d100 vs 3d6 Ability Scores

[waysoftheearth]

Even a cursory glance at EPT reveals that PC Basic Talents (Ability Scores) are to be determined by d100 rather than 3d6.

This may, perhaps, seem an inglorious change to one of the unshakable pillars of D&D. Rolling 3d6 for ability scores is, after all, a fundamental tenet of the faith! But what does this addition mean for PCs?

A d100 generates a flat distribution of results rather than the famous bell curve delivered by 3d6. This in turn makes a result of 1 or 100 just as likely as a result of 50.

On top of this EPT Basic Talent scores are ranked into six tiers; 1-20, 21-40, 41-60, 61-80, 81-95, and 96-100. So a player has a 5% chance of rolling a score in the top tier, 20% chance of rolling a score in the top two tiers, and so on...

Here now is a chart that "equates" EPT d100 Basic Talents with regular D&D 3d6 Ability Scores, according to the probabilities of rolling them:

_EPT Score_	__%__		_D&D Score_	__%__
01 to 20	20%		3 to 7	16%
21 to 40	20%		8 to 9	21%
41 to 60	20%		10 to 11	25%
61 to 80	20%		12 to 13	21%
81 to 95	15%		14 to 15	12%
96 to 100	5%		16 to 18	5%

You'll have to fathom what it all means for yourself

[kesher]

Well, that's pretty interesting... so, breaking them up into those tiers seems to almost equalize them with rolling a 3d6 (if I understand what I'm looking at here)?

[badger2305]

Aug 15, 2011 8:22:17 GMT -6 kesher said:

Well, that's pretty interesting... so, breaking them up into those tiers seems to almost equalize them with rolling a 3d6 (if I understand what I'm looking at here)?

Pretty much. The interesting aspect of EPT is that the different "basic talents" ("characteristics" in D&D) have different break-outs of percentage scores, e.g. Strength starts off with a 1-40 range, while Intelligence starts of with a 1-20 range, so they aren't consistent with each other. As far as I can tell, that inconsistency is actually there to give a break to the player-characters.

[rleduc]

Yes, approximately so, as long as you only pay attention to the tiers, and not the raw scores.

[waysoftheearth]

The raw d100 scores convert as follows...

_EPT Score_	__%__		_D&D Score_	__%__
01	1%		3	0.5%
02	1%		4	1.4%
03 to 05	3%		5	2.8%
06 to 10	5%		6	4.6%
11 to 17	7%		7	6.9%
18 to 27	10%		8	9.7%
28 to 38	11%		9	11.6%
39 to 50	12%		10	12.5%
51 to 62	12%		11	12.5%
63 to 73	11%		12	11.6%
74 to 83	10%		13	9.7%
84 to 90	7%		14	6.9%
91 to 95	5%		15	4.6%
96 to 98	3%		16	2.8%
99	1%		17	1.4%
100	1%		18	0.5%

My own interpretation is that the EPT PC is roughly four times as likely to roll an advantaged score than is the OD&D PC. There is a 40% chance of rolling a 61+ on d100, compared to just a 9% chance of rolling a 15+ on 3d6. Of course, the same goes for rolling disadvantaged scores.

So the OD&D PC is more likely to have normal ability scores with no die modifiers. Conversely, the EPT PC is more likely to have abnormal ability scores with die modifiers.