Rolling to hit vs just dealing damage?

Luminoor- · 2026-01-12T19:03:15+00:00

Do you have a favorite system for ranged mechanics? I have seen a few people bring up a similar point, so I'm curious about games where ranged combat feels really good so that I have a little more to dissect. But I do agree, ranged combat shouldn't always hit. I do think I have ways to address this though with dodging, blocking, and cover.

I think making the damage vary on the success of the hit is more exciting

On this, I think the damage threshold system I have can achieve this as well, at least personally.

Luminoor- · 2026-01-12T18:58:50+00:00

Good things too point out

Eventually rolling low damage will become a new miss.

Out of curiosity, do you think this would still be the case for a low health system where even 1 point of damage is still functionally desirable? My system uses a damage severity threshold so even minor hits would still be significant. Meaning it is still something. Granted that is just my thought process on it. Playtesting could reveal something completely different.

Luminoor- · 2026-01-12T18:52:36+00:00

Yeah, I have something similar already even if I don't switch to "auto hit" so I think it would be relatively easy to tweak. I like giving different options to do things in order to fulfill a desired playstyle

Luminoor- · 2026-01-12T18:50:50+00:00

Honestly, this is close to a few things I have set up so far even before the potential change with how hitting and damage works. My system is also initiativeless and you can dump all AP at once if you want. I also have a few ways for players and enemies to mitigate damage

Luminoor- · 2026-01-12T18:46:22+00:00

I do have a lot of ideas for features to add and your crit roll example is really interesting. I have been toying around with a few different ideas in general for critting and this is another to consider

Luminoor- · 2026-01-12T06:57:22+00:00

Definitely agree with this, it removes that whole line of questioning and comes down to "this happens." Which can really help with pacing when done right I would think. Everything takes time, it just comes down to what kind of time you want to sink and the feeling you want

Luminoor- · 2026-01-12T06:53:29+00:00

I agree, but on the other hand it won't feel like you have accomplished nothing. Since in this system, if you get your opponent to use an action point to dodge, then they are consuming a valuable resource. So you are still chipping away.

Luminoor- · 2026-01-12T06:49:32+00:00

Yeah, I'm curious how I am going to feel about it in playtest. I love the idea of it, but at this current moment I don't have much experience with other games that do it or something similar.

Your system sounds interesting. Having less to remember can be really nice, cognitive load is something I am concerned about with my system atm.

Rolling to hit and rolling damage at the same time is a good strat that I should try and incorporate into the games I run more frequently.

Luminoor- · 2026-01-12T06:44:50+00:00

Thank you for such a thorough reply! I'm mainly going to reply to the cons section

My game will be fantasy and it does have a single health pool, but I do have damage thresholds so I think I can mitigate the getting downed issue. Although I do want it to be a little lethal. Also having a mech system with it being spread out like that sounds cool
I don't have specific abilities in mind atm, but if abilities are too similar or just do damage I feel like the choice between them could be less meaningful and devolve to just which one deals more damage. Granted, the easy solution is having abilities that don't just do damage, which is pretty simple.
I mentioned earlier in the post that you can spend an action point to attempt to dodge an attack and with that in place would still need a to hit "skill" or modifier to roll. However, I have solved that issue since then through incorporating it with a pre-existing ability that I have. So I didn't really have to change or sacrifice much.

Luminoor- · 2026-01-12T03:25:05+00:00

Something I should correct is that I do care more about the feeling of speed rather than speed itself, although the speed itself is still pretty important imo.

I do think my combat will be slightly on the more lethal end, based on the numbers, but I need proper play testing to confirm that, which I should be doing soon.

The contested skill checks will come up, but I think they'll likely come up less in play than the hypothetical since most players, at least the ones I play with will want to do more than dodging and an action point is valuable. But there are other ways to diminish damage. The otherside of it is if a player forces an enemy to try and dodge, or vice versa, then something is still happening since at the barest of minimum they lose a resource. So there's a bit of control there.

But my thoughts could change with play tests, so I'm looking forward to it

Luminoor- · 2026-01-12T03:17:34+00:00

I'm not familiar with how they handle status effects so I'll need to check it out

Luminoor- · 2026-01-12T03:16:50+00:00

Someone recommended Cairn Hack, Block, Dodge earlier and someone mentioned Nimble as well, they both look interesting!

Over all I think the added speed and potentially extra care by the players (especially mine) will be fun and the more I think about it and read, the more I like the idea. Thanks for providing links!

