I don't really see the point of special attack or defense dice. You can accomplish virtually the same effect by simply adding or subtracting attack/defense dice.

I'm not opposed to more dice though. I would just want them to represent some new effect that is currently not in the game that requires a random effect.

There's a certain granularity to be gained when you change the kind of dice. Having only three real amounts of red dice to use for most applications means you don't have a lot of leeway.

I do think that it would be better in future games to have defence, attack and DAMAGE dice. Because being hard to hit shouldn't mean hard to hurt. Possibly even damage mitigation dice also.

We got new huge ship maneuver templates because they were necessary for the huge ships to move in a way that wouldn't take them off the board in two turns.

We got a new damage deck as an improvement on the existing one, correcting what was seen as some fundamental errors in the old deck.

We got new debris tokens because let's face it, only six types of rocks didn't offer a lot of variety.

Every time we got something new, it was to correct or address a perceived issue.

What's being addressed by adding new dice that a new upgrade or pilot ability wouldn't address much more smoothly?

Yeah, that would be the above Damage vs to hit issue, where highly evasive ships mitigate damage as well as being hit. It's the only reason i can see a third (or forth) type of dice appearing. Other than some kind of surge dice ala the RPG, but really tokens can do that.

I could easily imagine them adding a new dice with a huge ship expansion designed to be paired with one or more specific upgrades. I'm just wondering whether it would be something pertinent to do, but it's not impossible.

The practical implementation of new dice is extremely difficult. I wouldn't expect it outside of a new version of the game.

Completely agreed. I think it would be a good thing for the game, but I don't expect to see it.

People keep saying it would be hard to do. What exactly is hard about it?

Added complexity where people haven't been trained to expect it, and added manufacturing expense.

I don't really see the point of special attack or defense dice. You can accomplish virtually the same effect by simply adding or subtracting attack/defense dice.

You can't. As Panzeh says, you can get some additional granularity out of multiple dice: in fact, virtually all of FFG's Star Wars games except X-wing use multiple kinds of attack dice.

As an example, there's not a lot of mechanical difference between Concussion Missiles and Proton Torpedoes, although FFG has been fairly imaginative in supporting a thematic difference. But what if Protons used a die that only had symbols on half its faces, but all of those faces had double results--while Concussion Missiles used something more like what we have now? You'd get a much "swingier" feel out of the torpedoes, without introducing a lot of complex text that potentially brings new interactions and rules issues into the game.

Another good example is that A-wings do a relatively poor job as little-i interceptors. Their weak Attack stat makes them pretty bad at damaging opposing ships, except for big things with poor maneuverability. If there were multiple kinds of dice, they could be tuned so that they use a high-accuracy die (no crits, but 4 hits and 3 focus?) rather than a "default" one.

More dice tuned to represent different modes of attack can do a lot to distinguish ships from one another. Currently, we only have four different Attack values in the game, and two of those values are used very rarely (one of them FFG has said they won't use again). That's not a lot of design space.

Adding dice with different values or are of different probabilities adds a new level of complexity without adding any real gameplay. I would be strongly against this kind of addition. Adjusting the probabilities of hits and misses through actions is fun as there is a sense of control over the event, however adjusting probabilities through a new calculator is passive and adds far less to the experience.

I think different dice could be of benefit to represent certain things, such as powerful cannons which are easily dodged but a dirrect hit from which would easily vape most fighters(low number of hits but one side marked with multiple crits, which possibly can be dodged as one), or weapons of the most scatter shot variety (no crits, or fewer hits, but you'll be throwing lots of them).

But I'm not sure how much they would add at this stage, especially with the number of chance phobic players I've come across.

Edit:

And to those who say it adds complexity for no benefit: the benefit is that it gives a more compelling choice, and more of a feeling of role and purpose to certain ships. It would make certain ships better at brining down fighters, but less effective against bulky armoured craft, and vice versa.

It would allow some torpedoes to feel like the threat to big ships that they should be, without being a major threat to fighters which can easily evade them.

People keep saying it would be hard to do. What exactly is hard about it? In my mind it's no different than introducing a new range ruler or maneuver template... and they've done BOTH of those things with the huge ships. They've added new debris objects in various expansions as well. They've also added a new damage deck. They've added a new version of almost every single thing that came in the core set, except the dice.

