I love the core simplicity of X-Wing, but is the design space running out?

What are multi-dice? Or do you mean different ships use different dice? If the latter then isn't chance of rolling hits, etc already changeable by number of dice rolled?

If you're talking about something like porting the Black dice from Armada for use with ordinance that could be cool. Having more sides with crits and sides with double hits. It would require errata-ing all those cards though, so don't hold your breath :/

I was thinking slightly larger dice, with Blanks, hit/evade on one side, focus, and Crit. Could be neat dice.

Larger dice. Like the d30? My d30 never gets used. :,(

i would have rather them introduced a second attack dice type than just have you roll more dice.

Its one thing i love about Armada, all 3 attack dice have different values for different reasons and you never want a solid showing of one color. Black dice hit the hardest, both best odds and a hit/crit face, but they have 0 targeting faces to cut defenses down. Fistfulls of black dice on their own tend to do next to no damage thanks to brace, redirect, evade, and/or scatter completely shafting them, but mix in a few blue (most likely to roll targets) it gets mean quick.

1 hour ago, nitrobenz said:

If you're talking about something like porting the Black dice from Armada for use with ordinance that could be cool. Having more sides with crits and sides with double hits. It would require errata-ing all those cards though, so don't hold your breath :/

The black dice in Armada are balanced for the range, rather than the ordnance. If your ship happens to have black dice in the pool, it doesn't need to have ordnance upgrades to use it. It's a bonus for getting into close range with a ship that (generally) doesn't have a whole lot of long/medium range firepower.

In X-wing, the ordnance is fired at the same range as the primaries, generally. Your bonus for using the ordnance is denying the R3 extra defensive die. There are a couple of exceptions (Proton Rockets, AHM, etc), but for the most part, that's your lot, and the dice and ordnance abilities reflect it as such (Homing ignoring evades, Plasma stripping a shield, etc). Having a black dice for ordnance in this game would arguably make them too efficient, and that's coming from someone who adores squeezing in some spike damage. I can get Homing missiles to reliably do 3 damage on large base ships on average. Boosting that with even one black dice would make that 4 and a pretty much guaranteed crit. Things start to get hairy quickly.

2 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

i would have rather them introduced a second attack dice type than just have you roll more dice.

Its one thing i love about Armada, all 3 attack dice have different values for different reasons and you never want a solid showing of one color. Black dice hit the hardest, both best odds and a hit/crit face, but they have 0 targeting faces to cut defenses down. Fistfulls of black dice on their own tend to do next to no damage thanks to brace, redirect, evade, and/or scatter completely shafting them, but mix in a few blue (most likely to roll targets) it gets mean quick.

The Armada dice system is really good, but 3 sets of dice - and some of the powers on them - don't translate as well to X-wing. Whatever about black dice in this game, people already get mad when I use 4LOM to ignore a focus, or HM to ignore evades, I can't imagine the salt that'd come from rolling an accuracy to ignore a token, too. Similarly, double hits/hit-crits would be very rough to balance. It's already rough in Armada with Y-wings backed up by multiple Bomber Command Centers on flotillas.

Well yeah it wouldnt be literally Armada dice, they would kinda break xwing more than ships like Fenn does in terms of offense.

More along the lines of just flatout more accurate dice, dice that really need a focus token, or have a special icon for a bonus effect (ion/stress) on one face. Being able to ignore tokens in xwing from generic attack dice is kinda too strong since the tokens in xwing arent automatically there, but they are in Armada.

For instance, Purple Dice - 1blank, 1 crit, 1 hit, 5 focus results. Insanely unlikely to do anything without a focus mod, laughably accurate with it.
Black Dice - no focus results, 4 crits 4 blanks. Much more likely to do crits than any other dice, but focus doesnt help it at all.
Blue Dice - 3 blanks, 2 focus, 2 hits, 1 "special" (specific weapon determines what that icon does) for an alternative to "if this attack hits"

In X-Wing, I think that an offensive die that had a type of result that canceled evade results, but was not itself a hit or a crit might be nice. They'd make it more likely to push some damage through defenses without increasing the maximum damage that can be done.

