My group DM is a nice guy and a good DM. He enjoys roleplaying just as much as the combat aspect of 4th Edition. Gaming with him has always been fun until recently.
Lately another player and myself have noticed that the way our DM rolls dice is fairly odd. I say odd in a manner which is borderline cheating. There are few techniques in rolling certain polyhedral dice (specifically D6s) which would garner a more favorable result. It is not only the manner of how he rolls but the surfaces he rolls on. I mean, I'm quite sure that rolling into a tin can top (the kind you would find peanuts or candy in) filled with other dice would prevent the die (2d6s, a d20 or other dice) from rolling fair, random results. I would know this isn't fair for rolling because a 5 inch diameter tin can top does not provide an adequet flat surface which would allow the die to roll, if you call dropping the die from a few inches off the table from between two fingers rolling.
What really takes the cake is that we players occassionally have a d20 that rolls off the table and onto the floor. We, knowing that it isn't right, pick it up and re-roll it even if it is a favorable roll. He rolls onto the floor, crits, and doesn't want to comply when we argue that it isn't fair if we re-roll our fallen rolls and he doesn't. He eventually did reroll but it left a bad taste in a couple of us players.
Lastly, he doesn't tell us the results of the enemy attacks to hit against our defenses. It's either hit, miss, or a number that might be close to our defenses. As a player I don't care if the enemy rolled a 40 after mods to hit my 26 AC, I want to know how much it hit for. A few of the others agree with me.
We plan to talk to the DM next game day which might be Friday or Saturday.
What do you think?
One thing that we do at our table regarding how the dice are rolled is that they have to tumble a certain amount of times. No "flat drops". Only the d4 is allowed that kind of roll as long as it spins about acceptably in the air before it does.
As for the reroll if it hits the floor, that's a rule my group uses and it wouldn't be fair if it didn't apply to both DM and PC, even if the DM fudges most of his rolls to go to pick up a dice see it's a high number and choose to take it isn't even fudging a roll it's breaking a house rule (A rule in the home, not a houserule for the game) for his advantage, house rules apply mostly to keep the peace. Again, if he really wants to hit you he can get a DM screen, roll a one and call it an 18.
As for the hit miss thing, that's something that I do myself as a DM, speeds things up rather then asking everyone if 36 hit's their AC at level 8, I know that all my players have around a 20 in their AC and no buffs will raise it high enough. That however works for my group and if it doesn't work for your group he should respect his players wishes and call a number for the player or at least discuss the change with you although he may not know it's an issue yet, but that's why you're talking to him.
I roll only on the table in sight and on flat surfaces as a rule, as are my players. I find it useful if my players know what was rolled and what was hit, as it gives them a sense where they stand statwise (we are new to 4E and are still learning), and allows them to judge a situation with some accuracy. If something hits them on a "3" they know it's time to beat a hasty retreat, and they can relax if they hit on a "5" (or get tense if missing on a "12"
). It gives them also a guideline when it's a good moment to drop their dailies on someone.The exceptions are for rolls of which results the PCs could have no knowledge, like checks for hidden doors or traps, and for decoys. The players caught on fast that when I roll hidden, something is amiss...they might face an illusionary monster or invisible/hidden enemies are around. So I roll now and then out of sight as to not give away special situations.
Either way, nobody has ever accused me to cheat, although some suspect me of using witchcraft, when I roll two natural "20" in a row on the same dice which got the owner no roll above 12
Either way, nobody has ever accused me to cheat, although some suspect me of using witchcraft, when I roll two natural "20" in a row on the same dice which got the owner no roll above 12
People say I have a horseshoe crammed somewhere out of sight when I roll three D20s at a time and roll 3 20s, then after accusations of weighted dice they roll 5s and 6s on them
For example: Last session, I sent two Level 8 PCs against three level 13 Brutes. I expected this to be a tough fight, but still winnable. It wasn't. In fact, due to an ability I hadn't noticed when selecting said monsters, I was looking at a 3 round TPK unless I fudged around the edges carefully to allow not a victory but an escape, always making sure to land enough hard hits to keep the PCs on their toes and engaged in the combat.