The only requirement... is that if anything that comes in a future expansion REQUIRES one of these new dice.... that it comes with it. That's easy. Maybe the scum huge ship will come with an M3A escort and a new canon that shoots purple dice. Well now your ONLY purple-dice canon... COMES WITH the purple dice. Same goes for the huge ship maneuver templates, or range 5 ruler, etc.

So, you have added $1-2 tax on ships with this new dice. That is somewhat problematic.

Expansion prices have been steadily increasing ever since Wave 6 when the Starviper cost more than all the other ships. We are already AT the point where at least 1 small ship expansion is going to randomly cost more. Mite as well get a die out of it!

The Autothrusters tax.

Expansion prices have been steadily increasing ever since Wave 6 when the Starviper cost more than all the other ships.

That is simply untrue. What happened in Wave 6 was they started making larger ships which go on small bases, and those cost more. So the K-Wings, Vipers, Punishers, ect... All cost more but they're all a good bit larger than the normal small ship, which still cost $15 MSRP.

Adding dice with different values or are of different probabilities adds a new level of complexity without adding any real gameplay.

That's also simply untrue. Armada has proven that by adding different dice which have different values, you can add something that has a real impact on gameplay.

Imagine using a black die from Amada in X-Wing for Ord, it would be a fairly meaningful increase in the power of ord, since the black dice has sides with both a Hit and a Crit on it.

Expansion prices have been steadily increasing ever since Wave 6 when the Starviper cost more than all the other ships.

That is simply untrue. What happened in Wave 6 was they started making larger ships which go on small bases, and those cost more. So the K-Wings, Vipers, Punishers, ect... All cost more but they're all a good bit larger than the normal small ship, which still cost $15 MSRP.

Essentially, they didn't want to take the cut on the margins. I mean, if the Falcon wasn't the Falcon, I'm pretty certain it would be a $40 ship.

We got new huge ship maneuver templates because they were necessary for the huge ships to move in a way that wouldn't take them off the board in two turns.

We got a new damage deck as an improvement on the existing one, correcting what was seen as some fundamental errors in the old deck.

We got new debris tokens because let's face it, only six types of rocks didn't offer a lot of variety.

Every time we got something new, it was to correct or address a perceived issue.

What's being addressed by adding new dice that a new upgrade or pilot ability wouldn't address much more smoothly?

How about an M3A fix for starters? I mean there's plenty of ways to go about it, but so many ways to fix a "broken" ship have already been done. If they want a fix to be unique, perhaps a cannon that shoots unique dice, restricted to the M3A. Or a modification that simply lets the SYCK title swap out red dice for the normal dice, this way the M3A gets a benefit when it fires a Canon, Torpedo, or Missile. Say.... for canons it can swap 1 red die for 1 purple die... but for Torpedoes and Missiles it can swap 2 dice (due to the limited firing capability).

You could also make a new type of dice that are "High Yield" dice that could be used for expensive torpedoes and missiles. . Imagine an 8 sided die that has 6 blank sides, and 2 sides with a double crit. It might be a way to get people to use munitions failsafe again... because lets face it - nobody's ever going to use that card again.

Manufacturing something new doesn't HAVE to address an existing problem. Sometimes they make new stuff just because it's cool. The game wasn't crying out for the Ghost, for example.... but it sure is pretty!

The practical implementation of new dice is extremely difficult. I wouldn't expect it outside of a new version of the game.

Completely agreed. I think it would be a good thing for the game, but I don't expect to see it.

People keep saying it would be hard to do. What exactly is hard about it?

Added complexity where people haven't been trained to expect it, and added manufacturing expense.

I don't really see the point of special attack or defense dice. You can accomplish virtually the same effect by simply adding or subtracting attack/defense dice.

You can't. As Panzeh says, you can get some additional granularity out of multiple dice: in fact, virtually all of FFG's Star Wars games except X-wing use multiple kinds of attack dice.

As an example, there's not a lot of mechanical difference between Concussion Missiles and Proton Torpedoes, although FFG has been fairly imaginative in supporting a thematic difference. But what if Protons used a die that only had symbols on half its faces, but all of those faces had double results--while Concussion Missiles used something more like what we have now? You'd get a much "swingier" feel out of the torpedoes, without introducing a lot of complex text that potentially brings new interactions and rules issues into the game.

Another good example is that A-wings do a relatively poor job as little-i interceptors. Their weak Attack stat makes them pretty bad at damaging opposing ships, except for big things with poor maneuverability. If there were multiple kinds of dice, they could be tuned so that they use a high-accuracy die (no crits, but 4 hits and 3 focus?) rather than a "default" one.

