I recently had a player in my game throw something of a b&!$+ fit right in the middle of the game. The issue: the group was fighting a high AC displaced blackspawn raider ninja (who drank a boatload of potions).
Nobody was hitting the bad guy, either due to low to hit rolls or rolling poorly on the miss chance. Then this player rolls a natural 20 and starts celebrating. I ask him to roll his miss chance and he starts telling me a natural 20 always hits. I agree and point out that displacement and other forms of concealment have a chance to negate any successful attack. He of course rolled low on the percentiles and really started getting steamed up. I showed him in the PHB under concealment where it specifically says "negates a successful attack". Even after being shown the black and white he sat in his corner of the couch and pouted.
I'm almost 40 and this guy is in his mid 20s and I just find this kind of behavior appalling in an adult.
Anyone else have similar tales of gaming horror?
That kind of behaviour is unconscionable!
Every true gamer knows that the correct behaviour under the circumstances is to destroy the offending dice with the maximum violence possible (e.g. smashing with a hammer, burning, hurling off a rooftop, etc.).
;-)
The behaviour is unacceptable and yet possibly understandable. I've found that I'm gaming with a bunch of players - some of whom have a lot going on in real life and are often pretty tired after a few hours.
Its a good policy to take note of stuff like this when it comes up and try and head it off at the pass in future. Having players roll their miss chance first eliminates the let down of having a 20 taken away.
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That kind of behaviour is unconscionable!
Every true gamer knows that the correct behaviour under the circumstances is to destroy the offending dice with the maximum violence possible (e.g. smashing with a hammer, burning, hurling off a rooftop, etc.).
;-)
My friends once super-glued a set of dice to the table. When the player tried to get them off (with force), some of them broke. Classic dice punishment.
I know how much miss-chance sucks for fighters. Think of it as a learning opportunity for why every 3rd level fighter should take blind fight.
PS Were you playing Red Hand of Doom? Because I think I know the fight you're talking about - it's tricky.
After a bad roll (or ten) my friend calmly stood up from the gaming table and walked outside and hurled the offending die into a field at the back of our house. He then came back in, sat down with a big smile on his face and selected some new dice from the tub.
(He also does this with computer games from time to time or snaps joypads in half and puts them in the bin... he's a scary 27 year old). :)
No, not Red Hand of Doom. My own homebrew where they're fighting through a series of temples in a dormant volcano trying to get the moxy to take on an aspect of Tiamat in the middle (think Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil meets Red Hand of Doom).
I always roll miss chance only after confirmed hits, which to me is as per RAW. The miss chance only applies to successful attacks.
Among mature adults I find this adds a level of tension to some fights that makes the danger a little more real. Some of my players have a bad habit of not submersing themselves into the moment and looking at their characters as just a collection of numbers and abilities. They are trying to "beat/win the game" and sort of missing the real point (which is full immersion escapism to me).
I found out afterwards that this "natural 20 hits no matter what" thing came from another group's house rule. While I like to have experienced players I utterly loathe it when they try to import house rules from other DMs into my campaign. My campaign, my house rules (and my house for that matter).
I've been accused of being too strict by some and too generous by others. And all this time I was shooting for diabolical bastard. Go figure.
...should take blind fight.true dat.
No one in my group has blind fight. This isn't the first time miss chance has screwed them over. Plus they're 12th level and we're using the BoXM feat per level variant so it's not like everyone from the fighter right on down to the sorcerer doesn't have a spare feat slot to put it in.
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This is why most people I play with roll miss chance first, then only roll for the attacks that have a chance to hit.
While I am sure it is "wrong", particularly with skewing the long term percentages, the long term player satisfaction is firmly with not hosing them out of auto-hits and confirmed crits.
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This is why most people I play with roll miss chance first, then only roll for the attacks that have a chance to hit.
While I am sure it is "wrong", particularly with skewing the long term percentages, the long term player satisfaction is firmly with not hosing them out of auto-hits and confirmed crits.
I usually roll miss chance "behind the screen". It is a defender ability after all. Plus it let's a discrete DM to fudge every once and a while. It also lets me occasionally zone out while the player makes his attack roll.
This is why most people I play with roll miss chance first, then only roll for the attacks that have a chance to hit.
While I am sure it is "wrong", particularly with skewing the long term percentages, the long term player satisfaction is firmly with not hosing them out of auto-hits and confirmed crits.
I don't let them roll confirmation until after the miss chance. That way they don't know if it would've really been a crit. That takes away a little of the sting. So in this case it could end up being "three strikes your out."
