Three Natural 20's in a Row

[Asmor]

Deleted because I'm a moron and apparently can't multiply.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

*pop* hsssssssssssssss fup fup fup So much for THAT balloon!

Don't you just love it when the mathmagicians just suck the wonder out of something fun and quirky?

 

[Thunderfoot]

Oh, do I have a story for you. 2nd edition AD&D, my wife, who was playing a ranger with a bugbear hatred, was attacking a bugbear compound. She had a +2 longsword in her right hand and a +2 RETURNING throwing/hand ax in her left.

She gets five attacks every two turns (3,2,3,2). Her first roll (longsword) is a one, before the 3e confirm rule, she had to roll to determine what happened she rolls, a one - throwing her longsword down the hall.

Her next next FIVE attacks are natural 20s, all made from her left hand in melee mode - she was so pissed off she forgot to change hands or throw her ax. She cut a swath of destruction that caused the bugbears to fail their morale and turn tail.

The corollary is that every time she starts rolling poorly, everyone tells her to throw her weapon down the hall.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If you love your weapon, let it fly- if it doesn't slay everything in it's path, it was never yours to begin with.

 

[Storminator]

I was DMing for my son and his friends. THey wanted to use the optional rule that 3 20s was an instant kill. Knowing the odds are SEVERELY against PCs on this rule, I declined to let them use it.

Every time I rolled a pair of 20s I asked if they wanted to start using the 3 20s rule. They were shocked how often it came up for me, and didn't for all of them combined...

PS

 

[NewJeffCT]

Back maybe 10 years ago, we had a campaign where there were a limited amount of firearms, but if you rolled a natural 20, it was max damage & open-ended... meaning, you kept rolling. So, I think it was 12 points of damage for the natural 20, then you would roll to hit again.

The DM in that situation rolled five 20s in a row - all on the table in front of the group.

It was over 60 points of damage, and that was 2E days when 60 points of damage were a lot. Also, this was part of a long-running (10 year old) campaign and that moment almost killed the guy who was the group leader and focal point of the group.

Also, back in 1E days when I was a DM, we had one guy roll a natural 00 for his 18 Strength. Even I high-fived him after that one.

 

[Heathen72]

There are some really odd statistics being thrown around in this thread. Without giving it too much thought I would have thought that, on average, 3 20's in a row happened every 1 in 8000 times you rolled 3 dice in a row - as Bob Hays suggested.
I am not sure where the 1 in 1600 figure comes from, though, and I find it hard to believe you will win the Oregon lottery by buying 8000 tickets, though to be honest I don't know how the Oregon lottery works...

 

[amnuxoll]

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

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. (And why not? Anything more vigorous and your die may roll off the table or into another player's space.) The pick-up and drop/roll motion becomes pretty habitual after a while and, as a result, certain numbers are more likely than others depending on your particular rolling motion and how the die was sitting when you picked it up. That's why they make you throw the dice so they bounce off the side wall at the craps table in a casino.

:AMN:

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For the longest time, I used to roll into the top of the box from one of the sets...but they got so abused over time I had to stop.

 

[TarionzCousin]

So while interesting at the time, it's not particularly noteworthy.

*pop* hsssssssssssssss fup fup fup So much for THAT balloon!

Don't you just love it when the mathmagicians just suck the wonder out of something fun and quirky?