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 Peregrine wrote:
The better solution is to remove saves from the game. Get rid of the silly idea that the owner of a model always gets to roll a die to see if they can save it and just have a single roll of strength vs. toughness. The system would have to be re-scaled, of course, but the end result would remove some of the tedious dice rolling.

Except, it's not ridiculous. It's a perfectly legitimate way to differentiate between shooting someone (say, with a pistol) wearing a bullet proof vest as opposed to shooting someone not wearing a bullet proof vest, for example.

You might be aiming the gun well. You might have shot him in such a way as to have pierced a vital organ (assuming that there are no hindrances).

But if there's a bullet proof vest in the way, none of that really matters, does it?

On the other hand, if you shoot someone with a .50 caliber anti-tank rifle...

Point is, my power-armored marines should be able to tank lasgun shots. All day long.

 Traditio wrote:
Except, it's not ridiculous. It's a perfectly legitimate way to differentiate between shooting someone (say, with a pistol) wearing a bullet proof vest as opposed to shooting someone not wearing a bullet proof vest, for example.

Which you can do with a single strength vs. toughness value. Normal human = T3. Normal human with a bullet proof vest = T4. Space marine = T5. Space marine with better armor = T6. There is no need to represent armor as an additional die roll instead of part of a single toughness stat.

But if there's a bullet proof vest in the way, none of that really matters, does it?

Except that's not how 40k's armor system works. You don't have a binary "either your armor stops this entirely or it does effectively nothing" depending on the weapon, you have a random chance of your bullet proof vest doing anything. That's mathematically equivalent to a single strength vs. toughness roll (with different numbers than the current system, obviously), it just involves rolling more dice.

On the other hand, if you shoot someone with a .50 caliber anti-tank rifle...

Which can be adequately represented by a higher strength value. For example, that .50cal rifle might be a STR 6 weapon compared to a STR 3 assault rifle, allowing it to wound both the normal human and the normal human with a bullet proof vest on a 2+.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Traditio wrote:
Point is, my power-armored marines should be able to tank lasgun shots. All day long.

Aren't you the same person who had a whole thread explaining how people are WAAC TFGs if they play units that are too durable and the game doesn't involve mass casualties on both sides? And now you're telling us that you want your special snowflake marines to be immune to an infantry IG* army's primary weapons? Does the "stuff needs to die" rule only apply when it's everyone else's stuff dying?

*IOW, the only IG army, since you've also stated that playing tank-spam IG is WAAC TFG behavior.

Simply dropping the wound roll would cause all sorts of issues... But there's various alternate systems that could be used to incorporate hitting and Wounding into one roll.

I suggested this one in Proposed Rules a while back, as a way to incorporate the two without having to make widescale changes to anything else...

Peregrine:

I understand the points that you are making, and I broadly agree with it; the problem is that 40k bases itself on six-diced dice.

It "works" in a system like D&D because that system is based on 20-sided dice.

And frankly, I don't think that this kind of giant shift is needed. Your lasgun, under the current system, has a 1/9 chance of killing a marine (assuming a successful to hit roll). That's roughly equivalent to requiring a roll of 18 or 19 on a d20.

Even if the system were rescaled, etc., you'd still need that 18 or 19 to deal a wound.

At this point, I find myself asking:

Isn't it just more convenient to use the current system? It's a bit more "tedious," but it does save the bother of having to accumulate a large number of twenty-sided dice and completely re-writing the rules.

 Traditio wrote:
I understand the points that you are making, and I broadly agree with it; the problem is that 40k bases itself on six-diced dice.

Then fix the D6 problem. We don't need to keep using D6s just because some 1980s fantasy game used them.

Isn't it just more convenient to use the current system? It's a bit more "tedious," but it does save the bother of having to accumulate a large number of twenty-sided dice and completely re-writing the rules.

Yes, of course it's more convenient. The rules are garbage in general and need to be re-written anyway, so this is just one fix among many for a hypothetical new edition. And getting D20s is easy, you just go to the store and buy some. Ideally removing saves is just one of many examples of tedious dice rolling that will be fixed, so you won't even need to buy that many D20s.

