I have recently started trying something new for setting certain DC's, rolling for it out of game.
For instance traps through a dungeon, instead of just deciding the DC I decide the skill of whoever originally set the trap (amateur, average, skilled, master) this then gives me a modifier and I roll for how well the trap was hidden and how well it was made. That then defines the DC in game to spot it, and disarm it. I do the same if I intend enemies to be hidden, I will roll when setting up the encounter for the stealth and that becomes the DC in game.
I have found it makes my DC's a bit more spread out and realistic without me needing to roll dice mid session for stuff.
Anyone else have a similar technique, or do something different when setting DC's for a session?
I don't leave stuff like that to chance. Basically you can work out your DC for a reasonable trap on the basis of 10 + Expected Ability Score Modifier + Proficiency Bonus. So at level 1, that would 10+3+2 = 15. At level 10 I'd be setting it as 10+5+4=19.
I do roll dice for other stuff going on in the world, though. So a BBEG casts teleport off in the world, and I roll for the outcome (last time he had a double mishap, and that affected his willingness to actually engage the party, who he was trying to get to).
I sometimes roll in advance during game prep, usually most of the time its for an ambush, determining the Dexterity (Stealth) checks that will be contested against the player character's Passive Perception. It also help me determine in advance if such encounter will resullt in Surprise.
I may also do so for concealed doors, hidden objects or traps, secret passages and anything else i want to randomly determine the DC for spotting it.
Other than that, i don't usually roll anything else in advance, preferring to roll during the game.
I find that I do almost exactly the same when prepping my sessions that involve traps, ambushes, hidden objects and the like. I find that it works quicker in the execution and operation of the encounter and removes my bias from setting a DC that is "just high enough" to beat the PC's Passive Score.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I mostly roll for stealth and surprise rounds. I also roll whenever I am undecided as for how I want things to happen regarding the plot, but that is more a "throw a coin when you don't know what you want to do and you will know the answer before it lands" scenario.
I don't think that varying the DC will change much in my case. My group had lots of issues with ambushes in my campaign so there always is a character with high perception or investigation. Since traps are not detected with passive perception, whether they are found or not is usually a more a matter of whether they remember to check for them or not (they usually don't)
I preroll treasure. I usually just set the DC for any opposed skill checks where I don't want to tip anything to the party. Everything else is done in game.
If I have encounters prepared I will try to roll initiative before the game. This is because when I call for initiative, I immediately get people shoutng numbers whilst I am rolling my own, then have to go back and ask people what they rolled!
If I feel like using non-set HP for monsters I'll roll that whilst I am making the encounter as well!
I often have different cool random tables pulled up and when i'm feeling some creative block I just roll a couple times for some seed ideas, often they manifest into something way more interesting just by using a brainstorming process like that.
Also if I know that A fight is 100% going to happen, I pre-roll initiative to save time.
I don’t roll for DCs of things like traps, but I have rolled as part of prep for two things:
-Random encounters (which random encounter they may have, if a roll in-game determines there is one); this let’s me prep the encounter before hand. (Especially helpful now that I use the combat tracker here).
-Initiative rolls. Back when I played in-person, and before the combat tracker existed, as I was setting up at the table, I would roll all my d20s and make a note of what the rolls were. Then when an encounter happened, I would take those “base” rolls, in the order I wrote them down, and add the monster’s Initiative modifier to get their initiative number. As someone said above, I did this in part to solve the problem of everybody yelling at once. Now that I use the combat tracker, that’s not necessary, as DDB makes those rolls for me, and, if my players roll on DDB, it even inputs their rolls for me.
As an aside: another trick I used to deal with everyone giving me their initiative rolls at once is something I learned from Matt Mercer. (As I watched CR with my children). I asked for initiative in “tiers”: Anyone over 20? Over 15? Over 10? Etc. Meant I only had to write out the numbers once instead of twice, because I could get them in order as I wrote. Don’t need to do that in the game I run now, because we use DDB. But I found it very helpful in the days “before.”
I don’t roll for DCs of things like traps, but I have rolled as part of prep for two things:
-Random encounters (which random encounter they may have, if a roll in-game determines there is one); this let’s me prep the encounter before hand. (Especially helpful now that I use the combat tracker here).
-Initiative rolls. Back when I played in-person, and before the combat tracker existed, as I was setting up at the table, I would roll all my d20s and make a note of what the rolls were. Then when an encounter happened, I would take those “base” rolls, in the order I wrote them down, and add the monster’s Initiative modifier to get their initiative number. As someone said above, I did this in part to solve the problem of everybody yelling at once. Now that I use the combat tracker, that’s not necessary, as DDB makes those rolls for me, and, if my players roll on DDB, it even inputs their rolls for me.
As an aside: another trick I used to deal with everyone giving me their initiative rolls at once is something I learned from Matt Mercer. (As I watched CR with my children). I asked for initiative in “tiers”: Anyone over 20? Over 15? Over 10? Etc. Meant I only had to write out the numbers once instead of twice, because I could get them in order as I wrote. Don’t need to do that in the game I run now, because we use DDB. But I found it very helpful in the days “before.”
