But Before The Results Are Revealed

[Artificial 20]

Not everyone plays the same way.

In my experience, playing and watching recorded games, there are groups where people make a roll, stating their total result if not evident, and the GM says whether they succeeded or not (and how much in some systems).

Any pause between the former and latter is only the processing delay of human response, and generally shrinks with experience. Early on a player / GM might say "Okay, that's 12 on the dice, +6 for a total of 18" / "Good, let's see... It looks like that's a hit", and later refine it down to "18 to hit" / "Nice, roll damage". Flavourful description may come with that, of course, but right now I'm discussing the purely mechanical overhead.

P1E has a number of abilities with trigger conditions to the tune of "You must decide to use this ability after the first roll is made but before the results are revealed by the GM". For people who play in the above way, do they find this disruptive to their rhythm? It seems like the GM needs to interrupt their fluid response and either prompt the player to state whether they will use the ability, or wait for the player themselves to do so. This could be especially wrong-footing if the condition rarely comes up, and the ability was gained several sessions/levels into the campaign.

How do you feel about these abilities? With degrees of success as a core mechanic, the risk for re-rolls is greater as you might shift a fail into a critical fail. Would that uncertainty add to, or detract from, the game?

[Rysky]

It hasn’t in any of my games, and it’s always the player that brings it up (unless they were new then others or the GM might remind them).

Player rolls: “well I got a 8 on the die so I’m going to activate [ability] to reroll”

No break in flow.

[TheFinish]

I've never liked the wording on those kinds of abilities because there's a whole slew of situations where you know the end result even if it hasn't been revealed yet.

For example, a Natural 1 in an Attack roll/Saving Throw. Nobody needs to tell you that failed. Can I use the re-roll anyway? The result was sort of "revealed" by the die roll itself, so what do we do?

Or, you been fighting, I dunno, Orcs for a while in this combat and you've sussed out their AC is 19 (or whatever). Same deal.

It'd be much more elegant if it was just straight re-rolls you can use after you know the effect. It's less punishing on the player and faster.

[NielsenE]

They haven't caused bad flow in my games, but I have been tempted to try a house rule of doubling the uses/day, but requiring the decision to be made before the roll.

[Planpanther]

I dont give out target info as GM I just indicate success/fail. After a couple rounds the players usually can figure out the targets. So these abilities are not my favorite but they dont bug me.

That said, I put the responsibility on the player to announce their intention of using the mechanic so I can delay my response.

[Wheldrake]

I find these types of abilities highly annoying. AS if we didn't already have enough piddly bonuses to keep track of. An experienced player can keep track of everything, sure, no problem. But recently I have played with several other players who can't even keep track of their weapon focus bonus, haste bonus, bless bonus and the like. Having abilities that activate when a player thinks he needs just a little more oomph are just too fiddly.

Almost as bad are abilities that grant rerolls. As if we didn't already have to roll enough dice to figure out a success or failure.

Anyway, that's my daily rant, right there. We now return you to your regular programming.

[Gorignak227]

I really hope they remove that "before results are known" language and change it to be a simple reroll.

There are normal rerolls in the game already and the playability of the current system is poor and only works for experienced players.

[Castilliano]

Really, if you're going to give a reroll, give a reroll. Tying it to the player's ability to deduce the mechanics makes it a player ability, not a PC ability. Plus, too much meta.

Of a similar stripe, I really dislike the bonuses that have to be chosen before a roll, i.e. +2 sacred bonus to poison save 1/day, but only if you declare it beforehand. Those may as well be tossed in the garbage for all I use them (unless I know the day's nearly up). I'd much rather have smaller bonuses that can be chosen after the fact. Those actually feel like PC abilities to call upon special protection rather than player guesses as to how close to success they'll roll.

[PossibleCabbage]

I feel like it's best to just have abilities that grant a reroll do so without specific exception within the text of the ability and specify elsewhere, in the rules for rerolls, that a reroll needs to be asked for before any other dice are rolled, other actions are taken, or damage is recorded. Simply to avoid issues of "going backwards in time."

It's more a logistical concern than a balance one I suspect.

[LittleMissNaga]

Agreeing with Castilliano. This just creates meta. Players figure out their target-numbers after a few swings or whatnot, and then that "Before the results are revealed" line has revealed itself as the OoC hoop to jump through that it was.

[Charlie Brooks]

I'm a bad GM. I usually just announce the target DC. Then again, doing that has never really caused much trouble at the table.

[Anguish]

I'd agree... I'd like to see an end to the "before the result is revealed" type wordings. It seems like an attempt at being conservative for balance purposes, but just complicates play. As in, the flow of the game is awkward for no significant in-character/mechanical benefit.