Maybe your DM is using a trick because he's not yet confident in his balancing abilities. Maybe he's using a trick because he has a cool plan that he wants to make sure happens and to let all you PCs feel as though it was a natural occurrence that you earned every step of the way with blood sweat and Mountain Dew. Or, hey, maybe he's not playing the dice at all. It's all his prerogative. A DM isn't cheating unless someone at the table is actually feeling cheated, and in a game of collective fantasy storytelling, truthiness is often more fun than boring old truth.
Anyway, it just sounds like all of you just need to agree on some table etiquette as well as how much information is given out. For my group all rolls are made in the open where everyone can see. Any cocked dice or dice that fall on the floor are rerolled, regardless of result. As for enemy totals when I DM, I don't always announce them, but have no problem doing so. As a player I don't really care either way. The important thing is that all of you end up on the same page.
One other piece of advice, let the DM offer an explanation and be willing to give it the consideration it deserves (that level of consideration may vary, there's a big difference between "I want to keep some suspense" vs. "I'm the DM and it's my way or the highway").
As far as the third point goes, he really does need to tell you the numbers, as many classes have interrupts that you can activate to boost your defenses. The wizard's utility, Shield, springs to mind. If the target only hits by 3 or less, you can activate your Shield and that makes the power miss.
Good point.
As long as you shake it good, it will randomize the roll just fine.
Maybe you could suggest that he use one.
In all other editions it doesn't matter how much you hit a creature by or miss it by.
As for the rolling into a tin top, so what. The dice will still roll randomly, they may not roll as much but they will still be random.
The character in question is very very good at what she does, and what she does is something my character is very very bad at (vulnerable to). In response, I shot the adversary with two arrows before it could get the drop on any of us. I explained to my friend that this was part of, but not all of, what went into my decision to shoot the crap out of an otherwise "not obviously hostile" target.
It was plenty hostile, just not on the surface. So yeah, I confessed to using a die roll as a small part of the evidence pile that compelled me to shoot the innocent looking (but genuinely BBEG) person in the face two times without warning.
My friend and DM explained it to me thusly:
I don't care if you use the rolls. A character could easily see another character take an action and know "Wow, they're really good at that" or conversely, "Wow, they totally suck."
One need not be a dancer to know what a good dancer looks like.
Likewise, when we complete tasks in real life, we generally have a feeling of, "Wow, this is really good. I did this right!"
Sometimes we have the opposite, "Wow, this is a giant load of crap and chips. I sure hope no one scrutinizes this steaming pile of BS I just concocted too closely."
In real life a person knows how well they executed a certain task, even if they fail or succeed at that attempt. They know how competent they are and they know when they're screwing up.
That's all a die roll is.
Since that conversation I've made a decision that I will always roll my dice in front of the PCs, and allow them to take into account their own die rolls as PCs as well. My DM and friend is right. There's no reason to hide it.
A good artist knows when he's a good artist. A bad artist knows when he's bad.
We know when someone is maintaining good balance. We know when someone is staggering like a drunkard too - even if we can't walk the line ourselves.
As a GM I usually try to describe the near miss, and near hit so that way they know to use their abilities or not. The houserule is so that if I forget to describe it adequetly enough they don't waste their ability. :D
If my players question how they got hit, most of the time this is because they have some ridiculous bonuses (or the enemy has penalties), and usually telling them the dice roll is enough (to actually hit these, usually it has to be a high diceroll), otherwise my players don't usually question a hit or miss if everybody is fighting normally.
This is part of the reason why I hate 4th ed. You have to metagame to play it "right"..
In all other editions it doesn't matter how much you hit a creature by or miss it by.
Wrong. 3.X has a lot of spells and ToB abilities for instance that are interrupts and make the attack roll a very important thing. This isn't new you just forgot or blocked it out as it makes *****ing about 4E easier.
