Hello again,

I thought about updating my other thread about combat layout but decided instead to create thread because it's not really the art part I need help with but rather the mechanics.

The screenshot above displays where I'm at the moment. This is the latest version. I'll do my best to explain everything as clearly as possible.

Hero's Health: Represented by white hearts and broken hearts. Represents the hero's health. When all hearts are gone, it's game over, the hero is dead. This is fairly simple and common so no extra information is really needed.

Enemy health: The enemy equivalent. When the enemy takes damage, hearts are lost. When all hearts are gone, the enemy is dead and the battle is won.

Energy: Energy is the battle's currency unit. White bolts are unspent while the dark bolts are spent energy. More on energy later.

Dice (skull): battle is determined by the results of 5 dice. Above is an example of a skull result. In order to determine the outcome of a round, the player decides which dice he wants to keep and which one he wants to re-roll and then consult the battle chart.

Above is an example of a chart. So if the player rolls the five dice and gets:

That's three of a kind. According to the chart, both participants lose one health and the round is over. However…

Rerolling:

Suppose the player rolls the five dice and ends up with:

He can choose to re-roll certain results to try to get a better result, provided he has dice (using he here for simplicity, not sexism). As you can see, the player has decided to re-roll the ‘gun’ result' and the ‘energy’ result. He could then get a better result.

But… if the player isn't satisfied, he can re-roll again but this time it'll cost 2 energy per re-roll instead of one. So re-rolls can be attempted for as along as the player has energy in store or unless…

The hangman's noose: 1 out 6 sides is the noose. It's unlucky as it can't be re-rolled.

Note: I'm at a point where I have no ideas on how to implement the other sides of the dice. This is what I need help with.

Some other sides could potentially include:

The horseshoe: Something positive (the opposite of the noose). 1 out of 6 sides. I first wanted to make this ‘wild’ (can be any result for combinations) but that would end up being too strong.

An idea I'm toying with is that re-rolling those are free and cost no energy. Suppose I stick with that, that's 2 sides done. 4 remain.

Chains: Another potentially negative result. I thought that maybe re-rolling those would require one extra energy but it's not very original. I wish I could find something more unique about that result.

Skull: The skull is meant to be my neutral result. No special effect attributed to it. 2 out of the 6 sides. This would mean that 2 sides remain.

Gun: I'd like the gun to have an offensive impact on the round. Some ideas I had:

a. increases by one damage to the enemy per gun. So three guns would add 3 damage to a regular chart result. For example, in the chart above, the result would be 4 heart loss for the enemy instead of one. I think this is too powerful however and have since scratched that.

Maybe 3 ‘guns’ would increase the chart damage by 1 for that round, 4 ‘guns’ by 2 and 5 ‘guns’ by 3? Even then, that would be really powerful as a 5 guns would deal 8 hearts of damage in the example above which is huge in a game which uses small units for monsters and the hero.

So this one remains unsolved at the moment and I'd like help for this.

Bullet Vest: Would like this one to grant a defensive bonus. Again, I don't know how to implement it without it being too powerful or not powerful enough. I need to be very careful that the rng swing is very limited. Need help with that one also.

Brain (energy): I thought this one would grant 1 bolt per brain. So a pair of two ‘brains’ would grant 2 energy to the player as well as the chart result. This one is easier to implement BUT if I do implement this one, I'm stuck with having to choose between the ‘gun’ or the ‘armor’ and I don't see how they could go without one another.

Another possibility is to keep: horseshoe+brain (positive) chain+noose (negative) and skull for neutral for a total of 6.

So that's where I'm at now. One more thing I'd like to have an impact is weapon and armor as displayed in the mockup… that's also something I come up with a good solution for yet.

I think I'm easy going and interested in what people have to say so anything goes really.

How about a “Joker” side? This would add to your dice always towards the best result for the player.

Maybe a “Wildcard” side? Rerolls everything at the cost of all your energy.

Your dice have no suits. So... what is a "flush"?

If a player were to, for example, roll 5 of one symbol, would he be able to choose which result that resolves to? Could he opt for a full house if desired?

One idea for buff/debuff might be to effectively move the threshold (presumably temporarily) for where damage taken vs dealt begins.

You could have it such that the dice that completes the hand can't be used to provide bonuses.

You could have it such that for an attack bonus to be applied you must be able to cause at least 1 damage.

Whatever you decide, you'll probably want to play test whatever you come up with, considering the best and worst potential cases for each symbol. Maybe come up with a simulator of some kind to go through thousands of rounds of simulated combat to see what kind of results to expect with what frequency and then adjust either what the dice do or the strength of the enemies accordingly.

