Lucky Damage Dice

[Panpiper]

"LUCKY DAMAGE DICE"

"A character may purchase 'lucky dice' for 5 points per dice. These lucky dice can be used as damage dice any time a character has to roll damage and are especially useful for killing attacks. (This does not add to the number of dice the character may roll, a lucky dice replaces a regular die in the damage roll.) The effect of lucky dice is any time the lucky die rolls a one for damage, the lucky die can be rerolled and the number added to the damage total. If it rolls a one again, it can again be rerolled, and again added, etc. Characters can have more than one lucky die."

 

I've come back to Fantasy Hero after 'many' years absence. One of the developments during my time away was 'Deadly Blow' and what seems to me to be a general increase in lethality in the system. Back in my day, a 2D6 KA was considered a powerful attack. So the idea of someone just willy nilly buying whole extra dice of damage, and apparently buying this in multiples such that advice is given on imposing limits... YIKES!

 

Of course also, 'back in my day' defenses were also lower. Our rule was that only the largest defense counted, they did not stack. So wearing plate was about the best defense you could get. (And magic items were exceedingly rare, virtually unknown in the hands of players.)

 

The idea of allowing Deadly Blow scares the bejesus out of me, as does stacking defenses. The problem as I see it is that this is creating a game where there are massive shells around characters requiring massive attacks to penetrate, and meanwhile there is a soft squishy center with a few hit points, such that if the shell is penetrated by a halfway decent blow from the massive attack, we are looking instant player kills, which for a Hero game is NOT in keeping IMO.

 

Anyway, trying to resolve the dichotomy I came up with the above, the lucky dice concept. The idea here is that for the points spent, it adds roughly the same amount of damage as deadly blow, but it does it in such a way as to not create extremely high damage 'potential', but rather to reduce low damage rolls. Instead of a character rolling six or seven damage on a 3D6 attack, it will tend to push such damage rolls back into the norm one 'expects' for such rolls, making decent damage more consistent.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Lucky Damage Dice

 

Do "Lucky Dice" apply to all of a character's attacks, or must they be bought separately for each attack/weapon/maneuver?

 

For a KA, 5 points can also buy you +1 Pip of damage, all the time. A Lucky Die, for the same price essentially buys +1 pip 1/6 of the time.

[Panpiper]

Re: Lucky Damage Dice

 

Lucky Dice apply to all attacks. It would buy you 3.5 pips of damage 1/6 of the time. It's not the 1 point the die rolled the first time that counts as additional damage, it's the extra roll they now get, which is an average of 3.5. The idea is to bring a 'bad' damage roll back into line with what a 'decent' roll would be, rather than to inflate an already decent damage roll into vastly higher potential damage.

 

Basically, in my game I am afraid of letting attack damage get too extreme. This lets people increase average attack damage at a cost I can live with and in a manner that does not make my life too difficult as a GM.

[Hierax]

Re: Lucky Damage Dice

 

Interesting, you are reversing the usual Exploding/Penetrating Dice mechanic of other games making the good rolls better but instead are making the bad rolls less worse.

 

You could look at it as being:

+1d6K (15 Active Points) only when rolling a 1 on d6 (-5 Limitation) = 2.5 pts.

 

or (better yet more like the new skill-based Deadly Blow)

+6 CSL with HTH or Ranged Combat (48 points), only when rolling a 1 on d6 (-5 Limitation) = 8 points.

 

+6 CSL with HTH and Ranged Combat (60 points), only when rolling a 1 on d6 (-5 Limitation) = 10 points.

 

But this would be a bit overpowered for Normal Attacks which only need +2 CSL for +1 DC (1d6) instead of the +6 CSL for +3 DC (1d6K) of Killing Attacks:

+2 CSL with HTH or Ranged Combat (16 points), only when rolling a 1 on d6 (-5 Limitation) = 3 points.

 

+2 CSL with HTH and Ranged Combat (20 points), only when rolling a 1 on d6 (-5 Limitation) = 3 points.

(damn Hero rounding makes these the same)

 

I suppose you could further limit these to take into account Only for Normal Attacks or Only for Killing Attacks to derive a Talent-like Value for this. Or maybe just cost each at 1/2 cost and average them together (-1 Limit equivalent, if multi-stepping Power-Talent Build limitation structure):

 

+1d6 with HTH

or

Ranged Combat, only when rolling a 1 on d6 = (8 + 2.66 /2) 5 points.

