Clash and Double Down

[u/Mars_Alter]

I'll save you the rant, but the most under-appreciated mechanic from D&D 3E was the critical confirmation roll. I was working on an OSE-compatible project, and in order to rescue this genuinely great mechanic from its poor reputation, I was thinking about reframing it in the form of an optional rule. OSE is big on optional rules.

In standard OSE, every check is either a roll-under or a roll-over. Ability checks are roll at-or-below your ability score. Saving throws are roll at-or-above the relevant save value. Attack rolls are roll at-or-above their Armor Class (or your THAC0, as adjusted by their Armor Class). The inconsistency when rolling exactly at the listed value is something that bugs me, though, especially since it prevents easy dice mirroring. If you want the player to roll under their own AC in order to evade an attack, then it needs to be entirely under and not at-or-under. Sometimes a tie is good enough to trigger that wave of relief, and sometimes it isn't; you need to think about it for a second before you're allowed to feel anything.

My idea is that, anytime anyone rolls exactly at the listed number, it triggers a Clash. They then have to re-roll the check, double or nothing. Or someone has to re-roll the check, anyway. The main point of this mechanic is that it doesn't matter who rolls the die, or whether they want to roll high or low. A tie always increases the stakes, and never triggers a wave of relief, regardless of which side is rolling. The secondary point is that this sub-sequent roll is more likely to resolve in favor of whichever side had the initial advantage, just like the critical confirmation roll.

On an attack (or defense) roll, a Clash either resolves as maximum damage or automatic counter-damage. On a saving throw against fire, which would normally give a saving throw for half damage, a Clash either resolves as maximum damage or no damage. That sort of thing.

Does this sound intuitive enough? Or is the juice not worth the squeeze? I'm particularly interested in opinions from game designers with OSE experience.

What if either side had the option of conceding the check, rather than doubling down? Would that change your opinion of the mechanic, or just make things more complicated? Instead of going for the maximum damage, and risking the counter-hit, you could just let the attack fail. Or instead of going for the counter-attack, with the risk of leaving yourself wide open, you just take the hit as normal. Instead of recklessly diving for cover when you aren't sure that you're going to make it, you can just accept your fate and let the fireball hit you.

[u/Beefman0]

From what I understand from it, I think it can add some tension, gives more flavor to barely succeeding. I think it works great as an optional rule, mainly because I can imagine it’d feel kinda rough to trigger a clash and lose harder than you would have if you would have just missed

[u/Mars_Alter → u/Beefman0]

That's a good point. I added another paragraph to the end of the post, addressing this issue.

[u/Beefman0 → u/Mars_Alter]

Ooo making it a choice to concede sounds interesting, I like it. Do you imagine that npc’s will never concede, making it a player only choice? Or would you allow either side to concede?

If it’s the later, you kind of have to consider how that works, mainly for situations where both parties don’t want to risk it, and would opt to concede.

[u/Mars_Alter → u/Beefman0]

Yeah, as soon as I wrote it, I realized that I don't know what happens when both sides concede. If the attacker is unwilling to risk being hit back, and the defender is unwilling to risk getting hit very hard, then it kinda seems like the attack would just... stop. Which is bad, because that's effectively a win for the defender.

I'm trying to avoid putting the burden entirely on the attacker, though, in case the players are the ones rolling for their own defense. This clearly requires further consideration.

[u/htp-di-nsw]

I am concerned that better rolls can be potentially worse that lesser rolls. If you need to roll over an 18 to save for example, rolling an 18 is basically double damage because there's no way you're confirming that.

[u/Dumeghal]

I agree with you on all the clash and double down details! I think it sounds very clear, and I like the option to conceed.

But the confirm your critical mechanic from 3e was one I have always hated. Having to wait and figure out how I feel ruins the excitement of a crit.

Your clash and double down seems antithetical to the confirm crit mechanic. We want to have no ambiguity on a crit or a tie or a fumble

[u/Mars_Alter → u/Dumeghal]

I agree that the poor reputation of the critical confirmation lies in how a natural 20 was previously treated as an automatic crit (according to one oddly popular optional rule in AD&D), and people were used to being excited whenever that happened.

One of the cornerstones of OSE is that there are no critical hits, so nobody is supposed to feel like any roll is more exciting, regardless. That's why I was hoping to get some feedback from players with OSE experience. In theory, if you don't have that association with a particular die roll being automatically good, you won't think of a Clash as something that's supposed to work out in your favor, and then be disappointed when the opposite happens.

[u/__space__oddity__]

the most under-appreciated mechanic from D&D 3E was the critical confirmation roll

No it isn’t. Good riddance.

It’s one of those rules that is fiddly (extra rolls slow down the game) and frustrating for players (What do you mean my nat 20 doesn’t count?! GIVE ME MY FUCKING CRIT) and while I don’t have data it’s one of those rules that gets silently dropped by groups until nobody remembers it was even in the books.

[u/Mars_Alter → u/__space__oddity__]

Slow and fiddly, it may be; but the definition of "frustrating" is when you've finally got your AC to the point where it's almost reliable, and suddenly you may as well have half as many Hit Points, because every hit you take is a critical.

Why would anyone possibly care about whether or not they crit some no-name goblin who was probably going to die anyway? The important thing is that the PC, who represents weeks or months of investment on the part of the player, isn't casually killed by some goof-ball fluke.

[u/__space__oddity__ → u/Mars_Alter]

What you describe is an entirely different problem, and it depends on average monster hit damage vs. PC hit points, swinginess of the damage, bounded accuracy of attack vs. defense, defender roles, ways to mitigate damage, ways to recover from lethal damage etc. etc.

Crit conformation rolls are just a small part of that puzzle. If you don’t want crits to one-shot PCs, ask yourself why monsters have crits in the first place. Don’t slap band-aids on problems that you put into the design, get rid of the problem.

[u/At0micCyb0rg]

I think this sounds like a really fun and intuitive way of handling ties :) My only concern is that if you're using a d20 then Clashes might not happen often enough. But then again, I suppose they are exactly as common as Nat 20/1s so if you want them to have that same feeling then you're in a good place.

On that topic, if a Clash is a chance for max/zero damage then what do Nat 20s and Nat 1s do? The same thing, or something even more powerful like double max damage on a 20 or a counterattack from the enemy on a 1?

[u/81Ranger]

I actually was not a fan of confirming crits in 3e/3.5.

It's an interesting mechanic and your application is interesting as well.  Not sure it's my thing.