Wrong. 3.X has a lot of spells and ToB abilities for instance that are interrupts and make the attack roll a very important thing. This isn't new you just forgot or blocked it out as it makes *****ing about 4E easier.
Thanks for saving me the trouble of writing my own response to that load of garbage
My friend and DM explained it to me thusly:
I don't care if you use the rolls. A character could easily see another character take an action and know "Wow, they're really good at that" or conversely, "Wow, they totally suck."
One need not be a dancer to know what a good dancer looks like.
Likewise, when we complete tasks in real life, we generally have a feeling of, "Wow, this is really good. I did this right!"
Sometimes we have the opposite, "Wow, this is a giant load of crap and chips. I sure hope no one scrutinizes this steaming pile of BS I just concocted too closely."
In real life a person knows how well they executed a certain task, even if they fail or succeed at that attempt. They know how competent they are and they know when they're screwing up.
That's all a die roll is.
A good artist knows when he's a good artist. A bad artist knows when he's bad.
We know when someone is maintaining good balance. We know when someone is staggering like a drunkard too - even if we can't walk the line ourselves.
For most skill checks I would completely agree. There are some though that that is simply not true. Speaking from a 3.5 point of view ... Search, Spot, Listen, Hide easily come to mind. I think there are always mitigating factors, but low rolls on those skills in general I believe would still lead the PC to think he has accomplished them well.
Wrong. 3.X has a lot of spells and ToB abilities for instance that are interrupts and make the attack roll a very important thing. This isn't new you just forgot or blocked it out as it makes *****ing about 4E easier.
If I am truely in error, name some of them.
Doesn't this guy use a DM screen of some kind?
Lastly, he doesn't tell us the results of the enemy attacks to hit against our defenses. It's either hit, miss, or a number that might be close to our defenses. As a player I don't care if the enemy rolled a 40 after mods to hit my 26 AC, I want to know how much it hit for. A few of the others agree with me.
I don't know about other DMs, but I almost NEVER tell them the exact number for which I hit them. I go by animation and cinematic effect. "The Fighter plunges his sword directly into your chest," or something of the like for a Critical or "The arrow pierces through your armor and skin at your ribs," for something like a hit (especially if its below bloodied where I consider characters actually getting hit) or "You see tufts of familiar looking hair flying away from you as the axe passes over your head," for a narrow miss. They generally get the idea of the range of the roll.
This is how I do things though, and my players like this in the 2 groups I run games for...
I think that the Dice thing needs to be discussed collectively in terms of surfaces and falling off of the table and such. Discuss his rolling style if you so wish. I know people who flip dice in the air or shoot them like craps dice, but if they keep doing it, they take the result regardless of it hitting anything or ending up on the floor. This may not be the exact issue, but its close enough that you should get the idea.
@ The_Black_hand
You said... "This is part of the reason why I hate 4th ed. You have to metagame to play it "right".."
That is the biggest load of crap I've ever heard. As a DM I have not seen my players Metagame more than a few times, and I put a stop to it when they did, in 4e. If you are Metagaming, change your style.
"In all other editions it doesn't matter how much you hit a creature by or miss it by."
IIRC, 3.0 and 3.5 have as many complaints as 4e does about metagaming and the like. This isn't new or exclusive to 4e. It depends on the group and the people playing in the game. Like I said... If you're metagaming in 4e, then change your style.
I hardly ever tell my players my rolls; there is no reason to do so. Why should they know? A good DM will know the abilities of the PCs so he would know if the AC was beaten. I will sometimes ask a player the AC of his character under a certain circumstance. If a player needs to know the roll then the battle system is broken!
I have a house rule which plainly states, "If you an ability, magic item, bonus etc. which would have prevented damage, created damage and/or death(s), but you forgot to add it in during the battle and your turn ended, your turn stands as is." This rule also extends to the DM! Why you ask? Simple. This rule prevents players and DMs from whining the rest of the night that they were cheated and also stops the "playover" syndrome.
