Holy godballs, this must be how Jimmy Neutron feels.

[Draco_Argentum]

I don't want "the RNG" to become: Flip a coin, you get what you want on a heads.

Its not the concept's fault that the 4e goons decided that a coin flip was the baseline to shoot for. I'd go for at least 75% hit chance with lesser effects on a miss.

[Kaelik]

1) Yes, I want certain characters to fall off the RNG in certain areas.

2) So what you are saying is we should use a d4 instead of a coin toss?

3) I don't think you are understanding, changing the static bonus at level 1 that defines you to hit chances for the rest of the game does not create variable hit chances. It creates different chances that then remain static for the rest of the game.

When I build a character that is designed to do X, I want him to get better at X as he levels up with respect to enemies of his own level. And get worse at Y that he does not specialize in.

That's why level 1-5 is a failure in 3.5 as far as I can see. You start out at the pinnacle of skill, relative to your enemies, then get worse, and then, after level 5 start to get better.

A level 1 Fighter can kill everything in one hit, then he starts to lose relative damage until at level 6 he starts to gain it back. And at level 20 he is right where he was at level 1, killing everything he can make an attack against in one hit. Except now things are harder to make attacks against (and they should be, but he shouldn't have been so good at level 1).

A level 1 Wizard cast Wail of The Banshee and no one can make the save, insta win. As he levels people get better at making the save, and then start to get worse again. Until finally he is casting Wail of the Banshee (the actual one) and everyone is immune to death effects anyway.

If I focus on something I want to get better at it, not have some retarded static bonus at level 1, and then have the same to hit chance at level 20 as I did at level 1.

[rapa-nui]

"When I build a character that is designed to do X, I want him to get better at X as he levels up with respect to enemies of his own level. And get worse at Y that he does not specialize in. "

After a certain point, this breaks the game. It also adds nothing. In the system RC2 and I are proposing, your archer guy is going to be a better archer at higher levels because he has archer FEATS, not because he has built up an uninteresting differential in his base chance to hit.

So, to recap, an example of possible values:

Archer Dude Lvl 1 vs. High Ref Dude Level 1:
Chance to hit = 50% (or whatever)

Archer Dude Lvl 10 vs. High Ref Dude Level 1:
Chance to hit = near 100% (because of level differential)

Archer Dude Lvl 10 vs. High Ref Dude Level 10:
Chance to hit = 50% BUT, he has all sorts of crazy archer abilities, like Teleport Shot, Mulshot, Re-Shot, Shot Run, Strafe Shot, Fatal Shot, Pinning Shot, and Petrifying Shot of a Thousand Pains. That High Ref Dude better have some funky stuff of his own to keep up.

[Draco_Argentum]

If you define better as a relatively larger numerical bonus the scaling off the RNG is what you want. I prefer a definition of better that involves my character doing things that are legitimately cool.

[RandomCasualty2]

If I focus on something I want to get better at it, not have some retarded static bonus at level 1, and then have the same to hit chance at level 20 as I did at level 1.

But that's pretty much precisely what happens to wizards in 3.5.

Your color spray DC stays for the most part the same. Instead of just upgrading your color spray, you get web, fireball, evard's tentacles and so forth. Your numbers don't increase much, you just get better options.

What you are proposing is actually the 3.5 warrior paradigm, where you don't really get many interesting options and the majority of your leveling is just accumulating bigger numbers for your attack.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather have options than just "you get another +1 at this level."

What your proposing isn't about your character getting better, it's just about slanting the system towards rocket launcher tag, because you just want offenses to get way better than defenses.

[Kaelik]

If I focus on something I want to get better at it, not have some retarded static bonus at level 1, and then have the same to hit chance at level 20 as I did at level 1.

But that's pretty much precisely what happens to wizards in 3.5.

Your color spray DC stays for the most part the same. Instead of just upgrading your color spray, you get web, fireball, evard's tentacles and so forth. Your numbers don't increase much, you just get better options.

What you are proposing is actually the 3.5 warrior paradigm, where you don't really get many interesting options and the majority of your leveling is just accumulating bigger numbers for your attack.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather have options than just "you get another +1 at this level."

What your proposing isn't about your character getting better, it's just about slanting the system towards rocket launcher tag, because you just want offenses to get way better than defenses.

1) DCs scale pretty damn fast, and when targeting a weak save, it gets easier to succeed.

2) At no point anywhere did I say, "You can't get new abilities." Stop trying to shove your words down my throat.

3) Or one could be good at defense and their defenses could become so strong that other people can't hit them.

[RandomCasualty2]

1) DCs scale pretty damn fast, and when targeting a weak save, it gets easier to succeed.

Well it depends on what monsters you fight. 3.5 was so divergent that you honestly couldn't say much about what you were going against. The creature's stat blocks were totally arbitrary and there was no relation of hit dice to CR. That meant that a creature could have potentially huge saves.

But the selling point of being a high level wizard isn't the fact that you get super high DCs. It's that you get a bunch of options.

3) Or one could be good at defense and their defenses could become so strong that other people can't hit them.

Only it just doesn't work that way when the system is divergent. Divergent systems pretty much have to favor other people. What rapa-nui and I are saying is that when irresistible force meets immovable object, then it's a 50/50 chance. In other words, defense specialist and offense specialist cancel themselves out.

You want apparently some system of "fuzzy" math like 3.5 where you just vomit onto a page and hope the numbers work out instead of actually planning out a real system to base your game. There's no advantage at all to a divergent system. It just means that your game's initial mechanics become worthless at high levels and you're rolling extra dice for nothing. Like touch attacks in 3.5. Yeah you autohit pretty much, so you're only rolling that d20 to not roll a 1. At that point you might as well just call it an autosuccess.

That's just lazy design where you say "math is hard" and just decide to not ever add up the numbers and just throw bonuses around. And now you're just playing pokemon style "collect 'em all".