Multidice

[Eltern]

So what are the workings of having multiple dice, versus one big dice?
Ex. 2d6 vs 1d12 Some people might think these are basically the same, however, they'll see that the 2d6 actually does a bit more average damage (3.5+3.5= 7 vs. 6.5). However, the d12 will do higher (and lower) damage more often, as the odds to get a 12 on 2d6 is 1/36, while on d12 is 1/12. What you get, then, is a -slightly- higher average with the 2d6 in addition to more "reliability" with more average scores, like a bell curve.

If a player wants to work out a way that instead of using multiple dice for a weapon he uses a dice rolling program to get the same -range-, would you let him?

I personally hate bell curves, it makes things less interesting, which is why I like d20 more than 2d10.

Eltern

 

[jgsugden]

GHreater deviations result in greater disparities from average results. This tends towards a more chaotic battlefield. This allows a DM less control over how effective foes should be against the party. In the end, it tends to result in more PC deaths.

As a gross example, let us pretend that we have an AC 22 PC facing a 3rd level kobold sorcerer with a rusty knife. That kobold normally does d2 damage with his rusty knife, or an average of 1.5 points per strike. Let us say that the kobold casts true strike and then attacks, getting a hit. No big deal. An average of 1.5 damage seems like nothing to worry about.

On the other hand, if we maintain that average damage, but change it so that the kobold does (d1000 - 499) damage on each knife strike, that knife attack suddenly becomes far more important (if we ignore the aspects relating to negative damage). Even a PC with 100 hit points has a good chance of dying.

If you increase the variance in die rolls, you lose more control over combat which tends to lead towards PC death. It may be because the enemies do too much damage or it may be because the PCs do too little damage, but everntually you'll get a little string of bad luck and the PCs will be in deeper trouble than intended.

We want some variance in the game so that it does not devolve into a chess match where an advantage is impossible to overcome without a mistake by the enemy. We don't want so much variance in the game that the randomness results in 'random' PC death. If you follow the written rules, you get a place where a well designed game results in a few PC deaths due to very bad luck, but most PC deaths result from mistakes by the character ... a nice balance. There is always that touch of danger, but the dominating factor is good decision making, not lucky rolling.