben Milton's video released today too. I wonder if there are two different design principles at play. I do think 5e and I think back to 3e before it runs the way you describe here: Bonuses go up, DC's go up, it's basically a wash. I have noticed when playing OSE (B/X D&D) that the 1st level success rate is low. Saving Throws, Thief skills (other than climbing), and Open Stuck Doors probably show this low success rate best. Someone once told me that Old School games are about trying to succeed without needing to roll - if you are rolling the dice, something has already gone wrong - which I've found to be a really interesting challenge that simply does not work with the design and playstyle of the later editions. However, if I look at a 13th level fighter in OSE, I see their Poison/Death save is only 4! At first level getting poisoned was likely certain death, but now 17 out of 20 times you can just shrug it off no problem! I do think it's kind of neat that insurmountable challenges can become nuisances later in the game.
This is insightful. True skill experts are likely to add things like Expertise, the Guidance cantrip, or straight bonuses like Pass Without Trace to the equation though. I would have liked to see that addressed/acknowledged.
Great video. Deathbringer made it awesome. More Deathbringer please. And more characters too - is Deathbringer a member of a party? How about some Deathbringer short videos (new and existing) and more OSR Grognard Angry Dwarf.
"The answer is buried in the back of the 5th Ed. Dungeon Master's Guide, and you have to read between the lines of the text to arrive at it." This is my biggest gripe with 5th Edition; page after page of poorly-written, ambiguous rules.
I keep a framework of prep but make up creature stats, spells and thresholds on the fly. The only rule my players should know( I learned from this channel) is the only thing guaranteed is a die roll between them and causation, they always get a chance.
You're like if my dad only talked to me about dungeon mastering and just wanted me to do my best and realize it's all for fun.
Thank you.
boring games full of people looking at the tops of each others' heads while they search for charts are the bane of all RPGs. Listen to PDM.
@@nemooh wait, I thought RPGs were shorthand for fantasy accounting groups.
I love when you do these kinds of videos that really exposes the true mechanics. This is the stuff that anyone who DMs should love. Reduces all the overhead and simplifies it down to it's core allowing the game to move quicker and smoother.
Thanks. Please are.
I couldn't agree more.
Unfortunately some my D&D group LOVES the overhead because they're math nerds and will lose it if I try to simplify, but this technique works great with my young cousins.
I have to disappoint you, but this is not the "true math" behind it, but a very simplyfied view on it, which is only true in a very specific scenario...
@@Sarados1980
OK
"It was self defense and they backed into my axe."
Well I know what my annoying barbarians new catch phrase is.
"It is what my -character- axe would do!"
LOL @ drinking Starbucks in the rain to feel like Seattle.😂
"The entire game is arbitrary." This is my new favorite quote.
Very much reminds me of the old argument
"That word is made up!"
"Yes, all words are made up."
Of course it is. And there is nothing wrong with that! 👍
Arbitrary at best and contrary at worst
Indeed, like the concept of money.
Right now I'm running a Delta Green game and I'm pulling all the stats and events out of my ear. Entirely arbitrary.
On a d20 each number is 5%. You can decide a % of difficulty from 0-100 and quickly math out a d20 target number by dividing by 5. A plus or minus 3 is a 15% change. A plus or minus 2 is a 10% change. A plus or minus 5 is a 25% change! These are important considerations deciding if a dc is easy, moderate, or hard.
Precisely. This is mentioned in passing in the DMG, but it's such an important concept that they probably should've explain it in much more detail.
Shhhhz people dont like math, and also, this is why d100 5x>d20
Lol ha e an awesome week
Yeah, this advice isn’t actually great because a lot of RPG players and DMs don’t like math. And people who do like math will realize each step on a D20 is 5% without being told.
This is Tracy Hickman’s point from his book XDM
yeah, you can't stress enough that we are just setting probabilities.
This is like how Cypher System is based on "pick any number, 1-10, now multiply by 3. that's the DC"
Though since Monte Cook left D&D part way through making 5E I'm sure there's no association...
The more I see rpg's evolving, but understanding the underlying base mechanic, the more I feel that they are a placation for the players in order to provide shinny bits to distract them, which sometimes detracts from the overall group story experience when they focus more on the next character 'treat' they are reaching for than the interaction of the group. Eh, or maybe I am just on old Grognard telling players to stay of my grass. Either way, the hobby is growing, and that is a good thing. Keep up the good hacking Deathbringer, villages don't burn themselves!
You have discovered the Matrix.
From that perspective the only difference I see between RPGs and real life is that you get the shinnies faster and more often in RPGs…
…I’ve now come to the conclusion that I need to have a conversation with my life GM about the progression speed in their game. 😂
Time to level up.
