Musings: Dice Roll Mechanics

 Dice Rolling

Usually when you roll a die in a game you want the highest result. It makes sense, doesn't it? Of course you want the highest number, it feels good to nail that perfect roll. But here's a question: What if rolling the lowest number was better? Something that comes to mind is Thac0, where having negative AC is actually really good. Thac0 is perfectly viable, but not very intuitive. Let's also look at a general system that relies on lower dice rolls before delving into a Thac0 introspective.

 Warning: Math ahead

Lower Dice Rolls

Let's say you're playing a wizard wearing light armor. Instead of having 10 + your Dexterity as your AC, what if it was 4? As in a d4? Then someone attacking you would need to roll a 4 or higher to hit you. That significantly reduces the math needed for players and dungeon masters, and makes more use of all your dice instead of relying on the d20 to determine everything.

I really enjoy the idea of using other dice like this, but I'm not quite sure where to go with it. I know a few systems use it, but it can be challenging penetrating all that information just for a little bit of comprehension how it works. (Or maybe I'm lazy. Probably that.) Let's delve into this AC vs attack a little more.

Let's say you have shitty training with weapons, so your attack is 1d4. Thus you have a 25% chance to hit a wizard. But let's say you are "decently" trained in that weapon, so you get to roll a d6 for the attack instead. I believe the math is 1 / 6 = .016, or 16% chance to roll any number. We need a roll of 4-6, so 16% * 3 = 48% chance to hit the wizard. That's nearly double your chance. But what about higher levels of AC? If your AC was 6 for wearing say... light armor,  you'd never be hit by a weapon with less than a d6. What if light armor was instead 4 + 1? In terms of mechanics this truly feels like light armor, especially when faced with a greatsword (With a hit die of say d12), you'd be decimated, just as you would expect to be in real life when wearing padded armor.

Here's another interesting idea: What if touching someone was always a d4 unless they were wearing light armor? Or trained in Acrobatics? Instead of calling it touch, we'll call it Target DC (Target Difficulty Check), because you're targeting the body and not trying to bypass its armor. So say someone with Acrobatics has an Attack AC of d4 but a Target DC of d10? The system would need to cater to a reason why you would want a very high Target DC. Maybe a spellcaster could rely on that to bypass super high AC with touch attacks? What if shooting someone with an arrow was a Target DC? This would make Attack AC and Target DC an opportunity cost, which creates fun and interesting player choices. Then we add more dynamics of saving throws and create an interesting flow chart of what a player wants to specialize into and what their character class / trope is capable of. Paladins could have an incredibly high AC and great Spell Save, but very terrible Target DC.

Critical Strikes with low dice

I also had an interesting thought, what if weapons always hit against AC if they rolled the maximum attack roll? That would make d4 weapons very sexy, but they'd have terrible damage (probably a d4). So let's say in order to score a critical strike you need to roll the maximum attack roll twice. Suddenly it feels really good to play a dagger because your chance of a critical strike is (25 / 25) 12.5%. This would make the dagger damage an average of 3.125 almost each turn (depending on how many attacks you get), which is just a little under the average of a d6. So maybe if you critical with a dagger it does more damage.

 

Then for big swords, like a greatsword with a d12, would be 8.3% (1 / 12), or (8.3% / 2) 4.12% chance to critical. What if a weapon had two dice rolls, like a maul had 2d6? Your hit average would be higher and your critical strike chance would be marginally lower (16% / 4) 4%. Though marginally lower, getting a critical strike with either weapon is substantially lower than a dagger.

Reverse Desire

For the moment I'm going to call a system that requires rolling the lowest number for the best result as Reverse Desire. Let's take all our examples and put it to the test here.

Light AC

Light AC is 4. Someone needs to roll a 4 or lower in order to hit us. For the lower end of the spectrum (4 AC versus d4 attack rolls) this doesn't change, but it changes significantly the higher we go. For a d6 weapon this would be a (16% * 4) 64% chance to hit. For a greatsword that would be (4 * 8%) 32 chance? Hmmm, that's worse than a d6. What if it was instead your weapon attack roll - the target's AC? So 12 - 4 = 8. This is a 64% chance to hit. Much better. But what about a d6? 6-4 = 2. 32%! That's also better! But is it easier? It's more crunch, after all. If our target audience doesn't mind some crunch then this is okay. It would be easy for a DM to determine if it hits: Just subtract the roll from the AC - if it's greater than 1 then its a hit!

