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Rolling Dice Before A Character's Action

Do you think its a form of cheating to see what dice results you get before deciding an action for your character?

Action Characters Before Dice Rolling

Isn't it supposed to be the other way around- you decide an action and then roll to see the results of that action?

Rolling Dice Before A Character's Action Reviews RPG & Card Board

Depends on the circumstances. If rolling for an attack, then generally speaking yes, as you could direct a moderate roll towards an easily hit target and criticals towards the really tough guy.

In some cases though, a roll can determine what a character is able to do, or change the circumstances for later actions. For instance if a character hits and kills a target, they may wish to move, if they don't, they're more likely to stay put. Another example is saving against an effect that impacts the abilities of a character.

Action Characters Before Dice Rolling

Depends on if there is a predetermined answer to a mistaken action. For instance if you want to know if you will be paralyzed from touching an ancient tomb then rolling before you commit to the action makes it so the player decides not to do the action if its a bad roll. Things like saving throws should be made after the fact than before.

Action Characters Before Dice Rolling

Some times one needs to roll to see what their reaction to a circumstance may be. Maybe their actions will be much different due to a dice roll like how they are feeling towards the subject matter.

Rolling Dice Before A Character's Action

Not what I meant.

For an example, the characters in my game are rolling vs fear right now. Many of them are choosing to make the roll before they post actions, because whether or not they're afraid for the next round has a large impact on the actions they can take. Its already too late to not get exposed to that fear.

Rolling Dice Before Character's Action

Plus to elaborate on my response. You character walks into a tavern. He/She sees a drinking game going on or see a nice looking bar keep/serving person. What is their reaction to this. A dice roll to see how they react can come in very handy before their action.

Rolling Dice Before Character's Action Board Card & RPG Reviews

In that case they would have made an action and then the reaction is the roll but that would still happen after the fact unless they were surprised by something and you are rolling reaction but in that case the 'action' was made on their behalf because they were already surprised. If they weren't surprised then they could have a controlled action instead of a reaction if that makes any sense.

Well yeah because similar to my complicated example above you already are saying the action of fear is present so this is a roll for reaction rather than to see if they will be afraid of something that hasn't happened yet.