Need advice for damage dealing rules

[DDurand]

Hi all. I just discovered this forum by the RPGnet one. Sorry for my bad english.

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I work actually on an old rpg project of mine, that existed first 20 years ago (lot of changes, as you can imagine).

I'm pretty happy with the base system, that is very simple :
You have characteristics :

Intelligence, Détermination (force of will ?), Sociability, Charisma (in the physical way), Strength, Endurance (physical), Agility, Dextérity (hand), Vitality.

All the characteristics changed in the course of years. For exemple, a "reflexes" one existed since the start and just vanished some months ago.

And there are skills, from weapon masteries to climbing.

The system is :

1° Choose the skill you need to use. Example for a fight, Parrying.
2° Roll as much dices the level in you skill is. Example : With a level 3 Parrying skill, you roll 3 dices.
3° For each par result, you have one point. For each odd result, you have 0 point. 0 and 1 are criticals. Example : The dices roll 5, 9 & 4. One par, One point.
4° Choose the characteristic you have to use for this action. Example : For Parrying, it's Agility, and the player has 7.
5° Add the roll points to the characteristic. Example : 7+1=8.
6° Compare the result to a difficulty, or the result from an opponent.

7 You generaly can use two skills. Here, the second skill is probably a weapon mastery (how good you are with a type of weapon).

The higher number win. When equals, the defender win.

Simple and fast.
There is a great and easily seen difference between two characteristics levels : A naked level has only 1 chance on 4 to win in defending against the next level (and none when attacking).
And that's the same difference for all numbers (level 15 has only 1 chance on 4 to win against level 16).

Criticals (because that's open-ended re-rolls), situation bonus/malus ans skill change the chances by adding dices, so players NEED to take all fights to a tactical level and think at what they do : Even a well experienced fighter can be killed in fight if he just "go D&D" (i like D&D, but i use it only for find treasures in dungeons. Yes, i'm that sort of players that think dungeon crawls are refreshing).

Now, my problem.

From some years, the damage system what that :

1° You take your Strength characteristic. Example, for an Human often around 7.
2° You take the Damage value of your weapon. Example, for a sword it's 5 or 6. Say 6.
3° Multiplie the first by the second. Example : 7x6 = 42.
4° Morph that in the dices needed. 42 => 5d-8.
5° Roll the dice, with all result <1 = 1.

Damage make wounds, on five levels, with using the Vitaly as base for the littles wound, 2 x vitality for the next level... 5 x vitality for the death wounds.
There is no HP.


Now, i have another idea that use the central rules :

1° Roll as much dices your weapon have in Damage value
2° Add 1 for each par roll to your Strength characteristic
3° The result is the damage dones.

Advantages i see :
1° The numbers used for damages and wounds are not as high and are more simple to use.
2° It's the same rule than the other stuff in the game.
3° Delete the problem when 4d (40) > 5d-9 (41)  --- or even, if you use the opposite, 3d+9 (39) > 4d (40) .

Problems i see :
1°Use maybe more dices.



Advices ?

[David C]

Since you seem to struggle with English, allow me to offer some alternatives, if you plan on writing your game in English. What language are you writing your game for? 

Charisma I would change to Presence (as in, looks powerful) or if you meant "looks good" I'd go with something like Allure, Attractiveness or Appearance.
Dexterity I would change to Manual Dexterity (which is dexterity in the hands).

Your second method is superior I think, even if it uses more dice.  First of all, it doesn't require complicated math, which is always a no-no.  Secondly, it lets you use one mechanic to accomplish two goals, which lets players learn your game faster. 

As general advice, I would look at using a lot of rules that incorporate high ground, direction, defense types, weapon choices, etc. if you're looking for a tactical game.  A lot of people think that by increasing the character building decisions, you are making your game more strategic.  If those choices don't give players more tactical choices, they aren't actually contributing to the strategy of the game!  In D&D, things like Charge and Flanking improve the tactics.  Things like Weapon Focus (+1 attack or damage) aren't actually achieving the goal of making the game more strategic. 

[Creatures of Destiny]

By "par" you mean "even" numbers right? (as in 2, 4, 6, 8, 10). It took a while to get that, I looked at the examples then checked by reading "par" in Italian ("pari" in Italian means "even") and then taking it back to English.

