Boosting damage

[Disemvowel]

For the mathletes, how much impact to the game would exist if damage dice were exploding? Roll a 6 on your d6 damage roll, roll again and add to first result. This could allow for the occasional brutal strike.

[NickMiddleton]

For the mathletes, how much impact to the game would exist if damage dice were exploding? Roll a 6 on your d6 damage roll, roll again and add to first result. This could allow for the occasional brutal strike.

I've been toying with a house rule that for all lethal weapons (including unarmed ones if you have Unarmed Style talent) ONE die in the damage roll can explode - so a fist or gauntlet strike from a trained warrior would explode on a roll of 3 on the d3, but only ONE of the d6 in a damage roll from a two handed axe or two handed sword could explode. When I'm running DA I have lots of sets sets of d6 where one out of three is distinctive, so it should be easy to get the dice together.

Not sure what it would do to the damage distribution though...

Nick

[Loswaith]

For the mathletes, how much impact to the game would exist if damage dice were exploding? Roll a 6 on your d6 damage roll, roll again and add to first result. This could allow for the occasional brutal strike.

The average damage on 1d6 is 3.5 while an exploding d6 has an average damage of about 4 (a little over actually). So its not huge in its impact but can have some ramification on individual hits. As you get more exploding d6s however the chances of atleast one die exploding increase fairly rapidly. For example with one die its about 16.67% that it will explode while for 3d6 its about 42.13% chance of atleast one die exploding (7.41% for atleast 2, while only 0.46% for all three).

I would however not use it for all dice in a damage roll (unless you want that) to keep things balanced, as it can greatly impact the comparative average damage as you have 2 or 3 dice. So it may be worth using a dragon die for damage (so to speak) where only one of the dice in any damage roll can explode.

[zanwot]

No need to do any mathletism here!

Exploding dice are not generally a good thing for game balance as they can dramatically alter an encounter's balance.

In this curcumstance, it is even more pointless as stunt points already can be used for the same kind of effect.

[si1vergecko]

I generally have found out that exploding dice are not a good idea. I recall playing a d100 system that has exploding dice built into it for any dice rolls between 91-100 and there was one point where an enemy against a player rolled over 600 on his offense against a PC, the GM even paused and said, "Does the chart even go that high?" Keep in mind if you give exploding dice to the players then enemies probably get it too and there will be that one part where that Hurlock comes out of nowhere and one shots a player.

[shonuff]

I generally have found out that exploding dice are not a good idea. I recall playing a d100 system that has exploding dice built into it for any dice rolls between 91-100 and there was one point where an enemy against a player rolled over 600 on his offense against a PC, the GM even paused and said, "Does the chart even go that high?" Keep in mind if you give exploding dice to the players then enemies probably get it too and there will be that one part where that Hurlock comes out of nowhere and one shots a player.

Exactly. Or lucky dice rolling could easily turn challenging encounters to meaningless ones. Maybe as some have suggested with very limited exploding dice.

[Disemvowel]

All great food for thought, thanks all! One could keep the exploding dice (nice Rolemaster ref btw!) for the heroes/wild cards (see what I did there?) and not for mooks and such.

[Loswaith]

Well there is always the luck of the roll when exploding in that it is possible.

Though mathematically speaking the chance of a d6 exploding more than twice is rather small (about the same chance as rolling an 18 for the third explosion), so stunts will generally still have more/similar impact than exploding damage will.
Ultimatly it's whether you think its worth having them above and beyond the extra damage one can get from stunts too.

If you made stunts give exploding dice that could make for a world of hurt too.

[zanwot]

Though mathematically speaking the chance of a d6 exploding more than twice is rather small (about the same chance as rolling an 18 for the third explosion).

Well, more chances than with D10s such as those used in 7th sea (even if you roll more dice in 7th sea), and trust me I have seem some very funky rolls in 7th sea (like, multiple dice exploding multiple times, one dice exploding half a dozen times, etc...). 7th Sea is made to take account of exploding dice, and it is bad enough even then...

Disemvowel, Even if you limit it to PCs, they could just kill your uber boss in one lucky roll, kill outright their future contact in a fleshwound duel, things like that. Don't go there, trust us. Stunts really do cover that "game effect" nicely already.

[Loswaith]

The plus I see it for exploding dice is players can never be sure if that blow wont kill them, even with stunts there is a limit to the damage, if they have more health than possible damage can be done there is little fear.

If any single blow can spell the end of a character, no matter how remote, there is a distinct difference in player attitudes to combat. Even the good players that see combat as dangerous anyway still change their attitude some.

The downside is as some have mentioend too, that a boss or the like gets single shotted, but at the end of the day it's a situation the players are likely to remember for a while to come. So is it realy all that bad a turn of events that they will remember the boss (even though it turned out a trivial fight) than chalk it up as just another boss fight.

Ultimatly it depends if you want that threat overhead, given that it typically favours enemies over PCs as they make more rolls, it may or may not be the way you want your game to go.

[Zapp]

Exploding dice are not generally a good thing for game balance as they can dramatically alter an encounter's balance.

Exploding dice can be perfectly all right, given they're in a game that properly takes them into account.

In this curcumstance, it is even more pointless as stunt points already can be used for the same kind of effect.

This, however, is correct.

If you want damage spikes to occur more frequently, I'd recommend to make available more/cheaper/whatever stunts that add to damage.

(The stunt system is the heart and soul of this system and I would recommend against any houserule that dilutes their impact.)

[CRKrueger]

Right now, for me at least, damage isn't high enough for "Dark Fantasy". I think exploding on the added damage Stunt dice might be the simplest way to add more lethality.

[zanwot]

Right now, for me at least, damage isn't high enough for "Dark Fantasy". I think exploding on the added damage Stunt dice might be the simplest way to add more lethality.

That is a very good point. But exploding would introduce a devious lethality, ie it would not change the atmosphere dramatically but would introduce unexpected events.
I would advise to divide all hit points by two. I am considering it myself, but for now prefer to get experience with the by-the-book rules before making my fixes.

[CRKrueger]

That is a very good point. But exploding would introduce a devious lethality, ie it would not change the atmosphere dramatically but would introduce unexpected events.
I would advise to divide all hit points by two. I am considering it myself, but for now prefer to get experience with the by-the-book rules before making my fixes.

Yeah, increasing damage or decreasing hit points would probably be a better solution, but isn't a simple patch factoring in spells, healing, monsters, etc... More obvious lethality might be better then winning the Death Lottery.

[Disemvowel]

Reducing or limiting HP would lend some more lethality to the system...

One could also use bennies and allow these to be spent on disregarding boosted damage (and other things).