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ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 2392553" data-attributes="member: 22424">The use of the "players always roll" variant can certainly help the DM, but has the problem that it's probably harder for new groups to learn (it's conceptually easier if the PCs and NPCs use the same mechanics, as was pointed out earlier). Of course, for advanced players, this doesn't really matter, but then advanced players won't really feel any great difficulty with the AC/Saves discrepancy.The point that players find it exciting the roll dice is certainly a valid one.However, it is my suspicion (and I have no actual evidence to back this) that the game is probably quicker if all the dice involved in a character's actions are rolled by the player of that character. The point here is that if I, as DM, know that Red Wizard is going to cast a spell on Blue Warrior, I can have the dice ready and rolled immediately, while the player of Blue Warrior needs to reach for a dice, and roll it. And that assumes that the player is paying attention. (Also, if I have set up a whiteboard with all the save values on hand, I can roll and get the results very quickly.)(It is also true that if we're trying to speed up combat, it is certainly the case that fewer rolls is better. This argues against going to an opposed-rolls paradigm. It also suggests that some sort of means of combining the SR and Saving Throw rolls into one. Of course, it is not necessarily true that speeding combat should always be our overriding aim.)One more thought: if we're using static defence values (as now with AC, as suggested with saves) it is almost certainly faster if we minimise the use of conditional modifiers to the defence. So, it is faster if Dodge just gives a +1 bonus to AC. It is faster if Dwarves have a bonus to Fort or Will saves, rather than against poisons and spell-like abilities. But, again, one can question how much you want to speed combat, especially since each change is likely to change the feel of the system, which might not be desirable.</blockquote>

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