Design Diary 2:
No Attack Rolls.
Just Damage.

The first time I told a playtest group there were no attack rolls in Left for the Vultures, one of them looked at me like I’d told him Santa wasn’t real. “So… I just deal damage?” Yup. You just deal damage. It sounds like I removed something, but it’s actually the opposite.

When you attack, you roll your weapon’s die and add your Ferocity modifier (or Nimbleness for certain ranged weapons). The target subtracts their Defense from that number, and whatever’s left comes off their Physical Health.

Defense isn’t passive either. If the target hasn’t acted yet in the round, they can Guard: add their Resilience and any shield bonus on top of their armor. Reduce incoming damage to zero and they walk away clean. It’s a real choice with real stakes, not a static number on a character sheet.

Critical damage works like this: roll the maximum value on your die, and you immediately roll that die again and add it to the total. Roll maximum again, you roll again. It keeps going until you stop hitting the highest number. Weapons marked with an asterisk (2d6*, for example) use this rule, and each die in the pool can trigger independently. Roll max on both dice of a 2d6* attack and you’re rolling two additional dice on top.

That’s the system. Now here’s why it works.

5e wizards wander dungeons in robes. That’s always taken me out of the immersion. The game mechanically punishes armor use for casters, so players leave it off, and then we all just agree to pretend it makes sense that a 130-pound geriatric academic in linen is trading blows with goblins.

In Left for the Vultures, every point of Defense matters because every attack is going to land unless you do something about it. You’re not hoping the enemy misses because they’re not missing. The question is whether your armor absorbs it or whether it cuts through.

Exploding dice mean a peasant with a knife can drop a trained soldier if fate is on their side. This is intentional.

Combat in Left for the Vultures is a rollercoaster. Most attacks land somewhere in the middle range. Then one roll cascades and suddenly someone’s Physical Health is in freefall. That volatility keeps everyone at the table paying attention, because the fight can shift in a single action.

5e combat has two rolls baked into every attack: the attack roll to hit, then the damage roll if it connects. Add modifiers to both, check for advantage, check for resistance, check for concentration… by the time a full round resolves at a table of five, you’ve spent fifteen minutes on something that should feel like fifteen seconds.

Left for the Vultures cuts straight to damage. One roll, one modifier, subtract Defense, done. Combine that with a single action economy and turns move fast enough that no one’s checking their phone while they wait.

Big damage numbers also accelerate fights naturally. When hits land hard and armor is the only thing standing between you and serious pain, encounters don’t drag. They build and break quickly, the way a real dangerous situation would.

Removing attack rolls sounds like you lose tactical depth. You actually don’t, because you trade one kind of decision (did I hit?) for better ones.

Guard is a decision. Equipment load-out is a decision. Positioning is a decision. When to push your Vengeance Dice into an attack is a decision (more on those soon). Every one of those choices has a direct, legible outcome. You’re making calls that shape the fight, with real agency in what (on the surface) looks like the opposite.