Shield spell and dice rolling assumptions

[Rod Staffwand]

For me, the question of "does the wizard waste some 1st-level spell slots?" is not worth slowing down play or muddling the quick and clean exchange of information. "Does an 18 hit your AC? Oh, you use shield. OK, mark off the slot." Done. Rolling the attack, checking the list of PC AC's, announcing a hit, waiting for the player to do a risk/reward shield-use calculation, and then resolving the attack is not worth the bother. Does laziness make shield a better spell? Yup, and I'm fine with it.

Plus, my 5e players are just as likely to forget to use shield anyway and then remember like 5 minutes later. "Oh, hey, can I use my shield spell to block that 12 damage hobgoblin's attack from two rounds ago?" Umm...no.

Also, I can't imagine playing with a group that insisted on having everyone roll their dice in the open. Not having basic trust in the DM and fellow players just seems sad. When I DM I use a dice rolling app on my phone half the time and I certainly can't be bothered to get out of my comfy chair to roll in front of the players. Waste of time. Might spill my beer.

I don't even care how the players generate their results. Dice. Dice rollers. Picking a number out of a hate. Using the average. I don't much care. Let's all just get on with our lives.

 

[Tony Vargas]

What is the motivation for the DM to roll these in secret?

It creates a layer of insulation between the players and mechanics that can be used to preserve a sense of mystery, heighten immersion, enable outcomes like false positives, prevent over-analysis, mute the consequences of system mastery, head off metagaming, and not least, give the DM opportunity to compensate for systemic issues without any negative impact on the play experience.

So, other options?

Your posts are too long and you're way over-thinking it.

 

[Arial Black]

Also, I can't imagine playing with a group that insisted on having everyone roll their dice in the open. Not having basic trust in the DM and fellow players just seems sad. When I DM I use a dice rolling app on my phone half the time and I certainly can't be bothered to get out of my comfy chair to roll in front of the players. Waste of time. Might spill my beer.

It's not about lack of trust, it's about game mechanics which state that they are used after they see the die roll but before the result is announced. Therefore, they do know what the d20 rolled!

I don't want you to spill your beer; you can just tell them what the d20 rolled!

 

[Arial Black]

It creates a layer of insulation between the players and mechanics that can be used to preserve a sense of mystery, heighten immersion, enable outcomes like false positives, prevent over-analysis, mute the consequences of system mastery, head off metagaming, and not least, give the DM opportunity to compensate for systemic issues without any negative impact on the play experience.

Ah, so your players don't know their own current hit point totals either.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Ah, so your players don't know their own current hit point totals either.

I've rarely taken it that far, myself, but that can work, yes....

...if you're going for everything in that list of hidden-roll benefits, especially 'immersion,' keeping the hp numbers behind the screen would be consistent.

 

[Arial Black]

I've rarely taken it that far, myself, but that can work, yes....

...if you're going for everything in that list of hidden-roll benefits, especially 'immersion,' keeping the hp numbers behind the screen would be consistent.

If one wants to play for everything in that list, then to be consistent and maximise those supposed benefits then the character sheets should be taken away from the players.

They don't get to roll their own dice either. I mean, if they roll high and fail or roll low and succeed anyway, then this is the very information you seek to deny them.

Sure, a game can work that way, and be very immersive, but this approach leads to disadvantages also. For example, it's much harder to plan, or know what's going on. It makes to players so cautious that they avoid challenges they could easily overcome. It can be very frustrating for the players, who find it much less enjoyable.

It also feels like you're playing 'Mother May I', instead of D&D. After all, if the players cannot observe the rules mechanics at work then the DM doesn't need to use them at all. He starts by 'fudging' a roll here and there, 'for the benefit of the story', of course! Pretty soon, the DM is just making it all up as he goes along, and the players occasionally grunting an answer to a loaded question, without the required information needed to make a sound judgement anyway.

Oh, and the RAW of seeing the d20 result? Houseruled away, because that's not immersive.

The result is that you realise that you're not actually playing D&D at all. It's not even free-form drama, because the actors are not all equal; one of them has near-total control, and the rest jump to his whistle.

I'm not saying that you're having fun wrong, I'm saying that I came to play D&D and this is not it, and what it is is not fun for me.

To the OP: it comes across like you are setting the ground rules for all the DMs to follow. If that is the case then one rule you can set is to have these rolls in the open (the ones where the PCs can observe the creature).

