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Simple dice combat

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Nukeshooter
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Joined: 08/21/2014

Hi,

I am working on a board game that uses a simple opposing-roll dice system where you add bonuses or penalties of various amounts. Each outcome is based on one dice against each other with mods, and those mods range from +1 to +2, but are stackable, so you could presumably get +4 or +5 (although mods that high would be rare and would require the player to expend most of their resources).

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions for what type of dice to roll? I'm thinking d8, because this gives a high enough variance that +2 and +3 bonuses could be overcome by a non-modified roll. Should I kick it up to d10 or 12? Or down to d6, allowing for more concrete (but still rare) blowouts?

Haven't gotten to play testing yet, but I wanted to see if anyone had advice or a similar system?

X3M
X3M's picture
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Joined: 10/28/2013
Personally, I never

Personally, I never understood why people use + modifiers.
Of course it is easy to simply add a number to the rolled dice. But it makes the game balance hard to get if you don't do your math.

I wonder if any one has ever thought of the impact that a modifier can have? To have a good view at this, I post here the several results of only D6.

Of course you could say that the number of wins increases slower and slower. But then I say that you need to look at the chance to loose as well. That one actually goes faster and faster. Once 0 loss is reached, the win chance is actually relatively "infinite".

I always divide the win chance with the loss chance. Because I think that that is the true strength of a die in battle.

When 1 versus 1 die is rolled and the winner is the die that has rolled the highest number (equal is a tie).
Then the results are:

D6 gives 36 possible results each roll:
+0 modifier: 15 win, 6 ties, 15 loss
+1 modifier: 21 win, 5 ties, 10 loss
+2 modifier: 26 win, 4 ties, 6 loss
+3 modifier: 30 win, 3 ties, 3 loss
+4 modifier: 33 win, 2 ties, 1 loss
+5 modifier: 35 win, 1 tie , 0 loss
+6 modifier: 36 win, 0 ties, 0 loss

When ties don't count as success or fail, the win factors are:
+0 modifier: 1
+1 modifier: 2.1
+2 modifier: 4.333
+3 modifier: 10
+4 modifier: 33
+5 modifier: infinite
+6 modifier: infinite

When ties do count as success, but not fail;
+0 modifier: 1.4
+1 modifier: 2.6
+2 modifier: 5
+3 modifier: 11
+4 modifier: 35
+5 modifier: infinite
+6 modifier: infinite

When ties don't count as success, but do as fail;
+0 modifier: 0.714
+1 modifier: 1.4
+2 modifier: 2.6
+3 modifier: 5
+4 modifier: 11
+5 modifier: 35
+6 modifier: infinite

I hope this gives a better understanding of the basics.
If you want, I could post for the other dice as well.

The Chaz
The Chaz's picture
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Joined: 11/20/2012
.

I think we're approaching this from the wrong direction (though X3M's multipliers are quite helpful for perspective).

Just stick with d6! You can do the math on how good a +X is.
Or do the math on how good an extra die is (take the max roll).

Either way, you should be able to get the strength of probability that you want without resorting to a d100.

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