Bu this leads to the obvious question - statistically if the only thing you're taking from the dice is "odd and even" then that's exactly the same as just flipping coins (which is simpler). IF you're rolling dice then the numbers should DO SOMETHING.

So why not just flip coins, with each heads ("teste") giving 1 point and each tails ("Croce") giving 0 points?

Okay, onto damage:

The first system will slow your game to a crawl unless these number are worked out beforehand and written on character sheets. But remember if you start adding modifiers due to tactics it'll slow down again. Also that complexity gains nothing in either realism or player choice.

The second system makes more sense and is faster, but it's still a little cumbersome and not very elegant.

Why not just multiply the damage number by the amount you won the "to hit" roll by and compare tha number to Vitality. That way you save yourself a whole bunch of rolls.

[DDurand]

Thank for your replies.

The game is writen in french (and you probably don't want to read an entire book writen by me in english).
I used Babelfish for translate words i don't know. Pair is translated by "par", and it's "0-2-4-6-8".

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Technically, my first idea was to use coins. Loved the idea. But then i think i forgot the critical rolls.
0/10 is a critical success.
1 is a critical fail.

If i use coins, i don't have criticals anymore. 10-sides dices have a a good critical ratio, and roll better.

When you roll more 1 than 0, you have a critical fail equal to number of ones minus number of 0.
It's the opposite for critical success.

Since a critical is a new roll, you roll as much dices your critical is, and you don't count opposite results.

Example :
You roll 5 dices and get 2.8.1.0.0
That mean 4 evens (0 are evens), then a result of 4, but also 1 critical fail and 2 critical success.
2 CS - 1 CF = 1 critical success. You roll 1 new dice.
It's a Critical success dice, then it ignore totally fail results (odds), normals or criticals.
That mean if it do 2, 4, 6 or 8, it just add one to the result, and if it do 0, it add 1 AND reroll for a new critical success dice.

When a Critical fail dice do an odd result, it's a negative point (that minus the result).

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For the damages, you ask why i don't just multiply the damage number by the amount the player won in the Hit roll ?

One roll for Hit and Damages, you mean ?

Well, the "to hit" roll is only for know if you hit. Strength is not used. Worst : If you try to boost your strength, you lost in precision.

Hits are mostly determined by Agility
Damages are mostly determined by Strength

Of course, really good hit can do special damages. If you won by some amount, you can upgrade the wound level you have just done in some cases (you just hit vital organs, for example), at least if the ennemy don't have armor solid armor (because solid armor don't let you hit exactly what you want).

But i prefer to differenciate them.

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Charisma is "Charme" in the original. It's mostly "looking good".

Dexterity, in french IS "hand dexterity". It's why there is an Agility characteristic too. For example, Humans have a good Agility and a really good Dexterity, but Tigers have a very good agility and only a good Dexterity (and with their also superior Strength, totally "pwn" Humans in hand to hand combat, but are not so good in firearm fights - You imagine the social problems in the worlds where the two exists in civilized forms where firearms appears. Well, true, they can also have superior body armors and biggers weapons. Imagine an army that have .50 assault rifles...).


Tactical game : Yes, it's what i look for.
As for "weapon focus", there is Skill as "weapons mastery" that add dices to the hit roll and skills that reduce situation maluses, mostly.
Berserk is a skill you can add to your Strength when doing damage, but let you suffer an heavy malus to hit, for example.
There is also rules for outmanoeuver your opponent, differienciate parrying and dodge, feint, localizing wounds, etc.

And the choice of the weapon is also important.

In fact, with this rules, as i said, an experienced fighter can easily be killed by simple grunts if he's not carefull, only because the tactical problems.

[Creatures of Destiny]

Dexterity in English is also "hand dexterity" it's just D&D that made people in the RPG hobby forget this.

Armour protecting vital points is a good idea and I haven't seen much of it in any RPGs I can think off.

The odds/evens with criticals makes more senes- you could just think of them as "complications" - for example someone could hit but their sword gets stuck or whatever.

Apart from that you probably won't know till you play it a few times to see how it flows.