Damage Reduction by reducing damage dice size

[OgreBattle]

I've been thinking about DR vs AC systems for D&D and had an idea while looking at monk damage and size:
Armor downgrades the damage dice.

So damage dice look like this:

1d4: average 2.5
1d6: average 3.5
1d8: average 4.5
1d10: average 5.5
2d6: average 7
2d8: average 9
2d10: average 11

Light armor- reduce by 1 level
Medium armor- reduce by 2 levels
Heavy armor- reduce by 3 levels

So you swing your 1d10 broadsword at a guy in hardened leathers, it is reduced to a d8. If he was wearing a chain shirt it's reduced to 1d6, while a guy in plate only takes a piddly 1d4. Nothing drops below 1d4.

For variety, you add in armor penetration for some weapons while others just have big dice:

1h weapon	Damage	AP	Accuracy
Dagger	1d6	-
Sword	1d10	-	+1
Axe	1d10	1
Mace	1d8	2
Club	1d8	-

2h weapon	Damage	AP	Accuracy
Greatsword	2d8	1	+1
Pollaxe	2d8	2
Flail	2d6	3
Sharktooth Sword	2d10	-1
Big Club	2d6	-

And because this is a damage reduction system, that +1 bonus to hit will make a bigger difference to hit those unarmored dodgy guys.

Is this intuitive enough? Or is DR/X still less fiddly?

[Schleiermacher]

It's definitely intuitive, but it has two problems:

1. damage dice usually aren't where the serious damage is coming from in D&D, so this would have to be part of a significant system overhaul to be meaningful. Even 1d10 -> 1d4 is just 3 less damage per hit on average.

2. More importantly, it will slow things down a lot, because as it stands, the players can roll damage with no input from the GM, then have him subtract DR/ halve the damage/ whatever. With this system, the PCs will have to stop and wait for "yeah, he's got armor rating 2" before knowing what their damage expression looks like. Although I suppose they'll only have to do it once per enemy, so it might actually save time in long fights, or if everyone is using the same kind of armor. Hmm.

[Ghremdal]

I would say DR/X is less fiddly if your are playing DnD.

If you are designing your own system, and build around the DR system you proposed the it can work fine.

[CCarter]

Its maybe sort of nice in that its a proportional shift if you have multiple dice (N dice = -N average damage).

As a lolrandom idea you could do it the opposite way as well: write the damage table assuming that the target is heavily armoured, with +1 step to damage (d4 to d6, etc) if the target has light armour and +2 steps for none.

[CCarter]

double post

[OgreBattle]

It's definitely intuitive, but it has two problems:

1. damage dice usually aren't where the serious damage is coming from in D&D, so this would have to be part of a significant system overhaul to be meaningful. Even 1d10 -> 1d4 is just 3 less damage per hit on average.

Ah, I forgot to add this would be in a system where [Weapon]*X is used, like in 4e.

2. More importantly, it will slow things down a lot, because as it stands, the players can roll damage with no input from the GM, then have him subtract DR/ halve the damage/ whatever. With this system, the PCs will have to stop and wait for "yeah, he's got armor rating 2" before knowing what their damage expression looks like. Although I suppose they'll only have to do it once per enemy, so it might actually save time in long fights, or if everyone is using the same kind of armor. Hmm.

Right, once you have the armor/weapon relationship down you just roll them dice.

If you are designing your own system, and build around the DR system you proposed the it can work fine.

This is part of my "D&DN can't be that hard" project, was pondering damage reduction vs AC and this came to mind, so I'm building a D&D from the ground up.

[Emerald]

It's definitely intuitive, but it has two problems:

1. damage dice usually aren't where the serious damage is coming from in D&D, so this would have to be part of a significant system overhaul to be meaningful. Even 1d10 -> 1d4 is just 3 less damage per hit on average.

Ah, I forgot to add this would be in a system where [Weapon]*X is used, like in 4e.

Are you entirely removing static modifiers, then? A 3[W] power in 4e doesn't just deal 3[W] damage, it might also deal +6 from Str, +2 from weapon proficiency, +2 from feats, and maybe more, so going from 3d10+10 to 3d6+10 still deals quite a bit of damage.

[TheFlatline]

It's definitely intuitive, but it has two problems:

1. damage dice usually aren't where the serious damage is coming from in D&D, so this would have to be part of a significant system overhaul to be meaningful. Even 1d10 -> 1d4 is just 3 less damage per hit on average.

Ah, I forgot to add this would be in a system where [Weapon]*X is used, like in 4e.

Are you entirely removing static modifiers, then? A 3[W] power in 4e doesn't just deal 3[W] damage, it might also deal +6 from Str, +2 from weapon proficiency, +2 from feats, and maybe more, so going from 3d10+10 to 3d6+10 still deals quite a bit of damage.

Exactly, even in 3rd edition you're going up against creatures who do like 4D10+20 damage. Yeah staging down to 4D6 is nice, but holy shit you're still taking the same minimum damage of 24 points.

[PoliteNewb]

I'd think you'd have to do away with static damage bonuses altogether...instead, you could perhaps have damage bonuses that shift dice up? They'd have to be rare, though, or it would swiftly render armor a lot less relevant.

