Area spells are suppose to effect a portion of their targets, 1 roll causes them to completky fail to often.
I encountered a bit of resistance to the manner in which I roll dice this very evening, as a matter of fact. -- I interpret 3d6 to be "3 times a 6-sided die." During Lair Assault earlier, the players found this to be an invalid interpretation of the rules and demanded I roll a 6-sided die a total of three times and add all the damage up. I've been DMing for this particular group through two seasons of encounters, and I've -always- rolled my dice like this, but the tactical nature of Lair Assault drew attention to it for the first time. ...I guess.
For me, it speeds up gameplay exponentially. I roll my attack die and my damage die at the same time and the multiplication plus the handful of bonuses from various sources is quickly summed up and we move along. The arguement tonight was that the multiplication skips numbers (A six on a 2d6 equals 12 automatically, as opposed to a six and a possible 1-5). -- This new breed/era/generation of gamers seem incapable of wrapping their heads around the fact that the numbers are plot devices in and of themselves, and that nobody "wins" D&D. Even Lair Assault is intended for you to gain glory rewards through exploration, fumbles and terrible death; it's not about beating the bad guys, it's about our shared experience in staying conscious. ...but I digress.
As long as your DM remains consistent, it's more a personal matter on your part.
it does save time, but in a bad way.
Area spells are suppose to effect a portion of their targets, 1 roll causes them to completky fail to often.
The either side of this token is that 1 roll causes them to completely decimate everything in their wake, all too often.
I encountered a bit of resistance to the manner in which I roll dice this very evening, as a matter of fact. -- I interpret 3d6 to be "3 times a 6-sided die." During Lair Assault earlier, the players found this to be an invalid interpretation of the rules and demanded I roll a 6-sided die a total of three times and add all the damage up. I've been DMing for this particular group through two seasons of encounters, and I've -always- rolled my dice like this, but the tactical nature of Lair Assault drew attention to it for the first time. ...I guess.
That is not "interpert" it is houserule at best and wilful miss reading at worst.
from the phb1 pg 8 :
For example, “3d8 + 5” means you roll three eight-sideddice and add 5 to the total
it has been spelt out that you roll X dice of size Y every tim I checked the rule books.
I encountered a bit of resistance to the manner in which I roll dice this very evening, as a matter of fact. -- I interpret 3d6 to be "3 times a 6-sided die." During Lair Assault earlier, the players found this to be an invalid interpretation of the rules and demanded I roll a 6-sided die a total of three times and add all the damage up. I've been DMing for this particular group through two seasons of encounters, and I've -always- rolled my dice like this, but the tactical nature of Lair Assault drew attention to it for the first time. ...I guess.
That is not "interpert" it is houserule at best and wilful miss reading at worst.
from the phb1 pg 8 :For example, “3d8 + 5” means you roll three eight-sideddice and add 5 to the total
it has been spelt out that you roll X dice of size Y every tim I checked the rule books.
It's simply the way it occurred to me when I first picked this game up at age 12 (seventeen years ago). -- I've never been challenged on it and never gave it much thought.
The story has always advanced itself, people have enjoyed themselves, etc. -- What's the problem?
@Mrpopstar there are 2 people who game in my circle who do that exact same thing. Any time someone new comes there is a long debate about it but it really really does speed game play. i think that people only care if you're rolling 6's. If you're rolling 1's then they're cool with it. If you roll a 1 then you are equally as damned as you are blessed for rolling a 6 so it completely balances out making it not a real problem.
3d6 is more likely to have a middle result
While 1d6 has an equal chance of getting 3-18 and is thus, more swingy.
Atleast thats my understanding. I use maptool anyway, so this aspect of time saving is a non-issue.
The odds of getting an 18 by rolling 1d6 and multiplying it by 3 is 1 in 6 or 16.667%
The odds of getting an 18 by rolling 1d6 three times is 1 in 36 or 2.778%
The odds of getting a 3 in each scenario is going to be the same.
In addition, it changes the possibilities.
1d6*3 gives you a 1 in 6 chance each of getting a 3, a 6, a 9, a 12, a 15, or an 18.
