D&D 5E House Rule Idea: Exploding Weapon Dice

[Tonguez]

Yeah, I let this happen for mass combat to simulate heroic PCs mowing down the opposing mooks

 

[toucanbuzz]

CONS:

• Everyone spends more time not doing anything while the DM and other players roll a lot of dice. Since the DM has more monsters to manage, throwing a bunch of foes with 2d4 damage weapons leads to longer turns for the DM, leading to players sitting around. DM begins house-ruling all monsters have d12 attacks to speed up gameplay.
• Casters get screwed as martial characters have all the fun. The DM relents. Casters stock up on Acid Splash. More dice are rolled, more players waiting longer times for their turns.
• It screws over the d8/d12 weapons even further in favor of 2d4 and 2d6 weapons, which are already numerically preferred. The market for mauls increases.

PROS:

• It's something new. It sounds like you want to make combat more unpredictable, though it's being done in an uneven way.

Historically, exploding dice were used with AD&D early medieval firearms. If you used a 2d6 firearm and rolled a d6 on either of the dice, roll another set of damage dice, and keep going. Otherwise, there wasn't much impetus to use a weapon that might explode on you, and had less attacks per round, less range, and the same damage as longbows.

Personally, exploding dice might be a cool feature to incorporate into a unique magical dagger, or house rule daggers in a grapple are more deadly, or something that makes a weapon uncommonly used in combats more commonly used.

 

[TerraDave]

So, you may really want to check out Savage Worlds...

Did this as a house rule in 2e. Its fun. If dice can keep exploding, it leaves open the possibility that any attack can really hurt a mid-level oponent, even if the chances are very small.

 

[Count_Zero]

Hackmaster 4e and (IIRC) 5e uses a system like this, with the added bit that when the die explodes it, IIRC, steps down with each subsequent explosion, to balance it for weapons like daggers.

 

[TerraDave]

Historically, exploding dice were used with AD&D early medieval firearms. If you used a 2d6 firearm and rolled a d6 on either of the dice, roll another set of damage dice, and keep going. Otherwise, there wasn't much impetus to use a weapon that might explode on you, and had less attacks per round, less range, and the same damage as longbows.

Thats where we got it from. I think it was actually in the 2e PHB...and I think it was an FR callout, as Greenwood had done some firearm stuff in Dragon.

Again keeps the idea of killing someone with one shot, even if the chance is small.

 

[LordEntrails]

Eh. interesting and can add excitement, to start with. But as others say, it will get tedious after awhile. If you want combat more deadly, and not to slow things down, just make criticals add max damage to regular damage. So 1d8 becomes 1d8+8 etc. Increases damage, makes combat more deadly, but doesn't slow things down.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Hackmaster 4e and (IIRC) 5e uses a system like this, with the added bit that when the die explodes it, IIRC, steps down with each subsequent explosion, to balance it for weapons like daggers.

Not quite. Subsequent rolls subtract one from the total--but can still "explode" if you roll the maximum on the die.

So an exploding d4 does an extra 1-3 damage... unless it explodes again.

 

[Shiroiken]

I can hear the great axe crying from here…

Unless you require both d6s from the greatsword and maul to be max for a reroll. Then it would shift the power back to the d12.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not sure why that's a problem? I feel it fits my goal of making combat a little more deadly.

You could make combat a little more deadly by just upping monster damage die types up one step, too. That's simpler, and has more predictable results. Why change a game rule when you can reach the goal with a small monster or encounter design change?

To me, there's a game philosophy point that's more important, though. "Make combat more deadly," isn't a great goal for a GM. The GM's raison d'etre is to bring about a play experience. Rules changes should be a means to that end, not the end themselves. So, what about the play experience at your table isn't to your liking? What problem is "make combat more deadly" there to fix?

 

[R_J_K75]

Sorry, the bar is quite high to slow down combat even more.

This was my thought as well. I suppose it depends on the table. If the DM and players know the rules well and are well focused, then I think this can work and be fun but if you have more casual players like our table is then I can see this possibly dragging out combat. This reminds me of a mechanic in the 2E Spelljammer box set. When rolling attacks for smoke powder guns you continued to re-roll on any natural 20, if you rolled a second 20 you rolled again, etc., then rolled damage dice. I'm not 100% exactly sure how damage was resolved though, if they were all max damage or rolled.