Going with the theme of rolling the highest number is always a hit, what if rolling a 1 always hits? This would still allow daggers to critically strike.

Target AC would remain the same, essentially. Your Target Attack Roll could be a d10 versus someone in heavy armor with an AC of 12 but a Target AC of 4 would be extremely easy to succeed.

What else?

It almost seems flawed that a dagger could always hit someone, but let's also consider that we want a better game feel rather than emulating real life perfectly. With a lower hit die we will hit almost everything each and every turn, and with a bonus to our critical we can match the average damage of other weapons. Absolutely incredible. But also a dagger could never live up to the damage potential of a greatsword. (From my glossary: damage potential is the maximum damage roll you could make with one attack without adding additional damage from other sources.) The damage potential of a greatsword will always be ludicrously higher than a dagger (3 times as much, in fact).

Conclusion

I feel both systems have an advantage and a disadvantage. One involves more crunch than the other but offers an interesting game feel that should be explored. I'd like to explore both and make something fun out of it using a one-page game.

Musings: Creating the Skald

 Skalds

 When you think of a skald what comes to mind? From asking around a lot of people consider it to be like the bard, but instead of a frilly and flamboyant personality a skald is metal and hardcore. According to the internet, skalds are just poets, they're not even warriors. Historically, bards had a wide range from telling stories to music, and general entertainment that fell just short of plays and acting. It's always interesting seeing the disconnect of history and fantasy. The paladin is another such interesting disconnect: paladins served a lord, they didn't act independently, they were more like samurai that served someone of a higher status. Which segues into another misconception: What people think of lone wandering samurai are actually called ronin. So you could play a paladin as a samurai. Which may be a great alternative class idea! (Writing down notes)

So where do we go from here? A historically accurate skald would be boring, as would most accurate tropes of fantasy. So let's go ahead and go with the expected case and make a bard, but hardcore.

Class Skeleton

First thing first: Inspiration will be mandatory for the class. For our skald we'll be building someone who inspires other through stories of old while aiming to become a part of those stories.

Second: No spells. I want to challenge myself and make something that doesn't use spells.

Third: Some type of performance. I see this almost as a channel divinity like feature where you can further inspire allies. For now we're borrowing from pathfinder. Their version of the bard is a 3/5th's spell caster, casting spells up to 6th level. They also inspire themselves and allies to enter a battle frenzy that improves their general morale and gives them a rage effect. I think I can replicate something similar that's better for 5th edition.

Inspiration

Inspiration for skald will be slightly different from bard. We'll use our reaction to give someone their inspiration rather than as a bonus action when they fail something they need to succeed. It feels better - you're reacting to something happening rather than preemptively guessing if someone needs it. It makes your inspiration less wasted and improves its power - we'll need all the power we can muster from a martial class, due to their lack of strength in late game.

Frenzy Song

I'm going to start calling our rage feature Frenzy Song for now. Another possible name could be Call to Arms but they feels more like a commander than a skald. Here's the initial idea:

• Allies under the effects of the song deal damage with their attacks at least equal to our inspiration die. This means if someone is using a sling then the sling damage is improved to a d6. Not bad. But this is to help people who rely on weaker weapons early game to do better damage with attacks.
• They will gain our inspiration die as temporary hit points at the start of their turn. But instead of rolling, they'll gain the maximum. This will act as our damage reduction and will be fantastic to protect weaker allies. The temp hp will be lost when the effect ends.
  
• Allies under the effects of frenzy song can't be frightened. Not a terribly common condition early game but its niche use will come handy later.
• Affected allies will get a d4 to attack rolls and saves. This will substantially improve their general performance
• This requires "concentration", as if concentrating on a spell, but you don't make concentration saves when hit. It just prevents you from stacking it with powerful spells if the player decides to take 2 levels for this.
• (Maybe it can make weapon attacks do magical damage, or perhaps that could be saved for 6th level?)
  

