RPG's where the whole party contributes to dice pools?
Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2017 11:51 am
I don't mean a game like Shadowrun where individuals have pools they roll for their own actions, but a game where two guys on the same side will share a combat pool to use.
Osprey Publishing's Ronin, a skirmish miniatures game, does this for their combat system:
1) Every model generates X amount of combat dice that are used for offense or defense. A highly skilled samurai may generate 3 dice while a farmer-turned-bandit generates 1.
2) when combat happens, each player adds up the dice of their dudes involved and secretly divides the pool into offense and defense, then both reveal at the same time.
3) the offense/defense dice are shared within a side, so if you used your samurai to generate 3 defense dice, those defense dice can be used by your green conscripts to ward off attacks directed at them. Or when it's the samurai's turn he can use one of the attack dice generated by a conscript to enhance his attack.
So you might have some fodder with knives just in there for dice to power up the greatsword samurai's attack which will hit harder than knife pokes.
Now this is a skirmish game where one dude controls multiple little dudes, an RPG with a party means every player has their own dude and has to decide as a party how to share their pool.
I think this would be good or an RPG with large PC power disparity so you can do the cinematic thing where the veteran knight and runaway princess are fighting the badguys together with the knight providing protection with his large pool and the princess still contributes. Maybe something abstracted like the princess's 1 die used by the knight to the attack is "princess throws a flower pot at the orc".
Any games already do this?
Osprey Publishing's Ronin, a skirmish miniatures game, does this for their combat system:
1) Every model generates X amount of combat dice that are used for offense or defense. A highly skilled samurai may generate 3 dice while a farmer-turned-bandit generates 1.
2) when combat happens, each player adds up the dice of their dudes involved and secretly divides the pool into offense and defense, then both reveal at the same time.
3) the offense/defense dice are shared within a side, so if you used your samurai to generate 3 defense dice, those defense dice can be used by your green conscripts to ward off attacks directed at them. Or when it's the samurai's turn he can use one of the attack dice generated by a conscript to enhance his attack.
So you might have some fodder with knives just in there for dice to power up the greatsword samurai's attack which will hit harder than knife pokes.
Now this is a skirmish game where one dude controls multiple little dudes, an RPG with a party means every player has their own dude and has to decide as a party how to share their pool.
I think this would be good or an RPG with large PC power disparity so you can do the cinematic thing where the veteran knight and runaway princess are fighting the badguys together with the knight providing protection with his large pool and the princess still contributes. Maybe something abstracted like the princess's 1 die used by the knight to the attack is "princess throws a flower pot at the orc".
Any games already do this?