Checks, bonuses and probabilities

Keith J Davies 

FWIW, in Echelon attacks are contested rolls as well. Same number of successes = both hit (and both take damage). Otherwise, if I have more successes than you then I hurt you (and hurt you _more_; each success after a tie adds more damage), and vice-versa. 

But there are also complications. If you roll 3 successes and 1 complication, and I roll 3 successes and 0 complications, you get to pick: tie (and both cause damage) and suffer a complication, or pay off the complication and take more damage (because I rolled more successes now than you did). 

The active character does get to decide if there will be an exchange of attacks. If you attack me, it's on. As the target I could choose to ignore this (passive defense only), but that seems like an uncommon case so I largely ignore it. If I'm better at fighting than you are, or luckier, it might be that you end up getting hurt too (or even instead!).
Most games, you attack me and I have no recourse or decision at all. You decided to attack, I decide to... nothing. I get hurt or not entirely at the whim of you and the dice gods. 

The mutual attack thing has some rather interesting characteristics. I ran models that suggest that it does a lot to balance out the action economy. Being outnumbered is still bad, but it's a much more even fight than in most games. In fact, I appear to have hit a sweet spot in the design. Even with four levels difference (i.e. exactly one tier higher), beng outnumbered is bad. The higher-level fighter has better rolls and slightly more hit points, but the sheer number of attacks makes things more even. The more skilled fighter is likely to get more successful (tied or better) attacks than any one of the lesser fighters, but they get spread among all the lesser fighters, while the lesser fighters' attacks are concentrated on one. 

I forget if the approximate balance point is 2:1 or 4:1 (I think it was 2-3:1, to be honest). I know that 8:1 is very very bad, don't let that happen.

Matt Miller 

I also like the d20 'explode' rule, where 20 hits and 1 misses, better; there is always a chance of success or failure, regardless of other conditions. Opposed rolls (d20 vs. d20 or 3d6 vs. 3d6) are analogous to 2d6, where the resulting roll is very much a bell curve. 3d6 vs. 3d6 creates a very strong, very regular bell curve, where the difference in medians is decisive a very large 

Dan Felder Skill checks are one of those things that I feel like were reasonably solved a while ago. While it may be possible to improve them, I feel like the effort it takes compared to the tiny amount of improvement it provides is not worth it. Unless you are altering your skill check system thematically for a specific game design goal of course, but even then it seems iffy.

Rob Hicks Summary: die mechanisms that favor median rolls, (2d6, etc,) don't do well if you are using opposed checks combined with bonuses, because it so heavily favors the higher bonus. Underdogs will almost always lose, even with only a slight numeric disadvantage.

Keith J Davies unless, of course, that's the behavior you want. I can easily imagine a tiered system[1] where you have a 'tier bonus' that shifts your entire roll, simply because higher-tier _is better_.

[1] level 1-4 = tier 1, level 5-8 = tier 2, etc.

In a D&D-esque system you might then have "rolls are 3d6. You get +1 per tier, and your 'class skill' (fighter is combat, wizard is casting, rogue is skill) gets +1 more" [no, I wouldn't use these numbers, but they're good for discussion]

Fighter _always_ has an advantage over everyone else at the same tier in combat, and can fight evenly with a non-fighter above his tier... which means a non-fighter above his tier is no worse than he is. The higher-tier fighter will still have advantage over him. This might be exactly how you want the system to behave. I wouldn't say these systems "don't do well", I might say "have characteristics that must be understood".

Rob Hicks Dan Felder Still worth looking at this stuff, because tinkering is fun. Also, the d20 system isn't "solved" by any stretch. It still has some serious drawbacks that aren't answered by other prominent systems.

Like · Reply · October 1, 2015 at 9:39am

Dan Felder Tinkering is always fun. But note "reasonably solved". As in we know the benefits of various skill check systems and have solid enough options, to the point that putting in added effort has a significant opportunity cost compared to working on other aspects of design. smile emoticon

Like · Reply · October 1, 2015 at 9:41am

Matt Miller "d20 is too random"...which could reasonably be solved by moving to a d12 or d10, and simply adjusting numbers. ...but that would actually make it more random, as the high and low automatic hit or miss would be much more common.

