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Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






I'm (still) on-and-off building a skirmish game which will feature small groups and possibly some vehicles in a 28mm AA system, and I've been trying to come up with a decent way of resolving ranged combat whilst considering a fair few factors - intervening terrain (cover), attacker's skill, the weapon's range, target size, and realism. It's been a fairly complex problem, but I think I have stumbled on an answer which is simple to use but very flexible to work with!

The basics of my system is that a hit is all you need - whether it damages or not is resolved later. I'll not go into it in this thread. Suffice to say, hitting is what's important here. A hit is a success.

The relevant stats here are Size and Skill. Size is a scale of 1-10+, a guideline being the models maximum dimension in cm as a rough approximation - human sized models are size 3, for now. Skill is a dice size - D4, D6, D8, D10, D12 or D20. Low skills have the lowest dice size, high skills have the highest.

When you make an attack, you measure the distance to the target in inches, rounding up - this is your target figure. You then roll a number of dice, of the size denoted by your skill, and add them together. If the result is equal to or higher than the target figure, the attack hits.

There are modifiers to determine amount of dice you roll:

• Baseline is 2 dice
• +1 dice for each size class the target is (eg +3 for humans, who are size 3)
• +1 dice if you used an "aim" action
• +1 dice if the target is within the weapons "effective range"
• -1 dice if there is a terrain feature between you and them

So, for example, if a unit wishes to shoot a human-sized enemy, outside of effective range and through terrain, they would roll 2 dice, +3 for the target size, -1 for the terrain, for a total of 4 dice. If they are skill D6, then they roll 4d6 and add them together, then compare this to the range to the target. The average roll here is 14", so if the target was 13" away and you were using a 12" max range weapon, you still score a hit if you roll 12+.

Now, for an extra dynamic:

If you can remove dice from your roll and still score a hit, then there are additional rules which allow you to spend these spare dice for additional effects:

Rapid fire gets an additional hit for each dice spent
Force weapons might push the target backwards
Flame weapons might ignite the target
suppressing weapons will deal suppression tokens (which, unsurprisingly, suppress the target)

This might evolve into a "critical hit" system where some weapons have 2 profiles - "hit" and "Critical hit". An amount of dice will need to be spent to score a critical hit - EG spend 2 dice to do this damage instead.


My thoughts on this thus far, against my goals:

• intervening terrain makes it more difficult to hit - Check!
• attackers skill is accounted for and it scales with longer ranges so the most skilled people can take shots from further away - Check!
• Weapons range is realistic and accounted for - with some exceptions that will have their own rules, the weapons will have unlimited range within the confines of the board - Check!
• Target size is accounted for - It's the main contributor to how likely you are to hit, which is realistic to me - Check!
• Realism - you're more likely to hit things if they are big, close, unobscured and you're skilled - Check!

Main Concerns:

• Most people prefer D6, and have a lot more of them around. Not many people will have several d10 about for their guy to shoot with. This might limit accessibility.
• The system might be slower than "conventional" ones. This is a low concern, as it's still one roll and a fairly immersive one at that - there are decisions to make with spending the dice.
• It might skew at extremes - playtesting will confirm or deny this. Firing a minigun into the side of a tank at point-blank range would, in reality, score a lot of hits. Armour is there for making these thigns survivable - you need to get a lot of damage on a tank for any to go through.
• This system is built around the range, so it cannot easily translate to close combat. Having completely different systems for CC and shooting is not ideal. Everything should work in the same way, to keep a game simple. Perhaps I can still work with needing a specific value on multiple dice, but I am not sure it makes sense for melee.

I'm keen to hear what everyone thinks of this!

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/09/24 09:40:41


12,300 points of Orks
9th W/D/L with Orks, 4/0/2
I am Thoruk, the Barbarian, Slayer of Ducks, and This is my blog!

I'm Selling Infinity, 40k, dystopian wars, UK based!