It will last for 1 minute, and will end early if the person falls unconscious. The subclass could potentially come in at this or next level. If we choose this as our subclass level then the subclass will do the following:

• Modify inspiration
• Add a new effect to frenzy song or give an entirely new song.

As I've said earlier, I feel this is close to channel divinity where you use it a few times per short rest. It makes sense for your subclass to modify it like how barbarian subclasses modifies rage.

Subclasses

I've already thought of a great name for these: Epic Verse. Your subclass will the named "x Epic". Instead of "5th level feature" for the feature tag it will be "5th level verse", like "5th level Divine verse". It makes a feature feel a part of the story itself rather than just being a feature.

Regardless if our subclass is 2nd or 3rd level, I'm thinking subclass features will come in at 5th level, 9th level, 15th level, and 18th level. We're only going to plan to 5th level until we have something really fun.

5th level

This will change how we perform combat. Let's say we have a divine epic, it would make sense to do radiant damage with our hits, so let's say for this subclass we do a bonus 2 rolls of our bardic die as radiant damage on a successful weapon hit. This will do something pretty cool: It will automatically scale our damage as we level, up to 2d10.

Alternative 5th level feature: Ensemble

There's probably a better word for this, but let's use ensemble for the moment. What if instead of extra attack our mere presence passively improves the damage of those around us like the paladin? Let's do some quick math to determine our budget.

5th level is extra attacks for martial classes. The average modifier for someone's primary ability score for this level is around 4. Luckily the average of our bardic die at this level will be 4. Most one-handed martial weapons do 4.5 average damage, so we're expected to do 4.5 + 4 damage around this time.

The idea of this feature is we inspire ourselves and others constantly. So then we form a deeper connection with people around us, creating an ensemble. Let's say we can have 2 people as a part of this group, and each time the skald and their ensemble hits with a weapon attack they can add one bardic die to the damage roll. That's 4.5 damage for each person, slightly more than extra attack. Then as we level we can include more people in our ensemble and improve the parties performance massively. For our Divine Epic example that extra damage could be radiant.

Our subclasses may take advantage of this. For example when you use Frenzy song you also always affect one of your ensemble no matter who you target. That's extremely strong.

Improving Inspiration

It would feel bad to spend one of your three bardic dice early on and have the roll a 1. The chance to roll a 1 is the same as rolling the maximum amount. So for 3rd level when you roll a 1 you treat the die as its maximum amount. We'll call this Explosive Inspiration. When you reach 11th level (A level after getting a d10) we'll treat a 2 or less as a maximum roll. Now your average for your die roll is 4.5 for a d6, a 5.5 for a d8, then at 11th level the average of your d10 will be a 6.5! Wow! You're absolutely getting your money's worth. This will ensure that your dice are never ever wasted, and it helps us keep up with the power of the stronger spell casters.

Musings of future features

This will largely be a mixed garble so parse what you can! Perhaps we can always add our bardic die to saves later on, or freely apply it to people making saves without spending any dice. Maybe our frenzy song can last 10 minutes and include immunity to charm. I think the last feature should give players goosebumps when they read it.

Immortal Lore: Alchemy

Alchemy

    Alchemy within Immortal is a very wide subject, like talking about the military and not just the air force. But it’s also not what you might think it is, but it also is.

Alchemy in the World

“Though the world alchemy evokes images of potions in many commoners' heads, potion creation is actually its own type of magic. Alchemy within Immortal is divided among spellcasting, rituals, and essentia. Spellcasting involves using vocalization and a catalyst to mold the physical world around them to create spells. An alternative and more primitive version of spellcasting is using tools to create alchemical circles to perform a ritual, which is then powered by the alchemist to create a spell effect. Essentia is taking physical material and using tools to break it down into its fundamental material, a slurry or liquid. Essentia is the method used to create potions, but not just potions, solid matter is another manufactured material used in the creation of advanced alchemy.