3d6 gives you the possibilities of getting 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, or 18, with varyingchances for each, skewing toward greater odds in the middle of that set and lower odds at the extremes.
It is a very big difference. Whether you care or not is up to you.
@mrpopstar it seems like one of the roleplay versus rollplay things because you don't care about the numbers really judging by your post.
It's not that I don't care about the numbers, it's that I don't like the numbers getting in the way of what's going on. -- The dice are not the source of fun; for me. YMMV
I'm generally against the "Roleplay VS Rollplay" contest/fight/war/contention thing, and I strongly believe that I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm more on the side of getting the mechanic out of my way so I can explore, plunder, experience and otherwise play the game.
3d6 vs 1d6x3 is actually is a different of probability curves.
3d6 is more likely to have a middle result
While 1d6 has an equal chance of getting 3-18 and is thus, more swingy.
Atleast thats my understanding. I use maptool anyway, so this aspect of time saving is a non-issue.
Ah, the power of math!
Thanks for that.
(Assuming i'm doing my math right. It's been a few years since I've had a statistics class)
The odds of getting an 18 by rolling 1d6 and multiplying it by 3 is 1 in 6 or 16.667%
The odds of getting an 18 by rolling 1d6 three times is 1 in 36 or 2.778%
The odds of getting a 3 in each scenario is going to be the same.
In addition, it changes the possibilities.
1d6*3 gives you a 1 in 6 chance each of getting a 3, a 6, a 9, a 12, a 15, or an 18.
3d6 gives you the possibilities of getting 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, or 18, with varyingchances for each, skewing toward greater odds in the middle of that set and lower odds at the extremes.
It is a very big difference. Whether you care or not is up to you.
The power of math coupled with math knowledge! LOL
Is is impacting the game negatively, is the real question.
It is a houserule, but not neccesarily a bad one. If you enjoy a bit of swingyness in higher level encounters it'll work out just fine, and it works for the monsters just as much as the players.
Using one roll for bursts and blasts is also a houserule, it's not neccesarily bad either. It's important to note though that it makes massive area daily attacks extremely swingy. Hitting or missing 7 people at a time in a fireball is a massive difference. Again, if your players like that, no biggy, but it's not the official rules.
The only thing I'd worry about is applying "the next target" effects to the entire blast. If you get a +3 on your next attack roll and you apply it to everyone, those effects are suddenly extremely powerful. Likewise with things like damage bonusses; if you can use your Sneak Attack against every target in a burst, then making bursts and blasts becomes extremely powerful if you want to max damage. Even if you only use one roll, you should limit these effects to a single target; it simply means you roll a 9, get a total of 16, and then pick one creature to apply the 19 to for your "+3 on your next attack" bonus.
(Assuming i'm doing my math right. It's been a few years since I've had a statistics class)
The odds of getting an 18 by rolling 1d6 and multiplying it by 3 is 1 in 6 or 16.667%
The odds of getting an 18 by rolling 1d6 three times is 1 in 36 or 2.778%
The odds of getting a 3 in each scenario is going to be the same.
In addition, it changes the possibilities.
1d6*3 gives you a 1 in 6 chance each of getting a 3, a 6, a 9, a 12, a 15, or an 18.
3d6 gives you the possibilities of getting 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, or 18, with varyingchances for each, skewing toward greater odds in the middle of that set and lower odds at the extremes.
It is a very big difference. Whether you care or not is up to you.
The power of math coupled with math knowledge! LOL
Is is impacting the game negatively, is the real question.
The one die and multiply is going to run faster, but not by much. It's also going to make rolls more swingy, meaning you're far more likely to get a good roll or a bad roll and far less likely to get a medium roll than you would be with rolling multiple dice.
Anyone coming into the game understanding the math of die rolls is going to see a very different game with roll one and multiply than from multiple rolls.
You should be aware that it is changing the game's math assumptions. You need to spell out to your players up front what this change is, why you're making this change, and what the ramifications of said change are, because it could cause a bad blood if someone that has played the assumed way is told in mid-encounter that it's not the way he knows and might possibly be altering the implications of some of his powers.
