Armor and Spell Check Penalty

[Il Peccatore]

Hey everyone,

Most of my caster's in the past have avoided armor check penalty via magical items. I am now GMing and I need some help.

First question, as a GM, do I role to see if my player fails to cast, or does he? Either way, if there is a 25% spell failure, does that mean any time the dice roll between 1 and 25, it fails? Noob question, but I have to ask.

Second, my player is an oracle and has gone life mystery. He has also multiclassed as a barbarian. He asked me recently if he dons armor, will he receive a chance to fail his spell since his spells are divine in origin and not arcane. Any help?

I appreciate any input.

Best,
Il Peccatore

[Midnight_Angel]

1) Doesn't matter who rolls, as long as the roll is in the open. Usually, I let the player make all his own rolls, but in the end, it's your choice.

And yes, 25% chance of failure means that, if you roll a set of percentile dice, the spell fails on 01-25.

2) Your player won't have any difficulty casting divine spells. It's called arcane spell failure chance for a reason, after all.

[UltimaGabe]

Personally, I prefer to use a d20 anytime a percentile die isn't absolutely required (it just keeps the game simpler). So if the percentage is a multiple of 5, I roll a d20 accordingly. (So for a 25% chance of failure, I roll a d20, and a 1-5 is a failure, 6-20 is a success.)

[The Bald Man]

We operate on the premise that high is good. So Spell failure changes, miss chance, etc are successful if you roll high.
Unfortunately, teleport error and a few other things break the mold. As long as you all agree before the roll it can be 1-25 or 76-00. If you are a perverse group it could be 44-69.