Quote from: tenbones;1119282It's a bit meta - but how *many* calculations are you wanting to have in a combat exchange to determine the act of simply hitting a target?

Cooking in the abstractions into the task resolution is what we're really discussing here. And I'm interested in finding the sweet spot(s).

For me the ideal abstraction level is about two rolls; whether by one combatant (ex. rolling to hit and then damage) or both (ex. attack vs. defense roll with damage determined by the margin of success).

I also like having maneuvers/tactical options if they play within those bounds.

For example, adding to or replacing the hit effect; adding knockdown to the attack or disarming the target instead of damaging them. Another would be an offensive stance that boosts your attack roll for a turn, but penalized your defenses or defensive stance that boosts your defense but penalizes your attack.

Both of those keep to the "two rolls to resolve" limit that keeps it from being too complex.

Another point on my preferred complexity is what I call nested choices. I actually enjoyed the tactical combat in 4E a lot, but one of its downsides was that it was pretty easy to end up in "option paralysis" territory with 2-3 at-will, 4-5 encounter, 4 daily and possibly some item powers that all need the same standard action and have to be selected before the roll is made.

What a nested choice means is that, at any given point in the resolution process, you only have to choose between 2-3 (maybe four on the outside) options at any one time; keeping the each choice point below the level where option paralysis becomes a noticeable thing.

As an example, say you have a choice of three maneuvers. Each of those maneuvers then has three options IF you hit. One-of-three choices and a second one-of-three choices you only worry about if you hit is a lot easier for many people to manage than having to make a one-of-nine options choice.

It can be further eased if those decisions are for different things... for example, before the roll pick aggressive (+to hit/-defense), normal (no modifiers) or defensive (-to hit/+defense) option. If you chose agressive and hit you can choose extra damage, knockdown or forcing the target back. If you chose defensive and hit you can choose a free withdrawal action, a bonus to your next attack or a pull your target out of position as you shift back. Etc.

That's much easier to work with for a lot of players I've found.

Quote from: Skarg;1119287I have been working on developing a version of this that I like for a TFT house rule. TFT RAW is 3d6 roll-under DX to hit, usually with no effect of defender's skill. The base new house rule is to adjust both figure's DX so their average is about 10 (50% chance to hit). Then add an option to fight offensively or defensively to nudge both figure's skills up or down.

This way, if both figures have the same DX, they both have a 10 (50%) to hit each other, whether the DX level is 8 or 18.

And if for example the DX levels were 16 and 12, one attack would be at 12 (74%) and the other would be at 8 (26%). Which feels really good to me.

And it's just one roll.

You have just reinvented the Runequest Resistance table.
(For the example you gave the Resistance Table gives a result of 70-30.)

Quote from: Chris24601;1119288As an example, say you have a choice of three maneuvers. Each of those maneuvers then has three options IF you hit. One-of-three choices and a second one-of-three choices you only worry about if you hit is a lot easier for many people to manage than having to make a one-of-nine options choice.

It can be further eased if those decisions are for different things... for example, before the roll pick aggressive (+to hit/-defense), normal (no modifiers) or defensive (-to hit/+defense) option. If you chose agressive and hit you can choose extra damage, knockdown or forcing the target back. If you chose defensive and hit you can choose a free withdrawal action, a bonus to your next attack or a pull your target out of position as you shift back. Etc.

That's much easier to work with for a lot of players I've found.

Hey that's a nice idea Chris. And if the players had a flow chart or multi-column table they could fairly easily figure out their choices. In Honor + Intrigue the options aren't nested and I did see some option paralysis for certain players.

Quote from: Bren;1119289Hey that's a nice idea Chris. And if the players had a flow chart or multi-column table they could fairly easily figure out their choices. In Honor + Intrigue the options aren't nested and I did see some option paralysis for certain players.

As I've mentioned before... I've both done research (ex. the ideal number of choices for most people is three at a time) and run A LOT of play tests on my system with varying groups of people to find a good balance between ease of play and complexity.

The main place to have lots of options is in the character building stage (initial or when leveling up) because there's no super-tight time constraint associated with those choices. Once you get down to the in-play experience though keeping the default options to 2-4 is best for getting players to make quick choices with their turn.

Another thing that helps a LOT (and its one of the areas that 4E and 5e fell down on with their minor/bonus actions) is to make sure you at least have a default action available for each action type a character is able to freely take in their turn. A LOT of turn delay in those games was from players not wanting to waste their minor/bonus action by not using something, and so they'd go searching through their available options for something to throw out.

