The Dice Gods Hate Me: Murphy Attacks

[Choco]

Here is a place to share your tales of epically bad luck with the dice. This could be anything from botching one vital roll where you were all but guaranteed success to spending a whole 8 hour session rolling nothing higher than a 3, I just want to hear tales of the inevitable moment where we are not in the dice god's good graces.

I'll start, here is the epic tale of the 4e session I just got back from:

Encounter 1: 4 Mud Men.

This is my new ranger's first encounter, time to make a good impression on the party. This fight went spectacularly, I only missed 1 attack, did over 1/2 the total damage of the party, and downed all 4 of the enemies. Great first impression has been achieved. If only I was aware of what was in store for me next.

Encounter 2: Crocodile swarm.

Things started to go downhill here. I needed a 7 or higher to hit (without flanking or any other modifiers), and my gloriously high defenses depend on hitting with both my weapons (I get +2 to all defenses against the target when I hit with both weapons). Of course, almost every turn I roll a 6 on 1 of the 2 attacks I get (including on dailies and encounters ). Sometimes on both even. Then I am finally able to get some flanking going on, and of course the universe adjusts itself to accommodate and I start rolling 4's. To top it all off, the few times I did hit both times I roll lower for damage than when I hit once. I barely kept up with the leader in DPR (Damage Per Round) that fight. If only I was aware of what was in store for me next.

Encounter 3, Boss Battle: The Incredible Hulk. (it was a custom monster described as a gray version of the Hulk)

Ah, the highlight of the session, this is where the fecal matter really hit the quickly rotating object. This was a very challenging fight because without any other modifiers I could only hit it on a roll of 16 or higher (I have one less than the highest possible attack bonus at my level), and it was almost guaranteed a hit with massive damage. I got lucky early on and was able to land a few chicken scratch hits on it with Twin Strike, and was waiting till I was flanking and our leader reduces its defenses to unleash my daily nova.

EVENTUALLY the leader hit, and I was flanking with him, I now had a 50% chance to land a blow (11 or higher), so I figured now was my chance to go nova. On top of that, we were almost defeated and this was basically my character's chance to shine and save the day. Over the course of 2 rounds I used all my dailies and encounter attack powers as well as my action point, and I did 8 attacks, rolling (in order) 1, 2, 3, 1, 4, 5, 1, 1. Yeah....... The DM decided that Hulk was laughing so hard he wasn't mad at us anymore, and decided to let us live cause I entertained him so well...

[Dire Moose]

Oh, man.

I have about average luck with the dice during the Pathfinder Society sessions I've been involved in lately, but whenever I attempt some kind of awesome battle charge or similar epic maneuver the dice usually wind up saying "LOL NO" and giving me really low numbers.

I'm getting tired of all these action scenes ending with my character tripping over his own feet and saying "Derp."

[Blisstake]

This is what my brother rolled for stats using 4d6b3:

11, 7, 8, 3, 4, 3

I let him re-roll of course, so that incredibly bad luck didn't really matter.

[byaku rai]

I was making a jump check over a 10-foot moat. I had about a +20 modifier to jump. It was smooth sailing until I made the mistake of bragging about how impossible it was for me to fail.

Guess what I rolled: a natural 1. Splat into the moat, which we then found out was filled with dire bear leavings.

[arguskos]

I was making a jump check over a 10-foot moat. I had about a +20 modifier to jump. It was smooth sailing until I made the mistake of bragging about how impossible it was for me to fail.

Guess what I rolled: a natural 1. Splat into the moat, which we then found out was filled with dire bear leavings.

Hey man, I have great news:

Unlike with attack rolls and saving throws, a natural roll of 20 on the d20 is not an automatic success, and a natural roll of 1 is not an automatic failure.

You didn't fail, unless your DM ruled otherwise.

[Choco]

Oh, man.

I have about average luck with the dice during the Pathfinder Society sessions I've been involved in lately, but whenever I attempt some kind of awesome battle charge or similar epic maneuver the dice usually wind up saying "LOL NO" and giving me really low numbers.

I'm getting tired of all these action scenes ending with my character tripping over his own feet and saying "Derp."

I feel you man. Only ONE time have I ever had a critical moment to shine and pulled it off (with a natural 20 at that). All other times I have been lackluster at best. All (well, most) of my characters eventually turn into jokes because of this.

