Convoluted houserule, perhaps able to be simplified as a Macro

OK, so my game is a Shadowrun 5e that we're trying to houserule to fit our playstyle better—which generally means a little less grit, and a good deal less crunch (and yes, we've looked into Anarchy, we didn't care for it). And one thing my group and I have all agreed upon is we don't care for the way Limits are implemented. (If you're not familiar with Shadowrun, you have a dice pool of d6's, and every 5 or 6 is considered a "hit". ("/r Xd6>5" is the favored Shadowrun roll command.) Average tests require 2 hits, hard ones 4, very hard ones 6, so on. If it's a combat roll, extra hits can cause extra damage. To try to keep the bonus hits from getting out of hand, they implemented "limits", stat-derived caps on how many of your hits you can use. So, yes, a character adept at things may have a limit of 8, which prevents extreme overkill, but a lot of characters can wind up with limits like 3 or 4 in fields they aren't strong in, which doesn't just make difficult tests longshots, it makes them literally impossible.) We've looked at this a lot of ways, and the only solution I feel works is a houserule we've agreed calculating manually would just slow the game down (especially in combat). The thinking is, since hits are 5's or 6's, you count 6, 5, 6, 5, 6 etc. up to your limit (so an equal number of 6's and 5's are expended, but if the limit is an odd number, the odd hit is expended by a 6). Beyond that, only sixes count. So, for example, if your limit is 5, and you roll 6 fives and 4 six's, it would go: 6, 5, 6, 5, 6 [limit hit] 6 = six hits. (the remaining 4 fives are forfeit). I've futzed around with commands and macros before but this one feels out of my league. Can I set my players up with a macro that'll do the heavy lifting? 

Can you give more examples. I'd love to help, but I think more information would make it easier since I've never played Shadowrun.

The only thing I can think of on a free account is to use the  sort roll syntax , and then you'd have to manually calculate the number of successes. This could be automated with a script (pro perk), but I'm not seeing a way short of that. Silvyre, the resident maestro of macros, may have some crazy mathemagicks that could help you.

Certainly. Ex. 1: First, an example of how it works in the official 5e rulebook of Shadowrun: The dice pools rolled are usually the Skill being used for its test (e.g., Perception, Swimming, Driving) and the associated attribute (e.g., Intuition, Reaction, Strength). So, let's say our group's muscle, Shizuo, is rolling Perception (his rating 5) with the associated attribute Intuition (his rating 4)—that's a dice pool of 9, and unbeknownst to him and his player, the success threshold for the test is 5. He has a great roll—5, 6, 6, 2, 1, 5, 3, 6, 4. 2 fives, 3 sixes—combined that's 5 hits, enough to succeed. But his mental limit (the category Intuition is in) is 4. Which means that he can only keep 4 hits, and he was never going to naturally succeed at that test to begin with. Success threshold: 5 Limit: 4 Roll yield: 2 fives, 3 sixes Hits: 5, 6, 6, 5 [limit hit] 6 = 4 hits Ex. 2: However , with the house rule, that would have been a success. Success threshold: 5 Limit: 4 Roll yield: 2 fives, 3 sixes Hits: 6, 5, 6, 5 [limit hit] 6 = 5 hits Ex. 3: Now, if that last 6 was a 5 instead, it would not have been under the house rule: Success threshold: 5 Limit: 4 Roll yield: 3 fives, 2 sixes 6, 5, 6, 5 [limit hit] 5 = 4 hits Ex. 4: Let's look at what would happen under the house rule if you expend all your 5's before reaching your limit and have to start using 6's instead: Success Threshold: 7 Limit: 5 Roll yield: 1 five, 5 sixes  Hits: 6, 5, 6, 6, 6 [limit hit] 6 = 6 hits (this resulted in all the hits being valid—but this roll would have been a failure even without a limit) Ex. 5, Alternatively, here's what happens with the house rule when you expend your 6's before reaching the limit: Success Threshold: 7 Limit: 5 Roll yield: 7 fives, 2 sixes Hits: 6, 5, 6, 5, 5 [limit hit] 5, 5, 5, 5  = 5 hits (this resulted in the limit behaving the way it does in game, it nullified all hits beyond it because there weren't enough sixes to reap the house rule's benefit) Ex. 6: Here's one last example of when there are enough 5's and 6's to cover the limit: Success Threshold: 6 Limit: 3 Roll yield: 5 fives, 4 sixes Hits: 6, 5, 6, [limit hit] 6, 6, 5, 5, 5, 5  = 5 hits So, to try to distill this down to algebra: We'll let P=the total number of dice in that roll's dice pool, F=the number of dice that came up as fives, S=the number of dice that came up as sixes, and L=the limit for this test We'd need inputs for P and L. Then the macro would roll and produce F and S. X will be the number of sixes (S) expended by the pre-limit count, Y will be the number of fives expended by the pre-limit count, and Z will be the remaining sixes to accrue hits past the limit. ⤴ will mean round up, ⤵ will mean round down. X = (L/2)⤴ Y = (L/2)⤵ Z = S - X Unfortunately, this doesn't account for cases like examples 4 or 5, when  S < X or F < Y. (I hope this is enough in the way of examples and clarity, I fear I've devolved into unhinged rambling at some point.)

Unfortunately, it is not possible to implement this dice mechanic without writing an API Script . (API access requires a Game's Creator to have an active Pro subscription.)

Yeah, not surprising considering I couldn't even capture it all in equation form. Does the subscription need to be active for the mechanic to be used at all, or just when it's created or edited?

Dack C. said: Does the subscription need to be active for the mechanic to be used at all, or just when it's created or edited? A Game's Creator can only access/test/use API Scripts while they possess and active Pro subscription. Anyone can write an API Script using JavaScript. On a personal note, if players are concerned about failing extremely difficult tests (5+ threshold), I would encourage them to acquire items or perform pre-test prep that adds to their dice pools and/or increases their limits.

Only way I can think of doing this is with math. Would have to think of a function that goes from 1/6 to 1/3 as Limit starts at 0 and approaches Threshold. The rate of change is also affected by the number of dice being rolled. At this point you wouldn't be rolling d6's anymore.