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

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Try my idea as a one shot or as a section of a dungeon crawl one session. That should prove whichever thebproblem, lying or dice.

Then...well...You can reset mid campaign. It's called "Rocks fall. Everyone dies".

Blame him if complaints.

 

[Dragonsbane]

People roll for stats? If there was anything not to roll for, something that could help a player and hurt another for a whole campaign, its stats.

Also, bring your own dice for them to use. The more times he gets that luck, the less chances he is being totally honest.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

People roll for stats? If there was anything not to roll for, something that could help a player and hurt another for a whole campaign, its stats.

It's the way we've always done it.

In the future I'm going to suggest using a stat array but that won't make any difference mid campaign, also my players may veto it as they like the random generation.

 

[Sunseeker]

We don't sit around a table as we sit in lounge chairs so are more spread out so generally only one player could see his roll. He tends to call out natural 20's some of the time but snatches up his die quite quickly unless proving the roll. His die is also dark with dark numbers making it difficult to see from a distance.

I would definitely ask one of the nearby players to keep an eye on it. Snatching up dice before anyone else has a chance to see the roll is a big red flag.

 

[BoldItalic]

First, collect hard evidence. Record the d20 rolls for each player. Behind the screen, or somewhere out of sight, keep a chart and every time a player rolls a d20, tick off the number he announces he rolled on his chart. If he just announces the adjusted roll, ask for clarification of the actual dice roll (as if you were confirming the plusses). If he is rolling with advantage or disadvantage, ask him to report both dice rolls, not just the outcome. Build up a histogram. It might take several sessions - certainly several hundred dice rolls - before you have enough data to tell reliably if a histogram is skewed. If it is, show the player his chart and ask him to account for it.

Here's an example I've just quickly rolled up using my favourite pair of d20's

1
2 xxxx
3 xxx
4 x
5 x
6 x
7 xxx
8 xxxxx
9 xxxx
10 xxx
11
12 xxx
13 xxxx
14 xxxx
15 xx
16
17 xxxxx
18 xxx
19 xxx
20 x

Now, it might not look very random, and it might look as if some numbers are turning up more often than others, but that's to be expected. It's only 50 rolls. About all we can say is that there are as many rolls of 10 or below as there are of 11 or better so it's not grossly biassed. If I rolled a few hundred times, if particular numbers never turned up it might begin to show but we still wouldn't be very sure.

Try that.

If you like, tell the players that you are recording actual dice rolls as part of an internet experiment. Some guy on the ENWorld boards is interested in statistics and has asked DMs to collect actual dice rolls. It's not entirely a lie, is it? Better, collect a few hundred rolls from each player before you tell them, then collect a few hundred more after you tell them, and see if anyone's luck has mysteriously changed ...

 

[Jester David]

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?

Make them DM. Either their luck will change or the players will be challenged,
*rimshot*

But seriously, laugh. Laugh with it. Laugh hard and laugh often. Make it a table joke. Make any time he rolls a gag as you anticipate a string of luck.
It makes things fun, which is the point of the game.

 

[GameOgre]

Just kick him from the game or if that isn't a good idea(hey some people do play with friends and family) then make him roll in front of you....as in plain sight. If for some reason that doesn't work(hate those crazy hard to read rune dice) just start doing the exact same thing. Every roll is a hit and a lot of the crits against him.

That is what finally worked for me. I couldn't kick him, he liked to use dice I couldn't read so I just hit him every time and crit him like 25% of the time and EVERYONE made their saves. When he tried to look I snatched up the dice and said"What? you don't find this fun?"

Finally that got him to stop.

 

[Chocolategravy]

We had a person that quite blatantly cheated. We'd have kicked her out but her brother was a nice guy we liked playing with and he would have quit if we did. Whoever was DMing her at the time would take whatever she rolled, ignore it, and then make up a number in their head and use that instead. Worked fine for attack rolls, but was harder for when she rolled saves, which were of course always 20s, so her character just ended up mysteriously being the one targeted by all the no-saves.

 

[Katmandoo122]

I'd use the indirect method. A couple weeks ago, I sat down at a an AL table with a DM I never played with before. I suspected very early that he was fudging his roles behind his screen. The reasons for my suspicions are unimportant - maybe I was right and maybe I was wrong. But after a 7th saving throw in a row saved against me, I commented casually about how lucky he was. Not in a snide, sarcastic way, but in a mild way.

During a break, I heard him commenting to one of his friends on how surprised he was about those savings throws but it would have been a pain if we were able to stop the guy and question him.

But when we returned from the break, all of our rolls got a bit better and the baddies hit a little less often. Maybe it was a coincidence and maybe it wasn't. But by being indirect, I was able to avoid making a scene while still enjoying my evening.

The point is that people want to have fun (DMs included) and there is little fun about attaching twice, missing twice, and then passing on to the next person in the initiative. It doesn't make him a bad guy - it makes him human. But sometimes humans need to be encouraged to and discouraged from certain behaviors. I would try to be circumspect to begin with and go from there.

As Dalton (Patrick Swayze) said in Roadhouse, "Be nice until it's time to not be nice."

 

[mlund]

i always insist on my players making open rolls and make sure we don't use any of those those silly "spin down" dice with all the high numbers on one half of the d20. Dice with improper sides can be manipulated for favorable trends by putting backspin on them when you roll like most players do.

Also, even the regulation d20 is easy to manipulate ("set" the die) in-hand because you can throw it on an axis in a narrow space. If it hits a hard corner or edge and bounces violently then it hits the floor and you re-roll. If it holds its axis when you toss and rolls on that axis you've limited the results of the roll to a specific 40-50% of the possibly outcomes - solid for situations where you are either fishing for a critical (put the 20 on the axis) or trying to avoid a natural 1 (put the 1 and the 20 outside the axis).

This applies to other dice styles as well, but the d20 gets rolled a lot more and it is relatively unique in the problems with spin-downs, groupings, and axis-throws. For example, people can "set" the pairs of 2d6 used in the game "Craps." That is why the tables have those bumpy edges and a throw of the dice that does not hit those irregular edges at the end of the table is invalid. Even that doesn't stop some people from still trying, but if the pit-boss ever gets an idea that trying to show / hide sides of the dice is becoming anything other than a gambler's superstition that shooter is going to get pulled aside quietly when his turn is over.

In D&D you can ensure the randomness of the throws by simply using a dice-cup and open-rolling. Short of a true magician's trick of substituting dice there's no clear way to manipulate the outcome.

Marty Lund