Problems with dice

[Kurald Galain]

We must have gotten different search results. I searched "smile dice" and there's not a single result on the first page that has anything other than numbers or pips on the sides. Oh well.

https://www.amazon.com/Wondertrail-S.../dp/B073YSC32H

[Imbalance]

HeroClix uses 2d6 for attacks, but a buddy of mine figured a d12 was the same thing until we ruled that since a critical miss is usually snake eyes he'd have to take damage on a result of 1 or 2. He switched back to cubes.

Same guy hooked me up with a pair of retired Vegas perfects, which were still astonishingly balanced despite a hole drilled halfway through. I've only ever used them in friendly games. One of them lives in my cupboard - it's how I choose which cereal to eat.

I've seen plenty of dice come to rest on odd angles, and more than a few that got stuck on points. It's no surprise when it's a sharp edged example that stabs into a game board, but kind of freaky when three d6 roll out of a Yahtzee cup and fix to a paper surface by their rounded points as if glued.

[Tanarii]

HeroClix uses 2d6 for attacks, but a buddy of mine figured a d12 was the same thing until we ruled that since a critical miss is usually snake eyes he'd have to take damage on a result of 1 or 2. He switched back to cubes.

Why'd you rule that? He was already getting more critical misses on 1 in 12.

[Quertus]

2. DMing again, this time in pathfinder and my players could do no wrong, any roll below 8 was rare and I kept throwing harder fights at them. At its peak they were able to take out an encounter of 15 level 3 warriors who were behind fortifications without taking damage despite also promising someone that they'd bring back their brother alive, forgetting to ask what their brother looked like and then choosing to suffer the -4 penalty to all attack roles.

That’s… glorious!

[Easy e]

I created a simple, fun, party RPG that only used Rory Story Cubes. You basically got to roll a pool of them from a random, blind dice bag then could keep a certain number to narrate your action.


The other more "problem" I have had with dice was getting proprietary dice for the new version of Legend of the 5 Rings. Sold out for a few months at my FLGS, and they have been on back order for a while.

[Mastikator]

Going forward, I only buy dice that are high contrast, preferably white/black or black/white. It maybe pretty, but I don't have time to try to read golden lettering against a wavy green/gold background from 2 feet away. I roll the dice closer to me, but I sometimes need to help others with their math, and it's hard to do when I can't read the dice because there's no contrast.
Same with all the metal dice, black on dark grey doesn't work.

I have suggested the Dice of Rolling bag to new players several times:
https://diceofrolling.com/ (their battle tokens are also VERY nice)
This is what I will get for my boys when they are old enough to get their own dice instead of stealing and maybe returning mine.
Everything is nicely contrasted and visible.

I do have a couple of d20s that I favor using because they tend to roll a bit higher than average. Of course, when the party's in a jam and I switch away from them to the "meh" d20s, sometimes I still roll high. I haven't actually tracked or experimented scientifically, so this falls under "dice superstition."

I have a few friends who collect fancy bling dice. Only problem I have is that they're impossible to read. It's like "hey check out this gold plated set of dice I just got, it cost a fortune" *rolls dice* KA-PLONK, dents the table. If you look directly at it you see the face of eternity, but to see the results you need to hold it 1cm away from your eyeball.

[Lord Torath]

HeroClix uses 2d6 for attacks, but a buddy of mine figured a d12 was the same thing until we ruled that since a critical miss is usually snake eyes he'd have to take damage on a result of 1 or 2. He switched back to cubes.

Why'd you rule that? He was already getting more critical misses on 1 in 12.

Precisely. You roll snake-eyes 1 in 36 on 2d6. On the other hand, it's also much easier to roll high on a d12. There's a 1-in-12 chance of rolling an 11+ on 2d6, and 1-in-6 on a d12.

[gbaji]

Precisely. You roll snake-eyes 1 in 36 on 2d6. On the other hand, it's also much easier to roll high on a d12. There's a 1-in-12 chance of rolling an 11+ on 2d6, and 1-in-6 on a d12.

Yup. Dice math is fun. A general rule to always remember is that the more dice you are rolling, the greater the statistical odds are of rolling somewhere at or near the "average" result. On the flip side, fewer dice means a greater chance of rolling very high or very low. Multiple dice creates a bell curve of probabilities. Even with just 2d6, the total number combinations are 36 (6^2), and we get this progression of odds:

2 - 1/36
3 - 2/36
4 - 3/36
5 - 4/36
6 - 5/36
7 - 6/36 (this is "average", and will be rolled one out of every six times)
8 - 5/36
9 - 4/36
10 - 3/36
11 - 2/36
12 - 1/36


This effect gets stronger the more dice are rolled. This created an interesting bit of math and decision factors in a game like Champions where the two primary types of physical attacks could be "normal attacks" (1d6 stun per 5 power points, body damage is 0-2 depending on each die: 1=0, 2-5=1, 6=2)) or "killing attacks" (1d6 body per 15 power points, stun is a single d6-1 multiplier).

Normal attacks were very consistent. It was darn hard to do much outside the "average" value. Killing attacks, on the other hand, could vary wildly. This was actually by design though. The same cost could generate a 3d6 normal attack, or a 1d6 killing attack. The normal attack's maximum body was 6, and stun was 18. The killing attack also had a maximum of 6 body damage, but could potentially do up to (6*5) 30 stun. And would do that maximum one out of 36 times. Heck, there are 6 out of 36 dice combinations that will do equal or greater than 18 stun. So a 1 in 6 chance of doing as much or more damage to the opponent than the maximum on the "normal" attack (and you only have a 1/216 chance of that on 3d6). The flip side is you have a 1/6 chance of doing zero stun at all. Oops!

The decision factor this creates is when to use them. If the enemies defenses are lower than the average damage, then you should probably use a normal attack (average is 10.5 on 3d6, but the same cost killing attack average is only 8.75). So against weaker opponents (like say agents of the bad guys), normal attacks were best. You could consistently take them out, wheras there's nothing more embarrassing than your mighty hero blasting some nothing agent, and doing... nothing. When the bad guys have high defenses, you want to use killing attacks, because any damage done that is less than the defenses does nothing, so doing a lot less than the defense value instead of just a little less doesn't matter. It's how much you do that's more than the defensive value, so you doing consistently just a little less is useless, but occasionally doing a lot more is helpful and may save the day.

It's hard to see this factor with relatively low power attacks, but when you start comparing the odds and damage for say 9d6 normal vs 3d6 killing attacks, the difference in tactical value against agents with 10-12 points of defenses compared to a super villain with 30-35 or so is pretty massive. Against the agents, the average damage is going to knock them out pretty much every hit. Using a killing attack may give you a shot at super-duper knocking them out (which has no real value), but also a decent chance of getting a wha-wha-wha moment. Against the super? The opposite. The consistent near average of the normal attack will just plink away at him, maybe. Over time. If you have that much time. But the killing attack might get lucky and take him out (or seriously hurt him) in one hit.

Honestly loved Champions back in the day. It's probably the best game out there for teaching folks how to figure out dice odds (and learn how to quickly add up a *lot* of dice). Did I mention there are a *lot* of dice? Cause, there are a lotta-lotta dice involved. Rolling that many dice is therapeutic too!

[Imbalance]

Yep. The ruling was mostly meant as a joke, explained at first to compensate for the fact that 2d6 can't result in 1, but more importantly, HeroClix was built on that bell curve. It was showing him how swingy the d12 was compared to his opponent landing hits by rolling the average on 2d6 literally multiple times in a row that brought the lesson home.