Dice!

[kagato23]

So we now know damage has some dice involved. What does this mean for the attack and defense stats? Thoughts?

It seems defense might be a soak if 1d6 isn't that big a deal. Expanding on a discussion had in the reaction board, if Bogroll (whom at least I presume was a level 1 heavy) has 12 hits, and a higher level caster has 6 (jack) 1d6 could actually be a pretty brutal attack unless there's some mitigating factors. On the other hand, Bogroll being able to take 6 or more non crit hits before going down seems a lot more sensible. If he was charging you'd need at least 2 stacks of plants and/or a walnut in the way to take him down without risk!

The tricker part here though is that since dice are involved to determine damage it also tells us that combat/attack is not a static number, so perhaps defense has dice roles as well? Obviously we can safely presume that the attack number is involved in determining damage potential but not the sole aspect. Perhaps what attack and defense really do is either provide a static number to be added to a die, or are actually used to determine what die you have in the first place.

I'm also curious as to how armor and weaponry affect the stats. Do parson's glasses and warlords see a units current stats with equipment, or their static innate stats? Thoughts on all this?

[Nnelg]

Well, ignoring defense 1d6 will take 3.4 rolls on average to take out a 12-hit unit.

One possibility is that damage is calculated as 1d[att] - 1d[def], but then that just opens up more questions.

I mean, I can think up of a dozen different ways it could be done and we'd still have no clue which is most likely.

[kagato23]

Well, ignoring defense 1d6 will take 3.4 rolls on average to take out a 12-hit unit.

One possibility is that damage is calculated as 1d[att] - 1d[def], but then that just opens up more questions.

I mean, I can think up of a dozen different ways it could be done and we'd still have no clue which is most likely.

Well yeah but, this is a spec thread. Doesn't mean it'll be an answer thread.

3.4 rolls also assumes every hit is sucessful. Don't forget units can in fact dodge and block.

[drachefly]

One possibility is that damage is calculated as 1d[att] - 1d[def], but then that just opens up more questions.

Most pertinently, why she didn't simply say 'looks like they have an attack of 6'

[Nnelg]

Well, when doing concept design for my system (before I settled on an abstract approach) I considered adding an extra 'dice' stat to simplify power and variance into one stat (and along with attack, accuracy).

The idea wasn't developed far, but I was considering using a 'blackjack' method to combine the to-hit and damage steps. As in, roll less than your attack and you hit, dealing however much you rolled in damage.

But this was for a board game, in which all math has to be done by hand. Erfworld itself can act like a computer, instantly calculating the outcome of each attack, so the 'real' system is probably more optimized for that. (I'm thinking hundreds of unknown modifiers, quantized positions within a hex, perhaps even complex stances and parry/riposte-style combat rounds, with calculations run at >12 FPS.)

[0beron]

It's also possible that Attack/Combat and Defense actually have nothing to do with damage. They could simply be used to determine whether a unit's strike even hits in the first place, and then damage is rolled separately. This means damage is not a visible stat, but can be inferred by Natural Mathamancy when units deal damage. The size die might increase with level and items.

[Nnelg]

It's also possible that Attack/Combat and Defense actually have nothing to do with damage. They could simply be used to determine whether a unit's strike even hits in the first place, and then damage is rolled separately. This means damage is not a visible stat, but can be inferred by Natural Mathamancy when units deal damage. The size die might increase with level and items.

Right, that was more-or-less the affect I was going for at the time. And, it fits well with what we were seeing with the archons' blasts pinging off the unipegitaurs' shields (unless that's a special).

[kagato23]

And maybe we've been looking at this wrong... we have assumed combat and attack are the same thing, but I'm not seeing anything that definitively links them... what if attack is one of those stats not shown by Parson's glasses? seems like there's quite a few others... Boop, I think in some ways that makes everything work better! most systems use more then one stat for attack, usually at minimum a chance for a hit then what damage that hit did. Perhaps strength and dex are combat and attack here?