Dodge vs Block mechanics for turn based combat system

His Chris, thanks for the post. Although your ideas don't interact well with the armor mechanic, it still gave me some food for thought nonetheless.

"How about the block make the attack an automatic hit, but it hits with the lowest amount of damage (presumably 1) ?"
The problem with this is that it wouldn't differentiate between different shields and also if something hits with lowest amount of damage it won't get past most armour (since armour most likely will be a damage reduction system in my game, i'm trying out other mechanics for armour though so that's not set in stone).

I do like your examples of the various enemies. For effects like the Asp's poison attack, i'd resolve that by having them roll a separate coloured d6 , 4+=poison condition.

for #6, ranged attacks will be affected differently by different types of shields. in general, the larger the shield, the more effective at blocking ranged attacks. As a penalty, shields (like armour) could have a weight to them that affects your dodge speed as well as perhaps some other type of penalty too.

" #6 is an example of the kind of design you could to to encourage certain specialized behaviors (i.e players that develop their character to specialize in dodging."
This, and the other examples and reasonings behind them that you gave, is a great example of the type of thing i'd be trying to convey with how players interact with different threats and enemies in the game.

"I think, you are overcomplicating the Situation:

In step 2, a character "rolls to hit". But what exactly does he roll against? Well, usually against the opponent's talent to negate a blow.
This basically is "dodging".
Either you hit (and deliver damage) or you don't (and do nothing instead)."
Yeah you're right.
So I guess I should remove dodge as an active defense you spend AP and just simply have it as an always on type of thing the player rolls against.So the benefit of wearing less armour (and having a high agility stat as well combined with it) is that you are always harder to hit.

**Also**an important thing I wanted to point out:
There's another main mechanic I've been thinking about using besides the d6 pool where you count 5+s as successes. The other mechanic works like this:
You gather a pool of d6s according to how accurate your attack is and the defender/enemy gets a d6 pool as well according to their defense etc. Since you are attacking AIs in the game, you roll all the d6s at once (including the defenders) and you differentiate between them by using different colour dice. Out of the d6s rolled you simply look for the higher individual number. If tied, move on to the next. Once you found out who wins, count the degree of victory by comparing how many other dice the victor had over the opponent. The extra successes could add to the damage total/pool or be spent for special effects of weapons or for criticals...
I tested this one out a lot and it is a very fun one to use and it gives someone with lesser stats more of a chance of success than a d6 5+ success pool.

""Dodging" means, if a character deals more damage than X, all of that damage is ignored.
(Note: To counter this, there are attacks with low initial damage but high damage over time following up, or attack having their damage potential split up on multiple swings. Both kinds of attacks go through, giving thos dodgers a hard time.)"
Ehh, i don't like that mechanic at all so I won't use it, but thanks for sharing it.

One final thing I need to point out/make clear concerning d6 pool mechanic (regardless of either particular one):
The amount of dice would first be determined by your stats. Either
1. it would be d6s simply equal to the stat
or
2. 2 d6s base + an extra one per every 2 in a stat (so for example, at 5 in a stat you'd 4 d6s)
or
3. Compare the attacker and defenders stats. The one that is lowest only gets 2d6. The other gets +x , x depending upon how far the difference is. One higher=+1, two higher=+2, three higher=+3. If equal both players roll 2 d6s for their pool.

As to how shields/block works in this, that's what I'm still trying to figure out with this thread...

Strength should be about damage output, how much you can carry, max HP, and Armour you can wear...it shouldn't affect how accurate you are.
For accuracy, there's a "Combat" (placeholder name) stat.

"With each of those dice you have to roll equal to or lower than the weapon's strength (so each weapon uses a strength of 1-5, 6 always misses); the dieroll results in a number of successes."
This was something I had been considering too. There's a RPG called Blade of the Iron Throne which has a similar mechanic. Basically, target numbers are set by the weapon itself you are using; your melee/combat d6 pool is based on your stats etc. I'll test it out and see what I think, but I am aiming more toward the idea (at least for the to hit roll) of the base mechanic being about rolling d6s and choosing highest and counting number of successes (which add to damage or crits etc).

"Armour also has a certain strength.
Roll an amount of dice equal to your strength. Each die rolled equal to or below the armour's strength cancels out 1 of the attacker's successes.
Shields cancel out 1 success automatically."

I like this idea of your's. Although I'm not sure if you're saying to have the armour step as part of the to hit roll or separate. Keep in mind, I want them to be two separate steps; armour should not make you harder to hit, it should reduce damage or have its own step where you have to penetrate the armour.

The amount of dice should be equal to the weapon damage though if I use that style. Or perhaps it could alternatively be an "armour penetration" step instead of a damage reduction style.

Either way, that would make it so armour works in a variable way since you are rolling to see how good it does, whilst shields give a small free bonus automatically.

