I’ve had a lot of issues lately with players who don’t pay attention to what’s going on when it’s not their turn. I’ve tried a lot of different things to keep them engaged from rewards to punishment but many simply zone out. I see this a lot during public play like D&D Encounters and LFR. I’d pretty much given up and come to accept that some players are simply there to roll dice and don’t care about what else is going on if it doesn’t directly affect their character. And then I finally came up with a way to solve this problem and the solution involved rolling more dice.
When it’s your turn you make an attack roll (or multiple attack rolls if you’re a striker). If you hit you then roll a bunch of damage dice. Unless you have an interrupt or a monster provokes an opportunity attack you can put the dice down until your next turn. But what if you had more chances to roll dice when it wasn’t you turn?
Defenses in 4e D&D all begin at 10 and go up from there. Have you ever wondered why the system was set up this way? In the 3.5e PHB it explained that the base 10 represented an average defense roll, a “take 10” mentality to keep combat simple and eliminate unnecessary defensive rolls. But what if we make defending an active part of combat, at least for the PCs?
Rather than have an AC of 22, you’d have an AC of 12+1d20. Whenever anything attacked your AC you’d have to roll your defense. This means that your AC could be as low as 13 or as high as 32 in this example. On average your defenses would still round out in the 22 ballpark that you’re used to, but now the act of defending falls on your shoulders and required you to make a roll (or multiple rolls).
This is not something that will appeal to every group or every player, but if you’ve got a table where most of the players attack and then stop paying attention this might be exactly the kind of engagement that keeps them glued to the action.
I think that for this kind of system to work best, once the PCs’ defenses become randomized the DM should make all the monsters attacks flat. Stop rolling for the monsters and just add 10 to their attack score. After all, there only needs to be one roll – either an attack roll or a defense roll. Rolling on both sides of the equation will just slow things down. You haven’t introduced any more dice rolling to the encounter, you’ve just given more of it to the players.
The way combat works today my monster would normally roll +14 to attack your 22 AC. With the new system you’d have to make an AC defense roll vs DC 24 (the +14 I began with and then the add 10 we removed from your static AC). Your AC defense is 12+1d20 as we noted above so you’d successfully defend on an 14 or better. The odds remain exactly the same. The only thing that changes is that the players do all the rolling.
Using the numbers above I used to hit on any roll between 8-20 (13 possible numbers). Now you successfully defend by rolling anything between 14-20 (7 possible numbers). In either of these two scenarios, 7 numbers on the die are good for the PC no matter how you do the math.
By eliminating monster attack rolls a monster no longer scores a critical hit on a 20. After all a 20 on your defense roll is fantastic and means that nothing touches you, the same way a monster rolling a 1 on their attack would normally miss. However, if you roll a 1 on your defense roll then you’ve made a critical fumble and the monster does maximum damage just like they would if they’d rolled a 20 on their attack. The mechanic is still present it’s just changed ends of the spectrum.
With the DM free of rolling dice he can focus on the story and the theatrics. Normally I’d say something like “The monster attacks you and rolled 18 vs. AC. Does that hit?” The response is a yes or no and combat continues. Now I can say “The monster swings his big club right at your face, defend with your AC, DC 18.” This leaves it to the player to complete the scene. If the defense roll succeeds then he could respond with “The club bashes against my helmet and rings my bell.” If the defense roll succeeds then he could respond with “I duck at the last second and the club goes over my head.” With the onus on the player to finish the scene they will be more inclined to give more than a yes or no response.
When the players need to roll active defenses they will immediately know which monsters have the best attack scores. The way combat works today the players generally have no idea what the monster’s attack scores actually are because the DM only reveals the total after the dice are rolled. By telling players the DC to defend against they’ll realize which attacks are deadly and which ones are less likely to hit. This can affect combat strategy and highlight the more powerful foes. It instills a sense of danger that is missing from combat today.
With the players rolling all the dice it also encourages them to pay closer attention to the entire combat. If a monster is supposed to suffer a -2 to its attack the players are a lot more likely to remember if they’re the ones rolling the dice. They can police each other and remind everyone who has what conditions on them that might affect the numbers.
By removing the dice from the hands of the DM everything is decided by the players themselves. I know that my players believe my DM dice hate them and always roll a 20s at the worst possible time. Now players have only themselves to blame when the dice are against them. By rolling their own defenses they no longer have to fear the 20. No matter why they’re rolling, high rolls are always good regardless if they’re making attack rolls, defense rolls, skill checks or saving throws. It’s those pesky 1s that will become even more of a pain in the butt.
Having players make active defense checks may take a few battles to master, but I think players will catch on quickly enough. For those who like rolling dice I think it will catch on very quickly.
Do you think your players would be interested in rolling their own defenses? Do you think it would keep player more engaged? As a DM would you be willing to give up the dice rolling or do you think it would leave you with too little to do?
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1 2 3 4 Next »I remember 3rd edition introducing this idea as an optional rule. (Unearthed Arcana or PHB 2, maybe?)
