New attack algorithm

Dice tech basics

When you make a check of x/y difficulty, you want to roll x or lower on a y-sided die. Call that a hit. If you roll a hit, you succeed.

Very occasionally you will modify the base difficulty of the task, the target number (TN). If you'd ever make the task a sure thing or impossible (if you'd ever have x = 0 or x = y), increase the die size, y, by one step and change x accordingly. (1/4 becomes 1/6; 5/6 becomes 7/8.)

More often you will add bonus or penalty dice to the roll to reflect advantages and disadvantages.

When you roll with a bonus die, you roll two dice, and if either one hits, you succeed. When you roll with a penalty die, you roll two dice, and if either one misses, you fail. Bonus and penalty dice cancel out.

You can count the degrees of success or failure for roll as follows. On a success with bonus dice, the degree of success is the number of dice that hit. On a failure with penalty dice, the degree of failure is the number of dice that missed. Otherwise, the degree is 1, and it's a success if the check is a success, or a failure if the check is a failure.

(I'm considering a crit system where you roll 1/6 exploding for extra degrees of success/failure if every die hits or every die misses. Not sure if I'll use it though.)

Combat considerations

On an individual attack, we care about:

• Attacker skill (usually an "attack bonus" in dnd)
• Attack type
• Defender defenses, including armor, size, speed
• Form superiority between fighting styles
• Any miscellaneous advantages or disadvantages, like having the high ground

Figure out the details on all that.

The attack roll is a check. Start with a 5/6 difficulty, and modify it as follows:

• If the defender's defenses are fully effective against the attack, -3 TN; if they are partially effective, -2 TN; if they are barely effective, -1 TN.
• If the attacker has form superiority over the defender, +1 TN; if the defender has form superiority, -1 TN.
• Add one bonus die for every point of attack bonus and one for every circumstantial advantage
• Add one penalty die for every circumstantial disadvantage

The roll, single-sided

All the attacks made by one side will be resolved together. Your side should nominate one character as their champion. They get their full pool of dice. Everybody else gets just one die in the attack. (Calculate their task difficulty like normal though.)

Roll all the dice and count up the hits. Distribute hits evenly between enemy targets, with the following considerations:

• If you have n people attacking, you can only hit a maximum of n enemies
• Spread hits between enemies as evenly as possible
• If necessary, give more hits to enemies with light defenses and/or form inferiority, rather than enemies with strong defenses and/or form superiority

The first hit on each enemy deals 1d6 damage (usually). Every subsequent hit deals an additional 1 damage.

The roll, contested

As in the previous procedure, with the following additions. Count up the number of hits on each side. The side dealing the most hits deals full damage as in the previous procedure. The side dealing fewer hits only deals 1 damage per hit.

In the event of a tie... What? Full damage for everybody? Minimum damage for everybody?

Conceivably we want a tiebreaker. Considerations: the side with initiative, the side with more combatants, the side with fewer combatants.