Why are Hit Rolls and Wound Rolls separate?

[Beliman]

Something that I noticed after reading other rulebooks (I don't play all of them) :

• Conquest has confronted rolls (attack vs defense).
• Asoiaf has confronted rolls (attack vs defense).
• Malifaux has confronted flips (attack vs defense).
• Elder scrolls has a confronted rolls (attack vs defense, each success that is not canceled by the defense= 1 damage).
• Warhammer Underworlds has confronted rolls (attack vs defense).
• Warcry has one roll on attack (no defense rolls).
• Frostgrave has confrotned rolls (attack vs defense).
• Star Wars legion has confronted rolls (attack vs defense).

 

[Samukai]

The greater the number of instances you need to roll dice the more fun GW  can have with abilties/rules. Also easier to avoid game breaking combos as well. 

[EMMachine]

16 hours ago, Beliman said:

Something that I noticed after reading other rulebooks (I don't play all of them) :

• Conquest has confronted rolls (attack vs defense).
• Asoiaf has confronted rolls (attack vs defense).
• Malifaux has confronted flips (attack vs defense).
• Elder scrolls has a confronted rolls (attack vs defense, each success that is not canceled by the defense= 1 damage).
• Warhammer Underworlds has confronted rolls (attack vs defense).
• Warcry has one roll on attack (no defense rolls).
• Frostgrave has confrotned rolls (attack vs defense).
• Star Wars legion has confronted rolls (attack vs defense).

 

What about Kings of War?

It basicly has 2 Rolls (Hitroll for Melee or Range) + Defence roll of the target with some units getting a buff to the roll.

Actually I don't know if their was a change in 3. Edition.

[Beliman]

2 minutes ago, EMMachine said:

What about Kings of War?

It basicly has 2 Rolls (Hitroll for Melee or Range) + Defence roll of the target with some units getting a buff to the roll.

Actually I don't know if their was a change in 3. Edition.

Didn't know about that!
One of the points that I wanted to make with that list is that this games only need just one roll for attacks, and they still have enough tools to work to make all weapons and units completely different between them.

[someone2040]

I think it works well for Kings of War, as part of the design of that game is speeding things up. I don't necessarily like Kings of War as a 28mm game, but I do think it works to what they're designing for.

Kings of War also had the mechanic first, so I guess the Games Workshop designers didn't want to copy that system, otherwise it's possible we could've had a similar system.

 

That being said, the way it is currently with 3 different rules to get damage through does mean Games Workshop have more things they can tweak. One of the things that people criticise Kings of War for is feeling bland, which is probably fair in some ways as it has less things you can tweak (and probably not as enjoyable to some people as you don't do anything in your opponents turn). The more things you can tweak, the more engaging and thematic you can make your game.

So ultimately I think that's probably why Games Workshop chose the current system. It was simplified from needing to lookup a chart for hitting and wounding, but also gave them the extra nobs they could adjust to make things more thematic as there are of course, different rules that would impact your ability to hit as opposed to your strength of the blow.

[Popisdead]

On 2/20/2020 at 9:50 AM, Revlid said:

So why does the wound roll even exist?

Amoritize out the rolls and avoid dice spiking.  More dice rolling helps with a homegenization of stats.  in 6th ed you had 4-wide.  unlucky elf rolls with better stats mean lucky rolls of worse stat goblins always won.  On models that could be 5-6 times the points cost.  

I would prefer my games not won by someone rolling more 6s than me on a handful of dice at at time.  

[Nullius]

I think the main reason is that the game uses six sided dice. With small order dive it’s hard to get a less step-wise and larger probability distribution they introduce two dice rolls for a smoother 36 step probability density function. One could argue they would have a much easier time just using d10’s or d20’s, but I think one of the original design constraints back in the 80’s and 90’s was that the game be playable with ordinary dice

[Beastmaster]

Sorting out the ones with a 14+ from a roll with 60 d20 doesn’t sound like fun either. D20 have small faces and are quite round and rolly. Maybe even faster to roll and sort 60 d6 two times.

[Joseph Mackay]

In my opinion, I don’t think the current To Hit and To Wound rolls really work that well. I truly believe we need to bring back Strength and Toughness to better represent the durability of units, as quite frankly number of wounds + armour save doesn’t give the right feel when you’ve got random goblins running around able to one-hit kill a hero (over exaggerated on my part here but the point stands)

if gw are determined to ‘simplify’ stats, then I’d rather we scrap To Hit and To Wound altogether and instead use the Warcry system. I’m aware that doing so removes all the hit/wound modifiers currently in the game but honestly I think that’s a good thing. I partly dislike modifiers as it can make units feel not worth their points (it’s a rare situation but it’s possible to render a unit near useless by debuffing it with multiple -1 to hit/wound effects all game), and these effects create a real feels bad moment when your units can’t do anything. Alternatively, they at least need to cap modifiers like in 40K 

[Pyrescribe]

I think all it does is increase the resolution of probabilities from 16% chunks to 2.7% chunks. Could be wrong on this

Edited February 13, 2021 by Pyrescribe

[NicholasT]

These conventions were all established decades ago. You could just role a single dice to calculate the hits/wounds. You could also invent a more elaborate system with 3 or more dice rolls. I feel the most important part of the hit-wound-save system is that it has an appealing rhythm to it (you do 2 rolls your then your opponent does 1) that gives the game an enjoyable ‘flow’.

[Beliman]

31 minutes ago, NicholasT said:

These conventions were all established decades ago. You could just role a single dice to calculate the hits/wounds. You could also invent a more elaborate system with 3 or more dice rolls. I feel the most important part of the hit-wound-save system is that it has an appealing rhythm to it (you do 2 rolls your then your opponent does 1) that gives the game an enjoyable ‘flow’.

Completely. 30 years of Warhammer+War40k stablished the hit/wound vs save. Another point to take in consideration is that a lot of new wargames have a confronted roll, and the "spikes" that can come with just one rolling are tonned down by other mechanics (more than one dice for one attack, can't pass damage to "other units/models", success dice on attack stops rolling defensive dice for defender, etc...).

On 2/10/2021 at 5:02 AM, someone2040 said:

One of the things that people criticise Kings of War for is feeling bland, which is probably fair in some ways as it has less things you can tweak (and probably not as enjoyable to some people as you don't do anything in your opponents turn). The more things you can tweak, the more engaging and thematic you can make your game.

Main problem for "feeling bland" was the customization and the feeling that it's a watered down Fantasy. Conquest, Malifaux, Underworlds, Warcry, Asoiaf, etc... doesn't have that problem and they have a confronted rolls/flips too.