"Your thoughts please on my damage/armour design project...." Topic

Thank you all for poping here with your own game experiences and input in two thoughts going from my head right now. It be nice to get your own thoughts on both sides of the coin.

Project – fantasy skirmish project,dice used are all types from D4 up to D12 in a low to high scale…has been used before Etc…

I`m working on the damage side of things at the moment and now i have to look into armour and the choices i have which at the moment its a choice of 2….

For the example in play lets say the warrior is hit by a sword blow and now we see how the damage fairs….

The warriors health is rated as D6 (standard ) and the swords damage is a D8 ( above average ).. so warrior rolls his D6 and the sword rolls its D8,if the swords damage is higher then the warriors health a wound is taken…SO

2 options for adding armour to stay alive…

1. Basic Armour is a +1 dice level up, so now the warriors health roll is a D8 instead of a D6 as before.

or

2. Armour is a added die on the same scale,like D6 armour for light Leather,or D10 for chainmail.. but that means rolling 2 dice instead of one, so the warrior in basic armour would roll D6 +D6,against the swords D8… and later if wearing a set of chainmail the warrior would roll D6 +D10 just needing any number to be higher then the swords D8 roll..

All quite easy,and option 1 being the one i`m happy with but i still have option 2 in my head… feels like all rolls are 1 vs 1 but when combat comes into play you are just now bringing 2 dice into the game…

So I just wanted some input dear designers on the better flowing option and allow me to clear my head… and thanks…

Alan / Uk

The two dice solution will make figures a fair bit more resilient since it heavily mitigates the odds of a bad roll.

Rolling a single D8, I have as much chance of a max roll as a minimum roll, rolling a D6 and a D10 (for example), the odds of a 1 or 2 becomes very small.

Now that isn't a GOOD or BAD thing, it depends on the style you are going for :-)

Some thoughts (feel free to steal or ignore them… ;-)
Instead of upping the dice level for armor, just convert the armor to a modifier (+1, +2, etc.) & add it to the defender's roll. For ties, the defender's armor modifier is reduced by 1 (stops damage to defender, but also less effective from then on until armor repaired.)

For magical armor vs. magical weapons, treat both as 'normal' (as they cancel out each other's effects.)
Magic armor vs. normal weapons, normal weapons don't get any bonus modifiers.
Normal armor vs. magic weapons, any weapon bonus cancels out an equal number of armor modifers (e.g. a +2 sword would reduce the defender's armor modifer by 2) and if the magic weapon causes a negative modifer, it is counted as bonus damage (for the above example, if the defender's armor mod was +1, the sword reduces it to -1, causing +1 damage.)

I use something similar in rules I'll never finish writing… ;-)

Thanks guys… I also forgot to add dear Weasel that the figures abilities and weapons would have a minimum level to each,so if you did roll under this level you would automatic be bumped up to this level…
D4 1,D6 its 2,D8 its a 3 and going up to the end which is a 6 for the D20.

So if the warrior rolled a 1 it would be a 2 for his health, and the sword blow would never be under a 3. These are the rules i`m testing at the moment for the damage part.As for the feel of my game i want a smooth flowing,cinamatic feel which you can vision in your mind….cheers

For a cinematic approach, I think you'll want greater randomness, so I'd be inclined to stick with the single die, retaining the double dice for special characters.

That's just my gut feeling though :-)

I like the dice minimums a lot though. Neat idea.

Thanks Ivan… i feel we have crossed paths before on TMP with ideas Etc… I also like the single roll,sometimes simple is best…

My dream is to publish something,that`s my goal in life,and i spent my whole life around games. This year I have taken my ideas and really started to work on them. early next year I need to be brave enough to find play testers and meet with people,see what ideas could go forward into a playing game… and see what happens..!!! many thanks on your input and taking time to reply..

Soulman – I've been around a while so I'm sure we have.

Good luck with it! It's a tremendous experience to try and publish something, regardless of the end result.