I fell into the "playover" trap early in my DMing career and it had to be stopped. The end of the round, three turns after the player's ended, the player exclaims, "I forgot to add my Dodge bonus into that attack! What AC did you hit? I want a playover! Waaaaaaa!"
If I am truely in error, name some of them.
Action Points, for one.
Let's see...
Second Chance would count, too, wouldn't it?
So would
Call to Mind.
And those are just the ones I found in five minutes of searching the SRD. Because I really couldn't be bothered to dig out my books.
But, no, don't let me stop you; please, Edition War away. Don't let the facts stop you :P
Normally he rolls behind a screen but our table is large enough that at times he roams around on the open sides to get a better look at the maps he draws out. I mean, if I can see you "roll" the dice in my clear line of sight and SEE the dice land flat on the same number over and over and over again then your case of making the dice do whatever you want is thrown right out the window.
He needs to learn dice control. And, like I said earlier, he might be a tad immature.
When I DM 4e I roll in the open for one simple reason: I don't use a DM screen. That is because I have limited room on the table and that has the battlemap and figures on it. When I used to DM 3.5, I rolled behind a screen all the time because I never used mini's.
My PC's are really lucky however; I suck at rolling. Even in the 3.5 game I play in, I suck at rolling. ;)
Action Points, for one.
This a variant that out of the 4 different groups I play in, noone uses. Noone at the gaming shop I talk to use these rules either.
Let's see...
Second Chance would count, too, wouldn't it?
So would
Call to Mind.
One class has this ability, a class that 95% of the dms I have ever played with or have talked to won't allow. Your using psionics as an example is just desperation on your part. I am the only one I know who would allow psionics in thier campaign.
And those are just the ones I found in five minutes of searching the SRD. Because I really couldn't be bothered to dig out my books.
But, no, don't let me stop you; please, Edition War away. Don't let the facts stop you :P
The "facts" you posted are weak at best, I stated why they are so. Next attempt to prove me wrong come up with something more concrete.
This a variant that out of the 4 different groups I play in, noone uses. Noone at the gaming shop I talk to use these rules either.
...rules which are an integral part of one of the three major supported campaign settings in 3.5.
As a counterpoint, all of the 5 3.5 campaigns I participated in, as well as the other 5 that I've watched in on, all used Action points or some variant thereof. Hey, I guess since I'm using bigger numbers, my anecdotal evidence beats your anecdotal evidence! Oh, and then there's that integral part of one of the three major 3.5 campaign settings thing. Which, unlike all of your counterarguments, is NOT anecdotal evidence, but a easily supportable fact. Whee!
One class has this ability, a class that 95% of the dms I have ever played with or have talked to won't allow. Your using psionics as an example is just desperation on your part. I am the only one I know who would allow psionics in thier campaign.
Actually, the psion/wilder list covers two classes, not one. And that's excluding Elocators or Psionic Artificers (Magic of Eberron), who have access to Use Psionic Device. And again, if we're going to throw out anecdotes, 95% of DMs that I've played with or talked to *did* use psionics in 3.5; I've only played in one 3.5 game where they were expressly disallowed because of DM unfamiliarity. That's better than you get with *most* splatbooks.
The "facts" you posted are weak at best, I stated why they are so. Next attempt to prove me wrong come up with something more concrete.
Umm, I came up with two of the very first supplements released for 3.5, one of which is popular enought garner its own subforum on these boards back under 3.5, and didn't even need to crack open a book to do so; I was feeling lazy, as I said previously. I'm pretty certain that had I any interest in digging out ToB, ToM, any of the Completes, various campaign settings (as I alluded to above, Action Points play a pretty significant role in Eberron), or any of loads of other books released druing 3.5's run that have similar effect.
However, it's absolutely precious how you shifted the goalposts the second someone pointed out that the edition war you set out to wage didn't have any basis in fact.
