Attribute+Skill vs. TN dicepools and autohits
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TavishArtair
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Attribute+Skill vs. TN dicepools and autohits
A thought was panning through my head, and I thought I'd put it out here since there's enough numbers-analysis nerds here for it to be picked over to some satisfaction. If you wanted a fairly heroic setting, would it be appropriate to let people just straight up have automatic hits on tasks, based on either their inherent Attribute or learned Skill/Ability, and only roll the other half? Obviously this would make the automatically successful dice about twice as good as the ones you have to roll, but I think it would let you roll less dice total if you wanted a high degree of variance in the number of dice people would roll, while still setting a bar for certain tasks being performed automagically.
The TN dicepool system is basically just a practical way of rolling a bunch of (possibly weighted) d2s. If you give people automatic hits, then you're rolling Xd2 + bonuses, which is starting to look at lot like 3d6 + bonuses or d20 + bonuses, and will have similar general properties.
Systems where more powerful people roll more dice result in tasks becoming asymptotically easier and never becoming automatic wins, with a wider and finer range of possible difficulties as you progress; systems where more powerful people add larger static bonuses to their roll result in a window of difficulties that moves forward but always looks internally the same, with easy tasks regularly falling off the end and becoming automatic success (or covered by a special case rule, like "natural 1 always fails").
It's possible to vary both your number of dice and your static bonuses, and if you have certain requirements for the kind of distributions you want that might be the best way to get them, but it's more complicated than varying only one of those things, so you should only do it if there's a specific reason you need it.
Systems where more powerful people roll more dice result in tasks becoming asymptotically easier and never becoming automatic wins, with a wider and finer range of possible difficulties as you progress; systems where more powerful people add larger static bonuses to their roll result in a window of difficulties that moves forward but always looks internally the same, with easy tasks regularly falling off the end and becoming automatic success (or covered by a special case rule, like "natural 1 always fails").
It's possible to vary both your number of dice and your static bonuses, and if you have certain requirements for the kind of distributions you want that might be the best way to get them, but it's more complicated than varying only one of those things, so you should only do it if there's a specific reason you need it.