Even though we play remotely all of us still roll physical dice, I refuse to let a computer roll my monsters initiative :).
For instance traps through a dungeon, instead of just deciding the DC I decide the skill of whoever originally set the trap (amateur, average, skilled, master) this then gives me a modifier and I roll for how well the trap was hidden and how well it was made. That then defines the DC in game to spot it, and disarm it. I do the same if I intend enemies to be hidden, I will roll when setting up the encounter for the stealth and that becomes the DC in game.
That's an interesting idea, I find that it can lead to unpredictable and sometimes impossible to work around results though.
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I have recently started trying something new for setting certain DC's, rolling for it out of game.
For instance traps through a dungeon, instead of just deciding the DC I decide the skill of whoever originally set the trap (amateur, average, skilled, master) this then gives me a modifier and I roll for how well the trap was hidden and how well it was made. That then defines the DC in game to spot it, and disarm it. I do the same if I intend enemies to be hidden, I will roll when setting up the encounter for the stealth and that becomes the DC in game.
I have found it makes my DC's a bit more spread out and realistic without me needing to roll dice mid session for stuff.
Anyone else have a similar technique, or do something different when setting DC's for a session?
I don't leave stuff like that to chance. Basically you can work out your DC for a reasonable trap on the basis of 10 + Expected Ability Score Modifier + Proficiency Bonus. So at level 1, that would 10+3+2 = 15. At level 10 I'd be setting it as 10+5+4=19.
I do roll dice for other stuff going on in the world, though. So a BBEG casts teleport off in the world, and I roll for the outcome (last time he had a double mishap, and that affected his willingness to actually engage the party, who he was trying to get to).
I sometimes roll in advance during game prep, usually most of the time its for an ambush, determining the Dexterity (Stealth) checks that will be contested against the player character's Passive Perception. It also help me determine in advance if such encounter will resullt in Surprise.
I may also do so for concealed doors, hidden objects or traps, secret passages and anything else i want to randomly determine the DC for spotting it.
Other than that, i don't usually roll anything else in advance, preferring to roll during the game.
I find that I do almost exactly the same when prepping my sessions that involve traps, ambushes, hidden objects and the like. I find that it works quicker in the execution and operation of the encounter and removes my bias from setting a DC that is "just high enough" to beat the PC's Passive Score.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I mostly roll for stealth and surprise rounds. I also roll whenever I am undecided as for how I want things to happen regarding the plot, but that is more a "throw a coin when you don't know what you want to do and you will know the answer before it lands" scenario.
I don't think that varying the DC will change much in my case. My group had lots of issues with ambushes in my campaign so there always is a character with high perception or investigation. Since traps are not detected with passive perception, whether they are found or not is usually a more a matter of whether they remember to check for them or not (they usually don't)
I preroll treasure. I usually just set the DC for any opposed skill checks where I don't want to tip anything to the party. Everything else is done in game.
If I have encounters prepared I will try to roll initiative before the game. This is because when I call for initiative, I immediately get people shoutng numbers whilst I am rolling my own, then have to go back and ask people what they rolled!
If I feel like using non-set HP for monsters I'll roll that whilst I am making the encounter as well!
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I often have different cool random tables pulled up and when i'm feeling some creative block I just roll a couple times for some seed ideas, often they manifest into something way more interesting just by using a brainstorming process like that.
Also if I know that A fight is 100% going to happen, I pre-roll initiative to save time.
If I have an encounter statted out, I will roll initiative for it even if combat is not super likely.
DC variation with dice is an interesting concept. I may try that out.
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I don’t roll for DCs of things like traps, but I have rolled as part of prep for two things:
-Random encounters (which random encounter they may have, if a roll in-game determines there is one); this let’s me prep the encounter before hand. (Especially helpful now that I use the combat tracker here).
-Initiative rolls. Back when I played in-person, and before the combat tracker existed, as I was setting up at the table, I would roll all my d20s and make a note of what the rolls were. Then when an encounter happened, I would take those “base” rolls, in the order I wrote them down, and add the monster’s Initiative modifier to get their initiative number. As someone said above, I did this in part to solve the problem of everybody yelling at once. Now that I use the combat tracker, that’s not necessary, as DDB makes those rolls for me, and, if my players roll on DDB, it even inputs their rolls for me.
As an aside: another trick I used to deal with everyone giving me their initiative rolls at once is something I learned from Matt Mercer. (As I watched CR with my children). I asked for initiative in “tiers”: Anyone over 20? Over 15? Over 10? Etc. Meant I only had to write out the numbers once instead of twice, because I could get them in order as I wrote. Don’t need to do that in the game I run now, because we use DDB. But I found it very helpful in the days “before.”
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Even though we play remotely all of us still roll physical dice, I refuse to let a computer roll my monsters initiative :).
That's an interesting idea, I find that it can lead to unpredictable and sometimes impossible to work around results though.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.