New system - fantasy

[THM]

Hi
For a while I've been toying with the idea of a new system, here are the core mechanics of what I have in mind, would love some feedback (will explain only action roll)
a player's char (PC) have stats, skills, technique and extra bonus, but at the end, it means he have a dicepool between 1 and 24.
the dice pool is of d10 (but the max he roll is 12, I'll explain)
the player select virtuous rank (VR) between 4, 6,8 or 10.
any action got target number (TN), base effect and scaling factor (which rely on tool used such as great axe, wand, expensive paper)

so this is how it is rolled -
the player select VR, and roll his dice pool, he then sum up all the die that came equal or higher then the VR (for example, a player rolling 5 die, selecting VR of 6, and getting scores of 4,7,9,10,10, he sum up only die that came 6 or more getting total of 36)
Every die that scored exactly the selected virtuous rank, is multiplied by a factor based on virtuous rank:
VR 4 -> *2
VR 6 -> *3
VR 8 -> *4
VR 10 -> *6

now the player check by how much (if at all) he passed the target number and the scaling factor, his action resolution roll (damage/heal/influence...) is base effect + (action roll-target number)/scaling factor (rounded down).
so, let's go back to our previous example, this time we'll call it sword swing, the TN is 20, the base effect is 2d10, and scaling factor is 5 (5f2 for short) and our friend got 36 in his roll, so his damage roll in this case is 2+(36-20)/5 die or 5d10, he rolls the 5d10 and get 28, the damage done is 28.

scaling above 12 die
as I've said, the max number of die is always 12, scaling above 12 works differently for action roll, and action resolve roll (hit/damage rolls)
action roll -
for every 2 die above 12 he would have had based on his stats/skills, the player replace one die as if he rolled the VR, so, if the player should have had 16 die (which means this is a very high exp built char) he rolls 10 die, and get 2 more as if he rolled the VR, if the VR he picked is 8, he's rolling 10d10, and get extra 2*8*VR multplier, or 10d10 +64

resolve roll -
if the player should have more then 12 die, for every die above 12, he multiply the score by (number of die-11)
if he rolled high and should have rolled 15 die of damage, he's rolling 12d12 and multiply the total by 4.


this is it, got tons more, but want to have a feedback on my base mechanic.

thanks.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I consider myself a pretty experienced player, and usually very on-the-ball mechanics wise. I've taught myself systems from scratch, built systems from scratch, homebrewed extensively...

...and my eyes started to glaze over by the second paragraph.

You're using very informal, terse language here, and it takes you more than four hundred words. Double or triple that for "proper" writing, and we're talking a base mechanic that takes multiple pages to explain. Not combat rules, not modifiers or anything, just the basic "this is how you roll a die." So that's a black mark right there.

As for the specifics... they hurt, I'm sorry. They really hurt. The process is, it looks like

• Roll a dozen dice
• Alter some rolls
• Add up half a dozen or more numbers
• Multiply by a number
• Subtract a number
• Divide by a number

Every time you need to roll. Do me a favor-- time yourself doing this, without a calculator. Then double that to figure out how long a player will take, since you're the one who invented this mess. Do you really want every roll to take that long?

Not to mention that it's utterly opaque-- I have no idea how changing any of the individual factors alters my result, aside from the most basic "probably good" or "probably bad." Roll-under or roll-and-add make it very clear how much a given modifier matters; adding or subtracting dice from a die pool usually isn't too hard to figure out either. This is... I have no idea what difference how much VR or SF matter. Probabilities should be roughly intuitive; characters would know about how likely they are too succeed, and so should the players.

In conclusion... this is a very bad die mechanic, and you should go all the way back to the drawing board. Core dice mechanics need to be fast; you're going to be making dozens over the course of the session. If it takes minutes to resolve, everything is going to slow to a crawl.

[THM]

Thank you Grod_The_Giant

I fear that explaining seems more complicated than it actually is.
The bonus is that there aren't many specific rolls to learn more than that, but I accept it.

I think that the main concern of character at the end of the day would just be virtuous rank to pick, and that is something that after couple of sessions, the player will get the feel.
(I actually wrote a script to simulate rolls to see that it behave like I plan it, that the higher the VR, the higher the average is but more erratic)

Well, thanks for the feedback, I had a feeling it's complicated.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Thank you Grod_The_Giant

I fear that explaining seems more complicated than it actually is.
The bonus is that there aren't many specific rolls to learn more than that, but I accept it.

The main difficulty isn't that the rule is takes a long time to learn, although there's an element of that; it's a pain in the butt to perform, even if you know it. What's the goal of all this multiplying and dividing, if I may ask? That might be a better point to start. You clearly put a lot of thought into the various factors to get a formula this complicated, so where were you going with it? We might be able to come up with a simpler alternative that still hits the same bases.