Grab your ketchup and crunch away my friends.
Nah, you're not that grognardy (grognardly? whatever). While rules can point a game in a particular genre direction, you don't NEED any of them. Or rather, you need just enough. If you're a Dungeon Craft Patron, you see some really great play with minimal rules in PDM's Spy Hard game.
@@rontalkstabletop Thanks again for the support! BTW--I'm answering your question about the D&D RUclips channel on the Live show and in summer "front porch lecture."
A hobby is growing,
but it ain't MY TTRPG.
Seattle Hipsters said so...Best line
The best D&D channel on the tube. More need to see this advice.
Thanks. Please are the video!
Not just that. If you read between the lines, you can distil litres of wisdom in the Professor’s lectures.
"Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven."
Great movie.
A hell of simplification of the d20 mechanics... Simple and straight forward explanation, well done as always Sir.
This is one of my favorite videos you have done! Such a useful video for DM's and aspiring ones. I love your videos that focus on mechanics. This is why I started watching your channel in the first place. You definitely earn the "Professor" part of your name.
Thank you. PLEASE share it. It's lagging in terms of views.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 that's such a drag that the algorithm is built this way. I remember you polled your patrons and they preferred content like this but your RUclips income is tied to clickbaitey titles and videos about WotC. That's a tough spot to be in.
You missed a great opportunity to do a crossover with Sesame Street. "Today's number is EIGHT!!!"
Ha Ha Ha
Ah ah aaaahhh!
WHAT! As a newbie to TTRPGs you have been my main source of GM knowledge and you have inspired how i run my games.
But for once i am ahead of the curve on this one. I made a monster maker table with values, and i discovered that monster AC and spell DC were aproximately 8+ the players attack bonus. so i have used this for a long time. So validating to have you confirm my crazy. thanks.
You are welcome. You are not crazy--you are an outstanding student of RPGs.
You just discovered what bad game design is. ;)
The video is truly a great simple review for any DM/GM.
As a DM/GM, I have developed a habit of subtracting the bonus from the DC when handling bonuses, allowing me to concentrate solely on the unmodified d20 roll.
Your advice is excellent, although it does require the DM/GM to perform mental calculations swiftly unless they prefer to rely on improvisation, as you suggest.
Thank you for saying so!
Good points. You don't need any calculations to tell a fighter to roll an 8 to hit a monster and then tell the magic user she has to roll a 14 for the same attack so improvisation is likely to be much more fun especially if you allow players to do something creative after you give them a number to roll. For example, the magic user says "what if I slide under the monster and stab it in the groin where its hide is likely to be soft?" "Awesome idea. Then you'll need a 10." Encourage the kind of play you want with your rules design and the way you run your rules.
Personally I find adding bonuses to dice rolls laborious anyway. To Hit AC 0 might have been clunky but it was easier to use than having to add to a dice roll then comparing the result to another number.
@@andrewcavanagh3946 Great points. Thank you.
I remember playing old school DnD, it was like 1984 and we were 1st level and fighting kobolds. The fight took 45 minutes because neither the party nor the kobolds could hit the broad side of a barn. Fun times.
"Put the master in Dungeonmaster" 👍 I just started a new OSR campaign...after 3 sessions and probably 15-20 attempts my NPC still has not hit an enemy one single time..lowering all AC by 3 sounds really good I rolled so many 8s and 9s 😅
This is one of my favorite videos you've ever done. It's probably the most important aspect of running games: realizing ever die is a percentile die of varying degrees. Knowing how to wield that inforomation well and you basically don't need any game rules, as Gygax once said.
Anything random has a % chance to happen. But only rolling a D100 to match this chance can be a bit to simplyfied.
This may be Deathbringer's best vid yet. Always love to see the intersection of the game I love to play and the math I gave up on in high school!
Videos that peel back the veil like this are always great to watch! It's easy to forget that even the DMG had some fluff in it to make DMs think there's some method to the madness.
Brilliant deconstruction.
Now I want a two-page rule system built around the number 8.
I'm making a point to go back and rewatch all of my old favorites of your videos. And this remains one of the best pieces of advice on the mechanics of running games I've ever seen. Thanks professor!
Fun fact with advantage/disadvantage: the difference is actually a little over 5 (along with nearly double odds of a nat 20/nat 1). I recall the +3/-3 was mostly because that's what Hankerin' Ferinale felt was sufficient to be considered statistically significant (about a 15% difference in either direction, or 30% from easy to hard).
Advantage brings your average roll up to 13.8, and disadvantage to a 7.17.
I haven't played with it for a while but the advantage and disadvantage change depending on the DC/AC whatever.
@@nemooh Ah, makes sense.
How can two linear rolls have an average?
