miss chance and natural 20's

[punkorange]

Which is rolled first, the miss chance, or the d20. Or do you allow the player to roll his attack while you roll miss chance. Does a miss on the miss chance negate a natural twenty, or is a natural twenty ALWAYS a hit, even when rolling horrible on a miss chance?

 

[Crothian]

miss chance trumps natural 20's

I've always rolled both at the same time to speed things up a little.

 

[punkorange]

so under these circumstances a natural 20 is a miss? I would think the 20 would trump the miss chance, since the rulebook states that the roll of a natural twenty on an attack roll is always considered to be a hit.

 

[Crothian]

But the miss chance doesn't care what the d20 says. If a nat 20 was an exception to the miss chance rule, it would be stated in the explanation of a miss chance.

 

[Fieari]

Miss chance is rolled first. It's not that the miss chance trumps the nat 20, it's that the nat 20 was never rolled in the first place.

 

[iwatt]

I say: miss chance trumps a 20.

Actually, for an equal miss chance (50%), and assuming a 20 always hits and a 1 always misses, is identical to just looking at the miss chance.

roll a 1 (5%) ______________= miss 5%

____________+ 50% miss___= miss 45%
roll 2-19
____________+ 50% hit ____= hit 45%

roll 20 (5%)_______________= hit 5%

miss (50%) & hit (50%)

Interstingly enough, for lower miss chances, using the 20 always hits rule is disfavorable.

for example, for a 20% wiss chance

roll a 1 (5%) ______________= miss 5%

____________+ 20% miss___= miss 18%
roll 2-19
____________+ 80% hit ____= hit 72%

roll 20 (5%)_______________= hit 5%

miss (23%) & hit (77%) which means you miss more often.

If a theoretical miss chance of greater than 50% existed, always hitting on a 20 would benefit the attacker.

By the way, I also roll everything together to save time (first look at the miss chance before even adding the dice up).

 

[AuraSeer]

A natural 20 just means you hit the point you were aiming at. Failing on the miss chance means you were aiming at the wrong place.

Whenever you don't know exactly where your target is, due to darkness or fog or blink or whatever, you have to aim at where you think he is. If you guess wrong (by rolling low on the miss die), it doesn't matter how straight your attack went, because your target is standing someplace else.

In short: roll 'em both at the same time.

 

[shilsen]

Miss chance trumps a 20.

Always roll the miss chance after the attack roll, so that you can take the player's joy at the success and crush it pitilessly into smithereens. It's one of the many perks of DMing

 

[MichaelH]

Always roll the miss chance after the attack roll, so that you can take the player's joy at the success and crush it pitilessly into smithereens.

Page 22, RBDMG.

 

[Stalker0]

As the rules say, a natural 20 is always a hit.

But a miss chance can negate hits, therefore it can trump a natural 20.

And I also roll miss chances first, its much faster that way.