[John Magnum]

I have a hard time that anyone attempting to rebuild D&D from the ground up would start by nibbling at the periphery of a subsystem of the combat engine. It takes way too much of 3.x for granted.

[Seerow]

An idea I was toying with a while back was you could trade out 3 points of str mod to damage for an extra weapon damage die. Then Size bonus instead of scaling up damage die size, gave a size bonus to damage, which could also be converted. So as a quick example, a 18 str large creature would have something like 1d8+4(str)+2(size), which would then get turned into 3d8 damage.

Something like that would work well with what is being proposed in the OP. Depending on whether the player gets a choice in the conversion or not, that could turn that 3d8 attack into 3d4 or 1d4+6, either of which is a pretty significant nerf from 3d8.

I also like the idea of instead of having armor drop damage, having lack of armor increase it. Makes it easier to balance around.

[CCarter]

You could also have damage be [weapon die] + [Strength die].

Probably reduces the impact of Strength a bit compared to normal D&D.
(still 1 point per step shift, but on a base of 2 dice rather than 1).

[OgreBattle]

Man, all of this seems like it can just be replaced easily by

"Everyone has 10 hitpoints, Roll a d20 vs defense, margin of success determines damage"

[codeGlaze]

Man, all of this seems like it can just be replaced easily by

"Everyone has 10 hitpoints, Roll a d20 vs defense, margin of success determines damage"

I like that line of thinking too.

[Bihlbo]

You could also have damage be [weapon die] + [Strength die].

Probably reduces the impact of Strength a bit compared to normal D&D.
(still 1 point per step shift, but on a base of 2 dice rather than 1).

Or Str could be the opposite of armor. Your weapon die improves by one step for each +1 Str, then shrinks again based on enemy armor. This would require a severe curtailing of additional damage, meaning a +1 damage bonus is actually a meaningful thing.

Have you done some number crunching on the difference in average damage avoidance between armor as AC bonus and armor as DR?


Nevertheless, I don't really like the base concept for one main reason: Part of the challenge of learning a new character is getting used to knowing what to roll, when. I've seen players look to their character sheet every single time in a session to find out what dice to grab for a damage roll. We eliminate this by setting up the common damage dice in front of us, ready to be rolled when we need to, or simply memorizing things. If this changes from attack to attack, round to round, that extra step of finding the right dice takes away game time. Adding a bonus to the result or subtracting based on DR/soak is a lot faster.

[Bihlbo]

Man, all of this seems like it can just be replaced easily by

"Everyone has 10 hitpoints, Roll a d20 vs defense, margin of success determines damage"

I like that line of thinking too.

Well that simplifies, but simplicity isn't necessarily a good thing. If Simple Uber Alles then go play Mice & Mystics. Part of the fun of combat in D&D and most other rpgs is tactics, character building, advantages and disadvantages, and superior vs. inferior gear. If you eliminate most of that you are better off rolling the dice once to determine the entire battle, because combat will be boring.

[OgreBattle]

Or... everything is d6's

1d6: 3.5
2d6: 7
3d6: 10.5
4d6: 14
5d6: 17.5
6d6: 21 dmg fireballz

So the game is d20 + d6's, nothing else. Makes me wonder why D&D got into d4's and d8's in the first place.
Actually, that is a good question. d20's make sence for the nice 5% divisions, but why get into anything other than d6's after that?


With that adjustment the weapons chart is...

Dagger 2d6
Club 2d6
Sword 3d6 Acc+1
Axe 3d6 ap1
Mace 2d6 ap2

Have most people hit about 65-75% of the time
Set starting hitpoints at 20-30

Scales up perhaps 5hp per level

Man, all of this seems like it can just be replaced easily by

"Everyone has 10 hitpoints, Roll a d20 vs defense, margin of success determines damage"

I like that line of thinking too.

The only drawback I can see is folks just wanting to roll lots of dice variety. Or maybe complaints of "it feels the same" because of the unified rolling.

[TheFlatline]

So the game is d20 + d6's, nothing else. Makes me wonder why D&D got into d4's and d8's in the first place.
Actually, that is a good question. d20's make sence for the nice 5% divisions, but why get into anything other than d6's after that?

Last I checked a full set of poly dice runs around 12 bucks. What gamer only has a single set of dice in their collection?

Everyone has 6-ers in their board games, so if you run just 6-ers and 20's, you only have a market for D20's.

[CCarter]

You could also have damage be [weapon die] + [Strength die].

Probably reduces the impact of Strength a bit compared to normal D&D.
(still 1 point per step shift, but on a base of 2 dice rather than 1).

Or Str could be the opposite of armor. Your weapon die improves by one step for each +1 Str, then shrinks again based on enemy armor. This would require a severe curtailing of additional damage, meaning a +1 damage bonus is actually a meaningful thing.

Have you done some number crunching on the difference in average damage avoidance between armor as AC bonus and armor as DR?


