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  1. #1

    Default Determining D3 Damage (Calling All Rules Lawyers!)

    Hi, folks. I'm trying to wrap my head around this, because I can't find any solid guidance in the rules. The following is copy/pasta'd from Lustria. The model-in-question is the Oldblood on Carnosaur.

    I've read through the Making Attacks section many times now, and I can't figure out whether to roll a single die after the save rolls to determine my D3 damage in combat, or whether to roll a die for every unsaved wound. It might actually work both ways: rolling a single D3, or rolling several times. There are two procedures for making attacks, and both (in the case of our Oldblood on Carnosaur) seem to be optional - I don't think that there's a "right way" so long as you pick whichever you prefer.

    I know that we're all used to how this worked in 8th edition, but I do find it exceedingly strange that everything is now written in the singular ('the weapon's damage characteristic') and that the rules constantly refer to the weapon itself rather than the model doing the wounding (or the wounds,even). If a weapon has 'a damage characteristic,' then that surely must stay the same no matter how many wounds you've scored? Wouldn't rolling multiple die to determine damage be putting more emphasis on the model's damage output rather than its weapon's capability, the damage of which is, again, regularly mentioned only in the singular throughout the rules (rather than the model)? Can a weapon have several damage characteristics?

    (puts on tinfoil cap)

    Here's the 'Making Attacks' section.

    MAKING ATTACKS

    Attacks can be made one at a time, or, in
    some cases, you can roll the dice for attacks
    together. The following attack sequence is
    used to make attacks one at a time:

    1. Hit Roll: Roll a dice. If the roll equals
    or beats the attacking weapon’s To Hit
    characteristic, then it scores a hit and you
    must make a wound roll. If not, the attack
    fails and the attack sequence ends.

    2. Wound Roll: Roll a dice. If the roll
    equals or beats the attacking weapon’s
    To Wound characteristic, then it causes
    damage and the opposing player must make
    a save roll. If not, the attack fails and the
    attack sequence ends.

    3. Save Roll: The opposing player rolls a
    dice, modifying the roll by the attacking
    weapon’s Rend characteristic. For example,
    if a weapon has a -1 Rend characteristic,
    then 1 is subtracted from the save roll. If the
    result equals or beats the Save characteristic
    of the models in the target unit, the wound
    is saved and the attack sequence ends. If
    not, the attack is successful, and you must
    determine damage on the target unit.

    4. Determine Damage: Once all of the
    attacks made by a unit have been carried
    out, each successful attack in‘flicts a
    number of wounds equal to the Damage
    characteristic of the weapon. Most weapons
    have a Damage characteristic of 1, but some
    can in‘flict 2 or more wounds, allowing
    them to cause grievous injuries to even the
    mightiest foe, or to cleave through more
    than one opponent with but a single blow!

    In order to make several attacks at once, all
    of the attacks must have the same To Hit, To
    Wound, Rend and Damage characteristics,
    and must be directed at the same enemy
    unit. If this is the case, make all of the hit
    rolls at the same time, then all of the wound
    rolls, and finally all of the save rolls; then
    add up the total number of wounds caused.

    Something that I'd previously looked over is that the entire numbered list is only for making attacks one at a time.

    1st paragraph, final sentence,
    "... The following attack sequence is
    used to make attacks one at a time:"

    If you have three attacks, then you're going to be going through that list three times (probably wise if you're trying to kill or wound three specific dudes in a unit, for example). If you choose to play it this way, then it seems inevitable that your D3 damage must be randomized multiple times.

    Oldblood 'Blue' attack 1 against Alpha, 1 hit, 1 wound, 1 failed save, 1 damage.
    Oldblood 'Blue' attack 2 against Musician, 1 hit, 1 wound, 1 failed save, 2 damage.
    Oldblood 'Blue' attack 3 against Standard Bearer, 1 hit, 1 wound, 1 failed save, 3 damage.

    Since these attacks all target different models and they're made one at a time, then, yes, they'd all have different damage characteristics. I can't think of a logical way to finish one attack sequence only to prescribe it a damage characteristic later, because it'd potentially change the outcome of the combat.

    So, that's method 1: rolling 1 attack at a time, getting all of your damage results 1 at a time.

    Method 2 is to roll several attacks at once.

