"Simplified shooting rules" Topic

During a recent game, a friend who doesn't normally play miniatures games complained that there was too much dice rolling involved.

We were using a HEAVILY modified version of Necromunda (soon I won't be able to call it Necromunda anymore). For those not familiar, you roll to determine if you've hit, roll to determine if you were able to injure the target, then roll to determine how severely he was injured. In all 3 cases, rolling higher is better.

My first thought was to simply use the second roll to determine both if you had injured the target and how severely. Thus eliminating 1 die roll.

Now I have begun to think that it could be distilled down to a single roll. Use that roll to determine if you've hit, if you've injured, and how severely.

Is this a reasonable idea? Is it going too far?

Does your favorite rule set have a better mechanism for resolving shooting?

I just throw dice at the figures.

If you limit it to just one die roll that one roll can have a massive effect on the game. More rolls will even out perceived luck advantages.
I'm perfectly happy with one roll to hit and then a further roll to wound.

Starship Troopers used (at most) two rolls.
Players rolled their shooting dice.
Every model had a hit and kill number.
If a die roll was greater than the hit number, but less than the kill number then the model took one wound (most models only have one) that could be saved (the second roll).
If the kill number was surpassed then the model took two wounds that could not normally be saved.

To keep the results similar and reduce the number of dice you need to change the type of dice….

i.e. the Warhammer related "three die roll" was designed around using D6 to get a certain result and to allow for +/- affects that impacted both attack and or defense….

If you want to keep a similar spread of possibilities with fewer die rolls, you would need to go to a D20 or even a percentage die.

The Necro mechanic is basically old Warhammer – D6 to hit, D6 to kill, D6 to save – so it's a three stage resolution system. You have to have the three stages in WH to take account of the range of stats and the modifiers you want to apply at each stage. Necromunda actually has less range of stats than regular Warhammer – so you could fairly easily develop a version that combined the last two dice rolls into a single roll – but it would reduce the potential range of stats – in this case the effectiveness of the weapon, the different kinds of armour, and the natural resistance of the target. Two dice rather than three makes the results less predictable (more chaotic) and you might find the lethality somewhat increased (3x 4's to hit/kill/save = base 1 in 8 to remove a figure, 2 x 4's to hit/kill = base of 1 in 4… and so on). It's just simple maths really:)

Edit:
Quite an honor to get the thoughts of Rick Priestly.

I still plan to use the stats, just apply 1 die roll across the board.

If you roll a 5, that's your to hit roll, your to wound roll, and your to injure roll.

throw a to hit and to wound die together, each colored differently, the read the two together as a d66 result and make the chart match.

I still plan to use the stats, just apply 1 die roll across the board.

If you roll a 5, that's your to hit roll, your to wound roll, and your to injure roll.

I really don't see how that would work. It'll skew the results significantly.

I really don't see how that would work. It'll skew the results significantly.

It will, but I'm not sure it's a bad thing.
Assuming a target with no modifiers to hit and a Toughness equal to your weapon Strength, with 3 rolls, you have a 4.1% chance of getting a kill. With a single roll, that increases to 16.7%.

It makes shooting more dangerous, but in Necromunda, shooting tended to be somewhat less than lethal. I think it could be an improvement.

Sounds like a good idea to speed play.

Dice with more faces make the above much easier, which is why I generally prefer D20s or percentile dice.

If everyone were using bolters, stubbers, lasguns or equivalent it would probably work fine. As pointed out you would run into problems with some of the higher range weapons, like lascannons. We never used them in Necromunda anyway though.

If you figure that there is chance to hit, a chance to kill and a chance to save and mod it all into one that would probably work.

As noted it will make shooting more lethal with a 5 to do all of that but will speed up the game significantly.

Roll 2d6 once, weapon table, range, target armor, minus chances for cover. Done….

Roll 3d6 per shot. Every succesful roll a hit. One hit, suppressed, 2 hits a wound, three hits a kill. target number is 4+ on a die 6. Plus /minus mods for training cover and body armor. Or use a different die for a greater range of numbers.

Without changing the stats, probably not. Game systems are usually well-mathed if they're at the level of publication similar to Necromunda.

If you just want a simple, create your own set up, replace the armor save with an armor target level that the die roll has to beat. If the die roll exceeds the armor amount, the difference is counted as hits on the target. So, for example, an unarmored sitting duck has a target rate of 1 (he can at least dodge a bit), increased by 1 for each level of range you wish to do. An unarmored man might be 2 (more aware of the fight), a nimble creature (like an elf) might be a 3, up to a target max of 6 (with a natural 6 inflicting 1 hit).

Example: Shooting the sitting duck at range 2— roll a d6, result 4, -2 for range, -1 for Target Rate = 4-3=1 hit on the duck. Quack.

Bump up to a d10 if you want a broader range of possibilities, OR do 2d6, but understand that with that the odds are changed to favor mid-point rolls of 6-8 over low results or high results, which will give combat a very different flavor than the straight one die roll.

