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Why did it take 26 years to make that happen?

Because 0e was a flawless gem that didn't need modern trappings like so-called "unified" mechanics to be the greatest game evah and be worshiped by the OSR. And how dare you suggest otherwise?  :P

Seriously, though, unified mechanics probably predated 3e by like a decade at least, since most skilled-based systems have been using them since forever. But D&D is still dragging it's Vancian magic system and shit number of HP at level 1 that eventually get multiplied and over inflated by your level, so that should tell you how hard it is to take D&D's sacred cows to pasture and slaughter them brutally like they deserve.

What's the value of a unified mechanic?

Using one roll for everything like Runequest does.  Some modern games take it to extremes but it's been there since the earliest iteration of BRP.

Quote from: Jam The MF on April 28, 2021, 07:55:52 PM
Why did it take 26 years to make that happen?

Because.

TSR published a game or two with d100 mechanics, and besides those retrogrades of the OSR who plays them anymore?

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:18:12 PM
What's the value of a unified mechanic?

Being able to apply one modifier to most or all rolls. Say you want Dex to affect your ability to hit in ranged combat, and also to affect your ability to Pick Pockets. That's an easy example, since it's fairly trivial to convert a d20 mod to a % mod, but when the whole system is built from the ground up with a unified mechanic, you can apply them to a variety of situations.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 28, 2021, 08:29:54 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:18:12 PM
What's the value of a unified mechanic?

Being able to apply one modifier to most or all rolls. Say you want Dex to affect your ability to hit in ranged combat, and also to affect your ability to Pick Pockets. That's an easy example, since it's fairly trivial to convert a d20 mod to a % mod, but when the whole system is built from the ground up with a unified mechanic, you can apply them to a variety of situations.

That's not really a virtue, tho. For example, strength. Does a +3 on d20 roll really reflect the difference between a big, strong orc slamming into a door, and the small, frail elf? There are a lot of cases like that.

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:59:11 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 28, 2021, 08:29:54 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:18:12 PM
What's the value of a unified mechanic?

Being able to apply one modifier to most or all rolls. Say you want Dex to affect your ability to hit in ranged combat, and also to affect your ability to Pick Pockets. That's an easy example, since it's fairly trivial to convert a d20 mod to a % mod, but when the whole system is built from the ground up with a unified mechanic, you can apply them to a variety of situations.

That's not really a virtue, tho. For example, strength. Does a +3 on d20 roll really reflect the difference between a big, strong orc slamming into a door, and the small, frail elf? There are a lot of cases like that.

Are you implying not all fantasy races are equally strong, beautiful and peaceful my good fellow?
(https://media.giphy.com/media/U1aN4HTfJ2SmgB2BBK/giphy.gif)

I imagine they were floating around in house rules for a long time. Hell ascending AC house rules were some of the earliest you hear about but that didn't become an official thing until 3rd edition.

As to why these things didn't become official, I'd imagine it's because what was there worked and had the added advantage of being familiar after a few years. Never underestimate inertia.

Quote from: Jam The MF on April 28, 2021, 07:55:52 PM
Why did it take 26 years to make that happen?

Because we were too busy having fun just rolling the dice and killing orcs, stealing dragon hoards, and razing villages to care about that kind of stuff?

It was there if you really wanted that. (RQ, etc.)

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:59:11 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 28, 2021, 08:29:54 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:18:12 PM
What's the value of a unified mechanic?

Being able to apply one modifier to most or all rolls. Say you want Dex to affect your ability to hit in ranged combat, and also to affect your ability to Pick Pockets. That's an easy example, since it's fairly trivial to convert a d20 mod to a % mod, but when the whole system is built from the ground up with a unified mechanic, you can apply them to a variety of situations.

That's not really a virtue, tho. For example, strength. Does a +3 on d20 roll really reflect the difference between a big, strong orc slamming into a door, and the small, frail elf? There are a lot of cases like that.

Interestingly pre-3e D&D didn't exactly reflect those differences very well either. WTF was the opposed mechanic even like back then? Roll-under 1d20, whoever roll's highest without failing wins? And the break doors number was this arbitrary value that didn't account for how strong the door was.

But we can find minor inconsistencies when dealing with some edge cases in unified mechanics, therefore ununified mechanics are better I guess.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 28, 2021, 09:32:54 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:59:11 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 28, 2021, 08:29:54 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:18:12 PM
What's the value of a unified mechanic?

Being able to apply one modifier to most or all rolls. Say you want Dex to affect your ability to hit in ranged combat, and also to affect your ability to Pick Pockets. That's an easy example, since it's fairly trivial to convert a d20 mod to a % mod, but when the whole system is built from the ground up with a unified mechanic, you can apply them to a variety of situations.

That's not really a virtue, tho. For example, strength. Does a +3 on d20 roll really reflect the difference between a big, strong orc slamming into a door, and the small, frail elf? There are a lot of cases like that.

Interestingly pre-3e D&D didn't exactly reflect those differences very well either. WTF was the opposed mechanic even like back then? Roll-under 1d20, whoever roll's highest without failing wins? And the break doors number was this arbitrary value that didn't account for how strong the door was.

But we can find minor inconsistencies when dealing with some edge cases in unified mechanics, therefore ununified mechanics are better I guess.

They're not minor fringe cases, but nice passive aggressiveness.

I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

"Unified mechanics" make sense when you're incapable of playing an actual game.

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:59:11 PM
That's not really a virtue, tho. For example, strength. Does a +3 on d20 roll really reflect the difference between a big, strong orc slamming into a door, and the small, frail elf? There are a lot of cases like that.

That's more an argument that the bonus or die type used for the unified system isn't a good fit than one that unified mechanics are bad.

For example, swap out the presumption of a d20 (flat-distribution) for 3d6 (bell distribution) and suddenly that +3 can make a significant difference on edge cases.

Similarly, if the small frail elf didn't have a +0, but a -1 modifier and the big strong orc didn't have a +3 but a +5 there will also be a significant difference in performance, particularly over the course of many rolls (sure, the big orc might whiff a door check now and then and the frail elf get lucky, but the next round the orc checks again and passes and the elf bounces off the next three stuck doors they come across).

So again; your argument is only relevant to one particular instance of unified mechanics, it does not function as a blanket dismissal of unified mechanics as inherently flawed by nature of being unified.

Case in point... WEG Star Wars vs. d20 Star Wars. Both use unified mechanics, but WEG's are actually properly tailored to the setting and function gloriously in that purpose, while d20's are not because trying to fit Star Wars style action into a 3e D&D framework just isn't going to get any remotely close.

Quote from: Chris24601 on April 28, 2021, 09:55:55 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:59:11 PM
That's not really a virtue, tho. For example, strength. Does a +3 on d20 roll really reflect the difference between a big, strong orc slamming into a door, and the small, frail elf? There are a lot of cases like that.

That's more an argument that the bonus or die type used for the unified system isn't a good fit than one that unified mechanics are bad.

For example, swap out the presumption of a d20 (flat-distribution) for 3d6 (bell distribution) and suddenly that +3 can make a significant difference on edge cases.

Then are you going to swap out the dice roll every time you run across a situation with a different natural distribution? That's no longer much of a unified mechanic.

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 28, 2021, 09:32:54 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:59:11 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 28, 2021, 08:29:54 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:18:12 PM
What's the value of a unified mechanic?

Being able to apply one modifier to most or all rolls. Say you want Dex to affect your ability to hit in ranged combat, and also to affect your ability to Pick Pockets. That's an easy example, since it's fairly trivial to convert a d20 mod to a % mod, but when the whole system is built from the ground up with a unified mechanic, you can apply them to a variety of situations.

That's not really a virtue, tho. For example, strength. Does a +3 on d20 roll really reflect the difference between a big, strong orc slamming into a door, and the small, frail elf? There are a lot of cases like that.

Interestingly pre-3e D&D didn't exactly reflect those differences very well either. WTF was the opposed mechanic even like back then? Roll-under 1d20, whoever roll's highest without failing wins? And the break doors number was this arbitrary value that didn't account for how strong the door was.

But we can find minor inconsistencies when dealing with some edge cases in unified mechanics, therefore ununified mechanics are better I guess.

They're not minor fringe cases, but nice passive aggressiveness.

I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

They are minor fringe cases. Strength is the one of the few one's I ever see come up. But in the vast majority of cases Attribute + Skill (or Attack Bonus, whatever) handles everything without problem. It's only in exceptions, like Strength checks that this becomes a problem. And exceptions by definition are "fringe" cases. And generally these are issues of implementation and how D&D specifically handles these things rather unified mechanics per se.

One alternate way I saw this handled somewhere else* was to make attribute and skill ranges identical, then use Attribute + Skill for stuff that actually relies on training or experience/level, or use double Attribute value for rolls based more on raw ability, like Strength checks. That way the maximum modifier range is identical, using basically the same mechanic (either Attribute + Attribute or Attribute + Skill), but the difference between raw abilities are more pronounced.

The reason this doesn't work in 3e is because 3e allows ridiculous ranges for stuff like Skills or Attack Bonuses that can get in excess of +20, which no human level Strength will ever beat, even at double modifiers. But in a game like 5e, where Proficiency Bonuses only get to +6 this shouldn't be an issue.

*I can't remember what game right now, or if it was 5e alternate rule I saw online. Maybe both.

Quote from: Jam The MF on April 28, 2021, 07:55:52 PM
Why did it take 26 years to make that happen?

Because the mechanics were not unified for a variety of reasons.  Some of those reasons made sense to be replaced with unified mechanics, others it is less clear-cut. The best way to think about is that D&D was not designed by a committee but had subsystems glomed onto it as needed for things that came up during play. Furthermore, most everyone involved had a war gaming background which implies a certain amount of comfort dealing with systems and odds.  Then the different shaped dice got introduced, got used, were fun--and that creates resistance to not using them. 

No one I played with in high school cared about unified mechanics as a thing because everyone that played was either good at math and systems or was quite happy to let the GM resolve those things for them.  When the GM is resolving a reaction roll behind the screen, does it even matter that it is 2d6?  Or more pertinently, does it matter enough to change it when maybe the GM well understands the odds on the 2d6 and is comfortable using it?  It's also didn't hurt that for most players it was roll a d20 for attacks and saves with just enough rolls in damage and other miscellaneous things to get to use those other funky shaped dice.  (You might think that doesn't matter, but I've had multiple players say that they liked some different game that we were playing enough to keep doing it, but that they did miss using the other dice.  I wrote a game that used everything but the d20, and they even said they missed that.)

On the other hand, the more you push mechanics onto players and the wider your player base becomes, then the bigger gain out of making the mechanics relatively simple.  Unified is one way to do that.  Of course, the biggest problem with unified mechanics is the actual meaning of "unity" gets taken strictly sometimes.  I think you get almost all of the benefits of moving towards unity and practically none of the drawbacks if there are 3-7 different mechanics used appropriately.  People can make a fetish out of unity if they aren't careful.  Don't use a different mechanic merely to be different, but don't unify a mechanic merely to move closer to unity, either.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 28, 2021, 10:17:39 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 28, 2021, 09:32:54 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:59:11 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 28, 2021, 08:29:54 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:18:12 PM
What's the value of a unified mechanic?

Being able to apply one modifier to most or all rolls. Say you want Dex to affect your ability to hit in ranged combat, and also to affect your ability to Pick Pockets. That's an easy example, since it's fairly trivial to convert a d20 mod to a % mod, but when the whole system is built from the ground up with a unified mechanic, you can apply them to a variety of situations.

That's not really a virtue, tho. For example, strength. Does a +3 on d20 roll really reflect the difference between a big, strong orc slamming into a door, and the small, frail elf? There are a lot of cases like that.

Interestingly pre-3e D&D didn't exactly reflect those differences very well either. WTF was the opposed mechanic even like back then? Roll-under 1d20, whoever roll's highest without failing wins? And the break doors number was this arbitrary value that didn't account for how strong the door was.

But we can find minor inconsistencies when dealing with some edge cases in unified mechanics, therefore ununified mechanics are better I guess.

They're not minor fringe cases, but nice passive aggressiveness.

I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

They are minor fringe cases. Strength is the one of the few one's I ever see come up. But in the vast majority of cases Attribute + Skill (or Attack Bonus, whatever) handles everything without problem. It's only in exceptions, like Strength checks that this becomes a problem. And exceptions by definition are "fringe" cases. And generally these are issues of implementation and how D&D specifically handles these things rather unified mechanics per se.

One alternate way I saw this handled somewhere else* was to make attribute and skill ranges identical, then use Attribute + Skill for stuff that actually relies on training or experience/level, or use double Attribute value for rolls based more on raw ability, like Strength checks. That way the maximum modifier range is identical, using basically the same mechanic (either Attribute + Attribute or Attribute + Skill), but the difference between raw abilities are more pronounced.

The reason this doesn't work in 3e is because 3e allows ridiculous ranges for stuff like Skills or Attack Bonuses that can get in excess of +20, which no human level Strength will ever beat, even at double modifiers. But in a game like 5e, where Proficiency Bonuses only get to +6 this shouldn't be an issue.

*I can't remember what game right now, or if it was 5e alternate rule I saw online. Maybe both.

Don't agree. It's not fringe cases, it's only fringe cases when you're looking at everything from the perspective of a unified mechanic, and assume by default that everything fits that distribution, rather than figuring out what distribution makes sense and finding a way to reflect it in the mechanics.

Also, even if everything could be defined by a 1d20 roll with consistent attribute modifiers, or 3d6 with the same, that's still not an argument for why you should use a unified mechanic for everything instead of disparate mechanics. The best argument I've seen so far is it's easier to remember, which isn't really true.

Quote from: Jam The MF on April 28, 2021, 07:55:52 PM
Why did it take 26 years to make that happen?

I can speak to my observations.

Like never once have I ever,  ever, ever  seen players  walk away from a great game session, glowing and heaping praise saying things like,  "Oh man, those mechanics were SO unified. Like WOW! Oh,  and when we were battling the BBEG.  When he used his special attack and the GM said to roll the exact same thing we've been rolling the whole session?  I nearly creamed myself right there!" It just doesn't happen.

I have, however,  seen times, for example,  where the GM calls for the use of the grappling rules  when a hound attempts to lock its jaws on a character.  And that contrast from the usual combat mechanics really drives home the feel that  you're not just fighting another character with a wolf's description,  but rather  you are engaged in combat with a beast that fights differently from a man.  And I absolutely have seen players praise that sort of thing after an intense encounter.


There is a sense in which D&D always had unified mechanics. Maybe not one rule to rule them all. But two.

Rule #1. Assign a probability and dice against it.
Rule #2. When there are co-dominant variables, use a matrix tookup to determine what you need to roll.

That's it. That's the whole game in two rules. I'm not quite sure when "mechanic" became a synonym for dice. Just because a dwarf rolls a d4 to detect a new construction hoping to get 1-3 and d6 hoping to get 1-4 to detect sliding or shifting walls does not mean those are two separate mechanics. You're just simulating probabilities.

Rule #1 is quicker and simpler than the modern D&D mechanic. You don't have to figure out how to express the probability to conform to the d20.
Rule #2 is quicker for those who are slow at math, slower for those who are slow at lookups.

So from a simplicity perspective, it's not clear to me that the "modern" way is an improvement.


And then I think about things like the 1E Strength table and the probability of forcing open doors or lifting gates. It's rule #2--a matrix look up. Here's your strength. Here's what you're doing. Okay, here's what you need to roll. If you look at it, there's not really a strong pattern to it. The only way I can make sense of it is, it's as if they were constantly applying rule #1, asking the question, "Okay. What's a reasonable chance for a character of this Strength to complete this task," and then running with it.

The key is, at every step you're asking "What is reasonable?" Not "What makes a pretty pattern I can write a sexy formula to?"

So from a cohesiveness perspective, again, it's not clear to me that the "modern" way is an improvement.


I don't deny that there is a certain perspective--a very common perspective--that streamlining the rules makes them easier to use. Learning and applying the rules can be a burden in a sense, and streamlining is about minimizing that burden. But speaking for myself, when I read through the 1E DMG through some obscure rulings, I find they inspire me. They're so oddly specific, they kick-start my imagination. To streamline them would be to generalize them--to make them generic. And that strips them of a lot of their power to inspire.

Okay, so my opinion differs from these other people's opinions. Big whoop, right? It's all subjective. Then I ask myself, would I rather game with a GM who cracks open a game book and tends to see work and complexity and burden and things that mess with fun, or one who cracks open that same book and tends to see imagination, inspiration, and all the things that make the game fun?

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 10:22:03 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 28, 2021, 10:17:39 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 28, 2021, 09:32:54 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:59:11 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 28, 2021, 08:29:54 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:18:12 PM
What's the value of a unified mechanic?

Being able to apply one modifier to most or all rolls. Say you want Dex to affect your ability to hit in ranged combat, and also to affect your ability to Pick Pockets. That's an easy example, since it's fairly trivial to convert a d20 mod to a % mod, but when the whole system is built from the ground up with a unified mechanic, you can apply them to a variety of situations.

That's not really a virtue, tho. For example, strength. Does a +3 on d20 roll really reflect the difference between a big, strong orc slamming into a door, and the small, frail elf? There are a lot of cases like that.

Interestingly pre-3e D&D didn't exactly reflect those differences very well either. WTF was the opposed mechanic even like back then? Roll-under 1d20, whoever roll's highest without failing wins? And the break doors number was this arbitrary value that didn't account for how strong the door was.

