When the dice just hate you! (a rant!)

[Darth_Versity]

So I need to let off some d&d steam. Last night we were caught in 15 corridor and the scout (me) had seen a group of 5 goblins riding wolves coming around the corner. With few options we decided make a front line and fight.

I quickly threw down 5 bags of caltrops covering a 3x6 area in front of us thinking that it will soften them up and half their movement if we need to run away. We then all readied ranged attacks as the enemy came around the corner.

After the initial volley, the goblins attacked into my carefully laid trap. I rolled 28 attack rolls for the caltrops and needed a 12 or higher to hit. Only 2 succeeded, and one of those the DM used mounted combat to negate.

Two successes on twenty eight dice! It is clear that the dice gods hate me.

Has anyone else had similar experiences of absolute dice failure?

[Feantar]

Did you use the same d20 for all those rolls? If so, I'll just leave this here.

[Darth_Versity]

Did you use the same d20 for all those rolls? If so, I'll just leave this here.

No, I rolled 3 D20's. Usually they give a nice range of results, but last night they just wanted me dead.

[Arbane]

In my first game of Exalted, my first two rolls were a botch and a failure. Thankfully nonlethal, but STILL...

(I still think the Unconquered Sun meant to Exalt the guy next to me, but had bad aim....)

[Geddy2112]

I once went a session where I could not get higher than an 8 on a D20. I was a support caster so it was just initiative and a few skill checks, maybe a dozen rolls. Still sucked.

One player in my group went an entire short campaign averaging a 5 or less on the d20. We actually started keeping track as he was our skillmonkey and face...didn't go so hot.

[Spore]

I had a rogue in Pathfinder for 9 months that weirdly enough failed most of his skill checks by 2-3 points most of the times. It was a hilariously sad combination of just enough bad luck and lacking optimization coming together in almost Donald Duck-esque bad luck.

The bad luck finally broke my fun with the character when in two subsequent sessions, my rogue first robbed a dwarven merchant and tripped over his son, knocking the kid out bleeding. When I was sentenced, we pursued a dwarven cleric lich who cast blade barrier.

The paladin walked through the barrier, taking minimal half damage (which he healed with a swift action lay on hands), meanwhile my character... let's just say bad rolls for me mean good rolls for the DM, plus evasion does NOTHING when you fail the reflex save. So I went in a single turn from 100% to dying, while the paladin stood next to me wondering what killed the rogue THIS TIME.

If you see the sheet for Ferrin in 5e in my signature, that character is a spoof on my past rogue. Fittingly he has the Lucky feat to compensate for bad rolls, and it has already pulled me out a few times.

[Elkad]

There's a thread here somewhere where a chain of fumbles and a fumble table led to someone in their first fight on the character biting off their own head.

[Deophaun]

I've had a session where the dice wanted my players dead. I rolled in front of them so they could see in horror as each D20 came up a nat 20. They lent me their dice, because mine must be loaded, only for them to turn out to be nat 20s as well. I finally rolled a hit that was not a nat 20, but the attack--this being 4e--did 10d6 worth of damage. That turned out to be 58.

Every roll was just followed by me saying "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." I have no idea how they survived that session.

[thorr-kan]

Blowtorch'em. Fire purifies all dice.

Suite mate in college would hex anybody's dice if he touched them. Can confirm this superpower still existed 15 years later.

[rrwoods]

In a 1-20 campaign I’m currently playing a swordsage. The first ever time I got to roll 6 bonus d6 (sneak attack for 2d6 and one of the +4d6 maneuvers), I rolled a 7.

I think my base damage die was a 1 as well.

[DaOldeWolf]

You should see some of my characters´ fate on this very forum. I had three characters receive critical max damage on the first encounter of their respective campaign.

Its especially funny considering that I usually roll well irl.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

As my party members can attest, I cannot save versus a Ghast's paralyzing touch even if my life is on the line. I sat out no less than three combats in that adventure because I kept rolling twos. At least Reflex was my saving grace... at least until later in the session, when I tried to jump over a trap zone, traveled instead 5ft directly onto the pressure plate, and rolled a 3 on my Reflex save to avoid being dumped into the pit.

