
hyphz |
A PC rolls an ability while affected by a Misfortune effect that makes them take the worst of two dice. The result turns out bad and they want to spend a Hero point. How is this dealt with?
1. The PC cannot spend the Hero Point because it is too late to affect the Misfortune effect on the roll.
2. The PC retroactively cancels the Misfortune effect on the roll, meaning that they should have rolled only one dice, so their roll is now the “first” roll which has to be tracked as well as which is the highest and lowest roll.
3. The PC spends the hero point and gets an additional roll in the normal way because the Fortune effect of the hero point is happening after the roll and does not cancel with a Misfortune effect that happened before the roll.

Darksol the Painbringer |
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We've run into this issue with other abilities besides Hero Points (such as Inspired Stratagem from Rogues). Here's what each trait has to say on the matter:
A fortune effect beneficially alters how you roll your dice. You can never have more than one fortune effect alter a single roll. If multiple fortune effects would apply, you have to pick which to use. If a fortune effect and a misfortune effect would apply to the same roll, the two cancel each other out, and you roll normally.
A misfortune effect detrimentally alters how you roll your dice. You can never have more than one misfortune effect alter a single roll. If multiple misfortune effects would apply, the GM decides which is worse and applies it. If a fortune effect and a misfortune effect would apply to the same roll, the two cancel each other out, and you roll normally.
With this, the bolded clauses would imply that either has to be applied prior to actually rolling, based on their past-tense wording ("would apply"). As such, once a PC accepts the benefits/detriments of a Fortune/Misfortune effect, you can't choose to further apply a Fortune/Misfortune effect, by the rules.
That being said, the rules don't technically disallow interpretation 2. Of course, the problem then becomes "which dice was the original dice?" One way to solve this would be to simply take a 50/50 roll and adhoc remove one of the two dice. Of course, just because you negate the misfortune effect doesn't mean your original dice wasn't a bad roll (and you can still potentially waste the hero point, not unlike a full-on reroll without a misfortune already in place).

YuriP |

As the rules showed by Darksol says I allow the use of HP to remove the misfortune effect but I ask a reroll due the fact that in a normal HP usage you have to accept the reroll result even if it's worse than first roll. So allow the player to choose a roll will broke the main HP concept that don't allow to choose what dice have to use.
For example, if a test due a misfortute trait a player rolls a failure and a critical failure. I don't allow the player use a hero point to choose a failure. Instead it have to roll a new dice and use it's value, no matter if it was a critical falure or a failure or a success or critical success. So this new roll won't be necessarily a failure at same time this still could be a new critical failure too.

SuperBidi |
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If you really want to allow your player to use a Hero Point on a check with a Mistfortune effect, you can just reroll the roll entirely. So, in the case of a roll rolled twice with the worst result taken, the player would roll again 2 dice and take the worst one.
It seems like the fairest way of allowing Hero Points on Misfortune effects.
But otherwise, I agree that you should use the Hero Point prior to rolling the misfortuned effect.

YuriP |
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Other option is the GM say that will roll a misfortune roll before rolling to allow some player to counteract the the misfortune in some way. But in practice mostly players including GM just take 2 dices and roll at same time they say "this is a fortune/misfortune roll" and when someone will try to use HP o some reaction the dices already being rolled! kkk

hyphz |
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While I appreciate this, it is not actually legal to spend a Hero Point before rolling. The text reads: "Spend 1 Hero Point to reroll a check. You must use the second result. This is a fortune effect." You cannot reroll what has not been rolled (and it would make no sense to spend a hero point before a roll to do a useless first roll and then roll the second result)
By the wording of "second result" then the implication would be that the hero point roll is a new roll, so if they were affected by Misfortune on "their next roll" then they are no longer affected by it, but if they are continuously affected by Misfortune then they cannot spend the hero point?

Darksol the Painbringer |

While I appreciate this, it is not actually legal to spend a Hero Point before rolling. The text reads: "Spend 1 Hero Point to reroll a check. You must use the second result. This is a fortune effect." You cannot reroll what has not been rolled (and it would make no sense to spend a hero point before a roll to do a useless first roll and then roll the second result)
By the wording of "second result" then the implication would be that the hero point roll is a new roll, so if they were affected by Misfortune on "their next roll" then they are no longer affected by it, but if they are continuously affected by Misfortune then they cannot spend the hero point?
While you would be correct, I don't think Hero Points being a Fortune effect make sense, to be honest. Most Fortune effects either pre-determine your outcome, or let you roll twice and take the better outcome, and there are far more of those types of Fortune effects than ones functioning like Hero Points (and most of those aren't even Fortune effects).
This is why I would, at best, let a player who chooses to spend a Hero Point on a Misfortune roll simply do a 50/50 and take the result that rolls, since that is the closest to "rolling normally" you would get.