I've seen a lot of similar games have it so that shields simply add to how hard you are to hit, but that makes it so that being agile and using a shield essentially are treated the same way mechanically (and as pointed out throughout this post, I'd like what they do to feel separate from one another).

What do you mean by them being stacked?
And I recall in one of my older threads on here where I was talking about weapons...wasn't it you in that thread that said weapons shouldn't have accuracy stats?

Also, concerning base mechanics for the to hit roll, I'm either going to go with:
1. d6 dice pool, you total number of d6s for yourself and the defender. Roll the pool, differentiate between attacker and defender by colour of the dice. Look for the single highest dice, if tied go down until someone has the highest single d6. The degree by which the winner won might add to critical damage perhaps.
or
2. d6 dice pool. count d6s as success based upon a target number. so if the target number is 3, then every 3 in your pool rolled counts as 1 success. do the same for defender and compare the total number of successes on each side to determine winner.

I'm leaning more towards the first mechanic, since I've been testing it I find it the most fun to use.

Also, the reason why I'm using a dice pool instead of d6+x type of system is because with d6+x systems in games (for example, Prophecy) it makes it so some battles are either hopeless or always assured of victory and I'm not a fan of that.

I'll respond more in depth to your post when I can X3M but for now I just wanted to respond to this part:
"What is your health average and damage average?"
First off, the scale of the game is that the players each control their own individual hero. They fight a few enemies at most in combat. It's not like armies or anything like that.
Heroes will have around 15-20 HP, enemies around 5-10 HP on average.
With average damage I'm still working that out, but it'll be based around the HP averages I mentioned.

I get what you are X3M about the math involved and how, if units in a game have low amount of life, then evasion is much more important.

"And with stacking I mean. Some games have soldiers that are agile (=more durable with the same amount of health) and some weapons are less accurate (=less hits with the same amount of damage). Putting the 2 together means that the weapon in question is a bad match for the targeted soldier."

I understand. Concerning the accuracy thing though, what are some ways weapon accuracy can be handled in relation to the skill of the user against the evasion/agility of the defender?
I explained earlier in the thread an overview of how I imagine combat working for melee.
Characters in the game have stats, one of which will be how skilled they are in melee combat. But even if you are very skilled in combat, I would imagine it'd be easier to dodge a slow greataxe compared to someone hitting at you with a quick falchion for example. That's why originally I wanted there to be an option to either dodge or block. But , as pointed out by others in the thread, there is no reason to have a dodge option if you have to roll to see if you hit the target to begin with (since that roll to hit implies the defender is dodging etc already).
So then if there is only a roll to hit, then how does weapon speed (as relates to ease of avoiding different weapons) factor in to the to hit roll?

In the example of combat I gave earlier in the thread, I stated that one would roll their accuracy+bonuses vs defender's agility+bonuses as d6 pool vs d6 pool. Perhaps some weapons then should give you a +x or -x (or alternatively, +x to defender's d6 pool) to your d6 pool depending on their speed stat? Or perhaps it should be that the amount of agility d6s added to defender's defense d6 pool be based upon a comparison of weapon speed # vs defender's agility stat?

Maybe I'm over thinking all of this though?

"But it doesn't matter what kind of game you play, you always have those hopeless battles or assured victories at some point.
But in that case, if possible: Making the game in such a way that even 1 soldier has a chance in doing something (irreversible) against an army of 100."

that's quite an extreme example though I get your point.

I was thinking about that in the past. a dedicated dodge could force opponent to reroll all dice, while blocking allows defender to make them reroll specific ones (ether a certain # of them, or certain specific #s rolled, depending on the shield). Or perhaps remove dodge as an option (since the to hit roll implies dodging) and have block as only extra option you can do, one free block a round and you can get extra blocks by spending APs.
The only problem with that is the fact that the players are fighting against AIs, not each other. I'm sure I could figure out a way that would determine what the AI does, but it may be annoying to have to roll to hit...then if you hit, reroll again, then roll for damage, it may be too many rolls

Yeah, I had read into Warhammer fantasy's rules before, I'll try to avoid that issue in my game.

"Let's say a character's combat skill is a 4 therefore when you roll a dice pool only 4+ are counted as successes. If it has something like a swordsmanship of 5 then you roll five D6s."
I know about that type of mechanic, one skill level determines # needed on the dice and the other skill level determines # of actual dice rolled.

However...
"Against a monster it has an agility of 3 meaning you need 3 successes to hit this monster to do damage"
I don't want to have the system be based upon having to get a certain # of successes. Because, for example, what if you only get to roll 2 d6s but need 3 successes?I suppose one could get around that by adding in an "exploding dice" mechanic (i.e. 6s rolled allow to roll another dice), but maybe there's another way, if using a count the successes mechanic for d6s pool, to circumvent characters running into impossible situations?
That's why I'm leaning more toward using a system for d6s where they roll their pool and simply choose highest single dice and then compare the remaining ones.

