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I was wondering what folks thought of a single d6 of damage for almost all weapons as a general system. It's definitely new to me but I've been seeing it recently in games that I've been discovering (namely here with BoL and Zweihander). I've been typically used to games with differing damage dice like or base static damage like in Forbidden Lands so the mechanic is new for me even as gamer playing for decades. Besides simplicity, what are the benefits of this over differing damage dice? I understand there is some variety within BoL with the H/L system on top of obviously differing stats added as a bonus but figured I'd ask. Was this mainly used in BoL for a smaller range of damage possibilities because of the relatively low lifeblood/hp totals compared with D&D?
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Pit Fighter wrote:
I was wondering what folks thought of a single d6 of damage for almost all weapons as a general system. It's definitely new to me but I've been seeing it recently in games that I've been discovering (namely here with BoL and Zweihander). I've been typically used to games with differing damage dice like or base static damage like in Forbidden Lands so the mechanic is new for me even as gamer playing for decades. Besides simplicity, what are the benefits of this over differing damage dice? I understand there is some variety within BoL with the H/L system on top of obviously differing stats added as a bonus but figured I'd ask. Was this mainly used in BoL for a smaller range of damage possibilities because of the relatively low lifeblood/hp totals compared with D&D?
It was mainly used in BoL so that you could play the game with just the standard d6. However, as you suggest, also to limit the range of damage.
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Thanks. Is that something that you would do if you were designing a non-2d6 core system? I honestly had never seen it until I looked at BoL and Zweihander late last year and had honestly never considered it as a mechanic in my own very amateur musings after decades of d20/d6 dice pool gaming. Since I haven't played either example game, I don't have any practical experience to form a real opinion with any semblance of certainty. Have you found over the years that it worked well enough for the wide swath of fantasy weaponry?
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I have been running assorted one on one BoL campaigns now for the last 10 years or so for my wife and I. (I have also run some short BoL campaigns for her and a friend or two in the past.)
For our BoL Sword and Sorcery campaigns (Hyborian Age, Beasts and Barbarians, Legends of Steel), we prefer to use the d6 for weapon damage solely. (Small weapon d6L, regular weapons d6, and large weapons d6H). Mastercraft, finely-made, or superior weapons get the feature of: re-rolling any 1 on the damage dice (must keep the re-roll) and they only have a 50% or sometimes a 1/6 chance of breaking on a break weapon situation. Some weapons may have an alchemical bonding of silver, to grant them the ability to damage/destroy certain creatures. If a weapon is enchanted (highly unlikely, but sometimes possible - a d3 dice is added to the damage vs the particular foe/monster/etc..).
For our BoL Fantasy Campaigns we have sometimes used d4 for small weapons, d6 for med weapons and d8 for large weapons. (Monsters still only use d6s though...) Masterwork, finely-made, superior weapons work the same. Enchanted weapons get to roll d4h, d6h, and d8h and sometimes get an additional d3 dice of damage vs a particular creature too, depends on how legendary the weapon is.
However, my wife really prefers to use the d6 dice solely, so lately our BoL Warhammer, BoL Witcher, and BoL Freeport campaigns have only used the d6 dice for weapon damage.
Our "Hammer of Æs" Hyborian Age campaign was converted to BoL from the Mongoose d20 Conan system back around September of 2014 and is still going, in fact we are in the process of picking it up again after a few months layoff. Converting the Signs and Portents adventure "Hunting the Falcon" by Leo LaDell over to it with hopes of running it this weekend. (Or we might go back to our BoL Jalizar or BoL Warhammer campaign... choices, choices, choices
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Thanks for the detailed reply. Yeah, a scheme similar to that is what I was thinking of with regards to weapon damage based on size as I want to leave adv/disadv on damage rolls for something else entirely. I don't want to get too crunchy with individual stats for weapons and also prefer just having a small group of categories for weapons (both ranged and melee) so damage by category works well for me in theory. Again, I have yet to actually try it so season with copious salt to taste!
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Interesting to see what you've done, Sigulf. Thanks for sharing.
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Something I like to use with D6L, D6, D6H damage mechanics is to combine it with variable initiative each round. So, for D6L the high roll is used for initiative in the next round (representing a faster weapon), the D6H uses the low roll for next round initiative (heavier weapon doing more damage) and the D6 weapon is flexible allowing the user to choose which way round the dice are used (has to say before rolling the attack roll).
It's more to track but I like the variable initiative for each round as it keeps things unpredictable. Also, I don't really use the BoL Mythic initiative anyway.
Last edited by The GIT! (2/27/2024 12:31 pm)