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I've had a thought about a "to hit" roll system for a game, I was wondering if people have seen anything like it before.

I have 2 concepts, which are the same mechanic but to define different things.

basic design is on a 2D6 roll. you roll the dice, see what the result is and then modify the result by your skill. basic units are skill 0, best units are skill 3.

Option 1: Define number of hits by the roll:

2: 3 hits
3: 2 hits
4: 1 hits
5-9: 0 hits
10: 1 hits
11: 2 hits
12: 3 hits

different guns would have different charts. The jist of this is that the less likely results cause larger hits.

This can be expanded into squad-based games by giving a chart comparing the roll and the amount of weapons firing.

Second option, for more in-depth games, would be as a check to see where you hit. EG:

2: head
3: arm
4: leg
5: body
6-8: miss
9: body
10: leg
11: arm
12: Head

so a skill 2 person rolls an 8, and can modify this to be 6,7,8,9 or 10. a normal trooper just gets what they rolled - in this instance, a miss.

has anyone seen this before?

It reminds me of BattleTech, but using the curve in the to-hit roll instead of treating it like it's flat.

Yes, I've seen 2D6 charts used pretty often. Not with the inverted bell curve for hits, but I'd strongly caution against the way you have it written there at the moment. As you have it written there you'd miss 67% of the time...which would infuriate a lot of players, unless they're playing militia or hapless infantry, etc. You could, of course, have numerous charts depending on the skill of the soldiers.

The hit table is used in a number of games, often with mechanics for shifting results up or down as a result of a skill or "aim", etc.

2D6 tables are an okay mechanic. There's nothing new, fancy, or elegant about them. Sometimes, though, a game needs a proper and proven workhorse. A lot of games try too hard to be clever when it's unnecessary.

A 2D6 chart can be tedious if you need to roll results for more than a few models/shots/units at the same time. Also a +/- die roll modifier gets wonky.

 Elbows wrote:
Yes, I've seen 2D6 charts used pretty often. Not with the inverted bell curve for hits, but I'd strongly caution against the way you have it written there at the moment. As you have it written there you'd miss 67% of the time...which would infuriate a lot of players, unless they're playing militia or hapless infantry, etc. You could, of course, have numerous charts depending on the skill of the soldiers.

It works better when you take into account the ability for skill values to choose which direction they offset the roll. Without that, the chart is mostly a complicated D20 check.

I think the main concern, as mentioned above is that it is clunky. There's little denying that. If it's a mechanic you like, it needs to be used sparingly. People frequently suggest bringing back 2D6 rolls for armour saves for Terminators in 40K. That was plausible back in 2nd edition when most models fired a weapon once, and missed about half the time. In today's 40K units (not exaggerating) can shoot upwards of 250 times....often hitting on 2's and re-rolling for...reasons. Now imagine taking 100 armour saves on 2D6...etc.

So if you decide to use a 2D6 mechanic, use it as little as possible. You could also do stuff like combine the rolls. Say you roll 2D6, but one dice is black and one dice is red. Now you have options:

1) The result of the total dice roll is still the result.
2) The red dice indicates where you hit the target model/unit
3) The black dice might be an ammo dice....maybe you run out of ammo on a one.

Now you're combining numerous effects and principles into a single dice roll, making it a bit faster, more...I hate to use the word elegant, but more efficient? So in a single dice roll you now get a larger amount of info. "Cool, I hit you for one hit on the arm, but I ran out of ammo." Boom. All in one dice roll. So, there are things you could add to the idea.

In addition you could add benefits from weapons or skills/traits to a 2D6 system. Maybe you have a sniper...and he does extra damage on each dice that rolls a '6'....meaning if you roll a 6/6 dice roll....it becomes a masterful, mega-damage, perfect sniper shot, etc. Lots of directions you can go with it. I'd just be very careful you don't end up in a game where you're rolling 2D6 a hundred times a turn.

