How to Make D&D Accessible to the Non-Mathematically Inclined?

[WayneLigon]

I started creating a sheet with all relevent modifiers my characters encounter along with the bonus type.

I do the same horizontal tabulation for things like the character's special DCs from feats, like Shield Slam, Shield Charge, and Stunning Fist.

Then when it is my turn I can more easily calculate things because the more complex things are precalculated, like in the damage, and the modifiers are listed to remind which ones don't stack.

This is the way you do it. Come prepared, stay prepared. Everyone needs to go back and look at Eric's post, and see how it's done, then copy that method. Really, it's the only organized way of doing things. I played a barbarian in a party with several arcane casters and divine casters; at any time I could have five, six, or more conditional mods hit me plus my own conditional sliding stats from Rage.

Doing a simple table with the common mods was not only a help to me, it was a courtesy to my GM and fellow players. I didn't slow the game down and could give quick and correct info.

Another thing we'd normally do is this: we use Tac-Tiles. So in a big battle one person would pay attention to the mods being tossed out and write it down off to the side of the battle. Bard starts singing: write down +2 to hit. Bless goes off, another +1, etc etc.

Another thing that helps speed play along at higher levels is the ever-popular pre-rolling. If I'm at the point where I have five attacks doing 1d8+2d6+12+1d4, then I owe it to myself and everyone else to pre-do a to-hit roll and pre-roll all that damage so when the GM gets to my initiative I can say:

Me: 35, 30, 29, 13, 19
GM: hit, hit, hit, miss, hit.
Me: (checking off the corresponding hits) "I do 170 points, 70 points of that is fire damage, 20 points is Holy. I lay into him with a series of effective chops and spit in his eye on that miss, grinning like a devil. 'Ah, take that, laddie! Looks like ye'll dine with your brothers in hell tonight!'"

Do some simple prep work and not just sit down at the table with a mess for a character sheet that hasn't been updated in two levels.

 

[Pielorinho]

Bard starts singing: write down +2 to hit. Bless goes off, another +1, etc etc.

Oh, dear. Both of these are morale bonuses. You shouldn't be taking another +1 to hit!

And so we see why the math is difficult .

Edit: Just to add to the confusion, if the bard is singing the "Inspire Greatness" song, it's a competence bonus and therefore stacks with Bless, but only for a few allies. The more common "Inspire Courage" song applies to all allies in range, but does not stack with bless.

Daniel

 

[lin_fusan]

Similar problem

We have a new player also and I think using a computer program to generate her character really slowed down her ability to understand the rules.

Now the characters are hitting 4th and 5th level so there are a lot of modifiers starting to pop up.

I'm going to try to have a little rules session with her and encourage her to go back to using her own hand-written character sheet.

As for the modifiers, we are using note cards, folding them in half so they stand up, and placing them in front of the players/characters who are affected. Kind of works.

Although it goes the other way now. The fighter in the group typically has this interaction with me:

Fighter: I hit AC 28.

Me: THat's a hit. Roll dama...

Fighter: No, wait, I get that morale bonus! AC 29!

Me: That's still a hit. Roll dama...

Fighter: And I have Heroism! AC thirty-something!

Me: Nope, you went right around the other side of the loop and its a complete miss. Sorry. No damage.

 

[tleilaxu]

i only read the first page of this thread, but the best idea i saw was making some flash cards that resolve the math for, say, the five most common actions the player takes.

 

[RFisher]

Yeah. I create a table on my character sheet with all my possible ACs: with shield, without shield, & any other situation that is common for that character due to feats or spells or whatever. Each row not only lists all the modifiers that apply, but the normal, flat-footed, & touch totals.

Similarly, I make a table with a row for each weapon+situation for that character with AB & damage pre-calculated, as well as itemizing the modifiers that apply to that row so I can audit them. For a monk I think I had on the order of 15 rows for just two or three weapons (including unarmed).

It just struck me that it's kind of ironic how we sometimes laud the newer games for eliminating the tables of the older games, yet I end up creating tables on my character sheet instead.

 

[satori01]

At low level a DM can calculate most of a players to hit etc. You can also assign a math buddy. I hate to say this, but I do think that laziness plays a rather large role in people 'not being able to do math' at least in a D&D context.

As a DM I run multiple monsters, NPC, etc at a time. I use dice rolling programs, spread sheets, cheat sheets, and the quintessential when in doubt Power Attack for 5. The players that I see struggle, are the same ones that probably received alot of help leveling up their characters, do not write down situational modifiers like Inspire Courage, or if they do write down the situational modifier it becomes permanent, as they willy nilly keep track of their character sheet. Some of this is gripping, but when you DM someone for 3 years, and they still do not know that skill ranks maximums are level +3, and that simply skills are ranks + attribute modifier... unless a learning disability is involved, it comes down to not learning the rules of operation.

I also recommend that non mathmatically inclined players play a themed spontaneous caster like a Warmage, or Beguiler, very easy to play, (fire and forget), and Spell DCs are static for the most part, BAB, Str modifiers (1.5, 1 or .5), critical hits and the like is often overwhelming.

 

[el-remmen]

In the previously given example, the player says, "My character is scared. She wants to run far away."

The DM replies, "If you do that, you'll run past three orcs, each of whom will get a chance to attack you. Do you want to risk it?"

To which the player might respond, "How likely are the orcs to hit me?" or more abstractly, "How dangerous will that be?" or even, "Am I going to die?"

How do you answer those questions without using math?

In the style of game I run no matter how well the players know math or the rules all descriptions are like the kind you describe.

As far as I am concerned, characters have to judge for themselves based on their experience and the immediate conditions of the battle how dangerous something is. That is part of the fun of the game, dealing with the unknown factor.