A lot of other games have a to hit roll and then a save. It works well, is faster, and honestly 'to wound' is redundant. Especially when you can see over 60+ dice rolled in a single unit's shooting phase. If you told me tomorrow they had gotten rid of a 3rd of the rolling involved in shooting/melee Id be overjoyed.

However, youd have to reboot 40k with a completely new ruleset in order to do that and 40k players are terrified of change, especially after age of sigmar, so itll never happen. The entire way weapon profiles, model characteristics, and even the shooting/assault rules would need to be redone.

 Traditio wrote:
Point is, my power-armored marines should be able to tank lasgun shots. All day long.

So you believe boltguns should be able to kill Warlord Titans by glancing them do death but lasguns shouldn't even be able to kill Marines?

wat

 Peregrine wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
I understand the points that you are making, and I broadly agree with it; the problem is that 40k bases itself on six-diced dice.

Then fix the D6 problem. We don't need to keep using D6s just because some 1980s fantasy game used them.

Isn't it just more convenient to use the current system? It's a bit more "tedious," but it does save the bother of having to accumulate a large number of twenty-sided dice and completely re-writing the rules.

Yes, of course it's more convenient. The rules are garbage in general and need to be re-written anyway, so this is just one fix among many for a hypothetical new edition. And getting D20s is easy, you just go to the store and buy some. Ideally removing saves is just one of many examples of tedious dice rolling that will be fixed, so you won't even need to buy that many D20s.

So if you play guard or orks you're okay with buying 200 d20s. Look if you can't handle 2-2-3-4-5-6-6 that's fine if you prefer d20 systems cool, infinity is a great game, the to wound roll is not one of the big problems 40k has and the d6 system is fine. Let's try to fix what's broken before we start fixing what isn't

 Peregrine wrote:
The better solution is to remove saves from the game. Get rid of the silly idea that the owner of a model always gets to roll a die to see if they can save it and just have a single roll of strength vs. toughness. The system would have to be re-scaled, of course, but the end result would remove some of the tedious dice rolling.

This is the best answer. To wound and to save are essentially asking the same question- does the hit* cause damage?

*hit being defined as an attack of sufficient accuracy to potentially mission kill quality wound.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Toughness, Hits (Wounds), Armour Save and so on all can be part of the equation.

Strength can be folded into Ballistic Skill for a combined Attack roll, so Lasguns succeed on a 6+, whereas (IG) Lascannons succeed on a 5+ and Eldar Destroyer weapons succeed on 2+. Not that difficult.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Toughness, Hits (Wounds), Armour Save and so on all can be part of the equation.

Strength can be folded into Ballistic Skill for a combined Attack roll, so Lasguns succeed on a 6+, whereas (IG) Lascannons succeed on a 5+ and Eldar Destroyer weapons succeed on 2+. Not that difficult.

You make it sound a lot more simple than it actually is. Such a system would also likely require a D10 or a D20 to properly account for all the current variation within the system. That being said, I like the idea but I have my doubts about this being a better system.

ERJAK wrote:
So if you play guard or orks you're okay with buying 200 d20s. Look if you can't handle 2-2-3-4-5-6-6 that's fine if you prefer d20 systems cool, infinity is a great game, the to wound roll is not one of the big problems 40k has and the d6 system is fine. Let's try to fix what's broken before we start fixing what isn't

Here's an example idea: have rapid fire give a strength bonus instead of double shots. Now you've cut the maximum dice count in half. Repeat with similar ideas until you have a smaller dice pool. Which is the whole point of this exercise. The to-wound numbers are easy to learn, but they still involve too many rolls to get a result.

And no, the D6 system isn't fine. It has major scaling issues, especially since GW has apparently decided that 90% of all stats will be 3 or 4 and the rest of the potential range will remain theoretical. And it's a serious factor in driving the rules bloat of 40k. For example, in a D20 system you can add a 5% increment simply by giving a +1 bonus. But with a D6 system you have to add a more complicated special rule, like "may re-roll 1s, succeeding on a 5+". Which is of course different from re-rolling 1s, or re-rolling 1s against particular targets, or re-rolling all failures, or +1 strength, or re-rolling to wound, etc. And so you end up with a complicated mess of different rules which all say essentially the same thing: "add a better chance of success".