Ex. my system uses a main and minor action during your turn*. Early on in my design process I made sure that every class had something it could do every round for its minor action (main actions usually being for attacks). While there were often bigger and better situational things they could do with that action, what it did was give them a default to use. As soon as there was SOMETHING they could spend the action on they largely stopped going through what they could do "one more time" because they no longer felt the action was being wasted if it wasn't being used.

* Why do I even have minor actions? In a word... multi-classing. By tying key class-related benefits (ex. an interdictor's ability to use area attack spells or a maledictor's ability to do extra damage with their spells) to the minor action you limit the ability of a multi-class character to stack the benefits of multiple classes at the same time (ex. an enlarged and empowered spell attack). By making it a main and a minor action (instead of just two actions) you prevent the ability to use two attacks (which use a main action) in turn (unless your class' minor action benefit is making a second attack).

Quote from: Chris24601;1119288What a nested choice means is that, at any given point in the resolution process, you only have to choose between 2-3 (maybe four on the outside) options at any one time; keeping the each choice point below the level where option paralysis becomes a noticeable thing.

Yes.  The upper limit is 7 for most things (i.e. not just combat/fast decisions).  A normal person in an average situation under average pressure can keep no more than about 7 thoughts\items running at once.  Above that, they need references, a moment to focus on different parts of a longer list, or any number of other techniques that people use to classify and remember things.  Thing is, though, under any increased pressure or more complex situation or even just having a bad day, that limit degrades pretty darn quick.  (It's been a long time since I seriously read the research on this, but as far as I know the limit of 7 has held up well even though I think more nuance has been applied since I first read about it.  As I understand it, it's very rare for anyone to handle more than 7 things at once.  People that seem to do so are in fact using their own classification system--nested or otherwise--to manage items.  They just do it so well it looks as if they handle more than 7.  In any case, as a practical matter, we aren't interested in what the exceptional can do.)

In fact, even outside of play, you are running a big risk exceeding that limit, though you'll be a lot more comfortable flirting with 7 outside of play than during it, and outside of combat or other fast-paced activity than during them.  

It's notable in D&D play in the difference between looking up ability scores versus looking up skills.  I've rarely seen even the rawest newcomer have much trouble handling a simple ability check, and if they do, the problem doesn't last long.  On the other hand, even people that know the game but are having a bad day can temporarily freeze on finding a skill--even knowing all they need to do is scan the character sheet alphabetically.  Not saying it would be better all around (because there are other considerations), but from a "human player rapidly processing" perspective, the D&D skill list would be far better if there were 2-4 under each ability, and they were listed that way on the character sheet.

Another way to think about it, as with any complexity, is that breaking those limits has a cost.  So you want to limit how many times you do it, and the payoff needs to be worth it--given whatever the game is trying to achieve.  Obviously, if the thing is something that doesn't get used much or isn't particularly time sensitive, you can relax more.

I've partially broken it during a play test of a game I'm doing.  I knew it was a bad idea for the long term, but the connections between the 25 things in the list aren't always obvious.  Even though I expect the final game to be better organized, I'm deliberately not forcing it yet in order to see how the players will organize.  Already, I've had some good feedback about how the players think about it which has led me to tweak my design a little.  The cost during a play test to get information is worth it (even if it was painful at first).  No way that would survive intact later into the game development.

Quote from: Skarg;1119287I have been working on developing a version of this that I like for a TFT house rule. TFT RAW is 3d6 roll-under DX to hit, usually with no effect of defender's skill. The base new house rule is to adjust both figure's DX so their average is about 10 (50% chance to hit). Then add an option to fight offensively or defensively to nudge both figure's skills up or down.

This way, if both figures have the same DX, they both have a 10 (50%) to hit each other, whether the DX level is 8 or 18.

And if for example the DX levels were 16 and 12, one attack would be at 12 (74%) and the other would be at 8 (26%). Which feels really good to me.

And it's just one roll.

The "hard" part is adjusting the skill, but I find it's pretty simple and I'm memorizing it the more I use it.

The tricky development part though is getting the details right about figuring out how much adjustment should be allowed for fighting offensively or defensively, and what should happen in more complex fights where there are multiple people fighting multiple people in the same spot, when people have to declare their fighting style setting, etc. Of course most of that can be ignored if you choose not to use or allow the "fighting offensive/defensively" option at all.

