Abilities that must be decided before the [dice] tags are used.

[Andostre]

How do various GMs running PbP games handle abilities that affect a roll that must be decided upon before the die is actually rolled? With the board's function to preview a post, a player could make the post that includes the [dice] tags, preview the post to see how well they rolled, and then decide whether they want to apply their ability's bonus or save it if it's not necessary. Obviously, previewing a die roll is not in the spirit of the ability's restrictions, but how is a GM to know and enforce that?

I'm sure there are better examples of what I mean, but the one that comes immediately to mind is the feat Inexplicable Luck. This feat gives the PC the ability to once a day apply a +8 to any single d20 roll, so long as the player decides to apply the bonus before the die is rolled.

The spell Moment of Prescience is another example that comes to mind.

Perhaps this isn't all that frequent in Pathfinder games, but I'm sure plenty of 3.5 paladins would have loved the option to preview their attack rolls before they knew if they should use Smite Evvil.

In games that use the Cypher system, most rolls have the option to apply a bonus ("Effort") so long at that decision is made before the die is rolled.

Do GMs just not worry how a player uses such an ability in a PbP? Do they go by the honor system and trust the players? Have they developed houserules for this scenario? I just want to know the different ways this is addressed in PbP games.

[Storm Dragon]

I figure it's not a big deal either way. Even if a player cheats in this way, it's such a minor bonus in most cases that I don't worry about it as a GM.

[GMDQ]

I trust my players to make their declaration in the same posting before seeing the result of their roll (and I can tell that they do so).

But the only game I ran here, I ran with mostly players I either knew personally or had extensive experience PBPing with them and/or otherwise did my best to vet to be sure I trusted them. I have no problem reading a player's post history in other PBPs to assess both cooperative skill and fair playing before accepting their application.

There is no point in playing an RPG at all, IMO, if you do not trust your players and vice versa. If I discovered my players cheating egregiously I would just end the game and be more careful recruiting next time.

I fully acknowledge as a player it is sometimes really, really tempting to post and then edit, especially when it's a big moment and you want a better outcome. (Especially with my die roll luck. ;_;). But it's just a game and in the end it's best to let the dice fall where they may. In extreme circumstances I may ask the GM for pity after the fact and ask them if I might get another use of an ability, if it is limited, if it seems wasted on a roll and the stakes are high, but I'd rarely do that (and accept whatever call the GM makes).

As an aside, I find running (and playing) games using the hero points system (I run PF1E, I have no recollection if that is a thing in 2E) helpful. That way if you have just a really awful roll at the very worst time, you have an acceptable mechanical solution to get a reroll rather than be tempted to cheat.

[Doug Hahn]

In random PFS games on the boards my trust is less resilient than in games with friends.

Generally it's not a problem, and if it becomes a problem in a game (e.g. a player always critting with a reroll ability), I will talk to the player in private about it and try to come up with a solution, such as making the roll myself or asking them to roll the d20 in a new post.

This is similar to dealing with players who conveniently roll saves out of order on "accident" when they'd otherwise fail; my GM profile has a specific policy for this:

My Saves Policy wrote:

When asked to roll a save, it must always be the first dice roll on your next post, or if necessary rolled in the narrative order of operations. If you do not follow this rule, I will roll the save for you.

As always, communicating honestly about your expectations and concerns is the first and most effective step.

[Andostre]

I appreciate the responses so far. I was assuming that most people would feel similar to Storm Dragon or DQ, because there really aren't many great options for managing previewed dice rolls, so what else can you do?

(Not that I'm trying to represent their thought process. But I do think the lack of apparent better options is a factor.)

Thanks also to Doug Hahn for offering a different perspective, which I appreciate.

So yeah, most players don't do it, but if you have even just one that rolls that way, an alternative is welcome. And also it's true that most once-per-day bonuses aren't that powerful, but when you can pick and choose to apply it to change a die roll from a failure to a success (or hang on to the bonus to save for such a critical roll), the ability that grants the bonus becomes a lot more valuable.