The one die and multiply is going to run faster, but not by much.
I will argue that one die and multiply exponentially speeds things, in my own experience. -- Especially if you get your whole table on board.
Anyone coming into the game understanding the math of die rolls is going to see a very different game with roll one and multiply than from multiple rolls.
I agree that the mechanic of the game occurs differently, I too suffered through stats and calc in pre-med. -- I'm merely holding the position that it doesn't affect the fun, unless the mechanic is where you derive your fun.
Just to clarify, I'm not passing a judgment one way or another. It's up to you and the people you play with to decide if it's better or worse. I probably wouldn't like it but wouldn't throw a fit if I was playing with friends and they all preferred it.
You should be aware that it is changing the game's math assumptions. You need to spell out to your players up front what this change is, why you're making this change, and what the ramifications of said change are, because it could cause a bad blood if someone that has played the assumed way is told in mid-encounter that it's not the way he knows and might possibly be altering the implications of some of his powers.
I literally made it 17 years before someone thought it was odd, and that's really saying something because I'm almost ALWAYS the DM (much to my chagrin). -- Even for large, circulating groups at FLGSs and conventions.
I should print up a table of the curves and have a sit-in math refresher before every game, hehe. Just so everyone's on my page. ;)
The story has always advanced itself, people have enjoyed themselves, etc. -- What's the problem?
Your false use of the term interpert. If you said i run it like X then I would not have commented.
You need to be aware of when you are going gainst how something is specified, You can not use interpert when the text clearly says otherwise, and there is no way to read it the way you want without.
A faulty reading at age 12 is not an excuse for still having that faulty reading at age 20, and commons sense tells you your reading ability is better now, and there are to many stories of groups having miss read sections of the text.
as long as we're being honest here, I had the roll an attack for each creature / roll damage once for all hit creatures, totally backwards for the first couple of months DMing 4th Edition.
Easy mix-up!
I, actually, did what evilprincessasha's DM is doing and rolled a single attack for everyone in a blast for my first 4E game, for which I was quickly admonished and corrected. LOL
Eh, live and learn.
The story has always advanced itself, people have enjoyed themselves, etc. -- What's the problem?
Your false use of the term interpert. If you said i run it like X then I would not have commented.
You need to be aware of when you are going gainst how something is specified, You can not use interpert when the text clearly says otherwise, and there is no way to read it the way you want without.
A faulty reading at age 12 is not an excuse for still having that faulty reading at age 20, and commons sense tells you your reading ability is better now, and there are to many stories of groups having miss read sections of the text.
The irony of you telling me to brush up on my reading and utilization of terms is a bit much for me at this moment in time.
My statement of age 12 (seventeen years ago) makes me 29, not 20. -- As much as I would have preferred your math in that instance.
The story has always advanced itself, people have enjoyed themselves, etc. -- What's the problem?
Your false use of the term interpert. If you said i run it like X then I would not have commented.
You need to be aware of when you are going gainst how something is specified, You can not use interpert when the text clearly says otherwise, and there is no way to read it the way you want without.
A faulty reading at age 12 is not an excuse for still having that faulty reading at age 20, and commons sense tells you your reading ability is better now, and there are to many stories of groups having miss read sections of the text.
The irony of you telling me to brush up on my reading and utilization of terms is a bit much for me at this moment in time.
My statement of age 12 (seventeen years ago) makes me 29, not 20. -- As much as I would have preferred your math in that instance.
Heh, look at that, we're the same age, but I've only been playing for 11 years.
Heh, look at that, we're the same age, but I've only been playing for 11 years.
Nice! -- I turn the big 30 on New Year's, so the count down has begun.
One of the guys at my dad's post when we lived in Alaska gave me his collection of AD&D2E books. -- Hooked me right in!
I'd still say that now the discussion has been had, it would be responsible to make sure everyone you're playing with knows that they're not playing with the default assumptions of the game so that
A) The group as a whole can make an informed decision on whether to continue with the houserule
and
B) If someone in the group goes and finds another group, they're not flabbergasted by the different way of doing things
The story has always advanced itself, people have enjoyed themselves, etc. -- What's the problem?
