Spells with more static damage values

[Kaelik]

So... what, it's impossible to envision a system for which the 2d6 in "40+2d6" is meaningful, so fuck the entire notion?

I get that it's largely pointless in 3.5. But surely it isn't absurd to contemplate the idea further and what sort of system it could potentially reside in without feeling like it does in existing systems.

If something is conceptually shitty, yeah, you should abandon it.

The entire concept of 40+2d6 is that you want the range to be really small so that both the good and bad ends of the range are acceptable.

If your concept is "you won't feel bad if you roll the badly" then yes, the roll is always going to be a meaningless waste of time.

[momothefiddler]

So... what, it's impossible to envision a system for which the 2d6 in "40+2d6" is meaningful, so fuck the entire notion?

I get that it's largely pointless in 3.5. But surely it isn't absurd to contemplate the idea further and what sort of system it could potentially reside in without feeling like it does in existing systems.

I mean, outside of a situation where everyone has between 42 and 52 hp... it really is pretty meaningless. The static amount so vastly outweighs the variable amount that there's very little reason to care.

0-42HP: dead in one attack regardless of roll
43-52HP: roll determines death in one attack or two
53-84HP: dead in two attacks regardless of roll
85-104HP: roll determines death in two attacks or three

And so on. It's less than a fifth of the time that you care about the roll at all, before we even get into the likelihood of the roll being useful to you (e.g. at 104HP the rolls could theoretically bring it from three down to two, but that actually happens less than 0.08% of the time).

So... basically, yeah, fuck the entire notion.

---

The closest I can come for a useful role for that roll is if you're using large static numbers to differentiate power levels, so a PL1 person has between 2 and 12 HP and does 2d6 damage, while a PL2 person has between 42 and 52 HP and does 40+2d6 damage, allowing there to be randomness within a power level and determinism outside. This does however mean that a high-powered individual will always drop another high-powered character in at most two hits, while low-powered characters are largely impotent against higher powered ones. This sounds pretty shitty, but you could maybe come up with a use for that?

[GnomeWorks]

If your concept is "you won't feel bad if you roll the badly"

I know others have posited that position. I have not.

I started with static damage, but found myself pondering whether or not my players would go along with that. I then modified my damage codes such that there is a ~10% variance around the original numbers I'd decided upon.

This sounds pretty shitty, but you could maybe come up with a use for that?

Why does that sound shitty? Higher-level characters in d20 are basically untouchable by lower-level characters, who die in one hit to attacks/effects from those at the higher-levels.

That's really no different from where we're at right now.

[momothefiddler]

That's really no different from where we're at right now.

Yeah, which proves that we can achieve the huge power disparity without having guaranteed two-hit kills within the same power tier. Guess I phrased it weird, but the "one hit if you're lucky, two if not, never three" is what seemed like a shitty thing to hardcode in.

[JonSetanta]

I wrote a halfassed RPG based around low rolls. Spells only go up to 5d6 damage and that's at level 16.

[RelentlessImp]

I think it's silly to bitch about having to roll big hand fulls of dice in an age where smartphones and die rolling apps not only exist, but are ubiquitous. Also, dice cups have been around forever, so... it just seems a pointless thing to get your panties in a bunch over.

[Foxwarrior]

I wrote a halfassed RPG based around low rolls. Spells only go up to 5d6 damage and that's at level 16.

Oh yeah? Well in mine they get up to more like 1d6+8.

[JonSetanta]

Oh yeah? Well in mine they get up to more like 1d6+8.

What's it called? Is it posted here?

[Foxwarrior]

There's a link in my signature. The secret is, the health model is closer to Warhammer's than to D&D's.

[JonSetanta]

Interesting

[hogarth]

Even if you cumulatively combine the "extremes" into collective amorphous masses the 5% cut off is only something like 27-43.

On 10d6, 25-45 is just shy of 95% and 22-48 is just shy of 99%. 18-52 is 99.9%, so if you really need 53+ on a particular roll you're going to need your lucky sneakers.

Rolling outside of the range 25-45 5% of the time is interesting to me. If it's not interesting to you all, that's no skin off of my nose.

EDIT: To be fair, I generally play lower-level D&D than that, so it's more often a case of rolling 5d6 or 6d6.

[PhoneLobster]

Even if you cumulatively combine the "extremes" into collective amorphous masses the 5% cut off is only something like 27-43.

On 10d6, 25-45 is just shy of 95% and 22-48 is just shy of 99%. 18-52 is 99.9%, so if you really need 53+ on a particular roll you're going to need your lucky sneakers.

Rolling outside of the range 25-45 5% of the time is interesting to me. .