How can two linear rolls have an average?
This is a great way to run a more loose version of the game for people who care less about the simulation of the world and its challenges and more for a plug an play experience. I started out D&D where when we wanted to do something we would roll a d20 ourselves against the DM's secret d20 and we had those small +1's or +2's from our stats and overall we progressed a story and goofed in the world. As me and my friends got more into the game we found ourselves wanting more consitency from the system and feeling more that the choices we made in character creation had weight. Overall, we found all these numbers to be more fun for us in 5e.
This reminds me of Savage Worlds-I’ve been reading through Savage Pathfinder and the rolling mechanic looks really fun. Target to hit is usually 4, sometimes one up or down depending on bonuses, cover, etc. But the fun part is that all the lower dice are used to roll-d4 through d12. You can roll untrained at d4 and have a one in four chance of success, but all important characters (PCs and BBEGs) also roll a d6 “wild die” to improve their chances. As you level or gain proficiency through your character bonuses, you go up a die type-d6, d8, d10, etc. You can’t go up so high that the game becomes trivial, but you can tell whenever you roll whether or not you hit the target number-usually 4. Bennies can be spent (think inspiration) to get another die to roll, but you can only ever use one result. Also, games use a full deck of cards as initiative and if you get a joker when you’re dealt a hand, you and all your crew get to go first. Enemies have three wounds and bennies can soak up wounds before you’re incapacitated and out of the fight. Sounds really fun, but I don’t have a game group yet to play it with!
SW also has exploding dice, which works out really interestingly with the way stats work. Since your stats are rated as dice, the lower it is, the lower you will likely roll, yes, but the higher your chance to explode. A d4 has a 1-in-4 chance of exploding while a d12 has only a 1-in-12 chance. So the better your character is, the more reliable they are at succeeding, but the less likely they are to have a random stroke of luck. It creates this fantastic pulpy feel. No matter how bad you are at something, there's always a chance (however small it may be) that you'll get an incredible hot streak on the dice and pull a crowning moment of awesome out of thin air. It's a delightfully cinematic system. There's really nothing else quite like it.
I've GMed SWAdE for a couple of years now and have to say it was the variety of encounter types to resolve challenges like standard, chase, dynamic that really made it interesting for me, beyond the core dice mechanics I mean.
At first the dice mechanics were really cool to me but now I feel they may have over simplified them a little. A TN of 4 seems easy but the game is designed to have most things happen after TN 8 with their "raise" mechanic. Generally speaking an exploding die has an average of about one higher than non exploding. So with the "wild die" added in you're pretty much ensuring non failure at a skill you're minimally trained in, but that doesn't necessarily mean any meaningful effect will happen.
Players usually quickly figure out you need to gamble for the swingy exploding die result to get that one lucky super hit to end an encounter. Which means focusing on chance to explode rather than simple success. So most veteran players seem to keep their skills at around a d8 and just work out ways to add more d6s to their damage roll. 😅
You should check out Earthdawn too. Their mechanic works quite well and once you get use to the difference it's actually quite simple and quick in game. It has exploding dice too! 😊 Also the setting is awesome.
Thoughout the video I was thinking: Savage's good old
TN 4
@jonmolnar8141 That’s my alltime favorite system.
Trevor Duvall did an entire solo season using Savage Worlds rolling everything randomly. You see the system at work and it is a highly entertaining show ruclips.net/video/I9ag6U3a8eM/видео.html
The DC chart was originally a thing in D6 Star Wars, in case you were not aware. Loved that they incorporated it into 3ED D&D.
This comment is to help feed the algorithm and make your "non-clickbaity" videos shine. Not that the "click-baity" ones bothered me in the slightest. You offer a nice variety of information and insight all linked to the hobby, and I look forward to each and every one. Great stuff.
Adv/DisAdv as an RPG tool, feels as good as holding a real sword, or drawing a bow..... visceral, lethal.... and tension building
Another great and honest video! Love that you are going to run Lost City Professor. I hope you'll share game play updates with us
Will do.
Yes please!
I concluded some time back that the only thing that really changes is the name of the monsters being fought. Goblin-Orc-Gnoll-Ogre…the game is built around maintaining a similar game experience when we slap more intimidating paint on the same monster we were fighting in the first session. MMO’s don’t even bother changing the paint sometimes. They just Velcro a “Level 42” onto the same kobold model you fought before you got your first signature ability.
In my own design, I’m working with only six different character levels, and I may cut it down to three, folding some of the leveling bonuses into character specialization at the beginning.
Great analysis.
I actually use BOTH the easy/hard and advantage/disadvantage at the table. My players don’t get the math but they do understand when something is easy or hard… but they get super excited or scared to get advantage or disadvantage respectively.
