One common gripe among my players is that skills in Savage Worlds reach a point where extraordinary successes (in the form of Acing) become less likely despite higher levels in a skill. The concern is over the reduced likelihood for the larger die types to "Ace"; d6's and d8's provide what they feel is the best balance point, despite the higher median rolls of d10s and d12s.
To address this concern, I'm proposing the ability to "trade down" larger dice into pools of smaller ones -- That is, to allow a player to roll more than one die of a lower type than their trait value instead of the trait value itself.
For example, Gabriel has a Shooting of d10. However, his player prefers the odds of acing he had rolling d8s. So, Gabriel can opt to roll 2d8 and keep the higher of the two results, instead of rolling a single d10.
The ability to trade dice down for trait rolls is not something that needs to be universally applied. It need only be an OPTION for high (d10+) traits, and should only reduce individual dice rolled down to d8s. A d12 rated skill could be broken down into 2d10 or 3d8, per the player's wishes. Legendary skill values of d12+1 (or higher) would add their bonus value to the highest die rolled in the pool and not add additional dice. This helps to keep the total pools manageably small, just as restricting die reduction to a d8 at the smallest minimizes confusion with Wild Dice.
If a further restriction of this rule variant is required, another possibility would be to require that trading down die values can only be a valid option for "specialty pools", that is, when engaging in a specialized use of a Skill.
Since Savage Worlds skills are so broad, a specialization can be named once a character reached d10 in a Skill. A Trait Die could be traded down only when rolling for that specialization, and not generally.
For example, if Gabriel has a d10 Shooting, with a specialization in Assault Carbines, he could roll 2d8 and keep the higher result when shooting a Klein-Fulton Komodo Assault Carbine, but would roll his normal 1d10 when shooting anything else.
Listed below is a breakdown of how skill die values could be disassembled.
Skill Value | Trade Value | Trade Value |
d4 | d4 | -- |
d6 | d6 | -- |
d8 | d8 | -- |
d10 | 2d8 | -- |
d12 | 2d10 | 3d8 |
d12+1 | 2d10(+1) | 3d8(+1) |
d12+2 | 2d10(+2) | 3d8(+2) |
etc |
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