[NerdHut]

Our party's fighter struggles to roll higher than a 10 on the die for attack rolls. Everything else is great. Strength checks, skill checks, initiative checks. But Tymora won't let him land half his hits, apparently. Likewise, with my character's breath weapon (currently 2d6), I keep rolling 1s and 2s. And since the save DC isn't very high yet, I keep doing 1 or 2 damage to enemies.

[AmeVulpes]

I recently had a Changeling Rogue player who couldn't roll more than 5 on a social skill check- until it didn't matter. The two successful checks I can remember were one to fabricate the actual name of a Drow he had bodysnatched, and the other was to convince all of the patrons of a tavern that he was the real owner, and evict them.

He failed many, many checks that would have avoided fights entirely, and didn't happen to have picked the right languages for several of the places we went. He had a perfectly valid build, but just couldn't get the dice to agree with that assessment.

[janusmaxwell]

I am a legend in our group for how much my dice want me dead or as ineffective as possible. To the point where my favorite character was my Kingdoms of Kalamar Cleric of the Merciful Fates, because I hyper specialized in healing. (And the freaking Heal SKILL)

Two of the most legendary moments are, surprise suprise, from 40k tabletops.

First, Black Crusade. Playing a heavy weapons corrupted Space Marine with a plasma cannon. First roll, of the first combat, of the campaign, I rolled the EXACT number to make the Plasma Cannon "vent" and cause me equivalent damage as though I had taken a shot from it.

Me: "okay, with my TB and Armor and Wounds, I'll still have 8 wounds if I roll snake-eyes, anymore than that will hurt worse but—"

Max. Damage.

The DM said that the plasma cannon exploded in a mushroom cloud and my character was completely disintegrated, which I agreed with because it was appropriate.

3 sessions later, there was a TPK due to a Tzeentchian Sorcerer pulling a Dark Eldar horror out of a box to use on us. He died to the characters who were left, which included mine, (heavy weapon with a Lascannon because I LEARNED THAT LESSON) but I was still d—ked over by my dice. Being the last one alive and in point blank range of the horror, which I fluffed as jamming the barrel against it and pulling the trigger, my dice did just BARELY enough damage to go over it's DR. Not enough to kill it, got my face torn off, TPK.

From there, I was forbidden from playing a Psyker in 40k games, until the most recent one. It as actually gone SUPRISINGLY well, with me playing someone whose as devout as a priest while being a pyro-focused Psyker in a Rogue Trader game that uses rules from DH2. And that's so I could use the Pure Faith Talent from Rogue Trader, along with Warp-Lock to prevent horrible Warp Phenomenon/Perils of the Warp from happening.

The one, and only one, time that I had to USE Warp-Lock was using a 5PR Molten Beam, while Pushing, against a Champion of Tzeentch because I wanted to do a Kamehameha on a b—ch. And being in point-blank range (AGAIN) meant the entirety of it's DR was negated.

I took max damage (5) for the backlash from Warp Lock, and my damage roll against the Champion was juuuuusst enough to NOT kill it, but leave it so wounded that getting pegged by a freaking LASGUN from one of the Rogue Trader's NPC mook squad finished it off...my dice aren't just murderous, they're insulting.

[HouseRules]

You should play this

Hand	d4	d6	d8	d10	d12	d20	d%
Five of a Kind	4	6	8	10	12	20	100
Four of a Kind	60	150	280	450	660	1,900	49,500
Straight	N/A	240	480	720	960	1,920	11,520
Full House	120	300	560	900	1320	3,800	99,000
Three of a Kind	240	1,200	3,360	7,200	13,200	68,400	9,702,000
Two Pairs	360	1,800	5,040	10,800	19,800	102,600	14,553,000
One Pair	240	3,600	16,800	50,400	118,800	1,162,800	941,094,000
High Pips	N/A	480	6,240	29,520	94,080	1,858,560	9,034,490,880
Total	1024	7,776	32,768	100,000	248,832	3,200,000	10,000,000,000

3d20 take middle vs bell curve roles, vs Poker Rolls.

Poker Rolls: roll 5 dice, take the middle roll and add a bonus based on the class.

1. One Pair = +1
2. Two Pairs = +2
3. Three of a Kind = +3
4. Full House = +4
5. Straight Flush = +5
6. Four of a Kind = +6
7. Five of a Kind = +7

Edit: Mess up the Role and Roll very often.