D&D 5E Different Damage Die Sizes for Weaponry

[Steampunkette]

So I had a shower thought that I wanted to run past people. What would y'all think about using different sized dice-pairings to represent different weapons? A handful of weapons deal two dice of damage, but it's always the same dice in the pair.

A Glaive, for example, deals 1d10 damage as a polearm. What if another polearm, say a Lucerne Hammer or a Halberd, instead dealt 1d6+1d4?

Average damage 6, minimum damage 2, max damage 10. 4.17% chance of rolling either a 2 or a 10 with 4, 5, and 6 each having an equal 16.67% chance of showing. As compared to 2d5 dealing 10 or 2 on a 4% chance and 6 damage 20% of the time. (Who even owns d5s these days?). This particular method weights towards averages, like any double-dice rolling system does, but does so much more heavily than rolling two same-sized dice.

It would certainly give us a greater variety of potential weapon damage values with different averages and odds of reaching maximum damage. And thanks to the variety of dice available, we could add a pretty big spread.

The biggest deficiency that I can see is Confusion at the table over which dice to roll. But most players write their weapon's damage dice on their sheet so is it -really- that big a deal?

 

[Fanaelialae]

So I had a shower thought that I wanted to run past people. What would y'all think about using different sized dice-pairings to represent different weapons? A handful of weapons deal two dice of damage, but it's always the same dice in the pair.

A Glaive, for example, deals 1d10 damage as a polearm. What if another polearm, say a Lucerne Hammer or a Halberd, instead dealt 1d6+1d4?

Average damage 6, minimum damage 2, max damage 10. 4.17% chance of rolling either a 2 or a 10 with 4, 5, and 6 each having an equal 16.67% chance of showing. As compared to 2d5 dealing 10 or 2 on a 4% chance and 6 damage 20% of the time. (Who even owns d5s these days?). This particular method weights towards averages, like any double-dice rolling system does, but does so much more heavily than rolling two same-sized dice.

It would certainly give us a greater variety of potential weapon damage values with different averages and odds of reaching maximum damage. And thanks to the variety of dice available, we could add a pretty big spread.

The biggest deficiency that I can see is Confusion at the table over which dice to roll. But most players write their weapon's damage dice on their sheet so is it -really- that big a deal?

It might be a little tougher for newer players (who will often have trouble distinguishing the one die type they're looking for) but not so much for experienced players.

That said, if you use two dice, average rolls are more likely than if you roll just one. That could be either a pro or a con, depending on how you look at it.

I think I actually saw this in a game at some point, though I can't seem to recall what it was.

 

[Horwath]

Not a bad idea. Personally, I would like that all two handed weapons have 2 damage dice.

2d3->d3+d4->2d4->d4+d6->2d6->d6+d8->2d8.
now with 5 damage categories, there is space to play with simple/martial, reach, finesse, 2 or more damage types.

2d8 could be 2Handed, martial, heavy:

remove martial; reduce one step,
remove heavy; reduce one step,
add reach; reduce 2 steps,
add finesse; reduce 2 steps,
add one extra damage type; reduce one step,
add 3 extra damage types(all B, P and S damage); reduce 2 steps,

 

[commandercrud]

Slightly vary the damage? Doesn't seem like enough of a differentiator to bother.

 

[Laurefindel]

So I had a shower thought that I wanted to run past people. What would y'all think about using different sized dice-pairings to represent different weapons? A handful of weapons deal two dice of damage, but it's always the same dice in the pair.

A Glaive, for example, deals 1d10 damage as a polearm. What if another polearm, say a Lucerne Hammer or a Halberd, instead dealt 1d6+1d4?

Average damage 6, minimum damage 2, max damage 10. 4.17% chance of rolling either a 2 or a 10 with 4, 5, and 6 each having an equal 16.67% chance of showing. As compared to 2d5 dealing 10 or 2 on a 4% chance and 6 damage 20% of the time. (Who even owns d5s these days?). This particular method weights towards averages, like any double-dice rolling system does, but does so much more heavily than rolling two same-sized dice.

It would certainly give us a greater variety of potential weapon damage values with different averages and odds of reaching maximum damage. And thanks to the variety of dice available, we could add a pretty big spread.

The biggest deficiency that I can see is Confusion at the table over which dice to roll. But most players write their weapon's damage dice on their sheet so is it -really- that big a deal?

The biggest deal would be for the DM, but perhaps you are looking for a player-only variant?

Still, that's an extra layer of complexity that, alone, does not seem that bad but that gets more complex when you add critical hits, Features that add one more dice of the same type, sneak attacks and smites, the occasional d8 from X subclass, and distinction between B/P/S damage and cold/electricity/fire damage dice (etc) when it comes to damage resistance. Great Weapon Fighting style would get a big boost however, which is interesting. 1d6+1d4 and reroll 1s and 2s? heck yeah!

Personally, I don't have a problem with the relatively wide RNG of damage dice. So I'm not sure it would be worth the trouble, but I might not be your target audience for that.

 

[Steampunkette]

The biggest deal would be for the DM, but perhaps you are looking for a player-only variant?

Still, that's an extra layer of complexity that, alone, does not seem that bad but that gets more complex when you add critical hits, Features that add one more dice of the same type, sneak attacks and smites, the occasional d8 from X subclass, and distinction between B/P/S damage and cold/electricity/fire damage dice (etc) when it comes to damage resistance. Great Weapon Fighting style would get a big boost however, which is interesting. 1d6+1d4 and reroll 1s and 2s? heck yeah!