Rob Hicks 
Which is not a bad thing. I like d12s. It occurs to me, that you could get interesting results from a d12 if you did 1's as an automatic miss, 10's as automatic hits, 11's as a crit, and 12's as a double-crit. Make the rest of the game built around 1-10 as standard results. "Turning the speakers up to 11," as a parallel. It would make hits more common, and crits much more common than a d20 system, but that is more interesting, isn't it?

Dan Felder 
Seems like it'd just make things more complex. If you want variety in your system, something akin to FFG's Narrative Dice system in their star wars RPG is a good place to start.

Matt Miller 
No good. Makes 10-11-12 into hits, so you automatically hit 25% of the time, even against impossible enemies. Higher hit rates need balanced with either lower damage or higher HP. To be sufficiently variable to be interesting, damage can only go so low (1d4?), and lower HP makes for easier mental math.

Paul Goldstone 
I think players like Bonuses - so the greater the deviance - the more bonuses you can give. It's been shown several times a +1 on 2d6 is worth more than in D20, when you look at +2 through to +5 the difference is startling.Many games reward players with bonus gear in some tangible form, from the classic magic sword to the self aiming blaster. When looking at the system some thought should be given to what rewards the game will give especially deep into a campaign as well as end game one-shot adventures with powerful pre-gens.  If the roll effectively becomes a given, and therefore trivial at the top power end, then player/gm enjoyment will suffer. Furthermore is disparate parties where either due to power level, stats, gear if one player is tougher than the other players game balance can be skewed significantly which could lead to power creep, as the encounters have to become much harder to compensate for the tougher/luckier players. Thematically you could look at players choosing what they roll, ie, d20 or 3d6 in a game, maybe based on skills, talents etc.  The choice means against a particular tough opponent, highly dramatic situations the players could choose the d20 - needing the higher numbers. In non dramatic situations, they could choose the 3d6 looking for more likely success.

Matt Miller

When we made Mayhem, one the design principles was directly opposed to providing more bonuses.I think there are 13 different compatible bonuses to hit in DnD 3.5 We called it the "Christmas Tree" effect, with character liberally strung with magical ornaments. Rob Hicks DM'd a long DnD 3.5 campaign where the characters managed to acquire...every single bonus possible.

But what happens is that you cease having a 'character', and start having a 'toon'. You no longer have an avatar of yourself, but rather a 'vehicle' whose stats you have optimized. Letting players choose 3d6 or d20 seems like an interesting mechanic, but I don't think it actually adds much. The more mathematically talented would quickly know which represented the better alternative...ie, anytime your target number is over 10, roll the d20.

Paen to Fate

Matt Miller

Mechanically, I'm really liking Fate of late. 4dF provides a very strong median tendency, while permitting sufficient variance to make things unpredictable. 

Rob Hicks 

The best thing about the fate die system is environmental or situational bonuses. You can creatively do just about anything to get the bonus, but you have to justify it through actions, environment and character history. It blends the strategic elements of the game with the storytelling.

Paul Goldstone 

Fate has extensive meta gaming that makes the game for me, players describing scenes, incidences etc to get mods. The end result being that if you have the skill you are more or less going to succeed. D20 for me has a huge amount of random, that doesn't cater to the if you have the skill you are most likey to succeed mechanic due to the wide possible variances. The arkham dice method for an RPG, when combined with a skill, offers the "have skill will succeed" mechanic which does seem to be popular of late. Its worth noting that ffg custom dice rpg have that, just with symbols over numbers, as does Mutant Chronicles to some extent (MC has a great system and is well worth looking at).

Nathan Dowdell 

IMHO, what makes Fate sing is the way that Aspects and the Fate Point economy turn a test from a pure risk consideration to a matter of cost - being able to spend after the fact, and suffer costs for success, changes the game dynamic hugely. Failure isn't the end, merely a chance to ask the question "how much is success worth to you?"

Matt Miller

You make an excellent point. The ability to 'burn' clue tokens in Arkham, AFTER a roll, is one of my favorite parts. It makes rolling slightly less visceral, but it still works: Clue Tokens are a representation of a generic advantage in understanding.

