Rolling all 18s

[The Fifth Elephant]

Thank you for posting the correct odds. These are the same that I came up with after a few minutes figuring.

I actually didn't do any figuring; I wrote up a computer program to roll up the exact odds for various dice rolls a while ago, so I just ran that.

And as for the dice weight be different... well, if I had a way to figure that in, I would. And even if it does lower the odds, I bet it wouldn't do it by a significant amount.

Oh, and it's about 55 billion, not trillian. Not to quibble, but since it actually is a bit of a difference, I figured I'd point it out.

 

[blackshirt5]

Amazingly(and legitimately), I've actually rolled this, in front of a guy who used to be my DM. I called him over after the 2nd 18, so he could verify. I gave em up after another player(who outstripped me in age by about 10 years) whined and moaned that I had cheated, that I had rolled them weird, that I had loaded dice(please note this guy ROUTINELY cheats on his attack rolls), so I quit the group a few weeks later, as this guy was the DM's best friend who got away with murder.

Also, in my latest campaign, I actually saw our Paladin roll 6 straight 18's. Jersey, the luckiest place on earth. Must be all the chemicals, giving us telekinesis(another explanation offered by the crybaby best friend of the DM. I'm not joking. Suggested I used my mind to move the dice).

 

[Michael Tree]

I've never rolled it, or seen it done.

I did roll a character once, using 3d6, whose stats were 18, 17, 17, 5, 3, 3.

Sadly I never had a chance to play the idiot savant.

 

[abri]

Seen it twice... In Darksun
Otherwise with 4d6 drop lowest, the best I got was 18/18/18/14/7/5.
Ended up being the first and only mage in an historic campaign (try beeing a mage when no one has scrolls/spellbook/component you need).
Did survive though

 

[Larry Fitz]

My mistake, I read the number right and wrote my response wrong, that's Billionh with a "B". However the hollow pips are certainly significant over the kind of dsampling you'll get from Enworld Think of how many characters have been created and witnessed by the teeming throngs of EnWorld over the decades we've all been playing....

 

[jgbrowning]

just to enter reality for a second:
what is more realistic?
That someone ACTUALLY rolled greater than a one in a billion roll, or that they're lying about their stats (a VERY common occurrence in gamers)?

Occam's Razor cuts deep, my friends...

Yep. I wonder if sometime way back i lied to myself about it and over these years it has become reality to me... dunno. The odds are soooooooo against it my rational side says i never did it, but i have a memory of doing it. Its hard to rectify.

joe b.

 

[Fenes 2]

Of course, it doesn't much matter for me these days (as a DM) - but IMC I give players 74 total attribute points (no point buy, just that the sum of Str, Int, Wis, Dex, Con, Cha must be 74). Since the average of 4d6 drop lowest is slightly higher than 74, I figure this is fair... and my players love it. It's high enough that you can max one attribute without killing yourself elsewhere, but low enough that some tough choices still have to be made. My players who DM have taken to doing the same (though most of them allow a sum of 76 or 77). I've found that doing it that way takes a LOT of fighting out of character creation.

One of our weekly campaigns uses 75 total attribute points, a good number imho.

 

[Trellian]

way back in 1st ed d&d, a rookie player got 4 18's with multiple witnesses. We used the old 3d6 six times method. Can anyone good in mathematics calculate the odds for that happening?

 

[Trellian]

One of our weekly campaigns uses 75 total attribute points, a good number imho.

In my campaign, we use the normal method of throwing for abilities, but allows the character to reroll if it is below 75 points total. Does that make us munchkins? Just wondering...

In comparison, in the Call of Cthulhu campaign, I do not allow stats above 80, as the d&d game is more a heroes game, and the CoC is more of an "everyday game", if you know what I mean

 

[Fenes 2]

I doubt it makes you munchkins, since imho, munchkins care more about beating the rest of the PCs than just having high stats. Remember though, that stats are relative - if the norm totals for NCPs are 63 points then 75 is clearly heroic already.