What is the most statistically improbably die roll you've witnssed?

[Fauchard1520]

I've got a few of mine listed below the comic over here.

More recently, I documented sextuple sixes on Roll 20. That's a one in 46,656 chance. The roll? A between-combats lay on hands in Pathfinder, thus confirming my suspicion that Roll 20 is an elaborate troll.

What about the rest of you guys? What are the weirdest rolls you've ever witnessed?

 

[Greg K]

In Rolemaster you roll 2d10 as percentage dice. Most rolls are open-ended roll meaning, if you roll 96-00, you roll again and add the total to your previous roll. As long as your roll 96-100, you repeat the process. In combat, one of my friends rolls totaled almost 600 before he had to stop. He had also rolled over four hundred on multiple occasions- even when we had him switch and use someone else's dice
Too bad his die rolling didn't transfer to Vegas..

 

[der_kluge]

I had some players join my game as visiting characters (friends of friends), and unbeknownst to me, one of them had a set of loaded 6-sided die. In game, his character wagered (to me) that he could roll 3 6s in a bet. Of course, I took that bet. Imagine my surprise when it came up 3 sixes! Of course, they let me in on the joke, but it was too funny that I let it happen in game. It was hilarious.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I once had a MERP character that never rolled less than 96 on to hit with a bow. (that triggers open ended rolls as per Rolemaster above) and the one time he picked up a sword, fumbled and because of open ended die on the fumble table made a fumble roil of 350.

 

[Umbran]

A long time ago...

Playing D&D. Using the Unearthed Arcana rules of rolling human characters - it is a system that generally used 9d6, keep top 3 for your primary stat, and 3d6 for your class' dump stat...

I ended up with a wizard with an 18 Str, and a 17 Int. :/

 

[Big Bucky]

Had advantage and rolled two 1s. The very next roll the DM rolled with disadvantage and rolled two 20s.

 

[bulletmeat]

Had advantage and rolled two 1s. The very next roll the DM rolled with disadvantage and rolled two 20s.

Ouch.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

For a while, some of the guys I gamed with were into 3d6 straight down the line.

I came to the session with a character with very good stats (I don't remember what they were), and the DM wanted me to re-roll in front of him.

I proceeded to roll 17 on 3d6 six times in a row.


In another game, I played a wizard whom I meant to have a penchant for casting fireball.

When the character cast his first fireball, roll 5 on the 5d6.

When the character cast his second fireball, roll 8 on the 5d6.

When the character cast his third fireball, roll 7 on the 5d6.

After that, I switched to lightning bolt.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I rolled incredibly improbable rolls twice- one bad, knew good.

The bad was a 2Ed DarkSun game in which my high-con Dwarf PC rolled a sequence of multiple failed saves vs magic, poison, etc. PLUS system shock that resulted in him being incapacitated by a poisonous fog, taking max fireball damage, being transformed into a frog and dying from system shock.

The good was a 2Ed human Ftr/Clc who- in an evil demiplane, managed to destroy a death knight/lich type critter with a single shot from a Mace of Disruption. The improbability of that sequence of Nat20s was such that I asked the DM if her god Tyr had noticed. He said sure- a 1% chance, given our location. I rolled that 1%. I asked if he would reward her personally, again, given our location.

”Yes, 1%.”

After I rolled THAT 1%, Tyr appeared and granted her +1 Ftr level, raising her att/rd to 2/rd.

The DM, a math prodigy, later calculated the odds of that sequence as roughly equivalent to winning the lottery.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I've seen two nat 20s/nat 1s on advantage/disadvantage. But honestly, the wildest rolls have always been the ones that no one else witnessed. The guy off in the corner that claims to have rolled three crits in a roll, the person that shows up to play with a character with all 18s, and so on. Statistical probability can be a crazy thing, but most of those folks have just been plain old cheaters.

 

[billd91]

A friend of mine was complaining that his d6s always seemed to roll low when generating characters, we had him roll 21-3d6 rather than 3d6 to generate his stats. True to form, the dice rolled relatively low and he had a pretty decent character.

 

[Umbran]

Oh, another ludicrously improbable set of die rolls....

