Tuesday, August 21, 2018

#RPGaDay 2018 Day 21: Which Dice Mechanic Appeals to Me?

Three weeks of #RPGaDay are now in the bag.  We move onto a simple question for Day 21:  "Which Dice Mechanic Appeals to Me?"

Don't care what your type or pool size is, make them exploding, and I'll ponder the concept.

The basic concept of Exploding Dice are simple:  Roll the max number on the die, roll again.  Continue until you don't roll max and the add the rolls together.

In Savage Worlds, where base success is a 4 and a "raise" is 8 (multiple raises would be increments of 4), this is how a lowly d4 or d6 can become devastating for a roll.

In Hackmaster, exploding dice are used in only damage, and each roll past the inital is the die-1 (Example d4 dagger, roll a 4, roll a second 4, and finally a 3 = 4+3+2=9)

Both create situations not normally anticipated in the session.  Coupled with the critical hit system in the game, the lowly but lucky goblin is still a threat to a mid-level wizard and the heroes might have a chance against a much larger monster.

1 comment:

  1. The very first time I played Savage Worlds Showdown (we were playing Rippers: the Horror Wars), one of my monster hunter guys stabbed one of my opponents wildcard hero monsters and when I rolled for damage I just kept on rolling 6's... I think I rolled a total of 46 or 48...? the total caused about 8 wounds!? Yeah, he was going to be suuuuper dead. So he spent a benny and rolled to soak.... and just kept on acing... I think he soaked all but one of those wounds and kept on fighting... Crazy, crazy stuff happened in Savage Worlds...

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