Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 8392063" data-attributes="member: 6704184">I'm very transparent, as I don't believe at all in the &quot;DM is God&quot; mentality, and I likewise expect a decent amount of transparency from my DMs, though not as much as I give. We all have different styles, and one of us really likes to occlude things and keep us guess and build tension using that lack of knowledge. But my players know what the DC is of a check or save is before they make it, they know when the enemy hits half HP and when they're &quot;on death's door&quot; which just means &quot;within an average non-boosted hit or two from death&quot;, etc. How I run situations like the OP is fairly simple. The players know basically what is happening, how many dice are being rolled, etc, but i don't say the names of abilities and the like. So, when they fought an archer, I told them that even riding fast on a horse she was standing up in the saddle, seeming to steady her bow and take an extra beat to get the perfect shot, which was gonna add extra dice to the damage. When a player asked if it was a &quot;use before the roll&quot; or &quot;use when you hit&quot; ability, I told them it was the latter (I don't like NPCs wasting very limited abilities too much, turns tough fights into cake walks too easily). I then rolled the IIRC 1d8+1d10+mod damage and gave the total. Likewise, when they fought an arcane titan (modified warforged titan), I told them at the start that they could target each arm, the legs, the torso and head, and the cannon on it's torso, and each had it's own AC and HP. In addition to the in-world information about what they were seeing, I told them when it cast Heat Metal on it's weapon arms and that it would do extra fire damage as a result, when it took half damage by casting Absorb Elements, when it absorbed power to recharge it's limited use abilities from taking damage from a spell with a level and that it gained more charges the higher the spell slot level, and even roughly how much HP it's arcane energy shield had remaining. But your player still seems...intense.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="doctorbadwolf, post: 8392063, member: 6704184"] I'm very transparent, as I don't believe at all in the "DM is God" mentality, and I likewise expect a decent amount of transparency from my DMs, though not as much as I give. We all have different styles, and one of us really likes to occlude things and keep us guess and build tension using that lack of knowledge. But my players know what the DC is of a check or save is before they make it, they know when the enemy hits half HP and when they're "on death's door" which just means "within an average non-boosted hit or two from death", etc. How I run situations like the OP is fairly simple. The players know basically what is happening, how many dice are being rolled, etc, but i don't say the names of abilities and the like. So, when they fought an archer, I told them that even riding fast on a horse she was standing up in the saddle, seeming to steady her bow and take an extra beat to get the perfect shot, which was gonna add extra dice to the damage. When a player asked if it was a "use before the roll" or "use when you hit" ability, I told them it was the latter (I don't like NPCs wasting very limited abilities too much, turns tough fights into cake walks too easily). I then rolled the IIRC 1d8+1d10+mod damage and gave the total. Likewise, when they fought an arcane titan (modified warforged titan), I told them at the start that they could target each arm, the legs, the torso and head, and the cannon on it's torso, and each had it's own AC and HP. In addition to the in-world information about what they were seeing, I told them when it cast Heat Metal on it's weapon arms and that it would do extra fire damage as a result, when it took half damage by casting Absorb Elements, when it absorbed power to recharge it's limited use abilities from taking damage from a spell with a level and that it gained more charges the higher the spell slot level, and even roughly how much HP it's arcane energy shield had remaining. But your player still seems...intense. [/QUOTE]

Verification