But we can find minor inconsistencies when dealing with some edge cases in unified mechanics, therefore ununified mechanics are better I guess.

They're not minor fringe cases, but nice passive aggressiveness.

I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

They are minor fringe cases. Strength is the one of the few one's I ever see come up. But in the vast majority of cases Attribute + Skill (or Attack Bonus, whatever) handles everything without problem. It's only in exceptions, like Strength checks that this becomes a problem. And exceptions by definition are "fringe" cases. And generally these are issues of implementation and how D&D specifically handles these things rather unified mechanics per se.

One alternate way I saw this handled somewhere else* was to make attribute and skill ranges identical, then use Attribute + Skill for stuff that actually relies on training or experience/level, or use double Attribute value for rolls based more on raw ability, like Strength checks. That way the maximum modifier range is identical, using basically the same mechanic (either Attribute + Attribute or Attribute + Skill), but the difference between raw abilities are more pronounced.

The reason this doesn't work in 3e is because 3e allows ridiculous ranges for stuff like Skills or Attack Bonuses that can get in excess of +20, which no human level Strength will ever beat, even at double modifiers. But in a game like 5e, where Proficiency Bonuses only get to +6 this shouldn't be an issue.

*I can't remember what game right now, or if it was 5e alternate rule I saw online. Maybe both.

Don't agree. It's not fringe cases, it's only fringe cases when you're looking at everything from the perspective of a unified mechanic, and assume by default that everything fits that distribution, rather than figuring out what distribution makes sense and finding a way to reflect it in the mechanics.

Also, even if everything could be defined by a 1d20 roll with consistent attribute modifiers, or 3d6 with the same, that's still not an argument for why you should use a unified mechanic for everything instead of disparate mechanics. The best argument I've seen so far is it's easier to remember, which isn't really true.

I don't know what to tell you. If something that is only an issue in specific situations that largely apply ONLY when playing D&D specifically isn't a fringe case maybe we're using completely different definitions of what "fringe" means. And if using the same mechanic to handle everything isn't easier to remember than a completely different mechanic for everything in the game then I guess we have different perceptions of reality entirely.

Why we should at least consider using unified mechanic is self evident. It streamlines the system and makes it easier to learn and to use, or to make things up on the fly. Could you try a disparate mechanic for everything? Sure. You might even use a mix of both: unified mechanics as a base, with disparate mechanics to handle special stuff. But unless you're doing it as a thought experiment or have something specific in mind you're just needlessly complicating things.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 28, 2021, 10:48:23 PM
I don't know what to tell you. If something that is only an issue in specific situations that largely apply ONLY when playing D&D specifically isn't a fringe case maybe we're using completely different definitions of what "fringe" means. And if using the same mechanic to handle everything isn't easier to remember than a completely different mechanic for everything in the game then I guess we have different perceptions of reality entirely.

Why we should at least consider using unified mechanic is self evident. It streamlines the system and makes it easier to learn and to use, or to make things up on the fly. Could you try a disparate mechanic for everything? Sure. You might even use a mix of both: unified mechanics as a base, with disparate mechanics to handle special stuff. But unless you're doing it as a thought experiment or have something specific in mind you're just needlessly complicating things.

You can say the word fringe as many times as you like, it doesn't make it true, or make your case. The open doors mechanic is a core mechanic in old school versions of D&D, but if you want another example, how about skill checks in GURPS? There's a huge difference in the range and surety of likely outcomes based on skill in different fields, but they all get lumped together with a simple nudge in one direction or the other, and that can get very weird at times if you think through the situation instead of taking a purely mechanistic viewpoint of what do I have to roll?

How does a unified mechanic make things easier to use? It streamlines, yes, in that you only have to write down the mechanic in one place. But that's not really a factor in play. It's one of those purely abstract types of streamlining that only matters on a page. But the game doesn't happen on a page, and learning one mechanic or two doesn't add a significant burden, so it's a nothing argument. That you think it's so obviously good that it should be self evident is fairly typical in these conversations. That's what I'm trying to get past.

And even the idea that is simplifies the text is often false, because there are frequently a lot of exceptions that have to be made, because not everything works the same way, which bloats up the page complexity again. A classic example is how different spell resistance is from an attack roll in 3e, even though they, at least superficially, use the same mechanic.

Also, you literally brought up a mechanic for everything as an argument in favor of a unified mechanic. That's a pure strawman attack on a fictional alternative, because nobody has argued that degenerate case. Look at a typical baseline example, old school D&D. If we stick with Moldvay, there's a d20 roll to hit, damage dice, another type of d20 roll for saves, a d6 for most routine dungeons checks, percentages for thief skills, 2d6 for morale, and a couple other less important cases. That's a trivially manageable set of disparate mechanics. People can easily wrap their heads around it.

And you still haven't explained why uniform mechanics are the better option.

Quote from: Jam The MF on April 28, 2021, 07:55:52 PM
Why did it take 26 years to make that happen?

Because the existing mechanics worked well enough.  If it ain't broken, spend your limited time and energy elsewhere.

Quote from: Lunamancer on April 28, 2021, 10:24:11 PM

Quote from: Jam The MF on April 28, 2021, 07:55:52 PM
Why did it take 26 years to make that happen?

I can speak to my observations.

Like never once have I ever,  ever, ever  seen players  walk away from a great game session, glowing and heaping praise saying things like,  "Oh man, those mechanics were SO unified. Like WOW! Oh,  and when we were battling the BBEG.  When he used his special attack and the GM said to roll the exact same thing we've been rolling the whole session?  I nearly creamed myself right there!" It just doesn't happen.

I have, however,  seen times, for example,  where the GM calls for the use of the grappling rules  when a hound attempts to lock its jaws on a character.  And that contrast from the usual combat mechanics really drives home the feel that  you're not just fighting another character with a wolf's description,  but rather  you are engaged in combat with a beast that fights differently from a man.  And I absolutely have seen players praise that sort of thing after an intense encounter.


There is a sense in which D&D always had unified mechanics. Maybe not one rule to rule them all. But two.

Rule #1. Assign a probability and dice against it.
Rule #2. When there are co-dominant variables, use a matrix tookup to determine what you need to roll.

That's it. That's the whole game in two rules. I'm not quite sure when "mechanic" became a synonym for dice. Just because a dwarf rolls a d4 to detect a new construction hoping to get 1-3 and d6 hoping to get 1-4 to detect sliding or shifting walls does not mean those are two separate mechanics. You're just simulating probabilities.

Rule #1 is quicker and simpler than the modern D&D mechanic. You don't have to figure out how to express the probability to conform to the d20.
Rule #2 is quicker for those who are slow at math, slower for those who are slow at lookups.

So from a simplicity perspective, it's not clear to me that the "modern" way is an improvement.


And then I think about things like the 1E Strength table and the probability of forcing open doors or lifting gates. It's rule #2--a matrix look up. Here's your strength. Here's what you're doing. Okay, here's what you need to roll. If you look at it, there's not really a strong pattern to it. The only way I can make sense of it is, it's as if they were constantly applying rule #1, asking the question, "Okay. What's a reasonable chance for a character of this Strength to complete this task," and then running with it.

The key is, at every step you're asking "What is reasonable?" Not "What makes a pretty pattern I can write a sexy formula to?"

So from a cohesiveness perspective, again, it's not clear to me that the "modern" way is an improvement.


I don't deny that there is a certain perspective--a very common perspective--that streamlining the rules makes them easier to use. Learning and applying the rules can be a burden in a sense, and streamlining is about minimizing that burden. But speaking for myself, when I read through the 1E DMG through some obscure rulings, I find they inspire me. They're so oddly specific, they kick-start my imagination. To streamline them would be to generalize them--to make them generic. And that strips them of a lot of their power to inspire.

Okay, so my opinion differs from these other people's opinions. Big whoop, right? It's all subjective. Then I ask myself, would I rather game with a GM who cracks open a game book and tends to see work and complexity and burden and things that mess with fun, or one who cracks open that same book and tends to see imagination, inspiration, and all the things that make the game fun?

Well thought-out, well-explained, and a well of information.  It's times like these I wish this forum had a "like" function.

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM
I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

They're simpler. In theory, they make the game more accessible to newbies. In practice this just makes room for more complexity elsewhere.

People gave the example of RQ as having a unified mechanic - well not exactly, because the attributes were generated with d6es, the damage was done with d4, d6, d8, etc, and the actions with percentile. And - comparing to D&D, as well as your rolling to hit the opponent could roll to dodge or parry, which was a different level of skill to their attack, and then instead of armour making it harder to be hit, it subtracted damage, and... okay now we look at magic and... hoo boy... So they simplified one area and complicated another.

It's like how soldiers historically have always carried a total of about 35kg. When equipment is made lighter, their commanders just load them up with more of it.

Likewise, when a unified mechanic is brought into the game, the authours just add other stuff instead. So even as they "simplify" the game, the pagecount goes up and up.

Most games will have at least a certain amount of complexity and general fuckery. Choose the game whose fuckery you enjoy.

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 11:04:40 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 28, 2021, 10:48:23 PM
I don't know what to tell you. If something that is only an issue in specific situations that largely apply ONLY when playing D&D specifically isn't a fringe case maybe we're using completely different definitions of what "fringe" means. And if using the same mechanic to handle everything isn't easier to remember than a completely different mechanic for everything in the game then I guess we have different perceptions of reality entirely.

Why we should at least consider using unified mechanic is self evident. It streamlines the system and makes it easier to learn and to use, or to make things up on the fly. Could you try a disparate mechanic for everything? Sure. You might even use a mix of both: unified mechanics as a base, with disparate mechanics to handle special stuff. But unless you're doing it as a thought experiment or have something specific in mind you're just needlessly complicating things.

You can say the word fringe as many times as you like, it doesn't make it true, or make your case. The open doors mechanic is a core mechanic in old school versions of D&D, but if you want another example, how about skill checks in GURPS? There's a huge difference in the range and surety of likely outcomes based on skill in different fields, but they all get lumped together with a simple nudge in one direction or the other, and that can get very weird at times if you think through the situation instead of taking a purely mechanistic viewpoint of what do I have to roll?

How does a unified mechanic make things easier to use? It streamlines, yes, in that you only have to write down the mechanic in one place. But that's not really a factor in play. It's one of those purely abstract types of streamlining that only matters on a page. But the game doesn't happen on a page, and learning one mechanic or two doesn't add a significant burden, so it's a nothing argument. That you think it's so obviously good that it should be self evident is fairly typical in these conversations.

And even the idea that is simplifies the text is often false, because there are frequently a lot of exceptions that have to be made, because not everything works the same way, which bloats up the page complexity again. A classic example is how different spell resistance is from an attack roll in 3e, even though they, at least superficially, use the same mechanic.

Also, you literally brought up a mechanic for everything as an argument in favor of a unified mechanic. That's a pure strawman attack on a fictional alternative, because nobody has argued that degenerate case. Look at a typical baseline example, old school D&D. If we stick with Moldvay, there's a d20 roll to hit, damage dice, another type of d20 roll for saves, a d6 for most routine dungeons checks, percentages for thief skills, 2d6 for morale, and a couple other less important cases. That's a trivially manageable set of disparate mechanics. People can easily wrap their heads around it.

And you still haven't explained why uniform mechanics are the better option.

You are wasting your time.  Based on previous interactions about this topic, the poster you are responding to isn't actually interested in discussion.  He has a very strong bias against early editions of D&D that dominate his responses to any subject that touches upon them, to the point that he is either unwilling or unable to even admit there might be differences of opinion.  I can only liken it to the difference between talking about a subject with a friend versus talking about it with a prosecuting attorney.  The friend is usually sharing different perspectives and ideas in the hopes that you and he might understand each other's thinking and attitudes.  The attorney is just trying to elicit responses to be used as a bludgeon against you vis a vie whatever crime he has already decided you are guilty of.  There is no dialogue... just rhetorical traps and willful misinterpretations, with a sizable helping of motte and bailey thrown in.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on April 28, 2021, 11:08:48 PM

Quote from: Lunamancer on April 28, 2021, 10:24:11 PM

Quote from: Jam The MF on April 28, 2021, 07:55:52 PM
Why did it take 26 years to make that happen?

...cool stuff...

Well thought-out, well-explained, and a well of information.  It's times like these I wish this forum had a "like" function.

I'll second that.  Good post Lunamancer!

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 10:05:16 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on April 28, 2021, 09:55:55 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:59:11 PM
That's not really a virtue, tho. For example, strength. Does a +3 on d20 roll really reflect the difference between a big, strong orc slamming into a door, and the small, frail elf? There are a lot of cases like that.

That's more an argument that the bonus or die type used for the unified system isn't a good fit than one that unified mechanics are bad.

For example, swap out the presumption of a d20 (flat-distribution) for 3d6 (bell distribution) and suddenly that +3 can make a significant difference on edge cases.

Then are you going to swap out the dice roll every time you run across a situation with a different natural distribution? That's no longer much of a unified mechanic.

Not at all. I'd just use a 3d6 consistently for that system's unified mechanics because d20 is much too flat in its distribution to model anything resolved by a single check. Using 3d6 for combat rolls will cause less swingy-ness than a d20, but its better for single check results overall so If I were unifying mechanics, I'd either use 3d6 for everything or, as another way to provide a more bell-curve distribution, I'd make every check an opposed one, even if the target is something static, because what is effectively 1d20-1d20 will also produce more of a bell curve where smaller bonuses will matter more often.

If the majority of tasks in the system are going to be resolved with singular checks then I'd never build a unified system using a single d20 (WotC retained it because of the whole legacy of rolling d20's, but even they added the kludges of Take-10/20 to it to at least try and smooth out some of the probability madness the d20 creates in one-off checks. They work well at modelling combat only because you're making multiple rolls over the course of a battle so the overall outcome of the battle becomes a bell curve distribution with the drama of linear results on individual checks.

You know, sometimes I feel like there's a whole chunk of people in this discussion who've never even seen any task resolution system outside of OSR and WotC's d20... because there's a whole larger world where 3d6 or 2d10 or dice pools are used as unified resolution mechanics with no issues at all and yet all people against unified mechanics can bring up is WotC's d20 System and its variants.

I'll make the argument I was avoiding, because I really did want to hear a good defense of unified mechanics, and didn't want to derail that. But it seems to have stalled.

One strong argument in favor of disparate mechanics is that they give a mnemonic device that tells players they're switching to something that's handled very differently. When they roll 1d20, they know how that works. They add ability bonuses, for instance. But when they switch to a d6, that's a tactile and very strong cue that things are going to be resolved differently. That they're no longer supposed to add ability bonuses, to continue the example. Just the dice change alone makes that easier to remember.

It helps with partitioning. What to do I add to what?, and what applies to this roll?, is one of the things that takes a while for newbies to grasp, and it can get confusing when things look similar but are handled differently. But if you have to roll different dice, or just roll or handle the dice in different ways, that's a clear signal to players that they've shifted to a different mechanic.

That also works from a world perspective, because it allows you to have different mechanics for things are fundamentally different, underneath. If your core mechanic is a 3d6, most rolls will end up in a tightly constrained approximation of a normal distribution. If your core mechanic is a 1d20, the distribution will be flat. But while a lot of human potential falls along a normal curve, it doesn't work well to represent things that are very binary, or that have a flat curve, or that have a broad head and a long tail, or vice versa.

Disparate mechanics can be done well, or poorly. AD&D1e went a little overboard with all the disparate systems, for instance, and there are others that are probably a little too similar despite being quite different. The argument can be made for saves and to hit rolls, perhaps. But the counterargument is that they're both pretty simple and they're used all the time, so it's already pretty easy to mentally separate them.

To provide an example in a more unified system where a disparate mechanic would be useful, consider spell resistance in 3e. The standard mechanic in d20 is 1d20 plus bonuses, vs. a target number. Frequently, you add an attribute bonus. And spells are usually resisted by using the spell level as a DC. But spell resistance is 1d20 + caster level. The mechanic is superficially similar to the basic d20 roll, but all the parameters are different. You don't add attribute bonuses, and you don't use the spell's level, but instead use caster level (roughly double spell level). It's a completely different mechanic, disguised as the same "unified" mechanic. And it's not used as often as the other systems, so it's not drilled into the players' heads to the same degree. It shouldn't be any surprise, but in practice, it confused a lot of players. It eventually got sorted out as SR checks became more common, but it was a fairly rocky road. If they just kept the old percentile check, I don't think it would have been nearly the same problem.

Too many different mechanics to remember is bad, but so is trying to force everything into a single mechanic, and using different dice or methods is a good way to subtly but powerfully communicate those differences.
The same die roll, the same ostensible resolution method (roll high, beat a target number), but it has very different parameters on both sides of the equation. IME, it just confused people, especially since spells are handled so differently with other similar mechanics (DC 11 + spell level no caster level, for instance). Having a unified mechanic, in this situation, was bad design. It hurt player understanding and retention.

Quote from: Chris24601 on April 28, 2021, 11:33:00 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 10:05:16 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on April 28, 2021, 09:55:55 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:59:11 PM
That's not really a virtue, tho. For example, strength. Does a +3 on d20 roll really reflect the difference between a big, strong orc slamming into a door, and the small, frail elf? There are a lot of cases like that.

That's more an argument that the bonus or die type used for the unified system isn't a good fit than one that unified mechanics are bad.

For example, swap out the presumption of a d20 (flat-distribution) for 3d6 (bell distribution) and suddenly that +3 can make a significant difference on edge cases.

