Stephen Schubert's Playtest Reports

[Doug McCrae]

I once rolled 6, 6, 4, 10, 5, 5 on a d20. The odds against that are sixty four million to one. Pretty amazing, eh?

 

[Dragonblade]

I once rolled 6, 6, 4, 10, 5, 5 on a d20. The odds against that are sixty four million to one. Pretty amazing, eh?

You should buy a lottery ticket with that kind of luck.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I hope readied actions are implemented in a much better way than in 3.5

as to odds: 6 20s are not so much less probable than fumble 4 of 10 times in Rolemaster (1 or 1-2 on a d%)

or fumble 2 of 3 attacks in shadow run on a 3d6 attack roll (only 1s on all 3 d6s)

its also very unlikely (1/400) for a troll to rend, if it can only hit on a natural 20. And still i hit the bladesinger dropping her from full to 3 hp. (Although afterwards she wasn´t hit again)

improbable results are quite probable given that you really do many many rolls in a single session. And only those improbable events are usually worth noticing.

 

[Derren]

I once rolled 6, 6, 4, 10, 5, 5 on a d20. The odds against that are sixty four million to one. Pretty amazing, eh?

I can't recall the exact numbers but I once survived a meteor swarm with only 60 HP and a failed save..

 

[NilesB]

Ok, is there some rule that they have to fight black dragons in every playtest?

They're testing Black Dragons?

 

[Lackhand]

If you decide "Why's it gotta be black?" turn to page 97.

If you decide "Dungeons and _____?", turn to page 150.

Choose your own snark!

 

[kennew142]

So instead of having "easier crits which just do max damage" we have "easier crits who are still devestating". So the only thing done to avoid such devestating crits on PCs is apparently saying that monsters can't do crits....

And thats what WotC calls improved balance.......

Balance is making sure that PC character classes do not outshine one another consistently, or that monsters of different types but the same level are roughly an equal challenge for the PCs. It has nothing at all to do with making sure that PCs and monsters are balanced with regards to each other.

The only way NPCs and PCs can be balanced against one another (3e) is if every group of NPCs has the same number as the PCs, the same method of generating stats, the same level and the same type of magical equipment. All set encounters in a game are designed to give the players a challenge without killing them. This is balance. Trying to make NPCs and monsters exactly the same as the PCs is not balance. It is poor game design, or "killer-GMing."

 

[Acid_crash]

There is one guy in the last group I played D&D in that I was beginning to suspect was cheating. The DM sat on the far corner of the table, and the table was a small table so it was hard to gather around to roll on the table, so he didn't mind people rolling on books that were on their laps.

At first it wasn't much of a problem, but as the games progressed the more often my one friend would roll successes, and then his crits would increase. It got to the point where in one session before the game ended, in twenty plus rolls, he FAILED a roll two times, period. In that game session he had 13 crits that were all successful. The two times he failed I was watching. Now some of the crits were crits, but I suspected that not all were. This happened more than once, him rolling more crits than the rest of the five players combined.

This is why I have players roll in front of me, where I can see the die and make a ruling before the die is picked up. I won't allow dice that I can't see the numbers from at least 3 feet away, and if I can't see the number the result doesn't happen. I also won't allow die rolling until I say roll.

The two or three sessions he rolled on the table, he got two crits and failed over 50% of the time.

 

[FadedC]

One thing to remember too is that the results might not be completely random without the player actually cheating. Aside from dice not being perfectly weighted (which I'm guessing has a largely negligable effect) there is the question of how much the dice roll. When I was a kid I often saw people "roll" the dice by picking them up only a few inches off the table and then dropping them back down. This results in a much higher liklihood it will just land on whatever they were at the first time. In some cases the player may actually be cheating, but often they just aren't used to rolling dice.

 

[Keenath]

Haha, my guy has impossible to read dice too. I also keep threatening to do a sheet audit, he stacks things indiscriminately.

I have a player a bit like that.

He's not a cheater. He's just lazy -- his character sheet is such a chicken-scratch that HE can't read it half the time, let alone ME. His dice are sort of a white-silver swirl...with white numbers. (WHO MADE THOSE?!) I sit next to him, so I know he's not misreporting his rolls, but it's a pain in the rear.

Aside from dice not being perfectly weighted (which I'm guessing has a largely negligable effect)

Correct. Dice misweighting can have an effect, but in a pure plastic die the difference is only statistical. (As in, it might show up across ten thousand rolls, but not noticable at the table.) Vegas cares about it because of volume, but we tend not to.

That said, I used to own a set of d6s, of which two were visibly rectangular -- significantly longer than height or width -- which meant that two values on those dice rarely came up, while the other four were more common. I didn't use them unless I really needed a ton of d6s, but it was a really odd defect that I didn't notice until after I purchased them.

(My current dice are a set of Chessex Jade Scarabs, which are dark green with a sort of opalescent sheen and gold numbers. I never thought of dice as being pretty before, but I love these, and I can read them from any distance.)

When I was a kid I often saw people "roll" the dice by picking them up only a few inches off the table and then dropping them back down. This results in a much higher liklihood it will just land on whatever they were at the first time. In some cases the player may actually be cheating, but often they just aren't used to rolling dice.

My group has two preferred methods; one is to rattle the die around in your palm and then scatter it in front of you, the usual "playing monopoly" method; the other is to rattle the dice in your palm and then slam your cupped hand down firmly on the table, causing the dice to bounce and rattle inside without sending them running across the table. Some people use a cup for that purpose, especially if they have small hands. That's the yahtzee method.

I tend to switch between the two, depending on how much room I have at the table.