 Elbows wrote:
I think the main concern, as mentioned above is that it is clunky. There's little denying that. If it's a mechanic you like, it needs to be used sparingly. People frequently suggest bringing back 2D6 rolls for armour saves for Terminators in 40K. That was plausible back in 2nd edition when most models fired a weapon once, and missed about half the time. In today's 40K units (not exaggerating) can shoot upwards of 250 times....often hitting on 2's and re-rolling for...reasons. Now imagine taking 100 armour saves on 2D6...etc.

So if you decide to use a 2D6 mechanic, use it as little as possible. You could also do stuff like combine the rolls. Say you roll 2D6, but one dice is black and one dice is red. Now you have options:

1) The result of the total dice roll is still the result.
2) The red dice indicates where you hit the target model/unit
3) The black dice might be an ammo dice....maybe you run out of ammo on a one.

Now you're combining numerous effects and principles into a single dice roll, making it a bit faster, more...I hate to use the word elegant, but more efficient? So in a single dice roll you now get a larger amount of info. "Cool, I hit you for one hit on the arm, but I ran out of ammo." Boom. All in one dice roll. So, there are things you could add to the idea.

In addition you could add benefits from weapons or skills/traits to a 2D6 system. Maybe you have a sniper...and he does extra damage on each dice that rolls a '6'....meaning if you roll a 6/6 dice roll....it becomes a masterful, mega-damage, perfect sniper shot, etc. Lots of directions you can go with it. I'd just be very careful you don't end up in a game where you're rolling 2D6 a hundred times a turn.

These are some good ideas, I will likely be using them if I ever make a game using this mechanic!

The clunkiness should, hopefully, be reduced by the way I'm envisioning this - I expect it to be a single 2D6 roll for any attack. guns with more shots have different charts, so gain different results. squads would have a bigger chart featuring number of weapons, EG 10 dudes shooting rolls a 2D6 and consults the chart for the gun to determine how many hits.


Now that I put it in writing, it doesn't half sound dull...

So... Why? Not meant as criticism, but moreso wondering what the benefit is to the aforementioned cost.

That's always the question though, isn't it?

If it's just a concept exercise...or the base starting point for something, that's fine.

If it's just different to be different, it'll be called out by users/customers/consumers. There's heaps of this in the game design world. Loads of reinventing the wheel and then claiming it's a bespoke/elegant new game mechanic, etc.

Maybe using this system allows the designer/author to open up more possibilities or some extra depth he can't get with other designs or mechanics. If it's a personal project and he simply enjoys the idea - even better. Sometimes you need to crush through some game mechanics and test games before you realize how good or bad your idea is.

Sometimes a clunky idea may end up being the indirect inspiration behind another completely different mechanic. Sometimes a clunkier mechanic can be streamlined/beaten into submission and end up as a similar but fancy/useful mechanic, etc.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Yes, I've seen 2D6 charts used pretty often. Not with the inverted bell curve for hits, but I'd strongly caution against the way you have it written there at the moment. As you have it written there you'd miss 67% of the time...which would infuriate a lot of players, unless they're playing militia or hapless infantry, etc. You could, of course, have numerous charts depending on the skill of the soldiers.

It works better when you take into account the ability for skill values to choose which direction they offset the roll. Without that, the chart is mostly a complicated D20 check.

I disagree with this as a d20 is a 5% on any individual number, but a 2d6 has a bell curve, with a 7 have the highest likelihood to come up. Totally different probability curves.

I prefer the "predictability" of a 2d6 curve to a the false granularity of a d20.


Defense of the D6:
https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2019/04/wargame-design-in-defense-of-humble-d6.html

False Granulairty of the D20:
https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2017/03/wargame-design-false-granularity-of-d20.html



On this mechanic, I think it could work really well in a unit vs unit game, where higher rolls cause higher casualties or morale reduction.

@Easy E: Okay, read the D20 article and I don't understand why a variable +1 modifier (xDy) is better than (1Dy). Something to do with granularity, but I don't get it.

I think my initial aim was to utilise the probability curve of a 2D6 without slowing down a game too much - hence using a 2D6 and a chart for groups.

I'm wondering if a 2D6 based game with small groups of people (IE squads of 3-4 max). I like the idea of having 2 different dice to roll, giving a variety of results from a single roll. For example, I'm pondering the idea of the jam dice and a critical dice. If the critical dice > jam dice, then you get a critical result. If the jam dice = critical, you jam. overall result dictates if you hit / how many hits.