YuriP |

Hero Points have Fortune trait to justify the re-roll. Is the Paizo way to say that you are not metagaming instead your are manipulating the fortune.
I think that's similar to Secrets of Magic when the book explains that some gameplay contexts like spell levels exists in game lore. Maybe HP reroll is like the player intervening the character destiny in some way.
Or maybe I'm thinking too much kkk

Lucerious |
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I don’t see this as a stacking issue, but as two separate events. The first event is the misfortune effect causing the two rolls to happen leaving the worse as the result of the check. The second event is the spending of a hero point to re-roll the result of the first event. They don’t cancel each other because they happen separate from one another. Since the result has to have happened for the spending of the hero point to re-roll, I don’t see how there can be issue with stacking or canceling. It is just another roll taking the new result.

The Gleeful Grognard |
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Hero Points have Fortune trait to justify the re-roll. Is the Paizo way to say that you are not metagaming instead your are manipulating the fortune.
I think that's similar to Secrets of Magic when the book explains that some gameplay contexts like spell levels exists in game lore. Maybe HP reroll is like the player intervening the character destiny in some way.
Or maybe I'm thinking too much kkk
They are mainly there so people can't stack fortune effects/rerolls or result in the stupidity of super advantage from disadvantage you can find in 5e.
(If you don't know how that works, a character with a bow and the lucky feat can lie prone to get disadvantage on an attack, then use lucky to roll a third d20, and choose whichever they want of the three rolls as the result)

WatersLethe |

I run it as SuperBidi described. I never make people preemptively burn a hero point in any other situation, so I don't make them do so when there's a misfortune effect in play.
RAW seems to have a direct contradiction between the Hero Point rules and the Fortune/Misfortune stuff, so I advocate siding with what plays the best, which is definitely maintaining consistency with the way Hero Points are usually used.

graystone |
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IMO, you are using the misfortune effect before the roll so you'd need to also pre-emptively use the hero point to cancel it. So you aren't deciding to re-roll before hand but deciding to negate the misfortune roll. I can't see how you can use the hero point after the fact as then you have a fortune and misfortune effect on the same roll and that goes against the rule that they negate each other. This seems like a situation that you'd never get a reroll from the hero point [it's only point would be negation] and retroactive use after the misfortune roll, IMO, doesn't make sense.

Darksol the Painbringer |
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YuriP wrote:Hero Points have Fortune trait to justify the re-roll. Is the Paizo way to say that you are not metagaming instead your are manipulating the fortune.
I think that's similar to Secrets of Magic when the book explains that some gameplay contexts like spell levels exists in game lore. Maybe HP reroll is like the player intervening the character destiny in some way.
Or maybe I'm thinking too much kkk
They are mainly there so people can't stack fortune effects/rerolls or result in the stupidity of super advantage from disadvantage you can find in 5e.
(If you don't know how that works, a character with a bow and the lucky feat can lie prone to get disadvantage on an attack, then use lucky to roll a third d20, and choose whichever they want of the three rolls as the result)
Then a simple "cannot be used with other fortune effects" clause is all it needs, instead of it having this unnecessary baggage of weirdly interacting with misfortune effects, since most of those abilities are written to trigger prior to the roll, but Hero Points don't.
That being said, there are far less misfortune abilities than fortune abilities, so this feels pretty corner case enough that I doubt an "official" ruling would be made. At least, without adding more Misfortune effects.

siegfriedliner |
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So the fortune misfortune rules seem to have assumed fortune effects work like true strike(roll twice take the better result) which can be easily adjusticated with misfortune.
When in reality a good half of fortune effects are rerolls after a failed roll (halfling luck and hero points two of the most common fortune effects.)
You can't use these abilities before a roll so I think it's probably unfair to allow misfortunes effects to disallow them just because the designer's didn't write rules for how misfortune effects and re-rolls were meant to work together.
Given hero points and halfling luck are limited resources I would probably take the most generous interpretation that you get to reroll without disadvantage because rules don't say that misfortunes effects stop re-rolls but they do say when both fortune and misfortunes applies to the same role you just role once.

