"Ties go to the defender" - Where does this fallacious rules citation come from?

[kengar]

I think "tie goes to the defender" is just an extension of the old rule that "ties go to the runner." In school, playing kickball, or baseball, or softball where -if you don't have an umpire- you just decided that when it was too close to call, the runner was safe.

Whether it makes sense to equate the runner with the defender is another issue, but I suppose the thinking there was that the DM was usually the attacker, and he had a lot going his way already. *shrugs*

 

[Jeff Wilder]

No, the opposed roll mechanism was in the original 3E PHB.

I didn't say opposed rolls weren't in 3E ... I said that resolution of ties for such rolls wasn't in 3E. Not at least insofar as my group could find, and we searched for it several times. (By contrast, we noticed the rule in 3.5 right away.)

 

[Hypersmurf]

I didn't say opposed rolls weren't in 3E ... I said that resolution of ties for such rolls wasn't in 3E. Not at least insofar as my group could find, and we searched for it several times. (By contrast, we noticed the rule in 3.5 right away.)

From the 3E SRD, Skills Overview chapter:

VS. Opposed Checks
Some skill checks are opposed checks. They are made against a randomized number, which is usually another character's skill check result. Whoever gets the higher result wins the contest.

For ties on opposed checks, the character with the higher key ability score wins.

If these scores are the same, flip a coin.

-Hyp.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

AFAIK, it comes from the board game, Risk. Which uses that exact terminology.