Then individual skills can modify each aspect - EG sniper skill increases critical dice result by 1. General skill will modify the result in whichever direction you choose.

Okay, but what does the curve achieve in your game?

Nurglitch wrote:
Okay, but what does the curve achieve in your game?

Not sure yet, if I'm honest.

One thought I've had is to scrap the curve, and instead have the following:

Critical Statistic: 1-5, statistic is on the weapon / attacker.
Toughness statistic: on the defender

Roll 2D6. One of the dice is the critical dice.

Roll equal to or over toughness, it's a wound
if Critical dice rolls equal to or below the critical hit value, it's a critical hit - if it wounds.

The theory here is that it's harder to actually inflict a critical hit on a tougher target, as you have to roll low on one dice but high on the pair of dice. a more critical weapon (EG sniper rifle) will get a critical hit on higher critical dice rolls, meaning it will inflict more critical hits than one which only gets it on a roll of a 1.

Could have strength of weapon = how many dice to roll, and all weapons have a single critical dice in each of the rolls.

Thus a missile launcher might get 5 dice but only a critical on a 1-2, whereas a sniper would get 2 dice but only fail to get a critical on a 6.



Now to decide what a critical hit will actually be. The aim of this is to give a mechanic where it's not all about rolling high to be lucky.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm wondering if this would actually be a good technique for building a game around actually...

number of dice rolled is dictated by a strength, or skill statistic
one single dice is also compared to luck, or something similar.


EG:

you try to hack into a computer terminal using a combination of intelligence & luck. the terminal is difficulty 9.
You have intelligence 3 and luck 2, meaning you roll 3 dice, one of which is a different colour.
if either:
The total exceeds the difficulty, or
the luck dice rolls equal to or below the luck stat,
The terminal is hacked.

You could instead have a flipside to the mechanic; if the luck dice rolls higher than your luck, the terminal is permanently locked out.


This could work for a game where you have several statistics, ranging from 1-5, which either dictate how many dice you roll or the value you mustn't roll higher than, depending on the situation.

EG:

Trying to prise open a door, using Strength & Intelligence - if you're smart enough, you can just open it, if you roll high enough, you can break it open.
Compared with:
deciphering a fragile artefact, using Intelligence and Strength. If you roll high enough, you decipher it. If you roll too high on strength, you break it.

each statistic can be used in 2 ways, and each roll uses 2 statistics.

It'll need a lot of thought but I think, as a concept, it has some merit. It would be more of an RPG than a combat mechanic, though different weapons could utilise different skills in their pairs (Strength & speed, dexterity & skill, etc.).

Nurglitch wrote:
@Easy E: Okay, read the D20 article and I don't understand why a variable +1 modifier (xDy) is better than (1Dy). Something to do with granularity, but I don't get it.

If I understand your question, I am arguing that a d20 is NOT better.

Someone else thought a d20 was essentially the same as 2d6. I disagreed.

 Easy E wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:
@Easy E: Okay, read the D20 article and I don't understand why a variable +1 modifier (xDy) is better than (1Dy). Something to do with granularity, but I don't get it.

If I understand your question, I am arguing that a d20 is NOT better.

Someone else thought a d20 was essentially the same as 2d6. I disagreed.

Better at what, though?

Nurglitch wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:
@Easy E: Okay, read the D20 article and I don't understand why a variable +1 modifier (xDy) is better than (1Dy). Something to do with granularity, but I don't get it.

If I understand your question, I am arguing that a d20 is NOT better.

Someone else thought a d20 was essentially the same as 2d6. I disagreed.

Better at what, though?

Ask Lunar Sol....

 LunarSol wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Yes, I've seen 2D6 charts used pretty often. Not with the inverted bell curve for hits, but I'd strongly caution against the way you have it written there at the moment. As you have it written there you'd miss 67% of the time...which would infuriate a lot of players, unless they're playing militia or hapless infantry, etc. You could, of course, have numerous charts depending on the skill of the soldiers.

