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

[aco175]

My brother made a dwarf for one of his first characters and roll 00 for STR modifier, but was a dwarf and could only have 99.

Another 2e game we played with crit hits and misses. The poor mage was forced to swing his staff of power hoping to hit the BBEG since he was out of spells or in anti-magic or such. He rolls a 1 and another 1 to confirm the crit miss. He rolls a 01 on the percentile chart we had to see just what happens. Staff blows up killing them both.

 

[Erekose]

... 2e game we played with crit hits and misses. The poor mage was forced to swing his staff of power hoping to hit the BBEG since he was out of spells or in anti-magic or such. He rolls a 1 and another 1 to confirm the crit miss. He rolls a 01 on the percentile chart we had to see just what happens. Staff blows up killing them both.

Yeah - but what a way to go!

 

[Blue]

Back in the 90s I saw four consecutive 20s on d20s rolled by one player in front of us. Two dice, both of which were used for the rest of the session and didn't seem to have an odd bias for 20s.

 

[Blue]

My brother made a dwarf for one of his first characters and roll 00 for STR modifier, but was a dwarf and could only have 99.

Another 2e game we played with crit hits and misses. The poor mage was forced to swing his staff of power hoping to hit the BBEG since he was out of spells or in anti-magic or such. He rolls a 1 and another 1 to confirm the crit miss. He rolls a 01 on the percentile chart we had to see just what happens. Staff blows up killing them both.

Oh, I was playing an AD&D a ... wild elf? I don't remember, but it had a bonus to STR. In front of the DM I rolled 18 / 00, and he let me apply the modifier to get up to a 19. (+3/+7 instead of +3/+6 if IIRC).

 

[TwoSix]

The most improbable set of rolls I've seen was my character getting saved on 14000:1 odds.

I was grappled by a boneyard (a 3.5 monster), and the boneyard's next turn was going to be to suck the bones out my body and kill me. There was only one PC left to go before the boneyard's, the wizard, and he attempted to save me with a Disintegrate.

This PC was also being played by a player notorious for having poor luck with rolls, like failing a 50% miss chance for one of his spells on 8 consecutive rolls the session before this. So I figured I was dead.

First, he needed to make a ranged touch attack. Not so hard, he only needed a 4 to hit. 85% chance. Success.

Then, he needed the monster to make a spell resistance effect. The monster had pretty high SR (24), and he needed to roll a 13 or higher to affect it. 40% chance, success.

Then, he needed the monster to make a Fort save. His save DC wasn't very good because he was multiclassed, and the monster had some spell in effect that gave him a bonus to his Fort save. The monster only needed to roll a 4 to save. And he rolled a 2. 15% chance, success.

Then, and finally, the monster still had 101 HP left. Disintegrate at 11th level does 22d6. The chance of getting at least 101 on 22d6 is only 0.14%. And then he rolls a 102.

Chance of surviving was 85% x 40% x 15% x 0.14%, or 14000:1.

 

[aramis erak]

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.

I've had a player who rolled 6 20's in a row on 1d20 in Traveller: The New Era.
that's 0.05^6... 1.5625E-8=0.0000015625. Which is technically 1 in 64 million. It also doomed the party to a slow cold death; they were deep in the outsystem, and the player was using the shuttle to skim fuel from a very far out GG.

I've also see a roll of 56 in Prime Directive 1st edition... but the player started with (IIRC) 9 d6... Each of those is read separately, and 6 counts 5+1d6, recursive. so 11 6's in a row on that die was about 1 in 362 million... but 9 chances at it... so about 1 in 40 million.

When running Rolemaster, I've seen initiaitve rolls exceed 400. (1/20^4 = 1/160,000. had that happen 3 times in one combat, even. of about 20 rolls for initiative. 3 of those. ) Some times players roll hot.

 

[Bagpuss]

Not sure what the statistics were, but we were playing Flashing Blades.

A guy designed his character to be a marksman with a musket.

In the first fight he pulled the trigger, rolled a 1, a fumble, then rolled on the results chart.

Worst result Breech Explosion (hit - self).

Rolled location got his head.

Rolled damage got maximum.

And died.

 

[jasper]

Threw my friend a d8 told him to beat me. I then held up my d20. He rolled I think a 4 I rolled a 3. I have did this on other occasions and lost too.

 

[GMMichael]

Yeah, probably. The question should refer to unlikely events, rather than unlikely dice rolls.

Aw. But then I couldn't brag about the time the DM made me roll skill checks to negotiate the price of an inn room. I rolled 3, 4, 10, 8, 19, and 8 again. Since the odds of that were 1:64,000,000, he let me have the room for free!

 

[atanakar]

Not sure what the statistics were, but we were playing Flashing Blades.

A guy designed his character to be a marksman with a musket.

In the first fight he pulled the trigger, rolled a 1, a fumble, then rolled on the results chart.

Worst result Breech Explosion (hit - self).

Rolled location got his head.

Rolled damage got maximum.

And died.

I once saw something similar happen in a game of Top Secret. An agent shooting at a person at point blank shoot himself in the foot instead. They weren't even brawling. Very silly.