Plus, if they have disadvantage on a hard roll… it clicks they’re doing something stupid, or potentially amazing.
Smart to not ignore the psychology aspect.
Lol, did we just both make videos about d20 rolls and percentages?
Haha, I noticed that and have added them both to my watch lists so I can try to stay up with the math. (not the famous DnDShorts)
Did you two just become friends? YUP!
I'm glad they worked on keeping the relative numbers mostly static and closer together. They used to diverge to the point where anything but your specialty was useless.
And when was this??
@@stefanjakubowski8222 3e/3.5/4e
@@stefanjakubowski8222 For instance, in 3rd edition, BAB and Saves went up at faster rates if they were primary, and slower rates if they weren't. For example, at level 1, a fighter would have 1 for BAB, +4 for STR, +1 for weapon proficiency and have +6 on their attacks over a Sorcerer with 0 BAB, 0 STR bonus, and no weapon proficiency. By level 20, the fighter has 10 higher BAB, at least 5 higher strength bonus, and a +3 to +5 on their weapon and now you could be fighting something the fighter would only miss on a 1, and a sorcerer would only hit on a 20. And yes, a sorcerer usually isn't attacking, but AC, and saving throws also diverged so you could only play to your strengths and secondary aspects became more and more useless.
@@andyreichert499 sorry I was being a wee bit facetious as a classical player, my apologies, and yes WOTC has really warped things, have an awesome week
Another amazing video Professor - I’d actually love to hear more about the stuff you’d change in Old School Dnd, I have been finding the AC way too high but didn’t feel like I could change that without breaking the game. If you’re looking for video idea I’d find that really interesting, you’d need that vest of protection tho! 😂
That video is coming. It's called "Armor Class is Broken." Stay tuned.
You know you can just tell players what they need to roll instead of giving them an AC. So at the start of the session say "Today we're doing things just a little different. I've taken notes on all your characters so I know all your bonuses, skills etc. Tonight I'm just going to tell you the number you need to roll to hit in combat with everything included. Buckle up because combats are going FAST tonight!"
Using professor DMs scale:
7-8 For someone skilled (in combat that's a fighter or a thief backstabbing)
9-12 For someone for whom it's a secondary skill (in combat that's a cleric or thief)
13-14 for someone who is unskilled (in physical combat that's a magic user)
If it's an easy monster you might go one below the bottom of the range. If it's a hard monster you might go one above the top. So for a fighter an easy monster would require a roll of 6 but a hard monster would require a roll of 9. Ultimately it doesn't matter. A 5% increase or decrease in percentage chance really doesn't change the percentages in any significant way.
What makes more sense is to give players a better chance if they do something creative and cool. In other words, reward them for the kind of play you want to encourage.
Using targets from ICRPG in my homebrew game, especially writing it on the mat during the game for everyone to see, has been one of the steps I've taken to dramatically speed up the game, there's no confusion and everyone can plan faster
One thing that I've been thinking to implement our campaign its a battle variant system that I've found. In few words, it continues progress in battle even with a miss, so I can throw high AC enemies and cause less statements. The idea its to create a EC(Evasion Class), a value lower than AC, but not giving a 100% chance to hit, when the attack doesn't hit the AC it can hit the EC, but hitting EC does half damage or less. The way to the players and mobs not abuse to the system its to keep it working only for close combat and physical attacks, so magic still have its power and ranged attacks can still just zone the enemies.
I've always known that RPGs are, at the end of the day, a number treadmill, but wow I never expected them to be so consistent about it. Its kind of incredible to be honest just how well they've hidden it behind DCs and bonuses and all that.
To be fair, this does sort of depend on the RPG *and* it doesn't account particularly well for the more intangible stuff outside of just straight forward rolls, but yeah, it's pretty common. The games that don't are the ones that people tend to think of as unbalanced in some range. Reason why is simple.
Let's say that we're making a game and we determine through play testing that we have an optimum set of numbers to make a combat encounter feel good and balanced. I.E. It's just where our game feels the best it can. Adding bonuses to the players *or* making the game harder will then actively work to the game's detriment.
There is an out but I'm not so sure that people would be down with it in general.
At the end of the day, all the randomness just comes down to some pre determined arbitrary percentage.
Great video - I like this type of content. Understanding the game design/mechanics at play hidden behind all the bonuses really helps when you're running a game. Another example - when I understood 5e's concept of bounded accuracy it suddenly made sense to me why characters had such high hit points (even though I disagree with this game design, at least it made sense). Thanks again!
Very insightful, you can really see this at work with PC spell/ability save DCs being 8+prof+bonus. It was right there the whole time!
