Diceless Pathfinder - A Brutally Swift Play-by-Post - OG Myth-Weavers

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Diceless Pathfinder - A Brutally Swift Play-by-Post

   
Diceless Pathfinder - A Brutally Swift Play-by-Post

Forget rolling dice. Diceless Pathfinder has arrived.

In this iteration of a Pathfinder campaign, dice are omitted from every aspect of play. Randomness is removed from the equation, and that makes for an entirely different flavor of game. What I'm wanting to figure out are the nuances that arise from such a situation. How does this fare for PbP games, where speed is an issue for a lot of campaigns?

Some things I want to consider very carefully, and which I would like help answering:

What are the benefits of this playstyle in a PbP game format?

What sort of challenges does this present to players? To Gamemasters?

Will this style of play be, for lack of a better term, too boring to play?

Will players be put off by this enormous change to the roleplaying game structure?


Discuss. I want to see how this all pans out. If the conversation is successful, I will be running a game with this alteration. This has the possibility to see use in my IRL campaigns in the future, depending on the discussion and its results.

Actually, I think this might work very well for PbP. The one thing that bothers me to no end in PbP is waiting for a stupid dice result. As a player I typically write up a post going 'I'll try this and depending on outcome will either X or Y'
I'd much rather post 'I unlock the door and go through it' - that way the party can respond accordingly. Way nicer than 'I attempt to pick the lock' and let the party wait a day to see if I did.

A thing I'm already contemplating for my game is making this visible, such as enemies' AC and HP, certain DC's etc. No need for the entire party to gang up on the nearest enemy if it already died after the first PC's attack - that just means four party members wasted their round and probably won't do the next round until tomorrow.

The only problems I see is that nothing is unexpected anymore with this diceless system, and powerful builds that don't fail on anything - but frankly, that's almost the same as when rolling.

Yeah. My idea is that a build like this is more reliable - certain outcomes at certain levels are going to be guaranteed by a set number generator, meaning that those players who are savvy (and power-gamey) enough to do their math, homework, and reading can end up with builds that literally do not fail at certain actions at certain levels. At some point, a character who uses UMD for wand will never fail that check. I think that this aspect, more than a traditional rolling game style, will reflect expertise in certain areas. After all, once you have a +19 in a skill, you will reliably make a DC 30 skill check, without ever having to roll. If a player knows that, they don't have to wait for my (the GM) input; they simply declare an action and do it. "I climb the icy slope." "Have you factored your modifiers and conditional bonuses?" "Yes. I manage a 19 all told, which is high enough to climb the slope." That sort of thing. Of course, this means I have less judiciary duties, and can more freely illustrate other aspects of the world.

Honestly...I don't like it.

The idea of RPing without dice I do enjoy, but Pathfinder (and D&D by extention) needs the dice, I feel. The games are about feeling heroic, about overcoming challenges through teamwork, character builds, and luck. The luck is a huge, HUGE part of D&D, in my opinion.

When you roll that natural 20, your eyes light up and you can't help but smile. Take that away, and it's just 'Oh, combat expertise for this much to land crits'. Criticals, and even success itself, becomes just...math. Yes, I know D&D and Pathfinder use math, but with the roll of a die, all that planning could be for naught, or just the other way around.

Have you ever played in a game where someone miraculously saved the day by rolling a nat' 20 attack vs. an opponent? That nat' 20 means you hit. Period. Diceless? There's nothing like that. Only 'by the numbers' playing. If you know the math, you know if you will win or lose. No true heroics of 'Yeah, that dragon is definitely far too high a CR for us. But you know what? We got this...." Sure, that leads to many a party wipe, but that's half the draw.

Hard to feel heroic if you're not risking anything.

On the other hand, I think it might work well for other types of games, but I just think that D&D / PF needs the chance. It's time to toss the dice.

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As an alternative idea, many of the thoughts expressed in the link, here, and some I've had myself and heard from others, can be solved with a couple small changes to the game.

1.) Taking a 10 is always allowed. You could have it 'taking an 11' instead, since the 'average' of a d20 roll is technically 10.5, but that would be a preference thing. Usually not too difficult to scrounge up an additional bonus to a roll.

2.) Roll 3d6 instead of a 1d20. This changes a few things. First, it makes getting a 'middling' roll significantly more likely. Second, is makes extreme highs and lows far less likely, but without getting rid of them altogether. I've used this numerous times already, and definitely enjoy the results. It makes it so that that fully trained and armored 'Evil Mercenary' is VERY unlikely to miss striking a peasant, without making it impossible for 'the hand of fate' / 'the dice gods' to take a hand in the roll.