Your false use of the term interpert. If you said i run it like X then I would not have commented.
You need to be aware of when you are going gainst how something is specified, You can not use interpert when the text clearly says otherwise, and there is no way to read it the way you want without.
A faulty reading at age 12 is not an excuse for still having that faulty reading at age 20, and commons sense tells you your reading ability is better now, and there are to many stories of groups having miss read sections of the text.
Lighten up Francis
The story has always advanced itself, people have enjoyed themselves, etc. -- What's the problem?
Your false use of the term interpert. If you said i run it like X then I would not have commented.
You need to be aware of when you are going gainst how something is specified, You can not use interpert when the text clearly says otherwise, and there is no way to read it the way you want without.
A faulty reading at age 12 is not an excuse for still having that faulty reading at age 20, and commons sense tells you your reading ability is better now, and there are to many stories of groups having miss read sections of the text.
The irony of you telling me to brush up on my reading and utilization of terms is a bit much for me at this moment in time.
My statement of age 12 (seventeen years ago) makes me 29, not 20. -- As much as I would have preferred your math in that instance.
Sorry, there was suppose to be a + after the 20.
I was not saying you are 20, but giving an example age where you should have realized you might have misread the book by. As you should have realized your "interpretation" was not an interpretation, but a misreading years ago. Though really if you start at 12 you should realize at 13 or 14.
Also seeing as how the 9 and 0 are right next to each other on allot of keyboards, how could you be certain I did not hit the wrong key and not notice? reading skills on boards like this also include accounting for typos after all.
Yes multiplying will save you all of a couple seconds per roll, not a exceptional amount when you factor in the rest of the term. the only time it saves more is when you are throwing out the standard deviation and messing with the math to the point it NEEDS to be stated as a house rule.
roll once for each creature/target in the Area.
this way if you miss its not a total waste of a spell and if you hit you dont total KO becouse you hit with a nat 20 and thus crit hit eveyone.
The story has always advanced itself, people have enjoyed themselves, etc. -- What's the problem?
Your false use of the term interpert. If you said i run it like X then I would not have commented.
You need to be aware of when you are going gainst how something is specified, You can not use interpert when the text clearly says otherwise, and there is no way to read it the way you want without.
A faulty reading at age 12 is not an excuse for still having that faulty reading at age 20, and commons sense tells you your reading ability is better now, and there are to many stories of groups having miss read sections of the text.
The irony of you telling me to brush up on my reading and utilization of terms is a bit much for me at this moment in time.
My statement of age 12 (seventeen years ago) makes me 29, not 20. -- As much as I would have preferred your math in that instance.
Sorry, there was suppose to be a + after the 20.
I was not saying you are 20, but giving an example age where you should have realized you might have misread the book by. As you should have realized your "interpretation" was not an interpretation, but a misreading years ago. Though really if you start at 12 you should realize at 13 or 14.
Also seeing as how the 9 and 0 are right next to each other on allot of keyboards, how could you be certain I did not hit the wrong key and not notice? reading skills on boards like this also include accounting for typos after all.
Yes multiplying will save you all of a couple seconds per roll, not a exceptional amount when you factor in the rest of the term. the only time it saves more is when you are throwing out the standard deviation and messing with the math to the point it NEEDS to be stated as a house rule.
U r taking this very personally. I don't think he was serious in the literal sense on interpretation, only that he did it in the beginning and just stuck with it as a personal preference to the point of it being naural and only now having attention brought to it. I think we've est. that it isn't that big of a deal on the damage side. Chill on the standard deviation championing.
Honestly not sure of what other speed up ideas aside from the general belief that all the players should be thinking about their turns before their turn so they're prepared instead of sitting there skimming through powers and such taking up time. In terms of rolling dice, it depends. I mean in terms of the OP, you can always talk to your DM about playing by the rules and rolling individually at least for awhile. And maybe others in your group would prefer it that way as well, so if there're more of you with the same belief you may be able to swing the DM.