I also make designs for t-shirts and mugs and such on Redbubble! 
   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain





Bristol (UK)

Some thoughts;

Requiring large numbers of 'odd' dice is quite unappealing. Most games only require 1-2 such types of dice so I think that's all most people will have (These dice are also sold in packs of 1 of each type whereas this game will often need half a dozen dice, shooting tanks will probably involve entire handfuls!).

Secondly, and most importantly, I don't think it scales well, at all. I think you need to math it out a little, work out the probability of various interactions.
Cover is almost meaningless only reducing dice by 1. It also means being in cover against a novice shooter doesn't count for very much.

I think simple dice rolling mechanics is fairly important. It's great to use dice in novel and interesting ways, but this varies every characteristic of a dice roll plausibly every attack!

I also think the ability to roll less dice to trigger effects a little strange and intuitive.
If I'm using a flamethrower, it's always burning. I can't choose to shoot more at the penalty of not setting things on fire, or whatever
   
Made in dk
Conniving Informer



In a Hive of Scum and Villany

I've gotta agree with Kiro here - while the system is novel and interesting, it's also quite cumbersome for the average wargamer to get into due to the needed amount of "specialty" dice. Of course, if that's not a concern at all then you can safely ignore the above comment

The idea is sound however, but you might want to take a look at Horizon Wars, which basically uses the same system - albeit simplified and only using d12's.

The roadwarrior he lives... Only in my memories...
Port Maw - a blog about 40k, with a slightly different scope. 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






Thankyou both for the feedback!

I might cut the varying dice out, then. I will see how it works out. If I did get this rolling, I would be also selling packs of dice to improve accessibility.

For cover having a limited effect, I had considered having it halve the number of dice you can use. The problem there is that it would scale badly - shooting a big tank in minimal cover would take a bigger hit than shooting a human in normal cover, which seems backwards.

It's also worth noting that being in cover and having intervening cover are two different things in my game, and being in cover gives benefits in the damage resolution, which is resolved later (delayed damage is dealt with after a unit activates, so you can't snipe out key units before they get a single use, and a units actions can affect the damage - responding by diving into cover for better armour, and being pinned to reduce damage at the cost of actions). The cover will also be able to obscure smaller models from being shot at all!

I'll look at the various interactions and see how they work out. Expecting a maximum model size to be 10, the best case would be D12's (D20 is perhaps reserved for snipers only) whilst aiming, within weapons effective range, which would net you 14 dice to try and hit with.


I'm wondering if perhaps the way to go with it is to make the amount of damage also determined by this single roll. Normal weapons would deal an amount of damage per hit dice spent, perhaps to a maximum. Remaining hit dice need to add up to at least the range. So the above rolling 14 dice to hit a tank, might be able to spend 6 dice to inflict additional damage, up to a maximum of, say, 3. The rest are just excess.

This could easily represent rapid fire weapons and critical hits. Perhaps a rifle would deal 2 damage and then if you can spend 2 dice it deals an extra 5 damage. Rapid fire weapons might deal 1 damage plus 1 damage per dice you can spend. anti-"X" weapons could spend hit dice to get a critical hit only against their specific target, EG the rifle might only get criticals against infantry, the rocket launcher (8 damage, extra 8 damage for 3 hit dice) might only get to spend for criticals against vehicles.

This would encourage weapons to target their preferred enemies without penalizing them (as such) for picking the wrong target.

Regarding the Flamethrower, it would be a measure of the aim more than anything else. Yes, what you shoot would set on fire, but the enemy might not be in that list if you can't aim it for toffee. Flamethrowers and Shotguns are (thus far) the only weapons I'm going to be giving a maximum range, as their ranges are actually meaningful on a 6x4 table!

I think that my concern is more over accessibility than difficulty. If you had a handful of each dice available, it wouldn't be too difficult to pick a pile, take an amount of those dice, and then roll them. I'm also expecting this to be fairly small scale (perhaps 10 units per side at most) so whilst it might be slower than rolling 1 dice per attack, each roll is going to feel more important. One model rolling 6-7 dice is going to be the same amount of the game as a unit of 20 in 40k rolling 40 dice, rerolling, rolling to wound, and then the opponent rolling to save. In so far as being cumbersome is concerned, I think it's less so than more widespread games out there!