Quote nesting back to my quote there? That range? THAT is the range of 10d6 where there is 5% "outside" either end of the range. It is not 25-45, it is 27-43 that you have 5% of all possible results either side of (that's 5% at both ends).

Now I guess you might mean that you care about 5% of BOTH ENDS of the extreme results added together at the same time... but I for one took whoever said "I want a 5% chance of rolling extremes" to mean "I want a 5% chance to roll high and a 5% chance to roll low" because "I want a 5% chance of rolling high OR low collectively" is both a crazy thing to say and a crazy way to say it. And because "I like 2.5% chances of a thing happening" seems like it's below the threshold of "not enough of a chance".

Mind you all of this needs to come with the proviso that even when you pick your arbitrary percentage of extremes, be it 5% at each side or 2.5% at each side because of the dramatic drop off that STILL occurs within the bottom/top 5%/2.5% of results the "extremes" are always still heavily weighted to "just barely more or less than the actual likely/rest of the range".

Because sure, I have a 5% chance of rolling under 27 on 10d6. But the fact that you rapidly drop off from that 27 until have an under 1% rolling ANYTHING under a 22 means that actually you really should be wording that extreme as "A five percent chance of rolling BARELY under 27". And similarly you shouldn't be saying "I have a 2.5% chance of rolling under 25" because really you should be saying "I have a 2.5% chance of rolling under 25, but the chance of rolling under 20 is fucking laughable".

In the end rolling 10d6 isn't for people who like extremes, it's for people who DISLIKE extremes. It's effect is ALL about clustering your results around the middle. That is what it does. If you want to make your argument for a dice mechanic centered around liking a chance of rolling the extremes, you do not then select 10d6 as your dice mechanic.

The idea that you are "taking a chance to roll a 60" as outlined for instance in the "40 or 10d6" plan is the idea that you are taking a chance to roll a result with a chance of actually occurring that is so infinitesimal as to not be worth mentioning.

And, of course, same goes for 5d6 and 6d6, just you know, less so... by 4-5d6...

[GnomeWorks]

Yeah, which proves that we can achieve the huge power disparity without having guaranteed two-hit kills within the same power tier. Guess I phrased it weird, but the "one hit if you're lucky, two if not, never three" is what seemed like a shitty thing to hardcode in.

The precise numbers can be tweaked.

However, even without that, it's still better than padded sumo bullshit.

If two fighters at first level can kill each other in three hits, then it makes sense to me that two fighters at N level can kill each other in three hits. After that it's just a question of how to make the damage codes scale, getting the results you want between characters when level disparity is involved.

[momothefiddler]

If two fighters at first level can kill each other in three hits, then it makes sense to me that two fighters at N level can kill each other in three hits.

Gonna stop you right there. 40+2d6 does not allow three hits. It's roughly a 50-50 split between one hit and two. It's literally impossible to last for 3, precisely because the static overwhelms the variable to such a large extent.

Yes, it's better than padded sumo, but that's a low bar and we already have plenty of better options. I said you might be able to come up with some use for it, but so far your use has been "D&D 3.5 but more rocket tag" and....

[deaddmwalking]

As an aside, if a 1st level fighter can kill another in 3 hits, it does not imply that an nth level fighter should do the same. First, the fragility of first level characters is well-documented and generally considered undesireable. If you said 3rd level that might be more reasonable - especially since most 1st level fighters can kill their doppleganger in a single blow.

Secondly, a 1st level fighter would typically require 3 rounds to score 3 hits . An nth level fighter may be able to score three blows in a single round. Most people don't consider combat 'fun' if their part is over before they've taken a single action.

[GnomeWorks]

Gonna stop you right there.

Why, because you're caught up on the notion that literally everything else has to stay the same when discussing changes to damage?

Obviously if you change how damage works, going from an XdY paradigm to an XdY+Z paradigm in which X is typically a much smaller number, then how you handle hit points also needs to change.

Which should be fine, because it seems pretty standard consensus that rolled hit points are bullshit anyway and that low-level characters are too fragile, and if you're going to change how damage is determined you might as well mess with how hit points are determined anyway.

Yes, it's better than padded sumo, but that's a low bar and we already have plenty of better options. I said you might be able to come up with some use for it, but so far your use has been "D&D 3.5 but more rocket tag" and....

I'm not responsible for your lack of imagination.

If three rounds is too few, then tweak the numbers until you like it. Personally I think N-level fighters being able to stab each other to death in three to five hits is entirely reasonable; any less, it's too much like rocket tag, any more and it feels like padded sumo.

As an aside, if a 1st level fighter can kill another in 3 hits, it does not imply that an nth level fighter should do the same.

Why not?

You can easily set up a thing in which this happens. It is really not that hard.

