D&D 5E What to do with players that always roll well

[Lord Vangarel]

I'm in something of a quandary. One of our group always rolls well to the point where I'm doubting anyone can be that lucky. His characters stats are all in the +3 to +4 bonus range, he seems to roll an incredible amount of 16+ rolls on a d20 and his hit points and damage always seem to be near maximum.

To give you an example at 9th level he's dropped maybe 5-10 hp from his possible maximum so he's rolled 8's or higher pretty much 8 times. He seems to roll many more criticals than seems normal and his damage is usually very close to maximum every time.

I've noticed some other players are starting to do the same to keep up which makes me think the chances of that happening are even less likely. It's got to the point where an NPC with the party, who I roll for and has a range of die results is a comedy figure because he misses his rolls quite often and only has average hp for his level.

The player in question occasionally gets dice checked but I don't want to be doing it all the time. It's kind of spoiling my enjoyment of the system because nothing's a challenge. If I overpower opponents other characters struggle.

I don't want to directly accuse the player of cheating and the occasional dice checks do show high rolls so what do I do?

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Swap dice

 

[Lord Vangarel]

Swap dice

Thought of that but players kind of get attached to them especially those that roll unbelievably well!

 

[wedgeski]

This is at the table, or on-line?

If you're confident he isn't cheating, one option is to modify the game to play at a difficulty level both you and your players are happy with. Lucky streaks on the d20 even out (of course), but lucky streaks resulting in very high Hit Point PC's can affect the whole campaign.

As always, bring your concerns to the players. Do they feel overshadowed by this PC? Do they feel the game is at the appropriate difficulty level? If you raise the game difficulty, how do they feel about spike encounters potentially TPK'ing the party?

 

[Lord Vangarel]

Thanks Wedgeski, it's at the table.

Part of me doesn't believe someone can be that lucky. I roll dice and get a range of results. The player in question almost always gets great results.

I've thought of going point buy or standard array for stats in the future and average hp only but we've always rolled these as a group and there's resistance to it changing.

It's not so much a lucky streak as permanently lucky except for occasional rolls when strangely it doesn't seem to matter if it's a poor roll.

 

[Paraxis]

That my good sir is cheating. Put a stop to it.

Get something like a boardgame box or better yet something lined with felt like a chess set storage box and tell everyone they have to roll in it, place it in the center of the table so you can see. If you don't see the roll it didn't happen.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I had two such players back in 2e (one of them stuck with me through 3e, but neither are with me anymore). Chris and Jimmy, and both I had to handle differently after a while. Maybe my experience with these two will help, maybe not.

Before I do tell you let me warn you of something called conformation bias, where you THINK someone is lucky so you only remember good rolls, or think someone unlucky and only remember bad ones...but both have the same random luck.

OK so on to my solutions...

CHris: Chris had a crazy nack for luck, or so it seemed. He always had high stats, and he crit more often then the rest of the table (jimmy in second example included) put together. He was also the first min/max rules lawyer my group ever had, so his characters were always better then others (so be careful of that conformation bias). We finaly realized he had the least dice of us, and as such suspected the dice. He (at the time we noticed) only had 2d20, 5d6, and 1 or 2 of each other die (but for some reason had a d3 and a d30 ???). SO I took out a piece of paper and made him roll both d20's 50 times, and you know what we found writing down 50 rolls each... his pink die never not 1 of 50 rolled a 7 or less, but did roll 6 20's and more 18's and 19's then you would think... so we ignored his gree d20 and made him roll that pink die 100 more times, and in 150 rolls, not one 7 or less, and more then 20 times it came up 20... we then did the same with his d6's... roll 4d6 and recording the results... then I made him roll some of my dice, and long behold the normal curve came out.
END result- his dice were not rolling right, he bought new dice, and it became a joke that when people really needed a good roll (even into 3e when he was in another state) we would joke "Where is that pink die?"

Jimmy: now jimmy was not as easy to notice, he was lucky but he had a hude dice collection. He had over the years not only bought tons, but also would change out sets for characters. HOWEVER, we started to notice that some crits he would leave on the table, others he would snatch right up. We had a real cheater, he had to be watched like a hawk... unlike chris when he left it was for the better. Once we caought on to him we realized he cheated in other ways too... we call it jimmy math to this day "+3 from dex, +3 from bab, +2 magic, + 1 bless, +1 focus, +3 dex, and +3 bab so I have +17" and we still call the +1 floating jimmy bless, since once he tried to call +1 bless in his math in a game with no spell casters...

so if this player is cheating, watch and audit. if this player has a die that really isn't as random... make him buy a new one.

 

[GameOgre]

Have the player always roll the die right in front of you. I know its hard to believe but some players do roll well from time to time AND cheat. It took a house rule, No Dice roll that I can't see counts.

He rolls a Nat 20 where you can't see? Doesn't count. BE STEADFAST in your rule.

If this is a long time issue (more than one hot night of rolling) then the player IS CHEATING. Now they might be doing it in conjunction with really rolling well but the player is still cheating.

It will be amazing that once your new rule is in place, the players roll will even out. Now there is one exception to this issue. Weighted Dice are a thing. I have a twenty sider that only rolls 20 or 1 or 7. No clue why but 90% of the time it will be one of those numbers. I don't use the die now, it's just in my arsenal of messed up dice.

Really though, your player is cheating. I have seen it time and time again. In EVERY case after a while of rolling in front of everyone suddenly this magic awesome luck goes away and the law of averages gains ground.

 

[Lezta]

At the table, all dice rolls should be out in the open. If someone else can't see your rolls, I'm going to assume there's a reason you're hiding them.

This is doubly true for stats - including hp. If I didn't see the roll, it didn't happen. You don't get to roll your stats at home and bring them in.

 

[wedgeski]

It's not so much a lucky streak as permanently lucky except for occasional rolls when strangely it doesn't seem to matter if it's a poor roll.

Well tbh that sounds like only one thing.