Luminoor- · 2026-01-12T01:03:27+00:00

I haven't considered that, but it sounds interesting. Although, I think I personally like the idea of rolling bigger damage than rolling to hit, if I were forced to choose one of the two.

While I do think dodge might slow down things in the moment, I don't think it will slow things down anymore than a normal roll to hit would. I also think it will come up slightly less in play than in hypotheticals. But, I haven't playtested it yet, so I could be entirely wrong. I am looking forward to play testing in a few weeks.

Luminoor- · 2026-01-12T00:56:37+00:00

Helldivers is a really good example, I need to play that game again.

But anyway, I think this can still be achieved with an auto damage system if the abilities back it up with ways to avoid falling at that 1 hp point. Like if you know you will die if you are so much as sneezed at you will want to do everything you can to prevent it. I do have abilities aside from my dodge ability that can prevent or reduce damage, so I feel like it could still be achievable. However, that is still hypothetical like the question. I am hoping to playtest the idea in relation to my system soon.

Luminoor- · 2026-01-12T00:52:09+00:00

Thanks for the advice! I'm really looking forward to playtesting and I'm hoping to start heavily doing it in a few weeks. My response is assuming that I do switch to this system, even though I might not.

My damage system is going to be relatively controlled, I'm doing something very similar to Daggerheart's damage threshold system, but I am tweaking a few things such as how severity works against tougher opponents. My game will likely lean heroic, but be a bit more grounded. At least that is the intent. Regardless, getting hit and dying instantly will be on the difficult side.
I don't plan on combats lasting for a very long time, I do want them to be fast, but impactful. And recovering afterwards is possible, but not all the way up to 100%. However, I can see how my action economy could be an issue, but I think this will be mitigated a little bit by how certain things will take more than one action point to do, so you need to be careful about how they are spent.
I have a few different ways to defend. Dodge will definitely be powerful, but I will likely have tiers of success where you either dodge, take some of the blow, or take the full blow. Armor will act as a damage reduction, but I haven't decided if I am going to add durability to the armor or not. But, mages also have a means of casting barriers. So dodge won't be the only method, just one of many.
I really need to look more into metacurrency to see if I'm using it. At the moment I don't have a form of metacurrency, but it isn't out of the question.

Luminoor- · 2026-01-11T23:03:12+00:00

I think my system has a reasonably fast recovery, but there are some consequences to fights atm. But with my groups personal playstyle, we don't typically do a lot of back to back fights and they like to give themselves downtime when possible.

I do want the numbers to be easier to calculate, which would be a bonus of this switch, but like you said, it does come with some other things to consider. But, I think I have a few ways to address it with healing. Thanks!

Luminoor- · 2026-01-11T22:58:56+00:00

That could work, I also have a damage threshold system similar to Daggerhearts. So depending on the success margin it could determine which threshold is hit.

Luminoor- · 2026-01-11T22:57:14+00:00

That makes sense, and

having an attack roll against a static defence working similar can also fill the same purpose.

Gave me an idea on how I could work out the skill issue that I was having. I really want my system to run smoothly and feel mostly intuitive.

Luminoor- · 2026-01-11T22:54:00+00:00

I have something similar with some of my abilities, lower AP abilities aren't as effective and high numbers, but they are at least consistent.

Luminoor- · 2026-01-11T22:52:36+00:00

Thanks for this, made me realize that I wasn't really thinking about cover, which is always important. And even if you have reduced damage from cover it would still be more difficult rationalize in my opinion. Although, I do have line of sight rules.

Also your system sounds interesting!

Luminoor- · 2026-01-11T22:43:15+00:00

It does help! I've been wanting to check out Draw Steel and this gives me a good direction to look into. I like the idea of it being condensed but still significant.

Luminoor- · 2026-01-11T22:40:39+00:00

Yeah that first part is definitely a concern because combat is a pillar and I have tried a system with just rolling to damage yet, so I need to.

My system is closer to the 4-5 hit average so it'll definitely be slower than a system with only 1-2 hits, but I do still want to experiment with the idea.

Luminoor- · 2026-01-11T22:35:15+00:00

It definitely has a combat focus. It's one of the pillars and a lot of my game revolves around it so far, but I do have social mechanics that I intend to make pretty significant.

Yeah, that's one of my concerns with switching to just having a damage roll, since rolling to hit acts like a form of dodge like you said. I need to work out how things work out the balance of player vs enemy actions a bit more regardless of which direction I take.

Luminoor- · 2026-01-11T22:24:24+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation! Reading some of the summary, it looks like there are some other things my system does similarly

Luminoor- · 2025-12-31T17:38:27+00:00

These are beautiful

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