On a d20+Mod mechanic (which I'm more familiar with) I would probably handle defensive fighting as a general +4 bonus to defend against all attacks at the expense of a -4 penalty to attack. On a 3d6 Roll-Under mechanic I think this could be reduced to a +2/-2 (maybe +3/-3) to skill level and still work. It's simple modifier that's significant but not too high and should be easy to remember during play.

I would use the same modifiers even when fighting multiple opponents, however, flanking and similar situational modifiers may apply depending on opponent placement.

Quote from: Skarg;1119287Well, the difference is I was mentioning an alternate method that's been offered as an option since earlier editions of GURPS, where the standard attack becomes a contest of skill. A GM who knows both the attacker and defender's values can roll that all at once (3 dice of one color and 3 dice of another), which can get almost as easy as a single roll, and doesn't involve choices on either side.

It's only slightly more complex than the house rule method I mentioned after the first quote above. (Also less complex than using the "fighting offensively or defensively" part of that house rule.)

Yeah, I would probably use that option if I tried GURPS.

Quote from: tenbones;1119282It's a bit meta - but how *many* calculations are you wanting to have in a combat exchange to determine the act of simply hitting a target?

Cooking in the abstractions into the task resolution is what we're really discussing here. And I'm interested in finding the sweet spot(s).

I've already mentioned it a couple of times, but think that the sweetest spot is Attack Roll vs Passive Defense. It's fast, simple, intuitive, easy to learn and use, reduces rolls and complications, and keeps the game moving. Opposed rolls are good as well, but I find that both sides making a roll is unnecessary when a passive defense based on an average roll already produces results that are almost identical mathematically, except for lacking the slight bell curve of making multiple rolls. But those multiple rolls draw combat out with additional player actions and things to check. And using passive skills also allows diceless GMing, where the GM can simply have players make all attacks AND defense rolls against a passive skill value--speeding up play even more while allowing players to feel more engaged in their own defense when avoiding attacks.

I also tend to prefer Armor as DR over Armor as Defense, but if I was gonna use Armor as Defense for my own systems I would still use the Attack vs Passive Defense scheme I mentioned above as a base and have armor provide a small bonus to the character's defense skill against weapon attacks or blasts. I would keep the armor bonus low, but I would forgo using "max DEX" like in D&D, or similar mechanics. That way I could keep things balanced and reduce the number of things to track.

Quote from: Chris24601;1119288For me the ideal abstraction level is about two rolls; whether by one combatant (ex. rolling to hit and then damage) or both (ex. attack vs. defense roll with damage determined by the margin of success).

Yeah, generally prefer to limit the number of rolls as well. I even tend to prefer single die action resolution mechanics over multiple dice resolutions because it keeps the action moving faster. Though, I have a soft spot for dice pool mechanics (preferably d6 pools,  each 4+ = 1 Success, difficulty = number of success required) and Open d6, and have also considered 3d6+Mod as well. But 1d20+Mod moves the game faster and has a nice range of variables to allow some room for character growth.

One area I think multiple dice can do well (though, it is a tradeoff) is damage. I find that rolling multiple dice for damage can increase the excitement and contribute to the sense that you're pilling on a lot of damage and really devastating your opponent, which reduces the stress of counting so many dice. While multiple dice in action resolution might increase the stress of counting dice, since you're devoting additional effort into something when success is uncertain and your action might still fail. But with damage, success has already been  determined, so every extra die you count is that much more damage that you certainly did make. And since you don't always hit you don't always have to roll extra dice.

I also like the elegance of damage based on margin of success, and have considered using it as well, but ultimately went with damage rolls because I'm creating an effect-based system that emphasizes effect levels. So damage will be based on effect level, but it's affected by degrees of success: Partial (Half), Complete (Full) or Critical (+50%).

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1119298It's notable in D&D play in the difference between looking up ability scores versus looking up skills. I've rarely seen even the rawest newcomer have much trouble handling a simple ability check, and if they do, the problem doesn't last long. On the other hand, even people that know the game but are having a bad day can temporarily freeze on finding a skill--even knowing all they need to do is scan the character sheet alphabetically. Not saying it would be better all around (because there are other considerations), but from a "human player rapidly processing" perspective, the D&D skill list would be far better if there were 2-4 under each ability, and they were listed that way on the character sheet.

I prefer skill-based systems over class-based systems and consider them to be generally superior, but skill system efficiency diminishes with number of skills. One issue common with skill-based systems is skill specificity. A lot of skill-based systems tend to have lots of skills that are essentially variations of the same types of activity, such as melee attacks, knowledge or piloting.