I was making a jump check over a 10-foot moat. I had about a +20 modifier to jump. It was smooth sailing until I made the mistake of bragging about how impossible it was for me to fail.

Guess what I rolled: a natural 1. Splat into the moat, which we then found out was filled with dire bear leavings.

Aint that how it always works out? EVERY SINGLE TIME I mutter the phrase "It'l be OK, anything but a 1 and I make this" in any of it's variations, I inevitably roll a 1. Especially hilarious when the 1 is on the save against a Save or Die spell....

[Apophis]

You didn't fail, unless your DM ruled otherwise.

I did rule otherwise. Mostly because it was really funny, and there was no danger to him.

As a DM, I rarely crit my players. But I always seem to crit their summoned creatures... It's rather annoying.

[Draconi Redfir]

Two tales depicting the death... of the same character: play the spore games

First up, locked in a room combating several wraiths. I have recently take a massive dose of damage, and am almost dead. now I’m a cleric with cure serious wounds, so i first consider healing myself and running away. But then one of the other players convinces me to instead target my cure spell on the wraiths, as it could easily kill it in one hit. stupidly, i decide to do this, comes the concentration roll, comes the failure, comes my own death, comes my character becoming a wraith, comes me rolling a bard to take revenge upon my fellow players.
play the spore games
Second time, same character, in a swamp on a small sand bar, in the water there are some acid-spiting creatures that like to hide and make hit-and-run attacks. Now one of these things decides it would be a good idea to kill the wolf companion of our local fighter. deciding that this earns them the most painful death possible, i offer to give him bulls strength and water walking while he drinks a potion of rage. i think i gave him water walking first, then followed him a short bit into the water the next round to give him bulls strength, and right after i do so one of the creatures comes up and bites me bad enough to get me to negative hitpoints, and i fall into the water. fortunately the guy i had just buffed grabs my drowning body and throws it to the island. unfortunately one of the creatures decided to spit acid over the group on the island, and i got hit after failing an unconscious dex roll >_>

[Desril]

My group started up a Harnmaster game yesterday, and my character is a thief/mage type. There was a more or less scripted encounter going on where our caravan was getting thrashed by some lycanthropes (who are absurdly powerful in Harn) but they weren't killing anyone. Well, our resident munchkin/dice god ended up decapitating one of these lycans that the GM had set up to be practically impossible to kill thanks to various improbably high rolls (somewhere in the vicinity of 23 edged damage to the neck and the thing doing abysmally on its amputation roll), so I decided I wanted a chance to shine. Well, lucky me, a huge spell was being cast that, as I was told by the GM later, would've transported us into the arms of another ambush who would've looted the caravan, but put us a bit closer to our intended destination. Well, I decided the big magical dome that was trapping us was a bad thing, so I did what any mage would do, cast Dispel. I critically failed it. The GM ruled that the disruptive energies of the critically failed Dispel interfered with the teleportation, and everyone in the radius was teleported to a random area that ended up being several times further from where we needed to be than we would've been, and in the wrong direction. We ended the session there because the GM wasn't prepared for that.

[Arbane]

In a game of Exalted, doing a Prolog where I was supposed to go from snivelling mortal to divine hero:

My first roll in the ancient First Age ruins, to notice a trap: FAIL
My second roll, to avoid the trap; BOTCH.

The ground disappeared out from under me, and I ended up in a bottomless pit. I Exalted while the Heroic Mortal (another PC) I was with was trying to bail me out.
I remain convinced that the Unconquered Sun was trying to Exalted him, but something threw off his aim.

[mobdrazhar]

One of the players in the 4e game i ran yesterday was having the most attrocious luck to the point of he rolled 3 9's for his death saving throws.

[John Campbell]

In an AD&D game years ago, I rolled up a dwarven fighter with an 18/64 Str, a 19 Con, and 15 HP at 1st level. (Note, this required rolling two 18s on 4d6k3 and then a 10 on 1d10... no point buy, no automatic max 1st HD in AD&D.)

I died, in my very first fight, against three goblins, without ever landing a hit, because I couldn't roll anything higher than a 6 on my attack rolls. (I only needed a 10 or 12.) It took them ages to chew through my hit points - they needed to roll 16s to hit me, and were only doing 1d4 damage - but with me doing absolutely nothing to them, they eventually got there.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

One of the players in the 4e game i ran yesterday was having the most attrocious luck to the point of he rolled 3 9's for his death saving throws.