Simples.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If one wants to play for everything in that list, then to be consistent and maximise those supposed benefits then the character sheets should be taken away from the players.

Also plausible, yes.

5e is already a game that puts a lot on the DMs shoulders, and not everyone is up for that, nor should it be expected. But, if you do want to prioritize immersion, avoid the contrary dissociation of mechanics like hps, and so forth, and you're up to the challenge, the game could benefit from such techniques. .

, a game can work that way, and be very immersive, but this approach leads to disadvantages also.

True enough. That's why there's no OneTrueWay.
But, erring on the side of taking more resolution behind the screen is a pretty good Way, particularly for 5e, like the classic game it immulates.

It also feels like you're playing 'Mother May I', instead of D&D.

5e gets that a lot, yeah. It's not false, but neither is it the most tactful way of talking about it's DM Empowerment features.

But, it's very much D&D, more traditionally so than 3e & 4e focus on RAW & balance were.

Oh, and the RAW of seeing the d20 result? Houseruled away, because that's not immersive.

RAW ain't a thing in 5e. Try playing RAW without any DM judgement or interpretation - the game crashes at the first check.

With the ambiguity of natural language, there can only be interpretations of rules, and, ultimately, even those don't matter. It's rulings, not rules.

To the OP: it comes across like you are setting the ground rules for all the DMs to follow.

Which is antithetical to 5e's DM Empowerment philosophy.

 

[Oofta]

In my home campaign and in every AL game, the DM just asks if n hits after which the wizard says whether or not they shield. If you did roll out in the open, you'd know what your opponent's attack bonus is after the first hit anyway assuming the DM announces AC they hit which is also something every DM I've had also does.

So I've never played with a DM that didn't let the wizard shield after the AC hit was announced.

 

[Arial Black]

In my home campaign and in every AL game, the DM just asks if n hits after which the wizard says whether or not they shield. If you did roll out in the open, you'd know what your opponent's attack bonus is after the first hit anyway assuming the DM announces AC they hit which is also something every DM I've had also does.

So I've never played with a DM that didn't let the wizard shield after the AC hit was announced.

When I run the game I roll the monster's attack rolls/saving throws/skill checks in view of the players (assuming the PCs can observe the creature doing the thing). I then ask for the PC's AC/save DC/opposed check result or passive score.

It works. If I roll, say, a 9 on an attack roll, I ask for the AC. The player tells me, say, 16. I then say 'hit' or 'miss'.

Sure, if I say 'miss' then the players can work out that the creature's attack modifier must be +6 or less. Since this covers the vast majority of creatures it really doesn't give much away. But if I say 'hit' then the creature must have at least +7. This is a lot! This is information that the players can use. They can use it to gauge how good at fighting the monster is, and use this knowledge to inform future decisions, like whether to cast shield or to use Cutting Words.

But is this a bad thing? Is this the dreaded meta-gaming?

First, it is not a bad thing at all. Why? Because it closely parallels the process that real people go through in combat: gauging the opponent's skill by observing them in combat. Because the die rolls are not the only source of information the players AND the characters have; they can see that they are fighting a dragon, dragons are hard! It's not rocket science! Can the PCs be fooled? Sure, it's working as intended! The fact that a colossal dragon turns out to have less than +7 to attack is a legitimate clue that there is something wrong here! This parallels the PC's thinking that there is something wrong here: the dragon is not moving right, it seems clumsy and uncoordinated.

Is it meta-gaming? No more than knowing your own current hit points.

So, this approach works in terms of the game running smoothly. But "hits AC 16, does it hit you?" works too. So why do what I do?

Because it also allows those other rules to work as intended. The PCs, as written, can see the die roll and decide whether or not to use Cutting Words et al before the DM announces the result. If the PC is thinking about casting shield then they have the same information but can also wait until the DM announces a hit before casting shield.

So the advantage of doing it this way is that not only does it work in terms of running the game but it also works to enable the players to use those abilities as written. It also parallels the information and decision-making process gone through by actual creatures.

On a side note: just because DMs are allowed to ignore or change the rules doesn't mean that there are no rules! Just because some rules are open to interpretation, this doesn't mean that every rule can be legitimately interpreted more than one way!

My AC is 16....but that could be interpreted as AC 23, couldn't it? NO! It damn well couldn't!