I don't feel a slavish compulsion to follow all rules as written. My houserule handout out is a multi-pager. This mechanic just makes sense to me. Maybe that blow is dead on...but are you hitting the real McCoy or his displaced/blurred/mirror imaged form?
All of which is somewhat off the beaten path. Any other tales of player angst and shenanigans?
I've always wanted to use "shenanigans" in a sentence. I am now full of joy.
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Frankly, if you're an adult and you're going to pout like a five-year old because your imaginary elf ranger failed his Dex check and died, then you lack the maturity necessary for this game.
Such individuals need to stay in bed all day surrounded by stuffed animals, lest any adversity send their fragile psyches into a tailspin.
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That kind of behaviour is unconscionable!
Every true gamer knows that the correct behaviour under the circumstances is to destroy the offending dice with the maximum violence possible (e.g. smashing with a hammer, burning, hurling off a rooftop, etc.).
;-)
I have a frying-pan melted d20 that serves as an example to my other unruly dice.....that was the last time I rolled 12 numbers under 6 in a row.
;P
All of which is somewhat off the beaten path. Any other tales of player angst and shenanigans?
I remember playing with a guy who did a surprisingly large amount of whining and sulking after his character put on a Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity. For Pete's sake, I can understand the character being upset in that situation, but why should the player get his knickers in a twist?
CEO
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This is why most people I play with roll miss chance first, then only roll for the attacks that have a chance to hit.
While I am sure it is "wrong", particularly with skewing the long term percentages, the long term player satisfaction is firmly with not hosing them out of auto-hits and confirmed crits.
This is how we play at my table also, though I allow my players to roll both the "to hit" and "miss chance" dice at the same time if they wish.
-Lisa
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I used to have a very whiny player at my table you know the pick apart every dm call and hold up the game spending 20 min going through 8 rule books to prove his point type one day after spending an hour arguing about some silly little thing I lost my temper and went on rant mode at him and gave him a 15 minute long speech. Honestly cant remember what I said all i do recall is it ended with me saying "And by the time you finish my campaign you will have nerves of steel, ice water for blood and a set of brass balls this big" At which point I camly sat down and continued the game (well after my other players stoped rolling on the floor with laughter and the offending player picked his jaw up off the floor)
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This is how we play at my table also, though I allow my players to roll both the "to hit" and "miss chance" dice at the same time if they wish.
-Lisa
That is another favorite local method, on the same level as rolling damage dice with attack rolls.
It can be seriously amusing to watch a player first organize, then try to hold, then roll the 20-50 dice required for attack roll, miss chance, damage, and bonus damage, for a full attack, all at once.
That is why I prefer roll to miss first, then roll the non-excluded attack and damage dice.
Every now and then when the DM forgets about a miss chance and rolls a confirmed crit, it invokes the "last chance" roll for the player with the call "High you die."
I found out afterwards that this "natural 20 hits no matter what" thing came from another group's house rule. While I like to have experienced players I utterly loathe it when they try to import house rules from other DMs into my campaign. My campaign, my house rules (and my house for that matter).
Assuming you're playing 3.5e, it's not a house rule.
Automatic Misses and Hits: A natural 1 (the d20 comes up 1) on the attack roll is always a miss. A natural 20 (the d20 comes up 20) is always a hit. A natural 20 is also a threat- a possible critical hit.
Unless, of course, you mean he interpreted the natural 20 as always piercing everything, including miss chance and concealment. In that case, yes, you're right and he's absolutely wrong.
I, too, firmly approve of rolling miss chance first. Primarily, this speeds up the game. My players asked me a long, long time ago, "Why even bother rolling the attack if there's no chance of hitting? It wastes time." I agreed, so I roll the d%, then tell them to roll the attack or not.
It's every bit as logical as the reverse order. "How do you know the target you just flawlessly skewered was the real one?" One can just as easily say that the weapon has to encounter and overcome the effect producing the miss chance before it has any possibility of landing a solid blow on the actual target, whether the miss chance comes from concealment or displacement. This cuts down on player frustration and, again, speeds up the game. The other way just seems like an inefficient use of table time to me.
Your mileage may vary, but both miss chance and attack rolls are so abstract I can't possibly imagine my immersion ever being increased by doing one before the other. One may also need to consider the players' preferences and desires in how they resolve the attacks, which are every bit as important as the DM's, and perhaps even come to a compromise if there is a divergence of opinions.
Compromise!? Blasphemy!!!
The natural 20 was supposed to overcome anything (your latter assumption).
