As a player, how would defense rolls work for you (rather than DM doing atk rolls)?

F

fba827

Adventurer

• Aug 5, 2008

• #1

This question could apply to most game systems, and I'm asking for opinions and experiences (not break down rule mechanics) ... so I thought I'd ask this here ...

Brief background to put my question in to context:
I (as the DM) find that I hate rolling dice for enemies. I find it tedious and I even feel bad when I hit the PCs.

I am strongly considering having the PCs do defense rolls instead. Where the DC is (the enemy's attack bonus +10) vs. the PC rolling (1d20 + defense score - 10) or similar.

That will at least cut down on attack rolls for me leaving mostly skill, initiative, and damage rolls.

I know there was a 3.5 rules alternative that presented this similar mechanic.

As for my questions:
Those of you that haven't heard of it before, as a player, would you be open to the idea of having to make a defense roll when being attacked (rather than a monster making an attack roll) ? Or is this really too radical for you and you'd be confused or otherwise question the sanity of the DM for not wanting to roll attacks?

And to those of you that have implemented similar mechanics in your games (past or present), how has it worked for you? Do the players like/hate it? Does the DM like/hate it?


I just want to get a vibe as to how much resistance I could get if/when I ask my players to try it ... Thanks in advance for any insights based on experience.

 

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M

Moggthegob

First Post

• Aug 5, 2008

• #2

This is a homerule that seems similar to one I used for one whole campaign of C&C.

While castles and Crusades is a bit different from 3.5 DnD, the end result was still fun and took alot of the 'blame' off of my shoulders. What I did was, for whoever it was, have the players roll 'defense' while I rolled 'attack'-- getting rid of the base 10 and allowing the players to roll instead.

This gave a situation which we felt acted more like cinematic and arguably realistic combat. After all, in movies sometimes the guy defending himself makes a mistake, rather than the guy on offense doing anything extraordinary. In C&C especially, it gave a great bump to play since the numbers are lower, the dice matter more all the time..

I am a huge fan of rolling as much as possible, so even when I run 4e I have the players roll their saves rather than go with the 10+ bonuses average formula.


That said, this approach is probably not as popular among groups who do not like rolling as much, but its RPG, if we werent rolling dice, we'd just be swapping yarns.

 

blargney the second

blargney the minute's son

• Aug 5, 2008

• #3

We use players roll all the dice in all our 3.5 games because all the players and the DMs love it. It's fantastic.
-blarg

 

Family

First Post

• Aug 5, 2008

• #4

We tried a diceless, use the average, night.

-Worked SURPRISINGLY well, kept the pace up, no criticals though.

 

Asmor

First Post

• Aug 5, 2008

• #5

blargney the second said:

We use players roll all the dice in all our 3.5 games because all the players and the DMs love it. It's fantastic.
-blarg

Click to expand...

I tried that in 3rd edition. I liked the idea, but my players hated it.

 

H

Harr

First Post

• Aug 5, 2008

• #6

In my group the players roll for the monsters. No clever defense-rolls or houserules for inverting the chances though - they just literally roll for the monsters. Usually the player that's being targetted rolls but it can be whoever wants to. They roll damage as well. They roll everything, actually - nowadays I hardly ever touch the dice except for stuff like rolling for a random treasure or something.

I've found it frees up a surprsing amount of mental energy for me to focus on directing the game, and keeps them entertained and (more importantly) busy

 

Pseudopsyche

First Post

• Aug 5, 2008

• #7

As a DM, I used the Players Roll All the Dice variant in 3.5, and the players didn't seem to have any trouble catching on. I liked it, since it cut down immensely on the amount of dice I rolled. However, I switched back to the default rules for 4e, for two related reasons.

First, a number of 4e powers are immediate interrupts that allow you to boost a defense score to negate a hit, and I these seem underpowered if the player doesn't know with certainty whether using the power would make a difference. So I know call out the defense score that an attack would hit, and the player tells me whether it hit, possibly using a power to cause it to miss.

Second, I want an average roll to give the PCs minimal knowledge about the monster's attack bonus, instead of maximal knowledge (mathematically, information gain). For example, on a (monster's) attack roll of 10 with an attack bonus of +10, the PCs observe a 20 and know only that the attack bonus is between 0 and 20. On a (player's) defense roll of 10 with a defense bonus of +10, the PCs learn that the equivalent attack bonus is 9 or greater on a hit, and they learn it is 8 or smaller on a miss.

Note that you need to add 12 to the attack bonus to obtain the "defense DC," so that a +0 defense roll against "defense DC" 12 has the same 45% chance to avoid damage as a +0 attack roll against AC 10.

 

R

Runestar

First Post

• Aug 5, 2008

• #8

Probably be indifferent about it.

 

S

Scurvy_Platypus

Explorer

• Aug 5, 2008

• #9

I recently finished off a year long game where we did opposed Attack/Defense rolls.

Player rolls to hit, adds BaB and modifiers.
Critter rolls to defend, adds Defense bonus.
Whomever rolls higher succeeds.

And of course, players rolled their defense just like critters.

Every Defense roll after the first suffered a -5 penalty, just like Attacks do.

_All_ my players loved it. Instead of sitting around waiting for it to come around to their turn, the players were _much_ more involved. Ganging up on something had a payoff (multiple Defense rolls), and now a character still had a chance to hit, even if they rolled a "lousy" 6.

Yes, there was more dice rolling in general, but it didn't actually slow down the game. I'll note that the game was capped at level 8, so this might not work so well in "standard" D&D games at high levels.

Armor was DR instead of AC.

 

El Mahdi

Muad'Dib of the Anauroch

• Aug 5, 2008

• #10

Both my last group (ended because I moved) and my current group use defensive rolls and nobody has a problem with it. I explained it as "characters get better at attacks, why not get better at defense", added a defensive bonus progression, and everybody took to it with no complaints (in fact they were eager to try it). I've definately found it easier on my end with preset DC's for Monsters and NPC's.