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One of my biggest gripes about 8th edition is the amount of useless random dice rolls.

Obliterators for example... roll for strength 6+d3, AP d3 and damage d3 each time they shoot.
Lascannons d6
Melta guns 2d6 and choose the best

And a dozen random rolls in my last game, I'd like to play the game faster.

How broken would it be to take the average of the die rolls and go with that.
Oblits would be str 8, ap -2, dm 2
Lascannons 3 damage (rounding down, maybe spend 1 command point to round up to 4)

etc...

I'm reasonably certain that is will cut out 30minutes out of a game, possibly more.

I could get on board with this as a way to speed up the game is helpful. My only worry is that with a the streamlining that GW has done with 8th there would be more matchups that are really bad for your list.

Take for example you have a load of 3 damage lascannons and someone brings a lot of 4/5 wound models then you're suddenly much less efficient at killing them. But if they have 3 wound models you can never fail to kill one with each unsaved wound.

I could get behind this for many things, but not all.
Lascannons, for example should be able to do more than 3 damage.

Dd3 could easily be made D2 in most cases, but things that are d6 should be something like d3+2 (so min3-max5 Damage).
Removing the randomness is fine, but the goal should be to make the weapon reliable without being "too" reliable.

And in some cases, the randomness is intentional (Oblits) because of the nature of the weapon.

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I'd be open to removing a whole lot of randomness from the game and reducing the dice rolls. Especially with Damage rolls, but also in other areas.

I'd prefer fixed charge ranges too, but as with most changes, other rules would need to be adjusted to accommodate it.

For flat damage on weapons, I'm a big fan of the template/blast type weapons having a fixed number of shots linked to the number of models in the target unit, and capped at a set maximum. For weapons like Melta, i'd have a fixed damage, with different damage at close and long range.

Points would need rebalancing and the wounds characteristic on a whole bunch of units would need to be changed too.

As others have said, you could remove randomness in many areas, but there are a few places where simply taking the average wouldn't be appropriate. Some random thoughts:

* Some weapons, like d6 damage weapons, are competitive with other options not because of their average damage but because of the potential for damage spikes. Consider the disintegrator versus the dark lance. The former is almost as good against vehicles as the dark lance while being notably better against most other targets. One of the advantages of the dark lance is that a small amount of luck potentially lets you kill a rhino with two dark lances where much more luck would be required to kill a single rhino with two disintegrator cannons. The disintegrator damages things more reliably and has more flexibility, but the dark lance has the potential for its damage to "spike", occassionally killing off multi-wound targets more efficiently than the raw average.

Of course, you could do something to get rid of the d6 damage roll while maintaining some amount of that. You could, for instance, say that dark lances have a damage of 3, but that to wound rolls of 6 count as damage 6 instead.

* Some weapons use randomness as a way of conveying fluff. Obliterators, shokk attack guns, and all manner of Tzeentchy rules are an example of this. It's not that the randomness of the weapons makes them perform mathematically *EXACTLY* as the designers intended; it's that their math is within an acceptable range while conveying the chaotic nature of those weapons. It makes those rules "feel" the way the designers want them to.

tldr; in general, I'm not opposed to reducing randomness a little, but it would really depend on specifics.

Randomness is something which I enjoy, but within reason.

I love orky randomness - random strength, random shots etc.

I dislike blast weapon randomness, and would much prefer blasts to be rewritten that they hit once for each model in the target unit, up to a maximum of "N". if the weapon needs to be good at anti tank as well, give it 2 profiles - the solid shot and the resulting explosion - and make the solid shot anti-tank.

Random damage is more importance vs smaller models than larger ones. making lascannons a flat 3 damage makes them faster to resolve vs tanks, but much more powerful against 3 wound units like ogryns and Meganobs, which rely somewhat on the opponents poor luck to survive a volley from these weapons.

 some bloke wrote:
Randomness is something which I enjoy, but within reason.

I love orky randomness - random strength, random shots etc.

I dislike blast weapon randomness, and would much prefer blasts to be rewritten that they hit once for each model in the target unit, up to a maximum of "N". if the weapon needs to be good at anti tank as well, give it 2 profiles - the solid shot and the resulting explosion - and make the solid shot anti-tank.

Random damage is more importance vs smaller models than larger ones. making lascannons a flat 3 damage makes them faster to resolve vs tanks, but much more powerful against 3 wound units like ogryns and Meganobs, which rely somewhat on the opponents poor luck to survive a volley from these weapons.

I don't play Orks, so can't comment with any authority, but I do see the appeal of the randomness to certain things to represent the fluff, but any time you have to roll for random generation it can slow the game down, so where feasible i'd prefer this kept to a minimum. For template/blast type weapons I agree with the above.

Regarding things like heavy bolters, assault cannons, shuriken cannons etc with a rapid rate of fire, I'd much prefer to have a fixed number of shots over randomly generated. and for lascannons and their ilk, I'd much prefer a flat damage amount. Whether a lascannon shot on an Ogryn "should" allow them a chance to survive if it already beats their strength/toughness and armour is not something I'm convinced of, but If a lascannon was given a flat damage of 3, then maybe the Wound value on these larger models would need adjusting to 4 and an appropriate points change too. I'd also be open to considering a return to an Instant Death type mechanic, like in previous editions if the weapon was double or more than the target's toughness then it automatically killed them (or maybe it causes double damage?). Not sure how much of a knock on effect this would have though.