More dice tuned to represent different modes of attack can do a lot to distinguish ships from one another. Currently, we only have four different Attack values in the game, and two of those values are used very rarely (one of them FFG has said they won't use again). That's not a lot of design space.

I agree with most of what you've said except for this "Added complexity where people haven't been trained to expect it, and added manufacturing expense." That isn't what I would consider "Hard". It's not hard for FFG to manufacture dice, and it's not hard to introduce a new mechanic to the game. Every new wave introduces a new rule, mechanic, or ability. Swapping one die for another isn't "Hard", it's "Cool".

But that's just my 2 cents.

Expansion prices have been steadily increasing ever since Wave 6 when the Starviper cost more than all the other ships.

That is simply untrue. What happened in Wave 6 was they started making larger ships which go on small bases, and those cost more. So the K-Wings, Vipers, Punishers, ect... All cost more but they're all a good bit larger than the normal small ship, which still cost $15 MSRP.

No, it is absolutely TRUE. Expansion prices HAVE been increasing. Giving the reason why, doesn't make my statement false. And if a future small-ship expansion costs 5 bucks more, but happens to be small but come with an extra die, then our wallets are already conditioned for that price point.

In Imperial Assault, besides rolling a hit, you can roll a surge (not to mention the number for range). A surge is a little lightning bolt thing that can allow you to do other frabjous things such as adding extra damage, extra accuracy, inflicting a condition, removing a condition, regenerating health, moving some more, etc.

Expansion prices have been steadily increasing ever since Wave 6 when the Starviper cost more than all the other ships.

That is simply untrue. What happened in Wave 6 was they started making larger ships which go on small bases, and those cost more. So the K-Wings, Vipers, Punishers, ect... All cost more but they're all a good bit larger than the normal small ship, which still cost $15 MSRP.

No, it is absolutely TRUE. Expansion prices HAVE been increasing. Giving the reason why, doesn't make my statement false. And if a future small-ship expansion costs 5 bucks more, but happens to be small but come with an extra die, then our wallets are already conditioned for that price point.

You do see the size difference in StarViper, K-wing, Punisher, and Mist Hunter, right? They needed new packaging for ships of that size, which is just as much of a reason for the increase in price. The base size doesn't matter, the ships needed bigger packaging.

Theoretically? Yes, they could. They have introduced a new Damage Deck, and new Obstacles.

Should they? I would say "no".

Through their current distributions, they already have the ability to generate a result happening on any interval of an 8-sided die.

0/8 = No Die, 1/8 = Crit, 2/8 = Focus, or offensive Blank, 3/8= Hits, Evades, or Green Blanks, 4/8= Hits and Crits, 5/8= a 3 + Focus, 6/8 = Red Not-blank, 7/8 = Red Not-Crit, 8/8 = Die Exists

Therefore, the only utility of adding new dice types are: Varying from the octahedral standard, or creating a new result that only partially replaces another on the existing distribution.

Neither of these are problems whose solutions cannot be approximated through card text.

Expansion prices HAVE been increasing.

No they haven't. You are still paying the same price for a small ship with 6 upgrades as you always have. Introducing a new type of expansion isn't the same thing as the price going up.

But yes $20 for a small ship with the new dice would be a reasonable price, but that again doesn't mean the cost of the expansions are going up, only that there would be yet another type of expansion with a different price point.

How about instead of a new type of dice, simply better quality dice? Spring boarding off what Mynock Squadron was talking about lately; as a dice guy I would love to see some precision cut 8-sided X-wing dice. Make them translucent and you wouldn't even need to paint them to make me happy. What is MSRP for a dice pack now, $8? Charge $12 for "premium" X-wing dice and they wouldn't stay on the shelves, IMO.

We got new huge ship maneuver templates because they were necessary for the huge ships to move in a way that wouldn't take them off the board in two turns.

We got a new damage deck as an improvement on the existing one, correcting what was seen as some fundamental errors in the old deck.

We got new debris tokens because let's face it, only six types of rocks didn't offer a lot of variety.

Every time we got something new, it was to correct or address a perceived issue.

What's being addressed by adding new dice that a new upgrade or pilot ability wouldn't address much more smoothly?

