Player facing attack rolls for DCC

Originally published December 6th 2024

Someone in the Goodman games discord server asked about changing DCC to not have monsters roll to attack but instead have player characters roll to defend. Here is how I would do it

Convert player character armor class to descending, this means a +2 agility bonus translates to an unarmored AC 8. Wearing full plate means that you subtract 8 from your AC instead of adding.

When a character is attacked they make an armor roll against an attack's difficulty class. Their armor roll modifier is their armor class.

Each attack has a difficulty class determined by what the traditional attack modifier is. This is calculated by subtracting the attack bonus from 20.

To succeed at an armor roll the player character must roll under the difficulty class, similar to luck. A natural 20 still means a critical hit and a natural 1 still means a fumble.

This system keeps in place ascending monster armor class. If the lack of parity there annoys you you could also convert all armor classes to descending via this method.

Attack rolls are 1d20+attack modifier+monster armor class. If it's above 20 it's a success.

To calculate a monster's armor class take the traditional ascending armor class and subtract it from 20 to get the descending armor class.

I much prefer keeping the disparity. I don't like the idea of being told a foe’s armor class. Also, I think that if people can understand luck then they can understand an armor roll, especially if you frame it as just rolling for the monsters so it's good that they roll low.