Okay, that is just pure RNG spite, right there. You haven't been sacrificing enough virgin kobolds.

In an AD&D game years ago, I rolled up a dwarven fighter with an 18/64 Str, a 19 Con, and 15 HP at 1st level. (Note, this required rolling two 18s on 4d6k3 and then a 10 on 1d10... no point buy, no automatic max 1st HD in AD&D.)

I died, in my very first fight, against three goblins, without ever landing a hit, because I couldn't roll anything higher than a 6 on my attack rolls. (I only needed a 10 or 12.) It took them ages to chew through my hit points - they needed to roll 16s to hit me, and were only doing 1d4 damage - but with me doing absolutely nothing to them, they eventually got there.

I take it back.

THIS is the pure face of RNG spite.

[NNescio]

Had a 'fun' session once with people on both sides (monsters and PCs) rolling lots of 1's on attack rolls and 20's on saves.

Took a while to finish. And yes, the wizards were reduced to plinking with their crossbows.

[GeminiVeil]

(we are playing a PF/3.5 mix) The DMPC healer (halfling) in my game was supposed to be a lucky halfling. He took that as a feat from PF, he had the luck domain, and his nickname was supposed to be 'Lucky'.
The first session, there were approximately 8 nat 1's rolled out of a total of 20 rolls. They all seemed to be when the person was withing 10 feet of the halfling. When characters moved away from the halfing, they critted.
Then they get to their hometown, and not only has the halflings parents been turned to stone, but all of his family's possesions had been burned, looted, or destroyed for spite.
We didn't call him Lucky anymore. . .

[NNescio]

(we are playing a PF/3.5 mix) The DMPC healer (halfling) in my game was supposed to be a lucky halfling. He took that as a feat from PF, he had the luck domain, and his nickname was supposed to be 'Lucky'.
The first session, there were approximately 8 nat 1's rolled out of a total of 20 rolls. They all seemed to be when the person was withing 10 feet of the halfling. When characters moved away from the halfing, they critted.
Then they get to their hometown, and not only has the halflings parents been turned to stone, but all of his family's possesions had been burned, looted, or destroyed for spite.
We didn't call him Lucky anymore. . .

If this were GURPS, he would certainly have the Jinxed (Level 3) disadvantage.

Really munchkiny since the Jinxed character doesn't actually suffer any disadvantages...

[Drascin]

Thankfully, it seems to be receding a bit, but there was a time where I was actually called the Dice Cthulhu by my group. Every die I touched would not get higher than an 11 at absolute most (more usually 3 or 4. I seem to have an odd tendency to roll 4s). I have botched 17 dice pools in Exalted. I have missed enemies that I just needed 3+ on a d20 to hit for four turns straight. People would actually rub dice on me and pass them to the DM in boss battles to make sure we won, for Heaven's sake .

[Velaryon]

Had a similar situation come up in two separate games I was playing in.

First is in Aberrant, essentially a d10 game with super-powers. My character's powers include amazing luck, the ability to cause bad luck in others, and the ability to manipulate people's emotions. He used these to become a super-successful gambler, since not only would he almost always get good hands, but he could enhance people's existing motions to make their tells more obvious, or sometimes cause them to fold (or not fold) when he wanted them to.

Anyway, one of the other characters is a very Thor-like character, right down to the hammer even. During a botched mission, he ends up becoming enraged and attacking some cops. My character tries to use his empathic manipulation to calm him down... and botches horribly. I try to use my luck powers to get a reroll, and make it even worse. I ended up instead accidentally enhancing his rage, which eventually resulted in the death of one major character, lots of collateral damage, and the Thor-guy himself being put into a coma after being shot point-blank by an artillery cannon.

A couple years later, another campaign, this one 3.5 D&D in Ravenloft. I'm playing a cleric who happens to have calm emotions as a domain spell. There's also a barbarian / rogue in the party (same player as the Thor guy, coincidentally). He's manipulated by the BBEG into attacking another player, and goes into rage. I try to use calm emotions, and he natural 20's the save, then kills the other player.

So apparently that's a running thing with me, that if I try to calm somebody down I just make them even more enraged.

[Firechanter]

I never was the luckiest of rollers, but two weeks ago I had the worst dice luck _ever_.

