D&D 5E What to do with players that always roll well

[Lord Vangarel]

Thanks for the replies. I've suspected some level of, let's call it dice massaging, for some time but am unsure what to do. The player concerned is a power gamer and plays the rules to his greatest advantage which makes me think the problem is the rules allowing this to happen.

 

[wedgeski]

This is doubly true for stats - including hp. If I didn't see the roll, it didn't happen. You don't get to roll your stats at home and bring them in.

Yup, I always observe stat rolls. If I didn't see it, it didn't happen. I mostly rely on other players to police the general run of things at the table.

 

[Rocksome]

Another thing to check is that it's not a spindown die. Spindown die are designed for games like Magic: The Gathering to keep track of health. As such they are designed to have all the adjacent numbers on the faces of the die be in numerical sequence, so one side of the die is heavily weighted to higher numbers, a normal random die has the numbers randomised. A 20 might be next to a 3, a 10 and a 15. Since no manufacturing system is perfect, any dice can be slightly biased. This doesn't really matter too much for a normal random die, as in the example above if it's biased to a set of adjacent numbers, those numbers aren't always high. With a spindown die, it's possible to be biased towards high numbers only.

 

[DaveDash]

I've been rolling so well on roll20 lately that I suspect their RNG is broken. I crit a player four times in one combat few sessions back, and I recently rolled this:



2d20, result: 20, 20
2d6, result: 6, 6
2d6, result: 6, 5
2d6, result: 6, 5

All in one roll. And yes, that's a Vorpal Greatsword.

Can't really be accused of cheating (although my players joke it's the DM script). Sure adds to the 'challenge' for them from time to time though.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

At the table, all dice rolls should be out in the open. If someone else can't see your rolls, I'm going to assume there's a reason you're hiding them.

This is doubly true for stats - including hp. If I didn't see the roll, it didn't happen. You don't get to roll your stats at home and bring them in.

This would be a major change for our group. We've never really played around a central table so it's not always easy to see rolls and I tend to rely on player's policing each other. I'll suggest maybe playing round a table in the future.

It's where I'm thinking an array for stats and average hp would be better. The player in question has +4 or +5 in all his major stats and other players have it in maybe one stat.

One thought was to maybe just compensate for this player by making his monsters tougher or downgrading his damage rolls but I'd rather find a better solution.

 

[thalmin]

Most dice actally have a bias to them. Slight imperfections in the molding or polishing processes will result in differing balance or face shapes. These are usually so minor as to be imperceptible without special testing (like the extensive testing done on "Las Vegas" dice). But sometimes a bubble in a die is large enough to noticable affect the rolls. Or a dice face is somewhat rounded or smaller (or larger) than the others. The player may or may not be aware of the dice bias, he may truly just think it is lucky.

A dice manufacturer once gave me a bunch of sample dice. He said he didn't make transparent dice because nobody wanted to buy dice when they had bubbles in them, which made me suspicious. Not wanting to roll and record results for 1000s of rolls, I put the dice in water. Most sank, some floated (they were all the same color). Most of those that floated each, when poked and dunked, resettled to either the same number or to a shared edge or point. Every "roll". A few seemed to still be balanced.
I then poked and spun those that sank. Many of them still settled favoring the same face or edge or point.
We never bought any dice from that manufacturer, and I'm pretty sure he went out of the dice business.

 

[Mercule]

Yup, I always observe stat rolls. If I didn't see it, it didn't happen. I mostly rely on other players to police the general run of things at the table.

This.

Most of the time, I use point buy for stats, for a variety of reasons. When I do allow dice for stat generation, though, it's always done at the game table, with everyone present. Stat generation is done in turns, with the first player declaring their intent to start rolling. The GM must acknowledge this, or it doesn't count. The next 4d6 rolls are recorded and then the next player takes his turn. Hit points are somewhat more casual, just requiring the player to get my attention -- though I prefer average HP, too.

For in-play rolls, I don't really care what the tables rules are, so long as it's consistent and done in plain view. I don't even make the players follow the same convention -- my wife always rolls between her character sheet and the battle mat, another player always takes the first drop that has a clear "top", yet another only rerolls if the die contacts another die or a mini on the mat. As long as there's no complaining or oddities, I leave it to the PCs to police themselves.

If there's ever a problem or question, I ask them to humor my PTSD from 30+ years of GMing. I've seen (and done) more cheating because the player was able to subconsciously justify the dice as "out of bounds" than someone intentionally pulling something. Heck, I've seen people accuse others of cheating, while they were in the process of fudging their own dice subconsciously. Cognitive filtering is the most I'll ever accuse anyone of doing.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

Most dice actally have a bias to them. Slight imperfections in the molding or polishing processes will result in differing balance or face shapes. These are usually so minor as to be imperceptible without special testing (like the extensive testing done on "Las Vegas" dice). But sometimes a bubble in a die is large enough to noticable affect the rolls. Or a dice face is somewhat rounded or smaller (or larger) than the others. The player may or may not be aware of the dice bias, he may truly just think it is lucky.

A dice manufacturer once gave me a bunch of sample dice. He said he didn't make transparent dice because nobody wanted to buy dice when they had bubbles in them, which made me suspicious. Not wanting to roll and record results for 1000s of rolls, I put the dice in water. Most sank, some floated (they were all the same color). Most of those that floated each, when poked and dunked, resettled to either the same number or to a shared edge or point. Every "roll". A few seemed to still be balanced.
I then poked and spun those that sank. Many of them still settled favoring the same face or edge or point.
We never bought any dice from that manufacturer, and I'm pretty sure he went out of the dice business.

I'm going to test this on my dice later and then maybe on all the players dice as well!

 

[Raith5]

Use his dice when you roll for monster attacks. From what you are saying it is worth a try!

 

[ExploderWizard]

I'm going to test this on my dice later and then maybe on all the players dice as well!

Slight dice imperfections probably matter much less than rolls that aren't out in the open. If the player balks at having all die rolls visually confirmed then its simple cheating. If you make open rolling a table policy for everyone then you aren't singling anyone out. If the player puts up too much of a fuss if unable to cheat, cull that player from the group.