for example: if the attack is 2 D10,rather then roll 2 d10,the player rolls one d20 (with a 1 or 2 counting as 2 damage) the min/max damage is still the same with this,but it means less dice have to be rolled,and less math to be made (cause if you roll 2 d10 and roll 6&8 you have to do math to find out it is 14,but with the d20 if you roll a 15 you know you deal 15 damage)
i am new to dnd,so if this is unbalanced,plz explain why?
tldr:my idea throws off the numbers and wont be used. thanks for the feedback!
Causes higher variance in the results, making it much more swingy.
2d10 average damage is 11, 1d20 with 2 min average damage is 11. The difference is you have a 5% chance of getting 11 damage (or any damage other than 2, which has a 10% chance) while you have a 10% chance of getting 11 damage with 2d10. The standard deviation for 2d10 would be 7-15 constituting 70% of the results versus 45% of the results on a 1d20 of those same numbers.
Causes higher variance in the results, making it much more swingy.
2d10 average damage is 11, 1d20 with 2 min average damage is 11. The difference is you have a 5% chance of getting 11 damage (or any damage other than 2, which has a 10% chance) while you have a 10% chance of getting 11 damage with 2d10. The standard deviation for 2d10 would be 7-15 constituting 70% of the results versus 45% of the results on a 1d20 of those same numbers.
It’s most noticeable (because of the standard deviation pedroig mentioned above) in the extremes...by rolling 1d20 in the way you mention instead of 2d10, you are 5x more likely to roll max damage...and 10x more likely to roll min damage. In the long run it may average out the same, but you will have bigger swings individually from roll to roll
also, there are only a few instances where this is applicable and you’re only saving an addition step.
Causes higher variance in the results, making it much more swingy.
2d10 average damage is 11, 1d20 with 2 min average damage is 11. The difference is you have a 5% chance of getting 11 damage (or any damage other than 2, which has a 10% chance) while you have a 10% chance of getting 11 damage with 2d10. The standard deviation for 2d10 would be 7-15 constituting 70% of the results versus 45% of the results on a 1d20 of those same numbers.
It’s most noticeable (because of the standard deviation pedroig mentioned above) in the extremes...by rolling 1d20 in the way you mention instead of 2d10, you are 5x more likely to roll max damage...and 10x more likely to roll min damage. In the long run it may average out the same, but you will have bigger swings individually from roll to roll
also, there are only a few instances where this is applicable and you’re only saving an addition step.
The overall percentages get a lot worse too with smaller dice...with the 2d10/d20 those min max percents grow from 1%(min or max) to 5%(max) and 10%(min)...with a 2d4/d8 those percentages go from 6% (min or max) to 25% (min) and 12% (max)
for example: if the attack is 2 D10,rather then roll 2 d10,the player rolls one d20 (with a 1 or 2 counting as 2 damage) the min/max damage is still the same with this,but it means less dice have to be rolled,and less math to be made (cause if you roll 2 d10 and roll 6&8 you have to do math to find out it is 14,but with the d20 if you roll a 15 you know you deal 15 damage)
i am new to dnd,so if this is unbalanced,plz explain why?
I'd say no simply because rolling more dice = more fun. And adding 6 and 8 only takes about a quarter-second longer than just reading the 15 off a d20. ;)
(But really, everything all those other posters already explained about bell curves and probabilities and stuff. D&D - it's killing monsters, but with calculus!)
i am new to dnd,so if this is unbalanced,plz explain why?
A lot of good answers above. You should also note that some features allow certain classes/characters to reroll 1's on damage dices. That is much more likely to happen on 2d6 vs for instance d12.
I think it starts to be a "problem" when the dice-pools starts to be like 5 or 6 dice. At least for NPC's I would then consider just dealing the average result (it's in all the monster descriptions). Another way is of course to use an app, or simply google "roll 12d8". Players usually like to roll (a lot of) dice is my experience.