Bonus Sizing

Travis Casey

September 29, 2015

A few recent OSR games, such as Swords & Wizardry White Box, Delving Deeper, and Bloody Basic, have adopted OD&D's attribute modifiers for rolls. Those are: 8 or less: -1;  9 to 12: 0; 13 or more.

On the positive side, I like the fact that this divides up abilities into "high-middle-low". You don't get the effect from later versions, where many players seem to feel that unless their primary attribute for their class is quite high, they're "hopeless". On the negative, though, the modifiers feel too small. These games use variants on the d20 System, so a +1 is only a 5% change in the chance of success. It's such a small bonus as to be rarely useful. 

 +1 OD&D intended those modifiers to be used with a 2d6 system, not a 1d20 one. A -1 or +1 is much more significant on 2d6 than with 1d20. So, I'm suggesting that if people want to use this style, but also want to use the 1d20 resolution mechanic instead of the original 2d6, they use -2/0/+2 as the modifiers instead. I'm suggesting doubling the numbers to give a statistical impact closer to what those modifiers had in the original system.

Original D&D was meant to use the Chainmail combat system... which used 2d6. In the context of a 2d6 system, a +1 is much more significant. If you normally need a 12 to succeed, it makes you 1/18, or 5.55...%, more likely to succeed. In the best-case scenario, if you needed an 8 before the modifier, it makes you 1/6, or 16.66...% more likely to succeed. Thus, a +1 in original D&D is more akin to a +2 when you're using 1d20.  

Gygax quickly changed the modifiers, doing so in Greyhawk, the first major revision to OD&D. My guess is that he did so upon realizing that since D&D was far outselling Chainmail, most players were using the 1d20-based "alternative combat system" rather than the originally intended system. The upshot is - if you're contemplating making a system with an OD&D-style flat modifier, but are using a d20-based system, I'd suggest making the modifier be -2/+2, instead of -1/+1. That will keep things closer to the original intended effect of the modifiers. 

...I'm not talking 'double all steps, so you go +2, +4, etc". I'm talking about three tiers, period: -2, 0, +2. Nobody would have a +8 from a stat, unless you're dealing with a girdle of giant strength or the like, in which case it's really a magic item bonus... 

...The really nice thing about not gradating it like that, is that it then doesn't cause a drive toward higher stats. On 3d6, the chance of a 13 or better is 26%. Thus, with six stats, the majority of characters (about 5 out of 6) will have at least one... 

Alexander Staniforth 

I think there'd be something to be said for a little more nuance. -2/-1/0/+1/+2. That way ridiculously high stats DO matter more, as do ridiculously low stats while at the same time it's still a relatively simple gradation.

Paul Goldstone 

Bigger bonuses skew balance, especially at higher "levels". Lower bonuses also allow other "magic item bonuses" to have relevance. A +1 magic sword is irrelevant if a 18 stat gives +8 to a roll. I think the issue here is on a (3-18) system fundamentally they have made top end and low end stats irrelevant, there seems to be no (game mechanic) difference between 13 and 18. Perhaps a "roleplay aspect", but game mechanic wise irrelevant.

Attack Role Complexity

Matt Miller

The more complex combat is, the more time it takes, the more it becomes the focus of the system.Would it be possible to have three distinct steps in an attack? Mayhem  coupled the two together (one step) so that the margin of hit resulted in more damage dice.

Rob Hicks 

In Mayhem, the roll to hit and the roll for damage were two separate things, but they were interconnected based on the "crit" range, the number by which it the die hit. It worked fairly well, but I was always eyeing it wondering if I couldn't streamline things somehow.

Matt Miller

D20 has two steps for damage: Roll to hit, and then and (independent) roll for damage. My object is to get the final damage number down as low as possible.

What about...a roll to hit, a damage roll, and an armor roll? Roll 1d20 (vs AC), then roll damage (vs. Armor). Rolling damage vs armor is very different from Armor subtracting from damage. Subtracting armor from damage generates 'false hits', where your attacks succeeds...but does not damage.

Players dislike those. But players like critical hits. So the trick is to make the damage roll translate into a count of criticals, with values of 1, 2, or 3. (Call them 'wounds') And that...I am not sure how to do. Not in a balanced, mathematically simple way. DMG minus armr causes 'false hits', while damage/armor is mathematically complex. Presume our damage dice will be regular polygons (d4-d12) with some use of multiple dice.