Aside from that, if the DM doesn't want to play that way it is his game and he does set the rules. So just go with it, again it really isn't that horrible in my experience. And I have played both ways, we played a game where we rolled individually and it took way longer because of each individual attack roll then damage rolls.
With it either effecting 4 or 0 (assuming similar monsters) then the blast becomes very 'heaven or hell.' Heaven or hell mechanics tend to be quite terrible when your goal is to do things like mitigate incoming damage. Or just in general (heaven or hell mechanics tend to suck).
Lets put this into concrete, mechanical terms that you can explain to your DM. Here is a sample power:
Minion Destroying Bomb
Blast 7
Targets: Enemies in the blast
Attack: Int versus Reflex
Hit: 1d6+Int damage
Okay, this power is a minion clearer. Now, lets see how its supposed to work versus how it works in the modified rolls:
How it works, normally, on 10 minions (11+ hits)
25% of the time - 5 dead minions
40% of the time - 4 or 6 dead minions
~25% of the time - 3 or 7 dead minions
Therefore, two times in 3 it clears a median number of minions, and 9 times in 10 it clears within 2 of the 'expected' number.
What this means is that using the power means the tank takes predictable amounts of damage from the minions, and everything is controllable.
Your DM's modification means that 50% of the time EVERY MINION DIES.
And 50% of the time NO MINIONS DIE.
So one single roll of one die massively changes an entire encounter.
THIS IS BAD.
However you want to play is fun but for myself I prefer less swinginess over all or nothing.
Incidentally, if you want to see how multiplying rolls vs. rolling multiple times and adding works out, check out this die roller:
anydice.com/
The mass hit roll fundamentally changes how blasts/bursts work, from reliable minion thinner to random encounter negator.
Our DM has us roll separate attacks (we have a large pool of D20s we use for multi-target attacking), and applies one damage roll to all targets. We also roll each damage die separately, for 3D6s usually we have 3 different D6's that we roll together.
This is the way the rules tell you to do it and the way the game's math assumes you are doing it.
(we have a large pool of D20s we use for multi-target attacking)
Stealing this idea... off to the dice shop I go... :P
(we have a large pool of D20s we use for multi-target attacking)
Stealing this idea... off to the dice shop I go... :P
In my quest to find dice I can actually hit things with, I ordered the pound o dice from chessex. Yes they are factory rejects, but i wasn't concerned. I was looking for quantity in the hope that at least one of them would roll decently. sadly, they tend to roll just as bad for me as my other dice, so the 20s were split out and became the "D20 pool". It works out pretty well for us.
I thought on this and figured I might as well look at an extreme case scenario, so I decided to look a 9[W] power with a 2d6 damage weapon (not entirely unrealistic as a level 29+ barbarian can accomplish this with a rage strike while wielding a maul or a heavy flail). This effectively gives us 18d6.
Now, rolling a d6 twice and adding them together isn't significantly different from rolling a d6 and multiplying it by 2 as far as time, but does skew the results.
Rolling a d6 18 times and adding them together is probably much more time consuming than rolling a d6 and multiplying it by 18, so that is a strong benefit to one die and multiply if you're trying to be fast.
It's also a significant, let me repeat, significant difference in probabilities.
Probability calculations (output 1 is roll one die and multiply; output 2 is roll multiple dice and add)
With roll one die and multiply on 18d6, you have 6 possibilities, each of which as a 1/6 or 16.67% chance of coming up.
Specifically, you will get, invariably, either 18, 36, 54, 72, 90, or 108, with perfectly even chances of any one of them coming up.
Rolling multiple dice and adding gives you the possibility of getting any whole number ranging from a minimum of 18 to a maximum of 108 and a strong, strong tendency of rolling near the mean of 63. Like a greater than 50% chance of getting a result ranging from 48-68 tendency.
Again, I'm just here to make sure the facts are fully understood. I can't judge for you how much trading speed for matching the game's assumed math is going to impact your group's fun or whether that impact would even be positive or negative.
If the option is between being fast or fair, I'll choose to be fair any day of the week.
