Teleport & wonky dice math

[buzz]

Okay, the rules for determning how off-target you are when casting a bungled Teleport spell say that the "distance is 1d10x1d10% of the distance that was to be traveled."

Now, I'm no math whiz, but 1d10x1d10 seems like it basically generates a number between 1 and 100, with the exception of the various two-digit primes in that range, e.g., 11, 13, 17, etc.

What's the point of this? Why not just ask for a d% roll? Or, better yet, a 1d10x10% roll, seeing as, in a game that abstracts stuff as much as D&D does, knowing you're 40% or 50% off-target should be just as good as knowing you're 46% off-target.

I dunno. It's just weird.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Okay, the rules for determning how off-target you are when casting a bungled Teleport spell say that the "distance is 1d10x1d10% of the distance that was to be traveled."

Now, I'm no math whiz, but 1d10x1d10 seems like it basically generates a number between 1 and 100, with the exception of the various two-digit primes in that range, e.g., 11, 13, 17, etc.

What's the point of this? Why not just ask for a d% roll? Or, better yet, a 1d10x10% roll, seeing as, in a game that abstracts stuff as much as D&D does, knowing you're 40% or 50% off-target should be just as good as knowing you're 46% off-target.

I dunno. It's just weird.

1d10x1d10 has an average of about 30, instead of 51 for d%. While it's possible to be (say) 85% off target or more, it's much less likely... 3% instead of 16%.

If you'd like, you can use d% instead, but this gives a different distribution. If your players find out, though, they might not be happy...

 

[buzz]

Ah... I didn't realize the probability would be curved. Shows what you get for using Knowledge(math) untrained.

Thanks!

 

[questionmark]

But maybe I'm thinking of this wrong but by 10d10 x 10d10% that means 1-10x 10-100(counting by tens) so you would have 1-1000???
maybe im crazy

 

[buzz]

But maybe I'm thinking of this wrong but by 10d10 x 10d10% that means 1-10x 10-100(counting by tens) so you would have 1-1000???
maybe im crazy

Uh, it's 1d10x1d10, not 10d10x10d10. It's a number between 1-10 times a number between 1-10. The spell description even gives an example.