How damage is done

[dant164]

Well, my LGS has been playing ACTA a while, and a source of recent contention has been how damage is done in ACTA, now im assuming the way int he rules is to roll 2d6, 1-4 is nothing, 5-9 is a solid hit, with 10 and above being criticals. But recently a freind of mien was lookign through a downloadable resiource pages which showed damage being worked out on one dice, my questions are:

Which do you perfer?
Which is right?

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Well, my LGS has been playing ACTA a while, and a source of recent contention has been how damage is done in ACTA, now im assuming the way int he rules is to roll 2d6, 1-4 is nothing

Rolling a 1 on 2d6 is a neat trick...

But recently a freind of mien was lookign through a downloadable resiource pages which showed damage being worked out on one dice, my questions are:

The original ACtA rules used 2d6. This was changed to 1d6: 1 is Bulkhead, 2-5 Solid Hit, 6 is a crit. The odds of this are the same as the 2d6 roll, but it means all hits can be rolled at once with a handfull of d6. The rules now state you roll 1d6. This isn't a matter of opinion or polling, it's the rules.

Wulf

 

[Locutus9956]

1d6 is the correct system. This was updated in the revised rules and SFoS, the 2d6 damage system was the original rules at first release.

Now whilst the 2d6 system tended to result in less crazy crittage it also had more spectacular 'your-head-a-splode' crit results and also took much longer to work out (now its simply a matter of picking up all the dice that score hits and rolling them for damage, its a small difference but in practice really helps the game to flow better

 

[Xorrandor]

Yep. Unless you are playing pre-revised, anyway. Makes converting later supplements a hassle, but then if you were buying later supplements someone should have picked up SFoS by now...

It only makes a difference for Precise weapons anyway, as far as odds go. It's the other changes (say, to the critical hit table) which have a bigger effect.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Now whilst the 2d6 system tended to result in less crazy crittage it also had more spectacular 'your-head-a-splode' crit results

The odds of the old 2d6 system and the 1d6 system are identical. The difference was in the Vital Systems Critical Table, not the 2d6.

EDIT: there was a discrepancy between adding +2 for Precise on the 2d6 system and adding +1 on the new 1d6 system, but it's minor.

Wulf

 

[Burger]

Rolling a 1 on 2d6 is a neat trick...

God Of Gamblers could do it

The main advantage of 1d6 is that you can roll all your hits together, rather than one at a time which would be required with 2d6. Saves immense amounts of time. And, rolling big handfuls of dice is always more fun :lol:

 

[Voronesh]

Yer basically there is little to no difference.

But when you get something like 6 hits or more, its just nifty to be able to roll em all at once.

 

[captainsmirk]

No...

You just need six differently coloured pairs of dice, then you can roll them all together... :lol:

Nick

 

[LordClinto]

I like the 1d6 method better, it's much quicker to just roll all of your damage dice at once, rather then sets of 2d6's.

 

[Greg Smith]

Now whilst the 2d6 system tended to result in less crazy crittage ...

Actually the 2d6 system produced more crits.

Standard weapons:
2-4 Bulkhead, Probability 6 in 36 = 1 in 6
5-9 Standard hit, probability 24 in 36 or 4 in 6
10-12 Critical, probability 6 in 36 = 1 in 6

which is the same probablilty as the current 1d6 system.

Precise Weapons (adding 2):
4 Bulkhead, probability 1 in 36
5-9 Standard hit, probability 20 in 36
10-14 Critical, probability 15 in 36.

With the current system there is a 2 in 6 (12 in 36) chance of scoring a critical. But no chance of scoring a bulkhead.

 

[Voronesh]

6 sets of differently colored dice?

Wait when did ACTA go back to RPG roots?

 

[Locutus9956]

oh well, Im too unconcious to really look at stats today (thank god its friday) but simply put (as most people have voted) its much more convenient and quick to simply reroll all hit dice as we do now

Though if I wasnt so unconcious I might be inclined to try and argue that the statistics are a little more complex, in that with 1d6 its an even distribution with equal chance of rolling any number but with 2 the distribution is stacked towards the middling values..... (actually ignore that Im half asleep again and not thinking straight, the actually probabilities for totalled rolls tend towards evening out)

incidentally: http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/probability/dice_handler.asp

pointless but quite amusing notheless if youve ever wondered just how dice average over 5000 rolls

And another quite interesting article about the evils of dice

http://wizardofodds.com/gambling/dice.html

 

[Voronesh]

Heh, the first 5k rolls gave me a perfect average stuff.

The second set had a small tendency towards smaller numbers.

The third had was average again, with a tendency towards the middle.


On classicbattletech.com a guy once reported that he rolled 5k dice of 2d6 and ended up with a 5.1 as an average confirming his bad luck ^^.

 

[Locutus9956]

Oddly enough every time Ive dont this so far my results are leaning ever so slightly towards higher numbers and Im getting slightly above average double 6s every time... says it all about me and dice

 

[Burger]

On classicbattletech.com a guy once reported that he rolled 5k dice of 2d6 and ended up with a 5.1 as an average confirming his bad luck ^^.

If you do it enough times, you will get anomolies!

 

[Wulf Corbett]

If you do it enough times, you will get anomolies!

Never heard it called that before...

Wulf

 

[Voronesh]

Lol no

It was just a guy who had notorious bad luck. And he did those rolls to check that it was just bad chance playing with him, and that statistics worked.

He used 5 different sets of 2d6 for every 1k rolls. And then did he get that average.....

Talk about rolling enough ^^. If you do 5k rolls with 5 instead of 7 being in the middle, its not normal. Possible but not really normal ^^.

 

[Locutus9956]

to be honest anyone that ACTUALLY gets that sort of result I suspect may have some very dodgey dice or may be not rolling them properly (half dropping them so they come up similar etc etc) Unless the guys a freak of course

 

[Greg Smith]

Though if I wasnt so unconcious I might be inclined to try and argue that the statistics are a little more complex, in that with 1d6 its an even distribution with equal chance of rolling any number but with 2 the distribution is stacked towards the middling values..... (actually ignore that Im half asleep again and not thinking straight, the actually probabilities for totalled rolls tend towards evening out)

They do indeed even out. There are 36 possible results on 2d6.

2d6 roll....total
1,1...............2
1,2...............3
2,1...............3
1,3...............4
2,2...............4
3,1...............4 6 possible results that give a bulkhead hit. Or 1 in 6 chance (the same as rolling a 1 on 1d6).

4,6..............10
5,5..............10
6,4..............10
5,6..............11
6,5..............11
6,6..............12 6 possible results for a critical. Or 1 in 6 chance (the same as rolling a 6 on 1d6).

 

[Voronesh]

Nahh just totally unlucky.

Was in a thread baout dodgy dice rolling anyway.

Like 28 'ones' in a diceroll of 28 d6......(maybe only 26 d6 but something about that number)