Then are you going to swap out the dice roll every time you run across a situation with a different natural distribution? That's no longer much of a unified mechanic.

Not at all. I'd just use a 3d6 consistently for that system's unified mechanics because d20 is much too flat in its distribution to model anything resolved by a single check. Using 3d6 for combat rolls will cause less swingy-ness than a d20, but its better for single check results overall so If I were unifying mechanics, I'd either use 3d6 for everything or, as another way to provide a more bell-curve distribution, I'd make every check an opposed one, even if the target is something static, because what is effectively 1d20-1d20 will also produce more of a bell curve where smaller bonuses will matter more often.

Let's say you have to make a d20 roll. That's a flat distribution. But what if you roll two d20s at a time? That becomes a triangle curve. Three? If you roll 3d20, the distribution starts to look bell like.

What happens if don't roll 3d20 at once, but instead roll a 1d20. Then later, another 1d20. And then another 1d20? What exactly happens will depend on a lot of ancillary mechanics, but if the results are cumulative to some degree, those three 1d20 rolls will tend to normalize. You'll get something like a bell curve, even though you didn't roll them all at once.

That's how combat works in most games. All those1d20 rolls you make in combat? Yes, they're flat. But in toto?

You're worrying about a bell curve at the wrong level of abstraction.

Quote from: Chris24601 on April 28, 2021, 11:33:00 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 10:05:16 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on April 28, 2021, 09:55:55 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:59:11 PM
That's not really a virtue, tho. For example, strength. Does a +3 on d20 roll really reflect the difference between a big, strong orc slamming into a door, and the small, frail elf? There are a lot of cases like that.

That's more an argument that the bonus or die type used for the unified system isn't a good fit than one that unified mechanics are bad.

For example, swap out the presumption of a d20 (flat-distribution) for 3d6 (bell distribution) and suddenly that +3 can make a significant difference on edge cases.

Then are you going to swap out the dice roll every time you run across a situation with a different natural distribution? That's no longer much of a unified mechanic.

Not at all. I'd just use a 3d6 consistently for that system's unified mechanics because d20 is much too flat in its distribution to model anything resolved by a single check. Using 3d6 for combat rolls will cause less swingy-ness than a d20, but its better for single check results overall so If I were unifying mechanics, I'd either use 3d6 for everything or, as another way to provide a more bell-curve distribution, I'd make every check an opposed one, even if the target is something static, because what is effectively 1d20-1d20 will also produce more of a bell curve where smaller bonuses will matter more often.

If the majority of tasks in the system are going to be resolved with singular checks then I'd never build a unified system using a single d20 (WotC retained it because of the whole legacy of rolling d20's, but even they added the kludges of Take-10/20 to it to at least try and smooth out some of the probability madness the d20 creates in one-off checks. They work well at modelling combat only because you're making multiple rolls over the course of a battle so the overall outcome of the battle becomes a bell curve distribution with the drama of linear results on individual checks.

You know, sometimes I feel like there's a whole chunk of people in this discussion who've never even seen any task resolution system outside of OSR and WotC's d20... because there's a whole larger world where 3d6 or 2d10 or dice pools are used as unified resolution mechanics with no issues at all and yet all people against unified mechanics can bring up is WotC's d20 System and its variants.

While I love 3d6 as a resolution mechanic over a d20, when you try to model probabilities a single mechanic isn't good enough, you'd need to find a way to map X in 4, X in 6, etc. and not all of those are that easy to do.

Now, one advantage 1d20 has is to simulate getting better at X, roll under or over you can do this better than with a bell curve, because the bell curve will ALWAYS congregate in the center, making the extremes always as hard to get.

So you need to have an increasing value for the modifiers, to try and fix this.

The other solution is dice pools, those do work great, and aren't something everybody likes.

There's people that swear for the d20, others for the d100, others for the 2d6, 3d6, 2d10, 2d20, dice pools etc and absolutelly hate anything else.

This has nothing to do with either the OSR or D&D nor is it esclusive to ppl that like those games/systems.

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 12:09:08 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on April 28, 2021, 11:33:00 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 10:05:16 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on April 28, 2021, 09:55:55 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:59:11 PM
That's not really a virtue, tho. For example, strength. Does a +3 on d20 roll really reflect the difference between a big, strong orc slamming into a door, and the small, frail elf? There are a lot of cases like that.

That's more an argument that the bonus or die type used for the unified system isn't a good fit than one that unified mechanics are bad.

For example, swap out the presumption of a d20 (flat-distribution) for 3d6 (bell distribution) and suddenly that +3 can make a significant difference on edge cases.

Then are you going to swap out the dice roll every time you run across a situation with a different natural distribution? That's no longer much of a unified mechanic.

Not at all. I'd just use a 3d6 consistently for that system's unified mechanics because d20 is much too flat in its distribution to model anything resolved by a single check. Using 3d6 for combat rolls will cause less swingy-ness than a d20, but its better for single check results overall so If I were unifying mechanics, I'd either use 3d6 for everything or, as another way to provide a more bell-curve distribution, I'd make every check an opposed one, even if the target is something static, because what is effectively 1d20-1d20 will also produce more of a bell curve where smaller bonuses will matter more often.

Let's say you have to make a d20 roll. That's a flat distribution. But what if you roll two d20s at a time? That becomes a triangle curve. Three? If you roll 3d20, the distribution starts to look bell like.

What happens if don't roll 3d20 at once, but instead roll a 1d20. Then later, another 1d20. And then another 1d20? What exactly happens will depend on a lot of ancillary mechanics, but if the results are cumulative to some degree, those three 1d20 rolls will tend to normalize. You'll get something like a bell curve, even though you didn't roll them all at once.

That's how combat works in most games. All those1d20 rolls you make in combat? Yes, they're flat. But in toto?

You're worrying about a bell curve at the wrong level of abstraction.

Nope, you're wrong, rolling 2d6, 2d10, 2d20 or 3d6, etc isn't the same as rolling one of whatever for whatever number of times.

Because everytime you roll the 2/3X yo have the bell curve built into each and every roll, while in the other case you don't, you ALWAYS have 1 in X chances of rolling any and all the numbers in the die.

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 11:04:40 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 28, 2021, 10:48:23 PM
I don't know what to tell you. If something that is only an issue in specific situations that largely apply ONLY when playing D&D specifically isn't a fringe case maybe we're using completely different definitions of what "fringe" means. And if using the same mechanic to handle everything isn't easier to remember than a completely different mechanic for everything in the game then I guess we have different perceptions of reality entirely.

Why we should at least consider using unified mechanic is self evident. It streamlines the system and makes it easier to learn and to use, or to make things up on the fly. Could you try a disparate mechanic for everything? Sure. You might even use a mix of both: unified mechanics as a base, with disparate mechanics to handle special stuff. But unless you're doing it as a thought experiment or have something specific in mind you're just needlessly complicating things.

You can say the word fringe as many times as you like, it doesn't make it true, or make your case.

You can say that exceptions are not fringe all you like, it doesn't make them not fringe. It just means that you're reiterating your point without explaining to me how the issue you brought up about Strength checks, for example (the ONLY solid example I've seen brought up so far), is not an exception to every other roll that works without issue using the same mechanic.

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 11:04:40 PMThe open doors mechanic is a core mechanic in old school versions of D&D, but if you want another example, how about skill checks in GURPS? There's a huge difference in the range and surety of likely outcomes based on skill in different fields, but they all get lumped together with a simple nudge in one direction or the other, and that can get very weird at times if you think through the situation instead of taking a purely mechanistic viewpoint of what do I have to roll?

I'm not sure what you mean by "open doors mechanic is a core mechanic in old school versions of D&D" or what that is supposed to be an example about, and I'm not familiar with GURPS or what you mean by any of this.

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 11:04:40 PMHow does a unified mechanic make things easier to use? It streamlines, yes, in that you only have to write down the mechanic in one place. But that's not really a factor in play. It's one of those purely abstract types of streamlining that only matters on a page. But the game doesn't happen on a page, and learning one mechanic or two doesn't add a significant burden, so it's a nothing argument. That you think it's so obviously good that it should be self evident is fairly typical in these conversations. That's what I'm trying to get past.

It can be a factor in play when the vast majority of actions can be handled as a simple Roll vs Difficulty based on skill or attribute and I can just pull the difficulty out of a table with general guidelines for difficulty values. That disparate mechanics are supposedly not a burden compared to unified mechanics (according to you) does not change the fact that I don't have to deal with them if I have a difficulty table and consistent ability ranges.

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 11:04:40 PMAnd even the idea that is simplifies the text is often false, because there are frequently a lot of exceptions that have to be made, because not everything works the same way, which bloats up the page complexity again. A classic example is how different spell resistance is from an attack roll in 3e, even though they, at least superficially, use the same mechanic.

Which is again an example of how one specific edition of D&D fails at unified mechanics rather than a failure of unified mechanics themselves, because spell resistance could be handled 100% the same as an attack roll if they were based on a skill with a consistent range of values.

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 11:04:40 PMAlso, you literally brought up a mechanic for everything as an argument in favor of a unified mechanic. That's a pure strawman attack on a fictional alternative, because nobody has argued that degenerate case. Look at a typical baseline example, old school D&D. If we stick with Moldvay, there's a d20 roll to hit, damage dice, another type of d20 roll for saves, a d6 for most routine dungeons checks, percentages for thief skills, 2d6 for morale, and a couple other less important cases. That's a trivially manageable set of disparate mechanics. People can easily wrap their heads around it.

Straw men against fictional alternatives are my specialty. Specially when I never said YOU said that. I merely offered it as a counter weight while taking different options into account, and also mentioning that you could also take a mix of both. But you seem to be taking it as a personal transgression and crying "straw man!" as usual.  :P

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 11:04:40 PMAnd you still haven't explained why uniform mechanics are the better option.

You still haven't explained why they aren't.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on April 28, 2021, 11:17:33 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 11:04:40 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 28, 2021, 10:48:23 PM
I don't know what to tell you. If something that is only an issue in specific situations that largely apply ONLY when playing D&D specifically isn't a fringe case maybe we're using completely different definitions of what "fringe" means. And if using the same mechanic to handle everything isn't easier to remember than a completely different mechanic for everything in the game then I guess we have different perceptions of reality entirely.

Why we should at least consider using unified mechanic is self evident. It streamlines the system and makes it easier to learn and to use, or to make things up on the fly. Could you try a disparate mechanic for everything? Sure. You might even use a mix of both: unified mechanics as a base, with disparate mechanics to handle special stuff. But unless you're doing it as a thought experiment or have something specific in mind you're just needlessly complicating things.

You can say the word fringe as many times as you like, it doesn't make it true, or make your case. The open doors mechanic is a core mechanic in old school versions of D&D, but if you want another example, how about skill checks in GURPS? There's a huge difference in the range and surety of likely outcomes based on skill in different fields, but they all get lumped together with a simple nudge in one direction or the other, and that can get very weird at times if you think through the situation instead of taking a purely mechanistic viewpoint of what do I have to roll?

How does a unified mechanic make things easier to use? It streamlines, yes, in that you only have to write down the mechanic in one place. But that's not really a factor in play. It's one of those purely abstract types of streamlining that only matters on a page. But the game doesn't happen on a page, and learning one mechanic or two doesn't add a significant burden, so it's a nothing argument. That you think it's so obviously good that it should be self evident is fairly typical in these conversations.

And even the idea that is simplifies the text is often false, because there are frequently a lot of exceptions that have to be made, because not everything works the same way, which bloats up the page complexity again. A classic example is how different spell resistance is from an attack roll in 3e, even though they, at least superficially, use the same mechanic.

Also, you literally brought up a mechanic for everything as an argument in favor of a unified mechanic. That's a pure strawman attack on a fictional alternative, because nobody has argued that degenerate case. Look at a typical baseline example, old school D&D. If we stick with Moldvay, there's a d20 roll to hit, damage dice, another type of d20 roll for saves, a d6 for most routine dungeons checks, percentages for thief skills, 2d6 for morale, and a couple other less important cases. That's a trivially manageable set of disparate mechanics. People can easily wrap their heads around it.

And you still haven't explained why uniform mechanics are the better option.

You are wasting your time.  Based on previous interactions about this topic, the poster you are responding to isn't actually interested in discussion.  He has a very strong bias against early editions of D&D that dominate his responses to any subject that touches upon them, to the point that he is either unwilling or unable to even admit there might be differences of opinion.  I can only liken it to the difference between talking about a subject with a friend versus talking about it with a prosecuting attorney.  The friend is usually sharing different perspectives and ideas in the hopes that you and he might understand each other's thinking and attitudes.  The attorney is just trying to elicit responses to be used as a bludgeon against you vis a vie whatever crime he has already decided you are guilty of.  There is no dialogue... just rhetorical traps and willful misinterpretations, with a sizable helping of motte and bailey thrown in.

Right back at you!  :-*

Id actually err with Visionstorm. Most explanations for why OSR mechanics are good are cyclical, insular and kinda elitist.

I can somewhat manage its arbitrary mechanics, but If I brought it up to any of my friends after playing a game with unified mechanics their responses are 'why isn't this unified'.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 29, 2021, 12:15:35 AM
Nope, you're wrong, rolling 2d6, 2d10, 2d20 or 3d6, etc isn't the same as rolling one of whatever for whatever number of times.

Because everytime you roll the 2/3X yo have the bell curve built into each and every roll, while in the other case you don't, you ALWAYS have 1 in X chances of rolling any and all the numbers in the die.

Nope, you're bad mathing.

Let's say you have to roll 3d20 to win a combat. That's roughly a bell distribution of let's call it damage.

Now let's say you need to do X damage to win a combat. You end up rolling 3 times to hit, and do damage each time. The damage you inflict, over numerous times, will be bell-curvish. If individual rolls combine into some cumulative effect, then they'll start to approximate a bell curve.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 12:23:59 AM
You still haven't explained why they aren't.

Yes, I told you that myself. I wasn't making a positive claim. I was asking you to defend your position, because I wanted to see your reasoning.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 12:23:59 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 11:04:40 PMAnd even the idea that is simplifies the text is often false, because there are frequently a lot of exceptions that have to be made, because not everything works the same way, which bloats up the page complexity again. A classic example is how different spell resistance is from an attack roll in 3e, even though they, at least superficially, use the same mechanic.

Which is again an example of how one specific edition of D&D fails at unified mechanics rather than a failure of unified mechanics themselves, because spell resistance could be handled 100% the same as an attack roll if they were based on a skill with a consistent range of values.

You're making my point for me. You're coming up with a mechanic, and making everything work in ways that fit that mechanic, rather than thinking about how things should work and then finding a way to express that in mechanics. That's the point I made repeatedly in the post you just quoted.

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 12:39:07 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 12:23:59 AM
You still haven't explained why they aren't.

Yes, I told you that myself. I wasn't making a positive claim. I was asking you to defend your position, because I wanted to see your reasoning.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 12:23:59 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 11:04:40 PMAnd even the idea that is simplifies the text is often false, because there are frequently a lot of exceptions that have to be made, because not everything works the same way, which bloats up the page complexity again. A classic example is how different spell resistance is from an attack roll in 3e, even though they, at least superficially, use the same mechanic.

Which is again an example of how one specific edition of D&D fails at unified mechanics rather than a failure of unified mechanics themselves, because spell resistance could be handled 100% the same as an attack roll if they were based on a skill with a consistent range of values.

You're making my point for me. You're coming up with a mechanic, and making everything work in ways that fit that mechanic, rather than thinking about how things should work and then finding a way to express that in mechanics. That's the point I made repeatedly in the post you just quoted.

Why should what's essentially a magic attack roll (spell resistance) use a completely different mechanic from physical attack rolls? I'm not just thinking backwards from my preconceptions, I'm just recognizing that most of these things are just "action rolls" and there's almost zero reason to handle action rolls differently--even attack rolls vs skill checks. Because attack rolls are ultimately just a task roll vs a difficult value, where the difficulty value is the target's defense. You can handle all of that within the same difficult/ability value scale.

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 08:18:12 PM
What's the value of a unified mechanic?

About 1d20.

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM
I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

Unified mechanics are better because they make it easier to learn the game and make playing the game faster as well.

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 12:37:10 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 29, 2021, 12:15:35 AM
Nope, you're wrong, rolling 2d6, 2d10, 2d20 or 3d6, etc isn't the same as rolling one of whatever for whatever number of times.

Because everytime you roll the 2/3X yo have the bell curve built into each and every roll, while in the other case you don't, you ALWAYS have 1 in X chances of rolling any and all the numbers in the die.

Nope, you're bad mathing.

Let's say you have to roll 3d20 to win a combat. That's roughly a bell distribution of let's call it damage.

Now let's say you need to do X damage to win a combat. You end up rolling 3 times to hit, and do damage each time. The damage you inflict, over numerous times, will be bell-curvish. If individual rolls combine into some cumulative effect, then they'll start to approximate a bell curve.

Nope, you can't into math:

If nyou have to make 3 different 1d20 rolls then it follows that in a 2/3X system you would have to make 3 different rolls of 2/3X. The bell curve is built into every single roll.

Every time I roll a 1d20 I've got 5% chance of getting any given number.

Every time I roll 3d6 I've got a bell curve distirbution of the probalities of getting a number because of the ways you can add to that number increase as you get to the middle and decrease towards the extremes.

