Alternative Dice Rolling Methods

This page is mainly geared towards those who enjoy houserules, homebrews, or conversions.

Some people enjoy different dice rolling methods. This short section describes how to use alternative methods with WOIN. Different methods offer different degrees of granularity, speed of use, and pool-building fun! Different dice mechanics feel different in play.  In general, an optimized (5d6) grade 5 character gets a Difficult result on an average roll.

With a litle math, you can also use this page to reverse engineer other systems and convert to WOIN.

Total. The default method is to roll a dice pool and add the total. An optimized (5d6) grade 5 character rolls 5d6, with an average roll of 17.

Roll 4+. Roll the dice pool as normal, but just count the number of dice which roll 4 or more. Target numbers are divided by 7 (round up). Difficulty numbers range from 1-7. An optimized (5d6) grade 5 character rolls 5d6, with an average roll of 3.

Alternatives: roll 3+ on a d4, 4+ on a d6, 5+ on a d8, 6+ on a d10, 7+ on a d12, 11+ on a d20.

Roll 5+.  As above, but divide target numbers by 10 (round up). This sacrifices a lot of granularity.  Difficulty numbers range from 1-5. An optimized (5d6) grade 5 character rolls 5d6, with an average roll of 2.

Alternatives: roll 6+ on a d8, 7+ on a d10, 9+ on a d12, 14+ on a d20.

Roll 6. This lacks any granularity but is incredibly quick to use. Divide target numbers by 20 (round up). Difficulty numbers range from 1-3. Not recommended. An optimized (5d6) grade 5 character rolls 5d6, with an average roll of 1.

Alternatives: roll 7+ on a d8, 9+ on a d10, 10+ on a d12, or 17+ on a d20.

d20. Roll 1d20 and add 1 for each die you would normally have in your dice pool. Target numbers are shown below. For DEFENSE scores, use the below table to derive static scores - there is no direct correlation, as a d20 is not a bell curve in the way a dice pool is. An optimized (5d6) grade 5 character rolls 1d20+5, with an average roll of 16.  This conversion emulates a bounded accuracy style d20 scale. Note that with a flat scale rather than a bell curve, it is much easier to achieve extremes at each end of the scale.

d100. Roll 1d100 and add 10 for each die you would normally have in your dice pool. Target numbers are shown in the table below.  For DEFENSE scores, multiply by 5. An optimized (5d6) grade 5 character rolls 1d100+50, with an average roll of 100. Note that with a flat scale rather than a bell curve, it is much easier to achieve extremes at each end of the scale.

With the three "count the number of dice which roll x or more" options listed above, specially colored or marked dice can make all three equally fast to use.  Small colored adhesive stickers affixed to d6s can work well, and it is very easy to simply count the number of blue or red sides facing.

Revised Difficulty Benchmarks

The table below shows revised difficulty benchmarks for each of the above systems.

Difficulty 

WOIN

Default

Roll 4+

Roll 5+

Roll 6

d20

Percentile

Trivial

1d6 (1-2)

-

-

-

-

-

-

Easy

2d6 (3-5)

7

1

1

1

13

70

Routine

3d6 (6-9)

10

2

1

1

14

85

Challenging

4d6 (10-14)

13

2

2

1

15

90

Difficult**

5d6 (15-20)

16

3

2

1

16

100

Demanding

6d6 (21-27)

21

3

3

2

17

110

Strenuous

7d6 (28-35)

25

4

3

2

18

120

Severe

8d6 (36-44)

29

5

3

2

19

130

Herculean

9d6 (45-54)

33

5

4

2

20

140

Superhuman

10d6 (55-65)

37

6

4

2

21

150

Impossible

11d6 (66-77)

40

6

4

3

22

160

- 12d6 (78-90) - - - - - -

Mythical

13d6 (91-104)

45

7

5

3

24

170

Target Numbers*

Normal

Divide by 7

Divide by 10

Divide by 20

Manually Adjust

Multiply by 5

Avg at Grade 5 17 3 2 1 16 100

*Target numbers include difficulty benchmarks, DEFENSE scores, and other all other dice pool targets.

