I'm putting together an OpenOffice spreadsheet dice roller …. but I wanted to make sure I limited it to a max roll (i.e. - if someone accidentally typed in 55 instead of 5 for the number of dice being rolled they'll get a N/A or something similar).

Has someone happened to have figured out how many of each dice could possibly be rolled, particularly since the number of dice can be adjusted either way depending on the circumstances?

Thanks for the help.

For that vast majority of rolls, the maximum of each are:

• 6 Ability
• 5 Proficiency
• 5 Difficulty
• 5 Challenge

There is no hard limit on the number of Boost or Setback dice.

Two points on these, however. First, these maxima never occur simultaneously. The sum of Difficulty and Challenge dice never* exceeds 5 and the the sum of Ability and Proficiency dice never* exceeds 6.

The asterisks lead to the second point, which is that there may be some wierd upgrade conditions where the dice would exceed those limits, but would be so rare they aren't worth worrying about. So when I say "never*" above, there technically are situations when it's false, but its exceedingly rare.

For your worksheet, I'd recommend using those values above and just pick an arbitrarily large number of boost and set back dice that will never reasonably occur, like 10.

-WJL

I'd say, from what I know, that no more than 5 (perhaps 6 actually) proficiency dice can be rolled. Because 5 is the max rank you can have in any given skill - unless you count the +1 from certain cybernetic implants as a 6th in some cases, I know I do, but I'm not sure thats the correct way.

No characteristic can be increased beyond 6 - or 7 with cybernetic implants. So a max of 7 ability dice for a skill with no ranks.

In addition comes expenditure of a destiny point for upgrading - so add 1 more of both really, there are also talents and other stuff that can upgrade abilities I'd assume, but I doubt you'd ever roll more than 7 or 8 positive dice, ability and proficiency mixed.

As for difficulty and challenge dice, I'd say slightly less - formiddable is 5 dice, and upgrading that more than 5 times is unlikely.

Boost and setback dice are the wild card - because you can end up rolling tons of these due to advantages, manoeuvres, talents, attachments and so on. Last session the sniper rolled at most 5 or 6 boost dice gained from allies, aiming, accuracy of weapon and so on. Her stealth in complete darkness plus talents is 4 boost dice as a base, pluss 1 ability and 2 proficiency dice.

Jegergryte said:

Thanks for the replies … I suppose there is no hard and fast rule as to the limits that could be placed, I guess I'll just put it at just around over-kill so people's dice rolls will be covered.

the thing about narrative dice is that they can be used for situations outside the rules as written. i've used them in WFRP3 to simulate a large battle where the equivalent of setback dice represented minor adversaries, boost dice represent minor allies, difficulty dice represented major opponents etc etc.

for example say your group of heroes is trying to escape from echo base, as they run through the base evading collapsing ceilings, dealing with frozen door consoles, installing last minute fixes to the falcon, the rebel alliance is fighting to give it's leadership and troop transports time to escape.

boost die represents squads of rebel fighters, setback dice imperial stortroopers, ability dice represent the base defenses and major allies, difficulty dice represent imperial walkers and a challenge dice represents vader. then work out what net successes, failures, threat, advantage, despair and triumph represent.

allowing your tool the flexibility to do these kinds of dice pools would be worthwhile.

oatesatm said:

You won't ever need more than 6 green dice except for (potentially) really outré aliens. Max stat 6. Boosts start by upgrading existing greens to yellows, and only add a green when all dice are green.

Now, a 20 mook mob with att 2 is 10y+1g…

My experience is that I really want 6 yellow, 6 green, 6 blue, 6 black, 6 purple, 6 red, 7 white. Because those are enough to allow for max stat (6) skill 5 on a stat 6 with an upgrade, same guy on the defense (with red and purple), and double aim, plus two passed blues, plus 2 blues from a talent, or defense 4 and 2 passed blacks from opponents.

And that cranking out result topologies for more than 9 dice by iteration is unbearably slow.

Oh, and it's always better to go for an extra die than to upgrade, unless you really want the triumph.

New Zombie said:

You can send pms if you want, but I'd love to hear more about this. I have been trying to think of a way to represent big battles, or large fleet battles and so far I've been stumped.