GM OfAnything |
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In the case of having a single d20 at a table, I would allow a character to spend a hero point to avoid rolling a second die after seeing the result of their first. I would probably extend that to allow option 2. Roll 2 dice declaring one to be the 'misfortune' die. You can spend a hero point to discard the 'misfortune' die after the fact.

Fumarole |

How would everyone rule Prophecy's Pawn being used on an attack that also had True Strike? I had the player re-roll a single die, but am not quite sure if this is correct.
Prophecy's Pawn:
Trigger: You fail a saving throw, attack roll, or skill check
You twist the prophecy in your favor, which will have consequences later. Reroll the failed check. You must use the result of the second roll.
For 24 hours afterward, the GM can force you to reroll a successful saving throw, attack roll, or skill check as fate balances the scale. This is a misfortune effect. You can’t use prophecy’s pawn again until the GM uses this option or 24 hours pass, whichever comes first.
True Strike:
Duration: until the end of your turn
A glimpse into the future ensures your next blow strikes true. The next time you make an attack roll before the end of your turn, roll the attack twice and use the better result. The attack ignores circumstance penalties to the attack roll and any flat check required due to the target being concealed or hidden.

Castilliano |

How would everyone rule Prophecy's Pawn being used on an attack that also had True Strike? I had the player re-roll a single die, but am not quite sure if this is correct.
Prophecy's Pawn:
Trigger: You fail a saving throw, attack roll, or skill checkYou twist the prophecy in your favor, which will have consequences later. Reroll the failed check. You must use the result of the second roll.
For 24 hours afterward, the GM can force you to reroll a successful saving throw, attack roll, or skill check as fate balances the scale. This is a misfortune effect. You can’t use prophecy’s pawn again until the GM uses this option or 24 hours pass, whichever comes first.
True Strike:
Duration: until the end of your turnA glimpse into the future ensures your next blow strikes true. The next time you make an attack roll before the end of your turn, roll the attack twice and use the better result. The attack ignores circumstance penalties to the attack roll and any flat check required due to the target being concealed or hidden.
As for the first portion, a second Fortune effect cannot be used at all. The attack already had a Fortune effect, so the only further luck that could be involved would be Misfortune.
Which brings us to the second portion which I think you're addressing. It would cancel the True Strike except it has the awkward trigger of needing a success first, meaning both dice have already been rolled and it's too late. So there's no rigorous rule covering this; it's up to GM adjudication. You could have each die be designated, so that one represented the extra Fortune die, and if the other one was a success, the player then defaulted to the Fortune die (success or not, though then it's a bit unfair since the GM knows the effectiveness of doing this so should say so before the rolls). I'd simply forego using it then to avoid potential hassle. :-)Or you could ask the player if they were okay just having True Strike be countered, which they should be okay with since PP could end up wasted nixing what'd have been a failure anyway.

Fumarole |

That is correct - the PC cast True Strike, rolled a success with one of the dice, then I invoked Prophecy's Pawn and had him re-roll a single die and use that result. He thought he should re-roll both, but I wasn't too sure. I told him my ruling was provisional until I asked the hivemind here.
Perhaps in the future I will avoid invoking Prophecy's Pawn if he uses True Strike, but I feel that just avoids the issue, and it doesn't feel very satisfying.

Castilliano |

That is correct - the PC cast True Strike, rolled a success with one of the dice, then I invoked Prophecy's Pawn and had him re-roll a single die and use that result. He thought he should re-roll both, but I wasn't too sure. I told him my ruling was provisional until I asked the hivemind here.
Perhaps in the future I will avoid invoking Prophecy's Pawn if he uses True Strike, but I feel that just avoids the issue, and it doesn't feel very satisfying.
Well, I can't see rolling both, that's for sure. The Fortune/Misfortune are supposed to counter, not work concurrently. The trouble is that if they rolled two successes, then Prophecy's Pawn is extra powerful, taking away True Strike's extra die AND making them reroll (so in that case, Prophecy's pawn should do nothing, yet what GM would use it then?).
If there was a failure and a success, then the math gets muddied, though it's a bit fairer and seems in favor of the player a tad if they get a reroll that is. But not two dice.Maybe reroll the amount of dice that had been successful? Hmm.
Although it breaks the mechanics, it evens out the effect to normalish.