Roleplaying Despite Continually Horrific Rolls

[Dannyalcatraz]

While I would never do it myself, I understand the "Marathon Man" method- place the offending die in a vise and work it over (slowly) with a drill- is quite effective.

 

[mattcolville]

So I've got a problem that has been plaguing my characters since I started playing table top rpgs a few years back: I have absolutely abysmal luck with dice rolls. It's at the point now where its become really frustrating because I can't for the life of me play a competent character .

For example I'm playing a 4e campaign with some friends of mine at the moment as a two bladed ranger. I've got 18's in str and dex and pretty average scores in everything else(with the exception of an 8 Cha lol, which is worse). My problem is that with scores like that, you wouldn't think it would be a stretch to be playing a character that is good at martial-type stuff but isn't the greatest conversationalist of the room.

So my character joins the group, and precedes to just entirely suck it up...I've calculated my historical chance or rolling 1's to be about 40% lol, and I routinely fail at streetwise, stealth, acrobatics, you name it. What's sad is that my dm goes easy too. I'm not failing these checks because my skills suck(though the streetwise certainly does hehe), but for the fact that I roll below tens 75% of the time. This isn't a streak of sucky rolls every once in a while or only with this character either. For as long as I've been playing rpgs, I've had to deal with this.

Anyway, despite the previous contents of this post, I didn't actually post this to vent(or not entirely anyway lol). I'm really interested in how you guys handle(from an rp perspective) a character concept where it seems outstanding on paper, but they just can't catch a break with the rolls.

Statistically speaking, there have to be some people who will roll better than average over the sum of their lives, and there have to be people who will roll worse. Of course, there's no way of knowing which you are unless A: you track every roll over your life and until B: you die. Whatever else is true, your odds of your next roll being a 20 are exactly 5%, as are the odds of you rolling a 1.

Maybe you're not using Precision Dice. Normal dice aren't random. Precision Dice are. Or at least moreso. Some dice, like GW's 6 siders, are EXTREMELY non-random.

There are other options.

1: Put a 20 in your To Hit stat. two 18s doesn't help if you can't hit. Max out your primary attribute.

2: Play a Deva. You get a reroll.

3: Play an Avenger. You get a reroll.

4: Play a Deva Avenger.

Also make sure your GM is awarding treasure as intended, and ask him about the free Expertise Feats. You need the math to work first otherwise you're behind the curve before you even roll.

 

[Haltherrion]

Took ten years for one of the guys in our group to work through his bad luck... stick with it, can't take more than half that for you

Just kidding. I feel for you though. Until 4E, I used to love taking clerics or wizards because we didn't have to roll to-hits much. But with 4E, everyone pretty much rolls a hit so no escape there...

 

[ppaladin123]

I suggest buying or building a dice tower. It takes the technique out of rolling and pretty much guarantees true randomness in results. Sure it may be fun to role play the bumbling dummy sometimes (I did this for a while when it became clear that my dice were trying to kill me) but sometimes you want to play characters that people take seriously too.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

How to fix this:

1) Find your unluckiest die

2) Place it on a concrete floor

3) Place your other dice nearby where they can watch

4) Execute the offending die with a sledgehammer

5) Repeat until the remaining dice are sufficiently intimidated to start rolling well

Works every time!

Edit: Nuts! Scooped x3!