 A ranked table might work, where >0, >10 and >20 determine if its 1, 2, or 3 wounds. But the 'margin' number would vary by armor, not weapon..

Tom Vogt 

There are many dice mechanics that accomplish exactly this. Cortex Plus has a system where you roll 3d6, take the highest two for the success (hit) and the low one for damage. Or Godlike with its height+width, it evolved into the aptly named One-Roll-Engine. As soon as you look outside the boring mainstream games, you find a lot of very interesting and innovative game mechanics. I'm working on another system right now that will also have one roll to resolve both hit and damage. It's by no means a first

Travis Casey 

Quite a few older games have a roll to hit, a hit location roll, and a damage roll. Some throw in other rolls as well. BRP, in the complex case, has roll to hit, roll for the opponent's parry or dodge, roll for damage, and roll for hit location.On the opposite end, you have systems like Torg, where there is no separate roll for damage - the margin of success of the attack roll is instead added to a weapon damage value to give the damage done. Thus, each attack requires only one roll.

Paul Goldstone 

Rolemaster accomplished a lot with one roll (plus possible crit) which works nice, though a lot of tables.... I suppose there is a need to consider how important or how much of a focus is combat for the game, as well as whether the skill system will follow the same rolling premise. Finally how long it takes to work out and complete every roll. Played a few games where a "quick combat" takes over an hour for a couple of rounds for 4 players and 6 opponents can be a bit much. Finally how deadly/realistic is the combat system intending to be which is another important factor.

Rob Hicks

When I was working on Blueshift, that one used a single attack roll to speed things up, but that was also because I wanted to do automatic gunfire, which meant multiple combat rolls simultaneously, and I didn't want to have to roll multiple damage damage dice separately for each attack, and didn't want to create a huge variability in possible results by counting up lots of damage dice. If course, the other option involved multiplication, so go figure.

Travis Casey 

My own homebrew uses multiplication for damage: the amount you hit by is multiplied by a damage factor for the weapon used, with the adjustment that a zero (just barely hit) is multiplied by 1/2. The numbers involved are usually small - less than 10, so they're in the range of the multiplication tables most people have memorized.

Jesper Anderson
 Roll to hit, roll hit location, roll damage, depending on armor at hit location roll glancing (to further reduce damage). That's essentially how Phoenix Command Hand To Hand does it.

Random Attributes and Twink

Paul Goldstone

In relation to the munch/twink, that is down to the system, and more and more are seemingly point based with skills and talents. It seems long gone are the random rolls, and that difficult question on whether that 3 goes in wisdom or charisma foe my fighter. Over the years RPGs have matured with the community, and more players want input and to tailor (read munch/twink) their characters to effectively get the most out of it in a game. Having run a fair few tourney games, there have been many times i have been questioned on the character because it would have been better to have spent the points there and there and been a "better character". There can be a tendency to miss the 'role-play' aspect and focus on rolls.

"What is the proper number of base attributes for an RPG?"

Paul Goldstone

Dnd got the number of attributes/stats right imo with 6. It enables a decent description pretty much covering all angles. 

Attribute Score Distributions and Associated Bonuses

Robert J. Grady

Small plusses is one of the strengths of OSR games, as it keeps expected target values within a certain range. That said, basic D&D went up to +3, which is a nice range.

Alexander Staniforth

I think there'd be something to be said for a little more nuance. -2/-1/0/+1/+2.That way ridiculously high stats DO matter more, as do ridiculously low stats while at the same time it's still a relatively simple gradation.

