To put you into context, it's for my Eldrith Express sequel. I already asked before for some insight, but new ideas came in after playing One Deck Dungeon. The mechanic will be used to resolve an encounter (Think Eldrich/Arkham Horror style encounter). The objectives are:
- Offer players a choice of the skill to use where both are meaningful path. So the player does not necessarily only take his strongest skill.
- Offer negative and positive side effects independently of success.
- Offer players some manipulations of the randomness for more strategic decisions.
The new system goes as follows, on each encounter card there is a row of 4 boxes with a casualty icon and a die number in each box (like one deck dungeon). And on the second row, there is 2 double boxes with a bonus reward icon. In the left box, it's written "odd", in the right box "even".
When a player reach an encounter he draws a card and must now chose between 2 skill. Each choice has a different difficulty level. Generally you have the easy choice which is 1+ or 2+. Then you have the hard choice which is 3+ or 4+, but if you succeed the hard choice, you get the asset on the card. Failed encounter will remain there making it easier for other players to plan for it.
The player will roll 2 set of dice. The player roll X (2-5) white dice, where X is the value of the skill he wants to use. Then the player can roll X (0-3) red dice which is given by various equipment, skills, expendables, etc. No more than 8 dice can be rolled.
The first step is to verify success. Player roll all dices and he must get a pair with his white dices. If the number on the pair is greater or equal the difficulty level of the encounter (the 1+ to 4+ value) he succeed.
The player will be able to spend exp to increase the value of a die by 1 point. There might be some skills or items that gives re-rolls.
The second step consist in either covering the top 4 square with dice (white and red) where the value exceed the number in the square (like in one deck dungeon), or place 2 odd or even dices in the double boxes on the bottom line to get a bonus reward.
If I criticize my own system to find some of it's flaw:
Both choices seems interesting, but the skill level of the player could dictate the choice if their value is not similar. For example, if a player's skill is strong in the easy choice, and weak with the hard choice, he should obviously take the easy choice. Still, it will not happen in all encounters.
The probabilities for rolling any pair can be a bit hard when the number of dice is low. Then it rise pretty fast when the number of dice rolled increases.
2 Dice = 16%, 3 Dice = 44%, 4 dice = 72%, 5 dice = 90%
The probability for a 4+ pair is half the above. Still, a player with only 2 dice, could focus before the encounter to get an extra die. And there is still manipulation by experience points. I also think there is 3-4 characters out of 12 with a stat of 2.
- I played 2 games so far of one deck dungeon and the dice placement feels more like a puzzle than a strategy mechanism. You try to find the optimal way to get the less casualties. Here it's a bit different, you can still choose your casualties, but you can also try to get rewards instead if you are willing to take the casualties.
I'll give it more testing, if you have any comments let me know.
Somebody on BGG complained that is was not clear and that an illustration would make it easier to understand. So I decided to make one:
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/4857452/larienna