|
Post by aldarron on Oct 13, 2010 10:21:39 GMT -6
An additional idea: Each time that a PC or a monster hits in combat, roll a handful of SIX dice, one of each sort. Then look at the 20-sider to determine which of the other dice that are lying there to read for your damage. Here's the chart to use if your 20-siders are numbered 0-9 twice: 1-2: read the 4-sider 3-4: read the 6-sider 5-6: read the 8-sider 7-8: read the 10-sider 9-0: read the 12-sider Here's the chart to use if your 20-siders are numbered 1-20: 1-4: read the 4-sider 5-8: read the 6-sider 9-12: read the 8-sider 13-16: read the 10-sider 17-20: read the 12-sider Example: Your character smashes an orc with his mace, so you roll all six types of dice in a single handful (and let's assume your 20-sider is numbered 1 to 20). You look at your 20-sider and it says "14". So you look at your 10-sider and it says "7". So you did 7 hit points of damage with that attack. The other dice are ignored. Average damage done in this system is 4.5 hp per strike. Don't let the chart scare you off. After a couple of sessions you will have it internalized and you won't need to consult it any more. And it's always more fun to roll a handful of dice than just one! ;D I just read this again and realized its very similar to the "hit location" system Dave Arneson used in Adventures in Fantasy. Basically, you roll an old style d20 (numbered 1-10 twice) and that tells you what dice to roll for damage.
|
|
|
Post by Malchor on Nov 22, 2018 12:10:00 GMT -6
In the particular example he gives here, Dave was talking about rolling for the Ability Scores - hence the "if your roll were bad you just started over." Whether for HP generation or Ability Scores that is an insight into how Arneson did it before the LBBs. aldarron I'm curious, why you believe Arneson was talking Ability Scores? The question in the thread is "Do the rules actually say that HD are 6-sided?" Arneson seems to directly answer that by stating, "In the original rules, no." Then explaining what his group did instead. I looked at all of the posts prior and see no discussion about Ability Scores. What am I missing? Is it possible Arneson was referring to how they rolled hit points here? Was this also their common method for Ability Scores? Perhaps bringing that to mind for you? If so, that would give spreads of 2-20 and 8-18 respectively (that has some implications and speculation in my mind that I will not derail the thread with). In either case, with stories of Mr. Arneson, the first DM and the first with the reputation as a killer DM, allowing people to reroll bad rolls HP or Ability Scores is interesting in and of itself.
|
|
|
Post by Mordorandor on Oct 21, 2022 15:40:43 GMT -6
aldarron, Malchor ... did the mystery of whether Dave used dice other than d6 for HD ever get re/solved?
|
|
|
Post by waysoftheearth on Oct 27, 2022 5:22:53 GMT -6
Whether for player characters or for monsters, do the three little 1974 rulebooks ever explicitly say that HD are 6-sided? I'm not sure if the title question ever got answered? Anyways, it's not quite explicit, but the example of a dicing for a superhero's hit points (M&M p18) would give most readers 99% confidence that they're dealing with 6-sided dice. There's are also some decent tip-offs in M&T, such as: Kobolds are listed as having ½ (one-half) a hit die on the monster reference table (M&T p3), then the text explains (M&T p7) that you <<roll a six-sided die with a 1 or 2 equaling 1 hit, a 3 or 4 equaling 2 hits, etc.>>. Dragons (M&T p11): having 1-6 hp per die, based on their age. Somewhat related, there are quite a few examples of "dice" of damage showing 1-6 hp per die explicitly. Hits, dice, hit dice... all six-sided in the 3LBBs unless it explicitly says otherwise (funky dice were a relatively new thing, that had to be called out).
|
|
|
Post by captainjapan on Oct 27, 2022 9:32:49 GMT -6
The only die, on the recommended equipment list, of which you should need to buy more than a pair, is the d6 (4-20 pairs recommended). If a dm is making their dice purchasing decisions based on the list, it shouldn't be possible to roll higher than a 4th level character with any other type of die.
Of course, if HD were rolled on a d20, you could get lucky and end up with a 41 hit point Theurgist.(correction: a 25 hit point Theurgist, as the 20-sided die was only a d10)
|
|
|
Post by talysman on Oct 27, 2022 11:11:09 GMT -6
I agree with waysoftheearth that the main clue that hit dice are d6 is that at the time, non-six-sided dice were a novelty and no one would think "dice" meant anything other than a d6 unless they were explicitly told otherwise, further supported by the monster examples in Monsters & Treasure. Also, clerical healing spells are d6 based ("A die is rolled, one pip added, and the resultant total subtracted from the hit points the character has taken. Thus from 2-7 hit points of damage can be removed.") And weapons do d6 damage. The way I see it, Gygax thought of it in terms of the Chainmail "one hit = one kill" system requiring more variance, so he rolled a d6 for each "hit" on either side. On the average, one hit with a weapon will still kill one average human, but there's a chance the weapon damage will be less than the damage the human can take, meaning they survive. As for whether Arneson's comment above was possibly referring to ability scores rather than hit dice: he explicitly says that the D&D rules don't specify d6s. But Men & Magic does explicitly specify "three six-sided dice in order to rate each as to various abilities", so I'd say he wasn't talking about ability scores.
|
|
|
Post by ahabicher on Oct 28, 2022 3:13:29 GMT -6
I'm thinking that when combat begins, each PC individually and each monster group could roll either a 10-sider or an old-fashioned 20-sider (numbered 0-9 twice) and consult the following table to see what they use for HD during that combat: 1-2: 4-siders 3-4: 6-siders 5-6: 8-siders 7-8: 10-siders 9-0: 12-siders My old-school 20-siders are numbered 0-9 twice, so I'll not consider them for HD of 1-20 points each. The above table would result, in PCs and monsters having (averaged over time) 4.5 hp per die on average, rather than 3.5 hp her die. That's the same that they have under the Greyhawk rules of 4.5 hp per die on average. This might be fun to also do with weapon damage. Yes, any given weapon still does "1 die" of damage. But which die this combat? "Haha, the evil acolyte has only a dagger. What a loser." "He has. But this combat, his dagger does d12 damage."
|
|
|
Post by dicebro on Oct 28, 2022 4:10:25 GMT -6
New magic item: the ring of d12 hit dice
|
|
|
Post by Mordorandor on Nov 4, 2022 6:22:48 GMT -6
… did the mystery of whether Dave used dice other than d6 for HD ever get re/solved? It seems not. It wouldn’t surprise me if he did. Sounds like Gary and he used HP in different ways, with OD&D reflecting Gary’s way. Interesting to ponder whether Dave was the first to use variable HD, which influenced Gary’s use of variable HD in Greyhawk.
|
|