If the miss chance thing was a serious problem for the majority of the group I would certainly do as you suggest. While a part of me does enjoy it when the PCs get crushed like little bugs I don't do it on purpose. Except sometimes for a really really really important bad guy.
I actually find that the villian who constantly runs away is far more likely to get under my players' skin. When I ran Monte Cook's Banewarrens this gal Navanna Vladaam had an item that duplicated the power of a cloak of the mountebank. My constant use of it to help her escape when they had her backed against the wall actually resulted in real howls of thwarted anger.
They actually managed to kill her and then her rich family had her true resurrected. It was frikkin' awesome.
Ah, yes then. He was dead wrong and officially a whiner.
As for BBEGs who run away, you're right there! The most memorable villain from the first campaign I ever ran was a wizard. He had a whole castle filled with nasties at his beck and call, but incredibly poor hit point (I rolled them rather than taking average, which I thereafter began doing because of this NPC). He buffed himself before the party arrived, but still only got in one good round before he had to dimension door away. I hadn't planned it at the time (it was my first campaign; I didn't know what the hell I was doing!), but it drove the players bonkers and they made a point of hunting him down. No one had ever escaped from them before. The glee on their faces when they finally got him was a sight to remember. That one unexpected action gave me another two sessions worth of adventures!
Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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I...uh...have had a few "pouting" moments in some of the games I have played in. Not particularly proud of that fact, but I wouldn't say it's a sign of immaturity. It's commonly a sign of frustration and disappointment at the situation that the offender really has no proper avenue to vent.
For most of those instances, my character basically sucked during the encounter, overextended himself, and wound up going into the negatives, if not dead. Add to that a lack of sleep, pretty high stress levels from outside the game, and then throw in a random and incredibly bad roll, and you have a momentary "WTF?? That's not FAIR!!" moment.
Generally, my sulking/pouting is really me frustrated and furiously thinking about how to turn the encounter around and get my character out alive. I'm sure it doesn't look flattering, either.
And so, I can see where this player was coming from. The whole encounter was sucking, nothing was working right, and he FINALLY rolls a "20". Sure, not necessarily a crit, but a HIT! And then, he has to roll a miss chance. And fails. And he's playing with a preconceived notion that rolling a natural "20" MEANS something, when in fact in your game, it really doesn't. So, the game seems stacked against him.
For the record, I'm in his camp...a natural "20" should always hit. If a natural "1" always misses, ALWAYS...then the "20" should be an automatic hit...the crit chance is "icing on the cake". If anything, the miss chance should have determined whether he even got a confirm crit roll. (BTW, one of the things I like about 4e...20's hit and do max dmg).
That all said, yes, it's generally bad form to lose control and throw your frustration around so that the whole thing becomes awkward. But, we all have some bad moments, expectations are riding high, and there are lapses. Now, if a player does this all the time, then I could see the whole "geez, grow UP" response.
Just my 2 CP.
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Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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OK, rules can be subject to interpretation, I guess.
On one hand, you've got the line from the PHB "A natural 20 is always a hit". There is no indication of exceptions in that sentence, nor in any sentence immediately following. This implies that it is an absolute rule, based on "always".
Yet, under the rules for concealment:
Concealment gives the subject of a successful attack a 20% chance that the attacker missed because of the concealment. If the attacker hits, the defender must make a miss chance percentile roll to avoid the attack.
Never really been much of a rules lawyer, but is "always" not really...well, "always"?
Plus, if we are being literal about rules, the wording that the "subject" and "defender" must make the roll strongly suggests that it is the DM that should be making the miss chance roll, NOT the player. The PHB also says the attack and miss chance rolls should be made at the same time.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Yup, a 20 is not always a hit - it must be possible to hit for it to be a hit. You can't aim at a non-adjacent target (without reach) and hit, even with a 20. In the case of a miss chance, blowing the miss chance means you had no chance to hit your target - and the "always" no longer applies.
OK, rules can be subject to interpretation, I guess.
On one hand, you've got the line from the PHB "A natural 20 is always a hit". There is no indication of exceptions in that sentence, nor in any sentence immediately following. This implies that it is an absolute rule, based on "always".
Yet, under the rules for concealment:
Concealment gives the subject of a successful attack a 20% chance that the attacker missed because of the concealment. If the attacker hits, the defender must make a miss chance percentile roll to avoid the attack.
Never really been much of a rules lawyer, but is "always" not really...well, "always"?
Plus, if we are being literal about rules, the wording that the "subject" and "defender" must make the roll strongly suggests that it is the DM that should be making the miss chance roll, NOT the player. The PHB also says the attack and miss chance rolls should be made at the same time.
