I see the whole ‘average damage’ has resurfaced. To sum it up, rather than the player’s rolling dice they simply determine what their average damage is and use that for all non-critical rolls. Â So if you do a 1d6+5 then you apply 5 damage per hit. A 3d6+7 is 9 damage etc.
I can see a draw, it certainly avoids the depressing damage rolls where people get 1′s on their damage dice which are arguably more emotionally impacting than maximum damage. I think rolling a critical hit has a better ‘cool factor’ than rolling a regular hit and then rolling maximum damage. But that might just be me.
After due consideration I think I’d be willing to give it a try and see how it goes. Over time the players ARE going to end up with average damage unless they have non-uniform dice or simply don’t roll very often.
This reduces the rolling for each player to a (typically) single d20 to determine if they hit.
Monsters though typically roll very few times for their lifespan though so it’s quite possible that they’ll have very swingy results. You might have a Solo who can’t seem to roll nothing but ones while another one is consistently hammering out big damage numbers.
Really at what point does one say let’s just do away with random? But in the interests of fairness and curiosity I suppose I could give it a shot.
What would be more interesting I think is simply boosting the attack chances combined with this damage. Let’s face it, missing sucks ass. I doubt if anyone will argue that point ever.
So perhaps a ‘mystic werewolf ability’ [Note: inside joke] bonus should be applied across the board? Perhaps a flat +2 across the board?
Indeed, let’s consider these various house rules I’ve written up or about -
- Remove +1/2 level to all defenses, attack and skill rolls on both sides. This is a wash and simply levels the playing field by quite a bit so that monsters are more viable outside a straight 1 to 1 level comparison.
- Add 1/2 level to the FIRST damage roll or the first target across the board.
- Add a flat+2 to attack rolls across the board to increase hit frequency.
- Compute the average dice per attack based on the above and use that instead of rolling for damage.
Might make for shorter combats that are more interesting (missing is not interesting).
