After deciding to use Unchained's Active Spellcasting rules in my next campaign, namely the Spell Attack Roll (instead of monsters making saves, players roll against a "DC" of 11 + the monster's save bonus). I thought I might as well err on the player dice agency side, and am thinking of adapting 3.5's Defense Roll as well, in which, instead of monsters rolling against my players' static AC, players would roll with their applicable armor bonuses (with the benefit of also being able to use, say, Action Points) against a DC of 11 + the enemy's applicable attack bonuses.
This seems like it'd work well enough in low- to mid-levels, but I'm unsure about late game. What do you guys think? I know it'll entail a lot of rolling, but some of my players tend to lose focus when it's not their turn and enemies make full attacks against them, so I think it'll be well received by them.
Also, it got me thinking: Since the base '10' in DCs and AC is assumed to be a 'Take 10' of sorts, and the average d20 die roll is an 11, why isn't the base an 11, as rightly applied in the Spell Attack Roll rules? Why shouldn't AC be 11 + X? Preference for round numbers?
The average d20 roll is a 10.5, not 11. You have to round one way or the other.
The average d20 roll is a 10.5, not 11. You have to round one way or the other.
It also makes sense, at least to me, that you would want to provide a slight reward in keeping with the risk you're taking. If I got a better average and lower risk,.... well, hell, I've been looking for that in my investment portfolio since I was in my early 20s.
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It's to keep the math the same for Spell Attack vs Saves.
When you roll a save and exactly hit the #, you pass the save.
When you roll an attack roll & exactly hit the #, you hit your target.
Therefore, when you change which side is rolling from defense to attack, you have to increase the target by 1 point to keep the % chance the same.
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Assume the following situation:
Player, with 18 INT, casting Command.
Enemy, with a +3 bonus to their Will save.
Under traditional rules, the Command has a DC of 15, against the enemy's +3 Will. The result of the enemy's save ranges from 4 to 23, with a 45% chance of getting a result of 15 or higher. (And thus a 55% chance of it succumbing.)
Under Spell Attack Roll rules, the Command has a +5 bonus, against a DC of 14. The result of the spell attack roll ranges from 6 to 25, with a 60% chance of the spell succeeding. (And thus a 40% chance of it resisting.)
Unfortunately, the numbers as they are favor the assailant with the custom rules. 11 is actually not enough; it needs 12 as a base to equalize.
Even the example given is mathematically faulty; it states the orc needs at least a 16 to win, but judges this as a 80% success rate for the spell. In reality, this means 15 results lead to the spell succeeding (1-15), while 5 results lead to the spell being resisted (16-20), which is easily determined as a 75% success rate.
The 1 increase from 10 to 11 is fine for keeping odds of higher or lower same, but the problem lies in exact. Meeting the DC is success, which is in the orc's favor in traditional rules, but in the caster's favor in the variant rules.
Yeah, I wasn't posting to try to refute any poster here. I just wanted to try to give an example to help clarify it for some earlier posters, only to realize the numbers weren't adding up.
It is quite the problem when Paizo's variant rules, when a quote within it:
This rule does not change the chances of success; it just changes who is rolling the die.
...is false and misleading.
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Because the difference in math isn't worth the loss of the more intuitive, to most people, use of ten.
That's what I thought at first. Is it round privilege, or anti-oddism? ;)
lots of sense
You, madam, just enlightened me, and definitely gave me food for thought. I don't have a problem in favoring slightly the PCs - especially considering they'll be rolling for pretty much everything - but it's definitely something to mull over. Much obliged.
One thing that might be a problem is do you roll Def Roll for every attack? Every attacker? Or just once a round?
I know that different groups have various love hate relationships with dice rolling but just adding extra rolls may not solve you problem of attention deficiency.
Thank you for the tips and your concern, but it's not nearly as bad as I might have made it sound. They don't suffer as much from ADHD as they do from frustration at not having any agency in determining the outcome of dice rolls that concern them.
Yeah, I wasn't posting to try to refute any poster here. I just wanted to try to give an example to help clarify it for some earlier posters, only to realize the numbers weren't adding up.
It is quite the problem when Paizo's variant rules, when a quote within it:
This rule does not change the chances of success; it just changes who is rolling the die....is false and misleading.
That's pretty egregious. Has there been any sign that they plan to errata it?