Keeping it Simple (2023)

So the topics on the to-do list that I've had the opportunity to think about are those related to dice rolls.

As mentioned previously, the supposition that mastery could apply separately to base damage and to extra damage created a system where you were making 3 separate rolls, to ensure all of the dice were being adjudicated properly. However, it wasn't particularly desirable to just say "mastery on base damage extends to extra damage" because this runs counter to the general rule that mastery on a die roll does not extend mastery on any bonuses to that die roll.

What I came up with instead, was essentially reversing the equation: what if mastery on extra damage would also apply mastery to base damage? And to simplify it all, why not have extra damage always be rolled with mastery applied to it?

This creates two scenarios where mastery can be applied to base damage:
1. When combat mastery would apply to the roll
2. When extra damage would be applied to the base damage

Now, you might be thinking, "But if combat mastery is applying mastery to the base damage, doesn't that mean you'd still have to roll the extra damage without mastery, thus defeating the point?" Right, unless extra damage always has mastery -- then we're back to all of the damage dice being able to be rolled together. Class dice bonuses which end up being used for damage would still have to be rolled separately, but they can always be rolled at the same time as the attack roll; this is how we keep the order of operations down to 2 dice rolls.

Further to this, we can apply the same line of thinking to the decisions about advantage. In short, if base damage with advantage has to be rolled separately (because advantage cannot apply to extra damage) then the solution crystalizes itself: we have to axe advantage. Otherwise, we end up in a situation where we're making 3 rolls again... unless the base damage uses different dice than the extra damage, but I really don't want to have rules that amount to exceptions upon exceptions -- that's just clunky, and it's bad design.

The other consideration is that, with the basic idea of "2d4/2d6 base damage with advantage is comparable to 1d8/1d12 base damage with mastery [respectively]" ...how do you actually balance these things, in a paradigm where combat mastery can be applying to both expressions? The result is that the two pairs of expressions will never actually be balanced with each other, meaning that the supposed value-add of the advantage mechanic is non-functional.

So, could we keep advantage on initiative bonus? Possibly, because it doesn't come with the same kinds of assumptions and interactions as base damage rolls do. But then it becomes this weird outlier where the mechanic only applies to one type of roll, within the overall system. It quickly becomes a case of "less is more" and so the decision to axe it becomes quite obvious in this instance as well, I would argue.

Another wrinkle to "always-on" mastery for extra damage, is that it evens out the numbers a bit -- especially if we're going with the lower cap of 3d6/2d10
With mastery applied, the min/avg/max for these dice expressions are as follows:
 3d6: 3/13/18
 2d10: 2/12.8/20

I still haven't settled on whether this is the cap that will ultimately be used (and in fact, there's an argument to be made for maintaining a higher cap, but that's a whole other post on its own) but I do like the way that this looks, on the surface.

---

A relatively short post, but hopefully with vacation around the corner, the next few can be a bit longer and more in-depth. Check back on August 21st and 31st for those.