The Gaming Den

One of the big complaints about certain subsystems in d20 games (diplomacy, I'm looking at you) is that a character can end up with bonuses that are larger than the entire RNG, effectively rendering the die roll meaningless.

And, indeed, superhuge bonuses can be a problem in roll over systems.

One thing I've noticed is the lack of fractional values. When fractions come up, it's always round up or round down. It's never keep the fraction. And I wonder why that is?

It seems to me that having fractional bonuses is an effective way to have large numbers of stacking bonuses without rendering theRNG completely superfluous. So long as a 10.1 beats a 10 that fraction bonus is still worth something. But if your bonuses were worth one tenth of your RNG value you'd be able to fit 200 in before you go completely off the D20.

If you want something less granular you can go for fifths or quarters or halves or whatever. Either way, using fractions for your bonuses lets you fit more bonuses on your RNG without breaking shit.

So why doesn't anyone do this? Am I missing something important here?

Because manipulating integers is much easier and faster than fractional numbers. 3+3 = 6 is fast. 3.3 + 6.8 = 10.1 is not

Pathfinder has fractional bonuses. For example, various racial preferred class options might offer a third of a rogue talent per level, and so on.

Smeelbo

hyzmarca wrote: So why doesn't anyone do this? Am I missing something important here?

Most people have trouble adding fractions.

I cannot look at the 3e skill system and say "you know what was missing from this monstrosity of bonus tracking? Fractions!"

If bonuses are less than 1 then I better not have to track them. The problem is too many bonus types and that is not fully solved by making the bonuses a pain to track.

Better to just pare down the bonus types to skills. Magic bonus and circumstance bonus. That should suffice.

If the difference between a 5.6 and a 5.8 is important to your system, there is no reason not to just deal with 56 and 58. I've taught math. Decimals freak people out more than big numbers and more than multiplication. Most people are going to be more comfortable with "Roll 1d20x10+38+21" than with "Roll 1d20+3.8+2.1".

And the two are completely equivalent, so if the former seems unnecessary or problematic, chances are the latter is too.

Those rolls are not the same thing. Dividing bonuses by 10 means a lot for the RNG.

This idea is still fucked, but d20 + 38 is definitely different from d20 + 3.8

Note the "1d20x10"

I experimented with a house rule that gave people fractional save bonuses so that they could stack good and bad saves from different classes and get overall save bonuses that were good enough. I would say that despite the fact that it ended up with characters being on the RNG with each other for the single classes characters and the multiclassed characters alike, that it was a complete failure. I had to recalculate everyone's save bonuses for them every time they gained a level and that game went on for like six levels. It's not that there were too many moving parts in the equations, it's that it looked like there were too many moving parts in the equation.

The moment the fractions or decimal points come out, people flap their arms in dismay. It shouldn't be true, but it demonstrably is.

-Username17

So what I really need is a house rule that you can't play unless you're a math major?

Slightly offtopic perhaps, but I came up with an alternate homebrew method for multiclassing D&D 3.X saves and BAB a while back that that involves no fractional math.

These are just portions of the BAB/Save tables. Just pick the right number on each column and add them together.

Number of levels with	Low BAB	Medium BAB	High BAB
0	0	0	0
1	0	0	1
2	1	1	2
3	1	2	3

Number of levels with	Low Save	High Save
0	0	0
1	0	2
2	0	3
3	1	3

What I'm curious about is whether or not this is the same as using fractional BAB/saves?

radthemad4 wrote:Slightly offtopic perhaps, but I came up with an alternate homebrew method for multiclassing D&D 3.X saves and BAB a while back that that involves no fractional math.

These are just portions of the BAB/Save tables. Just pick the right number on each column and add them together.

Number of levels with	Low BAB	Medium BAB	High BAB
0	0	0	0
1	0	0	1
2	1	1	2
3	1	2	3

Number of levels with	Low Save	High Save
0	0	0
1	0	2
2	0	3
3	1	3

What I'm curious about is whether or not this is the same as using fractional BAB/saves?

That's exactly what I did in my series of homebrewed campaigns and it worked out well. I had tracks that were printed on modified character sheets, so the players could go "Okay, I have 3 levels of favored will save and 2 levels without so my new will save is..." as opposed to just handing me their sheet and saying "MAKE NUMBERS GOOD NOW".

RadiantPhoenix wrote:Note the "1d20x10"

derp

FrankTrollman wrote:I experimented with a house rule that gave people fractional save bonuses so that they could stack good and bad saves from different classes and get overall save bonuses that were good enough. I would say that despite the fact that it ended up with characters being on the RNG with each other for the single classes characters and the multiclassed characters alike, that it was a complete failure. I had to recalculate everyone's save bonuses for them every time they gained a level and that game went on for like six levels. It's not that there were too many moving parts in the equations, it's that it looked like there were too many moving parts in the equation.

The moment the fractions or decimal points come out, people flap their arms in dismay. It shouldn't be true, but it demonstrably is.

-Username17

This is why my group uses preprinted tables for fractional saves and BAB.

