Thoughts on Miss Damage and Escalation Dice for all

[D.M.T.rpg]

I was thinking that for a more gritty game, having all attacks deal miss damage, and all npc's and monsters use the escalation die would make things more interesting.

Miss damage I love. It accounts for a bit of fatigue from fighting. Even with an impossibly high AC, you can only fend off a horde of goblins for so long before you are exhausted. It also helps the with speeding up encounters as well, at least a little bit. Even with a bunch of misses, characters and monsters are getting whittled down some.

One concern would be that some classes do miss damage on only some attacks, other classes do miss damage with all (or most) attacks. I don't want to water down those classes that get this feature but giving it away to everyone. Maybe upgrade those that get it a little.

Escalation Die: I love this concept. When I heard that it is only for the PC's, I was a bit disappointed. It gives the players a reason to not "Nova" on the first round, because they are more likely to hit 3 or 4 rounds in. And then by rounds 4-6, hitting is happening much more frequently, thus closing the combat sooner.

Wouldn't it be more interesting to have to balance between waiting a few round before really opening up to take advantage of the Escalation Die, and having to also worry about the fact that your foes are going to start hitting more often as well, so maybe a bit of haste is in order? Does anyone else do it this way? Thoughts?

What about making the Escalation Die a little more flexible. Characters can get either a bonus to hit, OR a bonus to damage? There are times when the enemy are easy to hit, but have tons of Hp, and you are doing low damage, by weapon and low stat, or by poor rolls. A bonus to hit doesn't help much if you are hitting already. More Damage can speed things up. Might be a nice option to have in your back pocket. Thoughts.


Here's a thought in Escalation Die and damage. The number on the Escalation Die becomes the value of the "Brutal" property of all attack die rolls. When the escalation die is "1", all damage dice that are "1's" get re rolled. etc. Hmm, if you are doing d6 damage and roll a "6" when the Esc. Die is "6" you would be stuck at max damage for that die. Thoughts?

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I do like the "brutal" =escalation die idea. I think that could work well.

 

[Dungeoneer]

Here's a thought in Escalation Die and damage. The number on the Escalation Die becomes the value of the "Brutal" property of all attack die rolls. When the escalation die is "1", all damage dice that are "1's" get re rolled. etc. Hmm, if you are doing d6 damage and roll a "6" when the Esc. Die is "6" you would be stuck at max damage for that die. Thoughts?

What if: rather than the Escalation Die increasing the probability of monsters hitting, it increased the amount of damage they did? You want a gritty game? How about attacks that get nastier as the battle goes on?

 

[WhatGravitas]

What if: rather than the Escalation Die increasing the probability of monsters hitting, it increased the amount of damage they did? You want a gritty game? How about attacks that get nastier as the battle goes on?

The idea is nice, but the problem is that the +6 damage is brutal at level one, trivial at level 10.

You'd need to go for something like monster level x escalation dice, but that's a bit clunkier than you might like.

 

[Dungeoneer]

The idea is nice, but the problem is that the +6 damage is brutal at level one, trivial at level 10.

You'd need to go for something like monster level x escalation dice, but that's a bit clunkier than you might like.

Yeah it would have to scale with level. And a +6 IS brutal, but that's the point here right? The lesson for the PCs is: don't let this fight go seven rounds!