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When it comes to game mechanics, 'resolution' tends to be my least favorite part of things. Part of it tends to be that it's mainly statistical/resolving once decisions have already come to pass, rather than something which in itself promotes tactical play in general. Sure, '+1 to hit when flanking' means more when the game uses D6s instead of D10s, but "roll d8s instead of d6s" maintains the same statistical average ("4.5") while allowing the same floor and a higher potential ceiling...in either case, "flanking is good" but the difference in either form of resolution doesn't have so much impact...

That said, I have tried to do several things in order to keep the system as 'fast and simple' as possible, while allowing room for some granularity. My main things were:
-Keep the system D6-based.
-Minimize the potential for swing.
-Keep the dice pool relatively small, with minimal rerolls.


The game system I'm working on is alternating activation, and divides units into smaller 'stands' of 4x1 infantry (or 2x1 cavalry). The system at its most basic implmentation goes like this:

Each stand has an 'attack' rating, and a 'defense' rating, and combat is resolved as an opposed pool of D6s on 4+s.
Sum(Offense of attacking stands)
versus
Sum(Defense of defending stands)+Attacker Successes.

E.x, suppose a stand of 4 swordsmen has attack 4, defense 3.
Player A has a unit of 4 swordsmen (1 stand) vs player B's unit of 4 swordsmen.
Player A rolls 4 dice, averaging 2 hits.
Player B then rolls 3+2=5 dice to defend. As long as at least two 4+s are rolled, the attack is saved; player B will on average roll 2.5 successes.

Suppose player A had a unit of 8 swordsmen (2 stands) while player B had a unit of 4 swordsmen (1 stand).
Player A rolls 8 dice to attack, averaging 4 hits. Player B then rolls 3+4=7 dice to defend, needing to roll 4 4+s to defend. Player B will on average roll 3.5 successes. The 'ratio' would gradually line up to favor the attacker as more outnumbering took place, and the relevance of base defense decreased...

However, if it was two stands of swordsmen were to engage two stands, the end result becomes:
Player A rolls 8 attack dice average 4 successes.
Player B rolls 6+4 defense dice, averaging 5 successes.

Note: For the time being, I am still testing between 'sum of attack versus defense', versus resolving subcombats in separate batches based on 'unit champion has magic weapon, should only attack the stand it is engaged with', but that's something I'll test as I go.

Now, my main concern with this setup is that the combat has the potential to be, well, "padded." If the defender starts off with a good defense value, killing them will generally be a difficult prospect. This is where I am instead looking for ways to tweak the system's variance. There were two options I had in mind:
1) "Toughness". Units have 'strength' and 'toughness' values, independent of defense. Should the attack and defense of a target be 'equal', then the defending unit may add 'up to its toughness' in successful attack rolls. For example:
4 swordsmen engage 4 swordsmen. Swordsmen are strength and toughness 3.
Player A's swordsmen luck out and roll 4 success dice. Player B rolls 3 defense dice, and an additional 3 (rather than 4) defense, since it's capped by their own toughness. Now, if Swordsmen were Strength 4/Toughness 3, the defenders would roll 3+2 ("toughness 3, minus 1 due to Strength 4 versus toughness 3").
However, I feel like that can get very "calculation-intensive" fast, especially in a multi-assault.


2) The second idea I had was to play around with criticals. In this, a '6' on an attack roll would be considered a critical hit. Such a roll NOT be added to the defense roll, and could only be canceled by the defender rolling a 6 as a 'critical defense'. For example:
4 swordsmen engage 4 swordsmen.
Player A's swordsmen roll 3, 4, 4, 6.
Player B would roll 3 dice due to their defense 3, plus 2 dice for attacker's successes. Player B's swordsmen would NOT add an extra defense die for the 6 that Player A rolled, and that '6' could only be cancelled if player B rolled a 6 on any of their defense dice. Thus, even if Player B rolled 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, then player B's swordsmen would still take a casualty.