    Final paragraph,
    "In order to make several attacks at once, all
    of the attacks must have the same To Hit, To
    Wound, Rend and Damage characteristics,
    and must be directed at the same enemy
    unit. If this is the case, make all of the hit
    rolls at the same time, then all of the wound
    rolls, and finally all of the save rolls; then
    add up the total number of wounds caused."

    Although all of the attacks have the 'D3' characteristic (which is, in fact, a 'damage characteristic'), 3 separate damage characteristics can occur, which would retroactively violate this rule (unless 'D3' is enough to satisfy it).

    To me, 'D3' is more of a placeholder for a damage characteristic, because 'D3' indicates 3 possible outcomes. You also can't do 'D3' damage, you can only do '1, 2, or 3' damage. I don't think that a randomized damage characteristic bars a player from using this method, I think that it just means that a single roll covers it because that's the only way to ensure a single outcome. If the inverse is true, we'd have to attack one-at-a-time, which I doubt was the intent because they'd not have given us two methods.

    So it'd go,

    Oldblood 'Blue' makes 3 attacks > gets 3 hits > gets 3 wounds > Red fails 3 saves > 'Blue' rolls a single die to get a matching damage characteristic > 'Blue' adds up his wounds.

    Still, there's no concrete wording. I keep getting caught up on this...

    "... each successful attack in‘flicts a
    number of wounds equal to the Damage
    characteristic of the weapon."

    ... because it could so easily go either way, and, yet again, we see the weapon's damage characteristic mentioned in the singular.

    I suppose I'll take the 'majority rules' approach. It seems that it's entirely up to interpretation, unless you feel that 'D3' is a suitable damage characteristic (in which case, there's still no rule for determining how many dice are to be rolled!). I'd figured that I'd just explain where I'm coming from so I don't look all beardy. It seems like either way is legit, each with their own merits and drawbacks.

  2. #2

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    It's the restult of the D3 roll, with on roll made for each failed save.

    So if you get three D3 attacks to hit, wound and past your opponents armour as above, it's 3D3 damage -so anywhere between 3 and 9 wounds to be distributed.
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  3. #3

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    The d3 is your damage characteristic. I don't really see a problem with that.

    So, if you inflict 3 unsaved wounds, then you roll 3d3 for a total anywhere between 3 and 9.

    That said, if you prefer to roll 1d3 and multiply the result by 3, the expected (average) outcome is the same - that is, on average you'd do 6 damage - so I wouldn't be too bothered if someone wanted to play that way. Doing this, however, makes the extremes more likely: you now have a 1/3 chance of inflicting 3 wounds, instead of 1/27 (and likewise for 9 wounds).

  4. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ben_S View Post
    That said, if you prefer to roll 1d3 and multiply the result by 3, the expected (average) outcome is the same - that is, on average you'd do 6 damage - so I wouldn't be too bothered if someone wanted to play that way. Doing this, however, makes the extremes more likely: you now have a 1/3 chance of inflicting 3 wounds, instead of 1/27 (and likewise for 9 wounds).
    Definitely something to agree on BEFORE the game starts, though. Don't want to get to a point where they roll a 3 and say "We agreed to just roll once, right?" Not many folks who'd try that, but there are some, so it's good to nip in the bud first.

  5. #5

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    Yeah, of course - always discuss prior.

    It doesn't make a huge difference either way, but I haven't found a clear-cut ruling. Everyone's reasoning so far seems to have been, 'we do it this way.... because that's what I do.' I'm looking for some interpretation of the language because the last quote that I've pulled appears to indicate either approach's validity, aaand I'm no english major. ;P

    On the one hand, I can see the 'ease of play' approach of picking up the dice and rolling multiple damage characteristics. That's cool.

    Still, that way doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me given the language of the rules that references a singular damage characteristic, the presence of two options (both of which appear applicable)... *shrug* I dunno. Like I've said, I'm gonna go with the way that offers less benefit to myself, but hopefully GW comes out with an FAQ for this kind of stuff soon. It's too bad: a single dice roll would reeeeaaaally help me out!
    Last edited by Firefly; 03-19-2016 at 11:43 AM.

  6. #6

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    I don't think it's essential to agree before the game starts - you do have to agree before rolling the damage dice though (but then, you need to do that to know how many dice to roll).