I mean more in the sense that even including double-hits or accuracy icons on dice would cause a dramatic swing, but I could certainly see an argument for something like the purple dice option. Those take planning for tokens, and can be mitigated with action denial or token stripping.
Special functions are already inherent in secondary weapons, however, and a crit is sort of the special function of a primary as it stands. What I wouldn't mind seeing are more crit-effect upgrades/abilities. For example, Flechette Torpedoes in Armada lets you spend a crit result you've rolled against a squadron, to disable that squadron for the round. Now, an ability that lets you assign a weapons disabled token to a ship in X-wing would be a touch overpowered, but a cheap ordnance that has a Wampa-style "if you roll a crit, you may cancel all dice to assign" effect could actually have some design room.
Similarly, things like Overload Pulse - which exhausts all defense tokens on a blue crit - or NK7 Ion Cannon - which exhausts a targeted upgrade card on a blue crit - could have space in the game too. The Overload Pulse essentially being a 4LOM style ability in a cannon slot (with the condition of requiring a crit), and the NK7 being a sort of one-turn Boba. Strong abilities, balanced by the fact that they don't do damage if the ability triggers.

For a new die in X-Wing I'm wondering if there shouldn't have been a "half die" with two each containing: blank, focus, evade, hit. It could be used on offense or defense (just treat the evade/hit as blanks depending on the use) and has a 1/4 chance of getting the desired result that increases to 1/2 if you have a way to turn eyeballs.

1 hour ago, Fuzzywookie said:

Larger dice. Like the d30? My d30 never gets used. :,(

If you go big go real big .

Nevertheless I would like different attack dice.

If they introduce new dice for this game, I think it would be cool if they were used to represent the Force. Make it a 12-sided die with maybe 3 blank sides, 5 focus sides, and 4 Force symbol sides. Give us new versions of Vader and Luke pilot cards, and new Dark Side and Light Side upgrade slots for them. An example of a Light Side upgrade might be something like Trust the Force that reads "When defending, you may spend a focus token to roll a Force die. On a [Force symbol] result, cancel all of the attacker's dice results." You get the idea.

Well I wouldn't know about balance but you could use armada dice for different effects.

Blue dice, roll for critical hits on shields (accuracy, remove one shield token, hit deal 1 face down damage card, direct hit deal 1 face up damage card)

Black dice, roll one of these dice when making an attack with <missile> or <torpedo> weapon. Hit add 1 hit result, Crit, add 1 crit result.

Red Armada dice (after taking damage from obstacle crit or huge ship colision); when making a collision roll dice, accuracy, discard shield token, hit, deal 1 facedown damage, crit deal 1 face up damage, 2 hits deal 2 face down damage.

I'd rather find a way to separate weapon accuracy from weapon damage. That way, we could have accurate weapons that do little damage (ie: TLT) or less precise weapons that do massive damage if they connect, or even more area effect weapons/events like the Bombs. So in some ways, a set of Damage Dice could be used. But then this heads down the path of X-Wing 2.0 that I'd rather not consider yet.

Alright, random late night thoughts... (and its almost 3am for me so this is very late night)

Keep all the Attack ratings in X-Wing the same, and special effects like Ion Turret or TLT the same (roll 3 dice to see if you hit, if it does take 1 damage and resolve any special event)

Blue Armada Dice become Attack Dice to see if the attack hits.
2 Accuracy Faces - Spend a Focus token to cancel an Evade Result
4 Single Hit Faces counts as the shot connecting to the target
2 Critical Hit Faces - ignores one Evade result and counts as a hit (so the defender would need to end up with one more Evade result to avoid taking damage) effectively making the Critical roll count as two hits for seeing if the attack connects

