1 of 1- cbooth
- Explorer
Offline - Registered: 3/10/2024
- Posts: 6
Bonus Die, Penalty Die, or Modifier?
This place seems way more active than Reddit, so lots of posts and questions coming your way!
On page 25 of the EW .PDF, it states that there are instances when a player receives bonus or penalty die, sometimes multiple. Each die cancels the other out, and you roll with whatever is left. While having multiple bonus/penalties doesn't happen often, I can see this bogging down gameplay when having to roll a bunch of dice and figuring out what to keep. Has anyone experimented with a flat bonus/penalty modifier when calculating beyond the first bonus/penalty die? For example: After all of the calculations are made, a player has two bonus die to add to their roll. Instead of rolling two die, what about rolling one bonus die and anything beyond that initial bonus is just a flat +2 (or something like that)? I'm not sure what would be an acceptable +/- modifier that wouldn't break the game, but would also be a decent bonus/penalty.
Thoughts?
- Gruntfuttock
- Gladiator
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- Registered: 1/29/2014
- Posts: 424
Re: Bonus Die, Penalty Die, or Modifier?
Personally I've never found the bonus and penalty die thing to be a problem. You are right, this every rarely comes up in games, so in a way you seem to be finding a solution to something that doesn't exist - in my experience at least, perhaps other do have this problem? If so, please post!
I suppose it may come up with the Challenge Dice rules in Everywhen, but I don't bother using those as I think they are too clunky. But overall I think sorting out the dice is quicker than adding or subtracting numbers - but that might just be me.
In the end, whatever works for your table is the correct solution for you.
In my Heroes of Hellas campaign my wife's Amazon horse archer had a bonus die for being on horse back and a bonus die for using a bow. Therefore, she nearly always hit when using the bow on smooth going for her horse. Moving over rough terrain or firing while jumping she went down to just one bonus die and still usually hit (but sometimes didn't). That was pretty badass, and seemed well appropriate to the genre.
My real name is Steve Hall
- Sigulf
- Warrior
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- From: S/W PA
- Registered: 9/07/2014
- Posts: 107
Re: Bonus Die, Penalty Die, or Modifier?
Been playing BoL steady now for a while, I am another one that hasn't seen any problem with the multiple bonus or penalty dice. The very few instances where it has come up, I just added a +1 bonus (or -1 penalty) to the die roll for the second bonus/penalty. Again, can't really remember when that occurred, it's been sometime.
Should add, I use the BoL Mythic rules with my own house rules. Have Everywhen, Sword and Sorcery Codex, and just about every other supplement for BoL too, but the BoL Mythic rules work for us.
- The GIT!
- Hero
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- From: Ontario, Canada
- Registered: 2/05/2014
- Posts: 534
Re: Bonus Die, Penalty Die, or Modifier?
This question of bonus dice versus straight modifiers has been asked a few times before. In simple terms a +/-1 on a dice roll has less impact than a bonus/penalty die, while a +/-2 has more impact than the bonus/penalty die.
To show this graphically, Anydice.com is always your friend.
My advice is do not combine the two; either use bonus/penalty dice OR use straight modifiers. Personally, I prefer bonus/penalty dice.
Last edited by The GIT! (7/04/2024 5:36 am)
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