Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Rizzen_Coloana_120 06-02-05, 10:25 AM	Has anyone here ever done the "roll a d20 and add your modifiers to find out the dc instead of 10 +modifiers" thing? If you have any experiance in this could you tell me how it worked.
DrakaraGM 06-02-05, 04:17 PM	I use that plus "rolling for AC" in my campaign, but only in a limited application -- I run an O.A. non-Rokugan campaign, and I use those optional rules for any adventures taking place in the Spirit World -- where everything is so sharp and bright (or dark, depending) that I don't allow "taking 10" on anything, including AC or DC. :-) High rolls indicate that you were able to focus intensely on the task at hand (i.e. harnessing the extra mana of the Spirit World or paying closer than normal attention to an enemy's attack) while low rolls mean you were distracted, which happens easily in the Spirit World... As far as game impact, it adds a little time to combat resolution. For AC, especially, if you use the roll against every attack, that can slow things down, you cannot just roll a series of attacks knowing what roll you need to get to score a hit. The spell DCs are less of an impact, and I find I like the results as a GM. The main impact from the PCs standpoint is that characters wth high modifiers to DCs can still occasionally roll low and cast spells that random foes can resist, and conversely, opponents (who tend to have lower DCs than the PCs, usually, or lower saves, or both) can occasionally roll high and cast spells that the PCs fail their saves against. So as expected, greater variability is an advantage for the NPCs, and a disadvantage for the PCs. But I found it did add a bit more to the player's anticipation. And for characters like rangers, it means that despite their generally lower DCs, they too can occasional cast spells that are fairly difficult to save against, so they don't necessarily just prepare spells with no saves involved. I think it is worth using, more so than the "roll for AC" rule.
Kintara 06-02-05, 08:33 PM	The "Players Roll All the Dice" variant intrigues me, personally. One thing that I like about it is that I think it would work well in Eberron because of Action Points. It's harder for action points to work properly if you don't roll, and I like the idea of giving more options to the players to use them.
Elgonn 06-03-05, 05:25 PM	I've used it and it is bad for players simply because all randomness is bad for players. They only get one chance to lose. All the enemies they encounter aren't expected to have much of a survival rate. It works out in the end like criticals. It also reduces the benefit of feats like Iron Will and other save increases. They only have their effect when the d20 rolls in the middle. When it rolls low they weren't needed in the first place. When it rolls high they don't really help. The game is a bunch of dice rolling but unless your players love chaos your better off using most of the "take 10" style rules.
Kintara 06-03-05, 08:47 PM	Well, there's only more randomness if both sides roll.
Keeper of the Mists 06-14-05, 01:18 PM	I use this variant. Psionics requires it, and I've ruled that since it's based off your own internal grasping of power, spontaneous casters use this system as well. Thus, any spellcaster that uses spellbooks (such as assassins and wizards), use the 10+modifiers system, and bards and sorcerers and such roll a d20. It works great for our games. Everybody knows what they're getting into...they accept that for some spells, chaos has some input into how powerful their spell is. And yet if nobody wants to use that system, they become wizards.