As long as everyone is on board, it's fair; yes? -- Fast and fair can be achieved in tandem!
Again, I'm just here to make sure the facts are fully understood. I can't judge for you how much trading speed for matching the game's assumed math is going to impact your group's fun or whether that impact would even be positive or negative.
If everyone at the table is using the same method of rolling, the impact is moot; yes? -- I should write an Unearthed Arcana-style article.
Sure, half the time minions will just go poof. And then they're useless.
But half the time they wont.
Now the controller uses minion clearing bomb take 2. Same coin flip.
Now controller misses and does minion clearing bomb x3. IT CAN STILL MISS.
So 1 encounter in 8 the controller hasn't cleared ONE SINGLE MINION BY ROUND 3!
The result is an insanely frustrated controller. Sure, most encounters he idly blows them away easily. But persistently there are encounters where the entire party nearly dies to minions while he's useless.
Thus he'll repeatedly take accuracy boosters and more minion clearing powers in an increasingly futile attempt to fix a problem that he can't ever fix. And why can't he fix it? The law of large numbers is supposed to be ensuring that the odds of it occuring are ONE IN SEVERAL BILLION.
I really don't think I'd say it's moot. The impact is there, and it is real.
I was speaking in terms of impact on fairness.
Your example of rolling 18 dice is absolutely -not- where I would -ever- want to end up in a game of D&D. -- The floating/stacking/situational +'s from a hundred different sources being added to two handfuls of dice being thrown about is my one major gripe with 4E that I hope and pray is addressed first on the list whenever it is that 5E decides to come down the pipe.
Taking up 5 pages of stats and related items, abilities and powers on a character sheet is absolute madness.
The problem is that as long as the DM is consistently using minions, it's NOT fair. The controller won't be able to clear them easily. Sure, half the time minions will just go poof. And then they're useless. But half the time they wont. Now the controller uses minion clearing bomb take 2. Same coin flip. Now controller misses and does minion clearing bomb x3. IT CAN STILL MISS. So 1 encounter in 8 the controller hasn't cleared ONE SINGLE MINION BY ROUND 3! The result is an insanely frustrated controller. Sure, most encounters he idly blows them away easily. But persistently there are encounters where the entire party nearly dies to minions while he's useless. Thus he'll repeatedly take accuracy boosters and more minion clearing powers in an increasingly futile attempt to fix a problem that he can't ever fix. And why can't he fix it? The law of large numbers is supposed to be ensuring that the odds of it occuring are ONE IN SEVERAL BILLION.
We're all in agreement that one attack roll for a crowd is a less-than-stellar idea.
It changes some balance concerns, however, but those balance concerns are going to be changed across the board.
Does anyone remember 2nd edition and the '1 lucky crit kills your PC' approach? Sure, one lucky crit kills a monster too, but team PC has to kill a lot of monsters, while team monster only has to kill a few PCs. 3rd tried to solve this by making it harder to crit, 4th finally solved it by reducing the swinginess of a crit to acceptable levels (and allowing PC crits to be swingier than monster crits, an 'unfair' situation).
That 1 encounter in 8 where the controller does not deal with the minions can result in a TPK. One TPK in 8 encounters is not acceptable just because in 4 of those 8 encounters all the minions died round 1.
The only solution is to... not use minions often. Which slows down combat by adding more slow-to-die monsters with HP and status effects that need to be tracked.
So by trying to speed up combat, the GM has added a system that will either occasionally kill the entire party through no fault of their own, or... slowed down combat.
Can I suggest the GM instead learn to roll multiple D20s at once? If you need to, 'one damage roll' is a fine simplification because it allows blasts/bursts to still auto kill minions.
They're not going to be changed across the board because team PC doesn't bring Minions to the table. Therefore there's nothing 'fair' about it.
Does anyone remember 2nd edition and the '1 lucky crit kills your PC' approach? Sure, one lucky crit kills a monster too, but team PC has to kill a lot of monsters, while team monster only has to kill a few PCs. 3rd tried to solve this by making it harder to crit, 4th finally solved it by reducing the swinginess of a crit to acceptable levels (and allowing PC crits to be swingier than monster crits, an 'unfair' situation).
