rerolling saves before it is revealed question

[Fifo]

from a reincarnated druid
Cheat Death (Ex)
At 9th level, once per day, a reincarnated druid may reroll a save against a death effect, energy drain, or necromancy effect before the result of the roll is revealed, or reroll a failed stabilization check while dying. She must take the result of the second roll, even if it is worse than the original roll.

how does this work
1. roll and hide the result from everyone, and then decide to reroll
2. roll it and hide from even myself, have a bad feeling and reroll

just what does "before it is revealed" mean?

[Caderyn]

Before you announce your result and get told by the GM if is passes or fails, you can see the dice roll, you can even know what the number is the only piece of information you cannot have is the actual DC you were aiming for.

[Xedrek]

Druid rolls a 4 on a death effect and goes "ahh f***" assuming it would normally be a fail. He might have even beat the DC but he doesn't know that

He can reroll, and normally would under the assumption he didn't make it

[Noir le Lotus]

Fifo wrote:

just what does "before it is revealed" mean?

Dms usually have 2 ways to interpret this kind of rerolls :

1- They don't tell you the DC to beat, so if you decide to reroll without knowing if you fail or succeed.
2- They tell you the DC to beat, when you roll your die, you know if you fail or not, but you must choose if you want to reroll before the DM tells you what the effect will be.

Most DMs I know tend to favor the 2nd case.

[Friend of the Dork]

Noir le Lotus wrote:

Fifo wrote:

just what does "before it is revealed" mean?

Dms usually have 2 ways to interpret this kind of rerolls :

1- They don't tell you the DC to beat, so if you decide to reroll without knowing if you fail or succeed.
2- They tell you the DC to beat, when you roll your die, you know if you fail or not, but you must choose if you want to reroll before the DM tells you what the effect will be.

Most DMs I know tend to favor the 2nd case.

Result and effect are two different things. If the DM tells you the DC in advance he's making it easier than the game assumes. Or you might know the DC from prevous experience of the same effect, in which case you don't need to guess.

[Malachi Silverclaw]

If you roll a nat 1 on a save this is an auto-fail. Just because you know this, this in no way prevents you using the re-roll, so long as the DM hasn't told you what happens as a result of that failed save.

You are free to make any educated guesses that you can, without affecting your ability to re-roll.