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Old November 26th, 2008, 09:16 PM
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Mitigating extreme variability in dice rolls...

Heroscape's gaming engine is wonderful for its simple rule set, yet interesting and complex interaction of figures, terrain, glyphs, and other effects. That said, there is one aspect of the Heroscape gaming engine which, at least for casual games with my friends, I'd like to improve upon.

Because of the all-or-nothing system of wounding, there is a higher degree of variability in dice outcomes in Heroscape than in some similar miniature war games. Because there are no partial hits, blocks, or wounds, figures finish a battle either being destroyed, critically wounded, or completely unscathed, and there is no middle ground.

What I would like to do is allow for more precise degrees of attacking, defending, and wounding so that the outcomes of attacks tend to be less toward the extremes. After brainstorming some different ways to go about this (that I hope wound not fundamentally change the game), I came up with an idea I'd like to get some feedback on:

The Idea

-Multiply every figure's Life by 30*; this is their Hit Points (HP). Squad figures would have 30 hit points; a 4-Life hero would have 120 hit points, etc.

-Instead of rolling attack dice, roll a 30-sided die* once and multiply the result by your attack value.

-Instead of rolling defense dice, roll a 20-sided die* once and multiply the result by your defense value.
*Using these values maintains the 3:2 ratio of skulls to shields on the 6-sided die.


When attacking, you would roll the 30-sided dice only once. Multiply the result you get by your attack value to determine your damage potential for this roll. For instance, if you were attacking a figure on even height with a KMA Agent who had no attack enhancements, you would roll the 30-sided die and multiply your result by 3 since the KMA's attack number is 3.

To defend against an attack, you would do the same but instead of rolling a 30-sided die, you would roll the 20-sided dice only once. Multiply the result by your defense value to determine the amount of damage you blocked for this roll.

To determine the damage dealt, simply subtract the damage blocked from the attacker's damage potential. Subtract the damage dealt from the figure's hit points and proceed normally.

Although you're not rolling more dice per se with this method, by using the D30 and D20 instead of D6s, you have effectively decreased the variability of dice roll outcomes via regression-to-the-mean. You will hit more frequently, but for less damage per hit than if you were using normal Heroscape dice.

Most special abilities that hinge on attack and defense die rolls have an intuitive translation into the new system, but not all translate perfectly.

For instance, for toxic skin, instead of dealing 1 wound, deal 30 hit points of damage. Easy.

However other abilities are more tricky to convert. For instance, with Stealth Dodge, you could say that if the defender rolls X or more for his defense, then that blocks all damage from a non-adjacent attack. This works fine in most situations, but things change a little bit when your defense number is modified; rolling an extra defense die in the official system improves your chances of stealth dodging less than the amount that it would in the proposed system by a small but meaningful percentage.

I know this method would make the game a little more cumbersome in that you would need to keep track of each individual figure's precise number of hit points, but for some it may be worth it.

I would be especially interested in any insights you might have as to how this might upset certain checks and balances in the game such as the stealth dodge example I gave. I haven't had enough time to think about all of the ramifications yet...

I used SPSS to model the amount of damage done per roll, the percent chance to hit (which is analogous to Sisyphus's table called "Wound Chance"), the amount of damage expected at various roll percentiles, and a number of other things with this proposed method.

Here are some tables displaying the same types of information for the proposed system as Sisyphus's probability tables do for official HS.









Note: 1 wound = 30 hit points; these two tables display the same data, just with different units of damage inflicted.

Last edited by rouby44; November 28th, 2008 at 02:11 AM. Reason: modified idea
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Old November 26th, 2008, 09:52 PM
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Re: Mitigating extreme variability in dice rolls...

My only problem with that idea is the extra record keeping it would take to remember how much HP each figure had left. If you have an army consisting of nothing but a single common squad, it's going to be tough to write that all out.

Sure, I get annoyed with some of the randomness of the dice. However, I'm learning to get past that, to minimize the chance. Keeping your figures on height will help to minimize your casualties, as is having a supporter character to increase stats.

By all means though, give it a go and see what happens.
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Old November 27th, 2008, 01:34 AM
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Re: Mitigating extreme variability in dice rolls...

After doing some more testing, I realized that the method I described above does not hold up well when there is a moderately large discrepancy in number of attack versus defense dice.

However, I'm trying a new method in which instead of rolling a 30-sided die for each attack number you have, you would roll the 30-sided die only once per attack and then multiply the result by your attack number. For instance, if you were attacking with Kaemon Awa's Quick Release Special Attack, you would roll a 30-sided die once, then multiply by four to get the damage dealt by the first attack...

After simulating 20 trials of 1, 2, 3, and 4 attack against 3 defense with this method, the chance to hit is slightly higher than in HS, but the damage dealt per hit is appreciably lower. I will post some statistics and results soon...
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Old November 27th, 2008, 01:42 AM
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Re: Mitigating extreme variability in dice rolls...

Moved to Other Customs.

~Aldin, cumbersomely

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or his desserts are small
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to gain or lose it all
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Old November 27th, 2008, 09:36 AM
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Re: Mitigating extreme variability in dice rolls...

What eternal dream said, how would you keep track of common squad figure's life?

Also, it's a bit too much math for my taste

Keep trying stuff, though, you may find a solution.


Edit: You should look at this:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community...ad.php?t=22348

MSE: Easy Heroscape Card Creation
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Old November 27th, 2008, 12:14 PM
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Re: Mitigating extreme variability in dice rolls...

Quote:
Originally Posted by bmaczero View Post
What eternal dream said, how would you keep track of common squad figure's life?

Also, it's a bit too much math for my taste

Keep trying stuff, though, you may find a solution.


Edit: You should look at this:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community...ad.php?t=22348

Admittedly, keeping track of squad figure's hit points would be a little tricky, but I think it could be overcome by writing a number (or taping a tiny piece of paper with a number on it if one was too opposed to marking their figures in any way) on the underside of the figure's base for identification purposes. Then on a separate sheet of paper, you could track the hit points of "4th Mass Soldier #9" or whomever, for example.

Thanks for the link. The other idea in that thread is interesting as well.
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Old November 27th, 2008, 12:17 PM
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Re: Mitigating extreme variability in dice rolls...

I don't know. The essence of Heroscape is its simplicity. I don't know how much more you can build on top of it. If you want to add more realism or whatever, you could always use the Heroscape figures with a different battle system.
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Old November 28th, 2008, 02:12 AM
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Re: Mitigating extreme variability in dice rolls...

bump for a highly modified idea with data to back it up...
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