I'm quite sure that rolling into a tin can top (the kind you would find peanuts or candy in) filled with other dice would prevent the die (2d6s, a d20 or other dice) from rolling fair, random results.
And I'm quite certain that you're dead wrong on this one. So long as the DM is not using some weird trick, or the die isn't weighed, it should still produce consistently random results.
...rules which are an integral part of one of the three major supported campaign settings in 3.5.
As a counterpoint, all of the 5 3.5 campaigns I participated in, as well as the other 5 that I've watched in on, all used Action points or some variant thereof. Hey, I guess since I'm using bigger numbers, my anecdotal evidence beats your anecdotal evidence! Oh, and then there's that integral part of one of the three major 3.5 campaign settings thing. Which, unlike all of your counterarguments, is NOT anecdotal evidence, but a easily supportable fact. Whee!
Actually, the psion/wilder list covers two classes, not one. And that's excluding Elocators or Psionic Artificers (Magic of Eberron), who have access to Use Psionic Device. And again, if we're going to throw out anecdotes, 95% of DMs that I've played with or talked to *did* use psionics in 3.5; I've only played in one 3.5 game where they were expressly disallowed because of DM unfamiliarity. That's better than you get with *most* splatbooks.
Umm, I came up with two of the very first supplements released for 3.5, one of which is popular enought garner its own subforum on these boards back under 3.5, and didn't even need to crack open a book to do so; I was feeling lazy, as I said previously. I'm pretty certain that had I any interest in digging out ToB, ToM, any of the Completes, various campaign settings (as I alluded to above, Action Points play a pretty significant role in Eberron), or any of loads of other books released druing 3.5's run that have similar effect.
However, it's absolutely precious how you shifted the goalposts the second someone pointed out that the edition war you set out to wage didn't have any basis in fact.
Just got back home from a vacation,
I reread your post and the links you provided.
The first link is for a rules variant that noone I know uses. The next 2 psion spells let you reroll the dice, Yes you find out if your first roll was a success or not , but you do not know by how much.
I still fail to see any axamples in 3.x where you have to know the exact number on the die in order for an ability to trigger.
Dice rerolling is common in 3.x, The example given by Salla simply does not occur in 3.x.
Thier are abilities that trigger in given circumstances, but these worded carefully to avoid having to metagame them. Offhand is travel domain ability , freedom of movement. It automatically goes off if they cleric would need such an ability at the time. None of the, you hit by 3, but the shield ability kicks in and now you miss stuff.
Since I have disproved you , again, you need to come up with a real example.
If I am truely in error, name some of them.
Oh, easy. POWER ATTACK
If the Power Attacking Barbarian knows he hit by a lot on a natural 12, he may want to power attack for more. If he barely hit on that same natural 12, he may want to power attack for a few points less. If the DM conceals how much he's hitting by, then it really just becomes a grab bag, and overall less satisfying.
Seriously, there are *real* reasons to diss 4e. Use them, not some made-up garbage like this.
Edit: My apologies Escef, I replied as soon as I saw "The Black Hand"'s post, then scrolled down to see the (logical) request to take it to PMs. Darn my lack of patience!
Seriously, there are *real* reasons to diss 4e.
Which aren't relevant to the thread. PM guys.
Oh, easy. POWER ATTACK
If the Power Attacking Barbarian knows he hit by a lot on a natural 12, he may want to power attack for more. If he barely hit on that same natural 12, he may want to power attack for a few points less. If the DM conceals how much he's hitting by, then it really just becomes a grab bag, and overall less satisfying.
Seriously, there are *real* reasons to diss 4e. Use them, not some made-up garbage like this.
Edit: My apologies Escef, I replied as soon as I saw "The Black Hand"'s post, then scrolled down to see the (logical) request to take it to PMs. Darn my lack of patience!
Again sorry, this is a modification made to the attack roll then the success of that roll is determined. Not that the success of the roll is determined, exact roll is stated by the dm, then success is reevaluated due to abilities that might trigger.