TheSagaContinues

Another something I bringing over from the WotC board

I'm always trying to speed up combat in my game. Faster! More intense! Yet I've found a huge stumbling block in starship combat is the amount of time it takes to calculate damage die on a successful hit.
...snip...
I know at least I'm sure I'll use this for NPC and enemy damage rolls that I make, so as to spend less time during "my" turn, but do you think it would work for PCs as well?

Now I'll agree that rolling a massive number of dice (I'll say anything over three.) for a single result can be work but what I'd suggest is you remove say two or three dice from the equations and use the normal average for everything else.  If you want to multiple the die roll that is fine but you could also just ignore the multiplier and figure things using straight dice plus a modifier to bring the damage up to normal.  If you want "simplified" without throwing the distributions completely off I'd suggest you try some of the following:

Original Dmg Die = Average Dmg = New Dmg Die
3d10x2 = 33 = 2d10+22 = 22 + d10x2 = 11 + 2d10x2
4d10x2 = 44 = 2d10+33 = 33 + d10x2 = 22 + 2d10x2
5d10x2 = 55 = 2d10+44 = 44 + d10x2 = 33 + 2d10x2
6d10x2 = 66 = 2d10+55 = 55 + d10x2 = 44 + 2d10x2
7d10x2 = 77 = 2d10+66 = 66 + d10x2 = 55 + 2d10x2
8d10x2 = 88 = 2d10+77 = 77 + d10x2 = 66 + 2d10x2
9d10x2 = 99 = 2d10+88 = 88 + d10x2 = 77 + 2d10x2

Now with these you could substitute 1d10x4 for 2d10x2 but that open up the range even more; I wouldn't use that variation on anything less than the 6d10x2 option because I think you're better off dealing at least half the maximum damage as a fixed value.  For the x5 weapons I'd start looking at:

3d10x5 = 82.5    = 66 + 3d10 = 55 + d10x5
4d10x5 = 110     = 88 + 2d10x2 = 66 + 2d10x4
5d10x5 = 137.5  = 121 + 3d10 = 110 + d10x5
6d10x5 = 165     = 143 + 2d10x2 = 121 + 2d10x4
7d10x5 = 192.5  = 176 + 3d10 = 165 + d10x5
8d10x5 = 220     = 198 + 2d10x2 = 176 + 2d10x4
9d10x5 = 247.5  = 231 + 3d10 = 220 + d10x5

Perhaps all of these variations are too challenging mathematically but the should give a much better approximation of the expected distribution than your linear progression that you get when using a single variable and a multiplier.


Note:  The original post this is taken from suggested "simplifying" starships weapon damage to a single die multiplied by a HUGE multiplier.  This means 9d10x2 became 1d10x18 and 6d10x5 became 1d10x30?  The problem with these is that while they have the same "average" the distribution of damage COMPLETELY destroys many aspects of the game.