First, the fragility of first level characters is well-documented and generally considered undesireable.

Yes, fragility at low-levels is shitty, though I would posit specifically that it is the fragility of martial characters that is a problem. Casters and shit I'm fine with being a bit more fragile, though I definitely am not against pumping low-level hit points across the board (just less so for caster-types).

An nth level fighter may be able to score three blows in a single round. Most people don't consider combat 'fun' if their part is over before they've taken a single action.

I'm not really a fan of baked-in iterative attacks, but yes, if you include them you'd need to take that into account.

Would probably make your hit point growth curve a lot weirder, though, and... actually I'm not sure that "it takes a fighter three hits to kill a fighter his level" is compatible with iteratives. There's an awful lot of funky maths you'd have to do to deal with them sensibly, and while I'm not willing to say it's impossible, just doing a quick thought experiment makes it seem rather daunting.

[DSMatticus]

I'm a growing fan of static hitpoints and nonlinear damage tracks, even with a XdY+Z vs A damage mechanic. You fiddle with the Z to control how far apart different characters are from one another on the RNG, and you use the XdY to control the variance in individual rolls. The only problem is, of course, that your nonlinear damage track has to be at least as large as the largest XdY (or else turning the knob on the variance up that high doesn't even matter). A nonlinear damage track with 12 entries - enough for 2d6 - is already pushing it. Not a lot of room for fistfuls of dice in such a system.

But yes, that mechanic just seems a lot more elegant than the hitpoint v damage race of D&D. Probably because by making the arms race between damage v soak instead of damage v hitpoints you can stop armies of tiny guys from voltronning into larger threats without having to resort to exponential growth in any part of your math.

[momothefiddler]

If three rounds is too few, then tweak the numbers until you like it. Personally I think N-level fighters being able to stab each other to death in three to five hits is entirely reasonable; any less, it's too much like rocket tag, any more and it feels like padded sumo.

???

??????

Where are we failing to communicate here? I explicitly pointed out several posts ago how for the 2d6 part of 40+2d6 to matter, you needed to be fighting someone with hp between 43 and 52. At that point, the only options are one hit or two hits. Why do you insist on bringing three hits into it? If it's possible to kill someone with a 40+2d6 - that is, if the 2d6 part is anything you care about at all - then the most HP they could possibly have left after you roll poorly is 10. Ten. The second hit is just cleanup at that point, and the roll doesn't matter, because you're doing more than 40 damage to someone with 10 or fewer HP. Stop talking about three hits! It's not a matter of taste, or imagination, or anything. It's subtraction.

[GnomeWorks]

Why are you assuming that every attack form ever would do exactly the same damage?

[momothefiddler]

...Because presumably you want it to ever matter that you added in a shitty die roll?

Look, I'm talking about 40+2d6 because that's what you asked about in the first place. I initially claimed that it was useless unless you, for some reason, specifically wanted major power tier differences and guaranteed 2-hit kills, but I'm revising that statement now.

New version: 40+2d6 is worse than useless because it apparently makes people jump through hoops, taking their goalposts with them, on a crusade to prove that you could, theoretically, possibly, if you weren't so goddamn set in your ways of subtracting numbers mathematically, make a game with 40+2d6 that wasn't utter shit.

But you can't! Because if you're the kind of person who puts 40+2d6 in your game, you obviously can't design a game that's not utter shit! I'm done! Fuck this! If you have massive static damage, adding a small variable is stupid and dumb and you shouldn't do it and you're a bad person for thinking about it, okay?

God.

[GnomeWorks]

You keep looking at this problem in a vacuum as though the only damage anyone ever did ever is 40+2d6.

Okay, so let's say you hit an asshole and he has 10 hp left.

Is it so absurd to imagine that, in the same world in which the guy hitting for 40+2d6 exists, that another guy exists who has an attack that deals, say, 6+1d6?

Oh look, now the amount of hp matters and the variability matters. Because presumably not everything that ever exists ever will have the exact same damage code, and there will be variability in the scale of the damage being dealt.

This is what I meant when I said you had no imagination. You're so fucking set on this one particular fucking math problem that you can't imagine it existing in a larger mathematical ecosystem in which it does make sense to have small variables attached to large static numbers.

[deaddmwalking]

@GnomeWorks -

You asked about whether reducing the number of dice while retaining a small variable would succeed in making it easier to calculate damage while retaining variability. Your specific example included very little variability. Based on the way you asked the question, it was clearbto everyone except you that you were talking about a system like D&D (because fireball and hit points ). You cannot claim thst you were totes planning on changing hit points at this point.