Like how the player's abilities can effect it, how to keep track of everything, etc, etc. It seems like your solution is just what I am looking for.

Azai said:

i don't see too much harm in derailing this thread…

i didn't come up with the idea another member of the WFRP3 community did, i simply modified it for my particular group of players and what they wanted to achieve. (i would link you to original thread but it appears to have been archived/deleted.)

remembering that it was a fantasy setting, the scenario i used it in was one where the player characters were in the grounds of a walled manor house that was being over run by beastmen. the manor had a number of fully statted NPCs. i basically converted each type of NPC into a single die or a pair of dice.

so a soldier guard was like an edge of the empire ability dice, the captiain of the guard was an ability dice and a boost dice, war hounds were proficiency dice, the walls of the compound were a pair of boost dice.

the enemies were similarly converted into negative dice in the pool.

as this scenario was one weighted in the invading beastmens favour it was designed such that the dice pool was statistically expected to generate failure.

this big dice pool would be rolled regularly. the results of the big dice pool would inform how the battle proceeded. each net failure would represent the incapacition of an allied NPC or some other event. for example the first failure represented the walls being partially breached - as a result one of the boost die representing the wall was removed from the subsequent dice pool. if the big dice pool generated success then a negative die would be removed to simulate beastmen dying or fleeing.

the players had several objectives during the big battle, they played their actions normally, so they would be engaging enemy beastmen and fighting using the RAW, if they engaged enemies then the dice representing those enemies would be removed from the big dice pool. the players could also use their skills to influence the big dice pool, leadership to add boost dice, first aid to return an ally to the big pool.

i gave the players and any engaged enemies 2 turns of RAW then would roll the big dice pool.

i had a list of events that would occur in a rough order so after the walls were down the beastmen would kill certain front line defenders, torch the stables, butcher convalescening staff in an infirmary etc etc.

i felt it worked really well, as instead of simply saying what happened in the surrounding chaos, the players had some agency in matters.

aramis said:

No.

Just… no.

Minions beyond the first add ranks in listed skills. Each skill has a maximum of 5 ranks.

A group of six minions with Agi 3 , Ranged [Heavy] as a skill, and blaster rifles rolls YYYGG to attack

A group of twenty minions with Agi 3 , Ranged [Heavy] as a skill, and blaster rifles rolls YYYGG to attack

Both have 5 ranks in skills with 3 in the attrib. The only difference is the latter group has more wound points.

-WJL

LethalDose said:

And it takes longer to whittle down the effectiveness of the 20 minion group. But yeah, the big difference is the wound point pool.

Thanks for all the input everyone … I think I've completed round 1 of my entirely over-complicated roller, but it serves it's purpose at the moment.

So, if possible … if any of you can use the OpenOffice spreadsheet and would be up for me sending it to you, I'd be interested in some feedback as well as suggestions. You can email me at: [email protected]

(I suppose you could put your email here as well, but whatever you're comfortable with)

Any help would be appreciated.

If you're wondering …

Basically, you type in how many of each dice you want in the pool and it will calculate the rolls for you. Each time you put a number in and press 'Enter', it will roll the dice, but there is also a Roll Button as well.

It is set up to allow up to 7 of each color dice,except the d10 which it allows up to 2 (if you put 8 or more of any particular color, you'll get a "Too Many [dice]", where [dice] is it will say Ability, Difficulty, etc.)

It automatically takes into consideration the icons that get canceled out, for example, if the hidden rolls end up being 4 Successes and 2 Failures … it will show Success 2 (If desired, I can show the entire rolls if people would prefer to see everything that shows up on the dice)

It does include Triumph as Success (Despair as Failure, as well), but has a seperate spot to see how many Triumph/Despair that were actually rolled

1d10 will give a number from 0 - 9 / 2d10 will give a number from 01 - 100

Also, while the Sheet is protected so that only the number of dice can be edited, but there is no password if you feel like either fiddling with it or taking a peak at the rediculously stupid calculations I put into it (I'm sure there must be an easier way, but I don't know it and once I got started I just had to roll with it)

Finally … I did not consider (yet) to include the ability to do large-scale battles, however, I like the idea and it would be possible to implement, either allowing more dice to be used or even having a separate grouping for just such a thing. But that's for another day (for now).