Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Dice Pools Or Variable Dice?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Wolf1066" data-source="post: 5197720" data-attributes="member: 88680"><p>I think I've had a lot more experience with variable dice than with pools - only played WoD a few times.</p><p></p><p>I do like both and they do significantly different things.</p><p></p><p>Cyberpunk in its raw form has D10s and D6s with the occasional percentile roll on 2 D10s.</p><p></p><p>My heavily modified house/alternative rule mishmash uses every die type there is and more - mostly to handle varying weapons/combat damage.</p><p></p><p>For a start, I adopted Rogue's modified calibre damage table which uses variable dice to emulate the damage range of various weapons. Then I applied it to FNFF2013's drops in damage over increasing ranges - which further necessitated changing the dice (drop from 2d6 to 2d4 over distance etc).</p><p></p><p>When reworking the bludgeon damage, I took the opportunity to use different dice for different attacks - hands, feet, elbows, knees, forehead, short lever, long lever etc - to approximate the different levels of damage each could do.</p><p></p><p>I also replaced the Hit Location roll with percentile dice to facilitate emulating the percentages given in real data taken from firearms assaults (someone else approximated the same data using D12s but I figured "hey, we can just do straight percentile here") and replaced the task resolution with my own D20 system based on levels of proficiency.</p><p></p><p>So in my games you can expect to roll anything from a D2 to a D100 depending on what you're doing:</p><p></p><p><span style="color: Blue"><span style="color: MediumTurquoise">Do you hit him? Roll D20 against your attack skill and apply modifiers vs his D20 and modifiers and defense skill to find out.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: Blue"><span style="color: MediumTurquoise"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: Blue"><span style="color: MediumTurquoise">Hit him? Cool. Roll percentile to see where. Leg? Dandy. You're using a 9mm at medium range so roll...</span></span></p><p><span style="color: Blue"></span></p><p>Converting all that to a dice pool would mean simplifying a lot - resulting in ridiculously high values for some things - or rolling an inordinately high number of low level dice (or tossing lots of coins, given the lowest die is a d2.) I like keeping division of results to a minimum so I'd take 1D2 over 1D10/5 any day...</p><p></p><p>I do like the flexibility of variable dice.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Wolf1066, post: 5197720, member: 88680"] I think I've had a lot more experience with variable dice than with pools - only played WoD a few times. I do like both and they do significantly different things. Cyberpunk in its raw form has D10s and D6s with the occasional percentile roll on 2 D10s. My heavily modified house/alternative rule mishmash uses every die type there is and more - mostly to handle varying weapons/combat damage. For a start, I adopted Rogue's modified calibre damage table which uses variable dice to emulate the damage range of various weapons. Then I applied it to FNFF2013's drops in damage over increasing ranges - which further necessitated changing the dice (drop from 2d6 to 2d4 over distance etc). When reworking the bludgeon damage, I took the opportunity to use different dice for different attacks - hands, feet, elbows, knees, forehead, short lever, long lever etc - to approximate the different levels of damage each could do. I also replaced the Hit Location roll with percentile dice to facilitate emulating the percentages given in real data taken from firearms assaults (someone else approximated the same data using D12s but I figured "hey, we can just do straight percentile here") and replaced the task resolution with my own D20 system based on levels of proficiency. So in my games you can expect to roll anything from a D2 to a D100 depending on what you're doing: [COLOR=Blue][COLOR=MediumTurquoise]Do you hit him? Roll D20 against your attack skill and apply modifiers vs his D20 and modifiers and defense skill to find out. Hit him? Cool. Roll percentile to see where. Leg? Dandy. You're using a 9mm at medium range so roll...[/COLOR] [/COLOR] Converting all that to a dice pool would mean simplifying a lot - resulting in ridiculously high values for some things - or rolling an inordinately high number of low level dice (or tossing lots of coins, given the lowest die is a d2.) I like keeping division of results to a minimum so I'd take 1D2 over 1D10/5 any day... I do like the flexibility of variable dice. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Dice Pools Or Variable Dice?
Top