FrankTrollman wrote: The moment the fractions or decimal points come out, people flap their arms in dismay. It shouldn't be true, but it demonstrably is.

erik wrote: Better to just pare down the bonus types to skills. Magic bonus and circumstance bonus. That should suffice.

OP = Basically this right here.

Also consider the following:
Just because someone passes the "+20 bonus" threshold doesn't necessarily render the RNG meaningless/superfluous/whatever. Even at a +30, a d20 still accounts for 40% of the range; and people with equal bonuses are still back to just comparing rolls.
Furthermore, level-10 character are, effectively, demigods compared to Average Joe Commoner - or even level 4 character, for that matter - so who gives a shit if they're not playing the same game? More to the point, they shouldn't be.

That being said, I do understand the problem people have with the idea of 2 equal-level characters demonstrating such a disparity. But by the same token, the guy that never spent resource one on their diplomacy skill never cared about and never used his diplomacy skill to begin with. Which puts us back to: who gives a shit?

Roog wrote: This is why my group uses preprinted tables for fractional saves and BAB.

You don't even have to do that.
You could have a character that has 15 different classes in 15 levels, and the only table you need is any one non-monk class table and the ability to count. For each save, count how many levels are good saves and how many levels are weak saves.
15 levels of good Fort save? +9. 8 levels of good Fort and 7 levels of weak Fort? 5+2=7. This isn't hard; and even the most derpy-derp player will get the hang of it after leveling up a few times.

ACOS wrote:

Roog wrote: This is why my group uses preprinted tables for fractional saves and BAB.

You don't even have to do that.
You could have a character that has 15 different classes in 15 levels, and the only table you need is any one non-monk class table and the ability to count. For each save, count how many levels are good saves and how many levels are weak saves.
15 levels of good Fort save? +9. 8 levels of good Fort and 7 levels of weak Fort? 5+2=7. This isn't hard; and even the most derpy-derp player will get the hang of it after leveling up a few times.

The problem with doing what you describe is that it requires all the players successfully doing it before they get the hang of it, and repeatedly doing it successfully until they get the hang of it.

The preprinted table is to allow the players to do that calculation without using fractions. Inputs are total levels in good and weak saves, output is save total.

Without that we would end up in the situation the Frank described.

@ Roog
I've actually never encountered problems with what I've suggested. IME, the learning curve = "1 level-up after explaining concept".
After you've further described what you do, I fail to see a difference. What kind of "preprinted table" are you talking about?

Now I need to learn how to use tables in BBCode...

		Levels in Good Save
		0 1 2 3 4 ...
Levels in Poor Save	0 1 2 3 4 ...	0 2 3 3 4 ... 0 2 3 3 4 ... 0 3 3 4 4 ... 1 3 4 4 5 ... 1 3 4 4 5 ... ...

#Edit formatting

Roog wrote:

		Levels in Good Save
		0 1 2 3 4 ...
Levels in Poor Save	0 1 2 3 4 ...	0 2 3 3 4 ... 0 2 3 3 4 ... 0 3 3 4 4 ... 1 3 4 4 5 ... 1 3 4 4 5 ... ...

Ah, okay.
And now it seems so obvious. I'm gonna steal that, thank you very much.

hyzmarca wrote:So why doesn't anyone do this? Am I missing something important here?

The fact that many people, including me, would rather have a +0 bonus than a +0.1 bonus on a d20.

Oh, and math major =/= accountant major. Math majors understand how calculations work, it doesn't mean they enjoy doing it.

GâtFromKI wrote:
Oh, and math major =/= accountant major. Math majors understand how calculations work, it doesn't mean they enjoy doing it.

Righto. It is okay to have the math hidden behind the scenes, which is why tables showing the whole numbers are generally accepted; however, once you see decimals and fractions on a character sheet it is a huge turn off.

This is making me think of making a tabletop game to teach math to my boys when they are a lil older- "Linear a Warriors & Quadratic Wizards". I'll have them fight Fractoids which reduce their damage taken by dividing it by the number of horns on their head. And Decimators which divide everything by 10.

hyzmarca wrote:So what I really need is a house rule that you can't play unless you're a math major?

You realize this is 5th grade math, right?

Well, the 5th grade curriculum is beyond most Americans. Maybe someone could make a TV show about that........

One of these days I'll get around to writing mechanics that require differential calculus.

When I was a high school senior, a scheduling conflict resulted in me taking Home Economics. Whatever; we got to cook stuff and I was a ravenous teenager so I didn't mind. One dinky assignment we were given was a print-out of a measuring cup with the quarters labeled (e.g. 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, 1 cup) and we were supposed to fill in all the blank eighths and sixteenth measurements. 90 seconds later, done, turn that shit in.

However, so many students failed that assignment that we had to retake it the following day. And the day after that... and the day after that. All told, we did that assignment a full six times until my high school peers got this elementary-level math figured out, or the teacher just gave up on it.

I was staggered. I couldn't believe it. Admittedly, this was Home Ec. and so a selection bias towards the dregs of my school were enrolled, but still, fractions kick peoples' ass surprisingly hard for a surprisingly long time. For many people it's Integers or GTFO.