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my combat system ... any ideas or is it ok?

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undeliverer
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Hello all ... I am working on a game that involves player vs player combat. Every piece will have an attack, defense, health, range, and movement. The max attack in game so far is 12, and the odds of this is very low.
My idea so far is to have each player deal damage only on their turn. They add up all the damage they have and this translates into how many dice they can roll. The defending player adds up their defense and takes that number of dice from attacking player. An example is player 1 adds up his attack and has 8 attack. Defending player has 2 defense. Player 1 rolls 6 dice.
Attacks take 1 health from defending player with a successful dice roll. A successful dice roll is either a 5 or a 6.
Health on average is 5.

Please let me know what you think of this system ... not sure how many games use one like this but this is what I thought was the simplest way for what I wanted to convey ... thank you

Soulfinger
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What kind of game is this? A

What kind of game is this? A tabletop wargame, strategy board game, etc.? As much as I love rolling dice, a system like this is best suited for skirmish conflicts of about a dozen or so pieces on each side. A handful of dice can become unwieldy once you move to a larger scale, unless it represents force of numbers, like rolling forty dice for a unit of dark elf crossbowmen in Warhammer. Games with a lot of dice also trend toward a smaller player base. For example, Risk, as a traditional mass market game, limits itself to 3 dice per roll at most.

I'm too lazy to work it out here, but have you done any of the math for calculating odds on a percentile basis?

undeliverer
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I am not sure what exactly to

I am not sure what exactly to call my game .... it starts as a base building game with 3 players working together ... after 5 rounds of this a situational card is drawn .... a 4th player plays the "bad" guys from a deck that the situation card calls for ... the game lasts for 5 more turns ... each turn the 4th player draws a card and puts whatever amount of units on the board ... so yes it is a skirmish game with a good number of units (anywhere from 1 boss unit to 9 smaller units)... there is also a lot of strategy
So o guess it's a base building coop strategy war game lol

Also I'm trying to limit the dice ... before I had the attack and defense added, then both sites rolled and compared rolls risk style .... that was way too clunky

I'm making the prototype now so I can get a feel of it... I know I will probably have to move numbers around and am ok with that

I have not crunched numbers as I am not totally sure how to go about doing this or what to look for ... I am very new to this and am learning as I go lol ... I wanted to play this game and looks for one like it online finding nothing ... so I decided to make it myself

X3M
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My suggestion

Combining defence points.
My advice: No.

Now, I don't want to hijack the core of your game, nor do I want you to feel that way. So don't use the info in the PM that I am going to send you. But in there I will give my suggestion.

ElKobold
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I would suggest rolling for

I would suggest rolling for both players. And cancel-out successful attacks with successful defense rolls.

Rolling a defense dice simultaneously with the attacker is more fun for the defending player than having "My defense makes your attack worse".

You might need to roll more dice though, to have the same ratio of success/failure.

Tsquared
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Agree with EIKobold

More fun for both players to roll dice, and with the current system, if a player ever gains more defense than the attacker has strength, it sounds like they couldn't even attack them.

Evil ColSanders
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Really? You think so? All

Really? You think so? All I've ever heard from a wargame standpoint is: "more dice, more problems. Games take too long with all the dice rolling. One dice roll saves time."

I've tried every variant on OPs combat system with my game: defense lowers attack dice, you roll defense to see if you can lower damage, defense which negates successful damage (overpowered). In order, Each one which I've mentioned gave fewer and fewer hits until any amount of defense was
Overpowered.
Now that I think about it, I think war gamers just hate randomness... As they play using dice. I think you've made me see the light in that I should ignore what players want and make what I want. Like minded gamers will enjoy the system. Warhammer is garbage but people still play it.

Soulfinger
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Evil ColSanders

Evil ColSanders wrote:
Warhammer is garbage but people still play it.

Technically, people weren't playing it. WH40K was accounting for 50% of GW's revenue stream, while Warhammer occupied massive shelf space but was in the single digits percentage-wise for sales, after licensing revenue, etc. That's why they destroyed the game world in their End Times product line, officially axed the buckets of dice Warhammer game, and just now released Age of Sigmar with its 4-page rulebook, completely different mechanics, new setting, and skirmish-oriented scale. The Warhammer game of the past thirty years is effectively gone because it didn't resonate with younger players.

The market has shifted toward skirmish scale games with fewer dice rolls, less tables, and free rulebooks supplemented by unit cards printed with special rules. Also, I go, you go turn structures are considered very passe.

undeliverer
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I guess I should explain my

I guess I should explain my game a little more ... The basis is that 3 players place units (meeples) to gain one of 9 different sets of cards ... these range from a stack of buildings, to defense, to arms and armor, or even more units.

