Extension to reaction roll

Content Creation
#1

Hi all! I wanted to ask about a potential abstraction for the reaction roll, to separate the player’s charismatic influence from the outcome of the reaction roll itself. This is mainly because I don’t like the disparity between the modifiers for Charisma (used on a 2d6 roll) vs those for Strength/Dexterity (used on a d20 roll). I also don’t think that using the same modifier for the same dice rolls is really fair–that is, I think that it can be too advantageous for the players.

What if the party representative makes a separate roll to attempt to impress the NPCs? If they succeed, they gain +1 on the 2d6 reaction roll. If they fail, maybe they embarrass themselves and gain -1 to the reaction roll.

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#2

I normally go for a straight d20-under-CHA roll when I go for reactions. There’s still crits and crit-fails, and I find the four bands of “terrible”, “about as bad as you’d expect”, “about as good as you expect” and “amazing” are enough. Like, rolling a success against a band of marauding bandits doesn’t mean they like you, it just means that they want your money, not your life.

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#3

You could model a similar bell curve onto a d20 roll - e.g. 1 is a highly negative result, 2-6 is a negative result, 7-14 neutral, 15-19 positive, 20 highly positive. My maths is probably out on that, but it would at least allow the CHA modifier to have the same impact as other attributes.

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#4

In Courtney Campbell’s On the Non-Player Character it’s the other way around: the reaction roll is modified by Charisma as usual, but the results (attack, hostile, neutral, friendly, helpful) then apply a modifier to the interactions that follow (n/a, -2, 0, +2, +4, respectively). There’s a fairly detailed system outlined for handling possible interactions (from demands and joking around to grovelling and shaming), some of which handled via a bond system for long-term “relationships”, but once it clicks, it’s simple to adjudicate on the fly.

EDIT: Of course, a number of interactions specifically improve reaction (so you’re not stuck with the initial modifiers set by the reaction roll).

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