Meet or beat?

[Hussar]

Who is the "active" party when somebody rolls a saving throw?

What is this "roll a saving throw" of which you speak?

The person rolling the saving throw, obviously. He or she's the one shaking a die. So, roll a 15 and you save on anything that needs a 15.

I take it you oversaw the example I gave. A standard attack roll uses exactly this mechanic. So do saves.

I realize that. My point is, when do you actually make this calculation in game? The calculation is already set. It's not like you need to analyze it or break it down during play. The only change your making is shifting that 5% the other way.

dkyle gives the reason "beat DC" is IMO superior: You can let players roll all the dice without having to change any numbers.
I also use it to substitute opposed rolls to keep the randomness in check: one side (usually the player) rolls, my NSCs/monsters take 10.

EDIT: All of this obviously also works with "meet DC", it's just that the side that doesn't roll has to add 11. Now, the question is: What is less elegant? Adding 11 or having to roll x+1 for DC x?

Why? You're presuming that it MUST be 50% even. But, there's no actual reason for that. The base presumption is that, all things being equal, you will succeed on an active roll 55% of the time. Ok, great. It's a heroic fantasy game. You SHOULD succeed a bit more often. Giving the PC's a slight edge like this is not a bad thing considering that they have to get lucky far, far more often than the bad guys do.

As far as opposed rolls go, again, giving the active participant a 5% edge isn't any different than shifting it towards the defender. Why should the defender get the edge?

I get that it's a preference, but, one isn't any inherently better than the other. Other than the idea that d20+bonus=DC succeeds is far more intuitive than, d20+bonus=DC fails.

 

[Dausuul]

What's wrong with giving the advantage to the side that rolls? As was mentioned earlier, it's more interesting to have something happen than not, so, why not give that 5% edge to the active participant?

The advantage to "beat 10+stat" (or "meet 11+stat") is that it makes it so you don't care who's doing the rolling. That's valuable for situations where there isn't one obvious "active participant."

For example, if you sit down to arm-wrestle a dwarf in a tavern, that ought to be a contest of Strength, but it's not clear which of you is the active participant who should get an edge on the roll. You could do opposed rolls instead, of course, but then you've got two different mechanics going on, and opposed rolls are much swingier and harder to calculate and balance.

Then again, when do we ever compare d20+bonus to 10+mod? This is a calculation that I can't think of a time where it actually comes into the game.

Happpens all the time in 4E. Perception versus Stealth and Bluff versus Insight are the most common examples. Although I see your point that the number is usually pre-calculated, and the fact that you can pre-calculate makes me favor "meet 11+stat" over "beat 10+stat." A bit of inelegance at chargen is better than a constant low-grade nuisance in play.

I suppose we could number dice from zero to 19 and that would work too.

And you thought people complained about their books becoming obsolete when 4E came out... don't mess with the dice, man.

 

[delericho]

That is a change.

No, it isn't. However, it is possible that what I wrote wasn't as clear as I thought.

What you're basically saying is "Meet for DCs, Beat for AC".

No, what I'm saying is that it should be meet for all DCs (of which ACs are a subset).

But in opposed rolls, ties should go to the defender, as is the case now.

In case that still isn't clear, here's what I want: do not change the system we have now.

 

[Hussar]

Happpens all the time in 4E. Perception versus Stealth and Bluff versus Insight are the most common examples.

I misspoke.

My point isn't that it doesn't happen. Obviously it happens all the time - heck AC works that way and has since 3e. My point is that the calculation is already built into the game. We don't calculate anything beyond setting the DC. Once that DC (10+whatever) is set, then no more calculations need to be made.

But, if you need to get one better than the DC to succeed, you always have that extra step in there. Sure, it becomes second nature, but, it's still one more thing that you have to teach people.

And, it only applies to d20 rolls. After all, we don't have to do HP+1 to drop a monster - it drops at 0 HP. Although, to be fair, we do have to do Damage +1 to exceed DR. But, that's a slightly different animal since that's just a straight subtraction. Where else do we roll dice?

Of course, this also runs into the critical hits issue as well. If we use Must Exceed, and I need a 19 to hit something, then I always critical it. If I need a 20 to succeed, then I can never hit, but, a 20 always hits... It gets a bit wonky.

In 3e, if I have a 20% miss chance, and I roll a 20, do I miss or not? What if I roll 21?

 

[dkyle]

So, what I'm saying is that it should be meet for all DCs (of which ACs are a subset).

Ah. That's kind of an odd way of saying it, since DC evokes Skill system, and Defender evokes combat. But I get what you're saying.