Red Armada Dice become non-Ordnance Damage dice (so lasers, turrets, etc.)
2 Blank faces - well duh, it's a total miss even though it connected, it just didn't hit anything vital
2 Single Damage faces - does a single point of face-down damage (or shield)
2 Single Critical faces - does a single point of face-up damage (or shield)
1 Accuracy face - lose one additional shield / no effect if no shields left
1 Double Damage face - does two points of face-down damage

Black Armada Dice become Ordnance Damage dice
2 Blank faces - It was a dud, or misfire, or didn't connect right or glanced off the hull plating
4 Single Damage faces - single point of face-down damage (or shield)
2 Damage / Critical faces - does 2 points of damage, with one card being a critical effect if it gets through the shield

So, hypothetical attack from a T-65 X-Wing engaging a standard TIE fighter:
X-Wing attacks at Range 2 with Primary weapon
X-Wing rolls three blue dice with Accuracy / Hit / Hit as the result
X-Wing spends a Focus token to change the Accuracy to a Hit > End result is 3 Hits
TIE rolls three green defense dice with Blank / Focus / Evade as the result
TIE spends a Focus token to change Focus result to an Evade > End result is 2 Evades and 1 Blank
X-Wing landed 1 Hit so it then rolls for Damage - 3 Red Armada dice with Hit / Critical / Accuracy
TIE suffers 2 damage with one of them being face up (and since it has no shields to lose from the Accuracy, the Accuracy has no effect)

So, hypothetical attack from a T-65 X-Wing engaging a standard TIE fighter but this time with a Proton Torpedo
X-Wing attacks at Range 2 with Proton Torpedo
X-Wing rolls 4 blue dice with 2 Accuracy , 1 Hit, and 1 Critical
TIE rolls 3 green X-Wing defense dice and gets 2 Evades and a Blank
X-Wing does not have a Focus token so it can't convert Accuracy rolls, but has 1 Hit and 1 Critical get through (so 1 + 2 hits) beats the 2 Evades of the TIE fighter
X-Wing rolls 4 black dice for damage getting Hit, Hit, Hit/Crit, Blank as the roll resulting in 4 Damage and 1 of them being a face-up
TIE explodes

8 hours ago, Slugrage said:

I'd rather find a way to separate weapon accuracy from weapon damage. That way, we could have accurate weapons that do little damage (ie: TLT) or less precise weapons that do massive damage if they connect, or even more area effect weapons/events like the Bombs. So in some ways, a set of Damage Dice could be used. But then this heads down the path of X-Wing 2.0 that I'd rather not consider yet.

They can pull it off at least somewhat effectively with card text though and not have to add additional dice or accuracy rolls.

im still waiting for an attack thats pitifully inaccurate but if it hits o good god that is painful

Such as: MIRV Missiles
4pts
Missile slot
2die attack, range 2-3
Attack: Targetlock - Spend your TL and discard this card to perform this attack. If this attack hits and the defender is a Small ship, double any uncancelled hits or crits. If the Defender is a Large ship, triple the results.

Largeship killer basically. Unless they are 0/1 agi odds are this will miss or only have 1 uncancelled result, but that explodes into 3/6 hits/crits.

This game does after all need something that middlefingers large ships more than small for a change.

I'd love to see multiple die types, but they would have had to be baked in from the beginning. As it is I don't think we'll ever get them. TO wit:

Accuracy die (blue): has no crits, and several double hit symbols (not sure how many). Double hit symbols on this die require two evades to cancel, but deal one damage if uncancelled. Used for missiles (canonically small, fast, nimble things designed to track and kill light ships, but didn't do much damage against big things with lots of shielding and armour) but also for any similar high-accuracy-low-damage scenario like flak cannon equivalents, TLTs, etc.

Normal die: the current red die.

Damage die (black): has a lot of crits, and several double hit symbols. Double hits on this die require only 1 evade to cancel, but deal two damage if uncancelled. Used for torpedoes (canonically slow, powerful things that are almost impossible to tag fighters with but can cripple large ships and capital ships) and other high-damage-low-accuracy weapons such as HLC.