@Alex Mees I had thought of using the ‘wild’ side like I mentioned above with the horseshoe but I feel like it’s too powerful.

@kseh regarding the flush, everything is still very much wip.

Regarding your question, yes, the player can choose whatever he wants at the end of his roll. The player can pick in the chart what is desired among the possible combinations.

I don’t understand your explanation regarding buff and debuff. An example would help me understand.

I was thinking you could shift the damage results up or down one row. For a chain symbol, 3 of a kind damage deals the damage for a flush and so on. For a horseshoe symbol 2 pairs deals the damage for 3 of a kind.

For example, if the player is left with 1 chain symbol, four of a kind would only do 4 damage, a full House does 3, the flush would give 1 dmg to player and 1 to enemy, 3 of a kind would give 1 dmg to player, two pairs gives 2 dmg to player, one pair gives 3dmg, and bust gives 4dmg (or limit it to just 3).

I'm not sure what the over all impact on game balance would be though.

A dice game mechanic i had designed for a different game might be suited for this.

In the game, like yours, 1's could not be rerolled. (And counted as zero points.)
Other dice could be rerolled, but you had to take the result even if it was worse, and you have limited rerolls.
Rolling a 6, either scores you 5 points, or you can choose to gamble on it by rerolling it, and rolling an additional die.

So, dice were scored from 0 to 5. (The expected average value for any given roll is 2.5 points)
https://i.imgur.com/c6RlUEL.png

You could take a 5 at face value (5 points) or reroll it, with a 50/50 chance of getting better or worse.
(Since the average value for any given roll is 2.5 points, the average value for two dice would be 5 points.)

Lets assume in this case that you only roll one die, on any given roll. On a 5, you would reroll it, and another die, for a total of two dice. Even if these dice resulted in less than 5, you could spend a reroll to reroll one of the two dice. In the case where one of them landed on another 5, you could gain an additional die, for 3 dice, and so on, as long as your luck would hold.

@kseh ok, what you are saying is that certain symbols could me more or less effective when determining outcome, like chains are -1 compared to others. That could give the chains symbol a unique twist, yes. In that case I would change the meaning of symbols however. Noose would become the weak symbol while chains wouldn‘t be allowed to be re-rolled.

I think it’s a good idea but it doesn’t “click” (you know when you feel like that’s it, you found it).

@nulliebear
Maybe I don’t understand but I think the re-roll is fairly similar. What’s the difference between mine and yours?

There’s also equipment which I haven’t talked about. I’d like for weapon and armor to play into the game mechanics but I have yet to figure out how. It’s not vital but it’d be nice.

If you guys have ideas for different symbols go for it. You might have an idea I didn’t think of which will be a game changer (no pun intended).

I thought of a new dice combination to vary the current chart which is not very interesting as it focuses on pairs and the like; only ‘good‘ symbols. Having only brains, horseshoe and skulls.

You might also think that skull is not very combat neutral as a symbol. Feel free to suggest something else.

So having just finished my title screen (I wanted to have a fresh look at the combat system) here's the new.

I proceeded to rework the general layout, including modifying the heart icon for the player.

I think I will go with this although I did want to subject the result for comments before the whole thing is set in stone.

Any comments are welcomed.

To clarify, my rerolls add an additional die, they don't just reroll the same die.

With equipment entering the mix, perhaps they could alter the types of dice entirely. For example, one weapon using dice that are 3 chains and 3 skulls.

Or one weapon adding a new symbol, representing fire/poison/damage over time. Or area of effect (if that applies.)

Another potential option for a ‘symbol’ that would arguably be more neutral than the skull, would be to have no symbol at all. In this case, having no effect whatsoever (even when matched.)

So:

Chains: No effect, can't be rerolled.
Noose: Lose energy.
Brain: Gain energy.
Skull: Deal damage.
Blank: Do nothing.
Horseshoe: Extra reroll. (Resulting in 6 dice, rather than 5. If you're using my alternative.)
Fire/Poison: Damage over time.
---

Then, for your pairs, full house, etcetera, you could have them be multipliers onto the effects.

A single skull dealing 1 damage both ways. Two skulls dealing 1 damage (in your favor.) Three skulls dealing 2 damage (in your favor) and so on. But that's just an alternative if you want it.

I really like your idea of how weapon changes the sides of the dice. I think you might have found a solution to my problem.

Any ideas for protective gear?

I think a blank face is not visually appealing which is why I want to use an icon.