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/19 10:27:34


12,300 points of Orks
9th W/D/L with Orks, 4/0/2
I am Thoruk, the Barbarian, Slayer of Ducks, and This is my blog!

I'm Selling Infinity, 40k, dystopian wars, UK based!

I also make designs for t-shirts and mugs and such on Redbubble! 
   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain





Bristol (UK)

I think 40k is a pretty poor baseline when it comes to dice mechanics.
The core is sound (one dice, varying target, 3 rolls). But they've heaped so much crap on top (so many rerolls, additionally rolls in the sequence, and special snowflake rules) that they've bogged the system down to a ridiculous extent.

Personally, I strongly dislike the need to reduce your chances to hit to benefit from what should be inherent aspects of your weapon (such as the fact that its on fire), but ultimately that's up to you.
   
Made in pl
Longtime Dakkanaut




I like how you get to make decisions with the dice rolled and you don't simply perform the menial task of generating a random result (like in wh40k).
   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain





Bristol (UK)

I can see the appeal of it as a mechanic, just not in that context.
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






 kirotheavenger wrote:
I think 40k is a pretty poor baseline when it comes to dice mechanics.
The core is sound (one dice, varying target, 3 rolls). But they've heaped so much crap on top (so many rerolls, additionally rolls in the sequence, and special snowflake rules) that they've bogged the system down to a ridiculous extent.

Personally, I strongly dislike the need to reduce your chances to hit to benefit from what should be inherent aspects of your weapon (such as the fact that its on fire), but ultimately that's up to you.


Oh, you don't have to impact your chances of hitting; spending dice is a reward for rolling well, or tactical maneuvers like aiming and getting clean shots.

You roll all the dice, and then you need to spend the results to first hit, and then for extras. So if you roll 8 dice to hit, and you only need to spend 6 of them to make the range, then you have 2 left to spend scoring a critical hit.

So for your flamer, you might roll 5 dice and only need to spend 2 of them to get the range, and then have 3 dice left to spend on the critical effects (which will involve setting things on fire).


So the only way you reduce your chance to hit is to pick targets who are small, far away, behind cover. If you only just manage to reach them, then they aren't taking the full brunt of your weapon, they are getting glancing shots or a lick of flame - some damage, but not the full potential. Want to get those critical hits? line up the shots better.

Flamers are a bad example as they will likely get a rule such as "Indiscriminate", meaning they don't get affected by cover or aiming. They'll also have a maximum range, meaning even if you have 15 dice, you can't hit anything further than 12" away.

12,300 points of Orks
9th W/D/L with Orks, 4/0/2
I am Thoruk, the Barbarian, Slayer of Ducks, and This is my blog!

I'm Selling Infinity, 40k, dystopian wars, UK based!

I also make designs for t-shirts and mugs and such on Redbubble! 
   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain





Bristol (UK)

Ah, well that changes everything then!
I think that's a perfectly viable way to trigger critical abilities/damage within that dice system.

Before you decide on this system, I think you need to calculate some probabilities for common scenarios.
Eg "average soldier vs average soldier at close, medium, and long range". Do the numbers you get look good to you?
Add cover, how does that affect things.
Make the shooter a veteran solder, do you think that skews the results in desired ways?
Make the target a tank, again, do you like what you get?

This will be the ultimate test I think and it's important to understand and get right.
My gut feeling is it won't feel right, especially cover.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/20 13:30:12


 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






Well, I just had a thought.

The system I'm using revolves around 3 things; how big the target is, how far away the target is, and how good you are at shooting. Damage is dealt with later, because a hit is a hit.

I had intended to give Cover its own size statistic, which would allow for an interesting interaction, where Cover could take 1 dice off, and an additional dice if it's larger than the target.

So a chest high wall would remove 1 dice from any shot, but would remove an additional one if the target is the size of a gremlin.

