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

[Nagol]

It was probably a CHAMPIONS campaign.

A nasty bad-guy had placed about a dozen bombs around a shopping mall (with overlapping areas of effect) and the PCs screwed up taking him out before he could use his remote detonator. Each bomb had a ~91% chance of detonating (activate on 14 or less on 3d6). I expected a bloodbath among the shoppers as 10 bombs went off.

I told the group what was about to happen. I rolled in the open.

3 went off no overlap between them. Several people were injured. None died.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

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.

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

For my contribution to that discussion, I'll mention again that I played under a Pathfinder GM who didn't understand how probabilities worked, and insisted on some particularly ridiculous house rules. Not only were we forced to use 20/20/confirmation as an automatic kill, but we also had 1/1/failure as an automatic self-kill. Over the course of a published campaign, we had four bosses (and two PCs) killed in the first round of combat; mostly by their own hands.

 

[prabe]

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

For my contribution to that discussion, I'll mention again that I played under a Pathfinder GM who didn't understand how probabilities worked, and insisted on some particularly ridiculous house rules. Not only were we forced to use 20/20/confirmation as an automatic kill, but we also had 1/1/failure as an automatic self-kill. Over the course of a published campaign, we had four bosses (and two PCs) killed in the first round of combat; mostly by their own hands.

I was going to say something about on-in-four-hundred chance of insta-kill being a poor choice, but it's really one-in-two-hundred, innit, if there are two ways to get there. With the number of dice that get thrown around, that's a deeply poor decision.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I Killed Arioch (Deities and Demigods evil god from the Elric books).

This was back in the early 1E days. We were in 8th grade.

I almost always was the DM. So my friend Scott let my PC buy a "God Poison" when we knew were going after Arioch. All the PC's were level 20.

When we finally confronted Arioch, nothing we could do would harm him. Even if a PC hit his absurdly high AC, Arioch saved for no damage on every roll except a natural one.

Do you see where this is going?

I rolled a natural 20 to hit with the thrown poison, another natural 20 to hit Arioch “in the mouth.” Scott the DM rolled a 1 on Arioch’s saving throw.

He collapsed in disbelief. We all jumped up and cheered.

Then Scott ruled that my character ascended to godhood as Arioch exploded and instantly killed all the other characters. They were less happy about that but it made for an exciting ending.

 

[Greg K]

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. :/

That reminded me of the first time I rolled up characters for AD&D 1e. A friend sat me down and had me roll up six characters to serve as henchmen for a an existing party using the 4d6 method. I ended up with a cleric with 3 18s and 3 17s.. The ranger was not quite as good with 2 17s , 2 16s, and 2 15s, and another qualified for Paladin. It is possible that he had me roll 3 columns and choose the best, because I remember having one or two DMs do that over that years.

 

[cmad1977]

Double
00s for strength back in the day.
Dude rolled, got double 00. DM didn’t believe him(I saw the roll but not the DM) so the guy shrugged, rolled again... 00.
Pretty funny.

 

[Eltab]

I went to Vegas once and bought a pack labelled "Loaded Dice" (the kind that can only roll 7 or 11). I have never opened it. Now, when my normal dice are misbehaving, I will pull that pack out of my dice bag, put it on the table, and ask the GM "Do you mind if I use these?"

 

[Erekose]

Back in 1E days when we still rolled 3d6, I had a player roll three 18s for his stats - don’t remember it being consecutive stats but it was still impressive!

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Creating my first fighter PC for 1E AD&D and rolled 18/00 for strength. In 40 years of playing D&D I've never seen another player repeat that feat. It's really just a 1 in 100 chance for the percentile, though it's also about a 1.5% chance for the 18 on 4d6 before that, but nobody else in any game I've ever been involved in, covering HUNDREDS of PC fighters ever did that again. Not the most staggering of odds but in practical, personal experience, as I said, it's never been duplicated.

 

[Mark Hope]

I've seen a few of these. A guy in a 3e game rolled three nat 20s in a row, which was an auto-kill under the rules we were using. The week after, he did it again.

My second AD&D character was a paladin with 18/00 Strength. Only time I've ever seen it. I did see my sister roll up an assassin with 18, 18, 18, 17, 16, 16 for stats once.

In MERP, I've had a couple of wild open-ended dice rolls, way back in 1985. I wrote them down on the character sheet, which I still have. One was a roll of 1,012. The other was a roll of 1,552. I have no recollection of what I was doing with them.