Edited to add the mathematical proof of my assertions:

https://anydice.com/program/fb4 (https://anydice.com/program/fb4)

https://anydice.com/program/116 (https://anydice.com/program/116)

https://anydice.com/program/e6 (https://anydice.com/program/e6)

https://anydice.com/program/28b (https://anydice.com/program/28b)

https://anydice.com/program/1e (https://anydice.com/program/1e)

There are two arguments:

1. whether it is good to have a unified mechanic, and
2. if so, what that mechanic should be.

I thought the thread was about #1, it has become #2.

I think the answer is that pre-3e D&D was concerned with outcome, not process. So it used whatever looked to work best to get the desired outcome. Group morale checks using a bell curve roll (2d6 or 2d10) in BX-BECMI and 2e AD&D is a good example. Evasion checks on d%. Encounter tables using whatever dice look handy; maybe d8+d12 (MM2) for a flat-topped bell curve.

Quote from: S'mon on April 29, 2021, 02:17:58 AM
I think the answer is that pre-3e D&D was concerned with outcome, not process. So it used whatever looked to work best to get the desired outcome.

Yeah, this.

Unified mechanics are superficially pleasing in an aesthetic kind of way, but I don't think they're strictly necessary or even that beneficial. The fact that the game marched on without them for decades and did just fine speaks to their lack of importance, in my opinion. I mean, really what you need is an approach for determining the probability of success for a given situation, and then some appropriate dice rolling. Sometimes different dice or combination of dice might make the most sense for a certain situation. And even when a game uses different dice or different subsystems, we're not talking rocket science.

I'm not necessarily against unified mechanics, but if a game lacks a unified mechanic I don't consider it a big deal, or something that needs to be "fixed." I guess that puts me in the "unified mechanics...eh...don't care about it" camp.

To reply to this since I missed it earlier....

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 12:03:20 AM
I'll make the argument I was avoiding, because I really did want to hear a good defense of unified mechanics, and didn't want to derail that. But it seems to have stalled.

One strong argument in favor of disparate mechanics is that they give a mnemonic device that tells players they're switching to something that's handled very differently. When they roll 1d20, they know how that works. They add ability bonuses, for instance. But when they switch to a d6, that's a tactile and very strong cue that things are going to be resolved differently. That they're no longer supposed to add ability bonuses, to continue the example. Just the dice change alone makes that easier to remember.

It helps with partitioning. What to do I add to what?, and what applies to this roll?, is one of the things that takes a while for newbies to grasp, and it can get confusing when things look similar but are handled differently. But if you have to roll different dice, or just roll or handle the dice in different ways, that's a clear signal to players that they've shifted to a different mechanic.

That also works from a world perspective, because it allows you to have different mechanics for things are fundamentally different, underneath. If your core mechanic is a 3d6, most rolls will end up in a tightly constrained approximation of a normal distribution. If your core mechanic is a 1d20, the distribution will be flat. But while a lot of human potential falls along a normal curve, it doesn't work well to represent things that are very binary, or that have a flat curve, or that have a broad head and a long tail, or vice versa.

Disparate mechanics can be done well, or poorly. AD&D1e went a little overboard with all the disparate systems, for instance, and there are others that are probably a little too similar despite being quite different. The argument can be made for saves and to hit rolls, perhaps. But the counterargument is that they're both pretty simple and they're used all the time, so it's already pretty easy to mentally separate them.

To provide an example in a more unified system where a disparate mechanic would be useful, consider spell resistance in 3e. The standard mechanic in d20 is 1d20 plus bonuses, vs. a target number. Frequently, you add an attribute bonus. And spells are usually resisted by using the spell level as a DC. But spell resistance is 1d20 + caster level. The mechanic is superficially similar to the basic d20 roll, but all the parameters are different. You don't add attribute bonuses, and you don't use the spell's level, but instead use caster level (roughly double spell level). It's a completely different mechanic, disguised as the same "unified" mechanic. And it's not used as often as the other systems, so it's not drilled into the players' heads to the same degree. It shouldn't be any surprise, but in practice, it confused a lot of players. It eventually got sorted out as SR checks became more common, but it was a fairly rocky road. If they just kept the old percentile check, I don't think it would have been nearly the same problem.

Too many different mechanics to remember is bad, but so is trying to force everything into a single mechanic, and using different dice or methods is a good way to subtly but powerfully communicate those differences.
The same die roll, the same ostensible resolution method (roll high, beat a target number), but it has very different parameters on both sides of the equation. IME, it just confused people, especially since spells are handled so differently with other similar mechanics (DC 11 + spell level no caster level, for instance). Having a unified mechanic, in this situation, was bad design. It hurt player understanding and retention.

Except that it wasn't a unified mechanic by your own assessment in this very same post...

QuoteIt's a completely different mechanic, disguised as the same "unified" mechanic.

As I've pointed out multiple times, you're pointing out D&D's failure to properly implement unified mechanics as an example of unified mechanics failing when in reality what's failing here is that the mechanics aren't even unified (by your own admission), when they could be as I already explained in my prior posts. It is perfectly viable to just handle spell resistance/penetration as a skill/attack roll if they just used the same ability ranges and characteristics, much the way do largely do now in 5e, where the Proficiency bonus applies to everything, including spell DC. But they didn't, and that why it's usually D&D 3e specifically that comes up in criticisms against unified mechanics, cuz critics insist on pointing out WotC's failure to properly implement actual unified mechanics in that edition as examples of the limitations of unified mechanics as opposed to WotC's failure to implement them.

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 01:07:46 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM
I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

Unified mechanics are better because they make it easier to learn the game and make playing the game faster as well.

Yes.  I agree.

We have this assortment of six Platonic solids for entropy generation.  Why do we want the vast majority of a game to only use one of them and include a bunch of math that can be chart lookups?

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 01:07:46 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM
I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

Unified mechanics are better because they make it easier to learn the game and make playing the game faster as well.

That argument sound compelling in a theoretical sense, but I've learned a lot of games and I really don't recall the ones with unified mechanics being any easier to learn.  Actually, in unified mechanics games, all the different types of checks are so similar that they kind of blur together and are harder to keep straight.  Different mechanics makes the details easier to remember for me.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 12:50:52 AM
Why should what's essentially a magic attack roll (spell resistance) use a completely different mechanic from physical attack rolls? I'm not just thinking backwards from my preconceptions, I'm just recognizing that most of these things are just "action rolls" and there's almost zero reason to handle action rolls differently--even attack rolls vs skill checks. Because attack rolls are ultimately just a task roll vs a difficult value, where the difficulty value is the target's defense. You can handle all of that within the same difficult/ability value scale.

You're trying to use a roll based on magic to say that all real world probability distributions are the same?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 29, 2021, 01:20:43 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 12:37:10 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 29, 2021, 12:15:35 AM
Nope, you're wrong, rolling 2d6, 2d10, 2d20 or 3d6, etc isn't the same as rolling one of whatever for whatever number of times.

Because everytime you roll the 2/3X yo have the bell curve built into each and every roll, while in the other case you don't, you ALWAYS have 1 in X chances of rolling any and all the numbers in the die.

Nope, you're bad mathing.

Let's say you have to roll 3d20 to win a combat. That's roughly a bell distribution of let's call it damage.

Now let's say you need to do X damage to win a combat. You end up rolling 3 times to hit, and do damage each time. The damage you inflict, over numerous times, will be bell-curvish. If individual rolls combine into some cumulative effect, then they'll start to approximate a bell curve.

Nope, you can't into math:

If nyou have to make 3 different 1d20 rolls then it follows that in a 2/3X system you would have to make 3 different rolls of 2/3X. The bell curve is built into every single roll.

Every time I roll a 1d20 I've got 5% chance of getting any given number.

Every time I roll 3d6 I've got a bell curve distirbution of the probalities of getting a number because of the ways you can add to that number increase as you get to the middle and decrease towards the extremes.

Edited to add the mathematical proof of my assertions:

https://anydice.com/program/fb4 (https://anydice.com/program/fb4)

https://anydice.com/program/116 (https://anydice.com/program/116)

https://anydice.com/program/e6 (https://anydice.com/program/e6)

https://anydice.com/program/28b (https://anydice.com/program/28b)

https://anydice.com/program/1e (https://anydice.com/program/1e)

What does any of that have to do with anything I said? Those are just the probability distributions of a few basic rolls. There's nothing in there about multiple individual rolls with a cumulative effect. You're failing to understand the argument I made.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 03:34:26 AM

QuoteHaving a unified mechanic, in this situation, was bad design. It hurt player understanding and retention.

Except that it wasn't a unified mechanic by your own assessment in this very same post...

QuoteIt's a completely different mechanic, disguised as the same "unified" mechanic.

If you want to address the argument I built up over several paragraphs, we can have a conversation. But if you're going to ignore that and pick those different elements out of context and pretending there's a conflict, when there isn't, we can't.

After all, if you want to argue dishonestly like that, why quote both those sentences? You could have just quoted the second one, because, based on your same "reasoning", that sentence contradicts itself. After all, I do say it's a different mechanic and then a comma later say it's the same mechanic, right?

(Nope. I'm clearly that apparent conflict to make the point that there are two different ways to use "mechanic".)

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 03:34:26 AM
As I've pointed out multiple times, you're pointing out D&D's failure to properly implement unified mechanics as an example of unified mechanics failing when in reality what's failing here is that the mechanics aren't even unified (by your own admission), when they could be as I already explained in my prior posts. It is perfectly viable to just handle spell resistance/penetration as a skill/attack roll if they just used the same ability ranges and characteristics, much the way do largely do now in 5e, where the Proficiency bonus applies to everything, including spell DC. But they didn't, and that why it's usually D&D 3e specifically that comes up in criticisms against unified mechanics, cuz critics insist on pointing out WotC's failure to properly implement actual unified mechanics in that edition as examples of the limitations of unified mechanics as opposed to WotC's failure to implement them.

That's circular reasoning. You're arguing that we should force everything into a single probability distribution, ignoring the differences between the probability distribution of say bashing down a door, expertise in a skill, and taking high risk actions in a stressful situation, because a unified mechanic is good. And that a unified mechanic is good, because we can force all those different things into the same mechanic.

Quote from: Mishihari on April 29, 2021, 06:16:35 AM
That argument sound compelling in a theoretical sense, but I've learned a lot of games and I really don't recall the ones with unified mechanics being any easier to learn.  Actually, in unified mechanics games, all the different types of checks are so similar that they kind of blur together and are harder to keep straight.  Different mechanics makes the details easier to remember for me.

That's the argument I've been trying to make, but you did it very succinctly.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament on April 29, 2021, 02:50:56 AM

Quote from: S'mon on April 29, 2021, 02:17:58 AM
I think the answer is that pre-3e D&D was concerned with outcome, not process. So it used whatever looked to work best to get the desired outcome.

Yeah, this.

Unified mechanics are superficially pleasing in an aesthetic kind of way, but I don't think they're strictly necessary or even that beneficial. The fact that the game marched on without them for decades and did just fine speaks to their lack of importance, in my opinion. I mean, really what you need is an approach for determining the probability of success for a given situation, and then some appropriate dice rolling. Sometimes different dice or combination of dice might make the most sense for a certain situation. And even when a game uses different dice or different subsystems, we're not talking rocket science.

I'm not necessarily against unified mechanics, but if a game lacks a unified mechanic I don't consider it a big deal, or something that needs to be "fixed." I guess that puts me in the "unified mechanics...eh...don't care about it" camp.

That's almost where I am--except I do like unified mechanics and do find the aesthetics of the system important for my enjoyment of running it (at least in the long run).  That doesn't mean that I want just anyone revising the system to make the mechanics unified.  I sure don't want someone doing so that is going to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Vision Storm is the last person that should be involved in the process.  Anyone making the changes shouldn't even listen to him.

In an ideal world, it would be someone who wasn't predisposed to unified mechanics who had a lot of practical experience with the system that would look hard at every mechanics to see why it is the way it is.  Then this mythical designer would say, "Mechanic X and Mechanic Y" are practically the same and the value of them being different is negligible.  I'll unify them.  However, Mechanic X and Mechanic Z have an actual purpose to be different that stays.".  Then it would be a recursive process until every revised mechanic had been compared to every other revised mechanic and no more useful changes found. Said mythical designer has to care a lot about the system, be willing to change it, and be cold-blooded about what goes and stays.

In practice, anyone capable of doing that is probably going to feel like you said--that's an awful lot of work for not much payback.  All that time could be spent doing something more useful.  Never mind the problem of making all those changes without play testing.  So the problem becomes that anyone that does it is either a zealot about unity and/or completely unaware of the truth of Chesterton's Fence.  Hell, this whole topic is a great illustration of the Fence:  "I see no reason why this should be different.  Change it."  "No, go away and think about why it is different.  When you can tell me that, then I might be willing to let you change it."  Or the person is someone who has to walk this impossible tight rope of justifying their changes to those who don't care and justifying their not changes to people who haven't thought.  (Before someone gets bent out of shape, please note the very careful formulation of those last two sentences and exactly what was said and not said. They are not referring to everyone with an axe in this fight.)

Which is one of the many reasons why I get off the train and want to write my own system.  There's good and bad reasons for writing your own.  This reason is kinda weak but it is what it is.  Because ultimately, we can talk about the odds and the ease of use and ease of learning and flavor and all that, but there's a certain amount of the system is the way it is because the designer kind of liked it that way.  There's no amount of retrospective tinkering that will sort all of that out, even in mythical designer land.

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 06:34:54 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 12:50:52 AM
Why should what's essentially a magic attack roll (spell resistance) use a completely different mechanic from physical attack rolls? I'm not just thinking backwards from my preconceptions, I'm just recognizing that most of these things are just "action rolls" and there's almost zero reason to handle action rolls differently--even attack rolls vs skill checks. Because attack rolls are ultimately just a task roll vs a difficult value, where the difficulty value is the target's defense. You can handle all of that within the same difficult/ability value scale.

You're trying to use a roll based on magic to say that all real world probability distributions are the same?

You're trying to say that you have "real world probability distributions" for how magic works? Or that "real world probability distributions" even work or can be properly applied in a TTRPG?

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 06:52:52 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 03:34:26 AM

QuoteHaving a unified mechanic, in this situation, was bad design. It hurt player understanding and retention.

Except that it wasn't a unified mechanic by your own assessment in this very same post...

QuoteIt's a completely different mechanic, disguised as the same "unified" mechanic.

If you want to address the argument I built up over several paragraphs, we can have a conversation.

Right back at you, cuz I have yet to see you address one single specific point I've made (and I've made several with specific concrete examples, unlike 90% of what you've said), but merely dismiss them out of hand while making vague unsupported allusions to stuff you're not even providing concrete examples of, other than one instance about Strength checks and another dealing with Spell Resistance, both of which I addressed.

Where the fuck have you shown me the same courtesy at any point in this conversation? Go right ahead and quote me the post. I dare you.

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 06:52:52 AMBut if you're going to ignore that and pick those different elements out of context and pretending there's a conflict, when there isn't, we can't.

After all, if you want to argue dishonestly like that, why quote both those sentences? You could have just quoted the second one, because, based on your same "reasoning", that sentence contradicts itself. After all, I do say it's a different mechanic and then a comma later say it's the same mechanic, right?

(Nope. I'm clearly that apparent conflict to make the point that there are two different ways to use "mechanic".)

What context did I miss? WTF did you say in that post that wasn't addressed a dozen times over in other posts I've made or would change what I said in this specific post? I picked those two lines because they were the most relevant to the specific point I was trying to make, which you insist on ignoring while trying to throw implications about my supposed "dishonesty".

I mean, Jesus Motherfucking CHRIST you're haven't even acknowledged the fucking point, which is one I've made in other posts in this same thread, in order to sidestep argument to try get me on my supposed "dishonesty" or how apparently I'm now obligated to devote time out of my day (or night as was the case this time, as I'm lying in bed with insomnia and making the mistake of picking up my phone) and go through an entire wall of text and nitpick every point that was made.

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 06:52:52 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 03:34:26 AM
As I've pointed out multiple times, you're pointing out D&D's failure to properly implement unified mechanics as an example of unified mechanics failing when in reality what's failing here is that the mechanics aren't even unified (by your own admission), when they could be as I already explained in my prior posts. It is perfectly viable to just handle spell resistance/penetration as a skill/attack roll if they just used the same ability ranges and characteristics, much the way do largely do now in 5e, where the Proficiency bonus applies to everything, including spell DC. But they didn't, and that why it's usually D&D 3e specifically that comes up in criticisms against unified mechanics, cuz critics insist on pointing out WotC's failure to properly implement actual unified mechanics in that edition as examples of the limitations of unified mechanics as opposed to WotC's failure to implement them.

That's circular reasoning. You're arguing that we should force everything into a single probability distribution, ignoring the differences between the probability distribution of say bashing down a door, expertise in a skill, and taking high risk actions in a stressful situation, because a unified mechanic is good. And that a unified mechanic is good, because we can force all those different things into the same mechanic.

No, it isn't. You are pointing to something that IS NOT "unified mechanic" (but could be unified, as I've explained) as an example of how unified mechanics don't work. That logic does NOT follow. You can't point to something that isn't a "thing" as an example of how that thing doesn't work.

And all of this stuff about not taking into account the differences in probability distributions between different types of actions is obfuscating bullshit because those probability distributions don't exist. There aren't any objective, real world probability distributions of bashing a door or expertise in a skill, etc. that we have accurately calculated and could go find in a website somewhere so we could use them in the game, and games with disunified mechanics, like old D&D, sure as fuck don't take them into account. They just make them up based on whatever the designer (or GM) FEELS is like an appropriate probability distribution.

