Hey folks, I'd like to share my ideas about ability checks and Confidence.
In some circumstances, I don't think the players should make their own ability checks. The most obvious of these circumstances are Insight checks, Investigate checks, and Perception checks, but there may be others.
I think in these circumstances the DM should make the check in secret, and share the result with the player in a way that doesn't reveal their dice roll. If the player has a high score, they will generally act as if they have rolled successfully. However, to add an interesting twist to the scenario, I propose the addition of a Confidence die. This is a d6 that the DM rolls whenever he rolls an ability check. On a 1 or 2, the PC has Low Confidence that he passed his check. On a 3 or 4, he has Medium Confidence that he passed his check, and on a 5 or 6 he has High Confidence that he passed his check. Now, this result has to have some bearing on what actually happened or its a useless roll. Thus, if the DM rolled below a ten on the PC's ability check, add nothing to the Confidence roll. If he rolled a 10-19, add 1. If he rolled a 20-29, add 2. If he rolled a 30-39, add 3. This way, no one whose DM rolls a 20+ on the ability check will ever have Low Confidence. If the DM tells you that you have Low Confidence, you know you didn't roll above a 19. Of course, it remains possible to have High Confidence while completely bombing your check.
Any thoughts on this?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Hey folks, I'd like to share my ideas about ability checks and Confidence.
In some circumstances, I don't think the players should make their own ability checks. The most obvious of these circumstances are Insight checks, Investigate checks, and Perception checks, but there may be others.
I think in these circumstances the DM should make the check in secret, and share the result with the player in a way that doesn't reveal their dice roll. If the player has a high score, they will generally act as if they have rolled successfully. However, to add an interesting twist to the scenario, I propose the addition of a Confidence die. This is a d6 that the DM rolls whenever he rolls an ability check. On a 1 or 2, the PC has Low Confidence that he passed his check. On a 3 or 4, he has Medium Confidence that he passed his check, and on a 5 or 6 he has High Confidence that he passed his check. Now, this result has to have some bearing on what actually happened or its a useless roll. Thus, if the DM rolled below a ten on the PC's ability check, add nothing to the Confidence roll. If he rolled a 10-19, add 1. If he rolled a 20-29, add 2. If he rolled a 30-39, add 3. This way, no one whose DM rolls a 20+ on the ability check will ever have Low Confidence. If the DM tells you that you have Low Confidence, you know you didn't roll above a 19. Of course, it remains possible to have High Confidence while completely bombing your check.
Any thoughts on this?