Three Natural 20's in a Row

[TarionzCousin]

Last night, while DM'ing combat, I rolled 3 natural 20's in a row. The game was 4E, so they all did maximum damage. Two were on one character and immediately bloodied him.

I rolled in the open, on three different dice, in front of six players.

Why can't I have this sort of luck when I am playing?

Have you ever seen anything like this?

 

[Stormonu]

Back in 2E, we had an instance of SIX twenties in a row. We were using a house rule of 20s again (if you roll a 20, you make another attack to hit, and if you roll 20, you can continue to roll again). <EDIT: That's 1 in 64 million chance of occurring).

The attack was by a monk who was jumping off a two-story tower to attack a drow wizard protected by a cube of force. As I recall, it went through the cube and reduced the wizard to somewhere near -50 hp. I ruled he'd kicked the skeleton out of the wizard's body.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yep.

1. I had a 1Ed/2Ed dual class Ftr/Cleric of Tyr with 2 weapons: a Vorpal Sword and a Mace of Disruption. She routinely rolled a Nat 20 in the most crucial situations. After rolling one to disrupt a Lich on an evil demiplane, the DM said I needed to roll another to see if the disruption effect actually worked on the plane at this time. I did, so the Lich was disrupted. I said to the DM that it was so unlikely an event that her god Tyr might have actually noticed. He agreed, giving me a 1% chance of success. I rolled an 01. I further argued that he might take personal action upon that notice. Again, he said 1% chance...which again resulted in a roll of 01. Tyr showed up, granted her a +1 Fighter level and disappeared. This was great because it boosted her to the next level of multiple attacks!
2. I had a Dwarf in a DarkSun campaign that did the exact opposite. He was charging a wizard who cast some kind of noxious, toxic AoE spell. The Dwarf had an über-high Con, but still failed his roll to not have the magic affect him- a 1% chance. He then failed his save, which he only would on a 1. Then he had to save against the poison effect of the spell- which he only would fail on a 1. I rolled a 1 and keeled over, still alive, but just barely. The Wiz then targeted him with a polymorphing spell. AGAIN he failed his saves against magic, etc., at the same probabilities, resulting in him becoming a frog, and then he failed his system shock roll and died. When the Wiz launched a fireball later that included the area in which his Kermit-corpse lay. Just for giggles, I rolled to see what would happen had he still been alive. Didn't make a single save roll.

And its not just me: the last 3.5 campaign I ran, the woman running the Paladin kept rolling 20s coupled with high damage rolls with ridiculous frequency. No, it didn't matter whose dice she used.

As recounted elsewhere, her Paladin showed this uncanny ability at its best when she got the drop on a Necromancer, hitting him 3 times- 2 crits, with one being maxed and the other just a couple points off from that- to open the combat.

 

[TarionzCousin]

As recounted elsewhere, her Paladin showed this uncanny ability at its best when she got the drop on a Necromancer, hitting him 3 times- 2 crits, with one being maxed and the other just a couple points off from that- to open the combat.

Yeah, my three critical hits were my first three rolls in the surprise round. The group was in town, so they had split up. There were only two of the PC's in the fight (Warlock and Sorcerer). I thought I was going to obliterate them.

Then I rolled a 2 or a 3 on five of my next six rolls. Sigh.

 

[Haltherrion]

Why can't I have this sort of luck when I am playing?

Because you roll a lot more dice as a DM than as a player

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...

 

[Iron Sky]

Reminds me of a story I heard from back in the 2e days when the group was fleeing a dungeon, low on resources, and ran into the vampire lord's son at the far end of a 100' long, 6' tall hallway.

The group groaned and looked at their sheets, trying to figure out how they were going to get out of it alive.

The archer in the group said "if I break the tip off of one of my arrows, can it be like a stake if I hit it in the heart?"

The DM thought about it for a moment and said "yes, but with the broken shaft, low ceiling, poor light, and distance to the target you need to roll two 20s in a row to make the shot."

The table went silent as the archer's player stood up and began shaking his dice. Roll: 20.

A cheer goes up, but he's still go to roll another 20. He picks up his dice and everyone stands up, unable to sit with the tension around that roll. He rolls it, they lean in, and... 20!

The vampire lord's son explodes in a flurry of ash and the group limps out of the dungeon (to talk about it years later around the table and eventually to be spread elsewhere).

---

The closest I've come as a player in DnD is when our 4e group was at the depths of an abandoned dwarven fortress (based on Boatmurdered) and ran into Sankis the flaming ghost that had been randomly popping out of walls, punching people with a laugh, then disappearing.

He rose out of a pool of magma, starting to deliver a rambling, insane speech when my Ranger rolled initiative. He moved up, used Armor Splinter to drop his AC(critting with one attack and getting a free one from Two-Weapon Opening), then unleashed Blade Cascade, critting on two of the attacks(each giving him another Basic Attack). The elite died in one round to a flurry of 8 attacks, three of which were crits in the 70-90hp range(Level 15) - and I still had two attacks left in my Blade Cascade that I didn't get to use!

 

[bobhayes]

Have you ever seen anything like this?

Yes, about once in every series of 8000 rolls. It's simple random chance.

 

[Ulrick]

I've seen three natural 20s rolled in a row before with similar results.

But I've seen a guy roll four natural 1s in a row, get mad and throw the offending d20 across the room against the wall, only to have the d20 roll back toward him and come up as a 1.

He threw that cursed d20 away.

 

[Marx420]

Just last night I witnessed two 1's rolled, then a 2, and ANOTHER 1 by my irish friend (he froze then smashed this die as an example to others). This was in a combat vs a single weak eurypterid (Serpent's Skull Paizo ap) in which there was no less than 4 CONFIRMED fumbles on the side of the PCs (I use the fumble deck).

In contrast, I scored 3 CONFIRMED critical hits with some nasty rusty skeleton scimitars and killed the witch but three encounters into the path (there was 25% chance of wrecked ship being rotten [So she feather fell down into hull] as well as 25% chance of being haunted by undead, guess how I rolled with my evil percentiles). Moral of story, don't split the party, and don't underestimate the demonic power of any dice handled by the dm (DEMON MASTER).

 

[Diamond Cross]

I was playing a game of d20 Star Wars and I was a very good pilot. I'd maxed out my skill in piloting and had a high Dex to boot. I was about 4th level.

So i was in a race. The GM let me use my piloting skill. I'd made every other turn but not easily. Then I came to a stretch with a very low DC, basically, I needed a five or higher to succeed.

Instead I rolled a 3.

The GM let me rolled again.

I rolled a 2.

He was kind of frustrated and decided to give me a "luck" roll. If it was high, I'd just lose the race.

So I rolled the die.

I rolled a 1.

I has a spectacular crash and burn. Needless to say I ended up killing myself and my trusty co-pilot.


Nobody every let me race again.

However, he did bring my character back through cloning.