 Kilkrazy wrote:

You simply reduce their To Hit.

The To Hit/To Wound/To Save sequence merely generates a probability of a weapon scoring a "hit" on a target. If you remove the To Wound modifier you only have to compensate for it by reducing To Hit or increasing To Save.

Not enough variation in the d6 system for that to be feasible.

 IllumiNini wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Toughness, Hits (Wounds), Armour Save and so on all can be part of the equation.

Strength can be folded into Ballistic Skill for a combined Attack roll, so Lasguns succeed on a 6+, whereas (IG) Lascannons succeed on a 5+ and Eldar Destroyer weapons succeed on 2+. Not that difficult.

You make it sound a lot more simple than it actually is. Such a system would also likely require a D10 or a D20 to properly account for all the current variation within the system. That being said, I like the idea but I have my doubts about this being a better system.

No, it actually is that simple, and it would work just fine with a d6. 40k doesn't need to be so fine-grained.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Strength can be folded into Ballistic Skill for a combined Attack roll, so Lasguns succeed on a 6+, whereas (IG) Lascannons succeed on a 5+ and Eldar Destroyer weapons succeed on 2+. Not that difficult.

IMO the problem with having strength and accuracy related is that you have units with lots of different weapon options, and weapon options that are shared across lots of different units. You can make a mathematically equivalent single roll for strength and accuracy, but it makes things a lot simpler to understand if the unit's stats determine whether or not you hit, then the weapon's stats compared to the target's stats determine whether or not you inflict damage. The reason you can get away with consolidating toughness and saves is that they're both representing the same exact concept: how hard it is to disable or kill a model.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
No, it actually is that simple, and it would work just fine with a d6. 40k doesn't need to be so fine-grained.

It really does, simply because of the sheer range of things it includes. For example, a normal human in carapace armor and a space marine in power armor should clearly have different defense values, but at the same time the normal human in carapace armor should have better defense than the normal human wearing a t-shirt flak "armor". Once you list the different units/weapons/etc you need to include you pretty obviously have more than six different values. And that means either using a die with more sides on it or multiple D6 rolls/special rules for D6 rolls/etc.

And yes, these differences should be included. My DKoK grenadiers clearly have much better armor than the few scraps of cloth that Catachan guardsmen wear, and it would be pretty weird for them both to have the same defense values. But if those grenadiers get bumped up all the way to tactical marine level then there are going to be a lot of unhappy marine fanboys.

I don't believe there needs to be both a 'to wound' and an 'armour save'. Merge them into one and speed the game up, a to hit, to wound and save is clunky, dated, game design.

Either remove toughness and have a model's toughness reflected in it's armour save, or remove the save and have it's armour reflected in it's toughness.

 Peregrine wrote:
The better solution is to remove saves from the game. Get rid of the silly idea that the owner of a model always gets to roll a die to see if they can save it and just have a single roll of strength vs. toughness. The system would have to be re-scaled, of course, but the end result would remove some of the tedious dice rolling.

While I agree with you, the whole point of an armour save is to give the opposing player something to do during the other player's turn. If I'm not rolling dice against a shooting heavy army I might as well go out and have a cigarette and let the other player just tell me what's destroyed after they're done.

Armour saves are an attempt to keep both players invested during every turn.

 Griddlelol wrote:
While I agree with you, the whole point of an armour save is to give the opposing player something to do during the other player's turn. If I'm not rolling dice against a shooting heavy army I might as well go out and have a cigarette and let the other player just tell me what's destroyed after they're done.

Armour saves are an attempt to keep both players invested during every turn.

The solution to this is to get rid of IGOUGO, which is a terrible mechanic. If the only thing keeping a player doing something is rolling dice that are mathematically equivalent to their opponent rolling to beat an armor save, with no (meaningful) decisions involved at any point in the process, then that's a problem that needs to be fixed. And adding extra complexity for the sake of letting players pretend that something fun is happening is not the solution.

