Battle mechanic using dice, cards, and permanent upgrades

So does it make sense why I'm having the attacker use a D20, with a riskier roll, and defenders use D8 for a more steady, dependable roll, with decent chances for higher numbers?

Anyone see any problems here, or have concerns about any aspect? Wondering how this sounds to you all - if it makes an interesting enough idea, and how unique it might be. Thanks!

EDIT: we did have one other issue before there were limits on how many cards could be played. We would use up a lot of cards, which was fun, but then our decks were depleted. If you were defending, that left you vulnerable to attack by another player, little or no cards left to play in defense.

Ok, to revisit this mechanic, I've removed the restrictions on how many cards can be played in a battle. That was a recent addition, but it just was too restrictive. Earlier play tests worked better and were more fun. So Attackers can play as many Strike or Reinforcement cards they need, and defenders can play as many Defense or Reinforcement cards as they need.

However, I've been re-thinking the linear "up the ante" style of bumping up your score using dice, upgrades, cards, and time machine. I came up with something that keeps all those elements, but uses them a bit differently.

I'm considering having the Strike and Defense UPGRADES represent your base "power" in a battle - this is the amount of power you start with each time you begin combat. The purpose of this is to use a battle to reduce your opponent's power to zero before he takes yours down.

Battle begins with the D20 and D8s as described in the original post. Subtract the low score from the high score on this roll - that's the amount subtracted from the person who had the lower dice roll. So subtract from their "power gauge".

Now, each player can play a point card from their hand to subtract more power from each other's power gauges.

Then repeat the process - roll the strike and defense dice again, subtract the difference in rolls from the lower player, then both players play their next card. Players with a Time Machine can reroll if they have sufficient "fuel" to use it.

Battle ends when either player reaches zero power, or when the attacker decides to retreat. When combat ends, players return their power gauges to the level they started at (based on their upgrades).

So which way would YOU rather play? I know I need to find out which ends up being more fun in play testing, but which one sounds more tactical or interesting? The second, newer version has similarities to "Risk", but I don't think it creates nearly as much randomness.

I want a certain amount of randomness from the dice to create tension and uncertainty, but I also want players to feel that they can deal with the unpredictable parts of battle using their choices.

In the original rules, you could just start adding your lowest cards to just get the minimum points to have a higher score than your opponent, and save bigger point cards for more desperate situations. Plus, you have to keep a running tally of how many points you are in the lead, and if someone changes their dice roll with the time machine, you have to recalculate.

In this newer idea, you don't have to keep a running tally or count - you just lower your gauges and you can clearly see how much you and your opponent have left. This helps you consider whether you want to play a higher point card or a lower one - do you feel like you need to play the higher one to guarantee a big hit to your opponent, or do you feel you have enough power left that you can play a lower card and take a chance on the next dice roll - maybe the dice will do a lot of damage, and you can save your cards.

Why save high point cards? Not only are they comforting to have on hand, in case of a more desperate battle, but all cards have a secondary use. If not used in battle, they can be used to sabotage your opponents later, and the higher point cards will sabotage more valuable things.

In this idea, we take the Strike and Defense upgrades as a starting point.

Player 1 has built Strike upgrades that add up to 7 points of Strike Power. He has also spent 8 units of steam to boost that to a total of 15.

Player 2 has built Defense upgrades only totaling 5 points of Defensive Power. On a previous turn, Player 2 had also spent 5 steam units to add 5 points (totaling 10).

Player 1 considers his Strike and Reinforcement cards & decides he feels confident in attacking Player 2. He places a marker to show which facility he's targeting, and rolls the D20 to Strike. He rolls a "13".

Player 2 has and upgrade that allows him to roll 3D8 (instead of only 2). He rolls and 8, a 3, and a 1. Player 2 doesn't have many Defense or Reinforcement cards, but he has one use left of his Time Machine, so he re-rolls the 3 & 1 (keeps the 8). The results are another 3, and 4. So adding the 8+3+4, his roll totals 15.

Player 1 rolled 13, so he lost the roll by 2 points. He subtracts those from his Strike Power (starting at 15) so he has 13 power left (he adjusts his gauge to show this).

Now they each play a card. Player 1 plays a Strike card worth 6 points, so player 2 lowers his Defense gauge by 6 points (10-6 leaves him at 4 defense power). Player 2 plays a Defense card worth 4 points, so Player 1 drops his strike gauge from 13 to 9.