If you were, you didn't give anyone enough information to respond to your question intelligently. But if you're thinking of changing hit points to make mostly static damage 'work' you're really backwards.

Perhaps you can explain what benefit you think 40+2d6 damage has over '45 damage'.

Edit - missed the last post while I was posting.

If a character has 40+2d6 the variable portion (12) is less than 25% of the possible damage (52). In 1d6+6, the variable portion is 50% of the maximum damage (12). They are not comparable and your new example does not reflect the 'benefits' you were looking for. For a character with 50 hit points, the variability will matter - it will require between 5 and 8 hits, but that seems to be in 'padded sumo' territory as you've defined it. With exactly 15 hit points, the variability matters - 2 hits might not be enough but probably is. You're still looking at a small number of cases where it really matters - and that is with HIGH VARIABILITY which your original example did not include.

[momothefiddler]

...So now we have a random weakling who you cart around with you doing piddly damage so that, in the less than 20% of the time that you care about the roll instead of the static number in the first place, you have someone else to help! So now we have a 20% chance that your enemy has HP in the range your randomness covers (and don't say that you have an uneven distribution of HP, because then what happens to all your other people who do other damage, because there just so happens to conveniently be a stable of every amount of damage, to the point where a party has 40+2d6 and 6+1d6 together), and a 50% chance that you don't kill it outright, and a, what, 80-ish % chance that your shitty 1d6+6 partner can finish it off (? So your setup has like an 8% chance of justifying the existence of either your dice or your traveling companion.

And all that's ignoring the fact that you literally just added a character whose static damage isn't large compared to their variable aspect in order to justify the existence of randomizing an average 7 on top of a static 40.

[GnomeWorks]

Based on the way you asked the question, it was clear to everyone except you that you were talking about a system like D&D (because fireball and hit points ). You cannot claim that you were totes planning on changing hit points at this point.

We can sit here and keep circle-jerking on the same old goddamn concepts we've been going over for well over a decade now, or we can actually start making goddamn progress.

Hit points in 3.5 are shit. You know this, I know this, we all know this. Fixing hit points so that first-level characters aren't made of glass and moving to static hit point progressions seems a goddamn gimme at this point. When talking about dicking around with damage dealt by effects in 3.5, we have two choices: pretend that we're talking about bog-standard hit points rules, or try to acknowledge changes that pretty much everyone agrees are a good idea.

My initial question was not in the spirit of "if everything else stays the same, is this concept bad." It was in the spirit of "in what context could this idea work, if it can be made to work at all, and is the context in which it would work best a good context that is worth working towards."

But if you're thinking of changing hit points to make mostly static damage 'work' you're really backwards.

I try things. Sometimes they work, sometimes they require changing other shit.

Perhaps you can explain what benefit you think 40+2d6 damage has over '45 damage'.

First off, I'm going to change your target number to "47." Because that is the 50% mark on 2d6.

So if you are hitting a dude with 47 hp with a thing that does 40+2d6, you have a ~50% chance of dropping him and a ~50% chance of not (obviously those percentages aren't exactly because normal distribution, but you get the idea). That is valuable IMO.

[Kaelik]

Based on the way you asked the question, it was clear to everyone except you that you were talking about a system like D&D (because fireball and hit points ). You cannot claim that you were totes planning on changing hit points at this point.

We can sit here and keep circle-jerking on the same old goddamn concepts we've been going over for well over a decade now, or we can actually start making goddamn progress.

Hit points in 3.5 are shit. You know this, I know this, we all know this. Fixing hit points so that first-level characters aren't made of glass and moving to static hit point progressions seems a goddamn gimme at this point. When talking about dicking around with damage dealt by effects in 3.5, we have two choices: pretend that we're talking about bog-standard hit points rules, or try to acknowledge changes that pretty much everyone agrees are a good idea.

My initial question was not in the spirit of "if everything else stays the same, is this concept bad." It was in the spirit of "in what context could this idea work, if it can be made to work at all, and is the context in which it would work best a good context that is worth working towards."

But if you're thinking of changing hit points to make mostly static damage 'work' you're really backwards.

I try things. Sometimes they work, sometimes they require changing other shit.

Perhaps you can explain what benefit you think 40+2d6 damage has over '45 damage'.

First off, I'm going to change your target number to "47." Because that is the 50% mark on 2d6.

So if you are hitting a dude with 47 hp with a thing that does 40+2d6, you have a ~50% chance of dropping him and a ~50% chance of not (obviously those percentages aren't exactly because normal distribution, but you get the idea). That is valuable IMO.

Spoiler alert, we had come up with non HP systems in 2008. Also, while you are at it......... Literally no part of this thread was about getting rid of HP until right now when you realized everything said before especially by you, was fucking stupid.