2d10 to help with swingy gameplay?

[Boze]

Hey guys, just a thought. In fact I have every intention of continuing playing using a D20 but I have seen a lot of discussion regarding the "swingyness" (word?) of Frostrgave.

Back in my tabletop RPG days I remember having lots of fun interesting discussion regarding the difference of probability between dice pools vs single dice rolls.

So why not 2d10?

According to www.anydice.com instead of a 5% per side you create this bell curve effect where you will have more rolls between 6-16 which may tighten things up?

Either way just thought would be interesting to hear what you wonderful people think as I am still relatively new to Frostgrave.

P.s. The wife is working on the mausoleum

Cheers!

[Coenus Scaldingus]

Haven't tried it myself yet, but I believe others on here have, so looking forward to reading about some actual experiences.

In theory, it will of course play fairly similarly, but a number of things are worth taking into account. There is the simple matter that some effects can no longer take place, like the Summon spell's "an angry demon attacks you when you roll a 1 when casting this spell". A one on either die would be harsh, while a one on each is much less likely to occur. Spells will generally be easier to cast, as casting values are mostly in the middle area of 8-12. Even more so later in the campaign, if brought down to a 5. Additionally, resistable spells empowered to a high number will be more difficult to get rid of: e.g. getting it from a roll of 13 to a result of 16 costs three health in either case, but the resistability of a spell on a 16 is 25% for a D20 but 15% on 2D10. Finally, it will make the more expensive soldiers better, as the high results necessary for weaker ones to overcome them are less likely to occur. A thug needs a roll of 12+ to hurt a knight, 19+ to reduce one to wounded in one strike and 20 to kill him at once (crit). On the other hand, a knight hurts the thug on a 7+, wounded at 12+ and dead at 16+. The likelihood of those numbers shifts quite strongly when using different dice - which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but something to take into account.

[Darkson71]

It would make the drivers with higher Fight/Shoot better due to the more "average" dice rolls, necessitating a re-costing.

And just personally, it would make those "cinematic" moments in the game (like my 1 wound thief defeating a Barbarian and combat-tooled wizard in one turn) that, to me, are what helps make this game fun.

[Boze]

Thats a good point!

[Malebolgia]

I agree with Darkson71. The dice really bring a lit of unexpected fun and chaos to the table. In Friday's game my wounded archer killed an archer and captain in melee with some high rolls and my Crossbowman managed to kill a Treasure Hunter (yes, he actually was killed!) who was 1" from his table edge with a treasure. All due to high rolls. Balanced? Probably not. Epic fun? Hell yeah!

[ffoulk]

My initial reaction to the d20 was so 'hostile' that I almost immediately used 2d10 along with a number of other tweaks we wargames are wont to try. After a handful of games I went back to d20 to baseline my previous 2d10 games and I got a big surprise.

The 2d10 games had been fun but compared to the d20 games were plodding affairs; the reduction in randomness had also reduced the number of hits one was likely to achieve In combat and so fights became dull... Which was of course predictable, or should have been.

The  perceived randomness of the d20 is mitigated by armour of 10-12 but at the same time every roll is exciting. Insta-kills do occur for sure and if this bothers you I urge to to watch YouTube videos of actual fights carried out by Western Maerial Artists and see how quickly they can become deadly.

I completely failed to stick to the old adage "don't change a rule until you've played the game enough to no longer the rule book" and in doing so almost changed these great rules into ones that were simply okay and you think I'd know better after almost 50 years of wargaming!