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I read in another thread that someone uses D8 to play 40k and it got me thinking: What would change?

Off the top of my head, the game might go faster since rolls would have a higher chance of success. Orks would actually be able to hit against armies with -2 to hit bonuses (albeit not a great chance).
Terminators might actually be worth taking, as would single wound Marines, since rolling 1s & 2s is less likely on a D8

The downside, however, seems to be that units with invulnerable saves and "feel no pain" saves would be really, really hard to kill.
Morale would also be more punishing (which could be a pro or a con depending on the situation)

So with modifiers being more prevalent in this additions, could using D8s for all instances where a D6 is called for be a positive or negative for the game?
Are there any rules that cannot function with D8 at all and would need to be altered (read "function", disregard balance for this)

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My hands would hurt from rolling 61 spikey dice every time my daemonettes hit combat, and my eyes would hurt from reading them across the table.

I think that moving to D12 (and translate values) would be a better solution. It doesn't change the % chances, it just halves the power of modifiers.

Once you do that, you can start tweaking things, like being able to give a 11,000 year old genetically perfected superhuman companion of the Emperor with the best wargear the Imperium has ever produced a better chance to hit than a man in a fancy hat. Or giving Crisis Suits a middle BS between Guardsman and Marine.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
My hands would hurt from rolling 61 spikey dice every time my daemonettes hit combat, and my eyes would hurt from reading them across the table.

LOL, true. Mass rolling would be a literal pain. But rolling 6s would certainly be easier.
Which actually might counter my earlier comment about Termies/Marines being better. There are lots of abilities out there that get extra AP for rolling 6+, which is almost a 38% chance on a D8, double the chance of a D6

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I agree on d12 for quick solution to make the game more interesting.

I'd like to see full integration of d8 within a d6 game however. d12 feels too diluted.

I'm not a fan of D12, as mentioned it does feel diluted, as well as opening up the game to much large granularity, which I actually think is a bad thing as extremes can be much wider. OP things are MUCH more OP and crap units are even crappier, for example.

Also, getting 30+ D12s isn't exactly cheap (granted neither are D8s). Armies like Orks would be a nightmare to play with or against.

I like the D6 system, both for it's simplicity and ease of getting dice. Just wanted to do a thought experiment for use D8s in the D6 system

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Yeah D12 is just much easier if this was something you actually wanted to give a go, because you can directly translate everything.

If you were designing a system from the ground up, no reason you couldn't try d8s though.

Stux wrote:
If you were designing a system from the ground up, no reason you couldn't try d8s though.

I'm not trying to build it from the ground up though. Literally just use D8s instead of D6s, what are the consequences?

I would argue that using D12's actually requires a rebuild since it introduces twice the granularity.

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Well am interesting effect is that everything gets buffed. But the things at the extremes come out the best, while the things in the middle benefit the least, and therefore are effectively merged relative to everything else.

So guys hitting on 4s go from 50% to hit to 62.5%. while guys hitting on 6s go from 17% chance to hit to 37.5%. A massive buff for the latter!

Guys with a 5+ save go from 67% chance to fail to a 50% chance to fail. While 2+ save goes from 17% to fail to 12.5% chance to fail, which is much more significant.

Basically most units get overall fairly randomly better or worse. Guardsmen are much more durable but relatively not much better at shooting. Marines get a bit better at everything, but maybe not enough to make up for everyone else's buffs. Ork Boys do very well. Custodes would be insane.

Those that benefit are too random really for it to be something I'd recommend.

If you were designing a game from the ground up then D10 or D20 is a better way to go.

Overwatch would either drop tremendously, or become super-powered if you allowed a 6+ to score as an Overwatch shot.

I feel 40K is already borderling "too deadly", a D8 would blow this game to pieces. It'd be scoop-model-fest 2018.

 Elbows wrote:
Overwatch would either drop tremendously, or become super-powered if you allowed a 6+ to score as an Overwatch shot.

I feel 40K is already borderling "too deadly", a D8 would blow this game to pieces. It'd be scoop-model-fest 2018.

Fair enough, that was what I was missing. That single mechanic skews the game too much to just use D8s.

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I think D8 would be the easiest to do rules for as you don't have to adjust terribly much. D12 would need a bigger rewrite but some people are all for that though.

 Elbows wrote:
Overwatch would either drop tremendously, or become super-powered if you allowed a 6+ to score as an Overwatch shot.

I feel 40K is already borderling "too deadly", a D8 would blow this game to pieces. It'd be scoop-model-fest 2018.

Actually, with D8 many things won't freaking die.

After all, a 2+ save is far better on a D8 than a D6.


But mostly, anything that triggers on a 6+ would become bonkers (unless they are changed to 8+ ofc)

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Or giving Crisis Suits a middle BS between Guardsman and Marine.

That just seems like distinction without a purpose. Does 8% really do anything for the game? If suits were 8% better they might cost more points.

