*
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 28, 2024, 02:55:43 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Donate

We Appreciate Your Support

Recent

Author Topic: Frostgrave using D10s  (Read 4930 times)

Offline pixelgeek

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2026
    • Zac's Gaming Blog
Frostgrave using D10s
« on: October 27, 2020, 04:29:21 PM »
Has anyone tried using the Frostgrave rules with D10s instead of D20s for combat resolution?

Offline Ultravanillasmurf

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 9302
    • Ultravanillasmurf
Re: Frostgrave using D10s
« Reply #1 on: October 28, 2020, 07:26:31 AM »
Has anyone tried using the Frostgrave rules with D10s instead of D20s for combat resolution?
No, why?

My only thought is if you had a shortage of D20s and a surfeit of D10s.

GDW went from D10 to D20s because it increased the granularity of the results.

Offline fred

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4359
    • Miniature Gaming
Re: Frostgrave using D10s
« Reply #2 on: October 28, 2020, 08:18:24 AM »
Because opposed d20 is very very swingy

Offline Ultravanillasmurf

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 9302
    • Ultravanillasmurf
Re: Frostgrave using D10s
« Reply #3 on: October 28, 2020, 09:43:49 AM »
Because opposed d20 is very very swingy
I originally could not understand what you meant, admittedly probability is not my strong point.

On a D10 you have a 10% chance of losing by one, on a D20 that reduces to 5% (maybe I am getting the maths wrong ^__^).

And then I realised it is nothing to do with the dice, it is the modifiers!

I do not have Frostgrave (either edition) to hand, but if you use a D20 each modifier is 5%, whereas with D10 each modifier is 10%.

So the chances of that Thug taking down your extremely expensive (especially in second edition) Templar is higher.

I am sure there are Mathsgraves experts who could give a better (and more accurate) explanation.

Do some modelling of the effect of changing from D20 to D10 on combat resolution (spreadsheets are your friend here).
First column is the die rolls for figure one, starting at row 2.
Columns two to ten/twenty in row one are the die rolls for figure 2.
The intersection between the rows and columns is the maths determining winner or loser.

Strangely enough my boss frowns on that sort of modelling at work, but I will try and put something together tonight.

Taking a Dark Future example, in the fluff Wombles(TM) are invulnerable warriors immune to the attacks of rank and file humans, cool in books but rather dull on the table.

Offline fred

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4359
    • Miniature Gaming
Re: Frostgrave using D10s
« Reply #4 on: October 28, 2020, 12:56:14 PM »
It’s more to do with the possible outcomes of a single dice roll (or pair of dice rolls) rather than overall probabilities.

If you are rolling against a target number, then d20s allow more granularity of modifiers. And overall probabilities should be the same.

But where you have relatively few d20 opposed rolls it’s very common to get quite dramatic differences in rolls, which can have quite significant impacts.


Offline Ultravanillasmurf

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 9302
    • Ultravanillasmurf
Re: Frostgrave using D10s
« Reply #5 on: October 28, 2020, 02:18:02 PM »
But where you have relatively few d20 opposed rolls it’s very common to get quite dramatic differences in rolls, which can have quite significant impacts.
The only significance is the modifiers rather than the die rolls and their effect on the result.

So if there is a two point difference between figure one's fight and figure two's fight, that is only a ten percentile change difference on D20 but 20 percentile on D10.


Offline pixelgeek

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2026
    • Zac's Gaming Blog
Re: Frostgrave using D10s
« Reply #6 on: October 28, 2020, 02:34:24 PM »
The only significance is the modifiers rather than the die rolls and their effect on the result.

That is not the case at all. Have you played the game at all?

Offline Ultravanillasmurf

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 9302
    • Ultravanillasmurf
Re: Frostgrave using D10s
« Reply #7 on: October 28, 2020, 02:59:32 PM »
That is not the case at all. Have you played the game at all?
I now to your superior knowledge.

Offline pixelgeek

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2026
    • Zac's Gaming Blog
Re: Frostgrave using D10s
« Reply #8 on: October 28, 2020, 03:09:53 PM »
I now to your superior knowledge.