This was incredible advice. I play Pathfinder 2e and I am playing with the variant rule to not include a players level with most of their dice rolls. I did this for a few reasons but most of all the math while easy just seemed so wrong. To hear something like my AC is a 35 and I have a +22 to hit, just seems wrong on so many levels. Now I know the magic number of 8 and can rule a LOT faster on the fly as well. Now I do also try and mix up monsters and events to help some of the characters shine a bit, and give resistances to monsters to make battles a bit unique as well. This advice is perfect now, as there are quite a few times where I get the question "Can I jump across that pit?" or some other skill and yes Pathfinder has a rule for that, one that I don't really want to look up. Now I can just quickly figure out that the pit would take someone who is very good at athletics (trained +2, Strength +4) a 65% chance of success. I can then set the roll to a 14 and as you said, it can be adjusted EASILY. Thanks again.
Haha, that was awesome. It's like you took all the math and calculations which make up the supercar of 5e, lifted the hood, and showed us the lawnmower engine that powers the whole thing. 🤣 Great video.
As an OSR junkie, I'm amazed at how inconsistent the bonuses are around systems that are supposedly "compatible" with old school TSR modules. The thing is, the monsters in those adventures just have their HD, rolled Hit points, (descending) Armor Class, and Damage recorded. You are expected to have an attack bonus graph to cross-reference, which the players can do on their character sheet, but I have to ask: *Was a Dungeon Master Screen with rules charts REQUIRED back in the old days?*
I've compared the attack and saving throw bonuses of OSRIC, Basic Fantasy, Old-school Essentials, and OED (Original Edition Delta, a house set from Delta's D&D Hotspot blog for Whitebox OD&D that sets the DC for every d20 roll at 20, with bonuses from your level, class, and opponent's AC). Each one is slightly different. OSE is actually closer to 5e's proficency bonus, with every class getting the same bonus, only smaller and it scales slower. In OSRIC, some classes THAC0 improves every 5 levels, some 3, and some every single level, and OED has a similar system, just with an understandable bonus that doesn't need a graph. The basic fantasy fighter gets an extra +1 to hit only MOST of the time s/x/he levels up, but at 3rd, 6th, 9th, 10th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 19th, and 20th level, the attack bonus stagnates in a way that is unpredictable and you need the thrice-damned chart to reference your attack bonus, and every single monster (whose attack scales faster with HD than the fighter's corresponding level) needs to reference this chart, too!
ITS. MADDENING.
My favorite is OED (though OSRIC is more complete) because its seriously the easiest to remember that the bonus is your character level or your thief level, or a level +4/+3/+2/+1/+0 for the saving throw categories. No DM screen needed. Though it does feel like I could turn the whole system into a stripped-down clone of 3e with minimal changes...
This will come in handy in the next campaign I will be DMing, because I never run premade modules and need to craft from scratch.
Sure, I've read about those numbers in the DMG, but I never managed to remember them. Your explanations were a whole lot more straightforward and thus easier to remember. That's a great help for amateur game design. Thank you.
Insightful as always and yet another tool I can have in my belt for when I do another impromptu encounter that requires such rolls.
Thank you!!
This is crazy useful info, thank you Professor!
Thanks for the tips. With our group, we're on our 2nd campaign. The group is still learning since I asked them to change races & classes & I've only DMed as long as they've played. In our 1st campaign we had a fight last for over an hour with 6 PCs & 3 goblins. Horrible rolls & low levels crippled us. I had to adjust or TPK them, one, but your strategy here would have made that a LOT simpler & will simplify our future games. THANK YOU!
I'm getting ready to run my ten year old daughter through her first RPG and I chose Shadowdark for its stripped down rules light approach and in prepping her to go through B1-B2-B4 in that order. This approach will help me convert those modules quickly and easily. I want to make her first RPG experience challenging, fun and fast flowing. Thx Prof!
Im not sure why you are converting much. Just go play. Now if you are running a 5e campaign, there will be some work to do because the ACs are buffed so much and the buffs the monsters have in order that they may last a round or two vs all these superhero charactes running around.
B1 kinda sucks. We can admit it among friends.
Wonder how many folk got the "Spinal Tap" reference.
11?
@@jmansfield9253 yup, turn it up to 11
100% of the cool ones.
In my home brew, low-fantasy game I use a modified version of ICRPG and Mork Borg. I simply have three target numbers easy (9), normal (12) and hard (15). Ability bonuses max at +3 and Classes at their level to appropriate tasks. This keeps the math super simple.
I would argue that advantage/disadvantage makes much more difference than a +3 or -3, because when throwing more than one dice increases the chance of an average result.
It is also much more satisfying when playing rather than adding an additional addition/substraction, of which there's plenty already.