If you want to implement this idea without changing point values then you would have the unit roll one extra die per point of toughness beyond the strength of the weapon PER SHOT. Then, if they succeed on any of the rolls they would ignore the wound. That would make a wraithknight roll 3d6 to negate a str5 wound but if it was ap3 it would be a more serious threat to it. It would get 3d6 for feel no pain as well, so the shot would probably do absolutely nothing until you hit krakk missiles because there you would have only a single feel no pain roll as you do now.

It could work, but would add a HUGE amount of time to the game...

 Peregrine wrote:


The solution to this is to get rid of IGOUGO, which is a terrible mechanic. If the only thing keeping a player doing something is rolling dice that are mathematically equivalent to their opponent rolling to beat an armor save, with no (meaningful) decisions involved at any point in the process, then that's a problem that needs to be fixed. And adding extra complexity for the sake of letting players pretend that something fun is happening is not the solution.

How do you propose it's done? Turn based games are a very easy to understand and nicely organised. I've never played a war-game that's not turn based, it seems like it'd be chaos.

I agree with you in theory, armour saves are not interesting, they're not meaningful decisions, they're just rolling a handful of dice, I just have no idea what the practical solution is.

 Traditio wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
The better solution is to remove saves from the game. Get rid of the silly idea that the owner of a model always gets to roll a die to see if they can save it and just have a single roll of strength vs. toughness. The system would have to be re-scaled, of course, but the end result would remove some of the tedious dice rolling.

Except, it's not ridiculous. It's a perfectly legitimate way to differentiate between shooting someone (say, with a pistol) wearing a bullet proof vest as opposed to shooting someone not wearing a bullet proof vest, for example.

You might be aiming the gun well. You might have shot him in such a way as to have pierced a vital organ (assuming that there are no hindrances).

But if there's a bullet proof vest in the way, none of that really matters, does it?

On the other hand, if you shoot someone with a .50 caliber anti-tank rifle...

Point is, my power-armored marines should be able to tank lasgun shots. All day long.

Lord of the ring had no to save roll. Yet curiously enough there was difference whether you had plate armour or not.

Warmachine has no separate to wound and to save roll either. Curiously enough there's difference between guns you use and armour or not you are wearing...

Peregrine wrote:The better solution is to remove saves from the game. Get rid of the silly idea that the owner of a model always gets to roll a die to see if they can save it and just have a single roll of strength vs. toughness. The system would have to be re-scaled, of course, but the end result would remove some of the tedious dice rolling.

Whether the shooting player rolls a dice to 'kill/wound' something on say, a 6, or whether the defending player rolls a dice to 'save' something on 'not a 6' is often fundamentally the same thing.

Look at infinity. You roll to hit, modified by distance/cover etc. Then you roll to save against the strength of whatever was shot at you. It's a d20 system. Rifles have a 'strength' of 13. If you're shot by one, you roll to save, with cover/armour being a positive modifier. power armour in infinity is a +3, or a +4 save modifier. Cover is an additional +3 modifier (it confers additional protection) Let's assume +3 for now. To save against that rifle shot of 13, you need to roll a 14 or greater. Modified by armour. Assuming an armour value of +3, you 'safe' on a roll of 11+ on a d20. This is functionally exactly the same thing as the shooting player rolling a 'to wound' dice where he needs to roll under a target value - in this case 1-10. (infinity mechanics are, aside from armour saves, kinda like blackjack. You want to roll equal to, or under a specific target number, and the closer you are to thst number the better).

There is no reason this system couldn't work in 40k, whether you go with the 'to wound' approach or 'to save'. Assume a marine with an armour save of +3 is shot by a Bolter (strength 4). He needs to roll a 5+, modified by armour saves. He saves on a 2+ when his armour is factored in. (So 3+ to hit him! probably modified by cover/range and then a straight up armour save) If he is shot by a heavy Bolter, or pulse rifle (strength 5) he saves on a 3+ when his armour is factored in. Although thi s system would probably require to hit modifiers as well for range/cover, it's pretty intuitive in infinity which uses it.