This is a fucking game at the end of the day. FUCK real life, uber accurate "probability distributions" that NOBODY uses in ANY system anyways.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 29, 2021, 07:39:57 AM

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament on April 29, 2021, 02:50:56 AM

Quote from: S'mon on April 29, 2021, 02:17:58 AM
I think the answer is that pre-3e D&D was concerned with outcome, not process. So it used whatever looked to work best to get the desired outcome.

Yeah, this.

Unified mechanics are superficially pleasing in an aesthetic kind of way, but I don't think they're strictly necessary or even that beneficial. The fact that the game marched on without them for decades and did just fine speaks to their lack of importance, in my opinion. I mean, really what you need is an approach for determining the probability of success for a given situation, and then some appropriate dice rolling. Sometimes different dice or combination of dice might make the most sense for a certain situation. And even when a game uses different dice or different subsystems, we're not talking rocket science.

I'm not necessarily against unified mechanics, but if a game lacks a unified mechanic I don't consider it a big deal, or something that needs to be "fixed." I guess that puts me in the "unified mechanics...eh...don't care about it" camp.

That's almost where I am--except I do like unified mechanics and do find the aesthetics of the system important for my enjoyment of running it (at least in the long run).  That doesn't mean that I want just anyone revising the system to make the mechanics unified.  I sure don't want someone doing so that is going to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Vision Storm is the last person that should be involved in the process.  Anyone making the changes shouldn't even listen to him.

In an ideal world, it would be someone who wasn't predisposed to unified mechanics who had a lot of practical experience with the system that would look hard at every mechanics to see why it is the way it is.  Then this mythical designer would say, "Mechanic X and Mechanic Y" are practically the same and the value of them being different is negligible.  I'll unify them.  However, Mechanic X and Mechanic Z have an actual purpose to be different that stays.".  Then it would be a recursive process until every revised mechanic had been compared to every other revised mechanic and no more useful changes found. Said mythical designer has to care a lot about the system, be willing to change it, and be cold-blooded about what goes and stays.

Which is exactly what I did in the (ONLY) two specific examples that have been provided in this discussion--Strength checks and Spell Resistance--which are practically the same as other mechanics (skill checks and attack rolls, respectively) and neither of which serve as specific purpose in the specific way that they're implemented that need to be protected from change. And the way I arrived at those conclusions was from years of doing exactly what you say in the rest of your paragraph, cuz I wasn't introduced into the hobby using unified mechanics, but B/X D&D, and didn't come by into unified mechanics until years later. After engaging on the EXACT same thought exercise you're describing here looking at various systems, specially AD&D 2e (before 3e came out).

Yet somehow I'm the last guy you should get to do this.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 09:31:58 AM
Yet somehow I'm the last guy you should get to do this.

Edit:  Also, you seemed to have missed the thrust of what "mythical designer" means. 

You aren't nearly as objective about these things as you think you are, which makes you even worse than the usual subjective person.  Not least because everyone that disagrees with you, you are quick to label as "cult" or "nostalgia" or similar comments, when you demonstrate over and over again that you don't even understand the counter arguments being put to you.  Or possibly you do understand them but pretend not to.  And while this is certainly subjective on my part since I don't know you from Adam, I can't see any evidence that you are even making an attempt to understand the root of the disagreement.  But unlike you, I'm not so arrogant as to assume that as fact, because there could be many reasons in a text-based forum for various misunderstandings. 

So yes, a person who says X is only liked because it is liked by a cult of people engaged in nostalgia is exactly the wrong person to consult on how to improve X.  It doesn't really matter what X is, either.  There are other, lesser reasons for excluding people, but that one's a slam dunk.  I'm entirely the wrong person to, for example, to attempt improve D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder simply because I don't like them very much.  I have a subjective opinion about many parts of them that make me a bad fit in that role.  The difference is that I know some of my opinions aren't objective and don't assume that everyone that likes them is not objective about them at all.

The above says nothing one way or the other about what I think about other opinions on this topic from other posters or your opinion about other topics.  It doesn't even mean you shouldn't have an opinion or shouldn't share it on this topic (as if I could do anything about that one way or the other).  It means that everyone else should be extremely skeptical of anything you say about it.

Well, why doesn't the current edition?

It is not black and white.

Originally, all dice were 1d6. Then 1d6 and 1d20, now we've got a d4 to d12. And not only for weapons - we've got bardinc inspiration, superiority dice, and divine intervention is 1d100. Why is that?

Why do we have to roll about twenty times during combat, but only once (or not even once) when intimidating someone or searching a room?

Why does a natural 20 means a critical hit when you're fighting, but not when you use a skill or make a saving throw?

Why do you roll to attack with a bow, but not to attack with a fireball - and magic missile doesn't even require a d20 roll?

Some mechanics just work better for some circumstances, not ALL circumstances.

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-fallacy-of-unified-mechanics.html

With that said, I actually like the "roll 1d20 for most things" of modern D&D, even if it the results doesn't make sense for skills. The wizard has zero chance to beat a fighter in combat, but a 20% chance - or something - of beating him in an athletics contest. Can anyone else beat a guy who is twice as strong one time out of five?

3d6 would be a lot better... but using 1d20 is just easier for beginners. (I'd also recommend against using 3d6 for combat - I tried for years with GURPS and it gets boring).

My own system uses unified mechanics - you roll a d20 for spells, attacks, and skills (and combat ande spell-casting are skills, "thieves' skills" also work the same way, etc). I still use d4s to d12s for damage, however.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/229046/Dark-Fantasy-Basic--Players-Guide

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 06:37:53 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 29, 2021, 01:20:43 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 12:37:10 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 29, 2021, 12:15:35 AM
Nope, you're wrong, rolling 2d6, 2d10, 2d20 or 3d6, etc isn't the same as rolling one of whatever for whatever number of times.

Because everytime you roll the 2/3X yo have the bell curve built into each and every roll, while in the other case you don't, you ALWAYS have 1 in X chances of rolling any and all the numbers in the die.

Nope, you're bad mathing.

Let's say you have to roll 3d20 to win a combat. That's roughly a bell distribution of let's call it damage.

Now let's say you need to do X damage to win a combat. You end up rolling 3 times to hit, and do damage each time. The damage you inflict, over numerous times, will be bell-curvish. If individual rolls combine into some cumulative effect, then they'll start to approximate a bell curve.

Nope, you can't into math:

If nyou have to make 3 different 1d20 rolls then it follows that in a 2/3X system you would have to make 3 different rolls of 2/3X. The bell curve is built into every single roll.

Every time I roll a 1d20 I've got 5% chance of getting any given number.

Every time I roll 3d6 I've got a bell curve distirbution of the probalities of getting a number because of the ways you can add to that number increase as you get to the middle and decrease towards the extremes.

Edited to add the mathematical proof of my assertions:

https://anydice.com/program/fb4 (https://anydice.com/program/fb4)

https://anydice.com/program/116 (https://anydice.com/program/116)

https://anydice.com/program/e6 (https://anydice.com/program/e6)

https://anydice.com/program/28b (https://anydice.com/program/28b)

https://anydice.com/program/1e (https://anydice.com/program/1e)

What does any of that have to do with anything I said? Those are just the probability distributions of a few basic rolls. There's nothing in there about multiple individual rolls with a cumulative effect. You're failing to understand the argument I made.

Individual rolls might have a cumulative effect in a session.

But you're arguing that because that's so therefore using multiple dice is the same as using a single die.

That's not true, each 1d20 roll has 5% of getting any given number.

While a single 2d20 roll has the bell curve built into it. As seen below:
https://anydice.com/program/2666 (https://anydice.com/program/2666)

And, several 2d20 rolls, also have a cumulative effect in the session.

Your argument is moot.

Which is why 2dX and 3dX and dice pools exist.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 29, 2021, 11:06:48 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 09:31:58 AM
Yet somehow I'm the last guy you should get to do this.

Edit:  Also, you seemed to have missed the thrust of what "mythical designer" means. 

You aren't nearly as objective about these things as you think you are, which makes you even worse than the usual subjective person.  Not least because everyone that disagrees with you, you are quick to label as "cult" or "nostalgia" or similar comments, when you demonstrate over and over again that you don't even understand the counter arguments being put to you.  Or possibly you do understand them but pretend not to.  And while this is certainly subjective on my part since I don't know you from Adam, I can't see any evidence that you are even making an attempt to understand the root of the disagreement.  But unlike you, I'm not so arrogant as to assume that as fact, because there could be many reasons in a text-based forum for various misunderstandings. 

So yes, a person who says X is only liked because it is liked by a cult of people engaged in nostalgia is exactly the wrong person to consult on how to improve X.  It doesn't really matter what X is, either.  There are other, lesser reasons for excluding people, but that one's a slam dunk.  I'm entirely the wrong person to, for example, to attempt improve D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder simply because I don't like them very much.  I have a subjective opinion about many parts of them that make me a bad fit in that role.  The difference is that I know some of my opinions aren't objective and don't assume that everyone that likes them is not objective about them at all.

The above says nothing one way or the other about what I think about other opinions on this topic from other posters or your opinion about other topics.  It doesn't even mean you shouldn't have an opinion or shouldn't share it on this topic (as if I could do anything about that one way or the other).  It means that everyone else should be extremely skeptical of anything you say about it.

Right off the bat we're off to a bad start because I never claimed to be objective or to lack any subjective feelings on the matter (there's only so much text or disclaimers I can realistically type while still communicating effectively without bloated text or making effective use of my time). And I never claimed that anyone who disagreed with me was part of a "cult" or just going off "nostalgia" in any of the actual arguments I made when discussion specific points in this discussion. I may have made such comments as snide remarks in passing elsewhere (perhaps even in the first post in this threat), but I never advanced them at any point as a reason to dismiss anyone's actual arguments throughout this discussion. And if I did, you are free to QUOTE me and shut me up about it.

But if you can't even provide a quote or specific (real & relevant) examples of me doing the things you claim I did, then I can do nothing about it. Because even if I was going to take all your points at face value, with stone cold logic and no hard feelings getting in the way, and grant you that I may have some personal faults in my part or flaws in my reasoning that need fixing, I can NOTHING about them if you can't provide details on specific things that I actually did to address them. And you aren't. You're just going off some a personal dislike of me or things you may have seen me post in passing at some other point without addressing the specific things and actual arguments that are being said right now in this specific discussion.

You even mentioned in passing a long time ago (year?) that you wouldn't bother reading my posts anymore or something to that effect during a similar interjection you made in another discussion to criticize me. But if you're not reading my posts or taking note of the ACTUAL argument I'm making at the time and are just going off your personal prejudices about me, then how am I supposed to take you assessments seriously, when you can't be bothered to actually read what I actually said before jumping in and arguing against it?

And note that the only specific example that you gave was something that I've said in passing (that I'm assuming that you didn't like, since it was a dismissive and derisive statement on my part*), but not an actual argument that I made against anything anyone said here.

*Yet not so dissimilar to passing comments I've seen others made about 3e, unified mechanics or any other thing that isn't strictly OSR

I'm saying it is pointless to argue with you about this.  I provided the previous post in an attempt to make clear why I believe that, but it is more addressed to other participants than you, because I don't expect any self-reflection to occur on your part based on my comments, which you are already dismissing.  It would be stupid of me to believe anything else.  Is that clear enough for you?

This is tangentially interesting as I've been comparing the differences between 1E/2E and 3E, as an extension of a discussion I had with a friend about how 3E nerfed combat classes.

Part of the problem is that the 'action economy mechanic' isn't as well defined in 1E/2E as it is in 3E (move/standard/free/etc). I can't even find it in 1E, but thankfully 2E explains that 'you can move up to half your normal rate in a round, and still attack'.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 12:06:50 PM
discussion I had with a friend about how 3E nerfed combat classes.

This is something im interested in, i for the most part skipped 3e, i did play a little pathfinder but it sounds kinda bonkers how powerful casters got.

Quote from: Brad on April 28, 2021, 09:44:19 PM
"Unified mechanics" make sense when you're incapable of playing an actual game.

Feels that way sometimes.

As if players lack the brain cells needed to parse more than 1+1. We see this in board games too. This idea that the players are not able to grasp anything more complex than Candyland.

As for why no unified system. That one is easy actually.
A: Gary loved making new systems and other peoples creations. This is how we got all these TSR games with different systems.
B: Alot of these disparate rules bits were things originally added on as the need came up and were kept as they worked. Or were submitted by the players and DMs out there.
C: TSR put out a few games with more unified systems. So did others. While others did not.

And news flash. 3e and on are... NOT unified systems. Not even close. Chargen uses one set, Combat uses at least two more, magic uses its own set. Environments and Random gen usually uses its own set. and so on.

Quote from: Omega on April 29, 2021, 12:11:35 PM
As if players lack the brain cells needed to parse more than 1+1. We see this in board games too. This idea that the players are not able to grasp anything more complex than Candyland.

I have been told that most jobs write their publicationsnforna 7th grade reading level cause anything more confuses people. Sounds like we need a Seasame Street for adults. Im all for more muppets in general.

Quote from: Slambo on April 29, 2021, 12:15:22 PM

Quote from: Omega on April 29, 2021, 12:11:35 PM
As if players lack the brain cells needed to parse more than 1+1. We see this in board games too. This idea that the players are not able to grasp anything more complex than Candyland.

I have been told that most jobs write their publicationsnforna 7th grade reading level cause anything more confuses people. Sounds like we need a Seasame Street for adults. Im all for more muppets in general.

The load on the brain for a huge, single list of 50+ elements is relatively large.  That is, one mechanic, lots of items that use it. The load on the brain for a different mechanic for everything is also large.  People can argue all day long about the merits of one or the other, but both are sub optimal if the concern is load on the players' brains.

The ideal is 3-7 categories with relatively few elements in each one.  That doesn't necessarily mean 3-7 mechanics, because some categories might share or mostly share the same mechanics.  Nor does it mean that is the only consideration, because the cognitive load is a relative concern.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 29, 2021, 11:57:17 AM
I'm saying it is pointless to argue with you about this.  I provided the previous post in an attempt to make clear why I believe that, but it is more addressed to other participants that you, because I don't expect any self-reflection to occur on your part based on my comments, which you are already dismissing.  It would be stupid of me to believe anything else.  Is that clear enough for you?

And I'm saying that your assessment of me is meaningless* if you can't even be bothered to accuse me of things that I actually did. I even entertained the possibility that I may have issues to work with in my last post at this point right here...

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 11:49:59 AMBut if you can't even provide a quote or specific (real & relevant) examples of me doing the things you claim I did, then I can do nothing about it. Because even if I was going to take all your points at face value, with stone cold logic and no hard feelings getting in the way, and grant you that I may have some personal faults in my part or flaws in my reasoning that need fixing, I can NOTHING about them if you can't provide details on specific things that I actually did to address them. And you aren't. You're just going off some a personal dislike of me or things you may have seen me post in passing at some other point without addressing the specific things and actual arguments that are being said right now in this specific discussion.

...and accepted that the specific comments I made that you mentioned may have been dismissive and derisive...

QuoteAnd note that the only specific example that you gave was something that I've said in passing (that I'm assuming that you didn't like, since it was a dismissive and derisive statement on my part*), but not an actual argument that I made against anything anyone said here.

...which is part of what "self-reflection" and the capacity to change (assuming I actually did something that needs changing) is all about. Yet you're still claiming otherwise and dismissing me as someone incapable of "self-reflection". So why should I take any criticism you have of me seriously? It would be stupid of me to believe they are valid or that I'm the only one 100% at fault in whatever it is you're criticizing of me.


*not just to me on a personal/emotional/subjective basis, but objectively in terms of giving me actual actionable items I can work with to fix whatever problem you think I might have.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 09:13:49 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 06:34:54 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 12:50:52 AM
Why should what's essentially a magic attack roll (spell resistance) use a completely different mechanic from physical attack rolls? I'm not just thinking backwards from my preconceptions, I'm just recognizing that most of these things are just "action rolls" and there's almost zero reason to handle action rolls differently--even attack rolls vs skill checks. Because attack rolls are ultimately just a task roll vs a difficult value, where the difficulty value is the target's defense. You can handle all of that within the same difficult/ability value scale.

You're trying to use a roll based on magic to say that all real world probability distributions are the same?

You're trying to say that you have "real world probability distributions" for how magic works? Or that "real world probability distributions" even work or can be properly applied in a TTRPG?

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 06:52:52 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 03:34:26 AM

QuoteHaving a unified mechanic, in this situation, was bad design. It hurt player understanding and retention.

Except that it wasn't a unified mechanic by your own assessment in this very same post...

QuoteIt's a completely different mechanic, disguised as the same "unified" mechanic.

If you want to address the argument I built up over several paragraphs, we can have a conversation.

Right back at you, cuz I have yet to see you address one single specific point I've made (and I've made several with specific concrete examples, unlike 90% of what you've said), but merely dismiss them out of hand while making vague unsupported allusions to stuff you're not even providing concrete examples of, other than one instance about Strength checks and another dealing with Spell Resistance, both of which I addressed.

Where the fuck have you shown me the same courtesy at any point in this conversation? Go right ahead and quote me the post. I dare you.

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 06:52:52 AMBut if you're going to ignore that and pick those different elements out of context and pretending there's a conflict, when there isn't, we can't.

