Have the dice ever managed to give your character an interesting personality trait?

[lkjopajdowma]

I don't mean rolling on a table of personality quirks or anything, but rather a bunch of bad (or good) rolls in certain situations that seem to say something about the character...

This is inspired by my current character. I have an Eladrin Wizard who I played through Thunderspire Labyrinth with. There's a skill challenge in there where you're trying to impress some people with your abilities, so I attempted to use my Arcana skill (which had a pretty hefty bonus, obviously). I rolled 1s and 2s three rounds in a row on Arcana checks, failing each one.

After a hiatus where I was a DM, I've since reprised the role of my Wizard, and the very first order of business of the new adventure was to make a knowledge check to determine something we knew about the region. I was ready with my +20 to Arcana. Rolled the dice. 1. I still knew something with a 21, but the fact that I just can't seem to roll high on an Arcana check has seemed to give me a wizard who knows the information, somewhere, but just can't find all of the information when he needs it.

It's not like the dice are bad, they seem to roll fairly (I had 2 20s in one combat that night, as well), I just consistently roll low on Arcana checks. I've come to describe it as my character having difficulty recalling things under pressure, and thus the dice have seemingly given my character more personality.

 

[fba827]

My PC (who is not trained in Bluff and in fact has a penalty from Charisma) likes to still try and Bluff on the off chance I roll high.

However, I never ever roll high on Bluff. He ends up confusing everyone more so than bluffing or befriending them!

So the enemies all know him as that confusing human who can't even remember his own lies let alone the truth...

And, yes, I try and bluff at least once in every social encounter situation... it has brought some amusement (at least to me).

 

[Gilladian]

Well, last campaign I ran, we had a fighter who failed "every single" fear check he had to make. Hauntings, Yeth Hounds, Howlers, fear spells, it didn't matter - he ran. Sometimes for a LONG time...

But he was heck on wheels against ghouls. He could hit, crit and smash those things like there was no end in sight. And he never failed a paralysis check.

 

[rkwoodard]

Yes, My Paladin

Hello,

Yes, I had a 1st edition AD&D Paladine, armed with a Holy Sword that could not roll damage the mooks at all. If he had to go toe to toe with a demon, he was rolling 6+s on damage (D8), but if he were fighting the orcs 1s and 2s. This went on for enough adventures that I just decided it was a quirk of his. He had several fights that lasted longer than they should have and thus he went into the BIG Fight hurt (or with his Lay on Hands depleted).

Maybe this is why I like the 4th edition Minion mechanic.

RK

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I played a 1Ed Ftr/Clc of Tyr (dual classed human) who always seemed to come up with the 20 at the cinematically appropriate time (with open rolls, in case you're wondering). She had only 2 weapons- a Sword of Sharpness and a Mace of Disruption, and the number of times those things activated against heavy hitters was reDONKulous. The most impressive time occurred when the party was in an evil demiplane, facing a Lich and its group of Death Knight escorts. The first thing she did in melee was close with the Lich. Swing #1 was a 20. This would normally activate the Mace, but where we were, she had to see if the magic would function at all. The resulting roll was a 20. So the magic functioned...but would it disrupt the Lich? The dice said...20. The Lich was disrupted, destroyed on the first strike of the 1st round of melee. Because the odds against that were so long, I asked the DM if Tyr had taken notice of this. He said, "Sure...roll percentile." The d100 came up...100. The skies opened up, Tyr appeared, granted the PC a level of Fighter, and then disappeared. (This mattered, BTW, since that meant that the PC went from 3 att/2 rounds to 2 att/round.)

Years later, someone playing a Paladin in one of my 3.5 campaigns seemed to have inherited that kind of luck. She didn't have anything as flashy as a Sharpness or Disruption weapon, but she nevertheless managed to mow down foes with alarming consistency. As I reported elsewhere, she managed to max out a crit against a necromancer BBEG in an unscripted encounter that, coupled with followup ranged strikes by other partymembers, forced him to save vs. massive damage (he only had 4hp left after the 1st surprise round)...which he failed.

Both PCs got the epithet "the Slayer" hung on them...

 

[Storminator]

My son made a whole pile of cheat-rolling PCs. No stats under 12, all with at least one 18. So I told him you could make a great PC out of any set of rolls and rolled up my PC for his game - 5 7 9 9 13 16

Slow, clumsy, weak, out of shape wizard! With enthusiasm! He was sick most of his childhood and read adventure stories. He greeted every adventure hook with "I read this in a story once! We're supposed to dive right in and ..."

fabulous fun.

PS

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I can't think of anything specific at the moment, but a number of my 1E characters who survived long enough to have a personality got them that way.

 

[Turtlejay]

The last 4e campaign I was in, our rogue consistently failed his saving throw versus ongoing fire diamage. A few different encounters he did this, and it became kind of a running joke about him being on fire, or flaming, or. . .you get the picture.

Jay