Traditio wrote:
Except, it's not ridiculous. It's a perfectly legitimate way to differentiate between shooting someone (say, with a pistol) wearing a bullet proof vest as opposed to shooting someone not wearing a bullet proof vest, for example.

It's excessive, it's bloated and it's unnecessary. It asks exactly the same 'question' as the the armour save roll (Ie did the shot I fired do any damage?).

Traditio wrote:
You might be aiming the gun well. You might have shot him in such a way as to have pierced a vital organ (assuming that there are no hindrances).
But if there's a bullet proof vest in the way, none of that really matters, does it?

Thst bulletproof vest in the way is represented by something like passing your armour save, or rolling above the 'threshold' that the game mechanics define as what you need to resist damage or passing . In 40k we have an incredibly bloated three roll system. It's counter intuitive to say 'yes, I shot you!' (To hit), 'yes, I wounded you!' (To wound roll) Followed by 'no, I didn't wound you!'(armour save). The third directly contradicts what the second achieves. The 'to wound roll' in this three roll mechanism is entirely illogical and contradictory in its nature, and adds nothing. Shooting him in such s way to piece a vital organ is already represented by succeeding in your hit roll, and failing your armour save (is my armour did nothing! The bullet proof vest I wore wasn't 'in the way!).

Two roll systems are better than three roll systems.

Traditio wrote:
On the other hand, if you shoot someone with a .50 caliber anti-tank rifle...

The .50cal anti rank rifle in all likelihood can be represented by having a higher strength/damage value than a low calibre pistol.

Traditio wrote:

Point is, my power-armored marines should be able to tank lasgun shots. All day long.

There is no reason this can't happen in a two roll system.

the real question should be do we really need a negating ap system and cover saves... both could be simplyfied like in fantasy... but on the other hand that would completly mess up the point value of certain troops...

I think the reason it takes 3 rolls to resolve a combat exists to add granularity to the d6 system. I agree with eliminating the to wound roll, but something would have to be done about d6's. I have a feeling GW will never leave the handfuls of d6 rich mans yahtzee that they have developed.

 Griddlelol wrote:

I agree with you in theory, armour saves are not interesting, they're not meaningful decisions, they're just rolling a handful of dice, I just have no idea what the practical solution is.

Rolling saves gives you the feeling of a chance to survive. Time spent playing Orks makes me know all to well how painful it is when I don't get any saves. They make their rolls and then tell me how many of my guys I remove from the table because their shooting has ignores cover. It gives the illusion of interactivity puts the feeling of success and failure into your own hands. People play craps in casinos (not sure why but they do) but if they removed the dice rolling and just had you bet on a number and let the dealer roll or use a program to RNG a number then people wouldn't find it as interesting. Rolling dice is fun and having both players making rolls to decide casualties from an attack is important to the feeling of having a chance and being apart of the game.

As to the whole To Wound roll thing. Honestly rolling to wound isn't a bad thing as its very straight forward and it shows the differences in strength of different weapons, durability of a unit, and the type of defense (save) they have. It what differs a fire dragon's durability from a wratihguard or a space marine on foot with a space marine on a bike. It what makes a krak missile work differently than a hotshot lasgun as they have the same AP but its the strength that matters for them. If there is a "better" system then it would be worth looking into but honestly nothing on this thread has been close to a reasonable replacement in my opinion. Its honestly more complicated to figure out and it requires a massive rework the entire game system for a mechanic that honestly isn't hard to play currently. Perhaps there are too many high toughness MCs in the game that make to wound feel like a pain to roll but that generally is a problem with newer unit design than the core wounding mechanic.

Yea, I understand why they're there, I just don't think they're that great. It's an attempt to keep both players engaged during both turns.
I don't think they're fun or interesting though. 2+ saves make you feel like luck is against you when you roll a 1.
5+ saves make you feel like you're wasting your time rolling.

There must be other ways to engage each player in each turn.

tneva82 wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
The better solution is to remove saves from the game. Get rid of the silly idea that the owner of a model always gets to roll a die to see if they can save it and just have a single roll of strength vs. toughness. The system would have to be re-scaled, of course, but the end result would remove some of the tedious dice rolling.

