The Dark Side

[ochoin]

As my L. Roman forces start to burgeon (I'm closing a deal for a second hand Tumbling Dice army pack from Iain), I have to consider my home-groan rules.

With a bigger army, it occurred to me I now could not only fight small clashes with my Sassenach hordes but fight larger battles by splitting the soon much larger Romans in two, adding the more ordered Saxons (select fyrd) as foederati & slugging it out in civil war games.

So I've spent a pleasant ANZAC Day rolling dice, running simulations & mini-solo games. The rules still mostly work but I find the dice spread for combat does not work if I continue to use D6s.

So, I'm thinking of moving to the Dark Side & use D10s as Combat Dice (keeping D6s for Shooting Dice, armour saves & morale). With troop types from heavily armoured cataphracts to unarmoured foot skirmishers & a lot in between, the D10 gives me a greater spread to mirror the differences in what are now larger but still mostly relatively low figure-number units
: nearly every foot & mounted unit is now 8 figures strong apart from 12 figure skirmish units.

I know some people look down on "funny" dice but it seems to work in this case.

donald

[levied troop]

No such thing as 'funny' dice, merely ways of increasing the spread of the odds. If the troop stats you're using don't affect the odds sufficiently then use D12s -although I don't see that doubling the numbers rolled provides necessarily the result you need, you might get a better odds result with a D13.
Note: I am not now a mathematician and never have been.

[Jeremy]

I remember Rich once saying that D6’s produce the best bell curve over all other dice

[ochoin]

Note: I am not now a mathematician and never have been.

Me neither but I've spent a fair chunk of the day on a calculator & actually rang The Engineer (#1 Son) to check a few premises.

Mostly, I rolled dice. Heavy cavalry charged cataphracts, who then added a Hero & charged in return. Heavy cavalry charging heavy infantry (average) & then heavy infantry (elite). Roman palatini charging foot skirmishers. etc.

The expected results were acceptable & the outliers meant there was an satisfactory possibility of the unexpected. eg Saxon General Fyrd charged by cataphracts only lost two casualties & inflicted one. However, the next turn, as they fled with back turned & the cataphracts charging again was a slaughter.

I'm not monkeying about with the firing mechanism (D6s) as it seems to work just fine.

Really, until I get the new figures all painted & run a few games, I'll not know if any further tweaking is needed.


donald

[ochoin]

I remember Rich once saying that D6’s produce the best bell curve over all other dice

I don't think that's correct. I'll check with The Engineer. He's the structural variety, lives & breathes numbers & majored in pure maths at university.......he's his mother's son.

donald

[FreddBloggs]

I am sure there used to be a site that had all the curves and probabilities.

But 3d6 give a superb bell curve it is true.

[goat major]

I’ve always been a big fan of the skewed bell curve that you get from a D12+D4

[Jeremy]

I remember Rich once saying that D6’s produce the best bell curve over all other dice

I don't think that's correct. I'll check with The Engineer. He's the structural variety, lives & breathes numbers & majored in pure maths at university.......he's his mother's son.

donald

Ask him to explain average dice then where the two extremes are removed

[valleyboy]

I am sure there used to be a site that had all the curves and probabilities.

But 3d6 give a superb bell curve it is true.

Hmm Maybe 36DD would give the most superb curve, but with the ravages of time, a kind of more of a droopy slope

[Etranger]

Ask him to explain average dice then where the two extremes are removed

You still get a Bell curve but the spread is truncated. A Bell curve is the frequency distribution of all possible outcomes. EG on 2D6 there's a 1 in 36 chance of rolling a 12 (more precisely rolling a 6 and a 6) and on 3D6 there's a 1 in 216 chance of rolling 18 (rolling a 6 and rolling a 6 and rolling a dice).

On average dice (2,3,3,4,4,5) there's a 1/36 chance of getting a 10, compared to 1/12 on 2D6. The 'middle values are more commonly found. (distribution is 4,5,5,5,6,6,6,6,7,7,7,7,7.7,8,8,8,8,9,9,9,10.

(D'oh a lack of proof reading! Now corrected, Thanks Fred)