|
The limiter that the misfortune revelation has of once per target per day keeps it from happening all the time. In my home Rise of the Runelords game, my GM likes to hide rolls. I basically use misfortune from my life oracle to stop critical hits from enemies, and so I have a threshold of 20 for them. The revelation still gets used quite a bit...
...Hmmm. Maybe that GM rolls awfully well.
Anyways, the threshold of 20 on a to hit roll means he's relatively happy to check for it. He does still give me a choice, so I can skip a mook's critical threat when the Big Bad still is going to go.
Overall the GM likes the ability, because it protects the other PC's from really dangerous blows, but allows lots of normal back and forth in fights to happen.
|
Of course what if I hid my rolls, didn't give a benchmark, but specifically described the attacks and attempts at saves in such a way that the player could make a decision based on some perception stimuli instead of out of character numerical and mechanical knowledge?I'm not sure how that would work, without revealing whether the attack / save / whatever succeeds. Could you give me an example? Let's say the ice giant rolls a 19 on it's attack. How would you describe that to a player, without revealing that it's going to be a hit?
Ice Giant rolls 19: And you see the giant blade of the frosty great axe barreling toward your skull--aimed at cleaving you in twain and leaving your brains splashed on the ground before your feet.
Ice Giant rolls 3: The humongous creature lackadaisically swings its axe in a moment of overconfident hubris.
|
as a GM I don't have an issue with telling the PC what I rolled / Rolling in the Open unless its a specifically Required hidden Roll - NPC Stealth / bluff etc.
the thing I've been dealing with recently is one of my players insists that he doesn't need to see the person hes making reroll - Total concealment / behind a wall etc. and I admit the wording is ambigous at best ... all it asks is "is the target within 30 feet"
|
|
If I had a dollar for every time I'd heard the phrase "cleave in twain" used by a gamer in a sentence that otherwise uses completely normal modern English, I'd have every splatbook.
:/
It's not normal modern English?
Hmm...Maybe I gotta get more roles covered in my party of friends with which I traverse this world of ours.
Methinks.
|
|
I'm pretty familiar with this ability, as I have a character with it, I have a player in a game with it, and I have been a player in a campaign where another player had it, so I'm pretty familiar with it. Additionally, I'm rather familiar with other before the results are revealed abilities. These bring up several issues depending on play style. The most common I see are:
1) GM Rolls in the open, a 20 is on the dice....you know the attack hits so by RAW you can't use misfortune. I don't believe that is RAI but it is RAW. Same goes for an ally who rolls a 1 on a save and you want to reroll it.
2) GM Rolls behind the screen. He may know someones AC, or know it hits and say "that is a hit." By RAW you cannot use misfortune.
3) GM rolls in the open but is WAY too quick for you. This is most common in online play, where not only does the roll happen instantaneously but he can look at a PC's AC just as fast. He may know it hit before you can even see the result on your screen.
With something like PFS it is more difficult to have a base line as there a wide range of play and GM styles. Here's what I have found:
1) I'd say you have to leave this to GM discretion. Its best to just bring up weird abilities like this before gameplay begins. I do the same thing with "always act in the surprise round".
2) This thread seemed to answer it well. That's how I will attempt to rule it in the future.
3) For online play I keep a misfortune macro and when its not my turn I pay good attention and get ready to press the button ASAP.
Anyway, its not perfect, but its one of those things if you take it in PFS you need to accept the fact that sometimes it may not work because of how the GM rules it, but I think GM's should attempt to be reasonable with the ability too.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Under a Bleeding Sun, as I understand the rulebook, you "know" an attack hits or a saving throw fails when the GM announces it, and not before. So a natural 20 is almost certainly going to be a successful attack, but until the GM says so, there might be some extenuating circumstances that the player doesn't know about. "Before you know the answer" means "before the GM announces the results."
|
Under a Bleeding Sun, as I understand the rulebook, you "know" an attack hits or a saving throw fails when the GM announces it, and not before. So a natural 20 is almost certainly going to be a successful attack, but until the GM says so, there might be some extenuating circumstances that the player doesn't know about. "Before you know the answer" means "before the GM announces the results."
Attacking a mount, rolling a crit and confirming, but the player uses his Ride skill check to negate the hit entirely...
Probably means I am doing it wrong. He can probably only negate a successful non-20 crit confirmation roll, since a 20 always hits...