Single oppossed attacking mechanic

[The Outlaw Josie Whales]

I'd like to experiment with a single opposed attacking mechanic and would appreciate any thoughts or suggestions.

By single opposed attacking mechanic I mean both the attacker and defender rolling to determine the outcome of the attack and those rolls determining how much if any damage was incurred by the defender.

Here is what I have right now.

Attacker rolls 3d6 + his whatever dice he would roll for damage based on the attack + applicable modifier

For example a morning star attack would be 3d6 + 1d8 + strength modifier.

At the same time the defender would roll 3d6 + an assigned dice for armor (based on the AC bonus rating ie 5 = 1d4+1) + ability modifiers.

Both sides total and the amount by which the attacker exceeds the defenders total is the damage.

Note: 3d6 is substituted for 1d20 based on my own preference for having a standard curve built into the mechanic, you could use the standard 1d20.

Thoughts and suggestions appreciated.

[General Dorsey]

What purpose would this serve?

[Lachlan_Macquarie]

General Dorsey wrote:

What purpose would this serve?

I think it's likely purpose is to substitue the standard base 10+AC+Dex+etc for an actual roll, so Attack Vs. Defense become a roll vs. Roll, instead of roll Vs. passive.

I actually like the mechanic, but then again, I've used it before. An argument against it would be that many fighters go through sparring drills and learn the techniques and how to block them standardly. Thus the passive average 10 is given in the stead of the D20 or 3D6.

Basically, if you have a passive defense of 10+4ac+6dex+2na, you would have an effective defense of 22. Say you make the passive 10 a D20, that defense could go up to 32, just as easily as it could go down to 13.

I think that roll should be given to inexperienced fighters like wizards, sorcerers, bards and similar classes as their training in such combat is less refined.

[Alexander Kilcoyne]

Its nice in theory but it does slow down gameplay, especially in large groups.

Also, randomness= bad for players.

[The Outlaw Josie Whales]

Alexander Kilcoyne wrote:

Also, randomness= bad for players.

I think in terms of randomness it's about the same as the d20 mechanic. Certainly on defense there will be more variance due to rolling versus a static number. But on offense there will actually be less variance due to the use of 3 dice.

For example on a d20 the lowest possible roll is 1 and the odds of rolling this are 1/20

On a 3d6 the lowest possible roll is 3 but the odds of this are 1/216 (1/6 * 1/6 *1/6)

What this means is that on both sides (offense & defense) rolls will tend to be in the middle numbers with fewer very large or very small numbers.

[The Outlaw Josie Whales]

Lachlan_Macquarie wrote:

General Dorsey wrote:

What purpose would this serve?

I think it's likely purpose is to substitue the standard base 10+AC+Dex+etc for an actual roll, so Attack Vs. Defense become a roll vs. Roll, instead of roll Vs. passive.

I actually like the mechanic, but then again, I've used it before. An argument against it would be that many fighters go through sparring drills and learn the techniques and how to block them standardly. Thus the passive average 10 is given in the stead of the D20 or 3D6.

Basically, if you have a passive defense of 10+4ac+6dex+2na, you would have an effective defense of 22. Say you make the passive 10 a D20, that defense could go up to 32, just as easily as it could go down to 13.

I think that roll should be given to inexperienced fighters like wizards, sorcerers, bards and similar classes as their training in such combat is less refined.

This is a concern certainly and I'm not where I come down. I'm going to give it a play test through an entire adventure to see what happens.

My hunch is that using this also requires adjustment to hit points for player characters to compensate for exactly what you're talking about.

I'm sure there are other solutions. What was your playing experience like with it?

[jlord]

If you are looking to get the players to roll defense, I recommend "players roll all the dice" rules.

Basically any static number like ac, spell resistance, spell dc's are -10 and +1d20.

All things that bad guys roll are a +11 or +12, instead of actually rolling.

So If the bad gnoll attacks instead of the dm rolling a 1d20+ whatever it would be 11+whatever.

Instead of hitting their ac of 10 + modifiers, the players roll a d20+modifiers.

If your goal of this is more than just getting the playrs to roll more, I wish you good luck on your playtest.