And you are right about X3M for sure lol

X3M I wasn't trolling you, it was a compliment done in a slightly joking way, since you are more proficient in math than I and you really analyze things very in depth sometimes it boggles my mind lol.

"You could also simply give an character agility and the number of dice that an opponent has to roll to get that number.
Thus, the opponent has agility and the number of dice needed on its chart, for the attacker to roll."

Could you give me an example of what you mean by this?
When you say "has" do you mean that the opponent's card shows how many dice the attacker gets to roll? Or do you mean that they HAVE to roll a certain minimum number of dice [# of dice determined by attacker's stat(s)] otherwise they'll always automatically miss? I assume you mean the former instead of the latter, but just want to make sure.

"Normal characters need 1D6, and you have the agility classes 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Whereas what you need to roll is the minimum. So an agility of 5 requires a roll of 5 or 6 for a hit.
Special characters need 2D6, and you have the agility classes 3 to 12. Whereas 12 is definitely lower then 1D6>6. But still offers a chance."

Why would I use BOTH of those instead of just one or the other in a game? If a character, for example, has agility 2 and some characters have accuracy 2d6, that means then that they will ALWAYS hit that target. If that's what you mean by it though...
And the 2d6 thing you are mentioning is different from a dice pool, I'd rather do a dice pool system than rolling 2 dice and adding them together and trying to reach a target number.
Maybe I don't understand what you mean by having some characters have 1d6 agility and others have 2d6 though.

When you say "factors" and post those 1d6/2d6 lists, are you displaying the chance to roll that exact number on the dice out of how many rolls? What's the "," in " 1,02857" for example supposed to mean?

"If you take a look at 1D6>2 and 2D6>5. Than you can see that they both have the same factor. If you now use an effect to lower agility by 1. The 1D6 will be effected much more than the 2D6. The factors are 1 and 1,09091. Which means that 1D6 reduction is about twice that of 2D6. For that agility. With 3D6 this effect is even lower of course."
I'm aware of that issue concerning how lower or raising a point with things like that is worth more if the system is 1d6 rather than 2d6 based. I do intend for there to be buff and debuff spells and effects in the game. The initial idea I have for my game with regard to the stats of characters is for it to range generally from 1 to 6, with some very rare circumstances boosting stats above 6. Perhaps I should change it to 1-12 though to open things up more? I guess that's something I'll have to contemplate more and test.

"So with this, you can always have a chance of hitting."
Yeah but all the stuff you are posting here is a different mechanic essentially than a d6 pool based system. You are saying to roll 1d6 or 2d6, total result, and try to meet or beat a target number and that the target number has a maximum it can be at, that way you always have a chance. I may use that type of mechanic (and indeed, if you look at my earlier threads, that's what I was going to use originally. It was going to be that you compare your accuracy to their agility score and that gives you a target number you have to meet), but I'd prefer to try to keep with a d6 pool system where you either roll a bunch of dice and count the dice that met (if it's an opposed roll, you compare the number of successes you achieved vs the # opponent succeeded with. Or it could be that you have to roll a certain number of successes based upon the target's defense...but that brings up the issue I brought up in my last post about how what if, for example, you need to get 3 successes but only roll 2 dice?), individually each, the target number OR you roll the pools and choose the single highest dice result and whoever has highest wins.

"For other factors, you would be needing 2 coloured dice. I don't think you want to do that, right?"
I'm not sure what you mean by this statement, but I'm not opposed to using different coloured dice in the game to differentiate between your opponent's dice vs your's, or to differentiate between dice used for various effects.

For characters in the game, they're going to have a base agility stat and that covers their general agility. Shields in the game will have different stats vs melee weapons or arrows, but I don't think it'd be good for characters to have such differentiation (i.e. the different agility classes you mentioned) in regard to their agility stat, because I plan on having many different types of weapons in the game. It'd be easier to have weapons have a "speed" stat of some sort that determines how hard they are to avoid.

Remember, the scale I'm going for in the game is similar to how it is with fights in the game "castle ravenloft" if you've ever played that one.

I'll respond more in depth when I get a chance but I just wanted to ask real quick about one thing first:
"Ok, let's say the swordsman is the attacker and an archer is the defender.
The archer has an agility of 3, while using 1D6. Thus on the card of the archer, we have 1D6; 3 as agility.
The swordsman has to roll with 1D6, a 3 or higher for an hit.

The defenders card shows the number of dice and the defenders card shows how much the attacker has to roll for an hit."

If the units in the game show how many dice you roll and what you have to roll to hit, then how would that factor in the skill of the attacker at all? If a defender's card says "hit on a 3+, you get 1d6" then someone who is unskilled in melee would hit them at the same rate as someone who has is very skilled in melee...