After all, if you want to argue dishonestly like that, why quote both those sentences? You could have just quoted the second one, because, based on your same "reasoning", that sentence contradicts itself. After all, I do say it's a different mechanic and then a comma later say it's the same mechanic, right?

(Nope. I'm clearly that apparent conflict to make the point that there are two different ways to use "mechanic".)

What context did I miss? WTF did you say in that post that wasn't addressed a dozen times over in other posts I've made or would change what I said in this specific post? I picked those two lines because they were the most relevant to the specific point I was trying to make, which you insist on ignoring while trying to throw implications about my supposed "dishonesty".

I mean, Jesus Motherfucking CHRIST you're haven't even acknowledged the fucking point, which is one I've made in other posts in this same thread, in order to sidestep argument to try get me on my supposed "dishonesty" or how apparently I'm now obligated to devote time out of my day (or night as was the case this time, as I'm lying in bed with insomnia and making the mistake of picking up my phone) and go through an entire wall of text and nitpick every point that was made.

You're accusing me of the things you're doing.

I was arguing that it's absurd to use magic in a discussion of real world probability distributions, literally the opposite of what you just claimed.

I went through every post you made in this thread to find all those concrete examples you said you provided. The only references to concrete mechanics I could find were: 1) a reference to how opposed rolls were handled in old school D&D. Which isn't a defense of unified mechanics, plus your memory was incorrect. 2) Doubling the bonus from attributes for attribute checks as opposed to skill checks. Which is a distinctly different mechanic, and so again not a great argument for a unified mechanic. Plus you admitted doesn't work in the d20 system (which we were discussing). And even if it did work, it solves the strength exceptionalism by making all other attributes function in that way, which defeats the purpose. And 3), in response to post where I said that disparate mechanics don't add a significant burden, you said you could just have a lookup table of target numbers. Which doesn't address how that's significantly better than an almost equally simple set of different mechanics.

None of those are concrete examples of how unified mechanics are superior.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 09:13:49 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 06:52:52 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 03:34:26 AM
As I've pointed out multiple times, you're pointing out D&D's failure to properly implement unified mechanics as an example of unified mechanics failing when in reality what's failing here is that the mechanics aren't even unified (by your own admission), when they could be as I already explained in my prior posts. It is perfectly viable to just handle spell resistance/penetration as a skill/attack roll if they just used the same ability ranges and characteristics, much the way do largely do now in 5e, where the Proficiency bonus applies to everything, including spell DC. But they didn't, and that why it's usually D&D 3e specifically that comes up in criticisms against unified mechanics, cuz critics insist on pointing out WotC's failure to properly implement actual unified mechanics in that edition as examples of the limitations of unified mechanics as opposed to WotC's failure to implement them.

That's circular reasoning. You're arguing that we should force everything into a single probability distribution, ignoring the differences between the probability distribution of say bashing down a door, expertise in a skill, and taking high risk actions in a stressful situation, because a unified mechanic is good. And that a unified mechanic is good, because we can force all those different things into the same mechanic.

No, it isn't. You are pointing to something that IS NOT "unified mechanic" (but could be unified, as I've explained) as an example of how unified mechanics don't work. That logic does NOT follow. You can't point to something that isn't a "thing" as an example of how that thing doesn't work.

And all of this stuff about not taking into account the differences in probability distributions between different types of actions is obfuscating bullshit because those probability distributions don't exist. There aren't any objective, real world probability distributions of bashing a door or expertise in a skill, etc. that we have accurately calculated and could go find in a website somewhere so we could use them in the game, and games with disunified mechanics, like old D&D, sure as fuck don't take them into account. They just make them up based on whatever the designer (or GM) FEELS is like an appropriate probability distribution.

This is a fucking game at the end of the day. FUCK real life, uber accurate "probability distributions" that NOBODY uses in ANY system anyways.

This might be the underlying reason why we seem to be talking past each other.

There are objective, real world probability distributions. Some of these are more formalized, others are less so, but they're real and objective. We know, for example, that strength tends to matter a lot. A small difference can be the difference between succeeding almost all the time, or not at all. That's why we have weight classes in wrestling, for instance. By contrast, differences in other attributes tend to be much less severe. We also know how skills work. In many professional skills, success is basically assured for someone who is skilled. You can always make a pot, or a sword, of reasonable quality. Conversely, creating a masterwork or a piece of art can be a shot in the dark. Other skills can be far more erratic at all levels, like social skills. And the results of amateurs can be highly swingy.

Quote from: Slambo on April 29, 2021, 12:11:11 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 12:06:50 PM
discussion I had with a friend about how 3E nerfed combat classes.

This is something im interested in, i for the most part skipped 3e, i did play a little pathfinder but it sounds kinda bonkers how powerful casters got.

If you look at the warrior classes* from 1E/2E -- fighter, ranger, paladin -- they all get multiple melee attacks as they advance in levels. More to the point, taking those multiple attacks didn't require them to stand still.  The extra attacks might come at the end of the round (1E and 2E seem to differ on this) but you could move up to half your movement rate and still attack (2E). Fighters could specialize and bump their multiple attacks up as well.

(* 1E monks got multiple open-hand strikes as well when they advanced high enough.)

So a 7th level fighter specializing in longsword would get 2 swings a round (fighter 7 gets 3 swings every 2 rounds, bumped up to 2/1 by specialization). And he could advance up to half his full movement rate doing so.

What 3E did was completely gimp this by requiring almost all multi-attack rolls to be part of a full attack. This only hammers the martial combat classes; rogues can still sneak attack even if they take one swing, and most spellcasters can't cast more than one spell a round anyways without using Quicken Spell.

Ironically, 5E fixes this by giving the Extra Attack ability at a certain level to fighters, monks, etc, letting them take an extra swing as part of an attack action.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 01:42:52 PM

Quote from: Slambo on April 29, 2021, 12:11:11 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 12:06:50 PM
discussion I had with a friend about how 3E nerfed combat classes.

This is something im interested in, i for the most part skipped 3e, i did play a little pathfinder but it sounds kinda bonkers how powerful casters got.

If you look at the warrior classes* from 1E/2E -- fighter, ranger, paladin -- they all get multiple melee attacks as they advance in levels. More to the point, taking those multiple attacks didn't require them to stand still.  The extra attacks might come at the end of the round (1E and 2E seem to differ on this) but you could move up to half your movement rate and still attack (2E). Fighters could specialize and bump their multiple attacks up as well.

(* 1E monks got multiple open-hand strikes as well when they advanced high enough.)

So a 7th level fighter specializing in longsword would get 2 swings a round (fighter 7 gets 3 swings every 2 rounds, bumped up to 2/1 by specialization). And he could advance up to half his full movement rate doing so.

What 3E did was completely gimp this by requiring almost all multi-attack rolls to be part of a full attack. This only hammers the martial combat classes; rogues can still sneak attack even if they take one swing, and most spellcasters can't cast more than one spell a round anyways without using Quicken Spell.

Ironically, 5E fixes this by giving the Extra Attack ability at a certain level to fighters, monks, etc, letting them take an extra swing as part of an attack action.

Thanks for the explanation

Quote from: Slambo on April 29, 2021, 01:58:58 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 01:42:52 PM

Quote from: Slambo on April 29, 2021, 12:11:11 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 12:06:50 PM
discussion I had with a friend about how 3E nerfed combat classes.

This is something im interested in, i for the most part skipped 3e, i did play a little pathfinder but it sounds kinda bonkers how powerful casters got.

If you look at the warrior classes* from 1E/2E -- fighter, ranger, paladin -- they all get multiple melee attacks as they advance in levels. More to the point, taking those multiple attacks didn't require them to stand still.  The extra attacks might come at the end of the round (1E and 2E seem to differ on this) but you could move up to half your movement rate and still attack (2E). Fighters could specialize and bump their multiple attacks up as well.

(* 1E monks got multiple open-hand strikes as well when they advanced high enough.)

So a 7th level fighter specializing in longsword would get 2 swings a round (fighter 7 gets 3 swings every 2 rounds, bumped up to 2/1 by specialization). And he could advance up to half his full movement rate doing so.

What 3E did was completely gimp this by requiring almost all multi-attack rolls to be part of a full attack. This only hammers the martial combat classes; rogues can still sneak attack even if they take one swing, and most spellcasters can't cast more than one spell a round anyways without using Quicken Spell.

Ironically, 5E fixes this by giving the Extra Attack ability at a certain level to fighters, monks, etc, letting them take an extra swing as part of an attack action.

Thanks for the explanation

I will state for the record that if someone can present a contradicting argument, I'll listen. And if their logic is sound enough, I would have to change my tune.

But I don't think I'm wrong here. I think we went from 'linear warrior quadratic wizard' to 'linear warrior logarithmic wizard'.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on April 28, 2021, 11:16:09 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM
I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

They're simpler. In theory, they make the game more accessible to newbies. In practice this just makes room for more complexity elsewhere.

People gave the example of RQ as having a unified mechanic - well not exactly, because the attributes were generated with d6es, the damage was done with d4, d6, d8, etc, and the actions with percentile. And - comparing to D&D, as well as your rolling to hit the opponent could roll to dodge or parry, which was a different level of skill to their attack, and then instead of armour making it harder to be hit, it subtracted damage, and... okay now we look at magic and... hoo boy... So they simplified one area and complicated another.

It's like how soldiers historically have always carried a total of about 35kg. When equipment is made lighter, their commanders just load them up with more of it.

Likewise, when a unified mechanic is brought into the game, the authours just add other stuff instead. So even as they "simplify" the game, the pagecount goes up and up.

Most games will have at least a certain amount of complexity and general fuckery. Choose the game whose fuckery you enjoy.

Dragon Quest is an even better example of this point than RQ is.  DQ has surface unified mechanics.  Boy does it.  It only uses d10s.  It uses percentile, roll under like RQ for almost every pass/fail thing.  It uses 1d10+mod (where the mod can be negative) for almost every effect.  Occasionally it will use 2d10 or some variant for a curve, but those are relatively rare. 

Then every single rule is almost a special case of how those mechanics get applied.  There is no unity at all in rulings or even in the default values involved.  Now, in fairness to DQ it is also very much designed to model outcomes and it is a built in core assumption of the rules that the players barely interact with them.  The rules are really just guidelines for the GM to make a ruling.  It merely chooses to "model outcomes" by having notes in each special case and expecting the GM to adjust on the fly. 

The to hit and damage effect is particularly relevant to this discussion.  Every damage roll is 1d10+mod, typically ranging from a small minus for very weak weapons on up to +7 or +8 for big ones.  Since armor is damage reduction, the effect is that dagger against unarmored target is about the same as great sword against plate target.  (Shield make you harder to hit.)  Couldn't be simpler for the players--roll the d10 and add a number.  Basic comparison and subtraction when they get hit.  This is coupled with a critical hit system that keys off of less than 15% or less than 5% of the change to hit--where the chance to hit is modified for a host of factors before checking if you meet one of those thresholds.  In other words, there isn't even unity of feel on this--convoluted means to determine if you hit coupled with bog simple damage.  (Not counting all the special cases for damage that the GM needs to keep track of and resolve.)

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 12:06:50 PM
Part of the problem is that the 'action economy mechanic' isn't as well defined in 1E/2E as it is in 3E (move/standard/free/etc). I can't even find it in 1E, but thankfully 2E explains that 'you can move up to half your normal rate in a round, and still attack'.

In 1e you can't move more than 10' and attack, unless you are Charging into melee.

Quote from: S'mon on April 29, 2021, 02:43:06 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 12:06:50 PM
Part of the problem is that the 'action economy mechanic' isn't as well defined in 1E/2E as it is in 3E (move/standard/free/etc). I can't even find it in 1E, but thankfully 2E explains that 'you can move up to half your normal rate in a round, and still attack'.

In 1e you can't move more than 10' and attack, unless you are Charging into melee.

Where is that? I can't for the life of me find it in the old 1e scans.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 01:42:52 PM

Quote from: Slambo on April 29, 2021, 12:11:11 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 12:06:50 PM
discussion I had with a friend about how 3E nerfed combat classes.

This is something im interested in, i for the most part skipped 3e, i did play a little pathfinder but it sounds kinda bonkers how powerful casters got.

If you look at the warrior classes* from 1E/2E -- fighter, ranger, paladin -- they all get multiple melee attacks as they advance in levels. More to the point, taking those multiple attacks didn't require them to stand still.  The extra attacks might come at the end of the round (1E and 2E seem to differ on this) but you could move up to half your movement rate and still attack (2E). Fighters could specialize and bump their multiple attacks up as well.

(* 1E monks got multiple open-hand strikes as well when they advanced high enough.)

So a 7th level fighter specializing in longsword would get 2 swings a round (fighter 7 gets 3 swings every 2 rounds, bumped up to 2/1 by specialization). And he could advance up to half his full movement rate doing so.

What 3E did was completely gimp this by requiring almost all multi-attack rolls to be part of a full attack. This only hammers the martial combat classes; rogues can still sneak attack even if they take one swing, and most spellcasters can't cast more than one spell a round anyways without using Quicken Spell.

Ironically, 5E fixes this by giving the Extra Attack ability at a certain level to fighters, monks, etc, letting them take an extra swing as part of an attack action.

Even more so in 2e and 5e those extra attacks aren't penalized whereas in 3e they are.

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 01:34:36 PMYou're accusing me of the things you're doing.

I was arguing that it's absurd to use magic in a discussion of real world probability distributions, literally the opposite of what you just claimed.

Looking back on it, I think I misread what you said in that part of your post.

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 01:34:36 PMI went through every post you made in this thread to find all those concrete examples you said you provided. The only references to concrete mechanics I could find were: 1) a reference to how opposed rolls were handled in old school D&D. Which isn't a defense of unified mechanics, plus your memory was incorrect. 2) Doubling the bonus from attributes for attribute checks as opposed to skill checks. Which is a distinctly different mechanic, and so again not a great argument for a unified mechanic. Plus you admitted doesn't work in the d20 system (which we were discussing). And even if it did work, it solves the strength exceptionalism by making all other attributes function in that way, which defeats the purpose. And 3), in response to post where I said that disparate mechanics don't add a significant burden, you said you could just have a lookup table of target numbers. Which doesn't address how that's significantly better than an almost equally simple set of different mechanics.

None of those are concrete examples of how unified mechanics are superior.

None of those were necessarily arguments that unified mechanics are superior, but addressing specific points you made.

1) Was mostly a nitpick I had, and the mechanic I mentioned was based on stuff I read during 2e era. Not sure it was mentioned in the PHB specifically or if I got it from a supplement or something (may have been one of the Complete X books, but don't recall). It's possible that mechanic was never used in earlier editions. And the point I was clumsily trying to make was that if disparate mechanics don't necessarily handle it better then there's no solid argument against unified mechanics coming from that angle either. Granted, this is only focusing on a specific 2e mechanic vs 3e or unified mechanics in general, so it's not exactly a slam dunk argument, but more like a reinforcing one.

2) Doubling the attribute bonus is essentially treating the attribute bonus as the skill bonus, which is essentially the same thing, assuming that they're on the same scale. Additionally this deals with how attributes vs skills are handled in specific systems, which can vary a lot between systems and is an issue of implementation rather than unified mechanics per se. In a system I have in the backburner, for example, I use a single "Might" attribute to handle Strength/Constitution (physical power/resilience) functionalities, and a Strength skill (or "discipline", which is a type of general skills I use in the system to cover all core actions in the game) to deal with the more specific function of the application of physical power and force. Since Strength is in line with other disciplines in terms of modifier ranges, and disciplines get the highest range of all abilities, this specific issue disappears in that game. A high Strength always has a significantly higher impact than someone who doesn't develop it.

I also mentioned that it doesn't work with D&D 3e specifically (not the d20 System in general), but that it does in 5e (which is a d20 System variant AFAIK). And this thread isn't about 3e specifically, but about about unified mechanics in D&D in general. And our specific argument wasn't just about 3e either, but about unified vs disunified mechanics, which are not limited to just 3e. But your specific examples apply only to 3e, which makes it an argument that's valid only against 3e's implementation, not against unified mechanics in general.

I also don't see how making all attribute work the same way with my proposed fix defeats its purpose when most opposed raw attribute rolls will be based on Strength anyways. And I not sure how giving other attributes the same treatment would make them work inappropriately either. If whatever you're doing relies on raw ability weighting the odds in favor of that raw ability makes sense. In situations that it doesn't, the roll will almost invariably be based on a skill. I can't think of a raw attribute roll that would be badly skewed with double modifiers. If you're trying to think faster than someone else, for example, having a higher Intelligence should give you a distinct advantage over someone with lower Intelligence. Unless the check relies on specific knowledge, at which point we're talking about a knowledge-based skill roll, so raw ability double bonuses won't apply.

3) Looking up a single table that you can easily memorize in most cases, or working from basic guidelines, like DC 10 base, +5 per difficulty step (as handled in d20), is much simpler than looking up specific rules for every edge case. Plus handling most action rolls as a skill check rather than as a generic 1-2 in 1d6, for example, grants me additional options and granularity when defining character talents, such as how perceptive they are, or their knowledge of certain matters, such as stonework. And it also allows me to pit character talent vs specific gradients of difficulty on a case by case basis, such as when handling Strength checks to bash a weak door vs a stronger one.

