A bad fight

[Threedub]

Put the dice down and back away. Pump up your Use Magic Device and buy a bunch of Magic Missle Wands--the cure for bad dice rolling--and you get the added bonus of the greatest AC bonus ever, not being in the front ranks.

 

[Brottor Dankil]

Man, in my last game I was a Gnome Rogue and my brother was an Elven ranger, but that is not the crux of the matter. I never hit anything during that battle and I just kept getting hit. My highest roll on the dice was a 7, where as my brother must have rolled like 5 nat 20s. The thing is, his dice always do this, and mine always roll low. I just rolled them and I got 4, 4, and a 6. Oddly enogh, my dice roll 4 more than any other number.

heh, I am just complaining.

I've noticed that I roll much higher when I'm DMing than when I'm PCing. It's weird, when I don't really care whether I roll high or not, I roll high. I don't want the players to take a critical hit in a dire situation, but it seems to happen much more often than average. Sometime I even have to fudge my die rolls down to keep from killing the entire party and ruining the game/campaign.

When I NEED to roll high as a PC, I almost always get a 1 or 5 on a 20.

I could be the way I roll. When I DM, I just pick up a die and toss it. When I PC, I spend more time shaking the dice in my hand before tossing (I guess subconsciously I try to improve the randomization).

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I've noticed that I roll much higher when I'm DMing than when I'm PCing. It's weird, when I don't really care whether I roll high or not, I roll high. I don't want the players to take a critical hit in a dire situation, but it seems to happen much more often than average. Sometime I even have to fudge my die rolls down to keep from killing the entire party and ruining the game/campaign.

When I NEED to roll high as a PC, I almost always get a 1 or 5 on a 20.

I could be the way I roll. When I DM, I just pick up a die and toss it. When I PC, I spend more time shaking the dice in my hand before tossing (I guess subconsciously I try to improve the randomization).

I find that tossing the dice seems to get me lower results than rolling it. As a DM, quite frankly, I just roll for show most of the time. I more or less decide whether or not an attack hits or misses based on how the Pcs are doing in the fight so far.

 

[Evilhalfling]

My last modern game, I averaged a 5 on multiple d20s in the climaxtic battle - before I was KO'd. Pretty good for the party tough hero.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

One of my fellow players kept rolling so abominably with his huge d20s that I finally just gave him some of my dice to keep. He started rolling much better afterward, too.

Did I mention this guy DMed a game that I wasn't in at the time? Well, two weeks later, we show up at the game I'm in, and I'm nearly lynched by everyone else!

Turns out that the guy had adjusted to his poor die rolling by using lots of big strong bag o' HP creatures. He kept rolling very well against the PCs, the players of whom were rather...miffed...with me.

Brad

 

[MarauderX]

I roll a lot of low numbers too. A lot. So I go to Sweden for vacation. I buy new dice from one of the many, many gaming stores I passed by. I bring them back to the U.S.A. I unseal them in front of my players for the first time, letting the virgin dice out of the swedish air. And I roll a 1. Then another. Yes, a total of 12 one's for the session on that single 20 sider. Sweden: great country, cursed dice.

A player said I should roll with my other hand. I, not really being superstitious, just try it on a whim. A few 20's later (and a multitude of other rolls) I conclude that the numbers from my off-hand dice attack were more of the expected average. Weird, but I think I'll try it out again next session and see how it goes.

Think positive, roll hard with the off-hand, and slay, slay, slay.

 

[Brottor Dankil]

I find that tossing the dice seems to get me lower results than rolling it. As a DM, quite frankly, I just roll for show most of the time. I more or less decide whether or not an attack hits or misses based on how the Pcs are doing in the fight so far.

I try to avoid fudging if at all possible without destroying the PCs. The randomness of the fight is fun, unless total party death occurs. And I only fudge if the PCs have freakishly bad dice rolling. If they have done something incredibly stupid, all bets are off.

I had one DM who would fudge every "roll". The monsters always hit on the first swing (regardless of AC), almost always on the second swing. Then the remaining monster swings would miss, hit , miss, hit, miss, hit (in that order) until either the monsters were vanquished or 2-3 party members were down. As soon as 2-3 down/dead characters occurred, suddenly the monsters would miss every time and/or make incredibly stupid tactical errors. It just wasn't fun to play after a while. The predictability of the "random" combat was irritating.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

There is a Player in my group who rarely gets less than a 20 (including modifiers). [All rolls are in the open, and there is no suspision of cheating, here.] She never fails a save, never fails to hit, always gets great Spot and/or Listen checks, etc.

In one battle, the enemy cleric specifically went after this Player's sorcerer (was a rematch battle) with 4 hold person spells. She made all 4 saves.

In another game, she was playing an archer. From levels 1st to 3rd (as far as we got) she never missed an attack roll. Never.

Her luck with dice is absolutely amazing to me. Absolutely amazing.

Quasqueton

I had a player like that in a long running 2e campaign. She never cheated, but was incredibly lucky with dice (and could somehow influence my dice against her). During very heavy combat sequences the rest of the party would be crawling away from the carnage, and she'd still every hitpoint she started with.

 

[Swedish Chef]

Back in the 2nd Ed days, we had a player, nicknamed "Runt", who could "curse" other people's dice. Not intentionally (although he did if you annoyed him), but any time he simply used someone else's dice, that person would consistently roll low for several days afterwards.

Everyone, that is, except me. For some reason, I could "uncurse" his curse. If he rolled my dice, he'd roll a 1. I would roll immediately afterwards, and roll a 19 or 20. The same if he cursed anyone else's dice. I would grab the affected die and immediately roll a 19 or 20, and the player could then roll "average" after that.

It got to be quite the rivalary for a while, to see who would come out on top of the "curse/uncurse" battle.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

We've actually tracked it on paper, and found something interesting about my rolls.

If I'm hot in the beginning of the encounter (17-20's) I start blowing it about halfway through (1-3's)

If I'm cold in the beginning of the encounter (1-10) I start rolling hot toward the end (18-20)

If I'm running in the middle, I crash and burn every time, with my rolls getting progressively worse.



Weird, huh?