I really like the dice system with the armour semi-soak. Very clever of Bryan Pope.
I particularly like the damage bell-curve effect
The less dice you roll, the more random the result, the more dice you roll, the more likely you will roll damage = dice rolled (half crits).
This means that if you want predictive damage. you go with buffed elites and if you want random damage, you go with weenie swarm.
What I dislike is the d12. It adds luck into what is otherwise a skillful game (especially Light or Lightning but also Dodge, Escape etc).
One solution I have considered is that instead of a d12, each player has a pack of 12 playing cards of 1 suit: Ace (1), 2-10, Jack (11), Queen (12). Each player's pack is shuffled and their top card is drawn instead of rolling a d12 then placed in that player's discard pile. Players may look at discard piles. When there is only 1 card left in your deck, shuffle your discard pile into your deck.
This mechanic removes the utter randomness where I roll 1 to 6 on all of my d12s and my opponent rolls 7 to 12 on all of his d12s. The god of d12 says: "hey, the dice rolled all numbers equally". But for different players. Reshuffle when 1 card left adds a bit of random bias but prevents 100% knowledge. If your last 2 cards are Jack and Queen, it gives you strong predictive knowledge to levereage on your next d12 but at a cost of losing a good roll you could have had earlier in that cycle, a fairer mechanic than 100% knowing your every 12th roll. Allowing looking at discard piles is so as to not favour an eidectic memory card counting player (like me).
Games can be won or lost on the roll of a key d12. This is rarely the case for attack dice. The damage result bell curve, hence variability, is a key game mechanic when considering your strategy and build.
Sorry to turn the focus of this thread to the effect die but that's where the luck lies in the game.