Personally, I don't have a problem with the relatively wide RNG of damage dice. So I'm not sure it would be worth the trouble, but I might not be your target audience for that.

All the other dice from other sources already have whatever problems they have on damage typing or keeping which dice represents which effect straight already.

"The blue d6 is for the shortsword's piercing damage, the red 2d6 are for the fire damage, and the black 5d6 are for sneak attack!" is a thing. Just have a blue d6 and d4 for the damage of whatever weapon, instead. (Probably no sneak-attack on that one, though, for obvious reasons)

That said... Half-Orcs would hate these weapons. Sure they'd roll the higher of the two dice to add to their damage on a critical hit, but they want the biggest possible dice anyhow. It's why Greataxes are great for Half-Orcs. Rolling that 1d12 3 times on a crit is great, as opposed to a 5d6 Greatsword strike. (Even though the Greatsword has better average damage and leverages the heck out of Great Weapon Fighting Style)

3d6+2d4 just isn't as nice as 3d10, for all the same reasons.

 

[NotAYakk]

So one of the rules when playing a game is to try to make things that take a bit of extra time matter.

The time it takes for the "main game loop" to run has pretty significant impact on how the game plays. While it doesn't take that much time to add up 1d6 and 1d4, every extra bit of work to run the "main game loop" adds up, so you should seek to shave stuff off that aren't needed.

2d6 on a greatsword is already going to "cost" a bit more than 1d12; here, we add in the asymmetry, which in practice will slow things down a tad more.

And the benefit isn't that large. 1d10 has a variance of 99/12, 1d4 15/12, 1d6 35/12. So 1d4+1d6 has a variance of 50/12, close to 1d8's 63/12. This is basically 1d8+1.5 in how it would play.

So a simpler, faster version would be to make the weapon 1d8+1 or +2, which would be a touch faster; but even there we run into problems; does the +1 crit?

In 4e one weapon property was Brutal. A brutal 2 weapon couldn't roll a 2 or under on the die; you'd just reroll it. And 1d8+2 is the same curve as 1d10B2. That would do away with the cost of dealing with static bonuses on weapons. 1d10B1 has a variance of 80/12 and the same average as 1d4+1d6, and probably evaluates faster (even with the reroll costs).

...

Backing up, we should aim for quirky features of weapons to matter as much as possible. The overhead to think about the quirky feature slows the game down (not only in having to think about it, but dealing with forgetting about it). How it matters could be "fun" or mechanics based.

And I don't see either fun nor a significant mechanical impact of rolling 1d4+1d6 here.

In 4e, the Brutal property mattered because you could end up rolling a lot of damage dice -- one power might deal 7[W]. And high level characters could attack 14 times in a single round (using certain encounter powers etc). Even then, one of the ways higher level 4e falls down is that you can end up stacking far too many tiny benefits that evaluation of what happens ends up taking too long. The in fiction impact of "reroll 1s and 2s" is relatively static from level 1 to max level; a level-appropriate foe takes a bit more damage from your attacks; but the cost -- the number of times you roll 1s and 2s -- goes up. And similar for a bunch of other mechanics.

That led to higher level 4e bogging down with slower combat rounds.

The "silver standard" of the game loop is "roll attack, add the same modifier as last turn, on a hit roll weapon damage plus a modifier that doesn't change". Be reluctant to make that less efficient.

5e's "you get more attacks" ends up being costly here. A 5th level fighter is half as time efficient dealing level-appropriate damage than a 1st level fighter is. At 11th level they are 1/3 as efficient. The Paladin with his built-in 1d8 ends up being about 40% as efficient as a level 1 Paladin at level 11, as "add 1d8 to all attacks" doesn't boost the cost of evaluating the action by 50%, like an extra attack does. (Ok; most high level PCs accelerate multi-attack by rolling them all at once, so it isn't actually 3x slowdown).

While replacing 1d10 with 1d6+1d4 isn't as "bad" as the paladin's +1d8, the +1d8 has a larger narrative impact. It adds radiant damage (which can be important), and it boosts a 1d8+8 (12.5) attack damage up by 36% (larger than the 1d6+1d4 swap) for roughly the same cost.

 

[Steampunkette]

@NotAYakk Variety, more than anything else.

It'll slow things down exactly as much as someone using a Greatsword or a Maul would. Which players already have the option to do. And it's desperately unlikely you'll have more than one player at the table throwing 2 dice weapons in general.

But having different averages, different chances at higher or lower damage, and different dice bouncing in your hand as you roll are the goals. Variety and interest, tactile differences, and the choice between aiming for equal chance of any result and weighted chances for average results exists.

To me that might make it worth it. Not sure, yet. But I will definitely take your very valid concern, here, to heart. Is it really worthwhile to have weapons use two dice for damage in the first place is an interesting question I hadn't considered.

 

[NotAYakk]

The 2d6 weapons at least don't require grabbing different die types. Sure, a small optimization, but every bit helps.

You can make hetrogenous dice work, but I would want to hang something more interesting than "add them up" on it.

 

[Fanaelialae]

An idea I was playing around with a few years ago (for a homebrewed system) was one where all weapons would have two damage dice, and something special would happen if you rolled doubles (I think the dice would explode and you'd roll another die, which could also explode on a match).

I hadn't considered using different die types, but that could open up some really interesting design space. Sticking with the exploding dice concept for the moment, if you rolled 1d12 + 1d4 and rolled 2 on both dice, you'd have a choice between rolling another d12 or a d4. The d12 will roll higher on average, but the d4 has a higher chance of rolling a 2 and cascading the explosion. It's an interesting idea (to me at least).