Show Rolls but not Modifiers to clients?

[Zacchaeus]

Well, that is interesting. I always made rolls behind the DM screen (and have never known anyone to ever do anything else) so the players never got to see the roll. Likewise they don't see it in FG either. I suppose I view the roll as the total roll and it either hits or misses. The way my players usually use Bardic inspiration is to immediately use it on their next roll; I've set up an effect which just adds in the extra dice to whatever roll (either to hit or save) they want to make it for. Our Bard (who 'died' at the player's request because he didn't like the class) never got around to using the Cutting Words feature.

So, I guess it's partly interpretation and partly how we play (differently). If that's how you play then I can see why you would want the modifier hidden. Not sure I agree with the interpretation though, but then that's what makes this game pretty good. Each of us can use the rules however we want.

[Andraax]

So if I played pen and paper I'd roll the d20 out in the open but I wouldn't necessarily tell them what the modifier was. I haven't ever played with a group that considered the "roll" to be the result of the d20 as well as the modifier. So in that example I'd roll the d20 out in the open and they'd see the 14 themselves. That's what I did in roll20 as well when we switched to VTT's; I'd just add the modifier on my own to see if it hit.

So, do this in FG. Turn off the "hide GM rolls" option. When you need a roll, roll a d20, and add or subtract the modifier in your head.

[Trenloe]

So if I played pen and paper I'd roll the d20 out in the open but I wouldn't necessarily tell them what the modifier was. I haven't ever played with a group that considered the "roll" to be the result of the d20 as well as the modifier. So in that example I'd roll the d20 out in the open and they'd see the 14 themselves. That's what I did in roll20 as well when we switched to VTT's; I'd just add the modifier on my own to see if it hit.

I completely get rolling out in the open, I do that all the time.

However, I'm a little confused as to how you get to hide the modifier from the players - if you roll out in the open and roll 14, for example, do you say to the players "Does a 22 hit your AC?", which allows the players to work out the modifier, or do you know all of the player's ACs, etc. and you work it all out in your head?

I'm not criticizing, run your game how you want to run it. I'm just curious...

[JohnD]

The problem here is the player needs to make the decision to use after the roll but before knowing the outcome. Kind of blows FG automation out of the water.

[Griogre]

Yeah, I feel for my bard player. I am considering changing Show Results to the Player to Off or PC once I'm sure what the PC setting is. That would give a more face to face feel. I was thinking that maybe a solution might be to have an effect that stops the display of the result when something with that effect is on them, basically temporarily setting show results to off while the effect lasts only for when PC or NPC has the effect and only on his attacks, a local switch only on that creature.

[unindel]

I completely get rolling out in the open, I do that all the time.

However, I'm a little confused as to how you get to hide the modifier from the players - if you roll out in the open and roll 14, for example, do you say to the players "Does a 22 hit your AC?", which allows the players to work out the modifier, or do you know all of the player's ACs, etc. and you work it all out in your head?

I'm not criticizing, run your game how you want to run it. I'm just curious...

Yeah, I knew their AC's. When we did Roll20 we didn't bother with the built in character sheet since it slowed down many of our browsers. I had all their sheets in a Google Spreadsheet and then had a GM sheet that had all their stats. When we did Pen/Paper I'd just ask them their AC if I didn't remember it; usually I'd just need to be reminded once per session. So something like "What's your AC?" "16" *describes the hit in RP*

So, do this in FG. Turn off the "hide GM rolls" option. When you need a roll, roll a d20, and add or subtract the modifier in your head.

Yeah that's an option. I guess I could use the Fantasy Grounds Party sheet as a quick reference for their AC if I need it. The main reason I was trying to stay away from that was because it won't take into account Effects the way grabbing the attack d20 off the combat tracker does (e.g. if the enemy is Prone or Frightened or some similar effect, auto-roll with disadvantage, or if target is then give advantage, or any spells that affect those rolls).

Anyway, until/if this feature is added I think I'll probably just switch to not hiding the modifiers. The ease of use and increase to combat speed from taking full advantage of Fantasy Grounds' automation will let us get through more content per session which is the main reason we switched anyway. It'll just make the Bardic Inspiration stuff a bit stronger but I guess that's fine.

[Griogre]

I think you can get close to what you want by showing GM rolls and setting show results to off. As GM you will get all the results, the players won't, but if you are describing the effects of the swing then they don't need to see it. But yeah, it will slow things down some since they can't roll damage until they know about the hit or miss.

[Wulfgangrpg]

when my players have the shield spell they only use it when they can see that the NPC barely hit them and that the +5 AC bonus would make the hit a miss, that the only time they use the shield if I was playing Table top behind a screen then I could say you get hit, but before I roll damage or apply damage to the character the player could say I want to cast shield. They would not know if that +5 AC bonus would be enough to stop the hit or not... so I think it would be nice to have a way to not show what the total hit number would be, just if it is a hit or a miss ( of course show if it is a fumble or critical hit). However on the other hand I think it would be a lot of work to code this in, and with them being able to see how much the NCP rolled over their AC and saying ok that +5 bonus will not help me with this hit is not game breaking.

however I did have a player once decide to roll a INT check DC 12 on a success you would cast shield on a fail he would not cast shield, I thought that was cool of him,
PS his Ideal not mine.

[Zacchaeus]

when my players have the shield spell they only use it when they can see that the NPC barely hit them and that the +5 AC bonus would make the hit a miss, that the only time they use the shield if I was playing Table top behind a screen then I could say you get hit, but before I roll damage or apply damage to the character the player could say I want to cast shield. They would not know if that +5 AC bonus would be enough to stop the hit or not... so I think it would be nice to have a way to not show what the total hit number would be, just if it is a hit or a miss ( of course show if it is a fumble or critical hit). However on the other hand I think it would be a lot of work to code this in, and with them being able to see how much the NCP rolled over their AC and saying ok that +5 bonus will not help me with this hit is not game breaking.

however I did have a player once decide to roll a INT check DC 12 on a success you would cast shield on a fail he would not cast shield, I thought that was cool of him,
PS his Ideal not mine.

This is a very old thread and I can't remember what the options were back then.

At any rate currently you have two options that you can set in respect of dice rolls and what the players see in chat. The first of these is Show DM Rolls which can either be on or off. On is the default and it shows the player the DMs dice roll in detail; in shows the actual dice rolled, the bonus, the type of attack and weapon used and whether it hit or missed the target. With this option off then the player does not see the dice and they don't see the modifier. They get a message that they have been attacked and that the total roll was x and the roll hit or missed.

The second option is Show results to clients and it has three states, on, off, and friendly. When on (the default) the players see the results of the DMs roll (the hit or miss part). When set to off the players do not see the hit or miss part of the roll. When set to friendly the players only see the results of rolls which are made between friendly characters. So in other words they would see the result of a healing spell cast on their character by another player but they will not see anything else. So if you switch off Show DM rolls and set show results to players to friendly the players will see nothing at all about the DMs rolls; they won't see a dice, the modifier, who was attacking and what with, and they won't see whether it was a hit or a miss.

So I'd play about with these two options so that you might find a combination of the options that suit the way you play your game.