Variant: Players Roll All the Dice

[timbannock]

Just curious if anyone has any experience with the Variant Rule: Players Roll All The Dice, from Unearthed Arcana

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

I'm running a group of 13th-level characters through Rappan Athuk and can see a lot of fights being chock-full of mooks...enough that they should represent a serious threat in such big numbers, but so numerous that rolling everything out seems like it'll grind combat to a halt. Being able to have the player roll Defense while I roll the damage seems like a good way to shave off some time and concentrate on the effects, rather than adding up hit bonuses.

I'm also planning to use the "Magic Roll" as a single roll against mobs...i.e., when a player rolls fireball, he makes a Magic Roll which is then compared to all enemies' saves. Mobs with all the same save score are either all affected or none (perhaps taking half damage, of course), but this should make some distinction between the mooks and the BBEG that the mooks are fighting for.

Any experiences with this rule, good or bad? Or perhaps variants of this variant rule?

 

[ruleslawyer]

Yes; I use it, and IME it's a great rule. Right now, what I'm toying with is whether to remove opposed rolls and replace them with a flat DC for the player to beat. I think the increased randomness is still important to the idea of opposed checks, but I'm not sure.

 

[Ry]

I've had Players Roll All the Dice since UA came out. Best variant ever.

 

[timbannock]

Yes; I use it, and IME it's a great rule. Right now, what I'm toying with is whether to remove opposed rolls and replace them with a flat DC for the player to beat. I think the increased randomness is still important to the idea of opposed checks, but I'm not sure.

I think opposed rolls should stay, only because they aren't as "weighty" as combat is. Plus I only have to change the Atk bonus and Save bonus section of statblocks, rather than worrying about adding 11 to a bunch of skills too

I'm a little worried about the Magic Roll being a single roll against all the bad guys, as this makes some spells less potent (the all-or-nothing effect).

 

[Ry]

Plus I only have to change the Atk bonus and Save bonus section of statblocks, rather than worrying about adding 11 to a bunch of skills too

I don't change the statblocks. Whenever I would have rolled a d20 I just add 12 right there. You already know how to add numbers to an attack roll; now it's just the same number every time, which makes me get even faster at it. Forget rewriting statblocks.

 

[timbannock]

You already know how to add numbers to an attack roll;

Says you. I'm going with this because of the very fact that I have trouble adding!

Thanx, Yew-Con, for the 3l33t math skillz.

 

[knight_isa]

I'm a little worried about the Magic Roll being a single roll against all the bad guys, as this makes some spells less potent (the all-or-nothing effect).

I've used this for mooks, and I like it--much faster. Sure, it means that occasionally they all live or they all die, but, well, they're mooks.

For named bad guys I stick with the individual saves.

 

[buzz]

I loved the idea of it, and so used it for our first session of EotLQ. It didn't survive to the second session. Admittedly, we had not prepped our materials with the DCs ready-to-go, so there was some calculatin' that slowed things down.

In the end, we found it less fun from both sides of the screen. Pre-calculating the DCs, as simple as it might be, adds another layer to prep that none of us were interested in.

 

[Kristian Serrano]

One of the nice ideas of this variant is if you combine it with Action Points, allowing players to improve results for spell DCs and AC.

 

[timbannock]

One of the nice ideas of this variant is if you combine it with Action Points, allowing players to improve results for spell DCs and AC.

Didn't even think of that. That's pretty cool...won't get out of hand, but makes Action Points a little more versatile.

I'm a huge fan of Action Points, so that's a huge benny for me. We actually use a variant of having 4 Action Points per session rather than X per level (and I'm considering rewarding more for really cool stunts or the like, but haven't gotten that far yet).