Now they roll again, and repeat until one player is at zero, or the attacker withdraws and ends the battle.

When the battle ends, the defender's (player 2) defense power gauge goes up to 5 (for his defense upgrades). When player 1 ends his turn, his strike power gauge returns to 7, the total from his upgrades.

Well, after writing it all out, it sounds complicated! But in actual play, it's just a quick dice roll, subtraction and slide your gauges, then play cards, subtract, slide gauges again. Rinse & repeat.

Hope it makes more sense this time - sometimes I have a hard time visualizing a scenario just from a written description, so I understand if this doesn't come across well to a lot of you. Thanks for reading through at least!

Any bit of feedback helps - thanks for giving it some thought! I think it's just going to come down to which gives a more enjoyable experience for the players, and for that I need to get more play-testing done - if only there were more gamers around in deep south Texas lol.

I'm still debating the use of the 3rd D8. I'm leaning towards eliminating it from the game, and just having the upgrade give extra strategy cards instead of an extra Defense die.

While it makes players feel safer in defense, it would probably make attacking someone feel maybe too daunting, and players would be less likely to engage in any combat. Yes, they could beef up their combat gauge, but if players feel like they have to focus too much on that, they miss out on production of other important resources.

The tricky thing about my cards is the designation that separates them into 3 basic categories - Strike, Defense, and Reinforcement. Since the Strike cards can only be played by the attacker, and the Defense cards can only be played by the defender, you really never quite know how many cards your opponent has that can be used against you in a battle. They might have 10 cards, and only 2 or 3 that they can use against you. Not the most likely scenario, but it's happened!

I've pretty much kept the same lineup of cards (including the special ability ones) the same since the very first playtest over a year ago. But recently, I've been messing around with the rules and mechanics a lot, so play tester feedback is a little erratic, depending a lot on which versions I've tested.

Most like having the 3D8, but it has made a lot of battles hard for the attacker to win. I might keep the 3rd D8, but just make it come into the game later, with a different upgrade that takes longer before it can be built.

The new idea I posted about using the built-up combat bonus gauge as a way to even out dice rolls feels promising, after all the other things i've tried. So far, I've only tried it out in a game playing against myself though! But the idea now is that one player or the other will have to use that gauge - that supply of "bonus" points in the battle, while the other player doesn't use any - they get to keep the points for another combat situation and continue building up a nice big supply (in case of a really bad roll)

So the dice roll basically exists to cause one player to use up some of those stored up points to even things out. Then, they will have a good chance of winning the combat with their Strategy cards. I'm speculating that the difference between 2D8 and 3D8 for the defender is going to be, on the one hand, the defender having to spend bonus points more often (2D8) or on the other hand, the attacker spending their points more often (rolling against 3D8). That would be "more often" based on multiple battles.

Rolling a d20 against 2d8 means you'd automatically lose if you roll a 1 or 2 (that's a 10% chance) but you'd automatically win if you roll a 17, 18, 19, or 20 (that's a 20% chance). Rolling a d20 against 3d8 means automatically losing with a 1, 2, or 3, and no unbeatable roll. In fact, the 3D8 defender would now have 4 additional possible unbeatable rolls (20-24).

Don't really know how all that figures in statistically, since for the D8s, the low and high rolls are statistically a lot less frequent.

Thanks X3M for all your input throughout this thread! I was on all dice last night with BH Futurist helping me figure it out, but still learning to make sense of all the graphs.

From those numbers you put, it seems like it would be best to have the 3rd D8 come into the game later - players won't get to unlock it until they do more upgrades first.

For one thing, battles are more useful in the first half of the game, and later it's better to use the Strategy cards for sabotage (they're dual use cards). Any late battles will be easier for the defender.

Secondly, the new mechanic basically has the dice determining which player has to spend their accumulated points (and how many). It doesn't necessarily determine who's gonna win, unless it's an unusually high point spread. Once the points are used to mitigate the dice roll, it comes down to the card playing to determine the winner.

Each player can build their own time machine as well as upgrade it to have more uses per turn. You don't necessarily want to spend all your uses for it on a battle, since it's much more helpful in the Alchemy experiments of the game (for game points).

And of course the time machine can be more helpful for the defender, since they might have a high result and a low result, then choose to use the time machine to only re-roll the lower die. For the attacker, you just have the 1D20, so it's only worth the re-roll if you have a pretty low roll to start with.