    Quote Originally Posted by Firefly View Post
    I keep getting caught up on this...

    "... each successful attack in‘flicts a
    number of wounds equal to the Damage
    characteristic of the weapon."

    ...it's entirely up to interpretation, unless you feel that 'D3' is a suitable damage characteristic (in which case, there's still no rule for determining how many dice are to be rolled!)
    I still don't really see the issue. The damage characteristic is d3. So, each successful attack inflicts d3 wounds.

    The number of d3s is determined by the number of successful attacks. I don't see any reason to think that they should all do the same number, when the damage characteristic is explicitly random.

    At the end of the day, you can play whichever way you and your opponent like, but there's no way to "go with the way that offers less benefit to myself", because the expected damage output is the same.

  7. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ben_S View Post
    I still don't really see the issue. The damage characteristic is d3. So, each successful attack inflicts d3 wounds.

    The number of d3s is determined by the number of successful attacks. I don't see any reason to think that they should all do the same number, when the damage characteristic is explicitly random.
    That randomization kind of violates this,

    "In order to make several attacks at once, all
    of the attacks must have the same To Hit, To
    Wound, Rend and Damage characteristics,"

    because you can't actually do "d3" damage whereas you can do 1, 2, or 3 damage. The damage characteristic is the same when the attack sequence starts - D3. When the sequence ends, the damage characteristic (D3) of the weapon is likely to be different for every attack, which retroactively violates this procedure. It feels like an omission of truth, I guess. No matter how you cut it, there's no way to guarantee that you can uphold this rule as you determine the amount of damage if you roll several dice.

    The only way to make that method work is to roll a single die, which as we've established isn't anywhere in the rules (nor is it spelled out that rolling multiple D3 is the way to go). Again, I understand the assumption that D3 is an appropriate damage characteristic, that 2 attacks grants 2D3 wounds, 3 grants 3d3, blah blah... it just seems inconsistent with the language in the rules, where weapons are expressed to have just one number. It seems like enough to ask the question, "How does this work, exactly?" which I've forwarded to GW (pfft).

    Quote Originally Posted by Ben_S View Post
    At the end of the day, you can play whichever way you and your opponent like, but there's no way to "go with the way that offers less benefit to myself", because the expected damage output is the same.
    Normally, yeah. However, using Curse of Fates (+1 to any one of the unit's rolls) via Seraphon's Starseer on the OB/Carn's Sunstone Spear makes the weapon's damage consistently higher, and typically its maximum damage of '3,' whereas the other way has a lot more fluctuation. I don't really even field Carnosaurs, but I'm trying to come up with synergy/tactics on the Lustria forums.
    Last edited by Firefly; 03-19-2016 at 12:40 PM.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Firefly View Post
    "In order to make several attacks at once, all
    of the attacks must have the same To Hit, To
    Wound, Rend and Damage characteristics,"

    because you can't actually do "d3" damage whereas you can do 1, 2, or 3 damage. The damage characteristic is the same when the attack sequence starts - D3. When the sequence ends, the damage characteristic (D3) of the weapon is likely to be different for every attack, which retroactively violates this procedure.
    The static damage characteristic, though, is "d3". It's not a definitive number, but it is a definitive stat.
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  9. #9

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    Yup.

    So if you've got a variety of attacks in combat with differing damage, group like for like whether it's 1, 2, D3 or D6 damage. The important thing is that your opponent knows what they're being hit with each time.
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  10. #10

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    You're right that this will be important if you have dice modifiers. I hadn't considered that in earlier comments suggesting that it didn't matter much.

    Quote Originally Posted by Firefly View Post
    because you can't actually do "d3" damage whereas you can do 1, 2, or 3 damage. The damage characteristic is the same when the attack sequence starts - D3. When the sequence ends, the damage characteristic (D3) of the weapon is likely to be different for every attack, which retroactively violates this procedure.
    ... Again, I understand the assumption that D3 is an appropriate damage characteristic,
    d3 damage means you roll a d3 and do that much damage, so it will be either 1, 2, or 3 damage, but that doesn't violate the requirement that your damage characteristic be the same, because all the attacks have the same characteristic (d3). I don't see why you think it's an assumption to take the stated damage characteristic to be the damage characteristic. The problem only arises if you assume that the characteristic can't really be what it says it is.

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