Oracle and Misfortune

[Pumpkin]

In the Dual-Cursed Oracle archetype, you can take a revelation called Misfortune (not the same ability as the Witch).

Misfortune (Ex): At 1st level, as an immediate action, you can force a creature within 30 feet to reroll any one d20 roll that it has just made before the results of the roll are revealed. The creature must take the result of the reroll, even if it’s worse than the original roll. Once a creature has suffered from your misfortune, it cannot be the target of this revelation again for 1 day.

How is this supposed to work? Do the DM need to roll every single d20 in front of everywant and the player choose when to reroll BEFORE they know if the NPC succeeded ? Or is it the oracle can force a reroll AFTER the DM told if the NPC succeeded on his d20 ?

 

[Crothian]

It sounds to me like you don't get to know what the roll before hand. I hope your DM has a lousy poker face.

 

[Pumpkin]

Then it is completely useless. They probably overlooked the fact you don't see the number on the dice of the NPCs' d20.

 

[Crothian]

Not completely useless. Just mostly.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Ironically given the name, it's useful to use on the rolls of allies/b] (it does NOT say you must take the worse roll, it says you must take the 2nd roll). I play in games (mostly online) where we see the dice rolls of the NPCs. This ability would be much much less useful if that were not the case in your game. Shame they didn't write it differently.

 

[Crothian]

If you see the dice rolls then you could know what the results are so you can't use the ability then.

 

[N'raac]

I think a lot depends on how you interpret "results". Does that mean "the number rolled on the die" or "the success or failure of the task being attempted"? For the ability to be useful, it seems to me the latter should be the interpretation, and the dice should be rolled openly, with a short pause for the player to indicate they want it re-rolled.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I think a lot depends on how you interpret "results". Does that mean "the number rolled on the die" or "the success or failure of the task being attempted"? For the ability to be useful, it seems to me the latter should be the interpretation, and the dice should be rolled openly, with a short pause for the player to indicate they want it re-rolled.

Yes, this. Results = success or failure. The die roll might make it pretty obvious that it's going to be a success or failure (especially if it's an attack roll that landed on a 1 or 20), but for most if not all d20 rolls, you're not just basing success on the bare roll. You're then adding a modifier to it, even if that modifier ends up being +0.

If you can't even know what the die roll was, the ability is literally worthless to use offensively. It doesn't even say take the worst of 2 rolls, it's take the 2nd. Doing it blindly, it could easily make things better, worse, or have no effect at all for all you can tell or judge.

Fortunately it retains its party-friendly buffing aspect, but I still would never be a dual-cursed oracle in a game where the DM shares Crothian's view.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Wow this is a crappy ability as written especially being called "misfortune." I would hazard to guess that they may have meant to give a negative to the 2nd roll, but forgot to do so (just what I think should have been done). If this was the case, it would indeed be "misfortune" otherwise it could actually be "fortunate" and very helpful in the case of some allies. Maybe someone rolls 1's in your party most of the time* and you feel like seeing if this would be fun to do and use it on them, they roll a 1 (on the first roll) and a 20 (on the second roll) and have to take the 20.

*Note: One of my party members seems to use this pink d20 an awful lot and I'd guess it lands on 1's about 50% of the time so I'd definitely use this ability on him! Whenever he picks up this d20 now, the rest of the table starts to yell at him to throw it away.

 

[Pumpkin]

I have thought about it and I would use that fix as a DM :

The player could tell a range (eg 15-20) before the roll.

If the dice lands in that range, the DM reroll it and take second result.

Still make the game slower... the player deciding a range before each roll, but still better than rerolling exclusively based on the DM's poker face.