I think this happened in Vault of the Drow... While the party was bickering over something I didn't care about, I moved off into the shadows down the corridor a bit to guard the party's rear. A group of drow come around the corner, hear the party, and head straight for them. If I raised the alarm, they'd all gang up on me, and I'd be toast. If I did nothing, they'd ambush the party. So... when you can't do something smart, do something stupid - I attacked.

In the series of attacks gained with surprise, wielding two weapons, I roll.. 20, 20, 20, 20, 18, 17 - with the crits and the sneak attack damage I got, four drow were dead and two more heavily injured before any of them got to act.

 

[DammitVictor]

In the vein of the other ICE examples listed above, my very first combat roll with my very first Rolemaster PC-- after months of these guys hyping the system to me, and a hours building my character-- I Open-Ended an attack roll of -487.

Due to a (likely intentional) misunderstanding of the rules, this resulted in my character biting his own head clean off. Twice.

 

[der_kluge]

Tangential story. This guy I played with at a convention last summer showed us his dice - which he had Wil Wheaton bless for him at a signing. In true Wheaton fashion, Wil blessed his dice to roll good "But only when it didn't matter!"

That same game, the guy had to make death saves - and lost them. And we all agreed that because it was a convention game, and the character was a brand new Adventurer's League game, that it certainly didn't matter. lol

 

[prabe]

I think the most improbable dice thing I've seen recently was during a roll for treasure when on d100 I rolled 82 three times in a row. That's literally one-in-a-million, right?

 

[atanakar]

Once, a very long time ago (B/X), in the «heat» of the action I told a player his character had taken 8 points of damage. He complained I had not rolled the dice. I realized he was right. I said «are you sure you want me to roll?» He said yes. I rolled, got 18 on 3d6 and killed his character.

Another time, AD&D1e, our party was in a fight against our arch enemy. We had killed all his minions and it was the final fight against him. All he characters were unconscious except my friend's fighter who has at death's door. The evil cleric was simply too strong. My friend, who wasn't much of a role-player, suddenly got up from his chair, put his hands above his head as if holding a sword and said «Excalibur, come to my aid!» He rolled a 20. The sword was a vorpal weapon. He rolled again (100%) and decapitated the evil cleric! Unbelievable. We were all up from our chairs and screaming of joy.

I once rolled three 20s in a row trying to shoot a man fleeing on a horse while my character was ridding one himself.

 

[Ulfgeir]

I have 2 weird stuff. One that happened to me, and the other one I saw.

The one that happened to me was in Kult (1e). We were sneaking away on the rooftops (I think from a 3+ story building) from the police. I first rolled a 20 (on a d20). Critical failure, so I slipped and started falling. Then rolled a 1, (critical success) so I managed to catch hold of the edge of the roof and not falling down. Another character had to help me up. And then I immedeatly did the same thing again, on the same roof...

Most weird I have seen: in Exalted 2e. One character who was superspecialized on swaying people's emothions by just talking to them, rolled 34 d10's. Needed to roll 7+ on any die to get a success. Didn't roll a single success.

 

[Shiroiken]

For a single roll, I rolled eight 1s on 8d10. The GM ruled my fire shugenja burst into flames...

For a series of rolls, playing Axis & Allies I attacked with 12 tanks against 2 infantry, with only 2 tanks surviving the battle. For those of you unaware, tanks need to roll 3 or lower on 1d6 and infantry need to roll 2 or lower. Every unit attacks each round. It was about round 5 that I got my first hit, while both his infantry hit almost every single round

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I think the most improbable dice thing I've seen recently was during a roll for treasure when on d100 I rolled 82 three times in a row. That's literally one-in-a-million, right?

Sure, but every combination of 3 percentile rolls is literally one-in-a-million. You aren't any more or less likely to roll 82/82/82 than you are to roll 44/07/65; you're just more likely to remember it.

 

[prabe]

Sure, but every combination of 3 percentile rolls is literally one-in-a-million. You aren't any more or less likely to roll 82/82/82 than you are to roll 44/07/65; you're just more likely to remember it.

Sure. Of course, most of what's being reported here is really more memorable than improbable, strictly speaking, innit? Especially when you consider that people who've played lots of games have seen lots of dice do lots of things.