I think by doing this, it would both reduce the dicepool and still keep swing fairly minimized. The fact it's still a 'summed' dicepool with only two steps will also keep it relatively fast to resolve.

The rest is just playing around with other options, such as whether certain dicepools should be colored by 'type' (e.x. "armor dice" versus "shield dice", "physical damage" versus "elemental damage"), whether to alter the dice system so rather than it being "4+", it's "1=fumble, 2-3=half-success, 4-5=full success, 6=critical", or otherwise just tweaking further.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
..... "roll d8s instead of d6s" maintains the same statistical average ("4.5") while allowing the same floor and a higher potential ceiling...in either case, "flanking is good" but the difference in either form of resolution doesn't have so much impact...

The average on a D8 is 4.5 compared to 3.5 on a D6. Did you mean a D8 compared to D6+1.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
.......
Sum(Defense of defending stands)+Attacker Successes.

........
Now, my main concern with this setup is that the combat has the potential to be, well, "padded." If the defender starts off with a good defense value, killing them will generally be a difficult prospect. .

I'm not sure why you would want to add the number of attacker successes to the defence value to get the number of saving throws. As you say, this could lead to very long drawn-out combats with very few hits if both sides have good defence values. Why not roll saves equal to the number of successes with the defence value giving the target number for the save.

Yes, I meant to say "d6+1" instead of D6 earlier.

The idea was one of "granularity." Normally, there are systems which are "reroll 1s," "reroll everything," etc.

The idea was that by increasing the base amount of dice, then 'favorable defense' is less immediately vulnerable to swing ("2+ armor" is great until you roll 1s). For example, say a unit has to pass 2 saving throws: 3 dice is equivalent to 2 with rerolls. The other idea was to "break down" attack and defense by "types" or play around with certain abilities reducing defense pools.

For example, say the swordsmen are attack 4, defense 3. But two of the defense dice are from having shields, 1 from light armor. Adding "AP" to ignore armor dice, or flanking to ignore shields would make it so the defender is relying solely on "successful attacks" for their dicepool. And if crits are not added to the dicepool and need 6s to save against...

I would say just remove the (+Attacker's Success) and make it a straight Attack vs. Defense roll and you solved most of your issues.

You could then add situational modifiers to increase potential attack of defense pools.

That was essentially how I handled combat in Men of Bronze.

Considering this kind of RCP can be considered random, you probably don't need dice, just cards or simply a set of options players can throw down.

Part of the reason I wanted dice was to avoid going down the "attack/defense ratio" chart approach of olde Avalon Hill gaming.

As for cards, I know that's Malifaux/The Other Side. I see the appeal, but always feel iffy about forcing the RNG to have 'memory', especially as the game scales. ("I'll engage in melee, because all the good cards are in my hand or the discard pile..."). I 'could' see a 'spend results' system akin to Arena Rex or SAGA being an option, but I've held off on that for now.

If you want to avoid swing, then make hard stats where x is always 2 hits, while Y can always absorb 3 hits.

You could then use situational mods so that the only way X could beat Y was by teaming up, flanking, attacking downhill, etc. The situational mods would stack to allow you to overcome set defense and vice versa.

Just a though.

Have you thought about the Heroscape Dice system?

The number of dice rolled for offense is listed on the army card, but may be improved by various bonuses, including terrain bonuses, elevation bonuses, or special abilities. The attack dice contain skulls on three surfaces (in 1st edition) giving a 50% chance at scoring a hit for each die. The defender likewise calculates how many defense dice he may roll, based on his unit's natural defense value and any other bonuses (terrain, elevation, special abilities, etc.). The defense dice contain only two shields, giving a statistical advantage to the attacker. In the second edition the defense and attack dice are combined into one, with three chances for attack, two chances for defense, and one chance for a blank roll.

If the defender rolls a number of shields equal to or higher than the number of skulls rolled by the attacker, nothing happens. If the number is lower, the defender receives a number of wound markers equal to the difference. Once a unit receives a number of wound markers equal to its total life points, it is destroyed and removed from the playing surface immediately. Heroes usually have multiple life points; squads always have one life point per figure in the squad. In the basic rules version of the game the wound marker system is not used, and each unit simply has one life point; hero units usually have exaggerated defense to compensate.

