You may or may not need to read this
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/806916/macro-the-micro-card-game (http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/806916/macro-the-micro-card-game)
PvP game, hit to kill & win.
Statistics are
HP
Endurance
Dexterity
Evasion
The damage a card inflicts is printed onto the card and not the character.
Main battle is
1. Damage - Endurance
2. HP - The Result
Dexterity is an attribute that let's you surpass Endurance and damage full power by landing a critical hit. Evasion is the opposite to Dexterity and tries to throw off potential critical hits.
I'm looking for anyway to do this, without randomness (or too much of it at least) if anyone knows if even possible? Question seems to be too complex to get out of a quick Google.
Something along the lines of a comparison between the 2 stats on the opposing players? For example:
If Dexterity is more than double Evasion then a critical hit happens (ignore armour/double damage/etc.).
If Evasion is more than double Dexterity then an evade happens (double armour/halve damage/ignore damage/etc.).
Basically, Evasion and Dexterity on players would need to usually be reasonably close to each other, with buffs/debuffs or equipment allowing changes to them (either temporary or permanent). This allows players to build a deck suited towards such a strategy if they so desire; it even makes players consider having at least 1 option open to defend against such a play style.
As a bonus, "More than double" is a very easy thing to calculate/check as a game progresses.
That is what I was thinking initially. While buffs do exist wouldn't it be one sided to have one stat static to the other? So outside of buffs there would always be a critical per hit?
Though I guess if I kept it at a level where either stat would need to have been buffed to actually inflict damage than it could work in a balanced way probably.
Yea, that option does rely a lot upon the balance of the cards produced and a lot of playtesting.
Alternatively, you could consider allowing players to discard a card from hand (or in this case, using an ability for no effect) in order to provide some kind of bonus defensively. For example, use an ability for no effect to get +1 defense, 2 abilities for +2 etc. In this way they can avoid taking damage but their opponent still gets a benefit from having raised their dexterity massively.