I'm not a fan of the d20. Getting a natural 1 is the same chance as getting a 4 or an 11 or an 18 or a 20. People don't typically display skills all over the place. If someone is a good climber, they're a good climber. An easy climb will prove no problem. Yes, that's where the 'take a 10' comes into place, but when you talk about attacking, and you go from astounding accuracy one round to 'flailing like a blind idiot' the second, it's a bit annoying.

Thus the 3d6 > d20. Due to the result curve of multiple dice, the middling results are far more likely, making it more 'realistic' for outcomes of rolls, without completely removing the chance of great success or horrible failure. I know I already mentioned this, just wanted to reiterate.

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Another option is something a friend of mine came up with a long time ago, though we've never actually used the system.

You take all the possible rolls from a d20 (1-20), and put them on a checklist. As you RP, and you need a 'roll', you choose your result. Once that 'roll' has been chosen, you remove it from the list, and continue to RP. You only refresh your list once the full 'list' has been spent.

I still think it's a very neat idea, and would definitely apply itself very well to a RP-heavy game, allowing you to take a more active and controlling roll of the story you're telling of your character.

Playing the gruff, badass type? Use your high rolls for attacks and intimidate, and your low rolls for things like diplomacy, bluff, and knowledges. You're making what you've selected as your characters 'weaker points' to actually be weaker, even if statistically they might be decent due to your stats.

Well, I haven't done the maths, but it seems potentially useful. Some of the most fun combats I've had in some systems were when the dieroll was relatively predictable, so hitting someone with higher defence or avoiding a strong attack, depended on exploiting or changing the situation, and not just by manoeuvres to flank.
OTOH, this would require more detailed rules for situational bonuses and penalties than I remember from my brief exposure to Pathfinder!

Interesting idea, I would only try such a system in php and not in person games. I think it does have some potential here. For the reasons mentioned above. On the other hand for many die rolling is too integral to the game. There is a discussion going on right now on these boards discussing rolled attributes vs point buy for exactly that reason. I think encounter planning would require a lot more work for the DM but the outcome should be easier to predict. By that I mean in a diceless game you would have to be more careful not to include a monster no one can hit by more than a few points with their flat bonus as there are only so many ways to get that tactical bump needed. In a regular game a high AC may draw the battle out (generally not good in pbp) but lucky rolls may eventually overcome it. Battles probably would become too predictable.

If you are looking for faster combat resolution there are other ways. I offen include enemy ACs as already mentioned. If you are looking for more reliable play I have seen the 3d6 method before as well. I prefer 2d10 myself. I also prefer a straight d20 roll for DCs I make up on the fly as DM but for combat it can work. It definitely changes the mechanics in a crit focused way though. One reason I prefer d10s. You would still need to increase crit ranges though for the 2d10 method a flat +2 to the crit range of any weapon (applied after effects like keen) works well. For 3d6 it is harder, 16-18 for a 20 weapon, 15-18 for a 19-20 and 14-18 for a 18-20 weapon works ok but starts to break down for keen after that as crits actually get too reliable, a keen 19-20 weapon would still be 14-18 and a range of 15-20 would be 13-18. A good dice probably calculator can help you get a feel for the effects of these kind of changes on the game.

Edit: the 1-20 checklist is also an interesting idea and also mentioned in the comments section of that article but one I have not seen before today.

I've considered something like this before... I should note that rules such as this only exacerbate some existing problems in Pathfinder. Enemies that are hard will only get harder, and enemies that are easy will only get easier, meaning that the narrow band of "appropriate" CR foes will will only get narrower.

And that's where I run into my problems. Pathfinder has its weaknesses (I refuse to say any system is wrong, I only say that they have strong and weak points), but so do other systems. Trying to find the ruleset "to rule them all" seems almost like the very item that spurns such a phrase - exceedingly rare, dangerous in the wrong hands, and it can only be destroyed by dumping it in lava from whence it came :/

I think it might be interesting as a one-off. I also like the idea of a refreshing list of rolls to be selected, but that also means that most players would hoard their 20s, and GMs would call for more rolls to have players end up selecting their 1s more often. At least, those are two issues I see occurring in a game where the system wasn't discussed among the players and GM. Communication is great, but I have problems trying to get my players IRL to try new things - I've written my own tabletop, and have had it finished for a year, but they've yet to indulge me and roll characters :P Getting them to use Pathfinder material that isn't in a published core-set rulebook is next to impossible, so I doubt diceless would ever fly.

It's an interesting concept, for sure.

You know, the more I think about this the more I like this. Getting rid of the random element makes it a lot easier to get a handle on a character or monster's abilities at a glance and makes it easier for a GM to build an encounter that will challenge the party but not overwhelm them.

I thought it might be worth taking a whack at. I'd be interested in putting together a one-shot on the forums with like-minded people to sort of play-test the system. Find out what some of the flaws and bennies of such a game are.




 

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