System was Savage Worlds, and for those not in the know, suffice it to say that as a PC you always roll two dice (of varying sizes), and "snake eyes" are a fumble/critical failure. The consequences of a fumble can be anything between amusing (for the other players) and lethal.
I had skilled my character so that he got bonuses to six different skills, which means that in those skills he could only ever fail by rolling snake eyes.
The chance of rolling snake eyes once is about 3-4%. If you fear particularly bad results, you can spend a benny ("fate point") to re-roll, and you start the game with 3 bennies.

So, guess what happened?

Of about maybe 15 rolls during that session, I rolled snake eyes FIVE FRIGGIN TIMES! Most of them in my key skills.

There wasn't even any combat involved, which was lucky for me, because the way my dice were trying to kill me, I wouldn't have made it into the second round.

I'm not so terribly good at maths, but if my approximation is not too far off, the odds for this happening are about 0,001%, which looks about right. And it happens to me.

[BadJuJu]

Will saves against mind control vs undead. If you don't have a pulse, I can't resist your charms. I had a guy with an average to low will save mod. We got caught in a mind flayer ambush. I had to roll a 16 or better to pass. No problem. Did it for like 8 rounds in a row as I slaughtered them. A ghost came out later and possessed me. Had to roll a 7 or higher. 6. I kill 2 party members before I get away. Later a vampire dominates me. Have to roll a 11 or higher. 10.

[Draconi Redfir]

I'm not so terribly good at maths, but if my approximation is not too far off, the odds for this happening are about 0,001%, which looks about right. And it happens to me.

If there is even a small chance of something happening, it WILL happen somewere at some point in time.

[Cartigan]

Well, I decided the big magical dome that was trapping us was a bad thing, so I did what any mage would do, cast Dispel. I critically failed it. The GM ruled that the disruptive energies of the critically failed Dispel interfered with the teleportation, and everyone in the radius was teleported to a random area that ended up being several times further from where we needed to be than we would've been, and in the wrong direction. We ended the session there because the GM wasn't prepared for that.

I really can't respect DMs who break their own games by using DM fiat.
I mean, you're the damn DM, can't you just not do something that will screw up the game, especially since you are making it right the hell up on the spot in the first place?

[byaku rai]

Once I was DMing for my little brother and sister. They encountered a group of kobolds on a road between towns. Out of the 15 kobolds, 7 got Great Cleave critted by my little sister (a fighter), 4 got shot to death by my little brother (a ranger), who also critted... And the other four killed themselves. One in particular was about to throw a javelin at them, rolled a 1, followed by three twenties in a row. He stabbed himself in the brain.

[Erom]

I mean, you're the damn DM, can't you just not do something that will screw up the game, especially since you are making it right the hell up on the spot in the first place?

That was my reaction to that story as well. Why go out of the way to sidestep the normal rules just to end the session? I guess he really probably wanted to be done for the night...

[Cartigan]

That was my reaction to that story as well. Why go out of the way to sidestep the normal rules just to end the session? I guess he really probably wanted to be done for the night...

One of my DMs did the same thing. Twice.
Once, he turned some fluff into a mechanical occurrence that threw the game so far off the rails that we could advance no further.
A second time, he didn't account for the party splitting up due to different playstyles of the players and when that hit his plan of attack he only updated it partially and in such a way that it AGAIN threw the game off the rails.

[Jarawara]

I had a character, Reliah Essend, who had the most amazing luck when it came to scoring critical hits. Didn't matter what game system, or what DM or campaign, if there was a critical hit system, she ran ramshod all over it.

I tend to reuse characters, remaking the character from the ground up for new games, even into new systems, so Reliah has had herself statted out in D&D, Gurps, Rolemaster, etc... But every one of those had critical hit systems, or at least the DM had their own personal houserule for it. At least they did, until Reliah snagged it as her own personal showcase rule for awesomness.

Except... there was one little detail. Yes, she could score critical hits, often and with high end damage. Yes, when she scored a critical hit, the target died. Spectacularly, in fact. But the one little detail that kinda deflated the whole thing was...

...she never actually scored a critical hit on anything that possessed more than 4 hit points!

*~*

We're fighting the big bad lizard kind. Reliah rushes forward, plinks for 4 damage, thumps for 6 damage, pattycakes for 5 damage, etc.