Except, it's not ridiculous. It's a perfectly legitimate way to differentiate between shooting someone (say, with a pistol) wearing a bullet proof vest as opposed to shooting someone not wearing a bullet proof vest, for example.

You might be aiming the gun well. You might have shot him in such a way as to have pierced a vital organ (assuming that there are no hindrances).

But if there's a bullet proof vest in the way, none of that really matters, does it?

On the other hand, if you shoot someone with a .50 caliber anti-tank rifle...

Point is, my power-armored marines should be able to tank lasgun shots. All day long.

Lord of the ring had no to save roll. Yet curiously enough there was difference whether you had plate armour or not.

Warmachine has no separate to wound and to save roll either. Curiously enough there's difference between guns you use and armour or not you are wearing...

You have added zero meaningful information to those not familiar with said systems.

If it were integrated into a single roll, armour still needs to account for a set amount of that toughness -Armour Piercing weapons should only be able to reduce or totally negate (depending on the weapon) the toughness bonus provided by the armour.

The obvious reason being Armour Piercing shots are effective against an armoured target, but no more effective than ordinary ammo vs an unarmoured target.

A few thoughts, first any simulation argument is doomed to failure, 40k is not a realistic game, so arguing that it need a mechanic to separate a flesh wound from getting ones head shot off seems to miss the point it's a game. Every mechanic has to be defensible as a mechanic that adds something to the game, and I'm not sure armor saves and to wound rolls pass that smell test. Together they triple the time spent rolling dice to resolve a single action, and lets face it, 40k's speed is a major issue for the game.

It could be replaced by a single roll, where you add the attackers offensive value (a combination of weapon strength, accuracy, units skill at arms etc.), and try to get higher than the defenders defense value (representing toughness, armor, dodginess, etc). This gets rid of half of the rules in 40k, and almost all of the lame ones.

Griddlelol wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
The better solution is to remove saves from the game. Get rid of the silly idea that the owner of a model always gets to roll a die to see if they can save it and just have a single roll of strength vs. toughness. The system would have to be re-scaled, of course, but the end result would remove some of the tedious dice rolling.

While I agree with you, the whole point of an armour save is to give the opposing player something to do during the other player's turn. If I'm not rolling dice against a shooting heavy army I might as well go out and have a cigarette and let the other player just tell me what's destroyed after they're done.

Armour saves are an attempt to keep both players invested during every turn.

Steamline the rules so that turns are much faster and embrace the idea that you will not roll anything in your opponent's turn. Kings of War does this, even going so far as to have your opponent roll your moral checks for you. When it's your opponent's turn you don't touch your dice, but even playing games on par with 3000 point WHFB games a turn lasts 10 or 15 minutes, not 30-45 minutes.

Griddlelol wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:


The solution to this is to get rid of IGOUGO, which is a terrible mechanic. If the only thing keeping a player doing something is rolling dice that are mathematically equivalent to their opponent rolling to beat an armor save, with no (meaningful) decisions involved at any point in the process, then that's a problem that needs to be fixed. And adding extra complexity for the sake of letting players pretend that something fun is happening is not the solution.

How do you propose it's done? Turn based games are a very easy to understand and nicely organised. I've never played a war-game that's not turn based, it seems like it'd be chaos.

I agree with you in theory, armour saves are not interesting, they're not meaningful decisions, they're just rolling a handful of dice, I just have no idea what the practical solution is.

Dystopian Wars and Star Wars Armada both immediately come to mind as games I've played with alternating activation and it works VERY well for those larger scale games (which anything over 1k points of 40k should be imo). It is literally as simple as pick 1 unit, move it, shoot with it, assault with it, maybe lay down a token to represent that it has acted, and then your opponent does the same.
It is very good at negating the 'alpha strike' effect that can leave an opponent removing multiple units from the table before they have even gotten to activate them. I've never found either game to be chaotic*, in fact I'd say they are a ton more engaging because of it if anything.




(*I have called Dystopian Wars chaotic on many an occasion, but that is purely because I tried playing several week-long games on 12 foot tables with absurdly large armies.)