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D5e HP - divide by 5?
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<blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 9214305" data-attributes="member: 2629"><p>The old Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures from the 00s essentially did this. Everything was a multiple of 5. You dealt a multiple of 5 damage, and your hp were a multiple of 5. In my mind I alawys divided by 5 as it gave me a clearer picture of the number of hits I needed and what combination of hitters got me wher eI needed to go.</p><p></p><p>What you lose with this is the variability and unpredictability surrounding damage. That sounds like a positive in some ways, but you lose a lot more than you gain. </p><p></p><p>Let's say I have an attack that does 1d8+3 damage. The average damage is 7.5. If I am fighting a goblin (and we ignore critical hit bonus damage), 5 out of 8 sides on the damage die will result in a kill, while 3 out of 8 do not. If we simplify the math behind the attacks as you suggest, then the goblin dies 100% of the time or 0% of the time on that first hit depending upon how you set it. This has a massive impact on the difficulty of combat. Either that battle against 5 goblins gets a bit easier or becomes much harder. </p><p></p><p>It makes incremental increases in capability much harder to do. Going from 5 to 10 damage doubles your damage. Doing from 10 to 15 increases it by 50%. You'd end up being very stagnant on the damage dealt for a long time and then get these huge bumps in damage when you did get to increase it.</p><p></p><p>It also robs players of a bit of the thrill and chill of the game. We enjoy rolling maximum damage. We cringe and (hopefully) laugh when we roll minimum damage. If we take that damage roll out of the game, the game goes faster ... but it also loses a little of the 'in the moment' magic that makes it entertaining. </p><p></p><p>In my experience, this is not worth doing. If the game is moving along in such a way that the simplification and speed that this would bring along is a significant benefit, I'd argue that it doesn't go far enough. Why go through the work of translating damage and rounding when you can put it all on the to hit roll? You usually want this type of speed when a huge number of monsters are being attacked. Generally, those would have few hps. To that end, I sometimes tell players something like: You need an X to hit. If you hit by at least 2, the enemy dies. If you hit exactly or by 1, they're wounded but not dead and any damage will kill them. That takes all the damage calculations entirely out of the game once I've made my estimation and told the players how it'll work. </p><p></p><p>This, and variations on it, offers a great tool when players get area attacks with attack rolls like a Hunter Ranger's Volley; or multiple targeting like a higher level Scorching Ray. When a player attacks with many rays of Scorching Ray against a single target I sometimes do not ask for damage rolls. I instead ask them to roll the attack dice in plain sight and then I count the number that hit and the percentage of the attack rolls that are odd. If they're exactly half, the rays do average damage. If they're more odd than even, I subtract some damage. If they're more even than odd I add some damage. It isn't an exact science, but it can speed up the game (as does just asking them to toll and tell you damage while you move on to the next player).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jgsugden, post: 9214305, member: 2629"] The old Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures from the 00s essentially did this. Everything was a multiple of 5. You dealt a multiple of 5 damage, and your hp were a multiple of 5. In my mind I alawys divided by 5 as it gave me a clearer picture of the number of hits I needed and what combination of hitters got me wher eI needed to go. What you lose with this is the variability and unpredictability surrounding damage. That sounds like a positive in some ways, but you lose a lot more than you gain. Let's say I have an attack that does 1d8+3 damage. The average damage is 7.5. If I am fighting a goblin (and we ignore critical hit bonus damage), 5 out of 8 sides on the damage die will result in a kill, while 3 out of 8 do not. If we simplify the math behind the attacks as you suggest, then the goblin dies 100% of the time or 0% of the time on that first hit depending upon how you set it. This has a massive impact on the difficulty of combat. Either that battle against 5 goblins gets a bit easier or becomes much harder. It makes incremental increases in capability much harder to do. Going from 5 to 10 damage doubles your damage. Doing from 10 to 15 increases it by 50%. You'd end up being very stagnant on the damage dealt for a long time and then get these huge bumps in damage when you did get to increase it. It also robs players of a bit of the thrill and chill of the game. We enjoy rolling maximum damage. We cringe and (hopefully) laugh when we roll minimum damage. If we take that damage roll out of the game, the game goes faster ... but it also loses a little of the 'in the moment' magic that makes it entertaining. In my experience, this is not worth doing. If the game is moving along in such a way that the simplification and speed that this would bring along is a significant benefit, I'd argue that it doesn't go far enough. Why go through the work of translating damage and rounding when you can put it all on the to hit roll? You usually want this type of speed when a huge number of monsters are being attacked. Generally, those would have few hps. To that end, I sometimes tell players something like: You need an X to hit. If you hit by at least 2, the enemy dies. If you hit exactly or by 1, they're wounded but not dead and any damage will kill them. That takes all the damage calculations entirely out of the game once I've made my estimation and told the players how it'll work. This, and variations on it, offers a great tool when players get area attacks with attack rolls like a Hunter Ranger's Volley; or multiple targeting like a higher level Scorching Ray. When a player attacks with many rays of Scorching Ray against a single target I sometimes do not ask for damage rolls. I instead ask them to roll the attack dice in plain sight and then I count the number that hit and the percentage of the attack rolls that are odd. If they're exactly half, the rays do average damage. If they're more odd than even, I subtract some damage. If they're more even than odd I add some damage. It isn't an exact science, but it can speed up the game (as does just asking them to toll and tell you damage while you move on to the next player). [/QUOTE]
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