Worst Luck

[Ascension]

So there are plenty of threads about doing cool stuff in RPGs. Every time one drops to the third page or so, another one pops up. There are even a few threads about amusing failure every now and then.

This is not any of those.

This is a thread for failure that goes right past amusing and straight into absurd. This is when the dice gods have cursed not only you, but your entire party. This is when everything goes mad.

This thread exists because of this thread. Just look at the attack rolls. Just look at them! Ignore the way we get out of initiative order, that's not the point. The point is the attack rolls.

Our GM has recently revealed to us that our opponents have a Reflex Defense of 11 and 6 HP. We should be able to take that out with improvised weapons. But just... look at that.

[Comet]

Yeeah, we've all had those, haven't we? Goes with the hobby or something

One time, we decided to implement the "if you roll a 1 and then miss on you attack, its a fumble" rule for D&D 3.5. We agreed that a fumble would cause you to drop the weapon you were holding. Hey, it seemed cool.

Let's just say that, despite us rolling pretty good in the past, swords were flying on that very night. A lot. On both the heroe's and the villain's sides. It was quite ridiculous

[only1doug]

I've had a string of Ones on a wild die causing every attempt at anything to fail.

There were about 8 rolls of a One which ended when the Die flew through the air launched from the fire escape in disgust.

[Moff Chumley]

You think it's bad for you players? I had a power gamer who got twenties every other role. I don't think I hit him more than three or four times that entire compaign... when I upped the challenges, everyone except for him died, he took the loot, and raised them.

[Ascension]

I was in a party with a gnome fighter who was like that with the critical hits! And she rolled well on her stats, too, so she didn't have anything under 14.

It was crazy.

[TheCountAlucard]

Last night's game session involved the PCs traveling on a barge across an inland sea. This sea is particularly notorious for the undead that roam its waters. Well, the Cleric and the Dread Necromancer park themselves in the front of the boat, ready to rebuke anything that pops its head out of the water.

They successfully rebuke a zombified sea serpent on their first try, when it pokes its head up out of the water.

However, the next encounter is a Drowned. When their rebuke attempts fail to affect the Drowned, they decide to retreat to the far end of the barge, where they can breathe. The Drowned follows them, and they keep hitting the Drowned with rebukes, all of which keep failing. Finally the dread necro orders his Dire Boar skeleton to bull rush the thing. The skeleton fails the opposed roll. Finally the cleric manages to rebuke it, but only just barely. The party barbarian suddenly realizes that he can hold his breath for over four minutes, so he charges and attacks, and manages to pulp the thing in just a few rounds.

[Teeka]

We have something that we call the Lorik Factor, named after the character that it happened with. Lorik, aka Lorik the Mighty, could kill just about anything with one hit. The problem was that he needed to get that one hit in. The number of failures he rolled was unreal and if he rolled well during combat he would fail in spectacular ways outside of combat. I believe his worst string of failures was an attempt to pry a very nice sword out of the hands of a skeleton. Not a moving skeleton trying to attack us mind you, one that was just there in a coffin. First he had to have a go at opening the coffin just a little bit more so he could get both hands in there to grab the sword. With his mighty strength score (I forget what it was, but it was quite high) he should have been able to manage it easily. Instead he failed and nearly dropped the lid on his toes. From there he managed to pull the whole skeleton out, still attached to the sword. Apparently the bones were wired together or something, and attached to the sword as well. An attempt to shake the sword free resulted in him overbalancing himself and falling into the now open coffin, pulling the skeleton down on top of him.

Then there was the session where I was consistently rolling fours. It got so bad that everyone started to insist that there was something wrong with my dice (yes, the whole set - every one of them was rolling fours), they all rolled their dice towards me and everyone of them came to a stop on the number four.

I also have a bunch of six sided dice that I call 'my darlings'. When I roll them as a group they, more often than not, give me a total well above average. If I use them to roll stats for another player they will get amazing stats. If I use them to roll damage serious damage will be done. If someone else uses them they are not so nice, giving either mostly ones or whatever else might be needed to create totally ineffective results.

