Tip: Massed Advantage Rolls

[NMcCoy]

So, you've got a swarm of kobolds and/or rats, and are aggrieved at having to roll large quantities of pairs of dice when they all have advantage? Fortunately, there's an easier way to deal with it.

Say you've got 10 advantagey kobolds rolling against a single target. Roll 10 d20s. Set aside the ones that hit, reroll the ones that miss. This will give you the proper hit/no-hit distribution, but some people will want an accurate crit chance as well. In that case, of the set-aside "hit" dice, reroll the ones that didn't crit - if they come up 20, they crit, otherwise they count as normal hits.

Straightforward procedure, gives accurate results, and there's no need to pair dice up.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Sure, but that's still a lot of rolls. To quote myself from another forum:

Unlike [you], I do not have 40 d20s. So that means I have to roll 40 attacks three at a time (while counting which attack I'm on), calling out the hits as they come up, then have the player tell me how many hits that was (in my case, 7), then roll the difference between that and the original number.

In the case of my 40 kobold scenario, that has me make 25 rolls, which isn't a whole lot better than the 27 I balked at.

Disclaimer: I know that a battle involving 40 anythings is a rare and intense event for 1st-level characters, but in a game where people end up having multiple attacks, hirelings & henchmen, and "fighting more and more orcs", I can only see this getting worse and worse as the game goes on.

 

[Fifth Element]

Why in the world would you not have 40 d20s? I must have at least 100.

 

[Deadboy]

LOL! I've been gaming something for more than 25 years and I only have probably about 15 D20s. Sometimes I lose them, sometimes a friend of mine "accidentally" swipes them. I also usually only carry about half of those 15 with me to games...

So lots of attacks with advantage tend to be problematic for me. I miss swarms; so much better than having 18 actual rats to keep track of.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Why in the world would you not have 40 d20s? I must have at least 100.

Can I have some?

(I have since found 2 more d20)

 

[renau1g]

I'm guessing the Chessex Pound of Dice are going to be even more popular soon . I bought some, good use of $20. Although I didn't care for the mini d6's.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Chessex-Dice-Pound-Pound-O-Dice-Approximately/dp/B000X75BFE"]Amazon.com: Chessex Dice: Pound of Dice (Pound-O-Dice) Approximately 100 Die: Toys & Games[/ame]


Or you could use a rolling app/program, everyone has ipads/iphones/computers these days right? (I don't, just reading a lot of criticism of ddi, everyone use apple stuff and stoopid WotC is using Silverlight.

 

[Ratskinner]

Why in the world would you not have 40 d20s? I must have at least 100.

Ditto. When this first was mentioned as a problem, I was a little confused. I can easily take my Kobolds with advantage in groups of 5 (maybe even 10) and distinguish each Kobold by the color of the pair of dice assigned to it.

Then again, I may have a few more dice than I actually need. But C'mon! They come in so many cool shapes and colors! I pick up a new set for each campaign when I'm DM-ing and sometimes for each new character when I'm playing...

 

[Fifth Element]

Can I have some?

(I have since found 2 more d20)

Honestly? If you pay for shipping, yes. Yes you can.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Honestly? If you pay for shipping, yes. Yes you can.

Sadly, I'm on the other side of the continent and in a different country, so that would have to be a lot of dice to be worth my while.

 

[renau1g]

Amazon, it would be cheaper to buy that pound of dice with Prime than it would be to ship from Canada. Our postal rates are atrocious, stupid big country...