I think there's too much going on with my plans for this to be evaluated without playtesting! As you said, I'll run the numbers on generic combats and then I'll throw some basic statistics together for various units and have at it!

12,300 points of Orks
9th W/D/L with Orks, 4/0/2
I am Thoruk, the Barbarian, Slayer of Ducks, and This is my blog!

I'm Selling Infinity, 40k, dystopian wars, UK based!

I also make designs for t-shirts and mugs and such on Redbubble! 
   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain





Bristol (UK)

Small targets getting more benefit from cover seems like it would be too complex for me.

For example, if a small gremlin is size 2 dice, they already got more benefit from cover (50% reduction in dice) than a human with size 3 dice (only a 33% reduction).
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






That's a fair point. Though I will likely be making line-of-sight rules which will favour simply not being able to target small units through large cover.

With the way the game will be made, small targets will tend towards throwaway units like remote control car bombs, small attack creatures, and drones. I don't anticipate not being able to shoot a small enemy to be overly game changing. All line of sight rules will work both ways, so if you can't shoot them, they can't shoot you. I'll not be having little creatures shooting out of cover and being untargetable!

I am really looking forward t otrying this out now... Just have to finish some more pressing projects first (you know, the ones with deadlines! XD)

12,300 points of Orks
9th W/D/L with Orks, 4/0/2
I am Thoruk, the Barbarian, Slayer of Ducks, and This is my blog!

I'm Selling Infinity, 40k, dystopian wars, UK based!

I also make designs for t-shirts and mugs and such on Redbubble! 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






Okay, rather than muddy the water with another thread; I have just come up with an idea for the melee combat system which I hope is similar enough to the ranged combat system I've detailed above to make it all mesh fairly well!

Obviously the idea of needing to roll over a range is out, so I have taken the "roll dice and then spend them" approach to making this work in a vaguely similar way!

The attacker will have an Attack value, Speed value and Damage value for their attack.

The Defender will have a Dexterity value and Defense value for their defense.

The attacker rolls a number of D6 equal to their attack value, and then adds their speed to the result of each dice.

The defender then rolls the same number of dice, plus one if they are smaller than the attacker, and they add their Dexterity to each of the dice.

The defender then spends their dice to cancel out the attackers. The defender can combine dice to cancel each of the attacker's, but they can't overflow excess to other results. They need to exceed the attack roll, not equal it, to cancel it out.

Uncancelled dice inflict a hit, and each hit deal an amount of Damage equal to the Damage statistic. These are dealt as playing cards, face up (ranged is face-down) and resolved immediately.

The Defense value is what the cards have to exceed to deal damage. it's rated 1-10. jack/queen/king might be made to deal double damage, though guaranteed damage might be worth it without the bonus.

As an example:

An attacker makes a melee action with attack 4, Speed -1 and 5 damage. They roll 4 D6, and get 1, 3, 5, 6. This becomes 0, 2, 4, 5.

The defender has Dexterity +1 and defence 3, and rolls 4 dice, getting 1,2,3,3, becoming 2,3,4,4.

The defender then spends 2 to cancel the 0, 3 to cancel the 2, and combines the two 4's to cancel either of the remaining hits.

The final hit goes through and deals 5 damage (low speed will generally relate to higher damage). The attacker deals 5 cards to the defender from the damage deck. They are dealt face up, as it is a melee attack, and the cards are 2, 3, 5, 10 and Queen.

The 2 and 3 are successfully defended against, and the 5, 10, and Queen go through, dealing 3 points of damage to their HP immediately.


I am thinking to add a few generic rules to complement this system, which I'll summarize:

• Performing any non-melee action whilst in melee range will allow the other unit to attack you.
• Disengaging will be a more expensive movement that gives you +2 to dexterity in the attacks you trigger by moving away (costs more AP, restricting what you can do as well).
• Shooting at units in combat with friendly units will be restricted. Not 100% sure to what extent yet.

What do you think?