Grab three different colored dice and roll them all at once.
One roll does it all then.

Use a D20.

Roll d20, add Shooters BS, Subtract target's toughness, apply existing modifiers.

Result on last wound:
16 Flesh wound
17-19 Down
20+ Out of Action

OK. Maybe the modifiers need to be rejiggered, I haven't actually played this. But the results are very close for a BS 3 T 3 no modifiers situation.

2D10s work best, if you need lots of increments for modifiers.

What Dr X said.

If the coloured die for hitting hits, check the coloured die for wounding, if it wounds check the die for damage.

It also depends on what you think is fun.
Some people prefer rolling buckets of dice multiple times, with a few simple modifiers on each roll in subsequent rolls. Every remaining success indicates a simple effect, such as a single hit.
Others prefer a single D100, with loads of modifiers and a range of outcomes, possible to be read from a table.

Since it all boils down to probabilities anyway, you have the option to pick what you think what works best mechanics-wise.

My preference is opposed die rolling (shooter vs defender), with modifiers for your own figure only applied to your own die roll. E.g. aiming or a weapon characteristic would be a modifier on the shooter's roll, but type of cover on the defender's roll. Gets both players involved, and one only has to check the status of his own figure.

BTW, since probabilities for hitting another figure are more determined by what works in the game, rather than any real-life data, you can fiddle around as much as want. There is no point in exactly replicating the hit ratios from system to system, unless you a strong believer that the original system is perfectly well balanced and those hit ratios should be dogmatically preserved.

one draw back is: you will never use the lower things on the wound lists because rolls of 1 2 and 3 are misses to hit most of the time.

Another thought: what is a "shot" in the game supposed to represent?

If it really represents just one shot, then OK, you probably have to roll "To Hit."

But if it represents shooting over a period of time, then you can easily say that a "Hit" is guaranteed.

Even the most incompetent shooter, given a full magazine (or cartouche) and a few minutes, will be able to hit you.

Thus if you're looking for simplification, the obvious thing to do is to say: Everybody Hits. If you shoot, you hit.

Then all you need to consider is the effect of that "hit."

I was just thinking about this.
A possible solution is to do an opposed roll, let's say 2d6 for shooter and target. Each would get modifiers based on cover, armor, skill of shooter, rate of fire, damage, damage resistance, penetration, etc. Compare the rolls, then base results on the difference between them.

Is it going too far? No, not at all. The 3-rolls-to-shoot is one of my biggest complaints with Necromunda/Warhammer 40k. It's just tedious that a core mechanic requires so much needless D6 rolling.

For single roll resolution I like the Silent Death approach. Roll various sided dice to hit (like D8+D10) but the weapon damage is just "Low/Medium/High", which means you take the related value from each dice. So a 2D8 Low weapon on a roll of 4+6 would do the 4 as damage.

I went with a single roll approach for my own system Dinosaur Cowboys. XD12 >= Target Number = Hit. Then Hit + flat damage of weapon = total damage to target. So say you are using a 3 Attack weapon with 4 Damage against a 7 Target Number. You roll 3D12, trying to get 7+. Say you get 5, 8, 10, which is two Hits (successes). Then you add those 2 Hits to the flat Damage of 4 for a total of 6 damage to the enemy. With some rules for Critical Hits (any roll of 12 = 2 Hits) and Reloading (a certain count of 1s, depending on the weapon, means you have to re-roll) ensures a lot of variety between weapons.

I think getting away from the idea of HAVING to roll to hit, to injure, to save is good. So don't look it at it as combining those 3 Necromunda-standard steps, instead look at the problem as "How can I see if shooting was successful in a single roll".

Has anyone considered specialty dice or a card resolution deck for this sort of thing?

Put aside the general dislike of specialty components for a moment.

Something like the boardgame Descent's dice where you have a set of dice with special icons

In this case there are 3-4 different types of dice with a different spread of icons on them. You have icons for damage, range, and accuracy etc. If you roll more accuracy icons, you can hit harder targets, but not always get more damage.

It would be an interplay of model stats, along with rolling more of a particular die to represent benefits. Such as rolling more "damage" die that have extra damage options.

Rolling Range icons lets you hit things at range, or beyond normal range.

You just read the dice, compare it to stats and situational modifiers, and move on with just one roll, all while keeping the math to numbers to single digits, while still keeping a lot of granularity.

Work out the percentage likelyhood of the differant results happening. Then calculate how a single throw will achieve the same reault. Excel is great for this.

A single roll. In my skirmish rules, most weapons kill at short range on 5-6, at middle range on 6, at long range on 7 (a double 6). The shooter shoots, and either you are killed or he missed you. Some special characters may have 2 life points (in that case they suffer a wound if hit), but most others are killed on the first hit and the game continues, fast.

Resolving an action (a shot, or anything else) should not take longer in the game that it does in real life. If people prefer to roll dice many times, OK for them; but I prefer to roll once for any action, and to have plenty of time left to do more interesting things in the game.