[TheCountAlucard]

I also have a bunch of six sided dice that I call 'my darlings'. When I roll them as a group they, more often than not, give me a total well above average. If I use them to roll stats for another player they will get amazing stats. If I use them to roll damage serious damage will be done. If someone else uses them they are not so nice, giving either mostly ones or whatever else might be needed to create totally ineffective results.

...You oughtta save those dice for Shadowrun.

[FMArthur]

I was part of a level 3 TPK against a random crazy homeless man with a dagger he was not proficient with.

We aren't even allowed in my friend's house anymore because of all the swearing.

[Sanzh]

I once rolled a d20 and called it on being a 1. Admittedly, it isn't as impressive given my track record, as I'll roll well on things I don't need to (such as minor effects), and roll horribly on rolls I have to succeed (such as death-effects at level 6).

[Jade_Tarem]

This may be slightly off the topic of RPGs, but a friend of mine refuses to play Risk with me anymore due to the time he attacked a position held by 3 defenders with an army of over 30, and lost. For that round, it was as if he had a crippling inability to roll more than a 3, while I frequently rolled fives and sixes - for 15 straight rolls.

[MeklorIlavator]

This may be slightly off the topic of RPGs, but a friend of mine refuses to play Risk with me anymore due to the time he attacked a position held by 3 defenders with an army of over 30, and lost. For that round, it was as if he had a crippling inability to roll more than a 3, while I frequently rolled fives and sixes - for 15 straight rolls.

Hmmm, this sounds way to familiar....

In any case, I have the astonishing ability to roll decently on most thing except ability rolls and initiative checks. For rolls I usually end up with low point buy(as in, usually 25 or less, often times going below the core books re-roll rules), but the cake has to be the time I rolled one 10, one 11, and everything else was below average(I think I even had a 3 in there). Initiative checks, though, are my worst enemy. I usually end up with a modifier of +4 to +8, but my usual result is 5-9. Yes, I do roll alot of ones.

[Destro_Yersul]

There was one game where I was playing a Rogue. The bosses all had far too much HP, but the DM was inexperienced, so it doesn't really count. Anyways, we rolled for HP every time we leveled.

By the time we reached level five, the Wizard had more HP than me. And I had a Con bonus of +1 to his +0.

[thegurullamen]

Had a friend who once rolled eight nat ones in a three hour session. with fumbles. At level one. Two PCs died as a result (ever fumble on a Heal to stabilize? Me neither, but the DM thought it would be possible so insta-coup-de-gras-suck.) Just for that run of luck, the PC got an extra bonus feat: Luck of Heroes. Benefit: Whenever you roll a nat one, you still fail abysmally at what you were trying to do, but you can roll again against the same DC and if you succeed, the failure can become an unintentional benefit!

Example? Nat one on an attack roll. Ends up hitting the arty barbarian instead. Who then swung his axe in surprise and cleaved the enemy in two.

[Fiery Diamond]

Love that bonus feat. That's such an awesome idea.

[Trouvere]

I get a bit sick of it. My most recent character in his first outing rolled consecutive attack rolls so low that, at 4 encounters a day every day, he could expect to perform as badly about once every 400 years.

[Saph]

We had an amusing one today in our Star Wars Saga game. My Jedi Padawan met up with her current mentor, Alisha, to find her under attack by a Sith, fending off his lightsaber with an improvised weapon. I roll high for initiative and go first. I use Move Light Object to throw my spare lightsaber to Alisha and also roll high. I activate the Battle Strike force power and again roll high. With my standard action I charge the Sith, make my attack roll, and yet again roll high, scoring a hit. My damage comes to 2d8+3d6 plus some bonuses. I roll the five dice to determine damage.

They all come up ones.

It was impressive enough that the other players actually called some spectators over to witness it. We later worked out the odds to be somewhere around 1 in 14,000.