Paul Goldstone
Bigger bonuses skew balance, especially at higher "levels". Lower bonuses also allow other "magic item bonuses" to have relevance. A +1 magic sword is irrelevant if a 18 stat gives +8 to a roll

Travis Casey

I'm not talking 'double all steps, so you go +2, +4, etc". I'm talking about three tiers, period: -2, 0, +2. Nobody would have a +8 from a stat, unless you're dealing with a girdle of giant strength or the like, in which case it's really a magic item bonus. A few recent OSR games, such as Swords & Wizardry White Box, Delving Deeper, and Bloody Basic, have adopted OD&D's attribute modifiers for rolls. Those are:

• 8 or less: -1
• 9 to 12: 0
• 13 or more: +1

What I'm pointing out is that OD&D intended those modifiers to be used with a 2d6 system, not a 1d20 one. A -1 or +1 is much more significant on 2d6 than with 1d20. So, I'm suggesting that if people want to use this style, but also want to use the 1d20 resolution mechanic instead of the original 2d6, they use -2/0/+2 as the modifiers instead. I'm suggesting doubling the numbers to give a statistical impact closer to what those modifiers had in the original system.

Matt Miller

The varied gradiation provides a mechanism to make characters more directly comparable. A first level wizard with an 18 is better than one with a 12. At some point, players are unwilling to keep lousy characters, and just re-roll until they get something acceptable. 

Paul Goldstone

I think the issue here is on a (3-18) system fundamentally they have made top end and low end stats irrelevant, there seems to be no (game mechanic) difference between 13 and 18. Perhaps a "roleplay aspect", but game mechanic wise irrelevant. There must be a reason, perhaps its all about reduction of the munch (min/max) players, but I would assume, having limited knowledge that f the games you have highlighted, that the game designers had reason for it all in this specific instance

Alexander Staniforth

That's why I'd suggest a -2/-1/0/+1/+2 approach. A point to higher stats without making them ridiculous and crucial to high-level characters. The really nice thing about not gradating it like that, is that it then doesn't cause a drive toward higher stats.On 3d6, the chance of a 13 or better is 26%. Thus, with six stats, the majority of characters (about 5 out of 6) will have at least one. I have to admit, I like luck in character gen (though I also like point-buys... either is fine by me, depending on the game) and I'm not too obsessed with games being balanced.

Encounter Manual

Matt Miller

In DnD, most XP comes from defeating monsters in combat. Making combat the main source of XP may not have been intended. But good tables on appropriate amounts of XP are available for combat, and none for other types of encounters. People respond to incentives. This suggests we need charts for different types of encounters-- a 'monster manual' for non-combat encounters, that includes appropriate XP.

Rob Hicks

I've never used wandering monster charts. I prefer to use lists that are based on environment, or theme them for the dungeon. Random encounters are done better through video games and don't tell much of a story....I bet fourth has charts out there, but if not, you could use 3e or pathfinder charts easily enough. 

Nathan Dowdell

Functionally, random encounters are a part of a different style of play than 4e supports. 4e encounters are very much of the "set piece action movie" style, which makes random, spontaneous conflicts difficult to deal with (the best 4e encounters are ones the GM has had time to plan and prepare, with interesting environments and challenging opponents).

Ed Vaughan 

Wandering monster charts work well in 4e, assuming you aren't hand-waving exploration. Often 4e adventures assume you walk to the next dungeon or room of guys without incident, and as a result the dungeons can feel small, pre-generated and mechanical. The other thing that's different about 4e adventures is that encounters are usually balanced around the party, where random encounter tables usually don't cater towards any particular level PC.  

Ken St. Andre 

There is no reason not to build Wandering Monster charts based on environment. A dungeon is a pretty generic environment--you can put almost anything inside it. A swamp or a forest offers a diverse habitat where dozens of creatures/foes could appear.

Ed Vaughan

Making a wandering monster table is really easy... Just pick any number of your favorite monsters and make a table out of it...then, decide how frequently they will occur... 5th edition uses 17-20 on a d20. Older D&D versions used a roll of 1 on a d10, or a roll of 1 in 6. Frequency is all up to you -- the more frequent monsters appear, the more difficult things are for the party.

Nathan Dowdell

Random encounters really have their origin - and find their purpose most strongly - in the earliest versions of D&D, back when you got XP equal to gold recovered, rather than getting XP for monsters killed. By focussing all reward on treasure, the idea of avoiding encounters (because encounters could mean casualties, which lessens your ability to succeed) through stealth, guile, diplomacy, or deception becomes important. Encumbrance also matters here - the more you carry, the slower you travel, and the more chance of random encounters... which are a risk, rather than another source of XP, but the less you carry, the less XP you get at the end. In that context, XP-for-Gold, Encumbrance, and Random Encounters are three parts of a mechanical construct that encourages cunning over brute force, and self-preservation over battlefield glory.
In that context, XP-for-Gold, Encumbrance, and Random Encounters are three parts of a mechanical construct that encourages cunning over brute force, and self-preservation over battlefield glory.
Random encounters serve less of a purpose outside of that context, becoming more an element of worldbuilding for sandbox-style play (with different tables for different environments) instead of a hazard to force logistical considerations. 