Various abilities by specific units may modify these rules to some degree (e.g., the samurai may counterattack and inflict damage while defending)

I had a quick glanceover at the Heroscape dice system; for now, I'm filing it under the 'exotic d6s' category for now. I've seen 'exotic D6s' in Doom, Saga, and FFG Star Wars: Imperial Assault and while I get the appeal...

I think "sum attack" versus "sum defense" may work best after all, and only certain abilities/rules ("dodge!") allow the defender to add defense dice based on attack successes. The only thing then is whether to enable "criticals on 6s", or to make it so that a small subset of attack/defense dice are considered "critical dice".

I find that it is great when a Critical is rolled, then the player can either count it as 2 successes OR trade it in 1 success and a special ability/result. Otherwise, i find crits underwhelming in a game.

I.e. get 2 successes or....
- Knock down opponent
- Force them back X distance
- Off-foot them and reduce their defenses
- Increase your armor piercing ability
- etc. etc. etc.

That adds some choice to critical success. You could do the same with critical failures too.....

Something you might consider is a kind of Rock-Scissors-Paper thing where instead of a tug-of-war over a line with <, >, and =, why not try a table of results?

I agree with Easy E and I really don't like opposed rolls. The results are to swingy and unpredictable, especially if you add critical hits.

I found rolling in X-Wing and Shadespire extremely underwhelming and prone to out-of-the-blue extreme results:
-totally unpredictable and impactful 'hits and crits vs crappy defence roll' being something you fish for but have little to no control over
-a lot rolls being boring 'nothing happens'

To sum up, opposed rolls+crit mechanic is the worst!

I had another thought emerge through the duststorm of time and lurking through other games.
Rather than using "Criticals on 6s" or other forms of crit-fishing, use the normal opposed hit&save system...but keep track of doubles/triples/quadruples.

Every double equates to an extra "X" amount of inches that the enemy is pushed back.
Every triple equates to negating "X" bonus defense dice.
Every quadruple equates to getting "X" number of additional successes (critical hits) so to speak.

Each unit has a certain degree of resistance against doubles/triples/quadruples, as well as their inbuilt defense dice. Highly-agile units would have high "triple" decent "quadruple" resistance, but low "double resistance", while more heavily-armored ones would have good "double" and "quadruple" resistance but not necessarily good triple resistance.

Alternately, I could do this with "rolling attack versus fixed defense". Either way, I think this may fix the design space.

What do you want the players to do with it?

Nurglitch wrote:
What do you want the players to do with it?

What do you mean?

I think he means, what decisions making is this forcing on the player?

It still feels a bit like fishing for crits to me?

 Easy E wrote:
I think he means, what decisions making is this forcing on the player?

It still feels a bit like fishing for crits to me?

Ah. I'm not really intending to throw more 'decisions' in this part of the game anyway, other than "ensure you get more dice" before you get to rolling. Turn structure is where most the decision-making is occurring anyway.

Cool, then follow-up question.

What do you intend the double, triple, quadruples to "add" to the experience?

Edit: To clarify, how do you want players to use the doubles, triples, and quads and how do you want them to "feel" about them?

I think I know what you want to do mechanically.

 Easy E wrote:
Cool, then follow-up question.

What do you intend the double, triple, quadruples to "add" to the experience?

Edit: To clarify, how do you want players to use the doubles, triples, and quads and how do you want them to "feel" about them?

I think I know what you want to do mechanically.

Since the game is AA and uses interrupt mechanics heavily based off CCG "stack" systems, I don't care too much about turning the dice resolution into a game-inside-a-game. I'm thinking more Warmaster, less Malifaux.

That said, the idea is to allow units to have different 'types' of critical effects, without needing to either roll on a separate subchart, stacking them all together ("How does a Radium Jezzail work in 7th ed? It has Rad and Rending...does the additional hit also have AP 2?") or having them tied to "6s to hit/wound/save".