It works better when you take into account the ability for skill values to choose which direction they offset the roll. Without that, the chart is mostly a complicated D20 check.

I think 2d6 allows the designer and the player more "knowledge" about likely outcomes based on the probability curve than any single straight d20 roll. Even stacking modifiers is superior on a curve and have a more valuable weighting. Therefore, it is better at allowing a gamer to "manipulate" the outcome than a straight dice roll. This allows a player/designer to make better rational decisions on a curve than a straight roll.

I'm liking the fact that a multiple D6 roll can give a lot more information than a single, larger dice roll.

D20: a value between 1 and 20, with equal chances of each value.

3D6:
A value between 3 and 18, on a bell curve centred around 10.5
The maximum single dice
The minimum single dice
the difference between them
the value of one specific dice
the amount of a specific value rolled (EG "for every 6 rolled...")

You can get a lot more mileage out of multiple dice. You also get things like "Roll 4D6 and discard the highest", or "You may reroll one of the dice" and so on. Such mechanics will offer more control to a player than a flat D20 roll.


I think the mechanic I'm throwing together will work best on a game where you can do one thing per turn. units doing several checks or firing several weapons will probably not do so well.


General principal would be rolling X dice (defined by skill X) to achieve a target (either a window in the bell curve or the more traditional N+). Also 1 dice has to roll below Y (defined by skill Y) to achieve a bonus.

EG, sniper has 4 dice to roll over target toughness to wound. If accuracy dice rolls equal to or below accuracy, it does double damage (headshot).

Machinegun rolls 2 dice, if accuracy dice is below accuracy, roll another shot, up to 3.

That sort of thing.

On of the cool things you can do with multiple dice is to change dice type for higher/lower skill levels.

Ork-en Man wrote:
On of the cool things you can do with multiple dice is to change dice type for higher/lower skill levels.

That's also true, though it reduces accessibility a little - D6 are easy to come by!

 Easy E wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:
@Easy E: Okay, read the D20 article and I don't understand why a variable +1 modifier (xDy) is better than (1Dy). Something to do with granularity, but I don't get it.

If I understand your question, I am arguing that a d20 is NOT better.

Someone else thought a d20 was essentially the same as 2d6. I disagreed.

Better at what, though?

Ask Lunar Sol....

 LunarSol wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Yes, I've seen 2D6 charts used pretty often. Not with the inverted bell curve for hits, but I'd strongly caution against the way you have it written there at the moment. As you have it written there you'd miss 67% of the time...which would infuriate a lot of players, unless they're playing militia or hapless infantry, etc. You could, of course, have numerous charts depending on the skill of the soldiers.

It works better when you take into account the ability for skill values to choose which direction they offset the roll. Without that, the chart is mostly a complicated D20 check.

I think 2d6 allows the designer and the player more "knowledge" about likely outcomes based on the probability curve than any single straight d20 roll. Even stacking modifiers is superior on a curve and have a more valuable weighting. Therefore, it is better at allowing a gamer to "manipulate" the outcome than a straight dice roll. This allows a player/designer to make better rational decisions on a curve than a straight roll.

Not arguing that a d20 is the same as 2d6, but when you collapse the curve it becomes fairly similar. 2d6 has 36 potential outcomes and when folded down reduces to 18. Those 18 outcomes are grouped into specific buckets like so:

Collapsed 2D6:
18: Head
16-17: Arm
13-15: Leg
9-12: Body
1-8: Miss

Which is a chart that could easily translate to a D20. Where 2d6 functions differently is how modifiers apply to it. If you, for example, make it so aiming lets you change the roll by 1 in either direction, you get very different results:

D18:
17-18: Head
15-16: Arm
12-14: Leg
8-11: Body
1-7: Miss

2D6:
16-18: Head
13-15: Arm
9-12: Leg
4-8: Body
1-3: Miss

That can be very powerful, as your modifiers can have a big impact without being overly complicated. The downside is that you have to limit how much your modifiers can stack, as in this case a +2 is enough to make attacks auto hit, though even that can work if you give the opponent options to reduce your modifier with dodge/stealth kind of rules.

Thanks for clarifying Lunar Sol!

What you say makes sense to me.