One thing I've never understood about Ars Magica (in this edition or any of the previous ones): Why is '1' good, but '10' bad?
If 3 is better than 2, then 2 should be better than 1. Seems logical to me.
So one of my house rules has been 1 = potential botch and 10 = double.
Now I'm considering a second house rule on this subject.
10 no longer produces exploding doubles. Instead keep each 10, then roll again. Every time you roll a new 10, keep it and roll again...
So a roll of 10, 10, 10, 3 would be 10+10+10+3 = 33 instead of 2x2x2x3 = 24. Of course, 10+10+10+9 = 39, but 2x2x2x9 = 72...
It seems to smooth out the results a little bit, give a possibility of higher than a standard simple die, but not nearly as wild a result on some of the more unlikely rolls...
Opinions, thoughts, flames(?!?) are all welcome...
Ummm... because there is no "10" on many d10's, only 0-9?
This lowers the average roll, as now you can follow a "double" only by 1-9, not 2-10. But whatever floats yer boat.
Again, more math changes, and again, whatever.
Myself, the only similar Houserule I have (because rolling an exploding dice followed by a low number is depressing) is that an exploding dice always gives a result of at least a final value of "10". Roll a 1,4? 10. 1, 1, 2? = 10. 1, 1, 1, 2 = 16, so don't complain. Beyond that, never worried about it (but I've never seen a roll of over 1000 either.) I'd just cap it if I were worried about that, but my players ~tend~ to be "reasonable" on such things.
As a matter of fact the dice system you use rekres is more akin to Cyberpunk or a french games called "Agone". and it is less math heavy but tend to lower the final result of lucky rolls.
While we like the idea of "rolling again" and can't deny the obvious glee in potentially getting to roll a third or fourth time, we don't like the disappointment of rolling 1 followed by 2.
Our solution (which we don't currently use as it means heading further into house-rule territory) is to treat a roll of 1 as a 10 and then roll again. On the subsequent roll each number is as printed with the exception of 0 which is counted as 10.
It might not be as exciting but it ensures that your second roll is worth making.