As well, I'd like to see (mady) niche or conditional abilities removed. I'm okay with "your race grants you a +2 to saves against poison", or "+2 to hit orcs", but some of the things like a barbarian's trap sense... are kind of annoying. I get the flavor, but if I was designing things, I'd just give the barbarian a flat bonus to Reflex saves and AC and say that it comes from being attentive or edgy, or having great intuition. Less crap on the character sheet that gets used once in a blue moon. At least in typical campaigns with typical barbarians, who are typically letting the typical rogue look for and trigger traps. Shrug.

[Fuzzypaws]

Castilliano wrote:

Really, if you're going to give a reroll, give a reroll. Tying it to the player's ability to deduce the mechanics makes it a player ability, not a PC ability. Plus, too much meta.

Of a similar stripe, I really dislike the bonuses that have to be chosen before a roll, i.e. +2 sacred bonus to poison save 1/day, but only if you declare it beforehand. Those may as well be tossed in the garbage for all I use them (unless I know the day's nearly up). I'd much rather have smaller bonuses that can be chosen after the fact. Those actually feel like PC abilities to call upon special protection rather than player guesses as to how close to success they'll roll.

Full agreement. Even leaving aside that these abilities reward meta play as presented in PF1, they are also prone to being wasted. If the DC is low, having to declare before you know results means players will waste these abilities when they actually succeeded already without them. And if the DC is higher than might be expected for what seems like a simple task, or the AC is surprisingly higher than what seems like it should be a "soft target" enemy, players might /not/ use the ability when they really should just because their thought process doesn't line up with mine or the author of the rulebook.

I always just let my players use these abilities after I've declared the result, as long as they bring it up before I finish resolution and move on to the next action. Otherwise the abilities become fairly useless.

[necromental]

Fuzzypaws wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

Really, if you're going to give a reroll, give a reroll. Tying it to the player's ability to deduce the mechanics makes it a player ability, not a PC ability. Plus, too much meta.

Of a similar stripe, I really dislike the bonuses that have to be chosen before a roll, i.e. +2 sacred bonus to poison save 1/day, but only if you declare it beforehand. Those may as well be tossed in the garbage for all I use them (unless I know the day's nearly up). I'd much rather have smaller bonuses that can be chosen after the fact. Those actually feel like PC abilities to call upon special protection rather than player guesses as to how close to success they'll roll.

Full agreement. Even leaving aside that these abilities reward meta play as presented in PF1, they are also prone to being wasted. If the DC is low, having to declare before you know results means players will waste these abilities when they actually succeeded already without them. And if the DC is higher than might be expected for what seems like a simple task, or the AC is surprisingly higher than what seems like it should be a "soft target" enemy, players might /not/ use the ability when they really should just because their thought process doesn't line up with mine or the author of the rulebook.

I always just let my players use these abilities after I've declared the result, as long as they bring it up before I finish resolution and move on to the next action. Otherwise the abilities become fairly useless.

Thirding this. While I'm personally pretty efficient in using them, I've seen the GM trying to to negate the ability if you don't declare it fast enough, also out our table of 5 players, one guy doesn't want to deal with those things, one guy spends them at first opportunity making it mostly useless, and two are stingy so they never use them as they "keep them for when it matters" and then forget to use them.

[Benchak the Nightstalker]

I have no problem with "before the results are revealed" rerolls on the players side. I actually think they're really fun, and I've never had a problem with them breaking up flow or causing problems in my games. I even have houserules that give players more of them (frex, if you write a recap of the previous game session before next game, you get a reroll during this session).

What I don't like are abilities that let players force 'btrar' rerolls on the GM. I roll behind a screen, my players don't see my rolls. In that past, I've tried to come up with systems and workarounds to let those abilities work as written, usually by having players tell me ahead of time if they're planning on using the ability, or setting die-value thresholds.
Nowadays, I just houserule those abilities to be "roll twice, take lowest".

[totoro]

Charlie Brooks wrote:

I'm a bad GM. I usually just announce the target DC. Then again, doing that has never really caused much trouble at the table.

I do that, too. I just ask my players to not let it impact their tactics until their characters have figured it out. It works extraordinarily well.

[CrystalSeas]

I've stayed away from any traits or other benefits that allow a reroll "before the results are announced" because I never know how a GM will handle it.

It seems to me that it's a big chance not to be able to benefit from the trait at all in many cases.

[Artificial 20]

It seems some people do find this a fiddly mechanic to accommodate, not least of all as GMs.

What would be a better implementation?

Personally, for re-rolls specifically I'd favour something like "After the results are revealed, you can make another roll and take the better result". This lets you use the ability meaningfully, and also avoids the rare but regret-laded situation of re-rolling yourself from a fail to a crit fail. Other things can just use "After the results are revealed".

The other simple option would be "Before the roll is made". Using this isn't difficult flow-wise, but would probably feel better with things like "Roll twice" or extra effects, and be less satisfying with very small bonuses (e.g. +1 or +2), where it really is a plain, percentage gamble on making any difference, which I find less interactive myself.