Hey Veeky Forums, so I have a question.
Without getting too into it, I'm making a game. In said game, the highest amount of successes that a character can have is four. What I want to know is, is there functionally a difference between an effect which adds a die to the dice pool and an effect that allows you to reroll a die if you spend points or is it functionally the same since there's a cap on how many successes you can register?
One just straight up adds one dice, the other one costs points to activate? Yeah, that sounds like a pretty significant difference, but I'm assuming I misunderstood something about your explanation here.
Sorry, I forgot to say that you spend points to either add a die or reroll a die.
There can be a difference, but you really haven't given much information. What determines how many dice the player can roll to get those successes? If he's limited to three dice in some situation, then even if he has three successes, his only chance of increasing the amount is to gain another dice, as a rerolled die at best lets him keep a success he already has, not add a new one.
>What determines how many dice the player can roll to get those successes?
Every player has the same dice pool of 4d6 and if they roll a 5-6, it counts as a success. Generally, you roll against a target number and if you have more successes than the target, you succeed. Otherwise, it's a failure.
why the fuck would you ever reroll a die if you can gain the effect of succeeding that reroll with the same point?
In that case, and if a fifth successful dice wouldn't count for anything, then re-rolling one die or adding an extra die would be functionally identical yes.
I think he meant add a die as in "take one more dice and roll it".
Do you get to choose to add the dice after rolling the initial set?
If so, it is functionally identical to a reroll.
If not, it is worse than a reroll.
How and when are the resource use declarations made? I'd assume that rerolls can be declared after rolling the dice, but perhaps adding a fifth die is something that has to be declared beforehand? This would give players a chance to overshoot the four maximum successes and waste a resource point, but perhaps it's cheaper than the safe route.
I'm a fucking idiot, so let me rephrase what I said correctly so that there's no more confusion.
So the idea is to add a mechanic that grants an effect if one decides to spend points. The choice is between making the effect add an extra die to the player's dice pool or making the effect allow the player to reroll one die.
I'm asking if there's a difference between the two that would create a distinct difference or if it all ends up being the same since there's a hard cap on how many successes one can actually register.
Again, sorry for the confusion, I didn't read what I wrote carefully enough, I hope that clears things up.
> I'd assume that rerolls can be declared after rolling the dice, but perhaps adding a fifth die is something that has to be declared beforehand?
That's what I'm thinking yes.
>This would give players a chance to overshoot the four maximum successes and waste a resource point, but perhaps it's cheaper than the safe route.
Hmm, I hadn't thought of that actually. Thank you for your input.
After reading and your post, I think I will actually make the effect something that you could use after you roll the die. I hadn't considered how you could potentially overshoot the limit and waste a resource.
Say a player rolls 4 dice and gets 2 successes.
The 3rd and 4th dice aren't counted at the end as it was a failure, so you can effectively pretend that they were never rolled.
In this situation, the choice of rolling an extra dice or rerolling one of the failed die is identical, as either way the odds of getting an extra success are the same.
However:
- If you can only ever reroll one die, but you can add any number of extra dice, that changes the maths, as you could roll 2 extra dice in the example above, and potentially get 4/4 successes rather than just 3/4 with a successful reroll.
- If you have to choose to add the dice before rolling the initial set, this changes the maths as well, as you might be wasting resources
>1
It would be a 1:1 regardless of whichever effect I ultimately decide to go with. So if you spent 2 points, it would allow you to (add 2 dice/reroll 2 dice).
>2
You would be able to spend points after you finish rolling, as suggested from and
Why have two abilities then? If it's 1:1 and you reroll/add die after rolling, then mathematically the two options are identical.
Better to simplify it and just have it be a reroll.
Yep!
The hard limit is the most obvious difference, but even if the player is 'aiming' for two successes because that's all he needs to accomplish a task, declaring afterward insures that he doesn't waste by going over his target.
Then theres no effective difference between rerolling a dice or adding another dice.
Unless of course you have effects that care about the number of dice currently in play, or if there are advantages to specific numbers of successes.
That isn't true. Paying to add dice to a roll, to me at least, just increases your pool *before* dice are rolled. Which means you can't wait until after you've rolled and only spend resources if you need to
the difference between them is pretty trivial.
Just pick one and go with that. You don't need both.
>What I want to know is, is there functionally a difference between an effect which adds a die to the dice pool and an effect that allows you to reroll a die
Assuming you're going to spend the point regardless, they're the same if you start out with 4 or more dice before adding the extra die / rerolling. If you start out with fewer than 4 dice, adding the extra die is better, because you can get more successes than you can with a reroll. (If you start off with 2 dice, for instance, the add-another-die method could get you 3 successes, while the reroll method only makes it easier for you to get 2.)
From the standpoint of spending the point, you get to see what you get before committing the point in a reroll system. That's helpful because you may do just fine without needing to spend the point.