If they drew a type of structure they place it on the gameboard ... if they drew something that helps their "hero" they may place it on that unit or give it to one of their meeple units ... every player has 1 hero and 3 meeples to start with

they do this for 5 turns and then a situation happens ... a 4th player flips over this card and gets the deck that goes with it

every turn for 5 more turns the "bad" guy player flips a card and it tells him what he/she is playing .... this can be up to 9 "bad" units that the player controls, something bad that happens, or a boss

the 3 coop players move all their people around the game board as they see fit, then the "bad" guy moves his

combat happens when a player is within range of an enemy unit on their turn

there are a few more aspects of the game in which the coop players can lose, but the only way to win is to survive

Sidenote ... while testing i found rolling a 6 to be way to hard so I'm thinking of changing this to a 4 and 5 is 1 damage, and a 6 is 2 damage

coop units have 1 to 4 attack base stats and 0 to 2 defense stats
"bad" units have 4 to 9 attack stats and 0 to 4 defense stats

a coop unit may be in a building square that gives them an attack or defense boost, or they might have gear or training that gives them a boost

no coop units will have more than 11 dice and 5 defense as this is the maximum they can have with the cards that they can draw ... and the only chance of getting the max is very very slim ... since the situation has to be just right for all of that to occur

undeliverer
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O and the units are on an

O and the units are on an individual basis ... what i mean is that there is no group of bad "enemies" ... each enemy is an individual unit what has a atk, def, movement, health, and range

So defense doesn't add up for "bad" or enemy units ... the hero and coop meeples may add up defense based on their base stats, a building they are in, or if they have a armor or training card that boosts their defense

battle will only be on an individual scale ... but multiple units might focus down a strong unit to win a fight

Evil ColSanders
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People ARE playing it. They

People ARE playing it. They just aren't BUYING it. Rather than lower their prices, they're making a new game, (finally getting rid of those outdated rules), BUT making you buy all new figures!

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/141508-Hothead-Gamer-Burns-War...

Some people aren't taking it well.

X3M
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Good to hear that it is on an

Good to hear that it is on an individual basis. Every one here previously thought that you where adding up the defence points.

Did you read my PM by the way?

Those COOP units are a good idea. Somehow I see this happening as medics.

undeliverer
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Joined: 06/30/2015
There are buildings that can

There are buildings that can heal, one hero can, and certain cards that give healing items .... Also the bad unit might have a healer if drawn

Centaur255
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Joined: 06/23/2015
I'm with SF on This

I think the idea of both players rolling is a good one - if the defender takes damage, he doesn't have the fatalistic mentality of, "Well, there's nothing I could do to prevent this," and instead gains the thrill of, "I have a chance to do something about my circumstance, for good or ill." This is encouraging to players, and reduces the chance that someone cries, "The game is broken because X is too powerful."

At the same time, the Colonel has a point - more rolling means more time taken up, more math (which can go wonky when it's done too late at night), and can give quite a bit of variety in the results, so I think there's a few fundamental questions we should ask regarding attack and defense:

1) Static Value: Do we want to have a static value for the attack and/or defense value? Hypothetically if someone were to fire a weapon with an Attack of 3 and someone else were to fire a weapon (call it a cannon on a tank) with an Attack of 8, if the A3 rolled really well and the A8 rolled really poorly we 'd be seeing a guy with (say) a rifle outperforming a guy with a cannon in regards to damage. Could be believable (the shell was not centered right, the bullet hit just the right spot, etc.), but it's a question we'll want to consider.

Similarly, do we want defense to be static? If the guy rolling Defense 2 rolls well and the guy rolling Defense 7 rolls very poorly, could the D2 resist better than the D7? Sometimes yes (similar reasons mentioned above), but we'll want to ask the question of whether we want to do it this way.

My mind immediately goes back to the old Star Wars card games: everyone had a set Power Value and (in the CCG game) Defense Value - they always defended at a certain level and always attacked with a certain amount of force. Less random factor in the game, but it did give a sense of certainty so that Luke Skywalker wasn't being outshone by a stormtrooper (or a naval officer, still more embarrassing.

2) Damage Results: Does damage taken affect your ability to attack/defend? It doesn't have to (in fact, I recently read a post on GMGenie that mentioned people should actually gain stats when injured to reflect rising resolve with rising adrenaline), but if it does, will this change/break the game? We want to make sure we don't suddenly have players running around with 0 Attack or Defense but are still alive, as that makes the game much less fun for that player, :)

Emrak
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Soulfinger wrote: The market

Soulfinger wrote:

The market has shifted toward skirmish scale games with fewer dice rolls, less tables, and free rulebooks supplemented by unit cards printed with special rules. Also, I go, you go turn structures are considered very passe.

This is fascinating to me (I'm not a current wargamer, it's been over a decade since I've played one). What "turn structure" is the dominant one, currently? And can you provide an example game that exhibits that structure?

Thanks!

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