The main question then becomes how to handle resolution. I am ok with doing it so that "to-hit" is based off weapon-advantage, ala Fire Emblem. Have a weapon advantage, you hit on 3+. Disadvantage hits on 5+. Since "attack" is essentially rolling "hit" & "damage" in the same roll, I am also ok with adding 'color dice' to the pool to represent elemental damage. (E.x. a "Frostfire" attack uses two blue and two red dice).

It's the defense where I am still considering things.
-Static defense is the simplest approach. "Defense 2" means the attacker needs to roll three hits to inflict one casualty, four hits to inflict two casualties, etc. However, this prevents "defensive criticals" which I am a fan of.
-Defense Pools are another approach. Similar to "attack" being a sum of dicepool, so is defense. This adds more swing, however.

However, I think I can figure out how to use 'defensive criticals' for the first approach for melee. Both players would roll attack dice for their units, but units have separate criticals for if they are attacking in melee, or defending in melee. I am ok with there being no equivalent for "defensive ranged criticals" given the game already allows 'interrupt moves' to disrupt shooting LOS.

Edit: Also, I "could" do 'critical failures' as rolling doubles/triples/quadruples, without having a single success. For example, if you have 5 dice, but need 5 to hit, a triple 2 and double 3 would be treated as a crit-fail. That could get nasty fast, though.


Edit: I think I have it.

-One unit is the attacking unit. If this is a 'melee', the defending unit also engages.
-One section engages one section.
-Roll to hit based off weapon advantage, trying to beat target's defense.
--I am on the fence over whether to do 'color dice' for elemental subtypes (stolen from AoW 3) or to treat them as having a single damage type. (With elemental resistances/failures adding/subtracting attack dice).
-Crits are on doubles/triples/quadruples.
-Fumbles are doubles/triples/quadruples on rolls without a single successful hit.

And depending on the players/armies/magic/etc, certain criticals or other powers may accumulate Fortune Dice for the player's resource pool. For example, when a Warrior-Priest rolls a double-1 in combat, the owning player would add a '1' to their Fortune Pool. On a subsequent roll, they can replace one of their rolled dice with a '1'.

Okay, so there's Warmaster-style units addressing other units. What are the outcomes?

"Movement" (E.x. "Push enemy unit back", "Reposition one of your bases", "Swap Positions of two bases", etc), "Bonuses & Debuffs", and "Casualties" are the main outcomes so far. I haven't really figured out "morale" yet, so much as I'm intending to use assorted "push/debuff" effects to represent suppression/giving ground.

Maybe allow the attacked player the option of either suffering damage or suppression (and if suppressed, then giving ground)?

Nurglitch wrote:
Maybe allow the attacked player the option of either suffering damage or suppression (and if suppressed, then giving ground)?

Not within the 'core rules' but on a unit-by-unit basis. Some units might have "Dodge" (Convert X amount of "autocasualties" into inches of movement), "Fortitude" or other abilities which grant low levels of critical resistance; this is why the "numerical value" of the critical matters. Getting a Quadruple 6 is more valuable than a quadruple 1 after all...unless the unit is "Cursed", in which case the roll becomes 'under' instead of 'over' and the potential for uber-fumbles is a possibility.


Edit: One of the concerns I had with fortune dice, is that I'm already having players keep track of Strategy Point tokens in order to manipulate the turn structure: Consecutive unit activations, larger interrupt chains, etc. Given that I've received suggestions in the past about strategy points being usable for stuff besides turn order (ala 8th ed Stratagems), I'm ok with simply merging the function of Fortune Dice & Strategy Points. Thus, Fortune Dice can alter the turnflow, or they can influence the diceroll.

I think merging Fortune and Strategy together makes a ton of sense!

Also, the purpose of looking for doubles, Triples, Quads, is much clearer to me now. If it also interacts with some special unit rules it makes much more sense to me. If they did not couple then I would toss it as extraneous and not adding anything.

Thanks for painting the picture for me as I was slow to catch on.