Maybe go troll somewhere else

Offline Neunfinger

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 257
Re: Frostgrave using D10s
« Reply #9 on: October 28, 2020, 05:15:49 PM »
Hey chaps, please keep it classy.

I've been playing Rangers Of Shadow Deep with 2D10 (adding the results) instead of a D20. It works just fine and my guess is that it can be applied to Frostgrave as well.
The outcome is a lot more "stable", while still allowing for a big variety of results: You get a lot more of 8s, 9s, 10s, 11s, so the bonus in combat gets a lot more weight. Still, there is a certain possibility of a hardened ranger getting mauled by a puny giant rat, but the chances for the one rolling super poor and the other super high are a lot smaller and therefor it occurs only rarely.
I vastly prefer 2D10 over the swingy D20, but I know players who love the D20 system because of it's unpredictable nature.
« Last Edit: October 28, 2020, 06:33:17 PM by Neunfinger »

Offline pixelgeek

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2026
    • Zac's Gaming Blog
Re: Frostgrave using D10s
« Reply #10 on: October 28, 2020, 05:33:47 PM »
I vastly prefer 2D10 over the swingy D20, but I know players you love the D20 system because of it's unpredictable nature.

That might be worth trying out. With the dice creating a set of average results the increased combat modifiers would, as you say, have more weight.

I might just toss some characters out on the table and give it a try.


Offline Darkson71

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 665
  • Rolling 1s so you don't have to since '95
    • Home of the ARBBL
Re: Frostgrave using D10s
« Reply #11 on: October 28, 2020, 07:37:37 PM »
It does change the odds significantly though, as the probability goes from a straight line to a bell curve, and makes the average result (of 10.5) more likely in combat, making combat more likely to last longer (which may or may not be a good thing, depending on your view).

I know there was a big post about it, explaining it in more detail (and a lot better than I can do!), but I honestly can't recall whether it was here or in one of the Facebook groups.


The other issue is that it removes the auto-fail 1.
Home of the ARBBL
"I survived the 525"

Offline TWD

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1705
    • Tom's Toy Soldiers Blog
Re: Frostgrave using D10s
« Reply #12 on: October 28, 2020, 07:48:20 PM »
The stats are here:
http://quixoticgamer.blogspot.com/2016/02/frostgrave-alternative-probability.html

TLDR : it changes the game more than you might think.

Whether you think the changes it brings to the game are an improvement or not is a matter of taste.

Offline Darkson71

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 665
  • Rolling 1s so you don't have to since '95
    • Home of the ARBBL

Offline Historiker

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 329
Re: Frostgrave using D10s
« Reply #14 on: October 28, 2020, 08:11:27 PM »
The stats are here:
http://quixoticgamer.blogspot.com/2016/02/frostgrave-alternative-probability.html

TLDR : it changes the game more than you might think.

Whether you think the changes it brings to the game are an improvement or not is a matter of taste.

I once had a chat about how I wanted to go about changing the Frostgrave rules to make it more to my tastes with a friend and he simply said "If you don't like the game you better play a game you like".

At that moment I did not find the comment particularly helpful and felt misunderstood but after mulling it over I have found a bit of truth in it. The problem then is that if you want to play a small scale highly narrative fantasy skirmish game there aren't that many well produced games to be found.

Of course there is always Mordheim but although I do like the art design and the fluff the rules have become somewhat tedious in comparison.

Well, what do I want to say with this...? I think I want to say: I understand your opinion on the D20 and I find it irritating as well (and much prefer the D10 System of TinaT) however the D20 and the swingy-ness, in my opinion is an integral part of Frostgrave. Once one does not like this...well, there was that comment by my friend. No offense intended!
"The philosopher Didactylos has summed up an alternative hypothesis as: Things just happen. What the hell."

 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
3 Replies
4606 Views
Last post September 04, 2015, 05:28:54 PM
by Philhelm
10 Replies
3150 Views
Last post November 01, 2015, 09:22:56 AM
by Knightofspades
13 Replies
2828 Views
Last post November 21, 2015, 07:32:02 PM
by Mr Hall
0 Replies
907 Views
Last post January 20, 2016, 06:29:49 PM
by Timeshadow
2 Replies
1288 Views
Last post March 21, 2016, 05:13:19 PM
by Gangleri