Stephen Schubert's Playtest Reports

[Crashy75]

As Han would say - Don't tell me the odds!

I have, several times, seen players roll four N20s... in a row. 6 out of 20 does not stretch my imagination much. The coolest thing I've seen though was watching one girl roll 18/18/18/18/18/17 for her ability scores - rolling 3d6 (back in our BD&D days).

I once had a player roll an 18 00 [2e ftr] but that takes it. That puts 6 N20s to bed. EDIT: any combo of 6 numbers on a D20 has the same odds, but those 18s...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I.... I'm not sure what you meant by that. Reporting bias means that an objective analysis would show that your "lucky die" is no luckier than any other die, but psychologically, you remember the times when the "lucky die" came through in a pinch -- times when it met your expectation of good luck -- and you tend to forget that it often doesn't come through.

That's an example of reporting bias in our group. Fighters always fail their fortitude save against deadly effects.
Except off course, it's not bias. It is teh Troof, damn it!

 

[drakshasak]

Well I love when extreme rolling happens. It's those storyies the whole group remembers. We ones had a session where we had just found a really major artifact. half of our group is missing that night so we were down to 3 people. And the moment we take the artifact the guardian arives, a Purple wurm. That thing can really do some nasty things if it gets the possibility. But oh well we roll init and we were really lucky so we all come out ahead. Our frenzied berserker charges with his greataxe with the coment "wouldn'd it be fun if i crittet. 2 20's later he deals 130 points of damage. our fighter charges. rolls a 20 and a 19 and does around 60 dmg. last man is me. im playing a sorcerer and thinking something along the lines of why am I here with that amount of dmg. ohh well here goes a maximized fireball to finish it off.

now our GM just sits and stare at the table and his dead wurm who didn't get to do anything.


Another story of dices not being random at all. its all down to the evil god of dices. I think that 8 of the aproximatly 10 people we have tried to knock unconscious for later questioning we have crittet and killed. its just a thing our group cant do. we allways manage to kill people we dont want to.

 

[helium3]

My sorcerer has used truestrike to ensure an enervation ray hits the target exactly twice. On each case I rolled a 1(!). He is considering whether or not truestrike actually does what it says on the tin

Oddly enough, I just had a player argue the other day that True Strike should allow the caster to ignore auto-failure on a 1. I said I would, but it would also negate the chance to threaten on a 20.

 

[helium3]

1 in 3,037, actually (rounded to nearest integer).

Same probability for rolling any other pane five times in 20 rolls.

 

[wolfen]

I enjoy the tests, but I have to say I find the terminology very frustrating. "Charge" -- is that a feat, skill, combat move kinda thing? What does it mean? It's mentioned quite a few times in the report.

"Near-bloodied" and "bloodied" ...I really wish I knew what they mean. Does damage fall through various categories, each with its own consequences? Without knowing the range of categories/dimensional scale, it's hard to appreciate some of the things going on.

But all in all it sounds like fighters kick butt!

 

[Shazman]

Bloodied is at half hit points or below (Someone with 46 hit points is bloodied if they get down to 23 hit points). I suspect charge is very similar or identical to the charge action in 3.5.

 

[wolfen]

Bloodied is at half hit points or below (Someone with 46 hit points is bloodied if they get down to 23 hit points). I suspect charge is very similar or identical to the charge action in 3.5.

Yes. I appreciate your help. But I 'm saying that I suspect there are new twists/consequences to these terms. Or at least there is sufficient doubt about their precise 4e definition as to confound clear communication.

 

[Keenath]

Well, I dunno if this helps, but in SWSE, charging is a standard action; you move at least 2 squares (and no more than your speed) in a straight line and then attack. It works just like in 3.x, except you can only charge half as far -- but you can take a move action before it, and you can move any sort of shape during that move action (including moving directly towards your enemy as in a 3.x charge), so long as the actual charge action is in a line.

Edit: If it seems like that gives the advantage to attackers, there's also the fact that Withdraw is a move action that lets you move half your speed and treat the starting square as not threatened -- so you can attack and then move out of combat too.

In fact, combining these can be a sort of poor man's spring attack -- charge in (moving up to your speed), attack, and then withdraw (moving up to half your speed).