I still won the fight due to the two-on-one odds, but it was pretty funny at the time. :)

- Saph

[Tengu_temp]

In my first 4e game, everyone had terrible luck, especially on encounter/daily powers - my paladin rolled a 1 on a daily, which would've hit otherwise (flanking + Action Surge). Spending an action point to use it made it even more annoying.

In the 4e game I'm currently DMing, 5 out of 6 of my players have consistently bad luck - their average roll on d20 is 9, and only because they tend to roll well on skill checks and initiative, and because the sixth players hits with almost every attack. (Yes, they tend to miss with daily and encounter powers a lot, too.) Two or three of them fought a minion for several turns once, and it managed to down one of them before getting finally killed! Good that dying in 4e once unconscious is hard...

It seems that the 4e version of Random Dice God just hates players.

[Lert, A.]

This may be slightly off the topic of RPGs, but a friend of mine refuses to play Risk with me anymore due to the time he attacked a position held by 3 defenders with an army of over 30, and lost. For that round, it was as if he had a crippling inability to roll more than a 3, while I frequently rolled fives and sixes - for 15 straight rolls.

This was the first thing that popped into my head. Five defenders holding the last country on a continent, breaking the bonus armies. Against them was seventy-six armies.

At the end he lost all his invading armies, while I still had one left.

We still refer to any unassailable yet unlikely defense as pulling a Madagascar.

[Swordguy]

From the Epic Deaths Thread:

One of the trio of submissions from my "Stupidest players EVAR!" Shadowrun campaign to the now-defunct CLUE Files (an archive of Shadowrun player stupidity).

Spoiler

Show

...

Personally, my imagination is still reeling from that. It's like something out of a
bad comedy/action movie, don't you think?

Regarding our next little tidbit (which was submitted by one of CLUE's network of alert readers), this is NOT a clue story. And it's not even a stealth story. But it sends enough chills up the spine to warrant mention, especially so close to Halloween.

Please note that this account was submitted by eye-witnesses, and I did confirm.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"My group of six runners was in the process of breaking camp to continue on our journey through some flatland. From over the horizon came the silhouette of two GMC Banshees. Not prepared for a firefight, the team scrambled to break out the ordinance, the rigger sprints for the Bison, etc.

The troll mage, who has had an unfortunate experience with Banshees in the past, panics and tosses a fireball at the closest one, throwing in all the dice he can get his hands on. The result? He rolls 28 dice for the fireball.

The group was hushed as he shook the huge handful of dice and cast them onto the table.

They came up all ones.

So, as the Banshees bear down onto the camp, the troll mage erupted into a mushroom cloud of organic debris.

We stopped playing for the night. It was a baaadddd omen…"

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Wow. I hope never in my life to see that. Can you calculate the odds of that happening?

Players get complacent about the rule of one, after all, if you're rolling more than two or three dice, the odds of getting all ones are pretty negligible, right? Guess not. Let this serve as a warning to us all…

See you next month!
Karen

[Enguhl]

Once we had a battle that took about two hours real time (something well over one hundred rounds in game) the only time I rolled above a six was on a d8

[RS14]

This thread exists because of this thread. Just look at the attack rolls. Just look at them! Ignore the way we get out of initiative order, that's not the point. The point is the attack rolls.

Our GM has recently revealed to us that our opponents have a Reflex Defense of 11 and 6 HP. We should be able to take that out with improvised weapons. But just... look at that.

I take it that they're all graduates of the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy? I really posted just to say that.

This may be slightly off the topic of RPGs, but a friend of mine refuses to play Risk with me anymore due to the time he attacked a position held by 3 defenders with an army of over 30, and lost. For that round, it was as if he had a crippling inability to roll more than a 3, while I frequently rolled fives and sixes - for 15 straight rolls.

Reminds me of Axis and Allies, where my Dad's six-strong stack of attacking fighters (hits on 3 or less) was completely destroyed by my three defending bombers (hits on 1).