[Storm Dragon]

Honestly, part of my attitude comes from playing with so much 3rd party content where rerolls working off the "after the roll, before the results are revealed" paradigm is so common.

I've actually considered houseruling all abilities that reroll working that way, because I think "declare before you roll if you wanna roll twice" is kinda dumb.

[FangDragon]

Never mind cheating, for PbPs I'd recommend GMs always roll saves, initiative etc for players just to keep the momentum going.

I'm not aware of a good way to tell if folks edited posts, although one thing you could do is write a puppeteer script (assuming that's not against paizo's rules) to scrape all the d20 rolls they've posted in all games and see if there's a significant distribution skew.

[Doug Hahn]

Sometimes I roll for players to keep it moving, but I generally believe that allowing PCs to roll themselves creates a more engaging / affirming experience.

That said, a simple rule for these situations might be something such as:

Rule wrote:

Any abilities that modify the dice in advance should be declared by the player, then rolled in a separate post by the gm.

----

If a GM is so worried about cheating that they're running scripts and looking at bell curves, I'd wonder whether they're playing in the right environment and with the right people.

There are some other PbP platforms like Gamers Plane that hide the roll results from players until the post is saved. (And also hides them from the GM, last I checked. Trust is a two-way street and if you lack trust in your players they may not have trust you as a GM either. In such a case a platform like Gamers plane where cheat-prevention is universal is probably a better fit.)

[DM Papa.DRB]

Several comments:

1) I trust my players to make decisions on what abilities that they are going to use before rolling dice and act accordingly.

2) Since I usually provide the information they need to see what the results of the dice do/affect/etc. they can preview and write a more complete post. IE, I spoiler post the creatures AC and then they can let me know if they hit, and what the damage is since I also post SR, DR, etc. Or I would spoiler post something like "K (arcana) #" and behind the spoiler post the information if they make the number.

3) (P1E) I roll initiative behind a spoiler, and then put it in order. Also, when outdoors, Survival, and Perception as needed, especially for an outdoor "sandbox" like Kingmaker. This is done to keep the game going.

-- david

edit: For anyone curious, here is a link to the start of the final battle in a PbP that I ran on the boards that ended in July 2018 after 6+ years. It shows Initiative, and the kind of information that I provide to my players.
LINK

[Mightypion]

Mathematically speaking:

Being able to preview to hit dice is basically a +Power attack tier bonus to Attack boni. I would say it is roughly worth a feat (it is kind of similar to furious focus).

What is basically does is
Combat Feat: Prescient Power attack.
When your attack hits an enemies AC by more then your power attack tier, you apply power attack.
Normal: Power attack has to be declared beforehand.

Probably would be worth a featslot, as it is better then furious focus on iteratives, while being worse on the primary.

[Andostre]

Mightypion, it sounds like you're saying that I should just accept the fact that players will automatically do that (maybe even tell them that I expect that they will do that), and then adjust encounters accordingly. I don't disagree.

[Storm Dragon]

You don't even necessarily need to adjust encounters, unless you usually tell the players the enemy AC etc. so they can see if they hit in advance. There's still guesswork involved in determining how low of a roll is too low.

[Andostre]

Storm Dragon wrote:

You don't even necessarily need to adjust encounters, unless you usually tell the players the enemy AC etc. so they can see if they hit in advance. There's still guesswork involved in determining how low of a roll is too low.

If we're talking a +1, sure. If we're talking, say, a +8, I think it's a more reliable guess.

And that's just for Pathfinder and similar systems. Other systems have very defined target numbers. Numenera, for example, gives characters a pool of extra points that they can use for most any roll, so long as they still have points in that pool available.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but that's where my perspective is regarding this. I like your houserule suggestion above.

[Mightypion]

I mean, PBP gives a lot more time to plan and plot combat actions in general, as such I would argue that upping encounters compared to PnP is automatically required.

I hit preview several times just to see if format was correct etc. excluding the information received from this is kind of hard imho.