Some disunified mechanics also have issues in an of themselves. In the case of old Magic Resistance, for example, the roll was basically a fixed % made by the DM (as opposed to by the player in the case of 3e Spell Resistance) IN ADDITION to and before the Saving Throw was made (using completely different 1d20 vs target number mechanics) to completely negate the spell right off the bat. Which is a clunky mechanic that completely ignores caster ability or degree of power, so that a creature with 80%+ MR could completely undermine a high level spellcaster, unless they had a spell that allowed them to bypass MR (which only reduced the % by a certain amount and the spell wasn't even in the PHB, but a separate supplement in 2e at least, IIRC). Granted, some people might be OK with that, but I generally despise character or creature abilities that undermine other abilities or game effects, unless there's a solid reason for it, like in the case of poison vs constructs (which should obviously have immunity to poison, as non-living creatures).

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 01:34:36 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 09:13:49 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 06:52:52 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 03:34:26 AM
As I've pointed out multiple times, you're pointing out D&D's failure to properly implement unified mechanics as an example of unified mechanics failing when in reality what's failing here is that the mechanics aren't even unified (by your own admission), when they could be as I already explained in my prior posts. It is perfectly viable to just handle spell resistance/penetration as a skill/attack roll if they just used the same ability ranges and characteristics, much the way do largely do now in 5e, where the Proficiency bonus applies to everything, including spell DC. But they didn't, and that why it's usually D&D 3e specifically that comes up in criticisms against unified mechanics, cuz critics insist on pointing out WotC's failure to properly implement actual unified mechanics in that edition as examples of the limitations of unified mechanics as opposed to WotC's failure to implement them.

That's circular reasoning. You're arguing that we should force everything into a single probability distribution, ignoring the differences between the probability distribution of say bashing down a door, expertise in a skill, and taking high risk actions in a stressful situation, because a unified mechanic is good. And that a unified mechanic is good, because we can force all those different things into the same mechanic.

No, it isn't. You are pointing to something that IS NOT "unified mechanic" (but could be unified, as I've explained) as an example of how unified mechanics don't work. That logic does NOT follow. You can't point to something that isn't a "thing" as an example of how that thing doesn't work.

And all of this stuff about not taking into account the differences in probability distributions between different types of actions is obfuscating bullshit because those probability distributions don't exist. There aren't any objective, real world probability distributions of bashing a door or expertise in a skill, etc. that we have accurately calculated and could go find in a website somewhere so we could use them in the game, and games with disunified mechanics, like old D&D, sure as fuck don't take them into account. They just make them up based on whatever the designer (or GM) FEELS is like an appropriate probability distribution.

This is a fucking game at the end of the day. FUCK real life, uber accurate "probability distributions" that NOBODY uses in ANY system anyways.

This might be the underlying reason why we seem to be talking past each other.

There are objective, real world probability distributions. Some of these are more formalized, others are less so, but they're real and objective. We know, for example, that strength tends to matter a lot. A small difference can be the difference between succeeding almost all the time, or not at all. That's why we have weight classes in wrestling, for instance. By contrast, differences in other attributes tend to be much less severe. We also know how skills work. In many professional skills, success is basically assured for someone who is skilled. You can always make a pot, or a sword, of reasonable quality. Conversely, creating a masterwork or a piece of art can be a shot in the dark. Other skills can be far more erratic at all levels, like social skills. And the results of amateurs can be highly swingy.

But do we have the specific numbers, and can they be effectively applied to the game? We "know" that strength has a significant impact on strength related tasks. But what are the specific numbers (not in terms of weight press, but probability-wise) and how do we apply them in the game? And is trying to make minute aspects of the game mechanics as "realistic" as possible always feasible or even desirable? Some of this stuff is just hard to emulate in game terms regardless of the style of mechanics used. Most action rolls in gameplay deal with quick and dirty stuff, rather than prolonged tasks where you can sit your ass for hours until you get them done, at which point the skill check might be more about how fast you can get it done (or whether you can get it done in X amount of time, before the baddies show up), as opposed to whether you can get it done or not.

Quote from: Omega on April 29, 2021, 12:11:35 PM

Quote from: Brad on April 28, 2021, 09:44:19 PM
"Unified mechanics" make sense when you're incapable of playing an actual game.

Feels that way sometimes.

As if players lack the brain cells needed to parse more than 1+1. We see this in board games too. This idea that the players are not able to grasp anything more complex than Candyland.

As for why no unified system. That one is easy actually.
A: Gary loved making new systems and other peoples creations. This is how we got all these TSR games with different systems.
B: Alot of these disparate rules bits were things originally added on as the need came up and were kept as they worked. Or were submitted by the players and DMs out there.
C: TSR put out a few games with more unified systems. So did others. While others did not.

And news flash. 3e and on are... NOT unified systems. Not even close. Chargen uses one set, Combat uses at least two more, magic uses its own set. Environments and Random gen usually uses its own set. and so on.

Complexity causes mechanics to take more time at the table. We saw this play out in 4th editon, where combats could take hours to finish. I'm capable of doing more than 1+1 at the table, but I also want a system that's "elegant" (accomplishes more for less effort) and intuitive. That gives us more time doing fun stuff and less time looking up fiddly rules and figuring out stuff.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 02:53:29 PM
Where is that? I can't for the life of me find it in the old 1e scans.

Page 67 'Further Actions'. At any rate that's my best interpretation of the text. :)

Quote from: KingCheops on April 29, 2021, 03:04:51 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 01:42:52 PM

Quote from: Slambo on April 29, 2021, 12:11:11 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 12:06:50 PM
discussion I had with a friend about how 3E nerfed combat classes.

This is something im interested in, i for the most part skipped 3e, i did play a little pathfinder but it sounds kinda bonkers how powerful casters got.

If you look at the warrior classes* from 1E/2E -- fighter, ranger, paladin -- they all get multiple melee attacks as they advance in levels. More to the point, taking those multiple attacks didn't require them to stand still.  The extra attacks might come at the end of the round (1E and 2E seem to differ on this) but you could move up to half your movement rate and still attack (2E). Fighters could specialize and bump their multiple attacks up as well.

(* 1E monks got multiple open-hand strikes as well when they advanced high enough.)

So a 7th level fighter specializing in longsword would get 2 swings a round (fighter 7 gets 3 swings every 2 rounds, bumped up to 2/1 by specialization). And he could advance up to half his full movement rate doing so.

What 3E did was completely gimp this by requiring almost all multi-attack rolls to be part of a full attack. This only hammers the martial combat classes; rogues can still sneak attack even if they take one swing, and most spellcasters can't cast more than one spell a round anyways without using Quicken Spell.

Ironically, 5E fixes this by giving the Extra Attack ability at a certain level to fighters, monks, etc, letting them take an extra swing as part of an attack action.

Even more so in 2e and 5e those extra attacks aren't penalized whereas in 3e they are.

In 2e warriors only got 2 attacks per round (5/2 rounds if specialized) for most weapons (6/round for darts, though). While in 3e they got up to 4 with ANY weapon. But yeah, the cumulative penalties per extra attack screwed them over and complicated things when figuring out what bonus to get for each attack, specially since the penalties varied per attack.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 03:56:43 PM

Quote from: KingCheops on April 29, 2021, 03:04:51 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 01:42:52 PM

Quote from: Slambo on April 29, 2021, 12:11:11 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 12:06:50 PM
discussion I had with a friend about how 3E nerfed combat classes.

This is something im interested in, i for the most part skipped 3e, i did play a little pathfinder but it sounds kinda bonkers how powerful casters got.

If you look at the warrior classes* from 1E/2E -- fighter, ranger, paladin -- they all get multiple melee attacks as they advance in levels. More to the point, taking those multiple attacks didn't require them to stand still.  The extra attacks might come at the end of the round (1E and 2E seem to differ on this) but you could move up to half your movement rate and still attack (2E). Fighters could specialize and bump their multiple attacks up as well.

(* 1E monks got multiple open-hand strikes as well when they advanced high enough.)

So a 7th level fighter specializing in longsword would get 2 swings a round (fighter 7 gets 3 swings every 2 rounds, bumped up to 2/1 by specialization). And he could advance up to half his full movement rate doing so.

What 3E did was completely gimp this by requiring almost all multi-attack rolls to be part of a full attack. This only hammers the martial combat classes; rogues can still sneak attack even if they take one swing, and most spellcasters can't cast more than one spell a round anyways without using Quicken Spell.

Ironically, 5E fixes this by giving the Extra Attack ability at a certain level to fighters, monks, etc, letting them take an extra swing as part of an attack action.

Even more so in 2e and 5e those extra attacks aren't penalized whereas in 3e they are.

In 2e warriors only got 2 attacks per round (5/2 rounds if specialized) for most weapons (6/round for darts, though). While in 3e they got up to 4 with ANY weapon. But yeah, the cumulative penalties per extra attack screwed them over and complicated things when figuring out what bonus to get for each attack, specially since the penalties varied per attack.

Breaking this down, 3E introduced the base attack bonus mechanic to replace THAC0, which... wasn't a terrible idea. But what happened was that (a) you couldn't take multiple attacks with a move action, which was a pain for fighters and crippled the poor monk, and (b) as noted, your attacks were made with a progressive -5 penalty.

So let's take Joe the Fighter, level 13. I grant levels aren't really on a 1-to-1 basis between 2E and 3E. 2E Joe specialized in the two handed sword. He swings 5/2, at normal THAC0, and can move up to half his speed to engage baddies. He's probably one hell of a wrecking ball of a PC.

But 3E Joe... well, he swings +13/+8/+3, plus any bonuses. Sure, he gets three swings a round to 2E Joe's 5/2, but his second and especially his third swings are at a disadvantage. This crap also haunted monks and any poor schmuck using two-weapon fighting rules. Worse, 3E Joe can't take any extra swings if he moves more than 5'.

Quote from: S'mon on April 29, 2021, 02:17:58 AM
I think the answer is that pre-3e D&D was concerned with outcome, not process. So it used whatever looked to work best to get the desired outcome. Group morale checks using a bell curve roll (2d6 or 2d10) in BX-BECMI and 2e AD&D is a good example. Evasion checks on d%. Encounter tables using whatever dice look handy; maybe d8+d12 (MM2) for a flat-topped bell curve.

Pre-3e DnD was just a mish mash of systems thrown together with no pretense of rhyme or reason.  Gary Gygax himself said that he rolls dice because he likes to hear the sound that they make.

Concerned with outcome indeed.

Quote from: Mishihari on April 29, 2021, 06:16:35 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 01:07:46 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM
I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

Unified mechanics are better because they make it easier to learn the game and make playing the game faster as well.

That argument sound compelling in a theoretical sense, but I've learned a lot of games and I really don't recall the ones with unified mechanics being any easier to learn.  Actually, in unified mechanics games, all the different types of checks are so similar that they kind of blur together and are harder to keep straight.  Different mechanics makes the details easier to remember for me.

And I have played games with different mechanics where you constantly have to tell the players which dice they have to roll which is super not fun.

Actually that could be the reason why you remember those games - I always remember the game where you can roll triangle.

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 04:56:42 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 29, 2021, 06:16:35 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 01:07:46 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM
I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

Unified mechanics are better because they make it easier to learn the game and make playing the game faster as well.

That argument sound compelling in a theoretical sense, but I've learned a lot of games and I really don't recall the ones with unified mechanics being any easier to learn.  Actually, in unified mechanics games, all the different types of checks are so similar that they kind of blur together and are harder to keep straight.  Different mechanics makes the details easier to remember for me.

And I have played games with different mechanics where you constantly have to tell the players which dice they have to roll which is super not fun.

Actually that could be the reason why you remember those games - I always remember the game where you can roll triangle.

When learning 1E AD&D, without a copy of the PHB ( Out of print and not available locally.  Pre Amazon, 2E AD&D era...); it took me a while to figure out what to roll, and when.  It was totally confusing.  I was constantly asking the DM, "which die, and do I need to roll high or low this time?"  D20 roll high is much simpler, for new players.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 04:07:59 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 03:56:43 PM

Quote from: KingCheops on April 29, 2021, 03:04:51 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 01:42:52 PM

Quote from: Slambo on April 29, 2021, 12:11:11 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 29, 2021, 12:06:50 PM
discussion I had with a friend about how 3E nerfed combat classes.

This is something im interested in, i for the most part skipped 3e, i did play a little pathfinder but it sounds kinda bonkers how powerful casters got.

If you look at the warrior classes* from 1E/2E -- fighter, ranger, paladin -- they all get multiple melee attacks as they advance in levels. More to the point, taking those multiple attacks didn't require them to stand still.  The extra attacks might come at the end of the round (1E and 2E seem to differ on this) but you could move up to half your movement rate and still attack (2E). Fighters could specialize and bump their multiple attacks up as well.

(* 1E monks got multiple open-hand strikes as well when they advanced high enough.)

So a 7th level fighter specializing in longsword would get 2 swings a round (fighter 7 gets 3 swings every 2 rounds, bumped up to 2/1 by specialization). And he could advance up to half his full movement rate doing so.

What 3E did was completely gimp this by requiring almost all multi-attack rolls to be part of a full attack. This only hammers the martial combat classes; rogues can still sneak attack even if they take one swing, and most spellcasters can't cast more than one spell a round anyways without using Quicken Spell.

Ironically, 5E fixes this by giving the Extra Attack ability at a certain level to fighters, monks, etc, letting them take an extra swing as part of an attack action.

Even more so in 2e and 5e those extra attacks aren't penalized whereas in 3e they are.

In 2e warriors only got 2 attacks per round (5/2 rounds if specialized) for most weapons (6/round for darts, though). While in 3e they got up to 4 with ANY weapon. But yeah, the cumulative penalties per extra attack screwed them over and complicated things when figuring out what bonus to get for each attack, specially since the penalties varied per attack.

Breaking this down, 3E introduced the base attack bonus mechanic to replace THAC0, which... wasn't a terrible idea. But what happened was that (a) you couldn't take multiple attacks with a move action, which was a pain for fighters and crippled the poor monk, and (b) as noted, your attacks were made with a progressive -5 penalty.

So let's take Joe the Fighter, level 13. I grant levels aren't really on a 1-to-1 basis between 2E and 3E. 2E Joe specialized in the two handed sword. He swings 5/2, at normal THAC0, and can move up to half his speed to engage baddies. He's probably one hell of a wrecking ball of a PC.

But 3E Joe... well, he swings +13/+8/+3, plus any bonuses. Sure, he gets three swings a round to 2E Joe's 5/2, but his second and especially his third swings are at a disadvantage. This crap also haunted monks and any poor schmuck using two-weapon fighting rules. Worse, 3E Joe can't take any extra swings if he moves more than 5'.

Yeah, 3e added an extra layer of complexity to the combat rules that used to sound good to me on paper, but over time I've come to realize that it just needlessly complicated and restricted combat, and reduced the badassery of warriors.

Granted, I personally have some reservations about the idea of multiple actions per round as permanent abilities in RPGs, since it can lead to a lot of balancing issues depending on how they're handled and how much damage you can ditch per attack. But when that is the ONLY real "power" (so to speak) warriors get in D&D, while wizards can blow the shit out of everything then port away to safety, limiting so much how they work only screws warriors over on the long run. Specially adding the full-attack requirement for multiple attacks on top of a whooping -5 incremental penalty per extra attack.

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 04:56:42 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 29, 2021, 06:16:35 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 01:07:46 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM
I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

Unified mechanics are better because they make it easier to learn the game and make playing the game faster as well.

That argument sound compelling in a theoretical sense, but I've learned a lot of games and I really don't recall the ones with unified mechanics being any easier to learn.  Actually, in unified mechanics games, all the different types of checks are so similar that they kind of blur together and are harder to keep straight.  Different mechanics makes the details easier to remember for me.

And I have played games with different mechanics where you constantly have to tell the players which dice they have to roll which is super not fun.

Actually that could be the reason why you remember those games - I always remember the game where you can roll triangle.

That's one of the problems with that line of argument against unified mechanics. It's highly subjective and anecdotal, kinda hard for me to believe given my different perceptions and experiences, and even to the degree I might be able to accept it given how different people have different tastes and learning styles, it pretty much falls into the category of "That's just like...you're opinion. Man."

Quote from: Jam The MF on April 29, 2021, 05:57:51 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 04:56:42 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 29, 2021, 06:16:35 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 01:07:46 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM
I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

Unified mechanics are better because they make it easier to learn the game and make playing the game faster as well.

That argument sound compelling in a theoretical sense, but I've learned a lot of games and I really don't recall the ones with unified mechanics being any easier to learn.  Actually, in unified mechanics games, all the different types of checks are so similar that they kind of blur together and are harder to keep straight.  Different mechanics makes the details easier to remember for me.

And I have played games with different mechanics where you constantly have to tell the players which dice they have to roll which is super not fun.

Actually that could be the reason why you remember those games - I always remember the game where you can roll triangle.

When learning 1E AD&D, without a copy of the PHB ( Out of print and not available locally.  Pre Amazon, 2E AD&D era...); it took me a while to figure out what to roll, and when.  It was totally confusing.  I was constantly asking the DM, "which die, and do I need to roll high or low this time?"  D20 roll high is much simpler, for new players.

That's true, settling on one, either roll over or roll under does simplify things. I like better roll over since it's more intuitive that a bigger number is better.

I still do think I failed or aced a roll when it's the opposite from time to time.

Quote from: S'mon on April 29, 2021, 02:43:06 PM
In 1e you can't move more than 10' and attack, unless you are Charging into melee.