 

+1d6 with HTH

and

Ranged Combat, only when rolling a 1 on d6 = (10 +3.33 /2) 7 points.

 

These would only apply to one dice, if you wanted it to apply to several dice, you'd have to buy it several times. But it seems a bit too expensive to charge multiple times for this at the same rate given that a lot of times the extra won't actually make a difference because you are adding to the low rolls that are probably blocked by defenses anyways, so this cost structure might be better for rolling a 6 on a d6 for damage instead of a 1. Not sure how to adjust for that kind of cost.

 

Also, if you wanted to do this so you could roll the ones multiple times on the same initial dice roll it might be a bit different.

[Panpiper]

Re: Lucky Damage Dice

 

Interesting' date=' you are reversing the usual Exploding/Penetrating Dice mechanic of other games making the good rolls better but instead are making the bad rolls less worse.[/quote']

Precisely, yes. It is both easier for me to construct things and more realistic/comfortable for my imagination if the disparity between the common militia grunt and the huge axe wielding hero is only one or two dice of KA damage. This Lucky Dice concept keeps the hero in roughly the same ball park, but makes his heroic axe more consistent, instead of every once in a while going 'ting' off of a guardsman's lowly chainmail.

[Hierax]

Re: Lucky Damage Dice

 

Above I forgot the -1/2 Limitation for the CSLs only to be to do extra Damage (like Deadly Blow), but I think that should be at least -1 Limitation or more like a -2 Limitation because it doesn't allow for +OCV and +DCV options and (heretical thought the thought may be) 1/3 the benefit = 1/3 the cost, IMO. So what I did above should be re-costed.

 

But, regardless, the issue still remains that making a bad roll less bad isn't as good as making a good roll better -- What Limitation value should one give for that?

 

Come to think of it, there should be a way to build a proper spectrum options to reroll 1s, 1s and 2s, 1s-3s, etc. as well as 6's, 5-6's, 3-6s, etc. All are the same concept differently applied.

 

I like it, it uses the exploding/penetrating concept but also applies to those re-roll certain dice results. e.g., AD&D Staff of Thunder & Lightning was cool that way in that it let you treat 1s and 2s as 3s, in Hero System you could just apply the Standard Effect Roll Rule to the rerolled dice to treat the new roll as a 3.

 

There's probably more applications of dice coolness that can be simulated using this sort of thing too.

[Panpiper]

Re: Lucky Damage Dice

 

I fear that I have been away from the system for too long to really delve into the nitty gritty of how to build this in a manner completely consistent with regular point balance. I am aware that this is not quite as cost effective as just buying a Deadly Blow (although this can be used for 'all' damage rolls, where even the highest cost Deadly Blow cannot). But to me actual point balance was not the priority in my mind (I know, that's heresy). I guestimated the price point and decided on 5 points per because that was what I was comfortable with as a GM, if a player wanted to boost their damage output this way.

 

I would be very happy so see someone do a better analysis of the 'real' point cost, but that is a bit out of my league until after I spend six months with my nose buried in the rule book, making up for a fifteen year lapse in my gaming history. So I am quite please that you Hierax are looking at it that way.

[Hierax]

Re: Lucky Damage Dice

 

Using this as a baseline:

Roll an Extra d6K each and every time:

+6 CSL with HTH and Ranged Combat (60 Base Points); Only for +DC not +OCV or +DCV (-2) (20 Real Points).

 

You could either use:

+6 CSL with HTH and Ranged Combat (60 Base Points); Only for +DC not +OCV or +DCV (-2) Only when rolling 1# on d6 (-5), (-7) (7 Real Points).

 

Or a cheaper method (calculating the first Talent as the Base Points for a Limited Power to get a 2nd Talent):

 

Roll an Extra d6K (20 Base Points), Only when rolling 1# on a d6 (-5) (3 Real Points).

 

BTW, a nice thing about this being 3 points for a Killing dice is it could be 1-point for a Normal dice.

 

Your 5-point version falls neatly in between these 2 as an average, and any other modifiers are unlikely to change this by more than a point; so 5-points is arguably a fair value for the ability.

 

But, IMO you could consider making it 5-points for each dice that you can re-roll like this, or at least use the Hero doubling rule to allow for twice as many for 2x the points -- 1 dice 5-pts, 2 dice 10-pts, 4 dice 15-pts, etc... Then you could have different levels of this.

