Standard Effect ... why 3?

[zornwil]

Re: Standard Effect ... why 3?

 

For me' date=' using average rolls is strictly a means to speed up combat. I started using them when I was running a fantasy game with high-powered PCs who would frequently wade into groups of ordinary soldiers - in terms of power, basically superheroes v.s. agents. Average rolls allowed us to play out some pretty crazy combat situations without using up the entire session. Against high-powered bad guys, or when attempting tricky maneuvers, the players never took average rolls. For that matter, when a rare soldier would get a lucky shot and actually put a hurt on a PC, he would inevitably be the target of a handful of damage dice, just 'cause it's more satisfying that way.[/quote']

I'm probably going to implement 3.5x effect any time a player has "too many" dice to roll and doesn't want to deal with it (which right now is really just one player, he has a VPP with one hefty attack and tends to count slowly). I really don't like electronic die rollers, too many possibilities for flawed configurations despite best intentions, and now we've entered a stage of high numbers of dice on occassion. I might allow for/encourage something like "3.5x(#d6-6)" and they can roll the other 6d6, something like that, to provide some variability. However, as GM, even when a villain/such has 30d6 or more, I like to roll them, for player reaction to the massive clattering and the suspense as I count (and I give them the audible cues of "crap, you're lucky!" as I see lots of 1s and 2s or "hmmm, this is going to hurt, what's your resistant defense again?" when I see a lot of 5s and 6s).