The problem that crops up in that type of situation is that players have to split up whatever points they have among a bunch of skills that are basically variations of the same skill yet don't contribute to each other's levels (or however they're measured), which is not realistic and complicates the character creation and progression process. Players may even develop decision paralysis when deciding which skills to pick and how many levels for each. The more skills there are, the more this problem is compounded, and the more situational skills that aren't even likely to come up during play there will be.

One thing I'm doing in my system to address that is to use a combination of consolidated and specific skills. The class of abilities called "Skills" are general and focused on broad areas of activity and common game functions, such as Fighting (melee combat), Athletics (all mobility rolls, including dodges), Lore (all academic knowledge) or Piloting (any type of vehicle or moving machinery). There's 16 skills total spread across 4 attributes (all listed together in the character sheet).

• Might: Health, Toughness and Strength.
• Reflexes: Athletics, Fighting, Marksman, Piloting and Stealth.
• Bearing: Interaction, Perform and Willpower.
• Awareness: Crafting, Lore, Medicine, Perception and Technical.

Additionally, each skill is supplemented by a secondary class of abilities called Techniques, which expands on what a skill can do and cover specific training and specializations. Techniques are low cost and one-time-select, so players don't have to fret about how many points to spend on each. Skills handle the "level" component (how good the character is), while Techniques handle additional capabilities or bonuses.

That way players can focus on a handful of skills that cover broad areas of activity that are actually likely to come up during play, but specialized training (such as languages or specific knowledge) is still covered when necessary. And if players want their characters to be particularly good at a specific type of task or function (such as specific weapons or vehicles) those things are covered as well. But skills themselves are just 3-5 skills per attribute, so there's not that many skills to keep track of.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1119320And using passive skills also allows diceless GMing, where the GM can simply have players make all attacks AND defense rolls against a passive skill value--speeding up play even more while allowing players to feel more engaged in their own defense when avoiding attacks.

I have never found that the players roll faster than me. I can roll the attacks (and damage and parry if needed) for 5 opponents much faster than I can get 5 players to make those rolls.

QuoteOne area I think multiple dice can do well (though, it is a tradeoff) is damage. I find that rolling multiple dice for damage can increase the excitement and contribute to the sense that you're pilling on a lot of damage and really devastating your opponent, which reduces the stress of counting so many dice. While multiple dice in action resolution might increase the stress of counting dice, since you're devoting additional effort into something when success is uncertain and your action might still fail. But with damage, success has already been  determined, so every extra die you count is that much more damage that you certainly did make. And since you don't always hit you don't always have to roll extra dice.

That's an interesting point.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1119320One thing I'm doing in my system to address that is to use a combination of consolidated and specific skills. The class of abilities called "Skills" are general and focused on broad areas of activity and common game functions, such as Fighting (melee combat), Athletics (all mobility rolls, including dodges), Lore (all academic knowledge) or Piloting (any type of vehicle or moving machinery). There's 16 skills total spread across 4 attributes (all listed together in the character sheet).

• Might: Health, Toughness and Strength.
• Reflexes: Athletics, Fighting, Marksman, Piloting and Stealth.
• Bearing: Interaction, Perform and Willpower.
• Awareness: Crafting, Lore, Medicine, Perception and Technical.

Additionally, each skill is supplemented by a secondary class of abilities called Techniques, which expands on what a skill can do and cover specific training and specializations. Techniques are low cost and one-time-select, so players don't have to fret about how many points to spend on each. Skills handle the "level" component (how good the character is), while Techniques handle additional capabilities or bonuses.

That way players can focus on a handful of skills that cover broad areas of activity that are actually likely to come up during play, but specialized training (such as languages or specific knowledge) is still covered when necessary. And if players want their characters to be particularly good at a specific type of task or function (such as specific weapons or vehicles) those things are covered as well. But skills themselves are just 3-5 skills per attribute, so there's not that many skills to keep track of.

I tried several variations of that, what I would call hard nesting.  I think for a lot of games it will work fine.  However, it contributes even more to "fault lines" in the skill design, which is one of the things that often annoy me about skill-based systems.  Any game with skills has them, such as the "Perception/Investigation" confusion in D&D 5E.  In a game like D&D, primarily driven by classes, it doesn't matter as much.

