A dice question. Your preference?

[Ivan Sorensen]

The game has 6 sided dice to hit.

What is your preference?

A standard grunt shoots once per turn, hitting on a 4+ typically.

OR

A standard grunt shoots twice per turn, hitting on a 5+ typically.

[Mike]

Once, less faff.
Though I would prefer once at 5+.

[Rules Junkie Jim]

Are there many modifiers?

[Ivan Sorensen]

Very very few modifiers.

[Grimheart]

If your basic grunt is your lowest firepower then why would you start off with two dice?

When would you ever fire with one dice in that situation?

Are there modifiers that can reduce the number of fire dice?

Imo always start off with the least amount of dice!

Interest include 6mm WW2, 6mm SciFi, 30mm Old West, DropFleet, Warlords Exterminate and others!

[Ivan Sorensen]

The thinking was a “hail of bullets” sort of approach.

But you may well be right 🙂

[Victoria Dickson]

Could both be an option, allowing for a choice between slower more accurate shots vs rapid fire?

http://crazywargames.blogspot.co.uk/

[Ivan Sorensen]

Anything is possible 🙂
Like a “sniping mode”.

I am looking for a baseline really.

My thinking is that two dice allow more “exciting” results (0, 1, 2 hits) but it might also be more frustrating to miss.

The game will not have a high model count, so handling time isn’t so much a concern.

[Victoria Dickson]

For it to be sniping vs rapid fire I’d probably go for 1 at 4+ vs 2 at 6+. Or maybe 1 at 4+ if you don’t move, 1 at 5+ or 2 at 6+ if you do?

I think the step has to be more than 4+ to 5+.

http://crazywargames.blogspot.co.uk/

[Rules Junkie Jim]

I’d be inclined to go for 1 dice, but it depends: It can seem odd when you’re mixing SLRs/bolt action rifles with assault rifles in a skirmish game to have all soldiers rolling the same number of dice. I like Victoria’s idea, but it would probably only work when using different types of weapon, otherwise you’re always going to pick 2 dice at 5+ with a 2/3 chance of scoring a hit compared to 1/2.

[Ivan Sorensen]

If its a choice, the difference probably has to be 2 steps.

So 3+ vs 5+.

Or even something like one shot at 3+ or 4 shots on a 6, that sort of thing.

Circumstances could modify the choice.

[Rules Junkie Jim]

Perhaps if a 6 indicated a pin/duck for cover result and 4 and 5 meant something more unpleasant? So the probability of rolling for a hit on a 6 with four dice is the same as rolling 3-6 on one, but you’re never going to KO any figure with the former.

[Ivan Sorensen]

For a moment, I was kicking around the idea of 6’s granting more shots.

[Victoria Dickson]

Rules Junkie Jim wrote:

I’d be inclined to go for 1 dice, but it depends: It can seem odd when you’re mixing SLRs/bolt action rifles with assault rifles in a skirmish game to have all soldiers rolling the same number of dice. I like Victoria’s idea, but it would probably only work when using different types of weapon, otherwise you’re always going to pick 2 dice at 5+ with a 2/3 chance of scoring a hit compared to 1/2.

I think with 2 at 5+ it’s a 50% chance of missing all together, 33 % chance of 1 hit and 17% chance of 2 hits, so better than a 50% chance of one hit with the 1 at 4+

My maths might be wrong though. 🙂

http://crazywargames.blogspot.co.uk/

[Ivan Sorensen]

On the back of an envelope, I got 55% chance of a hit, 14ish % of two hits.

So the odds aren’t drastically better but a tiny bit.

[Rules Junkie Jim]

You’re right, Victoria! (And here’s why I failed GCSE maths)

[Victoria Dickson]

Rules Junkie Jim wrote:

You’re right, Victoria! (And here’s why I failed GCSE maths)

I used to be really good at probabilities, a long time ago when my brain was young. 🙂

http://crazywargames.blogspot.co.uk/

[irishserb]

Twice on a 5+ for me.

[Retroboom]

Way too hard to say without understanding how everything else integrates with it.

I would lean toward 1 die, but it all depends…

Richmond, VA. Let's play!

[Who Asked This Joker]

Once at 5+.  He’s a grunt for Pete’s sake! 😉  Take the worst of both worlds.  If there is one grunt, there is probably many.

Better chance (4+ or 3+) is for more skilled characters.

More shots is for better weapons.

My 2 cents.

John

 

 

John

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

--Abraham Lincoln

[Splod]

Ivan Sorensen wrote:

For a moment, I was kicking around the idea of 6’s granting more shots.

I do quite like the concept of ‘exploding dice’, where each time you roll a ‘6’, an additional dice is rolled. It’s used to good effect in the space combat rules, Full Thrust. Each roll of ‘6’ is counted as 2 hits, and gives an additional die which can create further ‘explosions’.

[Shaun Travers]

Once on a 4+ is my preference.

