Players rolling all the dice variant from UA - Anyone used it?

[Berandor]

I'm a gamer too. I want to roll some dice!

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I love dice and dice games. Why should the player have all the fun?

 

[Garnfellow]

That seemed like that would allow players to know quite a bit more than they normally would about opponents, at face value.

There /is/ that trade-off, but having players roll all the dice adds new elements of fun to the table: the players get to "control" whether or not the big monster hits them or not. There is just something priceless about watching the look on a player's face as he rolls a 1 on his Defense Check . . . and then has to roll again to confirm that the monster critted on him. I find it much more fun than rolling that natch 20 behind my DM screen.

And my players LOVE it when they roll a 20 on a Defense Check and miraculously avoid getting hit by a big, devastating attack. And then there's also the hard choice to be made if the player only rolls OK, and has to decide whether or not he should spend an action point to boost the Defense roll.

As an aside, many years ago I played a few games using the reverse approach: as DM I made all the rolls, and the players didn't even have access during the session to character sheets with hard game info -- it was all just descriptive information. This was inspired by an old Dragon article by Ed Greenwood.

So, instead of Str 18, Dex 7, Con 8 the sheet read something like "Growing up, George was easily the strongest man in his entire village, but he was somewhat clumsy and got hurt fairly easily."

It was a pretty neat variant as a change of pace, and really forced the players to think like "narrativists" rather than "gamists."

The problems with this approach were it made DMing about an order of magnitude harder, and also for many, many D&D players the gamist experience is their primary source of enjoyment from the game.

 

[Garnfellow]

I love dice and dice games. Why should the player have all the fun?

Well, the name of the variant is a wee bit of a misnomer. There's still plenty of DM dice rolling required. I still roll for damage, wandering monsters, and about a hundred other things. You only give up making monster "to hit" rolls, monster saving throws, and monster spell resistance rolls.

 

[swrushing]

There's a variant in Unearthed Arcana that allows the players to roll all the dice during combat.

I used it, or rather one with the numbers RIGHT unlike UA*, for the entirety of my three year long DND game. It worked great and my players loved it. i use it whenever the game system makes it easy.


* The magic number is +12, not +11 as UA has it. If the orc has a +7 to hit, the player needs to roll against DC 19 (+7 +12) to avoid getting hit, not against DC 18 as UA would have you believe. using +12, an Ac 15 player has a 355 chance of being hitand a 655 chance of being missed regardless of which way you do it. If you only use the +11 from UA, the chance for "player rolls" changes to 40% miss and 60% hit.

 

[Garnfellow]

* The magic number is +12, not +11 as UA has it. If the orc has a +7 to hit, the player needs to roll against DC 19 (+7 +12) to avoid getting hit, not against DC 18 as UA would have you believe. using +12, an Ac 15 player has a 355 chance of being hitand a 655 chance of being missed regardless of which way you do it. If you only use the +11 from UA, the chance for "player rolls" changes to 40% miss and 60% hit.

Yes, you're absolutely right. I forgot to mention we also use 12+ for Defense Checks.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Well, the name of the variant is a wee bit of a misnomer. There's still plenty of DM dice rolling required. I still roll for damage, wandering monsters, and about a hundred other things. You only give up making monster "to hit" rolls, monster saving throws, and monster spell resistance rolls.

But those are the best rolls!

Alas this system isn't for me, but I can see how it my be interesting for some players and DMs.

 

[Michael Tree]

I haven't used that variant in D20 games, but I've played the Buffy RPG, in which the players roll all the dice. I liked it a lot, and would love to try it out, especially with spellcasters. Part of the fun of RPGs is rolling the die to see if you succeed and fail. Rolling a 20 is more thrilling than seeing the DM roll a 1, for some inexplicable reason.

 

[Truth Seeker]

That's no fun for a GM like me.

Is for me....LOL. Trade off, concentrate more on the game...and watch other players' anguish when a friend rolls a crit on them. (Not sounding cruel, mind you) And they roll everything.

 

[LeapingShark]

Yes in some campaigns, I use a simple and easy replacement for monster to-hit rolls. (I sometimes used a similar conversion in 2nd ed too)

In effect, monsters "take 12" on attacks, their grand total gives you a dodge DC. You keep this number secret. You say something like, "Frodo, defend yourself twice versus two sword swipes!" To resolve the two attacks, the players roll a couple d20s and add their AC mod. If the PC successfully rolls higher than the dodge DC (the enemy misses!), you tell the PC they ducked out of the way, deflected it with their shield, etc, etc, whatever flavor text makes sense for the moment. If they roll low and fail (the enemy hits!), you tell the PC that the sword penetrated their chain shirt, etc.

If the PC makes a terrible roll like a natural 1 (or 1-2 for enemies with 19-20, etc), it's a potential critical, so they roll another dodge to try avoiding confirmation.

It's that simple. There's no extra randomness factor. It's the exact same math as if the DM rolled, you're converting it so that the players drop the d20 for you (math wizzes can show the proof; but just like swrushing said, the magic number is +12). No BAB information or enemy stats are revealed (min/max players could make guestimates after watching a series of rolls, the same way that they already could track their attack rolls and estimate enemy ACs). It speeds up combat, and the players stay directly active in the game during enemy turns. The DM can still roll everything else, like damage and saves.

Great stuff. It should be written into the DMG as a first rate option.