Dice Rolling:
Please use the dice roller when you make an attack roll, use a skill or make a saving throw. Link the rolls please so I can see them. It is your character and I want you to take responsibility for all their hits and misses, heroic actions, desperate saves, inspired knowledge or lack thereof. Make a macro which reflects your action and the appropriate bonus or penalty modifiers. for example:
Granville the great, swigs from a bottle of rum, tainted with poison from the sap of a jungle toad.
Granville save vs poison [1d20+1]. Surviving thus Granville the great attacks the native chief with his magic dagger+2.
Granville melee attack [1d20+2] Dagger Damage [1d4+2]
It is your responsibility to know the macro accurately so please check all the modifiers are included in the text. In combat situations, you may be faced with multiple attacks and I will roll these using real dice, in real time on my desk. I just don't have the patience to link 20 or 30 different attacks and damage differentials. I will post a narrative of the action and consequences of successful or unsuccessful rolls. As
Gary Gygax said,
DMs' dice rolling is just for audio effects only.
.
Critical Hits and Fumbles:
If you roll a
natural 20 on an attack roll, it will be counted as a
critical hit. All critical hits do
maximum damage from the weapon type plus or minus any modifiers due to strength, magic, miscellaneous conditions and an additional normal damage roll. So in the above example, Granville the great critically hitting the chief would do: max(1d4)+2 = 4+2 =6hp + [1d4+2] damage with his dagger. so a range between 9 - 12hp of damage.
Certain weapons will also have a critical hit range. For example all pistols and cannons have four ranges.
Point blank, short, medium and long range. Any successful hits taken at point blank range will be treated as critical hits even if a natural 20 was not rolled on the dice.
I will also be using a
Critical Hit Table as the game progresses. This will determine long term consequences of surviving a critical hit. The first result could be that your prized chainmail armour can no longer take the beating and falls apart or the hull of the ship you sail in is damaged beyond repair and the boats begins to sunk. For the player character , especially if such a hit brought the character to 0 hit points or less, surviving the critical may have lasting physical effects. A critical wound to the head may result in you losing an eye, cannon fire blasting apart your boat may also blast apart a leg. Still wooden legs and hook hands may add to your notoriety if not your charisma.
Fumbles: these will work in different ways. Fumble during melee and the opponent may get a free basic melee attack in return as you are off guard. Fumbling range attacks may cause different results. I will narrate them as necessary.
Firing into melee: At short range, characters may fire into melee without any penalty or danger to allied combatants. A miss will be counted as missing all combatants. At medium range and long range I will roll to see if the fired projectile hits a 3rd party or misses.
Skill Checks:
Skill checks are rolled when the characters need to overcome a problem, attempt an action or gather information. Instead of rolling a d20 I find it easier to class the difficulty level of the problem or action and then get you to roll a number of d6 dice vs an attribute you are using. So an easy to solve problem or action may need you to roll [2d6], as problems or actions go from easy to nigh on impossible you may need to roll,
2,3,4,5 or even 6d6
For example, jumping from the balcony to swing from the chandelier in the tavern might be a
normal task, roll [3d6]vs the characters dexterity ability score, wrestling free of the Krakens' tentacles might be a very hard task, roll [5d6] vs strength.