That is, in humans, skills are an incredibly complex, overlapping set of different abilities that are combined in multiple ways to do things.  You can't model all of that in a game.  So a game quite rightly focuses on modeling the things the game is mainly about.  When you do that in a skills-based game, though, especially with hard nesting of skills, you are cutting off a big part of what makes a skills-based game attractive--that at least some of the overlapping is still easily represented in the model.  

As an example of a game that does a fair job of managing the problem, consider Rune Quest.  I think the Mythras derivative does an even better job.  It's still got fault lines, but at least the fault lines are chosen to not be that important in the scope of what those games are about.

Balancing that kind of issue against ease of handling by nesting is one of those considerations I mentioned earlier.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1119320I also like the elegance of damage based on margin of success, and have considered using it as well, but ultimately went with damage rolls because I'm creating an effect-based system that emphasizes effect levels.

I ultimately had to abandon margin of success-based damage for my system because it requires escalating attack and defense scores (rolled or passive) to increase/ablate damage and that can pretty easily result in characters who simply can't miss or be hit by weaker opponents regardless of those opponents' numbers.

So in my case I opted for relatively flat attack/defense numbers to reflect that there are some spans of six seconds where even the most skilled swordsman can't find an opening in an amateur's flailing defenses and then scaling damage and "hit points" so that skilled warriors can more effectively cut down foes when there IS an opening to be exploited and their pool of "hit points" mean their less vulnerable to a single opening they leave for their foes to be fight ending (but enough weak foes can overcome that).

It's by no means a perfect model, but it works well enough for a tactical heroic fantasy game.

Quote from: Bren;1119339I have never found that the players roll faster than me. I can roll the attacks (and damage and parry if needed) for 5 opponents much faster than I can get 5 players to make those rolls.

Yeah, I meant "speed up play" more in the sense that it frees up the GM from having to do enemy rolls so they can focus on other stuff. So maybe that wasn't the correct way to frame it, but rather that it reduces the GM's workload. Though, in my experience part of the reason why players might stall the rolling process in such circumstances is because players have to wait for the GM to deal with them to know what to do, so their attention may waiver elsewhere till that time, making them as difficult to herd as cats. So I suppose the effectiveness or usefulness of this mechanic from a GM's POV depends on how you handle combat in your game.

But in my experience, part of the reason players like opposed rolls is that they like to feel in control of their character's fate, and giving them the chance to roll to defend themselves rather the GM rolling against their passive defense might still satisfy that need. Which would be a benefit (at least from the POV of player experience) of this type of rolling method when using passive skills or defenses rather than opposed rolls.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1119341I tried several variations of that, what I would call hard nesting.  I think for a lot of games it will work fine.

I'm going for a universal game engine with my system's design, adaptable to a wide range of action-adventure genres, so "works fine for a lot of games" is kinda what I'm aiming for.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1119341However, it contributes even more to "fault lines" in the skill design, which is one of the things that often annoy me about skill-based systems.  Any game with skills has them, such as the "Perception/Investigation" confusion in D&D 5E.  In a game like D&D, primarily driven by classes, it doesn't matter as much.

That's actually one of the reasons I have a single "Perception" skill in my system to handle everything having to do with detecting things (or even mental speed/agility in general)--Insight, Investigation, Observation, Listen, etc. IMO all of those things are basically the same function, and in my experience people who are good at noticing things (and I would include myself in this category) tend to be good at nothing any type of thing that's "off" or out of the ordinary, not just uber specific things that apply only in very specific situations. So there's little justification for treating each of those functions as completely separate things that require completely separate training and "level" development. If you want to have some distinction between these things stuff like specializations, proficiencies or other types of "techniques" should be enough.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1119341That is, in humans, skills are an incredibly complex, overlapping set of different abilities that are combined in multiple ways to do things.  You can't model all of that in a game.  So a game quite rightly focuses on modeling the things the game is mainly about.  When you do that in a skills-based game, though, especially with hard nesting of skills, you are cutting off a big part of what makes a skills-based game attractive--that at least some of the overlapping is still easily represented in the model.

This is something that I had to learn the hard way in my development process trying out different aptitude (attribute-skill) layout schemes in a futile attempt to cover the whole range of overlap in human aptitude as best I could. But ultimately they all come up short and I came to realize that there's always a give and take in game design--when you add to one area or emphasize one thing you always have to take from somewhere else or downplay another aspect of the system. And when it comes to aptitude overlap there are too many variables between different skill sets that may potentially contribute to each other in real life (art training IRL also improves perception, for example, and perception could affect attack accuracy, etc.) that are impossible to accurately account for in terms of game mechanics.