Ed Vaughan

If a player's expectation is similar to an adventure like Dungeon Delve, or Keep on the Shadowfell, they may not have any experience with exploration and resource management. The hardest part will be introducing the game style to the players -- that the PCs move only their speed per round, and have to cover the space between before they get to those labeled encounter areas. The longer they dawdle the more potential for random monsters there are.

Paul Goldstone 

I always felt wandering monsters were more work. 'Where did they come from?', players trying to track them to origin, just added a lot of faff.....However if you are playing a free form travelling with no purpose type game...there are millions of tables from all the editions. 

Matt Miller 

For outside environments, when players are 'on the road', wandering encounters make more sense. But you can't do the same time/space compaction in a dungeon...so you have to generate tension through spot checks and perception.

Weapon Range and Initiative

Matt Miller

Any thoughts on how to deal with weapon range in terms of initiative? Or weapon speed? In Mayhem, weapons had speed, that determined who went next, but it became more of an APR (attacks per round) thing than a 'swinging my hammer leaves me vulnerable' sort of thing. It's a knotty problem, as issues of range, timing, and and counter-attack are all bundled together.

Rob Hicks

The reality of a concept and the concept of the reality are very rarely the same thing....The reality of the spear is a super cheap and very effective way to arm cheap infantry with minimal training. The archetype is of a ranged attack for flashy wushu spins and thrusts. The latter is way more interesting, especially from a roleplaying perspective.... From that perspective, the relationship between range and speed is ... thematically irrelevant. The audience is much bigger for flashy maneuvers than hard realism.

Keith J Davies

...there is remarkably little difference between "weapon speeds" outside certain specific circumstances. You run into physiological limitations before weapon mass limitations.

Matt Miller

That's part of what I want to get at--that a lunge takes longer and leaves you more vulnerable. That and the physiological limitations of using a great axe, vs. using a hand axe. To me, this suggests a system where an action takes time (with the attack speed difference for most weapons being small), an initiative system where you character is 'off their guard' until their initiative count, and ties on initiative counts broken by a weapon reach. And perhaps a 2-weapon rule that says "You can't parry with a weapon you attacked with on your last action". ...I'm designing a simulation that treats every attack swing as a role of the dice.  People often treat a DnD attack as a single swing, so working with that metaphor.

Keith J Davies 

....whoever has won initiative controls the distance. [W]hen closing, bigger weapons get a bonus). If both fighters have the same reach they have no weapon-based modifier, otherwise for each step of reach difference you take a penalty. Dagger vs longsword, advantage is to the longsword initially because of longer reach. Dagger takes a penalty until he wins initiative, at which point he controls distance and stabstabstab... until longsword wins again. (This is part of why two weapon fighters use mismatched weapons, you have advantage in two reach categories)

Paul Goldstone

Runequest dealt with this utilising the Strike Rank system. This was based on the persons Size and Dexterity (character stats) and then modified by the weapon.
Longer weapons having a lower Strike Rank, so a tall and nimble person using a longsword would go before a short and nimble person. In situation of confined space or really close combat the weapons would have a Strike Rank modifier... For missile/thrown weapons, the Size aspect of the Strike Rank was dismissed. This system allowed ...diversity in weapons 

Keith Gatchalian 

...speed of the weapon is less an issue than reach.....from the time the two fighters engage, they are trading blows, parrying, making ripostes etc. The dice roll represents whether any of those blows or counterattacks make it through to cause damage. 

This is one of the weaknesses of the DnD system, that you only get to swing on your turn, even though you may have been fighting the whole turn. ...In a DnD combat, a fighter can engage someone, attack, then take a 5 foot step and then <have> someone else fill the space..... the defender never gets to "swing" back, even though as I point out, the combat is a series of blows, parrys and counterattacks. 

