Rare item selection for Avenger (Censure of Unity)

[Balesir]

To clarify what MwaO is saying, the Dice of Auspicious Fortune as originally written let you use the stored d20 rolls on any d20 roll. For skill checks, a PC with a high skill modifier could often succeed at a skill check with a very low roll (like, a 5 or 4) -- thus getting that bad roll out of the Dice and saving the good rolls for something else.

OK, but the reasoning is still flawed, if "bad die rolls" are supposed to be some sort of handicap. The players in our game find the low rolls exceedingly useful for making "affect all creatures in burst/blast" effects party friendly. The "advantageous low rolls" argument does not just apply to skill rolls.

 

[pemerton]

To clarify what MwaO is saying, the Dice of Auspicious Fortune as originally written let you use the stored d20 rolls on any d20 roll. For skill checks, a PC with a high skill modifier could often succeed at a skill check with a very low roll (like, a 5 or 4) -- thus getting that bad roll out of the Dice and saving the good rolls for something else.

I'm not sure why it matters to "get the bad rolls out of the dice". As originally written, you can just ignore them!

 

[D'karr]

Some of the "errata" for the game was necessary. This one, like so many others, looks like a solution looking for a problem.

 

[pemerton]

Some of the "errata" for the game was necessary. This one, like so many others, looks like a solution looking for a problem.

I think the player with this item in my game plays it in accordance with the errata about substitution (namely, choose before rolling). But I'm not 100% sure.

Personally I haven't found it to be a problem item, but (i) we use daily item limits, and (ii) the PCs have about one extended rest per level, so the players aren't able to spam daily items.

If every encounter happened after an extended rest it might be different (although I think that sort of situation could cause enough headaches that the Dice of Auspicious Fortune wouldn't be the worst offenders).

 

[Joshua Randall]

The Dice even in their errata'd form were totally out of control in LFR with its 3-encounters-per-Extended-Rest model. Obviously, the more Encounters you make the PCs go through before they Ext. Rest, the less of an impact the Dice will have.

I did play an LFR PC with the Seer theme whose power (Cast Fortune) I posted before. Knowing in advance someone's next 3 rolls was pretty strong. It was also a lot of fun to roll something like 3, 7, 5 and make up an ominous gloom'n'doom prophecy for the target PC.

Then even more amusement of getting to watch that PC attempt to burn up the crappy mandatory substitutions on nontrivial d20 rolls. "OK, so I have to use the 3 for Initiative -- guess I'm going last this combat. Then I'll use the 7 on this Daily power that's Reliable. And, uh, can someone grant me an MBA so I can use up the 5 before my next turn?"

 

[MwaO]

I'm not sure why it matters to "get the bad rolls out of the dice". As originally written, you can just ignore them!

Except with the way that DCs generally work, a 5(as an example) can often be a success in a skill challenge while being a miss in combat.