That 1 encounter in 8 where the controller does not deal with the minions can result in a TPK. One TPK in 8 encounters is not acceptable just because in 4 of those 8 encounters all the minions died round 1.
The only solution is to... not use minions often. Which slows down combat by adding more slow-to-die monsters with HP and status effects that need to be tracked.
So by trying to speed up combat, the GM has added a system that will either occasionally kill the entire party through no fault of their own, or... slowed down combat.
Can I suggest the GM instead learn to roll multiple D20s at once? If you need to, 'one damage roll' is a fine simplification because it allows blasts/bursts to still auto kill minions.
Popstar and I are talking about multi-die damage rolls, not multi-target attacks.
Those are more or less fair since 3E is the king of rocket tag anyway. You might as well add one more 'roll well or die' mechanic to a game that's dominated by save versus death or die mechanics. It's the job of team PC to avoid enemy rockets, not complain that they're playing rocket tag in 3rd edition.
If the option is between being fast or fair, I'll choose to be fair any day of the week.
As long as everyone is on board, it's fair; yes? -- Fast and fair can be achieved in tandem!
I don't know if this is what you're saying, but: Even if someone agrees to be treated unfairly, that doesn't make it fair.
I don't know if this is what you're saying, but: Even if someone agrees to be treated unfairly, that doesn't make it fair.
...absolutely not what I'm saying...
I interpret 3d6 to be "3 times a 6-sided die." During Lair Assault earlier, the players found this to be an invalid interpretation of the rules
That is an invalid interpretation of the rules and has been invalid since Basic Edition.
and demanded I roll a 6-sided die a total of three times
THAT, on the other hand, is odd.
What would be wrong with rolling three six-sided dice?
Same (correct) outcome but much faster.
For me, it speeds up gameplay exponentially. I roll my attack die and my damage die at the same time and the multiplication plus the handful of bonuses from various sources is quickly summed up and we move along.
I suggest you continue with that practice, except add three dice (which are included in the single rolll) rather than multiply one die by three.
I don't know if this is what you're saying, but: Even if someone agrees to be treated unfairly, that doesn't make it fair.
...absolutely not what I'm saying...
Pretty sure that's what you said. May not have been what you meant to say, but that's how I'm reading it too.
I interpret 3d6 to be "3 times a 6-sided die." During Lair Assault earlier, the players found this to be an invalid interpretation of the rules
That is an invalid interpretation of the rules and has been invalid since Basic Edition.
I agree that it is invalid. -- I was always aware what the rules assumed, I just carried on carrying on; it was just a personal choice that I never gave any thought to.
Was it actually the way it was done in the basic game? Maybe I was taught to do that and it always just stuck?
I suggest you continue with that practice, except add three dice (which are included in the single rolll) rather than multiply one die by three.
LOL The solution!
I don't know if this is what you're saying, but: Even if someone agrees to be treated unfairly, that doesn't make it fair.
...absolutely not what I'm saying...
Pretty sure that's what you said. May not have been what you meant to say, but that's how I'm reading it too.
If there is consensus, and everything is is done consistently across the board, who is being treated unfairly?
I understood Salla to be under the assumption that my convincing others that "my way" is cool and we all just chug along (them rolling as assumed by the rules), to be me obtaining an agreement from others to be treated unfairly. ...which isn't my intent from here.
Our group plays that way, rolling one attack/dam roll for everyone in a burst or blast. It really isn't that big a deal.
It sometimes IS that big a deal.
Sure, when you have a burst 1 it probably doesn't make a big deal.
But when there's a minion army (common when the party has 7+ PCs) and your controller pops a burst 5 or burst 10... it matters.
I mean yeah, sometimes it can suck if you roll low, but is countered when you maybe crit or roll really high and are guaranteed a hit.
Actually, it sucks either way. A single daily power either does nothing, or turns a challenging encounter into a boring (but mercifully short) cakewalk.
If there is consensus, and everything is is done consistently across the board, who is being treated unfairly?
