What AC did you hit? Adjudicating Immediate Interrupts

[Wulfgar76]

Apologies if this has been discussed before as this seems to be a pretty fundamental question:

For immediate interrupt powers that raise a defense in response to an attack, like the wizard's Shield spell, is the DM/Player obliged to tell the attack roll before they use the power?

If yes it makes Immediate Interrupt powers that raise defenses very, very good - effectively negating an attack every time used...

DM: "The orc hits you with his greataxe."
PLAYER: "What AC did he hit?"
DM: "22"
PLAYER: "I use Shield."
DM: "He misses then."



If no it makes them very weak...

DM: "The orc hits you with his greataxe."
PLAYER: "I use shield, raising my AC to 24."
DM: "The orc still hits. Take 18. Better luck next time."

How do you handle this?

 

[Joshua Randall]

Obligated? No.

Thre are different playstyles. Some DMs announce the defense they hit, some don't.

Clearly knowing with 100% certainty whether your Shield is worth using or not is better than not knowing. It's up to the DM and the players to decide how they want to play.

 

[Piratecat]

I say "it just barely hits you." That communicates that it only missed by a small amount without getting really meta-gamey.

 

[Skallgrim]

Although not evidently required by RAW (in all cases), I always tell the player whether the interrupt would prevent the hit or not (even if I don't tell them exactly what the target number was).

I just think it is more interesting and fun for the interrupts to work than to do nothing. Since I roll the attack and damage at the same time, they also know how much damage it might do. Again, this isn't explicitly required by the rules (in all cases), but I think it is more fun to stop big attacks than stop miniscule damage.

I apply the same rules to PCs, in any case, that I use for NPCs. The NPCs know what the PC rolled to hit them (since the player has to tell me as DM). Therefore, it just seems fair that the player should know what I rolled to hit them.

 

[Joshua Randall]

As a DM, I find it easiest to announce my attack number, and rely on the players to be honest about whether it hits their PC or not.

This is because there are often a lot of effects floating around that I as DM might not be keeping track of as well as the players are.

For example, I might know (from seeing it on his character sheet) that the fighter has AC 20. But as DM, rolling for the orc, I might say, "The orc makes a mighty swing with his axe... [dice clatter]... hitting AC 21 for 13 damage."

Now, the player might have a +2 AC from somewhere. Or he might decide to use an Interrupt. Or some other player might decide to have her character use an Interrupt (the ranger's Disruptive Strike is a favorite).

Conversely, I might say, "The orc makes a slightly less accurate, yet still mighty swing with his axe... [dice clatter]... hitting AC 19 for 13 damage."

Normally this would miss the fighter. But maybe his AC was debuffed by something, so it actually hits.

What I'm saying is, I have enough to worry about as a DM without tracking the PCs' exact defenses for them. So I just announce the numbers and let the players sort it out.

 

[Mort_Q]

I hate that the triggers for interrupts are all over the place in terms of wording... some of them seem so sloppy it's hard to imagine that they're all deliberate.

Shield never worked for me... ever... so I retrained it. Crappy power or bad dice?

My DM and I disagree as to what is fun.

I'd go with the above, and hint that it is worth trying.

 

[Joshua Randall]

My track record with Shield, the githzerai's power, the fighter's Shield-Edge Block, the sorcerer's power, etc... is as follows:

Any attacks against my character that hit will do so by N+1 where N is the amount of defense bonus I could have gained from my Immediate Interrupt power.

 

[Blastin]

Yeah...we first ran it that the player didn't know, and it made the powers pretty useless. We now have been running it that the player knows if it works or not. I mean, really, we are talking about blocking ONE hit an encounter. Fun and cool use of your encounter power/ability. I do like the hint idea though.

 

[Camelot]

I go for the middle ground, where I don't tell the players what I rolled on the dice but if they want to use an immediate action such as shield, I will let them know if it won't have any effect.

If it's something like the deva's memory of a thousand lifetimes, where they can add 1d6 to an attack roll, I'll tell them that it is useless if they would still miss on a result of a 6, but if it could either be useful or a waste, the d6 roll decides that. Obviously, if they use it an they had only missed by one, I just say they hit to save time so they don't need to roll another die.

 

[talarei07]

i allow my players to ask if if shield would stop the hit but wont tell them the attack total