If you want to limit the number of dice, I would rather transform all but one die to a simple number, so 2d10=1d0+6, 3d10=1d10+12 etc. It's not completely "accurate", and it will deal slightly more damage on an average if you're rounding up (slightly less if you round down), but if both players and the "monsters" uses the same system, it wouldn't matter that much.
Perhaps OP's concern is that he's not particularly good at arithmetic, rejoice in the fact that playing a game might help you solidify an invaluable new skill.
for example: if the attack is 2 D10,rather then roll 2 d10,the player rolls one d20 (with a 1 or 2 counting as 2 damage) the min/max damage is still the same with this,but it means less dice have to be rolled,and less math to be made (cause if you roll 2 d10 and roll 6&8 you have to do math to find out it is 14,but with the d20 if you roll a 15 you know you deal 15 damage)
i am new to dnd,so if this is unbalanced,plz explain why?
Don't do it. There's a big difference between rolling 2d10 and 1d20. It makes the damage done much less dependable. It really sucks rolling only 2 damage, and with your proposal that will happen 10% of the time - or 1 damage roll out of every 10. Rolling 2d10 it will only happen 1 time in 100, or 10 times less often.
2d10 means an average 11, but higher and lower numbers are less likely than middle numbers. (Smaller variance/standard deviation)
1d20 means an average 10.5, but all results are equally likely. (Larger variance/standard deviation)
Changing the variation affects the experience of the game, which isn't bad at all! Not being able to completely 100% predict the outcome is one of the reasons why we use dice in this game. A small variance is useful because you know what to expect. It's easier to make decisions based on reliable information. A large variance is exciting because you have no idea what to expect. That's why gambling is a popular vice.
So yeah. If it's damage dice for a spell that's big and flashy like, say, some fire spell, I'd be in full support of combining the dice if they want! That can make it really fun because there's a higher chance you might get really big numbers, but it's also more likely you'll get the smaller numbers. It can be really discouraging for some players to cast Fireball and do like 6 points of damage.
I'd say give it a session where all players are welcome to switch between 2d10 or 1d20 to their hearts content for this type of thing, and talk with the players afterwards to see what they thought about it. Playtesting is a virtue.
There is one more point to be made. It seems you desire the speed up the game by rolling for damage once rather than rolling one die and then rolling again, and then adding the numbers together. Yes, this is slower than rolling one d20.
But ...
The veteran players all have a few sets of dice and in that situation they would roll 2d10 in one roll, not 1d10 + 1d10. So taking this further, if you are rolling with advantage on a weapon that delivers 1d10+2 damage, a veteran would roll 2d20 (to check for the to-hit number) and 1d10 to determine damage all at once. If they hit, the damage die has already been cast and we're on to the next player.
… And you get to have an excuse to collect more dice, which is nice.
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a veteran would roll 2d20 (to check for the to-hit number) and 1d10 to determine damage all at once.
Only because OP mentioned he is new am I correcting this typo; a veteran player attacking with advantage would roll 2D20 and 2D10 all at once (not 1D10).
Another place where you might do this is if you're attacking with two weapons, in a single throw you might roll a Blue D20 for your main hand and a Red D20 for your offhand, with accompanying appropriately coloured damage dice, this way you know each weapon's hit and damage rolls independently.
I am dazed that adding two dice together is considered difficult or difficult math. I can just envision some of the posters here rolling 2d6 and grabbing a calculator.
I am dazed that adding two dice together is considered difficult or difficult math. I can just envision some of the posters here rolling 2d6 and grabbing a calculator.
It has happened in my game when a player had to add the sum of two dice, probably d8s or d10s. Sad, very, very sad.
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I am dazed that adding two dice together is considered difficult or difficult math. I can just envision some of the posters here rolling 2d6 and grabbing a calculator.
Dyscalculia is similar to Dyslexia but with numbers.
Stumbled across this topic by accident looking for something completely different, but... while I'm here, I feel I might as well add a bit of a crazy voice into the mix.
