Three Natural 20's in a Row

[the Jester]

Oh yeah.

I remember in the 1e days, one of my players had a three natural 20's in a row moment when the party looked to be having a tpk.

This from a fighter whose whole schtick was, "I will not take a life."

Awesome.

Just yesterday, the party imc was storming this cult dungeon and the master vampire that was the bad guys' leader was about to escape (25 hps left, insubstantial and flying 12- and one square away from being out of sight at the top of a 50' deep pit that the pcs had to descend to enter the dungeon).

The last pc to go before the vampire burned his action point to get there and cast a fireball up at the vampire. I'm thinking, "Hah! He's going to get away!"

CRIT... 53 damage.

Aargh, that becomes 26.

This, of course, right after two other pcs crit the solamith demon and kill it.

 

[TarionzCousin]

The truth is that it's even more likely than that. Most players will roll the die by picking it up and letting it roll off their hand directly to the table.

This was three different d20's, none of which were previously sitting with a "20" showing face up.

I once rolled 4 20's in 5 rolls playing a barbarian in Hackmaster--that rage lasted for "hours" IIRC. The other characters ran after my PC chopped in to the ranger's leg. Then my guy killed something like 80 kobolds.

 

[TanisFrey]

We were facing a Great Wyrm Blue dragon in 2ed. The cleric cast Wyvern Watch and stays within it. The dragon has killed over half the party of 6th level characters. It flies at the cleric, runs into the spell, DM rolls a 1 on the saving throw, then remembers that the dragon has spell resistance and rolls a 00. Result the cleric picks up a magical Long sword and kills the helpless dragon.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I was one of the six players. After his 3 20s he rolled a 2, a 3, and I think another 2... which is just as interesting to me (especially considering one of those 2s was against my PC).

Yeah, but I'm not complaining--considering I turned your character into a female the session before.

 

[SSquirrel]

Interestingly, the odds of rolling 3 20s in a row is the same odds as winning the Oregon state lottery (average payout around $6M i think) during one year if you spent about $20 a week on the lottery.

But that illustrates the point: wining the lottery in a year of playing is the same as once a year, sitting down at the gaming table and rolling your 3 d20s hoping for three 20s in a row. Didn't make it? Too bad, try again next year.

If you as a play 24 times a year and throw the dice 50 times a night, you have about a 1 in 20 chance of doing getting 3 20s in a row any given year. Not very common...

Either your math is awful or your state has the easiest lottery in history. For example, Powerball has a 1 in 195,249,054 chance of winning. 20*20*20 is only 8000. There is no way the Oregon state lottery pays out $6M on a 1:8000 chance.

As far as dice rolls, my wife was rolling 2 weeks ago. She has ridiculous dice luck (which balances out my craptastic rolling nicely) and her Ranger didn't even have Thievery, but she thought she would try a few rolls for lockpicking. 20, 20, 19, 20.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Always good stories about good and bad rolls in RPGs.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I wish I could actually roll just one natural twenty on something important.

 

[Ainamacar]

Either your math is awful or your state has the easiest lottery in history. For example, Powerball has a 1 in 195,249,054 chance of winning. 20*20*20 is only 8000. There is no way the Oregon state lottery pays out $6M on a 1:8000 chance.

He was saying a 1 in 8000 chance if you spent $20 a week for the entire year...not those odds per $1 ticket or anything like that. That's roughly $1000 dollars, and if the odds are as stated, one would expect needing to pay that 8000 times in order to win once...expending 8 million dollars in the process. That passes the sniff test.

We've had the triple 20 on an attack come up a few times in play, but I can't remember whether or not the DM at the time ruled it an instant slaying attack or not, probably because it wasn't in a clutch situation.

 

[Diamond Cross]

Well, we used the original Critical Hit and Fumble rules way back in an old dragon magazine. The DM's wife was playing a ranger.

The hafling Thief was using a short bow to provide some extra support.

So on his first attack he rolled a 1.

Then he rolled a hit friend in throat for triple damage.

The ranger was the only one in front of the halfling so the DM rule that it hit the Ranger. So she ended up with an arrow sticking in her neck through the back.

That was bad enough.

But the other side happened to have an archer too. So the DM targeted the ranger rolled a natural 20. All rolls were in front so everybody could see.

He rolled Critical hit neck triple damage.

So the ranger ended up have two arrows in her neck, one from the back, and one from the front. She came really super close to dying. Fortunately the cleric had some healing left.

She never played again and she didn't have any sex with her husband for the rest of the year. No joke and no exaggeration. She was that pissed off at him. She almost made him quit the game entirely. She burned the books but then a coupl of months later bought him some new ones. Why I don't know.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So the ranger ended up have two arrows in her neck, one from the back, and one from the front. She came really super close to dying. Fortunately the cleric had some healing left.

On the plus side, the Ranger could now do Tibetan Throat music.