My 2 copper pieces ;)
That’s true with a bell curve system, which requires adding dice to create a sum. 5E is still linear, just wilder due to that mechanic.
Between the advice and humor, this is one of my favorite videos of yours I've ever seen. 🎉
These are the videos that brought me to this channel. Keep teaching Prof.
I always bump a single boss’s AC up a bunch instead of adding hit points. Since the characters usually hit around 60% of the time, suddenly missing a lot is very dramatic. This boss is tough and you sick solo compared to them. They get frustrated and fearful of their impending doom. So when they eventually defeat the baddie they are high diving each other and need an emotional recovery period. Drake makes fun. If it’s always 8 that just as boring. I make 4 swings and 2-3 of them hit. Making bosses counter your spells, teleport out of range just as you’re about to smite, all that is actually fun for players. I run 4 games and the nights they talk about later, the sessions they remember, are the times I make it really hard to do damage. This happens about every 6th session or so on average, maybe slightly less, and it works.
That’s why there has to be more to combat than just combat. Always present a sense of urgency to go along with that agency. This is how dynamics makes gameplay more fascinating, keeps combat from becoming magnetic chess, increases tactical options, and everyone gets something to do.
Great video, as always, Professor! I'm glad you're feeling better!
D&D players: that's a pretty interesting argument mr. crawford, what's your source
Crawford: my source is I made it the f* up
Great video. I've found lower the AC but raise the hit points from stock stats. Make the monsters easier to hit but have them be able to soak up some damage so they don't die too quickly. That makes the fights exciting because the players get to roll damage but also it doesn't feel like a pure steamroll because the monster actually gets to live long enough to hit back.
You can also increase the number of monsters which can be epic with the party cutting through a huge group of monsters.
Really nice, efficient vid. Thanks Prof!
Need a picture of Deathbringer drinking Starbucks!
Shhhhhh!!!!! Your giving away the short cuts that make the old gamers look so wise! ;)
So you propose not having them adding bonuses to their roll, just target 8 - 10 - 12? I like this.
He is saying that you shouldn't sweat the rules too much, if you just estimate at around 8 - 10 - 12 the game will work just fine
That is oddly similar to the Cypher system except in increments of 3.
@@charles_pensamentocritico yes, but am I telling them roll 8 and they add their mods to the roll? Or am I telling them "mods included in DC, now roll 8"? It's important, it's one of those little details that matter :)
@@bearthegenxgm He means roll 8 on the die. The idea is to cut the unnecessary math during play.
@@bearthegenxgm sure! It''s the second. He advocates that the DM should do the math ("DC 15, player has +5...") and say "ok, roll a 10 on the d20"
This was so helpful, and super intuitive.
One of the things I really like about pathfinder 2e is the fact that a lot of things add your level as proficiency bonus. Monsters add their level to AC, fighters to their to hit bonus and it basically disguises the fact that for most things you have a 55% chance to succeed baked in the core mechanics of the game.
This is also what lets pf2e have more consistent solo boss monsters, as they "bleed" the PCs actions with lower hit chances so it isn't just these flat math attrition based 65% always hits which side has more actions math.
Glad to see you posting another video. Hopefully that means you're feeling better. Also, appreciate the advice (as usual) and digging the chonky black d20.
This video convinced me that the lack of NPC input on roll difficulty in Dungeon World is fine. Literally, you're just setting the DC so that someone doing what they do best needs an 8+ on a d20 (65% chance of success), which is slightly better than what you get in PbtA games, but the middle ground is the most fun anyway, so (58.5% chanvce of a 7 on 2d6, +3 = 10 so success 58.5% of the time at max ability, BUT 97.2% chance of a partial success, so all good)
"What about your tabaxi rug?"
"That was self defense, and they backed into my axe!"
That's gold, Jerry, gold!
Professor! Can we get a list of events that you will be running at gencon? That would be awesome, thanks!
Macdeath, "Slaughterous Maximus" in the Goodman Games van, and two seminars with Ben Milton. I think one is called "How to Design a Kickass Adventure"
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Goodman Games van, well that doesn't sound creepy!!! My mom warned me about getting in vans with someone offering to show me puppies or give me free candy.
@@mrgunn2726 I would definitely take free candy from someone in a Goodman Games van. They are stupendous. Love their prodcuts.
@@nemooh 🤣🤣🤣
Thank you! I'm going to use this right away!
Thank you for making this video. It just shows the truth about all RPG's, and that its the story and the collaboration between players/GM that makes the game.
So true!
As with the majority of the concepts and rules alterations you discuss, I Dig this! I’ve always strived to run my games faster and more proficient and pick a number and run with it…. It’s the story that flows forth that is important for my players and myself
Thanks for watching!
