I will probably post this as a poll at some point.
For sure, I want 1 roll made by each player. 1 player's attack roll and 1 player's defense roll.
For sure, "Moments of Glory" will stay in. (I really want a new name for this. Everyone thinks "Glory Hole" when I mention "Glory Points". Maybe just call them "Glory"? or "Inspiration"?)
For now, I have 2 options on the battle system:
1) 3 Stats are supplied: Strength, Power, and Skill. The numbers related to these stats are added up. This number is the number of d6 you are to roll for attack.
3 Stats are given for defense: Defense, Armor, Evasion (Skill). The numbers related to these stats are added up. This number is the number of d6 you are to roll for defense.
Each add up their dice rolls. If the attack roll # exceeds the defense roll #, the difference is taken from the defending model's life total. If it does not exceed the defending player's defense roll, no damage is done.
::Before rolls are made, the attacker may choose to spend Glory. Glory adds 1d6 to his dice pool.
::After the attacker spends Glory or declines to spend Glory, the Defender may now spend Glory.
2) 3 Stats are supplied: Strength, Power, and Skill. Numbers range from 1 to 4.
1 = d4
2 = d6
3 = d8
4 = d10
One die will be rolled for each of the 3 skills for a total of 3 dice rolled. The totals are added up.
The same is done for the Defending player. 3 Dice rolled. Totals added up. The difference is taken from the defending model's life total. If it does not exceed the defending player's defense roll, no damage is done.
::Before rolls are made the attacker may choose to spend Glory. Glory raises a die 1 rank higher. 1d4 becomes 1d6. A die cannot exceed d10. (At least at this point in time it cannot. I may include a d12. Maybe 2 Glory for d12?)
::After the attacker spends Glory or declines to spend Glory, the Defender may now spend Glory.
Also up for review... Glory.
Do I give players a set amount at the start of the game that can never be replenished?
Give players a very small amount that is replenished every turn?
Comments
Parallels
It is not clear to me from this post whether you have in mind a miniature war game or a RPG... but when it comes to conflict resolution in combat, they share some similarities. So... even if you have in mind a war game, the dynamics of a RPG may run parallel to the ideas you have written.
Your design brings to mind an RPG called Earthdawn. In Earthdawn, players have a rank associated with each skill which indicates what combination of 1d4s through 1d20s they roll. So, if your 'step' = 10, you roll 1d10 + 1d6. Each player also have karma points which they can redeem to roll an extra karma die (which varies depending upon their race). The game is chart intensive, and the progression of dice you roll per skill level is not always clearly advantageous. (Personally, I'd rather roll 2d12 over 1d4 + 1d20 even though both results have the same expectation value because the standard deviation is smaller). But, there are times where you can roll absurdly high totals in the game and the karma system (like your glory system) allows players to decide for themselves when they really need a shot to count.
The game design you have in mind is not Earthdawn. And, in some respects, it could be better than Earthdawn as a result. If you imagine each type of attack requiring a different set of skills and each defense allowing a different set of three skills, then you might end up with a huge variety of combinations of options for attack and defense from a relatively small set of skills. To use an analogy from D&D, supposed a melee attack requires you to combine your strength die with your level/class die with the melee weapon die. While a bow might require you to combine your dexterity with your level/class die with the ranged weapon die. Meanwhile the defense conditions themselves would alter what dice you roll. Under these circumstances, you might be able to simulate all bonuses and modifiers of any real significance in D&D (or any RPG) with the particular set of three dice that you roll and each player can choose his attack and defense accordingly.
Since people love to roll dice, Earthdawn, despite its rather boring backstory, really captured excitement well with its karma dice, its dice progression and its special rule that you could add another die any time you rolled the max value. Your design might be able to appropriate all these elements and also capture all the variability, customizability and control that comes from D&D into a system that is pretty straightforward and easy to manage.
However, I believe that you will want to be very clear about how you label skill/rank/step progression verses what dice you roll for a particular level. There's nothing wrong with saying that your strength skill is 1d6, as opposed to 2. Cognitively, it's one less step that you need to make, and since 2 is completely arbitrary, it will probably avoid confusion. It also will allow you to invent other dice in the middle like 1d2 and 1d3 if you need to.
My next post.
If you check the blog post I made today, you'll see I drew the same conclusion about whether it's a Miniatures game or a RPG.
I also need to clarify that:
Strength is the character's strength.
Power is the power of the weapon.
Skill speaks for itself.
(So it's a lot like your D&D analogy)
I was going to use cards which contain all of a character's stats. I really wanted to keep things simple even if it causes an extra step in people's brains. The numbers really aren't arbitrary. If I ever put out a rule book for this, it will state how 1 = 1d4 and so on... but I do see your point. I think I kept it this way because it's using terminology that is known to a specific group. Ask a person that doesn't play RPGs or Wargames and ask them what a 1d8 is. I'll have to ask around and see what everyone would like.
Variance / Standard Deviation
Richard touched on something that I would consider paramount in my game designs... Xd6 and 1d10 + 1d6 + 1d8 have much different Variances or Standard Deviations. It matters a lot how 'swingy' you want these die rolls to be. I would consider that heavily when choosing which of these (or any other) format you go with.
Also, it's possible that Glory could simply add 1 to the result... or if 1 isn't a useful number, maybe 3. Or whatever number is a decent percentage of the total that's appropriate for however rare or expensive a Glory point is. It could even be a percentage, things like 10% aren't terribly difficult to calculate.
Good luck!
I don't want it to be too
I don't want it to be too swingy. I just want small deviation of numbers with the ability for the player to manipulate those numbers to a small degree. The characters will have abilities such as adding +1 to their roll, or rerolling their skill die. Just adding 1 for 1 Glory doesn't seem all that great. 3 might be a bit strong (gotta roll some more and see). I like uping the dice to the next polyhedral. It gives a "chance" at more damage. When looking at the mathematical average when using Glory, I'm basically adding 1 point anyway. heh.
Dear god, I HAVE to find a name for making a less-sided polyhedral into a greater-sided polyhedral.
Non-transitive Dice
If you're open to trying out "alternative" forms of dice, you may want to check out this old thread on non-transitive dice:
http://www.bgdf.com/node/944
Hope I haven't opened up a can of worms. Non-transitive dice still really interest me, and l would love to see some people incorporate them into their games.
Averaging Dice
I see they work like Averaging Dice in some respect. I really like the idea and have been looking for a way to simulate "even an inferior unit has a chance to injure/defend against a superior unit." Unfortunately, it's not something I'm going to be delving into. I already twisted my arm enough to accept this 3-dice system. Thank you though!