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I haven't tried this change in Angband, but I do have some experience with this dice-heavy style of damage from Sil. My experiences from there make me a bit wary of this change. The highly variable damage makes it much more difficult to properly assess risk. You could one-shot two orcs, which makes you think they're not a serious threat, and then spend five turns getting the third down to 1/4 health. In the meantime, another dozen show up and swarm you.
Meanwhile, Angband's much more reliable damage means it's much easier to get a sense of how dangerous a given situation is.
Highly variable damage also runs the risk of making the game feel "unfair." I don't care what the statistics say, human beings don't remember all the times they one-shotted dragons, they remember all the times they 5-shotted snagas, so having highly variable damage will frustrate people much more. It can also obscure poor tactical decision making behind luck. Obscuring poor decisions in turn makes it harder to *learn* from those mistakes and again makes the game more frustrating.
All that said, I'm not necessarily opposed to this change if we give players the tools they need to properly assess risks. And just showing your average damage isn't going to cut it. One way to do this I think would be to make either one of the two following changes to the information displays:
1. Rather than just showing what my average damage per round is, the game shows me a range. So instead of "5 blows doing an average of 150 damage per round" it would say "5 blows doing between 100 and 200 damage." This way I can easily decide "Ok, worst case scenario, it'll take me 20 rounds to kill that dragon. Worst case it could probably kill me in five. Maybe I need to soften it up with some more reliable damage, like spells or wands. Or maybe just avoid it. Yeah, let's do that." It also introduces a new dimension to combat tradeoffs (do I take the more reliable weapon with a lower maximum damage, or the less reliable weapon with the higher maximum damage?). And I'm all for making equipment decisions even more interesting.
2. Monster memory shows something similar to what Brogue does. "It will take you between 5 and 20 turns to kill this creature using just melee attacks. The creature will take between 3 and 10 turns to kill you if they used only melee attacks."
I also think this should only apply to melee. Give ranged weapons more reliable damage. Damage spikiness in ranged combat can already come from the fact that you only have a limited number of really good arrows at any time.
Meanwhile, Angband's much more reliable damage means it's much easier to get a sense of how dangerous a given situation is.
Highly variable damage also runs the risk of making the game feel "unfair." I don't care what the statistics say, human beings don't remember all the times they one-shotted dragons, they remember all the times they 5-shotted snagas, so having highly variable damage will frustrate people much more. It can also obscure poor tactical decision making behind luck. Obscuring poor decisions in turn makes it harder to *learn* from those mistakes and again makes the game more frustrating.
All that said, I'm not necessarily opposed to this change if we give players the tools they need to properly assess risks. And just showing your average damage isn't going to cut it. One way to do this I think would be to make either one of the two following changes to the information displays:
1. Rather than just showing what my average damage per round is, the game shows me a range. So instead of "5 blows doing an average of 150 damage per round" it would say "5 blows doing between 100 and 200 damage." This way I can easily decide "Ok, worst case scenario, it'll take me 20 rounds to kill that dragon. Worst case it could probably kill me in five. Maybe I need to soften it up with some more reliable damage, like spells or wands. Or maybe just avoid it. Yeah, let's do that." It also introduces a new dimension to combat tradeoffs (do I take the more reliable weapon with a lower maximum damage, or the less reliable weapon with the higher maximum damage?). And I'm all for making equipment decisions even more interesting.
2. Monster memory shows something similar to what Brogue does. "It will take you between 5 and 20 turns to kill this creature using just melee attacks. The creature will take between 3 and 10 turns to kill you if they used only melee attacks."
I also think this should only apply to melee. Give ranged weapons more reliable damage. Damage spikiness in ranged combat can already come from the fact that you only have a limited number of really good arrows at any time.
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