Fantastic video! Distills the topic down to the essentials and explains them perfectly. As thanks I’m off to buy a copy of Deathbringer.
Another fine lesson in game mastery professor. Bravo.
Thanks again Professor DM! I really enjoyed your Deathbringer mini RPG.
Thanks. Non OGL version is in the workshop right now.
This video helped me a ton. Been working on my own system and I was really struggling with the complexity of the mechanic/math. This simplified it a lot. Questing Beast did a similar video for Knave2 and with both it opened my eyes s lot.
This is one of the most useful pieces of advice all DMs should know.
I don’t care how well you have memorized the phb and the dmg. I don’t care if you are a mental-math wizard and embrace the calculation crunch in all of its glory- if you DM long enough, you will end up using this advice.
At some point, your players will do something that falls into a “rules grey area” and you will have to rely on just picking a DC that “makes sense”. And this “rule of 8” will be the baseline to go off of.
In one of your older videos you said "in the first level everything is DC 11, in the second it's DC 12" my view of D&D changed foerever. Thank you.
You're welcome!
I use just one ten sided for all rolls for all my non dnd ttrpgs. Rolled twice for percentage. GM controls all % success/failure. So much easier to understand but does take practice.
Thank you for the terrific analysis Professor DM. It's a great rework and expansion of a couple of your earliest videos. As someone who loves to tinker with game mechanics, I appreciate your insights. The final scene of this video was humorous and put a grin on my face. Have a good one!
This is a huge help for a new dm like me. Thanks a ton professor.
I never thought of it this way. This is great, thank you!
I like the idea of simplicity to hit numbers. Classic Traveler does something like this, to hit an enemy in combat you have a basic roll of 8+ on 2d6. Armor of the target provides modifiers if I recall correctly, and of course you get mods for your skills, but in Traveller you don’t have many of those and they’re just +1 maybe +2 or rarely +3.
But it’s always tied to that generic “roll 8 or more.” No matter what the attack is.
My magic numbers are 7, 11 and 14. Pretty close to your chart. Or if were goinf with ICRPG style the magic bumber is 11, -4 to the Difficulty for Easy and +4 for Hard
Pretty cool.
So much wisdom concentrated in there, that's why I suscribed there.
The main point to the numbers is to help make characters who specialize in something better than those who don't at a glance, or within a modular system where each DM doesn't need to adjust things. It's easier to port flat numbers in an adventure path, after all, or use as a reference point to set DC's at a glance.
After crunching some numbers with Heath's Geekverse a while back, I reduced the DC's for skill tests by 5, and it does a good job of allowing characters who specialize in something to be consistently successful at average tasks out of the gate and improving to be reliable at Hard tasks when they level up, but still requiring Expertise to have a decent chance at pulling off the most daring feats of skill, which preserves the niche for Rogues and Bards.
Prof. DM does not believe in characters that specialise in things. If you have put a lot of points in Lockpicking, that just means that your difficulty will be that much higher at his table.
I think this type of thinking where you boil it down to "what needs to come up on the d20?" is what really pulled me in about Modiphius's Fallout TTRPG. It takes the math out of the to hit roll and you just know what your dice should come up as. Fallout TTRPG is a 2d20 system where lower = better, and you're aiming to roll at or below a target number, with a 1 being 2 successes and 20 adding a complication (even if you succeed on the other dice, you just complicate the success which I find interesting). And then you just add together your attribute and skill. Making an attack with a club? Strength + Melee = your target number, roll the dice, see how many successes you get, difficulty of the task is based on how many successes are needed vs the number itself.
I know a while back I used a system similar to your player facing rolls so that players would roll for their saving throw spells and enemy attacks instead of me, and rather than explain to them how it all worked, I just said "here's how the math works if you want to verify, but I'll just tell you what you need to roll" and it worked ok. Granted, I personally didn't like it because I like rolling dice, so taking that away from myself made it unfun for me, but it did make things a bit simpler just telling them a number to roll and taking the mid combat math out of the roll.
Great breakdown of target numbers Professor!
Ignore the illusion and just roll - no maths required
The Perfect Balance Myth! 8>D Also, any mention of Spinal Tap means YOU are awarded 1 inspiration point!
The balance goes to 11.
@@commandercaptain4664 Always!
I think modifiers to the roll only make sense when you actually have control over those modifiers and there's an actual choice of not maxing those. If the best case scenario is always maxing your modifier, it doesn't matter at all. But games that tend to focus too much in the mathematics behind, tend to have one optimal solution.
Cool, another maths video to follow up Questing Beast's Knave 2 behind the scenes video. It is interesting to see what's going on under the hood.