The only thing is that you really should be adding subtracting 12 from the character's defense score in order to keep the odds the same. In your example of +14 attack vs AC 22, a monster needs an 8+ to hit, or has a 13/20 chance to hit. Once you make this a defense roll, (where players win ties) the equivalent chance on DC 24 will be a failure for the player (ie. the monster hits) if their roll is 10+1d20, not 12+1d20.
I may have to use this in my next game. I'm not so in love with my dice that I need to do all the rolls. Plus I can still do damage rolls since it's likely easier for me to have the appropriate damage dice on hand then it is for the players.
Math issues aside, I have definitely considered doing this before, but I've never tried to implement it. It's hard for players to be jolted out of what they know with a new rule like this, but I think it would make it more fun for the players and easier on the DM.
You definitely need to avoid the monster rolling an attack and the player rolling a defense number. Once two dice are being rolled, you are no longer using a uniform distribution -- you have fundamentally changed the math of combat from a uniform distribution to a roughly normal distribution.
In a 1d20 situation, there are 20 possible outcomes, and the 5 worst outcomes comprise exactly 25% of the probability space. In a 2d20 situation, there are 39 outcomes. The 10 worst outcomes comprise only 13.25% of the probability space. When the players and monsters roll attacks and defenses, you're far more likely to get an 'average' outcome and far less likely to get an outlier. That means an encounter which would be survivable with some good rolls could be un-winnable.
Not a bad idea. The only potential issue I have is the average of a d20 is 10.5, not 10. So, ultimately, the DM's attacks are less likely to hit (2.5%).
For example, for a +9vsAC against a PC with AC 19, by replacing d20 by average.
Current : Atk 1d20+9 vs Ac 19 = 10.5+9 vs AC 19 = usually hit
Method : Atk 19 vs Ac1d20 + 9 = 19 vs 10.5 + 9 = usually miss
So, maybe a coin toss for a random +1 to monster attacks, and we are back to balance ;)
I hadn't consider the "tie means player win" situation...fuzzy maths :p
I realize now that the math needs to be tweaked a bit more to work. And I totally forget to mention that you'd have to exceed the attacking DC rather than match it which is usually the case. I think Quirky DM's suggestion to add 12 rather than 10 resolved the math problems and it means that all you have to do is match the number rather than beat it. I'll admit that I wrote this really late last night and my math brain was already sleeping. Let's agree that the math needs to be tweaked. Assuming we can find a solution (which I think the +12 does nicely) what are your thoughts on active defenses?
This is a brilliant solution. I often find myself over busy while players are sitting idle. Just from the perspective of taking some of the menial tasks away from the DM to speed up the game this is a rule worth implementing.
In Ars Magica, probably the lowest possible die rolling RPG, players roll for defense. It makes the combat more interesting and realistic. Sometimes, you defend well, and sometimes you flub it.
I guess I started the math issue, so I'll comment more on the actual feature. It's a good way to handle the player disassociation issue. As I stated earlier, I think having the DM handle damage dice is the way to go- you can roll them up while the player rolls the attack and you don't have a player scrambling to find whatever dice happen to be used by this monster.
Besides that, I also think it fits well into the 4e monster paradigm. Monsters follow their own set of advancement rules, healing surges, power levels, etc. Monsters are a template to provide a challenge, so the idea of moving the concept of combat as a challenge to the players that they overcome is in line with development we see not only here, but in many other RPGs such as Mouseguard and Burning Wheel. As we separate character creation and monster generation apart, there's no reason not to move the mechanics of battle apart to accomodate that. (except maybe as a golden cow) And there could be some very good reasons to move it the other way, player involvement and combat speed increase being two of them.
We've been doing this for almost two years now. Makes it much more exciting for the players. And makes those big bursts and blasts from the enemy takes seconds and involve the whole table.
All we did is add 22 to the attackers to hit, and let the players add a d20 to their defences if they roll equal or higher than the monster the monster misses. This was all the changes are on the DM side - easier than explaining why the characters lose 10 AC.
We love it, your results may vary.
Example:
Player: AC 20
Monster: +14 to hit
hit on a 6 or more - miss on 1,2,3,4,5 - crit on 20
Player: AC 20 + d20
Monster: 36 (14+22) vs AC or get hit
hit on 15 or less - miss on 16,17,18,19,20 - crit on 1
@Quirky DM: Actually, if you retain the same mechanic that whoever is rolling must exceed the target number, as in the case of attacking, then it maintains a consistent set of expectations for the players and means that the math is only off by 1 instead of two, which I would hand wave as negligible, at least in my games. I like the idea a lot, but I have a few players for whom the math is secondary to enjoying the theatrics of the game, and so keeping things simple and consistent means that they don't get bogged down in the math rather than enjoy the game play. Plus it means that I can throw tougher encounters at the PCs and they'll have slightly better odds of handling it well and making it out alive.