It does make sense for there to be a reach system, because a longer weapon, even if it is slower, will enable the fighter to strike first, as the other combatant maneuvers to get close enough to hit. ....there's no way a daggerman would ever strike before the two handed swordsman got a swing.......as a gamer, even in a fantasy game, you still have to ground the game in real world ...or the game becomes silly).

Paul Goldstone

In game terms a Size 18 Dexterity 20 warrior with a dagger would be quicker than a Size 10, Dexterity 10 warrior with a 2 handed sword .....The only conceivable way that the <dagger-user> went first was if...the wielder was significantly bigger, and exceedingly dexterous.

Rob Hicks

On a hexmap or a grid, how far would you...granulate reach? [C]ategorize it as some kind of initiative stat on the weapon? With Mayhem, we had effectively 3 ranges. 1, 2, and 3.... Is that enough to break ties? Is <granulated reach> worth creating an additional initiative stat? Could the <weapon stat> be used as tie-breakers for matched initiative? Are you comfortable with bows always going first? 

Matt Miller

 I'd actually give bows initiative proportional to their range, for simplicity in breaking ties. If you can't gack the archer before the start of the next tick, you get an arrow to the face. Readied attack goes first, then resolve by weapon range/reach. No 'attacks of opportunity', although the greater reach of weapons provides an opportunity to get the before they get you.

Rob Hicks

...it just doesn't jive with my mental heuristics of how speed and range work....I don't see being worth the application of range as initiative.

Matt Miller

I'll presume that you mental heuristic is that larger weapons are slower to swing, and so should not have as good an initiative as smaller ones. That seems...reasonable for clubs and whatnot, but not for spears. 2 handed weapons in general are kind of ticklish, as are pole-arms, which are both spear/axe and staff.

Keith J Davies 

I have to disagree that bigger means slower, and blunt means slower. _Imbalanced_ weapons are awkward, I could see making exceptions for mauls and the like, but that's because of the imbalance, not the size or bluntness. Quarterstaves go _fast_, man. As do greatswords when properly applied. The mechanical advantage from two hands properly placed makes up for a _lot_ of mass differences.....ith greatswords it wasn't uncommon to hold the blade and beat someone about the head with the 'handle'. The weapon is as much a steel spear as it as a 'sword' 

Multi-mode weapon, still two-handed (hits hard) and in proficient hands 'speed' is largely limited by muscular speed. Life becomes so much easier when you base initiative advantages on who has the advantage of reach. Sometimes daggers are faster, sometimes halberds. If I have a polearm you don't even get to attack me with a dagger unless you ....close with me 

For melee I based it on immediate range (small weapons like daggers, you have to close with your opponent; in a square- or hex-based map like D&D 3.x you're "in the same square"). 'Normal melee weapons' are melee range, which covers everything that isn't immediate range or reach. Long weapons like pikes (and greatswords and other polearms if you know how) have 'reach' and go one unit farther. Whips...consider them 'double reach' and usable only at reach and double reach, useless in melee. 

(and yes, I have 'weapon tricks' -- something like D&D feats -- that let someone overcome these difficulties. I was convinced by a martial artist I know who demonstrated he could hit my body with a (practice) sword while I had a grip on his <shirt>, without moving us apart. "Okay, a 'close combat style' will let you do this", said I).

Robert J. Grady

I know, with simulated weapons, the spear usually gets one get shot against a greatsword fighter. But then the greatsword fighter is inside, and gets a good shot. After that, it comes down to footwork. Dagger vs. sword is more straightforward because they are often used in similar ways; usually reach is an advantage, to a (ahem) point. The epee was designed to optimize reach, but then smallswords came along and changed the game by going smaller and faster again. One thing RPGs often mess up is that, other things being equal, a two-handed weapon is less nimble than a one-handed one, but is FASTER and MORE ACCURATE. Rapier v. katana, the rapier guy is going to look for a vulnerable angle of attack, while the katana is going to look for the right opening and hit fast and hard.

Keith J Davies 

Note that the 'less nimble' is _not_ because of _weight_, it's because you keep both hands on the weapon. This greatly limits the weapon's 'nimbleness'.