The average on 2d10 is 11, but the average on the modified 1d20 roll is actually 10.55. If you somehow rolled 10.5 damage, you'd round up, but you don't roll that number so the average is important not to round in comparisons like this.
And what about if you've got a 1d8+2d6 roll? Combine those into your 1d20 roll and count rolls of 1 or 2 as 3? Now you have an average on the 1d20 roll of 10.65, still not even the 11 you'd get with the 2d10 roll, and the 2d6+1d8 roll has an average of 11.5, so if you're rounding the 1d20 roll up to 11, you still have to round this up to 12 and you're falling behind on damage.
What about combining a 5d4 roll, and counting anything up to 4 as 5? That's an average of 12.5 damage on the 5d4 while the modified 1d20 roll finally actually hits 11 for its average without any rounding.
With all that in mind... If I was DMing, would I "allow" players to combine their dice in this way if an appropriate die type exists to substitute? Absolutely. Because I'm chaotic with hints of sadism. Would I encourage it? No. Because I'm not evil. Would I do it to my own dice if a DM gave the option? No. Because I'm not stupid.
for example: if the attack is 2 D10,rather then roll 2 d10,the player rolls one d20 (with a 1 or 2 counting as 2 damage) the min/max damage is still the same with this,but it means less dice have to be rolled,and less math to be made (cause if you roll 2 d10 and roll 6&8 you have to do math to find out it is 14,but with the d20 if you roll a 15 you know you deal 15 damage)
i am new to dnd,so if this is unbalanced,plz explain why?
tldr:my idea throws off the numbers and wont be used. thanks for the feedback!
Causes higher variance in the results, making it much more swingy.
2d10 average damage is 11, 1d20 with 2 min average damage is 11. The difference is you have a 5% chance of getting 11 damage (or any damage other than 2, which has a 10% chance) while you have a 10% chance of getting 11 damage with 2d10. The standard deviation for 2d10 would be 7-15 constituting 70% of the results versus 45% of the results on a 1d20 of those same numbers.
Being more swingy is mostly bad for the players.
It’s most noticeable (because of the standard deviation pedroig mentioned above) in the extremes...by rolling 1d20 in the way you mention instead of 2d10, you are 5x more likely to roll max damage...and 10x more likely to roll min damage. In the long run it may average out the same, but you will have bigger swings individually from roll to roll
also, there are only a few instances where this is applicable and you’re only saving an addition step.
The overall percentages get a lot worse too with smaller dice...with the 2d10/d20 those min max percents grow from 1%(min or max) to 5%(max) and 10%(min)...with a 2d4/d8 those percentages go from 6% (min or max) to 25% (min) and 12% (max)
I'd say no simply because rolling more dice = more fun. And adding 6 and 8 only takes about a quarter-second longer than just reading the 15 off a d20. ;)
(But really, everything all those other posters already explained about bell curves and probabilities and stuff. D&D - it's killing monsters, but with calculus!)
A lot of good answers above. You should also note that some features allow certain classes/characters to reroll 1's on damage dices. That is much more likely to happen on 2d6 vs for instance d12.
I think it starts to be a "problem" when the dice-pools starts to be like 5 or 6 dice. At least for NPC's I would then consider just dealing the average result (it's in all the monster descriptions). Another way is of course to use an app, or simply google "roll 12d8". Players usually like to roll (a lot of) dice is my experience.
If you want to limit the number of dice, I would rather transform all but one die to a simple number, so 2d10=1d0+6, 3d10=1d10+12 etc. It's not completely "accurate", and it will deal slightly more damage on an average if you're rounding up (slightly less if you round down), but if both players and the "monsters" uses the same system, it wouldn't matter that much.
Ludo ergo sum!
Perhaps OP's concern is that he's not particularly good at arithmetic, rejoice in the fact that playing a game might help you solidify an invaluable new skill.
