Custom Skill System
A homebrew dice system designed by Chris, supported natively in FlowDice.
Mechanic
Base roll: 4d[0..5] producing 0–20 on a bell curve (peaks around 10).
Skill modifiers add extra dice. Positive skill keeps the best 4, skewing the distribution right. Negative skill keeps the worst 4, skewing left.
Notation
| Skill Level | Notation | Behavior |
|---|---|---|
| Unskilled (0) | 4d[0..5] | Roll 4, keep all |
| Skill +1 | 5d[0..5]kh4 | Roll 5, keep best 4 |
| Skill +2 | 6d[0..5]kh4 | Roll 6, keep best 4 |
| Skill +3 | 7d[0..5]kh4 | Roll 7, keep best 4 |
| Skill -1 | 5d[0..5]kl4 | Roll 5, keep worst 4 |
| Skill -2 | 6d[0..5]kl4 | Roll 6, keep worst 4 |
| Skill -3 | 7d[0..5]kl4 | Roll 7, keep worst 4 |
Die Representation
The base die has faces 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 — a six-sided die starting at zero. In practice this is a standard d6 minus 1, but the app treats it natively as 0–5, eliminating the mental arithmetic.
The d[0..5] notation uses the range syntax (square brackets) rather than listing all faces explicitly.
Distribution Properties
The 4d[0..5] system creates a normal-ish bell curve centered around 10. The Keep Highest and Lowest mechanic warps the distribution without shifting the center — higher skill compresses results toward the top, lower skill compresses toward the bottom. This is the same family as advantage/disadvantage but with a tunable degree.
Template (Phase 2)
The Template Library will include a Custom Skill Check template that prompts for skill level and generates the notation automatically.
See also: Keep Highest and Lowest, Custom Face Values, Notation Spec