So it always comes down to what you're looking for in your game and what types of compromises you're willing to make. What I found worked best for my purposes was to focus on tasks or game functions that are as general as possible, and applicable to a wide range of settings, without being so general they lack proper definition. So each skill is different and covers a different common type of activity without being overly specific, but the specificity still exists in the form of techniques as a functional compromise.

There is some degree of abstraction that cuts off the broad range of skills typically offered in a skill-based system, but I'm willing to work with that because from the POV of simulation skills that deal with similar things (such as different melee weapons) but whose training does not contribute to each other (as in most skill-based systems) makes ZERO sense. And those specifics are still covered by techniques anyways. And additionally a lot of those specifics tend to be highly situational, particularly in the case of academic knowledge, and hardly ever come up during play. So handling specialized skills as separate abilities with separate levels becomes a fool's errant and unnecessary complication that isn't even realistic if you care about simulation.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1119365Yeah, I meant "speed up play" more in the sense that it frees up the GM from having to do enemy rolls so they can focus on other stuff. So maybe that wasn't the correct way to frame it, but rather that it reduces the GM's workload. Though, in my experience part of the reason why players might stall the rolling process in such circumstances is because players have to wait for the GM to deal with them to know what to do, so their attention may waiver elsewhere till that time, making them as difficult to herd as cats. So I suppose the effectiveness or usefulness of this mechanic from a GM's POV depends on how you handle combat in your game.

I find that even when players don't "have to wait for the GM" many still will wait. And those players will also wait to decide what they are going to that turn until the GM points to them for their turn.

QuoteBut in my experience, part of the reason players like opposed rolls is that they like to feel in control of their character's fate, and giving them the chance to roll to defend themselves rather the GM rolling against their passive defense might still satisfy that need. Which would be a benefit (at least from the POV of player experience) of this type of rolling method when using passive skills or defenses rather than opposed rolls.

I agree. As a player I like that. But beyond that, opposed rolls make hitting an opponent (and getting hit) dependent on the actions (and die rolls) of both the attacker and the defender. In this way the system process for resolving combat matches what occurs in the game world. Opposed rolls make my action and the character's action feel more connected. Single rolls do the opposite.

Quote from: Bren;1119500I agree. As a player I like that. But beyond that, opposed rolls make hitting an opponent (and getting hit) dependent on the actions (and die rolls) of both the attacker and the defender. In this way the system process for resolving combat matches what occurs in the game world. Opposed rolls make my action and the character's action feel more connected. Single rolls do the opposite.

And when there are significant choices to make about what you do to defend, then you actually are more connected (not just the illusion given by rolling dice yourself).

e.g. In GURPS you can retreat, or dive for cover, but you have to choose when/if you want to do that, and where you want to retreat or dive to. Or which weapon or skill to use to defend. And various possible options (like you could try to not just parry but attack the incoming weapon, which is harder to do but may have a great result if you can pull it off). Or in my house rules, you can switch to a defensive stance which gives you a bonus against the current attack, but makes it hard or impossible to attack back the next turn. Etc etc.

Quote from: Skarg;1119502And when there are significant choices to make about what you do to defend, then you actually are more connected (not just the illusion given by rolling dice yourself).

On one level all RPG engagement is a cognitive illusion. On another, I'd say that it depends on player skill (and interest). Honor & Intrigue allows for a number of choices: parry (which may allow a riposte), bare-handed parry, stop-thrust, and dodge. I like the choices, but I find they appeal to some players, but they provide too much detail for others.

Quote from: Bren;1119339I have never found that the players roll faster than me. I can roll the attacks (and damage and parry if needed) for 5 opponents much faster than I can get 5 players to make those rolls.

I wonder if the increased speed is because DMs do not inherently care as much about their NPCs then the Players do about their PCs combined with NPCs that have less options then a PC does.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1119320One area I think multiple dice can do well (though, it is a tradeoff) is damage. I find that rolling multiple dice for damage can increase the excitement and contribute to the sense that you're pilling on a lot of damage and really devastating your opponent, which reduces the stress of counting so many dice. While multiple dice in action resolution might increase the stress of counting dice, since you're devoting additional effort into something when success is uncertain and your action might still fail. But with damage, success has already been  determined, so every extra die you count is that much more damage that you certainly did make. And since you don't always hit you don't always have to roll extra dice.

This is a great observation. t's making me re-think some game design stuff at the moment.