Max damage re-roll

[Master_of_Plataea]

In my games, we use a house rule called "Max damage re-roll" and it works like this:

"When rolling damage, if you roll the maximum amount of damage on any given dice (4 on a d4, 6 on a d6, etc.) you may reroll that dice for more damage. The number of times you may reroll max damage is equal to the number of faces of the die you are rolling (4 times on a d4, 6 on a d6, etc.)"

Some people believe this can lead to things getting out of hand quickly. I neither agree nor disagree to this statement, that isn't the focus of this post. I would like to see what the community at large thinks of this house rule. What are the pros and cons to using this rule and would you use it, given the opportunity. Alright, go! lol

[Christopher Fannin]

Master_of_Plataea wrote:

Some people believe this can lead to things getting out of hand quickly. I neither agree nor disagree to this statement, that isn't the focus of this post. I would like to see what the community at large thinks of this house rule. What are the pros and cons to using this rule and would you use it, given the opportunity. Alright, go! lol

With crits removed, it'd probably be OK, but yield to an overall increase n the amount of damage done by weapons with a smaller die size (a d4 will roll a max result more often than a d12 will....I doubt the the overall effect is equivalent over time but I'm not sure how to mathematically demonstrate it).

In short, I think it forces people to favor weapons with multiple smaller dice used in the damage. Since you didn't say anything about removing crits, I'd imagine that you see a lot more falchions in your game ;)

[Master_of_Plataea]

We used to but since I made Falchions an exotic weapon my players usually don't. Mostly, my players try to find ways to do multiple small dice beyond just a low dice weapon.

EDIT: instead of normal crits, where you get xX of damage, we use a crit chart

[Cheapy]

Quote:

Some people believe this can lead to things getting out of hand quickly. I neither agree nor disagree to this statement, that isn't the focus of this post. I would like to see what the community at large thinks of this house rule.

I don't understand how all three statements can be true.

[Austin Morgan]

Here's the breakdown:

Face | Normal Average | Average with this rule
4 | 2.50 | 3.33
6 | 3.50 | 4.20
8 | 4.50 | 5.14
10 | 5.50 | 6.11
12 | 6.50 | 7.09

[Christopher Fannin]

Master_of_Plataea wrote:

We used to but since I made Falchions an exotic weapon my players usually don't. Mostly, my players try to find ways to do multiple small dice beyond just a low dice weapon.

EDIT: instead of normal crits, where you get xX of damage, we use a crit chart

For myself, I would say that's too many changes (or not enough changes) for the fun of rolling more dice. Rolling more dice is fun, of course, but I think the difference in die sizes just makes it a fairly random thing that wouldn't add much to my enjoyment of the game.

Were I to consider it, I'd likely remove multiplicative crits and standardize all weapons to some number of d6's. Weapons with really high crit multipliers and/or crit ranges could get special rules to help with that...something like...and this is off the top of my head.

Anything with a standard crit range (20/*2) gets open-ended damage on a roll of 6 on d6. 1 extra roll max (the odds of getting 2 are pretty low, so that's not MUCH of a penalty)

Anything with an expanded crit range (19-20/*2 or 20/*3) gets open ended-damage on 5-6 on d6. 1 extra roll max. (you've got a decent chance of whining over this one).

18-20/*2, 19-20/*3, or 20/*4 crit ranges get 5-6 on d6, 2 extra rolls max per die.

Anything below that just gets an extra roll, or maybe rerolls 1's ^_^

So something like a greataxe would roll 2d6 damage, boost each die on a 5 or 6, but only once. If it was keen, it'd boost again. Overall max damage is much lower (since you don't get to multiply flat damage boosts on a crit), but I think you'd see the average damage over a lot of rolls scale a little higher than it current does.

[Master_of_Plataea]

@Cheapy: My intention was to start a discussion to let people speculate on the impact that this rule could have on the game rather than a debate on how broken the rule is. I would like to see what other players and DMs think of such a rule within their game, whether they would use it, and why or why not.

[Master_of_Plataea]

Christopher Fannin wrote:

Master_of_Plataea wrote:

We used to but since I made Falchions an exotic weapon my players usually don't. Mostly, my players try to find ways to do multiple small dice beyond just a low dice weapon.

EDIT: instead of normal crits, where you get xX of damage, we use a crit chart

For myself, I would say that's too many changes (or not enough changes) for the fun of rolling more dice. Rolling more dice is fun, of course, but I think the difference in die sizes just makes it a fairly random thing that wouldn't add much to my enjoyment of the game.

For me and my players, these are little changes that enhance the game a little bit. As for crits, none of us have ever used normal crits, we've always used a table, just seems natural now lol

[SmiloDan]

We did this in 2nd Edition, and it got kind of ridiculous.

I might be bitter because my tabaxi kensai/monk got killed by a PC this way with a dagger that kept doing max damage--like 6 or 8 times! :-(

And I skipped a King Missile concert just to die!

(Granted, I was throttlng the halfling thief for stealing my potion of healing, so I probably shouldn't have throttled him until AFTER I drank the potion he stole from me....)

And does this rule also apply to spell damage? Magic Missile and Fireball can get pretty crazy.

[Master_of_Plataea]

And I pointed that out Chris because as a DM, that seems like a lot of extra work :P with re-roll, sometimes the players kill a boss really quickly and get the joy of "winning DnD" as they call it, or a near TPK makes for vengeful PCs who will take an adventure hook easier if it means revenge. For my games, it adds another layer of "s$+& can go down quickly" beyond just a crit

[Master_of_Plataea]

Been there Smilo, like I said, it adds another layer of "why am I Adventuring?' to the game lol

get killed by a halfling? Gods help the next halfling i see in a bar, damn the guards, halflings must die!!! lol

And yes it does, but I'm considering taking that out but that would also take out max reroll on healing spells

[wraithstrike]

Master_of_Plataea wrote:

@Cheapy: My intention was to start a discussion to let people speculate on the impact that this rule could have on the game rather than a debate on how broken the rule is. I would like to see what other players and DMs think of such a rule within their game, whether they would use it, and why or why not.

But the potential brokeness is what determines if a rule will be used most of the time. You can't really seperate the two.

I would not use it because I don't want a string of lucky rolls to off my BBEG or kill a party member. Now of course I could fudge the dice to save the party or a party member, but I don't really care for fudging all that much.

[Master_of_Plataea]

wraithstrike wrote:

Master_of_Plataea wrote:

@Cheapy: My intention was to start a discussion to let people speculate on the impact that this rule could have on the game rather than a debate on how broken the rule is. I would like to see what other players and DMs think of such a rule within their game, whether they would use it, and why or why not.

But the potential brokeness is what determines if a rule will be used most of the time. You can't really seperate the two.

You're right I concede lol but I intended to focus on the last part of my original post:

I wrote:

I would like to see what the community at large thinks of this house rule. What are the pros and cons to using this rule and would you use it, given the opportunity?

[Maxximilius]

Master_of_Plataea wrote:

You're right I concede lol but I intended to focus on the last part of my original post:

I wrote:

I would like to see what the community at large thinks of this house rule. What are the pros and cons to using this rule and would you use it, given the opportunity?

Pros :

- Quickens the game... I guess.

Cons :
- Potential brokeness over 9000.
- Favors some characters way too much over others.
- Can kill enemies and players way outside of any control.

[Cheapy]

Pro:

- Makes rogues useful again!
- Makes arcane tricksters useful! (see above point)

Cons:
- Smaller damage die weapons will do more than larger damage die weapons. Hellooooo 2d4 / x4 mattock.