Unlike the other two power castes (psychic and theurgy), alchemy has the unique property of being the only caste that can directly influence the physical world, but lacks the ability to directly affect a mind or influence the soul of others. While an alchemist can create a spell that casts a sleepy fog, the alchemist can't reach into the mind of others. It is impossible for an alchemist to influence or interfere with souls and fate.


Some spellcasters may know many spells and be trained poorly with them, compared to someone who knows a few spells that excel in them.”

- An excerpt from one of my own documents.

Ritual Circles

    Alchemy is the process of transmuting the world by drawing on its material to make new things. It’s like pulling apart atoms to make new elements. Rituals take the same form you see in Full Metal Alchemist - you need the full material to create the effect you need. The ritual circle defines the area which you are transmuting, along with everything inside. Rituals are slow, requiring the alchemist to spend time using a marker to define the spell, then find the material. However you can perform as many rituals as you can in a single day at no cost to yourself. A normally skilled alchemist can average 6 rituals back to back in a single hour, while an experienced ritualist can quickly perform about 3 or 4 extra rituals within the same time before needing to take a break.

Spell Scrolls

    People who are good at this are called Ritualists, and can perform rituals with incredible speed. This is where spell scrolls come in. It’s the next and final technological evolution of ritual circles. Spell scrolls work very similarly to spellcasting where it doesn’t have a fully defined circle to draw from, you just need to be sure to define exactly what you want and what you don’t want it to pull from (like matter/energy from your body). Spell scrolls are extremely difficult to make and time consuming. A modern world would be better in mass producing these, but the further away from a modern age the more exponential it's rarity is.

Spellcasting

 

    Spellcasting completely bypasses this. A catalyst is tied to the energy around it, then a spellcaster attunes to the catalyst so they in turn are connected as well. However a spellcaster's connection to the energy is through the filter of the catalyst, which also doubles as a safety ward against the raw nature of magic. Without a catalyst it would be no different than shoving a fork into an outlet while you are holding onto it, trying to power a light bulb held in another hand.


    By creating the right tones to create a chain reaction that makes a spell. Words aren’t needed, but sound is. A tuning fork is perfectly serviceable, if limited. You then need to animate your body to direct the spell - like throwing a ball. Spell slots represent a connection to the soul’s power from which is used to power the vibration that creates the spell. Your catalyst is plugged into the energy, your soul, it needs to power the lightbulb, and your words are what colors the light.


    And yes… you can be connected to this energy without a catalyst. Naturally born people who do this are called sorcerers. I forgot what the name for an artificially created connection is (can’t seem to find those notes), but that sort of connection is far more dangerous to the person and no more dangerous to those around them.

Essentia

    Essentia is the act of manually taking material and breaking it down into liquid elements, which is then contained (usually within glass). This requires no catalyst, but does require a ritual circle. However you only ever need one ritual circle to break down any material. The only concern you have is to contain the essentia, due to the fact some of it is more or less stable without breaking it down even further (thus wasting energy). There are multiple “complexity layers” and the higher you go up the less stable it is in raw essentia form. The lowest form is something you’re quite familiar with: Earth, fire, water, air. There is a 5th element however: ether.


    Unlike most fantasies, the base elements aren’t literal. You don’t have a literal bottle of water or dirt. A base element defines how it acts. (I won’t get too deep into this because that’s a very long post by itself, but I’ll leave you with this: ether is mandatory for things to be glued together and is the legitimate true essence of magic.) As you go further up the chain it uses a combination of any element of a lower layer. Spellcasting does all this which is why it's so taxing on your spell slots.

 

Deeper Lore

Let’s go a bit deeper. Here’s another snippet.

Alchemy in Society

“Alchemists are in common demand from the lowest to highest parts of society. From maneuvering ships by directing water to healing the sick, the demand for their services is extremely common. Not all alchemists are trained equally - spells demand a high level of skill to optimize their power. A healer could never compete with an illusionist and vice versa as spells which are useful for those types of magicians demand very different skills. However a spellcaster may learn spells outside their specialization but shouldn't be expected to perform well with it.”

Spells within Immortal are not all equal. Unlike most games like Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder where you only need a single spellcasting modifier, spellcasting in Immortal demands two things: Your Spellcasting ability and spellcasting skill.