This way you could have missiles and torps using relatively lower numbers of dice and still doing what they're supposed to do against the ship types they're supposed to do it against, rather than the current situation where to be good they have to do big piles of dice and be basically equally effective against both ship types.

I'd also like to see special effects attached to specific die results like the surges in Descent/ImpAss, but that's a WHOLE nother thing and would definitely require a ground-up rules rewrite.

I'd love to see this concept, but the trouble is that you'd either have to live with a whole bunch of stuff not using them appropriately (i.e. the whole current crop of secondary weapons, not to mention probably several primary weapons). It could even be possible to combine different dice, or to add or upgrade to specific coloured results (e.g. at a black doublehit to an otherwise red roll, but there would have to be a cancellation priority order for this. Probably blue doublehit > hit > black doublehit > crit).

A lot of people have mentioned different types of attack dice (like Armada) and it seems like a great way to differentiate ships. Any thoughts on different types of defense dice? Maybe rolling blue dice for shields on low agility ships or green dice for evade on high agility ships?

Although this really gets into the realm of x-wing 2.0 which I both love and hate...

Another interesting thing to consider would be shield damage and hull damage results.

I.e. dice which have 1 hit and 1 shield or 1 hit and 1 hull as their special results - these would then deal 1 regular damage and 1 shield for the shield dieif the defender had any, or 1 hull with the hull die if the defender had no shields.

This could work with the special effect dice noted above - you'd have dice that had some special effect symbol (like the lightning bolt symbol in Descent/ImpAss) and depending on the weapon the special effect symbols would do a thing - kill shields, limit the speed of the next manoeuvre, assign ions or stress tokens, etc etc.

Just now, Hepitude said:

A lot of people have mentioned different types of attack dice (like Armada) and it seems like a great way to differentiate ships. Any thoughts on different types of defense dice? Maybe rolling blue dice for shields on low agility ships or green dice for evade on high agility ships?

Although this really gets into the realm of x-wing 2.0 which I both love and hate...

If I were looking at screwing with defence dice I'd look at making them a lot more reliable, if not outright non-random (e.g. you get a pool of x tokens per round, focus tokens can be converted into one evade, evade tokens into two or somethign like that) to lessen the variance associated with them. The dice variance, particularly of greens, is one of the things that bugs me most about x wing.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

If I were looking at screwing with defence dice I'd look at making them a lot more reliable, if not outright non-random (e.g. you get a pool of x tokens per round, focus tokens can be converted into one evade, evade tokens into two or somethign like that) to lessen the variance associated with them. The dice variance, particularly of greens, is one of the things that bugs me most about x wing.

Yeah, you could do some interesting stuff by giving ships/pilots different sets of evade tokens that do different things- beefy ships would have something like an 'armor' defense token while tie interceptors would have a 'jink' defense token and maybe multiples, etc.

It would do a lot for the game to have more granularity in attack/defense.

I think those of us who have been around for a long time were discussing this back in wave 3. The idea was that we would have elite dice with better odds for advanced ships (then came the phantom and the defenders!). I might be off a wave or so. We noticed the stat limits on the game and thought this was a good way to expand but we're a bit passed that point.

Others wanted you to to be able to buy better dice as a modification. Some suggest different colored dice for ion and secondaries.

A Quick forum search for elite dice should bear fruits of old.

Star Trek Attack Wing did this (an upgraded attack die as an upgrade).

It, uh.....it didn't end well.

Now in all seriousness, part of the reason it failed was because it was only offered as an organized play prize, and part of why it didn't work was traditional WizKids nonsense. That being said, I think we are losing sight of something important. Yes, X-Wing has grown a lot, and there are a lot of upgrades and new rules to remember, but one of the core tenets of X-Wing is simplicity. Dials, maneuver, roll red dice, roll green dice. Sure, at a certain point the game becomes so bloated that the simplicity collapses and some of the mechanics don't work so well anymore (and we are arguably reaching that point). However, making the game more inherently complicated is not (IMHO) the answer. I'm not sure what the answer is, but the second I have to consult a chart to determine what my attack did is the second I'm done with this game.