Kobold rushes in from the side to flank her, she turns to strike at him. Natural 20! Followed by another 20! Followed by a roll on the crit chart! 32 damage on the 3 hp Kobold! Kobold literally explodes from the impact, spraying bits and pieces of lizardflesh so far that we were still finding bits of him three encounter rooms down the hall!

*~*

Reliah finds herself mano e mano against a towering Ogre. Her eyes close to a menacing slit and she takes pose with her rapier, confident in her ability to deal death, regardless of the foe. The Ogre charges...

The Ogre has 26 hp. Reliah slices. 6 points She parries and thrusts. 5 points. She rolls from an impact, slices at the beast's legs. 4 points. She rises, dodges the Ogre's massive club, and slashes at the belly. 6 points. The Ogre strikes her again, she reels from the impact, but recovers and stabs at his arm. 3 points. The two foes circle, she sees a gap in his defense, darts forward to strike... rolls a natural 20, natural 20, high roll on the crit chart. Ogre explodes from the 39 damage, large hunks of flesh hurl out in every direction!

*~*

Fezzerand: "Ok, team, we need this bookkeeper alive for questioning. Gormac, you divert the guards. Vendassi, you get that gate open. Try to do it quietly, but blast it open if you have to. And Reliah, you're the quietest of us, so you sneak in and rap the bookkeeper over the head, knock him out for easy transport."

Reliah: "Sure thing, boss. As good as done!"

Natural 20, natural 20, high roll on a crit chart, BOOM. As bits of flesh fly past Fezzerand, he's heard to remark: "We may not have sent the right person for the job..."

[Choco]

One of my DMs did the same thing. Twice.
Once, he turned some fluff into a mechanical occurrence that threw the game so far off the rails that we could advance no further.
A second time, he didn't account for the party splitting up due to different playstyles of the players and when that hit his plan of attack he only updated it partially and in such a way that it AGAIN threw the game off the rails.

Heh, yeah, DM's that derail their own campaigns are funny aint they? I have seen DM's do that before and honestly I got a good laugh at their expressions when they realized what it is they just did. I like to run mostly sandbox games myself, so the problem isn't really that bad for me. If anything, it's the PLAYERS who risk getting their plans derailed, since they are driving the campaign, and as we all know players are good at destroying everything they come across...

Back on topic, both the groups I am playing with now have terrible luck when it comes to random encounters. We make quick work of plot-relevant encounters 3-4 CR/EL higher than us without even breaking a sweat, just to almost get TPK'd by a random encounter 2-3 CR/EL below us. Nothing beats the whole group spectacularly failing their saves against a harpy's song...

[Cartigan]

Heh, yeah, DM's that derail their own campaigns are funny aint they? I have seen DM's do that before and honestly I got a good laugh at their expressions when they realized what it is they just did. I like to run mostly sandbox games myself, so the problem isn't really that bad for me.

He is running a sandbox game that he barely isn't making up on the fly.

I would provide some stories about how the dice hate me, but that would be every game. I made a point to buy the "The Dice are Trying to Kill Me" shirt.

With ridiculous DM: I try to shoot a guy. I roll a one. My arrow ricochets around a corner (note it can't do this if I try to make it) and hits some teammate in the back.

With less ridiculous DM in 4e, I charge some guy with my Dwarven Fighter. I roll a 1 to hit. The D&D has me roll to see if I stay up right. I fail that. But I'm a Dwarf! I make an automatic saving throw to be Dwarvenly stable. I fail.
As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever made the automatic Dwarven saving throw to not fall prone...

[flabort]

"We may not have sent the right person for the job..."

This. This, oh so much.

[Choco]

stuff

Oh man, I thought I was the only one this happened to (that is the case in both the groups I play in...). 19 out of 20 times any of my characters get a crit, it is against something I would have killed with minimum damage on a regular attack. And just as you described with the ogre, the crit comes after round upon round of missing and rolling low damage hits.

To top it all off, I roll a crit MAYBE once every 3 sessions. I roll A LOT of 1's, but 20's don't seem to appear all that often. Even with my 4e ranger, who does about as many attack rolls on average as the other 3 party members combined, gets less 20's than any 1 of them and more 1's than all 3 of them combined (so far this is only from 1 session, but this is me we are talking about, it will likely only get WORSE form here on out ).