dwayne
Adventurer
I have used this chart in my older games and thought would try and adapt it to 5th edition for large groups of goblin archers or for saving throws for a massive group of creatures so I am not rolling so many dice. I did my best to covert and the disadvantage and advantage mechanic gave me some pause, I did my best to incorporate it in. If any one has a better idea of how to do it or tweak it a bit I would enjoy the feed back. The original article was in dragon 113 it was by Larry Church, which if still around would be nice to have him reply and maybe do a direct conversion.
You’re running a game in which the party is ambushed by 45 archers. Arrows begin flying; you resign yourself to rolling your 20-sided die over and over (and over and over and . . .). Anxious players drum their fingers as they await their turn. Is there a quicker way? Obviously there is, or you wouldn’t be reading this article. Included are three tables that will greatly expedite the die-rolling process. They emulate, respectively, 5 rolls, 10 rolls, and 20 rolls of a 20-sided die. The numbers across the top indicate the .to hit. Number (1 is left off since there is always a 100 percent chance of rolling a 1 or better). The left-hand side shows the number of hits. The numbers in the table itself give percentages for successful hits. To use the tables, determine what the .to hit. value is. Look up that value on the column heading of the appropriate table; this is the column you will be using. Roll percentile dice. Find the largest value in the column that is less than or equal to the number just rolled, and consult the leftmost number in that row. This represents the amount of successful hits.
Example: say 10 archers have a +5 to hit and the character has an AC of say 18 so to hit him they need a 14, the DM rolls 45 on percentile dice. The largest number less than or equal to 45 is 26 which means only 3 hit.
Special cases
Some of the columns have more than one entry of 99 or 00 in them. Special procedures must be taken if these numbers are rolled. Each case is handled differently. Normally, if the percentile dice roll is lower than the lowest number in the column, it indicates no hits. However, if 00 is rolled (a 00 indicates zero rather than the usual one hundred) and at least one 00 entry appears in the column being referred to, then the DM must add an extra number of 20 – sided die rolls to the number that still remained to be determined and continue the process. The number of extra rolls is equal to the number of 00 entries in the column being used.
Example: The sharp-eyed archers who made their saving throws notice a character running away. Each of the 10 archers now has advantage (because characters. back is turned). The DM consults the 10-Roll Binomial Table for the first 10 attempts, and rolls a 00 (as he has advantage he would treat it as a step higher so 2 would hit not 1). But say he need a 10 to hit not a 14, There are two entries of 00 in the .10. column, which means that all but two of the 10 archers have certainly missed, but there is still a chance that two more out of the 10 of them will hit (as the advantage is with the archers then this means moves up one meaning 3 hit, leaving a single roll for the archer left or it is added to any of additional attacks by others if there were more archers and would then roll on a appropriate chart (like if there were 4 additional archers then adding the left over to them would have you the GM 5 archers, Then using the 5-Roll Binomial Table to handle five of those rolls). In the case of a 99, the procedure is similar. But the number of extra rolls equals one less than the number of 99.s (but only if there are more than 10 archers ). If there is only one 99 in the column being used, then all hits are automatically successful and no extra rolls are granted. As to disadvantage the number rolled goes down a step.
Fixed the table
You’re running a game in which the party is ambushed by 45 archers. Arrows begin flying; you resign yourself to rolling your 20-sided die over and over (and over and over and . . .). Anxious players drum their fingers as they await their turn. Is there a quicker way? Obviously there is, or you wouldn’t be reading this article. Included are three tables that will greatly expedite the die-rolling process. They emulate, respectively, 5 rolls, 10 rolls, and 20 rolls of a 20-sided die. The numbers across the top indicate the .to hit. Number (1 is left off since there is always a 100 percent chance of rolling a 1 or better). The left-hand side shows the number of hits. The numbers in the table itself give percentages for successful hits. To use the tables, determine what the .to hit. value is. Look up that value on the column heading of the appropriate table; this is the column you will be using. Roll percentile dice. Find the largest value in the column that is less than or equal to the number just rolled, and consult the leftmost number in that row. This represents the amount of successful hits.
Example: say 10 archers have a +5 to hit and the character has an AC of say 18 so to hit him they need a 14, the DM rolls 45 on percentile dice. The largest number less than or equal to 45 is 26 which means only 3 hit.
Special cases
Some of the columns have more than one entry of 99 or 00 in them. Special procedures must be taken if these numbers are rolled. Each case is handled differently. Normally, if the percentile dice roll is lower than the lowest number in the column, it indicates no hits. However, if 00 is rolled (a 00 indicates zero rather than the usual one hundred) and at least one 00 entry appears in the column being referred to, then the DM must add an extra number of 20 – sided die rolls to the number that still remained to be determined and continue the process. The number of extra rolls is equal to the number of 00 entries in the column being used.
Example: The sharp-eyed archers who made their saving throws notice a character running away. Each of the 10 archers now has advantage (because characters. back is turned). The DM consults the 10-Roll Binomial Table for the first 10 attempts, and rolls a 00 (as he has advantage he would treat it as a step higher so 2 would hit not 1). But say he need a 10 to hit not a 14, There are two entries of 00 in the .10. column, which means that all but two of the 10 archers have certainly missed, but there is still a chance that two more out of the 10 of them will hit (as the advantage is with the archers then this means moves up one meaning 3 hit, leaving a single roll for the archer left or it is added to any of additional attacks by others if there were more archers and would then roll on a appropriate chart (like if there were 4 additional archers then adding the left over to them would have you the GM 5 archers, Then using the 5-Roll Binomial Table to handle five of those rolls). In the case of a 99, the procedure is similar. But the number of extra rolls equals one less than the number of 99.s (but only if there are more than 10 archers ). If there is only one 99 in the column being used, then all hits are automatically successful and no extra rolls are granted. As to disadvantage the number rolled goes down a step.
Fixed the table
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