Don't do it. There's a big difference between rolling 2d10 and 1d20. It makes the damage done much less dependable. It really sucks rolling only 2 damage, and with your proposal that will happen 10% of the time - or 1 damage roll out of every 10. Rolling 2d10 it will only happen 1 time in 100, or 10 times less often.
I would suggest getting app to roll dice for you. There are a number of them out there.
As people have noted earlier...
2d10 means an average 11, but higher and lower numbers are less likely than middle numbers. (Smaller variance/standard deviation)
1d20 means an average 10.5, but all results are equally likely. (Larger variance/standard deviation)
Changing the variation affects the experience of the game, which isn't bad at all! Not being able to completely 100% predict the outcome is one of the reasons why we use dice in this game. A small variance is useful because you know what to expect. It's easier to make decisions based on reliable information. A large variance is exciting because you have no idea what to expect. That's why gambling is a popular vice.
So yeah. If it's damage dice for a spell that's big and flashy like, say, some fire spell, I'd be in full support of combining the dice if they want! That can make it really fun because there's a higher chance you might get really big numbers, but it's also more likely you'll get the smaller numbers. It can be really discouraging for some players to cast Fireball and do like 6 points of damage.
I'd say give it a session where all players are welcome to switch between 2d10 or 1d20 to their hearts content for this type of thing, and talk with the players afterwards to see what they thought about it. Playtesting is a virtue.
There is one more point to be made. It seems you desire the speed up the game by rolling for damage once rather than rolling one die and then rolling again, and then adding the numbers together. Yes, this is slower than rolling one d20.
But ...
The veteran players all have a few sets of dice and in that situation they would roll 2d10 in one roll, not 1d10 + 1d10. So taking this further, if you are rolling with advantage on a weapon that delivers 1d10+2 damage, a veteran would roll 2d20 (to check for the to-hit number) and 1d10 to determine damage all at once. If they hit, the damage die has already been cast and we're on to the next player.
… And you get to have an excuse to collect more dice, which is nice.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Only because OP mentioned he is new am I correcting this typo; a veteran player attacking with advantage would roll 2D20 and 2D10 all at once (not 1D10).
Another place where you might do this is if you're attacking with two weapons, in a single throw you might roll a Blue D20 for your main hand and a Red D20 for your offhand, with accompanying appropriately coloured damage dice, this way you know each weapon's hit and damage rolls independently.
I am dazed that adding two dice together is considered difficult or difficult math. I can just envision some of the posters here rolling 2d6 and grabbing a calculator.
It has happened in my game when a player had to add the sum of two dice, probably d8s or d10s. Sad, very, very sad.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Dyscalculia is similar to Dyslexia but with numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyscalculia
Stumbled across this topic by accident looking for something completely different, but... while I'm here, I feel I might as well add a bit of a crazy voice into the mix.
The average on 2d10 is 11, but the average on the modified 1d20 roll is actually 10.55. If you somehow rolled 10.5 damage, you'd round up, but you don't roll that number so the average is important not to round in comparisons like this.
And what about if you've got a 1d8+2d6 roll? Combine those into your 1d20 roll and count rolls of 1 or 2 as 3?
Now you have an average on the 1d20 roll of 10.65, still not even the 11 you'd get with the 2d10 roll, and the 2d6+1d8 roll has an average of 11.5, so if you're rounding the 1d20 roll up to 11, you still have to round this up to 12 and you're falling behind on damage.
What about combining a 5d4 roll, and counting anything up to 4 as 5? That's an average of 12.5 damage on the 5d4 while the modified 1d20 roll finally actually hits 11 for its average without any rounding.
With all that in mind... If I was DMing, would I "allow" players to combine their dice in this way if an appropriate die type exists to substitute? Absolutely. Because I'm chaotic with hints of sadism. Would I encourage it? No. Because I'm not evil. Would I do it to my own dice if a DM gave the option? No. Because I'm not stupid.
2d4+2d6 instead of 2d10 might be a reasonable exchange for a more consistent average.