 

That all said, heck, you could just make this a "Ground Rule" for free, not worry about points, and simply let everyone have it as an everyman ability.

 

Lots of options and none of them are any more "right" than the other, only more right for you and your campaign. Regardless of the exact details, it's a cool concept that is well worth including!

[pinecone]

Re: Lucky Damage Dice

 

"LUCKY DAMAGE DICE"

"A character may purchase 'lucky dice' for 5 points per dice. These lucky dice can be used as damage dice any time a character has to roll damage and are especially useful for killing attacks. (This does not add to the number of dice the character may roll, a lucky dice replaces a regular die in the damage roll.) The effect of lucky dice is any time the lucky die rolls a one for damage, the lucky die can be rerolled and the number added to the damage total. If it rolls a one again, it can again be rerolled, and again added, etc. Characters can have more than one lucky die."

 

I've come back to Fantasy Hero after 'many' years absence. One of the developments during my time away was 'Deadly Blow' and what seems to me to be a general increase in lethality in the system. Back in my day, a 2D6 KA was considered a powerful attack. So the idea of someone just willy nilly buying whole extra dice of damage, and apparently buying this in multiples such that advice is given on imposing limits... YIKES!

 

Of course also, 'back in my day' defenses were also lower. Our rule was that only the largest defense counted, they did not stack. So wearing plate was about the best defense you could get. (And magic items were exceedingly rare, virtually unknown in the hands of players.)

 

The idea of allowing Deadly Blow scares the bejesus out of me, as does stacking defenses. The problem as I see it is that this is creating a game where there are massive shells around characters requiring massive attacks to penetrate, and meanwhile there is a soft squishy center with a few hit points, such that if the shell is penetrated by a halfway decent blow from the massive attack, we are looking instant player kills, which for a Hero game is NOT in keeping IMO.

 

Anyway, trying to resolve the dichotomy I came up with the above, the lucky dice concept. The idea here is that for the points spent, it adds roughly the same amount of damage as deadly blow, but it does it in such a way as to not create extremely high damage 'potential', but rather to reduce low damage rolls. Instead of a character rolling six or seven damage on a 3D6 attack, it will tend to push such damage rolls back into the norm one 'expects' for such rolls, making decent damage more consistent.

 

I posted this else where (Hero system?) But I suggested a "Only to maximise" limit of -1/2 for extra damage the max cannot exceed the base basicly....

[Panpiper]

Re: Lucky Damage Dice

 

That all said, heck, you could just make this a "Ground Rule" for free, not worry about points, and simply let everyone have it as an everyman ability.

Right now I am GMing a game. But I try to think like a player when creating game content and what I would most enjoy when playing. As a GM, I want to try to restrain power growth somewhat to make my life easier and so the players do not too quickly arrive at the point where they can simply slay the 'army' and depose the evil king. However as a player I derive great enjoyment growing the combat power of my character, even as I know this is typically not what the GM wants.

 

So as a GM I like the idea of having things players can buy that 'do' increase their combat power, but that does it in a way that does not too quickly invalidate the work I've already done. So having these Lucky Dice' available for five points a pop gives players something cool they can buy. If I let them have it for free, they cannot then 'buy' something cool. The idea is not just to get player's combat power more consistently in their upper range, but to let them do that as a means of real but balanced growth in their power level.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Lucky Damage Dice

 

Lucky Dice apply to all attacks.

In that case, it's a good price.

 

It would buy you 3.5 pips of damage 1/6 of the time. It's not the 1 point the die rolled the first time that counts as additional damage, it's the extra roll they now get, which is an average of 3.5.

Well, yes, but it doesn't matter which is the "additional" daamage. The 1/6 of the time occurs when the die roll is 1, and then you get another die. So if you didn't roll a 1, you're already doing better. An average of 4 goes up to an average of 4.5 (more actually because of the rerolls) - that's 1 + the 3.5. The average of the die roll in the first place was already 3.5. Then when you roll a 1, you get to add another d6, which has the same average as the previous die.

 

The idea is to bring a 'bad' damage roll back into line with what a 'decent' roll would be, rather than to inflate an already decent damage roll into vastly higher potential damage.

Yes, I understood that, and it does a good job of that. I wasn't arguing against the idea, just analyzing it.

 

Basically, in my game I am afraid of letting attack damage get too extreme. This lets people increase average attack damage at a cost I can live with and in a manner that does not make my life too difficult as a GM.

A perfectly understandable concern, and a fine solution.