I was reading the fallout Roleplaying game by Modiphius, when I discovered there pattern to using the D20. They would divide the D20 into 5 sections then each section being added for easier difficulty. 1-4 hardest, 1-8 hard, 1-12 normal, 1-16 moderate, 1-19 easy. 20 was reserved for Crit Fails.
A beginner GM play by the the rules.
An intermediate GM question the rules.
An advanced GM need no rules.
For the younger kids, the DC for them is their age. Watching the 6 year old lead the battle is fun. 🙂
This is perhaps one of your best/most useful videos. I run Cypher System, but the math can be applied across systems. I'll take a break once in a while, and let one the players run a min-campaign for the table, and I've forwarded this to him (He's asked for advice on GMing, which is a lot harder to give than you would expect). This vid is an excellent peek-behind-the-curtain for GMs to absorb, and the principles can also be applied to skill-heavy games. I've bookmarked it, and will definitely watch it again, writing up a half-sheet cheatsheet to laminate and keep handy. After those numbers, all the other rules are really just trappings ...
Thanks so much for bookmarking it!
Great video, once again!
I disagree with one point @3:41 where you talk about “the illusion of improving”
The concept is that you are better at taking on more challenging foes and much more likely to wade through a swathe of minions like goblins or skeletons
So it might border on actual improvement and illusionary improvement, but there is actual progression.
Thanks for your thoughts and all your perspectives
Blessings!
If your DM puts your 7th level barbarian up against orcs and skeletons, yes. And I HIGHLY encourage this once in a while, BTW.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 another reason you are one of my faves 🥳
Another great video, thanks!
As a compulsory note from the resident DnD sceptic: this (not so?) common truth is the main reason why I keep preaching that DnD is too rule-fat. If it dared to replace the hundreds of specific monster, armor or item stats with a few simple tables of generic difficulty/bonus guidelines, anyone could remember them easily and there'd be no (well ok, less) pauses during the game to discuss exactly how do you roll for something, or how difficult a grey-wolf-with-a-purple-spot-on-its-butt should be to beat with a semi-automatic-gnome-hand-crossbow-with-a-magical-flashlight for a half-elf-rogue-star-druid-in-chalice-wildshape-with-a-guidance-spell, if they can use it in the dark and is turning the flashlight on a bonus action. But then, of course, it would be much harder to sell us new books or subscriptions to digital tools that remember all that for us...
On a side note, I know some would argue having every single combination of player-monster-environment-item down in writing is how you avoid conflicts over the rules in the first place. I agree to a degree ;). Once you get over a certain size (and I feel like DND got there long ago, trampled on it and boldly went where no one has gone before), finding these rules stops being worth the time. I know GMs who limit the number of books that can be referenced in their game simply because they have a life. And others who, just like demonstrated in this video, adjust things a lot on the go to make the game fun and the difficulty levels applicable to circumstances and the story... because DnD is too rule-fat, you know ;D.
This could be a script for DungeonCraft. Well said.
Very interesting video in comparison with Ben Milton's video released today too. I wonder if there are two different design principles at play. I do think 5e and I think back to 3e before it runs the way you describe here: Bonuses go up, DC's go up, it's basically a wash.
I have noticed when playing OSE (B/X D&D) that the 1st level success rate is low. Saving Throws, Thief skills (other than climbing), and Open Stuck Doors probably show this low success rate best. Someone once told me that Old School games are about trying to succeed without needing to roll - if you are rolling the dice, something has already gone wrong - which I've found to be a really interesting challenge that simply does not work with the design and playstyle of the later editions.
However, if I look at a 13th level fighter in OSE, I see their Poison/Death save is only 4! At first level getting poisoned was likely certain death, but now 17 out of 20 times you can just shrug it off no problem! I do think it's kind of neat that insurmountable challenges can become nuisances later in the game.
This is insightful. True skill experts are likely to add things like Expertise, the Guidance cantrip, or straight bonuses like Pass Without Trace to the equation though. I would have liked to see that addressed/acknowledged.
Great video. Deathbringer made it awesome. More Deathbringer please. And more characters too - is Deathbringer a member of a party? How about some Deathbringer short videos (new and existing) and more OSR Grognard Angry Dwarf.
Lol. Will do.
This is why I send my new players to you Professor! PDM's back in school, holding court, and broadening eager minds!
"The answer is buried in the back of the 5th Ed. Dungeon Master's Guide, and you have to read between the lines of the text to arrive at it."
This is my biggest gripe with 5th Edition; page after page of poorly-written, ambiguous rules.
I keep a framework of prep but make up creature stats, spells and thresholds on the fly. The only rule my players should know( I learned from this channel) is the only thing guaranteed is a die roll between them and causation, they always get a chance.