Troll Lord Games

Has anyone tried ditching the SEIGE system for Ability checks. Sure it is a nice mechanic but it really does not take (along with 3E) the actual ability score into consideration. Someone with a strength of 14 is measurably stronger then someone with strength 10. Same with intelligence, since that x10 is actually IQ.

I know that the late G. Gygax used Ability checks, such as roll 4d6 for normal tasks under your ablity score and 5d6 for hard tasks. Character knowledge/skills were something like 25% plus 5% per level, strangley similar to the Palladium system. You could add +5% to the roll for each +1 ablility bonus as well and not break the system too much.

Anyway, something like this would actually make the ability scores meaningful and not just drivers for the bonuses.

sounds like it would work.

i used to just roll under the score on d20 = success.

4d6 works well (3d6 for easy checks), especially with the AD&D Combat and Tactics book. I am not a big fan of complicated combat but I like the Overbearing and Wrestling rules. THey are simple once you practice them. I use either the strength from the monster manual, humanoids handbook or give S3 per size category plus their HD.

You could also use this method for skill checks with skills getting +1 for each level of experience. This could be balanced by having certain skills start off at a penalty, similar to the proficiency system of 1E AD&D. That system was actually not bad, I think the dice mechanic (a d20) was a poor choice though. The 6d method creates the proper bell curve for numbers between 3-18. D20 does not.

Since there is always a chance of faliure I would rule that on an easy check a roll of 18 is an autofailure, an average check failing on a roll of 24-25 and a hard check on 28-30.

There are lots of different ways to use the dice and rolling against the actual ability score seems to make more sense (at least to me) then just using the modifier. That seems to lessen the whole importance of the actual scores.