D&D 5E Players Roll All Dice

[Riley37]

It had occurred to me to tell players "you're hit, you take d8 Fire" rather than rolling the d8 myself. Anything that saves me-as-DM a moment, means I get to the next player or the next opponent's action, that much faster. Does the whole table get much enjoyment out of the 3 seconds it takes me to roll that d8? Not so much.

This way, the player knows how much damage their PC took, but no one else gets meta-game knowledge; if other players want each PCs to know how much damage has happened to every other PC, they can gorram well *have their characters look at each other*. (Or they can equip all the PCs with metabolic trackers, relaying to telemetry on their teammate's heads-up displays... in Shadowrun, that is.)

 

[davout1805]

I first came across this idea from http://esix.pbworks.com/f/RaisingtheStakes.pdf by Ryan Stoughton.

We actually tried it last session. It did not go over very well.

 

[Kaychsea]

Not too keen on the idea, the overhead of keeping track of which roll is what seems to be heavier than just rolling the dice yourself. But the following would seem to be a typical outcome.

"Someone roll me a d20."
"8. Why."
"Umm... No reason."
Party in unison, "We check for traps!"

 

[Paraxis]

The concept is far from new the first time I remember reading about it in a D&D book was the 3e Unearthed Arcana book, here is that information on the SRD.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/playersRollAllTheDice.htm

But I think the idea was talked about in Dragon magazine back during 1e days.

 

[Sunseeker]

I like using average damage for my NPCs, speeds things up a lot, but I still like, as the DM, rolling to hit. I can take a 10 and add the to-hit modifier but this is almost always guaranteed to miss on all but the biggest of monsters or the lowest-armored players, which is boring.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I like using average damage for my NPCs, speeds things up a lot, but I still like, as the DM, rolling to hit.

I'm the opposite, I love rolling for damage against the PCs (FEEL THE PAIN! Muhahah!), but let them roll their own defenses.

I also made them roll NPC saves against PC attacks, but have since dropped it. Since it's mostly against spell attacks, we found we liked the way it felt different.

 

[Sunseeker]

I'm the opposite, I love rolling for damage against the PCs (FEEL THE PAIN! Muhahah!), but let them roll their own defenses.

I think it's fine for the BBEG or when you want to drop a big AOE on the board, but when I'm running 4 Gladiators who have 3 attacks each doing 2d8 each attack (for a total of 12 d20 rolls and a maximum of 24d8s) it gets a little tedious.

I tried using a 3/4ths damage rule instead of half, it was murderous, so I dropped it. Might reinstate if I want to run a particularly gritty game, but I find more monsters doing 1/2 damage is better than fewer doing 3/4ths.

I also made them roll NPC saves against PC attacks, but have since dropped it. Since it's mostly against spell attacks, we found we liked the way it felt different.

I sometime have my players roll NPC saves, but I don't like giving out NPC save bonuses, so I just started group-rolling (ie: one roll per round for all NPCs of the same type).

 

[Viking Bastard]

I sometime have my players roll NPC saves, but I don't like giving out NPC save bonuses, so I just started group-rolling (ie: one roll per round for all NPCs of the same type).

What I meant is they rolled [relevant stat] vs. Saves+10, not that they roll the Save for the NPC.

 

[aramis erak]

I've used PRATD in other games - most notably DL5A and BTVS, where it's explicitly part of the rules.

It was not horrible. It kept players more involved. It felt a bit flat, tho'.