Damage Calculation

So I know that you can increase damage by giving yourself feats that give you higher levels of advantage. But what I was wondering was the difference between weapons doing different damages. I’m trying to run a homestuck themed RP with some friends using Open Legend, and in case you are unfamiliar with homestuck, the characters end up alchemizing new, improved weapons. So I was wondering if there was some additional die that gets added to their damage rolls when they make an improved weapon, or if I should just give them additional levels of advantage for each new weapon. I am new to this so I’m not sure how to make it work, but giving them more advantage seems kind of cumbersome to have them roll X number of d10’s for any sort of damage roll until they increase their attributes. Some guidance would be appreciated! Thank you!

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Open Legend always uses one-roll combat, there is no different damage dice unless the weapon has its own attacking attribute (for example, a sword of shadows might have Entropy 6 that it can use to attack). The difference between weapons is way more interesting than just doing more damage, you can give them all kinds of different properties; different attack methods, different banes, or whatever special rules you like. Everything you need for creating new weapons is in the weapons table, Special Equipment chapter and the banes list.

As a side note, don’t underestimate giving more advantage to simulate more damaging weapons. It’s a powerful effect, and everyone loves getting to roll big fistsfull of dice every so often (the increased chance of explosions doesn’t hurt either). Just don’t give too much, each level of advantage is like a +2 modifier in D&D; the Deadly property is limited to a max of 3 to prevent it from getting out of hand.

to add to this, there is no “Damage Roll”

You roll your Damaging Attack Roll (vs a Bane Attack Roll), and compare the result to the targets Defense (Guard, Toughness, or Resolve) The difference is the amount of damage that you do. So the more advantage, more chances for explosion, more chances to increase the amoutn of damage you do.

Thank you! I’ll have to take a closer look at the Special Equipment chapter. The advantage does seem more effective with that description. Right now all of my players just have one set of dice from playing D&D and I figured it would be a nuisance for them to reroll 1 die for every tier of advantage they have. I’ll have to let them know to get more dice :slight_smile:

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Right, I was trying to put it in D&D terms that I understood. Before clarification I was confused because it just seemed like advantage gave you a greater chance to be able to succeed or just do slightly more damage. Thank you both for the help

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You don’t re-roll dice with advantage though, just to note. You roll extra dice and then take the highest (though that can be viewed as re-rolling). Once you take the highest, any that exploded, you then explode.

And you use all the same dice in D&D in OL. Though no d12 I suppose.

Once you actually sit down and play it through it starts to all work and you see it better I find.

You can get huge bags of dice in many places online for cheap. I personally bought a collection 20 sets to share between my players before my first OL game. My poor Wyrmwood dice set in the fancy wooden vault ended up neglected, but it was worth it to be able to watch my players roll a 48 one exploding d6 at a time.

Yeah, it just took a while for anyone to reroll (roll multiple of ) a single die, so getting multiple so they can be rolled all at once should fix it

Wow that’s a lot for one die

Welcome to Open Legend, my friend. Exploding dice make sure that every roll can potentially become huge. “Every roll matters” after all :smile:

Yeah, that was what attracted me to using this system instead, and it allowed for a more diverse and varied type of adventure. My friend is now going to attempt a marvel campaign with this system and I get to be Star-Lord

Awesome! Please do come back and let us know how it goes, always great to hear from new players.

Totally, I’m looking forward to it! :grin: