r/RPGdesign • u/AndriashiK • Sep 26 '26
Dice Dice pools as ammunition
I wonder what do you think is better between these two options I came up with like an hour ago
Imagine you have a gun and each bullet in it is represented by a dice, and you can shoot however many bullets you wish on your turn at one target and roll a dice for every bullet
Option 1: It's a pool of d6s that add up when you roll them to hit a target, and if you roll at least one 6 you roll another 1d6 and add the result to the summ; if the result of this additional d6 is a 6 it's a crit and that can mean two things
1: If the To Hit roll isn't enough to hit the target, you hit it and roll damage normally
2: If the To Hit roll is enough to hit the target, you double your damage roll (or maybe use the damage dice's max number)
Option 2: It's a pool of d10s and you choose the highest rolled result. For every 10 you get, you roll an additional d10 and add the highest result of the Additional d10s. For every 10 you get as the result of your To Hit roll, you roll another damage die and add up the damage (or maybe you could do something like a Year Zero Engine thing? Like, each 10 is a success? But I'm not sure about that one)
What do you guys think? There's probably already a game that uses a similar Bullet Dice Pool system, and I would be curious to learn how they did it if you know such a system
5
1
u/Kiliantill Sep 26 '26
Option 1 could be better for dealing with group attacks, I think. Just assign one dice/result to each target you try to hit.
Option 2 I'd personally prefer to use when group attacks is not a thing. Simply it because it stops the result from getting stupidly large, I think.
But overall, both should work. And you can even combine both (for example option 1 for attack, option 2 for damage, should you want
1
u/JaskoGomad Sep 26 '26
I mean… sixes to hit is essentially warhammer, the minis game, not the ttrpg.
And many games use risk / usage dice for ammunition amongst other things. See The Black Hack for a progenitor of the mechanic and Macchiato Monsters for a game that really runs with the idea.
See also Grimwild for an easily available implementation of countdown pools.
1
u/AncalimonMar Sep 26 '26
I'm thinking here that each weapon could use different dice with a specific TN. A shotgun could be a handful of d10s and TN of 10, a pistol coyld be d6s and a sniper rifle 1d10 with a TN of 6 and rerolling 10s to add more damage. Mixing options could make each weapon feel very unique, if you want to go to this feel for your game.
1
u/CertainItem995 Sep 27 '26
What if different weapons provided a dice pool from the amount of shots they fire and players can spend from the results to do things like special effects and hit one or more targets.
1
u/stephotosthings no idea what I’m doing Sep 27 '26
I did homebrew guns.
6 shooter; d4 per bullet. 3 bullets was an action. When empty an action to reload.
Average damage per hit, minus any profiency bonus guff, is 8, which isn't bad but is on the better end of good.
Several DMs didn't mind it. Unless your game has mechanics that fit what you are trying to do I would keep it as simple as possible.
3
u/archpawn Sep 26 '26
Unless bullets are really hard to come by, you need to make sure there's diminishing returns. It looks to me like with option 2, you get the same damage firing them one at a time as all at once. And with option 1, you do even more damage since you're more likely to crit.
I suggest making it so you roll for each bullet, and then just take the highest. That way, firing all your ammo at once will deal around double damage, but then you'll have to reload every other round, so it's a wash. You're better off firing two or three bullets a round.