That's correct (although technically it's 1", so 10 feet indoors and 10 yards outdoors). If you want to enter melee you have two options: "charge" or "close to striking range." (I usually call the latter "close to engage.") Charging is full-tilt aggressive entry into melee, and the combatant with the longer reach/weapon strikes first. Closing to engage is a more cautious approach, and (unless trumped by a charge from the other side), *neither* side gets to make a melee attack roll in the current round. However, that doesn't mean that melee hasn't started, it just means that the combatants are squaring off, circling, feinting and "feeling out" their opponent. That is, "close to engage" doesn't mean "I walk up and stand there like a dork," it means "I move into engagement range and begin fighting (without a chance for a significant blow this round, but also denying my enemy the chance for a significant blow this round)." After a close to engagement, both sides get their chance for significant blows (i.e., attack rolls) starting on the next round.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 06:15:01 PM
That's one of the problems with that line of argument against unified mechanics. It's highly subjective and anecdotal, kinda hard for me to believe given my different perceptions and experiences, and even to the degree I might be able to accept it given how different people have different tastes and learning styles, it pretty much falls into the category of "That's just like...you're opinion. Man."

Of course it's an opinion.  Your point of view is also just an opinion, and that's all it is.  Did you think we were arguing over some objective truth here?  I've got mine and you've got yours, each shaped by our own experiences.  All either of us can say is "I like this approach because of these reasons: ..."  And other folks can agree or not depending on whether the reasons we give are important things to them and they think they're relevant.  The discussion is useful for helping one clarify his own point of view, but nothing either side says is going to change an opinion already formed from personal experience, because personal experience >>> opinion of some guy on the internet.

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 04:56:42 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 29, 2021, 06:16:35 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 01:07:46 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM
I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

Unified mechanics are better because they make it easier to learn the game and make playing the game faster as well.

That argument sound compelling in a theoretical sense, but I've learned a lot of games and I really don't recall the ones with unified mechanics being any easier to learn.  Actually, in unified mechanics games, all the different types of checks are so similar that they kind of blur together and are harder to keep straight.  Different mechanics makes the details easier to remember for me.

And I have played games with different mechanics where you constantly have to tell the players which dice they have to roll which is super not fun.

Actually that could be the reason why you remember those games - I always remember the game where you can roll triangle.

Earthdawn is the poster boy for this lol.  The math was really quite elegant and was purpose built but man was it hard for new players to get their heads wrapped around the Steps and which dice to roll.  And that was a Unified Mechanic system  ;D

Quote from: Mishihari on April 29, 2021, 08:36:19 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 29, 2021, 06:15:01 PM
That's one of the problems with that line of argument against unified mechanics. It's highly subjective and anecdotal, kinda hard for me to believe given my different perceptions and experiences, and even to the degree I might be able to accept it given how different people have different tastes and learning styles, it pretty much falls into the category of "That's just like...you're opinion. Man."

Of course it's an opinion.  Your point of view is also just an opinion, and that's all it is.  Did you think we were arguing over some objective truth here?  I've got mine and you've got yours, each shaped by our own experiences.  All either of us can say is "I like this approach because of these reasons: ..."  And other folks can agree or not depending on whether the reasons we give are important things to them and they think they're relevant.  The discussion is useful for helping one clarify his own point of view, but nothing either side says is going to change an opinion already formed from personal experience, because personal experience >>> opinion of some guy on the internet.

The argument between Pat and me, at least, was more about the objective merits of unified mechanics, which falls closer to "objective truth" (or at least some approximation of it) than opinion. But preference is a different issue that's inherently subjective, so obviously that's a matter of opinion.

However, Pat also replied to your post earlier saying that's the argument he was trying to make...

Quote from: Pat on April 29, 2021, 07:05:37 AM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 29, 2021, 06:16:35 AM
That argument sound compelling in a theoretical sense, but I've learned a lot of games and I really don't recall the ones with unified mechanics being any easier to learn.  Actually, in unified mechanics games, all the different types of checks are so similar that they kind of blur together and are harder to keep straight.  Different mechanics makes the details easier to remember for me.

That's the argument I've been trying to make, but you did it very succinctly.

And your post made a claim I've seen come up before in these discussions about the idea that disunified mechanics are easier to remember, which is an objective claim, since you're saying that something IS a certain way (Different Mechanics = Easier to Remember). And memory isn't just an opinion but a mechanism for recalling information. But that claim goes against my personal experience, so it can't be right. Then it occurred to me that different people have different learning styles so it might be possible that some people use different mnemonics to remember unified vs disunified mechanics in RPGs. Which would explain differences in perception when judging either style of handling mechanics, at least as far as remembering them is concerned.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 30, 2021, 11:05:19 AM
And your post made a claim I've seen come up before in these discussions about the idea that disunified mechanics are easier to remember, which is an objective claim, since you're saying that something IS a certain way (Different Mechanics = Easier to Remember). And memory isn't just an opinion but a mechanism for recalling information. But that claim goes against my personal experience, so it can't be right. Then it occurred to me that different people have different learning styles so it might be possible that some people use different mnemonics to remember unified vs disunified mechanics in RPGs. Which would explain differences in perception when judging either style of handling mechanics, at least as far as remembering them is concerned.

I'd be interested in an actual psychology experiment done on this issue.  It doesn't seem like it wold be too hard to do.  My expectation is that memory of rules would be boosted by using a different physical mechanism for most but not all people, but I wouldn't be shocked if I were wrong either.

If we have any psych grad students on the boards:  here's a great idea for your thesis.  Do it, because I want to know.

Quote from: Mishihari on April 30, 2021, 04:50:23 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 30, 2021, 11:05:19 AM
And your post made a claim I've seen come up before in these discussions about the idea that disunified mechanics are easier to remember, which is an objective claim, since you're saying that something IS a certain way (Different Mechanics = Easier to Remember). And memory isn't just an opinion but a mechanism for recalling information. But that claim goes against my personal experience, so it can't be right. Then it occurred to me that different people have different learning styles so it might be possible that some people use different mnemonics to remember unified vs disunified mechanics in RPGs. Which would explain differences in perception when judging either style of handling mechanics, at least as far as remembering them is concerned.

I'd be interested in an actual psychology experiment done on this issue.  It doesn't seem like it wold be too hard to do.  My expectation is that memory of rules would be boosted by using a different physical mechanism for most but not all people, but I wouldn't be shocked if I were wrong either.

If we have any psych grad students on the boards:  here's a great idea for your thesis.  Do it, because I want to know.

You might ask someone who specializes in learning styles.  I could see people who learn more visually or else by doing having an easier time with mechanics using a variety of dice.

Quote from: KingCheops on April 30, 2021, 10:41:58 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 04:56:42 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 29, 2021, 06:16:35 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 01:07:46 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM
I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

Unified mechanics are better because they make it easier to learn the game and make playing the game faster as well.

That argument sound compelling in a theoretical sense, but I've learned a lot of games and I really don't recall the ones with unified mechanics being any easier to learn.  Actually, in unified mechanics games, all the different types of checks are so similar that they kind of blur together and are harder to keep straight.  Different mechanics makes the details easier to remember for me.

And I have played games with different mechanics where you constantly have to tell the players which dice they have to roll which is super not fun.

Actually that could be the reason why you remember those games - I always remember the game where you can roll triangle.

Earthdawn is the poster boy for this lol.  The math was really quite elegant and was purpose built but man was it hard for new players to get their heads wrapped around the Steps and which dice to roll.  And that was a Unified Mechanic system  ;D

If you thought Earthdawn is difficult now, imagine if it introduced another two different systems to learn.

Quote from: Shasarak on April 30, 2021, 06:03:16 PM

Quote from: KingCheops on April 30, 2021, 10:41:58 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 04:56:42 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 29, 2021, 06:16:35 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 01:07:46 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM
I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

Unified mechanics are better because they make it easier to learn the game and make playing the game faster as well.

That argument sound compelling in a theoretical sense, but I've learned a lot of games and I really don't recall the ones with unified mechanics being any easier to learn.  Actually, in unified mechanics games, all the different types of checks are so similar that they kind of blur together and are harder to keep straight.  Different mechanics makes the details easier to remember for me.

And I have played games with different mechanics where you constantly have to tell the players which dice they have to roll which is super not fun.

Actually that could be the reason why you remember those games - I always remember the game where you can roll triangle.

Earthdawn is the poster boy for this lol.  The math was really quite elegant and was purpose built but man was it hard for new players to get their heads wrapped around the Steps and which dice to roll.  And that was a Unified Mechanic system  ;D

If you thought Earthdawn is difficult now, imagine if it introduced another two different systems to learn.

Like.Pathfinder and Savage Worlds?

Quote from: HappyDaze on April 30, 2021, 06:12:15 PM
Like.Pathfinder and Savage Worlds?

I dont know much about Savage Worlds.  Something something beanies I think.

Quote from: Mishihari on April 30, 2021, 04:50:23 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 30, 2021, 11:05:19 AM
And your post made a claim I've seen come up before in these discussions about the idea that disunified mechanics are easier to remember, which is an objective claim, since you're saying that something IS a certain way (Different Mechanics = Easier to Remember). And memory isn't just an opinion but a mechanism for recalling information. But that claim goes against my personal experience, so it can't be right. Then it occurred to me that different people have different learning styles so it might be possible that some people use different mnemonics to remember unified vs disunified mechanics in RPGs. Which would explain differences in perception when judging either style of handling mechanics, at least as far as remembering them is concerned.

I'd be interested in an actual psychology experiment done on this issue.  It doesn't seem like it wold be too hard to do.  My expectation is that memory of rules would be boosted by using a different physical mechanism for most but not all people, but I wouldn't be shocked if I were wrong either.

If we have any psych grad students on the boards:  here's a great idea for your thesis.  Do it, because I want to know.

One of the challenges would be separating general system complexity from mechanical style, since (as some posters, like Kyle Aaron, have pointed out), a lot of games using unified mechanics trade the minimized page count needed to explain task resolution mechanics for a bunch of additional subsystems, like extensive skill lists, power creation systems, etc. that could add to overall system complexity and learning material. So that a more simple game, like D&D 0e could still potentially be simpler to learn (even if unified mechanics are truly easier to learn, as I've claimed), despite having different mechanics for different stuff in the game.

Quote from: KingCheops on April 30, 2021, 10:41:58 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 04:56:42 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 29, 2021, 06:16:35 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 01:07:46 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM
I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

Unified mechanics are better because they make it easier to learn the game and make playing the game faster as well.

That argument sound compelling in a theoretical sense, but I've learned a lot of games and I really don't recall the ones with unified mechanics being any easier to learn.  Actually, in unified mechanics games, all the different types of checks are so similar that they kind of blur together and are harder to keep straight.  Different mechanics makes the details easier to remember for me.

And I have played games with different mechanics where you constantly have to tell the players which dice they have to roll which is super not fun.

Actually that could be the reason why you remember those games - I always remember the game where you can roll triangle.

Earthdawn is the poster boy for this lol.  The math was really quite elegant and was purpose built but man was it hard for new players to get their heads wrapped around the Steps and which dice to roll.  And that was a Unified Mechanic system  ;D

My group played a ton of Earthdawn 1E back in the day.   I still use some of the magic concepts from the game world in my current PF2e campaign.   Good thing there are no Lawful Neutral Paizo fans on this board or they would roast me alive for changing the game system to my liking :) 

Quote from: Krugus on April 30, 2021, 07:27:04 PM

Quote from: KingCheops on April 30, 2021, 10:41:58 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 04:56:42 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 29, 2021, 06:16:35 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 01:07:46 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM
I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

Unified mechanics are better because they make it easier to learn the game and make playing the game faster as well.

That argument sound compelling in a theoretical sense, but I've learned a lot of games and I really don't recall the ones with unified mechanics being any easier to learn.  Actually, in unified mechanics games, all the different types of checks are so similar that they kind of blur together and are harder to keep straight.  Different mechanics makes the details easier to remember for me.

And I have played games with different mechanics where you constantly have to tell the players which dice they have to roll which is super not fun.

Actually that could be the reason why you remember those games - I always remember the game where you can roll triangle.

Earthdawn is the poster boy for this lol.  The math was really quite elegant and was purpose built but man was it hard for new players to get their heads wrapped around the Steps and which dice to roll.  And that was a Unified Mechanic system  ;D

My group played a ton of Earthdawn 1E back in the day.   I still use some of the magic concepts from the game world in my current PF2e campaign.   Good thing there are no Lawful Neutral Paizo fans on this board or they would roast me alive for changing the game system to my liking :)

Changing the game system to your liking is what the RPG hobby is all about.  ;)

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 30, 2021, 07:31:32 PM

Quote from: Krugus on April 30, 2021, 07:27:04 PM

Quote from: KingCheops on April 30, 2021, 10:41:58 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 04:56:42 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 29, 2021, 06:16:35 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on April 29, 2021, 01:07:46 AM

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:38:52 PM
I'm really looking for an argument why unified mechanics are better. Because a lot of people seem to think it's obvious they're better, but I almost never see anyone express why.

Unified mechanics are better because they make it easier to learn the game and make playing the game faster as well.

That argument sound compelling in a theoretical sense, but I've learned a lot of games and I really don't recall the ones with unified mechanics being any easier to learn.  Actually, in unified mechanics games, all the different types of checks are so similar that they kind of blur together and are harder to keep straight.  Different mechanics makes the details easier to remember for me.

And I have played games with different mechanics where you constantly have to tell the players which dice they have to roll which is super not fun.

Actually that could be the reason why you remember those games - I always remember the game where you can roll triangle.

Earthdawn is the poster boy for this lol.  The math was really quite elegant and was purpose built but man was it hard for new players to get their heads wrapped around the Steps and which dice to roll.  And that was a Unified Mechanic system  ;D

My group played a ton of Earthdawn 1E back in the day.   I still use some of the magic concepts from the game world in my current PF2e campaign.   Good thing there are no Lawful Neutral Paizo fans on this board or they would roast me alive for changing the game system to my liking :)

Changing the game system to your liking is what the RPG hobby is all about.  ;)

I used ascending AC in 2nd edition and a bunch of demons flew out of the rulebook...

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 30, 2021, 06:51:35 PM
One of the challenges would be separating general system complexity from mechanical style, since (as some posters, like Kyle Aaron, have pointed out), a lot of games using unified mechanics trade the minimized page count needed to explain task resolution mechanics for a bunch of additional subsystems, like extensive skill lists, power creation systems, etc. that could add to overall system complexity and learning material. So that a more simple game, like D&D 0e could still potentially be simpler to learn (even if unified mechanics are truly easier to learn, as I've claimed), despite having different mechanics for different stuff in the game.

I'd put a vote towards using Vampire the Masquerade (or the Hunter's Hunted mortals add on) as a unified system comparison point as they use the bulk of their saved pages for excessive fluff text instead of lots of subsystems. Indeed, when I had to create a rules document for Mage players in the days after NWoD, but before the rise of easy to acquire PDFs, the entire package, including all the pre-built tasks (i.e. what's the difficulty for tailing a suspect?), merits and flaws, magic, spirit rules, equipment and vehicles took about 60 printed pages... comparable to an OSR ruleset and it had the rules for everything I could imagine the players ever needing.

In the case of a VtM game I was able to condense all the relevant rules for players down to about five pages, though you'd need the full book for all the merits/flaws, rank 6+ (i.e. mostly NPC only) powers and the like... but as a general "these are the rules you need to remember" it's damned simple and uses a unified mechanic.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 30, 2021, 07:40:01 PM
I used ascending AC in 2nd edition and a bunch of demons flew out of the rulebook...

So thats where they came from!

I thought it was just some bad pizza.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 30, 2021, 07:40:01 PM
I used ascending AC in 2nd edition and a bunch of demons flew out of the rulebook...

I'm pretty sure all of the demons flew out of that rulebook. Just some Tanar'ri poseurs left in their place.

Quote from: Jam The MF on April 28, 2021, 07:55:52 PM
Why did it take 26 years to make that happen?

Because the "to-hit" roll was first. And no one knew any better to do things differently. Besides, the shiny d20 dice attracted the most fidget lovers to gaming tables.

Quote from: Palleon on April 29, 2021, 06:08:55 AM
We have this assortment of six Platonic solids for entropy generation.

5 Platonic solids and one ... d10. Maybe it's become an honorary Platonic solid?

Quote from: Lunamancer on April 28, 2021, 10:24:11 PM
I can speak to my observations ...

And what fantastic observations they are. This post was a thread-ender for me.

In celebration of Unified Mechanics and the D20 System; I created a D&D 3.5 Half-Orc Monk 1 / Cleric 1 / Rogue 1 from scratch, considering all the PHB options.  By the time I wrote down all of my choices and relevant modifiers, I realized that had taken me too dang long to do.  Pre-generated characters sure do save a LOT of time and effort. 

With Pathfinder; I could have selected a single class pre-gen out of the NPC Codex, at any level of play.  I guess I need to get some 3.5 pre-gens?

At some point it might be interesting to convert this character into D&D 5E, and compare the two versions head to head?

* The Character would have gotten more Skill Points, by taking a level of Rogue first; but that's not how this character's background story played out.

* The Character is also limited as a Cleric, because of having really low Charisma; but low scores must be placed somewhere.

He trained as a Monk to Level 1 and found temporary work as a Bouncer in a local Tavern, then became a Convert of a Good Deity and trained as a Cleric to Level 1; and was then befriended by a talented Rogue, and trained to Level 1.

I'm just using the D&D 3.5 rules to tell this character's story, without Min / Maxing.  He's pretty versatile, though.  In a small adventuring party, he should come in handy; but he won't dominate the game.