Nevertheless, I don't really like the base concept for one main reason: Part of the challenge of learning a new character is getting used to knowing what to roll, when. I've seen players look to their character sheet every single time in a session to find out what dice to grab for a damage roll. We eliminate this by setting up the common damage dice in front of us, ready to be rolled when we need to, or simply memorizing things. If this changes from attack to attack, round to round, that extra step of finding the right dice takes away game time. Adding a bonus to the result or subtracting based on DR/soak is a lot faster.

Haven't worked through the numbers with step dice vs. AC.
In my own heartbreaker, I've been playing around with [Str die+Weapon die]; aiming for an average of about 2d8 vs. armour factor of 4 for medium armour so about half damage, with some chance of a blow deflecting entirely at lower damage rolls.

I agree on the finding what to roll. Some players seem to struggle with this a bit.

[CCarter]

The issue I have with most damage systems is how arbitrary amounts of damage are. Awhile back I started this topic relating to that - may as well link in case its interesting to anyone.
The short version is that D&D damage doesn't have any sort of scale that makes it useful for anything except subtracting from hit points. It'd be good if it were possible to get probabilies of success/failure out of damage rolls, so you can use just the damage number to work out the chance of someone being stunned by a flowerpot to the head or a fireball setting a barn on fire or whatever.

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52176

[Judging__Eagle]

Man, all of this seems like it can just be replaced easily by

"Everyone has 10 hitpoints, Roll a d20 vs defense, margin of success determines damage"

I'll be honest, this seems like a better direction.

For a brief point in time, I was seriously considering a static amount of wounds for creatures; where Hit Dice were literallysoak dice... somehow.

I'm not using anything remotely like a d20 engine in my own heartbreaker; so I didn't try to make anything out of the idea for the very few d20 (and now someone elses homebrew engine project that my group has play tested several times in the last couple of years) games I play.

In any case, borrowing from something Frank said in an other discussion, and partly on how After Sundown works, you probably only want two dice rolls being made; one by the attacker to see if they hit, and one by the target if they're hit to see if they survive. Possibly with a 'parry' roll by the defender if it's a melee, to see if they deflect the attack..

[Lago PARANOIA]

You know, this thread reminds me why I have increasingly shifted towards dicepools with fixed hit points. Like in Shadowrun.

The only thing that stops me from advocating this system explicitly for D&D is because of its high power scaling. Rolling 16+ die per action is lame, but I can't imagine how else you would do it for a game in which you're supposed to have peasant vs. troll, troll vs. dragon, and dragon vs. peasant fights all on the same engine. So back to the linear adder RNG.

[TheFlatline]

I think from a D&D standpoint you're approaching this backwards. You need to ask yourself what the end effect of DR should be.

Mechanically, it's intent seems to let you survive 1 more successful hit throughout combat than you otherwise would, give or take.

So maybe instead of DR being something that chips away at damage a few hit points at a time, why not just make it the equivalent of a 4th ed encounter power where you get to ignore the damage from one successful attack per encounter. The caveat? You invoke it before damage is rolled, and your DR rating is the number of damage points that you suffer before it burns through your DR. So DR 10 means you can soak one attack that does 10 hitpoints or less. At 11 it just goes through, either 1 point or all 11 depending on how fuckerated you want to be, while burning the usage. Every few levels or feat progression you get yourself another few points of DR. In 3.x terms you gain charges per day let's say, or it requires 5 minutes of rest to prepare for DR again, so it's effectively an encounter power.

This way you've achieved the same result as DR as it stands now, but almost entirely eliminated the math, and arguably made DR more attractive now.

[Bihlbo]

What is this entire exercise attempting to accomplish? What is the design goal?

[OgreBattle]

This way you've achieved the same result as DR as it stands now, but almost entirely eliminated the math, and arguably made DR more attractive now.

That would be cool, like weapons/armor each giving an encounter power

ex:
hammers disorient, swords parry, axes cleave

But I wonder... if D&DN used such a system, would folks throw a fit about it? A significant part of the fanbase got angry over encounter powers for fighters in late 3e, and then shit their pants when 4e came out.

Those dice have also become symbols, d8 is a longsword, 6d6 is a higher level fireball, people have internalized those feelings. Purely through a 'feels' standpoint, rolling a d20 to swing a sword and rolling a d20 to shoot fire from your hands may be enough to get people to start pining for the days of D&D2e or whatever they played as a teen in the basement.

What is this entire exercise attempting to accomplish? What is the design goal?

It started as "If I'm gonna complain 'bout D&D, I might as well make an edition"
So I thought about what legacy mechanics I'd need to keep the D&D feel. I'm moving further away from that though

You know, this thread reminds me why I have increasingly shifted towards dicepools with fixed hit points. Like in Shadowrun.

Yeah. I realized that around the point I made a chart of "damage and hitpoints by level" and realized why Shadowrun does what it does. So something like...


-roll d20+attack modifier vs opponent's reflex (dodging) DC
every two points over opponent's DC adds +1 to damage

-Afterwards, roll d20+damage mod+attack success vs opponent's fortitutde (damage reduction) DC
Every two points over the DC is 1pt of damage. Dudes have 10 hitpoints.

But for the sake of making classes feeeeeel D n' D, Fighters have 12 hp, Rogues have 10, and wizards have 8, just because.