Rolling Dice #

The Basic Total//Effect Roll #

When attempting to do anything that has a chance of a variable outcome, roll 3 six-sided dice.

• The total of all dice added together is used for a broad range of general outcomes and is styled as Total.
• The individual dice used - Low for the lowest of the 3, Mid for the middle of the 3, and High for the highest of the 3 - are styled as Effect.

For example, for a roll where the dice are 4, 1, and 6, the Total is 11; the Low Die is 1; the Mid Die is 4, and the High Die is 6.

This lets you use both the Total and the Effect for various things; for example, you might use the Total to see how well an action or outcome went, while using the Effect to determine a secondary randomized outcome.

Valiant Horizon #

An enemy Archer uses Pin Down on the ranger Peregrine.

Pin Down: Deal Low Die Weapon Harm. 13+: The target takes the Harm again if they move this or next round.

They roll the following dice: 5, 2, 6. Pin Down deals Low Die Harm by default: as such, the Effect is 2, so Peregrine would take 2 Weapon Harm. However, the Total is 13, and as such the secondary effect also triggers: Peregrine would take that 2 Harm again if they move this or next round.

Most rolls expect to have thresholds defined in the ability or event being rolled.

Advantage and Disadvantage #

If something is giving you an edge when you would roll, or it’s an easier task than expected, this is referred to as Advantage (sometimes abbreviated to Adv). When you gain Advantage, roll 1 extra die and use the highest 3.

If something is holding you back on an attempt or it’s harder than expected, this is referred to as Disadvantage (sometimes abbreviated to Disadv). When you have Disadvantage, roll 1 extra die and use the lowest 3.

You may have multiple instances of Advantage or Disadvantage, up to 3 (in which case, you’d be rolling 3 extra dice, for a total of 6, and taking the highest or lowest 3). In each case, roll 1 extra die for each instance and take the highest or lowest (so if you have 2 Advantage, roll 2 extra dice and use the highest 3). If you have both Advantage and Disadvantage, they cancel each other out (so if you have 2 Advantage and 1 Disadvantage, you have 1 Advantage after canceling out.)

Why use Advantage/Disadvantage instead of flat adjustments? No matter how many adjustments you make, when you roll you’re always only ever adding 3 values together before Escalation, so the speed of resolving a roll stays relatively constant regardless of how much is going on.

The only thing that should typically add to or subtract from a roll is Escalation: for everything else, do your best to just use Advantage and Disadvantage. Change this at your own peril.

Step Up and Step Down #

When an ability steps up the die used in a roll, use a higher die than originally indicated (Low to Mid to High, add +1 to the die value per step from there). For example, if you would use the Mid die of [4, 1, 6] to get 4 but the die is stepped up, use the High Die instead for 6. If it were to be stepped up again, you would add 1 to that to get 7.

When an ability steps down the die used in a roll, use a lower die than originally indicated (High to Mid to Low, take -1 from the die value per step from there, minimum 0). For example, if you would use the Mid die of [4, 1, 6] for 4 but the die is stepped down, you would instead use the Low Die for 1. If it were to be stepped down again, you would subtract 1 from that to get 0.

If flat values given are stepped up or down, increase or decrease the flat value by 1 per step up or down.

Valiant Horizon #

In Valiant Horizon, Vulnerability steps up certain kinds of incoming Harm and Resistance steps down certain kinds of incoming Harm. In the above example, if Peregrine were Vulnerable to Weapon Harm they would take 5 Harm instead of 2 (e.g. mid die instead of low die). If Peregrine were Resistant to Weapon Harm instead, they would take 1 Harm instead of 2 (e.g. low die minus one instead of low die, because there isn’t another die to step it down to from there).

This has the same principle as Advantage/Disadvantage: flatten out a lot of in-game calculation.

Probabilities #

Below is the probability of achieving that value or higher for any given roll, as well as average Total and Effect for a given Advantage or Disadvantage.

• For a base roll, the Total has a roughly 50% chance of 11 or higher, 25% chance of 13 or higher, and 75% chance of 9 or higher. 9+, 11+, and 13+ are great thresholds to use because of this.
• The first Advantage or Disadvantage tweaks this Total up or down by about +/- 2, while subsequent Advantages and Disadvantages tweak it by about +/- 1: as a result, a ~25% chance of a 13+ becomes ~50%.
• For Effect, Advantage has a stronger effect on Low Die than High Die, and vice versa for Disadvantage. Stepping up or down has a consistently stronger impact on Effect than advantage or disadvantage - about 1 to 1.5 instead of 0.2 to 1.

Advanced Usages #

Halving Effect #

Sometimes you can use half of an Effect die - rounding down, minimum 1 - turns a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 die into a 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3. This is helpful for something that’s supposed to stay within a tight range - Low Die is almost always a 1, Mid Die is usually 1-2, High Die is usually 2-3.

Oftentimes you can just use a flat value instead of half a die. It’s a handy tool to have around though: a big advantage to using half of a die instead of a flat amount is that it puts more of a ceiling on how high or low it can be if stepped up or down.

Inverting Effect #

Individual Effect Probability #

Here’s the chance of rolling a given Effect or lower/higher:

Low Die #

Mid Die #

High Die #