    Just because you know the knock spell doesn’t mean you can open a lock with it. You need to invest in the proper skill to do so (Deft would be the correct skill in this case). If you want to be good at healing you need to have a high medicine skill. For the last example: If you want to be more effective at controlling plants or water you need to invest in your knowledge of nature (plants and geology both fall under this umbrella).


    Thankfully you only need one spellcasting modifier: Memory. It’s an extremely important aspect that also defines how many extra spells you know. Having a good memory means you can recall the exact tone your voice needs to be and remember the optimal movement to make with your body. It’s a very involved process and combat makes it even harder, especially if a warlord is burning a hole into your forehead standing 5 feet away. And no, there is no spell failure. (There would be, but I removed it to assist game-feel)

The birth of Immortal

 Major Heading goes Here

    After multiple successes with my classes getting positive reviews I think it’s time to dive too early into creating my own ttrpg with little experience in ttrpg’s in general! Yes I have played them in the past but I find myself bored when playing DnD and finding little to get engaged in. But the larger part of my reason is I want to undertake my magnum opus: Creating my own game.

    The journey is going to be very long and difficult, but you know what? I think I have the right mentality going into this. I’m ready for the challenge and pain. I’ve been homebrewing for 3 years non-stop with only a few weeks of burn out. I think I have what it takes.

Let’s get into some worldbuilding. I’ll keep my world building posts short and digestible.

Immortal

    Why the name Immortal? I have taken the name from Immortal Universe, which is a location within my setting, but also to set player expectations. The journey you take will lead each and every player to immortality (should the campaign last). There is no afterlife within my setting - instead there are two major players: the Mortal Universe and the Immortal Universe. Mortal universes are where you would expect a journey to begin. Players start here and become so powerful that the universe ejects them into the Immortal Universe when they reach beyond 10th level. But the journey doesn’t end there. There are more grand and dangerous things to tackle in the Immortal Universe should the rare ttrpg group find themselves able to play beyond 11th level.

    Players who find themselves 7th level will become demi-immortal, where their aging slows and no longer impacts their performance. This is typically where most people find themselves plateau. Of course the people at the table can and will most likely exceed this limit and go far beyond. These types of people are extraordinarily rare in the setting.

Deeper Lore Ahead

    This is where you are free to leave the lore. It provides no benefit as a player, only for those who are hungry to know more.

    Why a mortal universe? A very long time ago a number of entities shattered themselves to combat the abyss which was quickly becoming a problem. They created countless smaller universes (about the same size as our real one) that are relatively protected from the abyss’s influence. The universes were created so people could shed their preconceived expectations and become stronger, wiser, through the tribulations of life. Life as we know it in real life does not exist in the same way in the Immortal Universe. But there is a second piece to this: Those pieces I mentioned earlier.

    Truthfully, those entities that shattered themselves were among the few beings in existence. They weren’t gods, they were people without a solution to the abyss. By shattering themselves and reconstructing their pieces into universes and creating the first souls they offered a chance for the universe to save itself. Those who find themselves imbued with a shard during their life will find themselves having an even harder life than those around them. But this is a spiritual alchemy: Trial by fire purifies them of any vice they have and open themselves to true humanity.

It's this humanity that not only makes them immune to the corruption of the abyss, but can even restore humanity to a corrupted soul. These people are known as…

Avatars

    Was that a good segway? Anyway; creating avatars is the goal of these universes. About half the people who willingly become mortal seek to become an avatar, but less than 1% of people in the universe become avatars, and even fewer ascend to immortality. An avatar is not special. They do not get special treatment, no plot armor, no protagonist powers. Their life is truly harder because that shard attracts that difficulty, forcing it upon them. An avatar will either swim or sink, there is no inbetween. There is another catch: No person who is deserving to be an avatar will become one, only someone who needs it will receive it. Example: Batman is not a viable vessel to be an avatar, but the Joker is.

    What about the other half? Turns out living a life and experiencing what it's like to live with restrained power then becoming immortal through ascension makes a person significantly stronger than one simply experiencing existence in the Immortal Universe. Kind of like training with weights to improve calorie burn.

That’s all I have. Thank you to those who reached the end!