Is there a more in-depth discussion anywhere about the change to using 1d6+mod for all damage rolls and the reasons behind it? My first thought was that classes and monsters would now feel too similar to each other. But maybe it actually makes them feel more distinct because the difference between +1 and +2 is more pronounced? Have you received any comments from playtesters about this part of your rules changes specifically?
Is there a more in-depth discussion anywhere about the change to using 1d6+mod for all damage rolls and the reasons…
Is there a more in-depth discussion anywhere about the change to using 1d6+mod for all damage rolls and the reasons…
We did discuss it in-depth on the DW Discord server, as well. Some people really like their variable dice (usually coinciding with folks that like swingyness, as well) but others actually like just using d6 for everything.
Our initial concept came out the fact that there wasn’t much of a need for variable dice; you could (statistically speaking) achieve similar results, and you’d only ever need one kind of dice!
In .03, we will likely change things a bit more (advantage/disadvantage instead of +1 Forwards) so the math will probably be a lot more important.
Nicolas Derom and Cameron Burns could speak more to the numbers, of course.
tl;dr: more reliable dmg, less one hit kills, easier for new players, armour fix
The main benefits of having d6+constant are:
– higher dmg floor for fighting classes: With the flat bonus you avoid fighters rolling just 1 dmg. It gives them semi reliable fighting capabilities.
– lower one hit kill potential: it will be less likely to instantly kill an enemy with a single blow, this helps to lower those moments you prepared a big monster but he died instantly because your players rolled well
– easier for new players: WoA is a starter friendly system, so new groups can just steal some dice from another game and get playing, no need to go buy polyhedrals first
– armour feels better: the flat bonus (especially the dmg floors) makes armour feel more natural. High dmg classes like fighters will feel more impactful on armoured enemies since they will be able to hurt them in almsot every case. Low dmg classes like the wizard will have less of a problem fighting 4 armour enemies since the dmg ceiling is higher.
You can still convert the d6+constant to polyhedrals if you prefer those, a convertion table is given in the introduction. We made sure you can go both ways. The average numbers will be the same so it doesn’t break the game. The reason why we promote semiflat as default is because it matches the style of WoA better (the simplicity of it) and we think this is a general improvement for the game.
If you ahve any more questions on the numbers feel free to ping me.
Cool, thanks for the info; that’s exactly what I was looking for. I think it would be great if the finished version of WoA had this type of discussion about the changes in an appendix or something (a little more in-depth than what’s in the introduction). Also, from just reading the [v0.2] introduction I didn’t realize the averages were the same and that they could be interchangeable.
I guess my only lingering concern is if the wizard is now too similar to other classes, or if it encourages the wizard to use melee more often. The wizard and the cleric now have the same damage but I think of the cleric being better in melee than a wizard. What if the conversion for a d4 in DW was w[2d6] in WoA? I guess that loses some simplicity.
A d4 could be converted to a d6-1 according to the table. We did not do this because this could result in 0 dmg. The buff of giving the wizard d6 instead of d4 will not impact gameplay that much. Wizards still have trouble fighting one on one because they lack armour and offensive options.
Clerics can fight in melee because of the armour they start with, the magical weapon spell, the devine immunity to get them out of sticky situations, and other options. Not because of the d6 dmg.
Further, this gives the wizards a little push towards fighting, we want to avoid a wizards without combat spells sitting there in fights doing nothing.