No, read your rules again. A natural 20 always hits. So the character "hit". Concealment says that if the attacker hits (and as we just noted, he did hit, since a natural 20 is always a hit) he has to deal with the concealment.
So yeah, natural 20s always hit. But they don't always get through the miss chance.
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Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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Ah! OK. The key is to look at it one step at a time.
My error was to define "always hit" as "successfully deal damage".
Still, it would stick in my craw to have to roll the miss chance myself. My DM has always rolled that and told me whether the concealment made me miss. Never, EVER rolled a 20 in that situation, though.
Thanks for the clarification.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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One of my favorite gaming stories: in college, our DM had too many players for one party, so a few of us calved off into running a second set of adventures. What I relate happened in the original group, so you'll have to take my word on my taking the word of the other players.
In the group that remained, the party was in a bar, drinking with the locals and asking after a band of slavers in the area. Pretty soon, they realize they're far woozier than they should be, and that they've been drugged. My frind, J., stepped out of the dorm lounge at that point to get a soda.
This situation really bothered one of the players. No, worse than that. She responded by trying to kill the DM.
She'd been a member of the fencing club, and her foil had broken, about eight inches from the hilt. For whatever reason, she'd sharpened it to a point, making a little main gauche with an oversized guard. Which she carried around. (This was in the '80's, on a campus where there were a lot of strange people.)
And when she realized the party was being drugged, she drew her weapon, stepped cleanly over to the DM, grabbed him by the hair, pulled his head back, and tried to stab him in the throat.
Which is when J. calmly walked back into the room with his soda and sat down, figuring that the woman was demonstrating something her character was doing. Until he noticed everybody else's reactions.
Another player heroically intervened, placing himself between the woman and the DM (who was himself spending Action Points on his Hide attempt...) and talked her into sitting back down, promising that nobody was going to take her blade away, and that everything was going to be all right.
She went away for a little while after that.
So, really, pouting isn't so bad.
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OK, rules can be subject to interpretation, I guess.
On one hand, you've got the line from the PHB "A natural 20 is always a hit". There is no indication of exceptions in that sentence, nor in any sentence immediately following. This implies that it is an absolute rule, based on "always".
Yet, under the rules for concealment:
Concealment gives the subject of a successful attack a 20% chance that the attacker missed because of the concealment. If the attacker hits, the defender must make a miss chance percentile roll to avoid the attack.
Never really been much of a rules lawyer, but is "always" not really...well, "always"?
Plus, if we are being literal about rules, the wording that the "subject" and "defender" must make the roll strongly suggests that it is the DM that should be making the miss chance roll, NOT the player. The PHB also says the attack and miss chance rolls should be made at the same time.
No, read your rules again. A natural 20 always hits. So the character "hit". Concealment says that if the attacker hits (and as we just noted, he did hit, since a natural 20 is always a hit) he has to deal with the concealment.
So yeah, natural 20s always hit. But they don't always get through the miss chance.
Another situation when a natural 20 does not actually hit: Deflect Arrows.
Chris: Wow, that is some frightening stuff. I hope she got some help. The first clue was that she was carrying around a sharpened weapon at all times...just, yikes.
All seriousness aside, I am now picturing your DM bravely struggling on while being terrorized: "We are NOT poisoned!"...DM rolls some d6s..."Take 8 points of Con damage!"
Missing witha natural 20 sucks, so I would cut some slack every now and then (well, threatening the DM with sharp weapons is too much though).
God knows I have had my moments of pouting in the table too...we all fail our WIS rolls every now and then (especially when penalized with lack of sleep, headache, job deadline stress etc).
But rolling the miss chance first sounds reasonable practice to me.
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Gamerz, the Scottish film, was excellent. Chris' story reminded me of it too.
And on the topic of tantrums, pouting, and angst. Its the DM's job (or at times the host's (if not playing at the DM's locale)) to be careful to monitor players behaviors during the early sessions of the game. Misbehavior, such as actual threats, or the threat of violence, give our game a bad name.
There is no place for that level of anger and there should be zero tollerance for any actual threats. In the final analysis, stories of abuse like those of James Dallas Egbert III, or insanity i.e. Mazes & Monsters, should be treated as instability in the person, not the result of the game or playing the game. My point: choose participants carefully, and while its hard to predict anyone's instability, please remove any possible safety hazzards from the table early on, for everyone's sake.
But pouting, compared to these examples, seems a safe (though regressive) behavoir within the goalpost range of acceptable behavior.