The math teacher in me wanted to explore the probabilities a bit after my first time rolling dice with Ironsworn...
The math teacher in me wanted to explore the probabilities a bit after my first time rolling dice with Ironsworn last night. I'm a notoriously bad roller, so I figured it was probably just my luck again, but it felt like my awesome beginning nearly ground to a complete halt after getting a couple of key misses. Two things I realized out of this. 1) I like to win, a lot. 2) My metal dice (trying to be cool and play Ironsworn with metal!) are not weighted correctly so that my d6 rolls a 2 about 90% of the time. Time to switch dice!
Anyway, I did go ahead and figure out the probabilities which will be labeled as a percent followed by a number in parentheses. The parenthetical number is the amount you would be adding to your d6 roll between stats and any adds. Here they are:
Chance of Strong Hit: 15% (1), 23% (2), 33% (3), 45% (4), 56% (5)
Chance of Weak Hit: 40% (1), 44% (2), 44% (3), 40% (4), 35% (5)
Chance of Miss: 45% (1), 33% (2), 23% (3), 15% (4), 9% (5)
Like I said, I like to win a lot. So I was curious what would happen if you changed the challenge dice to d8s and capped your max d6 plus stat plus adds at 8. Here are those probabilities.
Chance of Strong Hit: 24% (1), 36% (2), 48% (3), 58% (4), 67% (5)
Chance of Weak Hit: 40% (1), 40% (2), 38% (3), 33% (4), 29% (5)
Chance of Miss: 36% (1), 24% (2), 15% (3), 8% (4), 4% (5)
And finally, if you use d8s as challenge dice but let your d6 plus stat plus adds go over 8, you get this:
Chance of Strong Hit: 24% (1), 36% (2), 52% (3), 66% (4), 79% (5)
Chance of Weak Hit: 40% (1), 40% (2), 34% (3), 26% (4), 18% (5)
Chance of Miss: 36% (1), 24% (2), 14% (3), 8% (4), 4% (5)
I may be houseruling d8s for my challenge dice to give me a bit more of the heroic feel, but I thought the community might find the math interesting as well.
(Note that changing challenge dice to d8s for progress checks would be a problem since progress can go up to 10, but then you can say that a 9 or 10 progress means you auto-win or else change your challenge dice back d10s for those rolls.)
Anyway, I did go ahead and figure out the probabilities which will be labeled as a percent followed by a number in parentheses. The parenthetical number is the amount you would be adding to your d6 roll between stats and any adds. Here they are:
Chance of Strong Hit: 15% (1), 23% (2), 33% (3), 45% (4), 56% (5)
Chance of Weak Hit: 40% (1), 44% (2), 44% (3), 40% (4), 35% (5)
Chance of Miss: 45% (1), 33% (2), 23% (3), 15% (4), 9% (5)
Like I said, I like to win a lot. So I was curious what would happen if you changed the challenge dice to d8s and capped your max d6 plus stat plus adds at 8. Here are those probabilities.
Chance of Strong Hit: 24% (1), 36% (2), 48% (3), 58% (4), 67% (5)
Chance of Weak Hit: 40% (1), 40% (2), 38% (3), 33% (4), 29% (5)
Chance of Miss: 36% (1), 24% (2), 15% (3), 8% (4), 4% (5)
And finally, if you use d8s as challenge dice but let your d6 plus stat plus adds go over 8, you get this:
Chance of Strong Hit: 24% (1), 36% (2), 52% (3), 66% (4), 79% (5)
Chance of Weak Hit: 40% (1), 40% (2), 34% (3), 26% (4), 18% (5)
Chance of Miss: 36% (1), 24% (2), 14% (3), 8% (4), 4% (5)
I may be houseruling d8s for my challenge dice to give me a bit more of the heroic feel, but I thought the community might find the math interesting as well.
(Note that changing challenge dice to d8s for progress checks would be a problem since progress can go up to 10, but then you can say that a 9 or 10 progress means you auto-win or else change your challenge dice back d10s for those rolls.)
Hey, Eric Bright. Your math checks out. Here's some charts:
ReplyDeletei.imgur.com
Adjusting the challenge dice is a good idea, but has some impact on progress tracks and matches. Another option is just to bump up the stats to +4, +3, +3, +2, +2.
Shawn Tomkin Didn't think about a pure stat bump! That may be easier to do as well. However, I just wrapped up a quick hour 2nd session and really did like the d8s for Gather Info, Compel, and such. I keep trying to get into a fight, but it hasn't happened yet, so I've yet to try d8s during combat. I love how open-ended your rules, game, and development strategy are! It leaves so much room to tailor the game to each player's table. Keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteEric, I'm having that feeling too, after a while of solo play. Also, I love to play following the narration and my feelings, so I don't do powerplay (ie. I try to not resolve every challenge with my best stats and talents, so I did rolled A LOT with just a +0 or a +1...). But actually I avoided to houseruling, for now. Other in the past suggested to turn to d8s. Probably I'll let myself to gain Stat advancement (as Shawn suggested) during the game, so I can have a more pronounced "from-zero-to-hero" feeling.
ReplyDeleteI just played a solo session. I have a Cutthroat-Ritualist. I can say is it's generally not a good idea to bring a knife to a swordfight. That said, he did use Keen to good effect to win one fight. However, he just couldn't pull off a strong hit on the second combat (not yet anyway).
ReplyDeleteI also learned it's hard to kill PCs. Definitely can be done, but you need to roll a miss when you Endure Damage while you are at 0 Health, then roll on another table. And on another, before you can die. Anywhere on that path, you may find that you just keep going. I hadn't really had a good hard look at those tables before I'd started. Now, I'm just kind of digesting all that before I go on.
It might make sense to add the option to increase Stats with experience, say spend twice the experience as your current stat to increase that stat by one. (So it would cost 2 experience to raise a 1 to a 2, 4 to raise a 2 to a 3, 6 to raise a 3 to a 4, etc.)
ReplyDeleteBill Andel ... Instead of spending XP on a stat boost, I would suggest you give a +1 to any stat once you hit a certain experience point milestone (let's say 8 points). You can draw a circle around those "boost points" in the XP track on your character sheet. When you hit that point, boost any stat +1 (no stat more than +4). This is in addition to spending those points on assets. If you want a faster progression, make it every 6 or 7 points.
ReplyDeleteThere's various reasons I didn't include this as a rule, including tone, encouraging momentum burn throughout a character's life, and allowing for assets that let you reshuffle stat points -- but it won't break anything if you like the idea of a more tangible stat progression.