Anybody who interacts with bursts or blasts. They're balanced around the assumption that you're going to be doing things the way the rules say. It'd be like declaring all daggers are vorpal and brutal 1 by default. Even if it's applied consistently, the rogue's gonna be benefitting a lot more from the rule than a barbarian or cleric.
Not that there's anything wrong with doing that, if everyone's on board you can resolve every combat with a best 3/5 game of tic tac toe, but everyone being on board with something doesn't make it fair.
If you're being treated unfairly, you're being unfairly, period. Whether or not you consent to it is irrelevant.
I agree.
Where in my scenario is someone being treated unfairly?
I know you well enough to know that a simple stray from RAW is not going to get you worked up over fairness, so I'm failing to see where the unfair treatment and ill-informed consent issue is coming from. ??
If there is consensus, and everything is is done consistently across the board, who is being treated unfairly?
Anybody who interacts with bursts or blasts. They're balanced around the assumption that you're going to be doing things the way the rules say. It'd be like declaring all daggers are vorpal and brutal 1 by default. Even if it's applied consistently, the rogue's gonna be benefitting a lot more from the rule than a barbarian or cleric.
Not that there's anything wrong with doing that, if everyone's on board you can resolve every combat with a best 3/5 game of tic tac toe, but everyone being on board with something doesn't make it fair.
Mmm... are we creating arguments just to have them?
A dialogue on the semantics of "fairness" and all that derives, resides and results thereof?
The OP asked about ways to speed gameplay. -- My dice example is clearly not one of them. LOL Let's not hi-jack the thread.
My DM rolls one attack roll and applies it to everyone in a blast area. I think that robs him of a lot of hits but he says it's for speed. I'm playing a controller in our upcoming campaign and wanted to know what people think, other things they've seen to speed play, etc.
I once had a DM who had us roll a d20 a large handful of times on a card that we all contributed to as a group, and then he used that (working down the list) as d20 results for monster attacks against us, hidden checks, trap attacks, narrating skill challenges, etc. -- It was a cool way of progressing the story without dice getting in the way.
My DM rolls one attack roll and applies it to everyone in a blast area. I think that robs him of a lot of hits but he says it's for speed. I'm playing a controller in our upcoming campaign and wanted to know what people think, other things they've seen to speed play, etc.
I once had a DM who had us roll a d20 a large handful of times on a card that we all contributed to as a group, and then he used that (working down the list) as d20 results for monster attacks against us, hidden checks, trap attacks, narrating skill challenges, etc. -- It was a cool way of progressing the story without dice getting in the way.
www.random.org/integers/
Generate a few hundred random integers between 1 and 20.
Guaranteed to be a LOT more random than your average set of dice, and you can just copy them into a word file and print em out.
My DM rolls one attack roll and applies it to everyone in a blast area. I think that robs him of a lot of hits but he says it's for speed. I'm playing a controller in our upcoming campaign and wanted to know what people think, other things they've seen to speed play, etc.
I once had a DM who had us roll a d20 a large handful of times on a card that we all contributed to as a group, and then he used that (working down the list) as d20 results for monster attacks against us, hidden checks, trap attacks, narrating skill challenges, etc. -- It was a cool way of progressing the story without dice getting in the way.
www.random.org/integers/
Generate a few hundred random integers between 1 and 20.
Guaranteed to be a LOT more random than your average set of dice, and you can just copy them into a word file and print em out.
The DM in discussion was against dice generators, and the two FLGSs that I've run games at disallows them. -- There was an app for one that team Android was tweaking from the back-end and people have grown wary of them.
It was fun rolling dice that you knew were going to be used against you, though. LOL
It uses atmospheric noise from radar detectors (literally it just buys the junk readings off your average set of radar, the ones that mean nothing at all) and uses them as random numbers.
A printout of numbers from random.org is totally random.
P.S. Only meant to be used by the DM, obviously. Otherwise it's indistinguishable from any random printout of numbers whose average just happens to be 14.
P.P.S. The FLGS that SELLS DICE has an interest in disallowing dice generators.