The point about modifiers is ok, but then armies with multiple modifiers are still in a better position than those with few to none who become crippled.

I'm not confident D12s could be shoe-horned into the current rules.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Or giving Crisis Suits a middle BS between Guardsman and Marine.

That just seems like distinction without a purpose. Does 8% really do anything for the game? If suits were 8% better they might cost more points.

The point about modifiers is ok, but then armies with multiple modifiers are still in a better position than those with few to none who become crippled.

I'm not confident D12s could be shoe-horned into the current rules.

D12 most certainly can be shoe horned into the rules, it's a simple case of translating x+ values. How effective it would be without more re-writes is another thing.

if you were using d8s, would you then change the damage of weapons to be D8 damage? lascannons do d8 damage. How about battlecannons, would they do d4? Its much easier to get your hands on a d4 than it is a d3.

the d12 option though, how would you translate values? So you would just modify WS and BS. 3+ becomes 6+ but what would you do for charging and advancing? Would you just roll a single d12 for charges? that means minimum is now 1" instead of 2"
Advancing would be d12 divided by 2 rounding up?

A 5++ Invul going from completely ignoring 1/3rd of attacks to 1/2 attacks would probably be enough to cause significant problems. A 3++ would definitely be almost as bad as a 2++ on a D6. I don't think the extra hits would cancel this out, but I could be wrong.

D8 40k!!!
More Hits!
More Saves!
More Action!
More Grim!
More Dark!

 Icculus wrote:
if you were using d8s, would you then change the damage of weapons to be D8 damage? lascannons do d8 damage. How about battlecannons, would they do d4? Its much easier to get your hands on a d4 than it is a d3.

the d12 option though, how would you translate values? So you would just modify WS and BS. 3+ becomes 6+ but what would you do for charging and advancing? Would you just roll a single d12 for charges? that means minimum is now 1" instead of 2"
Advancing would be d12 divided by 2 rounding up?

3+ becomes 5+.

You double, then subtract one, to get the same odds. Not just double.

On the OP topic - hit modifiers become less harsh, but on the flip side, units with good BS are hitting even more often, things like plasma are even less likely to explode, reroll auras mean that missing is very unlikely, invuln saves get much stronger, overwatch on a 6+ means it goes from a 1/6 chance of hitting to a 3/8 chance, and even basic saving throws get better (things like Plaguewalkers would actually get a save out of cover).

I could see it working somewhat with a fix here and there with indexes, but going with armies with full codices against each other the number of rerolls, special rules, etc will swing things into either too defensive, or too offensive.

BaconCatBug wrote:I think that moving to D12 (and translate values) would be a better solution. It doesn't change the % chances, it just halves the power of modifiers.

Once you do that, you can start tweaking things, like being able to give a 11,000 year old genetically perfected superhuman companion of the Emperor with the best wargear the Imperium has ever produced a better chance to hit than a man in a fancy hat. Or giving Crisis Suits a middle BS between Guardsman and Marine.

BaconCatBug wrote:If you were designing a game from the ground up then D10 or D20 is a better way to go.

These two thought basically sum up my opinion on changing dice values of 40k. Add a bit more granularity between units before jumping through the special rules loops to differentiate them, and penalties to hit become less extreme. That said I think just moving to d12 as a kludge fix is a bad idea, it should be built from the ground up that way.

Galef wrote:I'm not a fan of D12, as mentioned it does feel diluted, as well as opening up the game to much large granularity, which I actually think is a bad thing as extremes can be much wider. OP things are MUCH more OP and crap units are even crappier, for example.

Also, getting 30+ D12s isn't exactly cheap (granted neither are D8s). Armies like Orks would be a nightmare to play with or against.

I like the D6 system, both for it's simplicity and ease of getting dice. Just wanted to do a thought experiment for use D8s in the D6 system

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Note that if 40k went to a d12 system, or dwhatever system really, GW would release their own sets of dice, and in short order most other dice companies that cater to gaming shops will start packaging sets of the needed dice. Within a year they'd be as easy to get as d6s are now.

A d10 system would make the most sense if it was being designed from the ground up.

Any alternate dice could be made to work in a newly designed system...and despite what people think it's plenty easy to get as many of those dice as you need (as simple as ordering in bulk from Chessex etc.).

However you'd need to steer away from the current "moar moar moar" dice mentality of the current game.

D8 or higher can work, but it needs to scale back the rolls considerably. The beauty of D6 is that it is exceptionally stable after a roll, whereas a D8 or higher can be accidentally pushed or rigged..

In other words, it's not the buying of 8-sided dice that is the problem, but that D6 tends to be an exceptionally stable dice shape(praise the borg cube).

This problem gets worse the larger the dice. I have played enough tabletop roleplaying to know that.

Higher dice, maybe. D8 is very much stable as well.