I have recently discovered Goalsystem oriented dice (and ordered some just recently). Goalsystem is an RPG system.  On a d6, 1, 2, or 3 is no successes; 4 or 5 is one success, 6 is two successes.  So I have a single fire form a squad being 1 die with 1 success being pinned (reduced fire) and 2 successes being suppressed (no fire and move).  3 successes -= KO (obviously need at least one more die!).  Roll an extra die at 3″, have a few other mods for open terrain.  I have used this successfully earlier this year in some WW2 games.  I have written the QRS but not not the rules themselves 🙂  One day….

Here is a long blog post on how I got to this system.  The fire result table as described above is the last one.

http://shaun-wargaming-minis.blogspot.com.au/2017/01/musing-on-state-of-play-for-my-ww2.html

And if you made it though that, here is the first AAR (there are two more on the blog) using this to hit result table:

http://shaun-wargaming-minis.blogspot.com.au/2017/01/operation-jupiter-13-form-defensive.html

 

[Mike]

Shaun Travers wrote:

On a d6, 1, 2, or 3 is no successes; 4 or 5 is one success, 6 is two successes.  So I have a single fire form a squad being 1 die with 1 success being pinned (reduced fire) and 2 successes being suppressed (no fire and move).  3 successes -= KO (obviously need at least one more die!).

 

 

ooooh do like.

[John D Salt]

On the one hand, I have a great deal of sympathy for the idea of minimising the number of dice you need to roll.

On the other, if you can roll a handful of dice together, I think the added faff is minimal, and you get a nice rattly sound.

I have seen in various COW games a mechanism of rolling a handful of dice and counting 6 as hits, and even used it myself on occasion, so it has a certain degree of familiarity. Often the refinement is used that you count sixes in unfavourable circumstances, fives and sixes in favourable.

For the case offered, of the two options I think I would choose the third, roll 3 dice and score sixes. This gives the same expectation of hits as 1d6 counting 4, 5 or 6, whereas it has been pointed out that 2d6 counting fives or sixes has a higher expectation.

A lot depends on how hits are interpreted, and how modifiers are applied for, say, snap-shooting, or shooting while moving.

All the best,

John.

[Ivan Sorensen]

The Twillight 2000 RPG used a big handful of dice for machine guns, hitting only on a 6.

It could probably have been done more elegantly, but opening up with the M60 and rolling 10 dice in a big mug felt pretty satisfying 🙂

[Victoria Dickson]

Victoria Dickson wrote:

Rules Junkie Jim wrote:

I’d be inclined to go for 1 dice, but it depends: It can seem odd when you’re mixing SLRs/bolt action rifles with assault rifles in a skirmish game to have all soldiers rolling the same number of dice. I like Victoria’s idea, but it would probably only work when using different types of weapon, otherwise you’re always going to pick 2 dice at 5+ with a 2/3 chance of scoring a hit compared to 1/2.

I think with 2 at 5+ it’s a 50% chance of missing all together, 33 % chance of 1 hit and 17% chance of 2 hits, so better than a 50% chance of one hit with the 1 at 4+ My maths might be wrong though.

If this helps, for two dice with a 5,6 result being a hit: 0 hits or just a single hit – 44.4444% 1 or 2 hits – 55.5556% 2 hits – 11.1111% From binomial distribution calculations – I use MS Excel to do this.

 

Yeah, I messed up the maths, that’ll teach me not to try doing it in my head late at night.

http://crazywargames.blogspot.co.uk/

[Ivan Sorensen]

S’all good, I had to do it on paper 🙂

[Don Glewwe]

Ivan Sorensen wrote:

…do it on paper

 

What is this “paper” of which you speak?*

 

*jokes the guy who has a slide rule   ; )

[Patrice]

In most cases I prefer to give the ordinary grunt 5+ to hit, once per turn. Then you can give two dice (or a second shot in the game turn) to automatic weapons, and revolvers etc. You can also give more dice, only one turn in the whole game, for some reason (storm of arrows, “mad minute”, etc).

I’m lazy with the maths so I use this small chart for two D6, it shows that for 5+ there’s 20/36 chances to hit and only 16/36 chances to miss.

 

For a greater number of dice I use SmallRoller which is VERY useful for rules devising :

http://www.fnordistan.com/smallroller.html

http://www.argad-bzh.fr/argad/en.html
https://www.anargader.net/

[PatG]

The standard since Featherstone et al has been Basic soldier for any period gets 1d6 (or counts as “1”). Hit number can depend on troop quality or other factors like defender cover.  What that number is depends on how bloody you want your game to be. Another question would be are you just rolling to hit or using a more in depth process like roll to hit, roll to save, roll to wound. For example, for Naps, you would want to use a high hit number with a lower save and no wound. Musket balls have crap accuracy but if they manage to hit, they will mess you up. For SciFi, one might use a low hit number to represent better optics etc but use a higher save and wound to cover body armour and active defenses.

[Author]

Posts