But in opposed rolls, ties should go to the defender, as is the case now.

In case that still isn't clear, here's what I want: do not change the system we have now.

Actually, that's not how it works in 3.5 or 4E. In 3.5, the higher bonus wins; if there's still a tie, there's a roll-off. In 4E, whoever is initiating the action wins ties. They only need to meet the DC, where opposing roll, or passive Perception/Insight, are treated as the DC. Ordinarily, that would be the "attacker" winning ties.

I don't know about 2E and earlier, but I don't think they qualify as "now".

 

[Tilenas]

Why? You're presuming that it MUST be 50% even. But, there's no actual reason for that. The base presumption is that, all things being equal, you will succeed on an active roll 55% of the time. Ok, great. It's a heroic fantasy game. You SHOULD succeed a bit more often. Giving the PC's a slight edge like this is not a bad thing considering that they have to get lucky far, far more often than the bad guys do.

As far as opposed rolls go, again, giving the active participant a 5% edge isn't any different than shifting it towards the defender. Why should the defender get the edge?

I'm not talking about not rewarding activity over inertia. How often one succeeds depends, after all, on the actual DCs. I'm just saying that rolling a die shouldn't come with a built-in advantage of 5%. 3e/4e's way of pitting D20 + stat vs. 10 + stat (meet DC) and *pretend it's an even call* is the thing that bothers me.

 

[1Mac]

The base presumption is that, all things being equal, you will succeed on an active roll 55% of the time. Ok, great. It's a heroic fantasy game. You SHOULD succeed a bit more often. Giving the PC's a slight edge like this is not a bad thing considering that they have to get lucky far, far more often than the bad guys do.

But that doesn't follow from the way attacks and saves work. The 5% edge doesn't go to the PCs; it goes to whoever is rolling the dice, whether it's a PC or NPC. So when the NPC attacks the PC, or makes a (3e-style) save against the PC's spell, the PC will only succeed (that is, see a favorable outcome) 45% of the time.

 

[1Mac]

A way of slightly restating some of the points made above: We usually do not handle PC vs. NPC contests with two opposed rolls (and the fact that we do for most skill vs. skill checks is strange). Instead, we make one opposed check (from the PC or NPC, depending on the situation), vs. [the average d20 result] + [the modifier] for the other check. The average d20 result is 10.5, which is what we're really adding to the DC when we make these kind of checks.

Adding 10.5 to the DC means there will never be a tie. It is a confusing modifier, though, so we have two choices to make it easier: round up to 11, and give the tie to the character actually rolling the d20, or round down to 10 and give the tie to the character who isn't rolling.

Adding 10 is easier than adding 11, so we add 10 to things like AC and spell DCs* and say the tie goes to the "defender" (where "defender" is whoever has the static score to be beat by the character rolling the d20).

*Actually lt looks like this isn't the case, at least in Pathfinder. But it should be .

 

[Fanaelialae]

To clarify, the reason I favor attacker (attempter) wins ties (which is the same thing as meeting the DC) is because it favors dynamism over the status quo (albeit, only slightly). It isn't about giving the players an advantage (because monsters benefit from it as well).

A hit is more interesting than a miss. It ratchets up the tension. It changes the battle. Moreover, it brings the encounter that much closer to a speedy resolution.

A saving throw, at least from a 4e perspective (used to resist an effect already affecting you), also changes things. If I fail, I'm still blinded. If I succeed, I'm no longer blinded. The battle has changed.

Success can oftentimes be more interesting than failure. If the rogue fails his climb check and therefore cannot attack the archer on top of a wall, the only thing that's changed is likely to be the rogue's level of frustration. On the other hand, if he succeeds, the dynamic of the battle changes. Suddenly the unassailable archer who's been raining death upon the party finds himself in melee.

Besides, most experienced DMs understand the math (IME). If they want a 50/50 chance, they set the DC one higher than the player's bonus. Easy. Chances are that anyone who is willing to assume the responsibilities of the DM is capable of grasping this slight oddity. On the other hand, I've known players who probably still wouldn't grasp a beat system 6 months into the game. Not bad guys, just extremely casual. IMO, meet is easier to teach to some people than beat, and I'm happy to accept the slight oddities of meet in order to avoid the headaches sometimes associated with beat.

 

[Tovec]

I voted meet because I think its the easiest for the average roll. IMHO:
DC = Number you have to roll to make it.

Now if we are talking about opposed rolls, such as tug of war or what have you, then I would say beat by 1.