As the d20 is an awful dice I am writing up an alternate system for dice ‘combat’
Since stats are usually not taken into account (Since there is no way to verify) I would propose using 3d6 instead, this gives a favor to the average, and will make more well rounded fights in my opinion.
If you want to further refine it I would suggest using degrees of success, off hand I would say every 3 you beat them by is an extra degree.
So we have a range of 3-18 with an average of 10.5.
With degrees of success you have a max of 5 in very rare circumstances.
You can go to a number of net successes or a number of total successes, so net would be get so many over your opponents, where total is just get so many degrees total.
This will help draw out fights and make good and bad rolls more impactful as well as draw them out more for narrative purposes.
You could do the same thing with any multiple dice, but I have a soft spot for d6s, the more dice the more likely you are to hit average.
better idea: keep the d20 and make stats rollable with /stat
Most dice fights until recently took stats into account. When Althea faught Verrac she had to do a d20 roll then add her combat stat (Dex in her case). Most was counter rolls being played but some were flat DC’s she had to beat.
There is an alternative style that could be harder to read but more rewarding and have skill factor it intead of attribute. So to roll the d20 then add your skill rating. It could show more organic growth in characters as that number isn’t tied to items?