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Showing posts from September, 2021

Morale as a d6 roll

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It is known that I like to reduce miscellaneous rolls and mechanics to their approximate d6 equivalents. The foundation for this is the elegance of the LotFP d6 skill system , which I think is memorable, minimal, and hackable. So far, I have turned saving throws into d6 skills that can be improved by Specialists and downtime training and even a unified d6 single saving throw inspired by Swords & Wizardry . Morale is ripe for adaptation as well- even though it's determined with a 2d6 bell curve, the chances align rather similarly. It could go quite nicely with the d6 Save versus Death for Chainmail style combat , also. Not perfectly, mind you, but with a deviation of about 8% at most, which is right in the middle of the 16.66% gradations of a d6 roll. Is it a worthwhile price to pay? I think so- the more things that can be condensed into similar mechanics, the better for use at the table. And why do we really need 12 individual gradations of Morale, when the MM usually assi

Quick Combat: Redshirts and the Save Versus Death

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When there are large quantities of combatants, especially of the same type, there's no reason to roll individual attacks and damage, and no reason to keep strict, detailed records of who's dying and who's left. Of course there's nothing wrong with fighting them normally by making a d20 roll and then rolling damage, but why do that for every combatant when there's a bunch of them? Assuming that they're facing opponents of roughly equal strength, it can be streamlined into a single roll with a little math. Redshirts with low HP, AB and damage are easy to model, so we can just make a roll for each individual or unit without tracking their HP if we calculate the chance of them dying from an attack. Thus, they get two states: "Dead" and "Not Dead" (or "Not Dead Yet"). If they fail a save, they are Dead. If they succeed, they are either Not Dead (fully alive) or Not Dead Yet (reduced strength, suffer a Morale check, or other negative