12,300 points of Orks
9th W/D/L with Orks, 4/0/2
I am Thoruk, the Barbarian, Slayer of Ducks, and This is my blog!

I'm Selling Infinity, 40k, dystopian wars, UK based!

I also make designs for t-shirts and mugs and such on Redbubble! 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






SO, I have left this a while and come back to it, and now I have an (obvious) approach which makes so much more sense!

A unit will have an Agility stat, which the attacking unit needs to equal or exceed to land a hit. This replaces the range used for the ranged attack.

The modifiers will be slightly different - size will be a comparison, as both units are involved. I'm thinking:

Baseline number of dice is defined by the unit making the attack, size of dice is defined by the weapon being used.

Gain 1 dice for every 2 sizes larger than you the target is

Lose 1 dice for every 2 sizes smaller than you the target is

After rolling your dice, you make dice pools which equal or exceed the targets Agility. Each pool made is a hit.

Excess dice can be spent to activate abilities/criticals, and can be spent instead of making pools.


So if a unit has a knife and a hammer, they might have 2 attack options. Knife had a D8 to hit, and the hammer has a D6. The hammer has more damage than the knife, so it's a choice between likelihood to hit vs damage you deal if you do hit.

This works more or less in the same way as a shooting attack, but with the dice used and number of dice defined by different things.

12,300 points of Orks
9th W/D/L with Orks, 4/0/2
I am Thoruk, the Barbarian, Slayer of Ducks, and This is my blog!

I'm Selling Infinity, 40k, dystopian wars, UK based!

I also make designs for t-shirts and mugs and such on Redbubble! 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






After a brief playtest (not involving any models, just trying out the mechanic) I concluded that adding up the dice results is way too mathy to be fun.

I've decided instead to adjust my mechanics in a more standardised way:

• You roll d6's for the attack, and the amount depends on all the factors as before - target size, cover, your skill, etc.
• any roll of a 4+ (possibly variable for skill but I'm not sold on that idea being necessary yet) is a success. a 6+ is 2 successes.
• Each success allows you to shoot 4", presented on the table as range bands on a measuring stick, for ease. So if you're in range band 5, you're 17-20" away and need 5 successes to hit.
• Excess successes can be spend triggering special effects on weapons, like extra hits, explosions, headshots and so on. EG a sniper can spend 3 extra successes to get a headshot for extra damage.
• Some skilled individuals will have a number of bonus dice to represent their skills. These are baked into specific weapons, and are a D8, increasing the likelihood of a 4+ or a 6+. So an assassin might have 2d8 bonus for sniper and no bonus for melee or pistol.


I have also come up with a morale mechanic which I think works well:

Suppression:

As damage is dealt with at the end of a units turn, they can use their actions to perform Suppression actions to remove damage cards. This allows them to live longer but do less in the turn.

Morale:

Units will have a Morale value, which is the maximum number of damage cards they can have on them and perform anything other than suppression actions. For example, if a unit has a morale of 6, has 4 action points, and 8 damage on them, they must use 2 suppression actions to remove 2 damage (down to 6) before they can perform other actions like moving or fighting. This represents them diving terrified into cover, or just trying to fend off an opponents attacks without trying to hit back.

The two stitch smoothly together and remove any random element (EG 40k's morale checks). Leaders can have actions to bolster morale, which can help rally the troops. Depending on the flavour of the faction, this might involve increasing their morale (making them fight through being shot, and probably die afterwards), or to remove damage cards from nearby units, making them no longer subject to morale.

Some units will also have special rules, such as a berserker being able to move & attack even if subject to morale, but no other actions like taking objectives or shooting.

Vehicles are going to be morale exempt, as there's not much they can do about being hit. No suppression, and no morale - damage is damage on a vehicle!

12,300 points of Orks
9th W/D/L with Orks, 4/0/2
I am Thoruk, the Barbarian, Slayer of Ducks, and This is my blog!

I'm Selling Infinity, 40k, dystopian wars, UK based!

I also make designs for t-shirts and mugs and such on Redbubble! 
   
 
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