**This row shows the average result from an optimized grade 5 character.


Conversions From Other Systems

If you are reverse-engineering a conversion, the following dice rolls convert directly to d6s as follows.

Dice

1d

2d

3d

4d

5d

6d

d4

1d6-1

1d6+1

2d6

2d6+2

3d6+2

4d6

d6

1d6

2d6

3d6

4d6

5d6

6d6

d8

1d6+1

2d6+2

4d6

5d6+2

6d6+2

8d6

d10

1d6+2

3d6+2

5d6

6d6+4

8d6

10d6

d12

2d6

4d6

6d6

8d6

10d6

12d6

d20

3d6+2

6d6+4

10d6

13d6+1

16d6+2

20d6

d20 Modern Purchase DC Conversion

Many games already use credits, gold, or dollars, and prices can convert straight over to WOIN.  d20 Modern uses a Purchase DC scale.  This converts as follows.

Cost ($ or Cr)

D20 Modern DC

Cost ($ or Cr)

D20 Modern DC

Less than 10

1

12,000

26

10

2

15,000

27

15

3

20,000

28

20

4

27,500

29

30

5

35,000

30

40

6

50,000

31

50

7

65,000

32

70

8

90,000

33

85

9

120,000

34

120

10

150,000

35

150

11

200,000

36

200

12

275,000

37

275

13

350,000

38

350

14

500,000

39

500

15

650,000

40

650

16

900,000

41

900

17

1,200,000

42

1,200

18

1,500,000

43

1,500

19

2,000,000

44

2,000

20

2,750,000

45

2,750

21

3,500,000

46

3,500

22

5,000,000

47

5,000

23

6,500,000

48

6,500

24

9,000,000

49

9,000

25

12,000,000

50

General Conversion Guidelines

The following comprises a number of individual conversion notes, although this will be more art than science.

  • d20 levels are equal to two WOIN grades, starting at grade 5. To covert levels to grades, multiply the level by 2 and add 3. Monster CRs follow the same rule.
  • d20 armor class translates directly to SOAK on a 1:1 basis.
  • Divide d20 ability scores by 2 to get WOIN attributes.  STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA are STR, AGI, END, LOG, INT, CHA respectively. Use WIS for WIL.
  • Similarly, divide skill ranks by 2.
  • For percentile systems, divide by 10 (round down) or use the below table. It generally assumes that a score of 100 is the maximum human score. For systems where 100 is the absolute maximum possible, you will need to establish the human average in that system and assign a value of 4 to it, and the human maximum (or likely maximum) and assign a value of 12 to it, and use those benchmarks to assign the rest accordingly. WOIN does not have an upper bound (instead using an exponential scale to increasingly reduce the benefit of higher and higher scores).

d20

Percentile

WOIN

0

1-10

-

1-2

11-20

1 (1d6)

3-4

21-30

2 (1d6)

5-6

31-40

3 (2d6)

7-8

41-50

4 (2d6)

9-10

51-60

5 (2d6)

11-12

61-70

6 (3d6)

13-14

71-80

8 (3d6)

15-16

81-90

10 (4d6)

17-18

91-100 (human max)

12 (4d6)

19-20

101-110

14 (4d6)

21-22

111-120

16 (5d6)

23-24

121-130

18 (5d6)

25-26

131-140

20 (5d6)

27-28

141-150

23 (6d6)

29-30

151-160

26 (6d6)

31-32

161-170

29 (7d6)

33-34

171-180

33 (7d6)

35-36

181-190

37 (7d6)

37-38

191-200

41 (7d6)

39-40

201-210

21 (6d6)

41-42

211-220

22 (6d6)

43-44

221-230

23 (6d6)

45-46

231-240

24 (6d6)

47-48

241-250

25 (6d6)

49-50

251-260

26 (6d6)

51-52

261-270

27 (6d6)

53-54

271-280

28 (7d6)

55-56

281-290

29 (7d6)

57-58

291-300

30 (7d6)

59-60

301-310

31 (7d6)