How about an M3A fix for starters? I mean there's plenty of ways to go about it, but so many ways to fix a "broken" ship have already been done. If they want a fix to be unique, perhaps a cannon that shoots unique dice, restricted to the M3A. Or a modification that simply lets the SYCK title swap out red dice for the normal dice, this way the M3A gets a benefit when it fires a Canon, Torpedo, or Missile. Say.... for canons it can swap 1 red die for 1 purple die... but for Torpedoes and Missiles it can swap 2 dice (due to the limited firing capability).

You could also make a new type of dice that are "High Yield" dice that could be used for expensive torpedoes and missiles. . Imagine an 8 sided die that has 6 blank sides, and 2 sides with a double crit. It might be a way to get people to use munitions failsafe again... because lets face it - nobody's ever going to use that card again.

Manufacturing something new doesn't HAVE to address an existing problem. Sometimes they make new stuff just because it's cool. The game wasn't crying out for the Ghost, for example.... but it sure is pretty!

I doubt they're going to go to the trouble and expense to design, test, template, and manufacture a brand new die -- a process that would be much more involved for a die than with a card -- that fixes one single ship or one specific upgrade. Not when they already have a method they've shown they're willing to use over and over again: ship-specific upgrade cards.

I don't see what adding new dice would achieve that can't be achieved by simply rolling more dice or adding modifiers.

It's not like Armada or IA where the core mechanics are built around it (having various symbols in different ratios).

I suppose you could alter the ratios of focus to hit/evade results, but that doesn't really sound better than just modifying, when you only have two types of symbols (plus blanks) per die type.

Now, if they were to add an entire new symbol, that's another matter entirely!

Why the need to over complicate a very good system? it's simplicity is one of it's better virtues.

2.0 will have dice diversity. Maybe released around 2030.

People keep asking why. It's simple. Right now high damage=high accuracy. That is a restriction that new mechanics could remove.

Theoretically? Yes, they could. They have introduced a new Damage Deck, and new Obstacles.

Should they? I would say "no".

Through their current distributions, they already have the ability to generate a result happening on any interval of an 8-sided die.

0/8 = No Die, 1/8 = Crit, 2/8 = Focus, or offensive Blank, 3/8= Hits, Evades, or Green Blanks, 4/8= Hits and Crits, 5/8= a 3 + Focus, 6/8 = Red Not-blank, 7/8 = Red Not-Crit, 8/8 = Die Exists

Therefore, the only utility of adding new dice types are: Varying from the octahedral standard, or creating a new result that only partially replaces another on the existing distribution.

Neither of these are problems whose solutions cannot be approximated through card text.

I really like the way you put this. Others have said this as well, but I like your particular way of stating it. And you're all right... the game doesn't NEED a new die. I still reserve the right to think it would be cool though. Maybe a random nebula cloud obstacle that has a D12, and every single side of it relates to a new effect that befalls any ship that lands on it! Not necessary but still fun!

Expansion prices HAVE been increasing.

No they haven't. You are still paying the same price for a small ship with 6 upgrades as you always have.

Ok I hate to keep going back and forth when we both know that a small-small ship still MSRP's at 15 bucks and a Large Small ship costs 5 bucks more.... (BTW I'm saying that IF they wanted to add a die to a small ship, use a small-small ship in a large-small ship box, because it's the same thing... more plastic... right?)

But as a side note, when I say that expansion prices HAVE been increasing, I don't mean a TIE Fighter costs more now than it did before.. I mean the cost of a whole wave.

Looking at just MSRP here, assuming you buy 1 of each expansion in a wave, excluding separate releases like huge ships, aces.

Wave 1 - 60 bucks

Wave 2 - 90 Bucks

Wave 3 - 75 Bucks

Wave 4 - 60 bucks

Wave 5 - 70 Bucks

Wave 6 - 105 Bucks (Including the most wanted pack here... understand this was gonna have to cost more due to new faction)

Wave 7 - 95 Bucks

Wave 8 - 115 Bucks

Looks to be a trend of spending more and more each wave. I'm not complaining though, I think the product is awesome. I'm just saying my wallet won't be screaming if I have to pay a few bucks for a new die.

I just hope if they do, it's either 6 or 12 sided. 8/10/12 sided just don't roll well.

I don't expect new dice anytime. It is far easier to adjust outcomes with text.

As much as it would be a good idea to introduce new dice or maneuver templates the opportunity has passed with the new core set. The new core set already came out with a new damage deck and as far as we go that is the only new core game play item we have.