[DrizztFan24]

Everytime I roll up a character I get one awesome stat and two dumps it seems. Naturally I try to use that one to the greatest advantage, the other two player sin my group are ages 11 and 13... My Rogue1/Monk12 (houseruled to allow the multi) could spot a trap across the room while blinded...and could destroy anything we came up against in melee. But any other character that had decent power would get owned on anything but skills checks. I was always last in initiative and never landed a blow...could get diplomacy either i guess...but anything else they could manage fine.

[RTGoodman]

It seems that the 4e version of Random Dice God just hates players.

I agree - my luck with the dice gods varies, but lately, in my first 4E game as a player, it hasn't been to good. In our recent (first) combat in our PbP game, everyone was rolling REALLY badly for almost the whole thing. For a while my average roll on a d20 (ignoring the two Knowledge checks I made in my first post) was something like a 6! I mean, we were having people rolling 1s and 2s all over the place, on everything from HP recovery to attacks to damage. Things are getting better though, I guess - I did just roll an 18 for initiative on 1d20+0! *Crosses fingers*

Reminds me of Axis and Allies, where my Dad's six-strong stack of attacking fighters (hits on 3 or less) was completely destroyed by my three defending bombers (hits on 1).

I had TERRIBLE luck every time I played Axis & Allies: War at Sea with our historical gaming group in college last year. I mean, I was losing BATTLESHIPS to squadrons of like two fighters and a bomber and stuff like that. And don't even get me started on torpedoes - I swear, I never got a hit with a torpedo (only hits on a 6 on 1d6), but everytime someone shot at me with them (especially if I was fielding some stuff that was supposedly resistant to them) they end up rolling four or five 6s on six or so dice.

[NecroRebel]

I agree - my luck with the dice gods varies, but lately, in my first 4E game as a player, it hasn't been to good. In our recent (first) combat in our PbP game, everyone was rolling REALLY badly for almost the whole thing. For a while my average roll on a d20 (ignoring the two Knowledge checks I made in my first post) was something like a 6! I mean, we were having people rolling 1s and 2s all over the place, on everything from HP recovery to attacks to damage. Things are getting better though, I guess - I did just roll an 18 for initiative on 1d20+0! *Crosses fingers*

You guys actually weren't rolling too badly until the enemies started attempting to run away... Though from that point on your luck was awful. For 3 rounds, a group of 5 people were attempting, and failing, to kill a pair of elves, one of which was at exactly 1 hp and the other at 14, who were running away, so the party got +2 to hit them, but they were just constantly rolling 1 or 2 under the amount they needed to hit. In truth, the guy at 1 hp only died because I changed rtg's actions a bit so he ran to get in range with a power rather than using his sling (a power which he hit exactly the enemy's defense), and the guy at 14 hp actually got away with 9 after the party Warlord managed to land his last opportunity attack.

I'm hoping they start to get better rolls, though, because had the elves stood and fought the party might have lost some members, and that was an equal-level encounter. If they keep rolling low, the level+ battles will probably end their lives

[RTGoodman]

You guys actually weren't rolling too badly until the enemies started attempting to run away...

Yeah, but that seemed like most of the battle! Looking at my rolls, I'd estimate probably about an average of 8 or so - I got a couple of 16s and 20, but I had two or three 2s and a handful of 3s-8s. My high rolls, fortunately, were on my encounter and daily powers, so at least they weren't wasted. I'm hopin' this next one'll go a bit better for us, though.

[NecroRebel]

Yeah, but that seemed like most of the battle! Looking at my rolls, I'd estimate probably about an average of 8 or so - I got a couple of 16s and 20, but I had two or three 2s and a handful of 3s-8s. My high rolls, fortunately, were on my encounter and daily powers, so at least they weren't wasted. I'm hopin' this next one'll go a bit better for us, though.

True, they did try to run away after about 3 rounds of combat, and then we had a couple days where hardly anyone posted, so it did actually take more than half the encounter between when they were trying to run away and when they all died or got away.

I do feel a bit sorry for you, though, because you were consistently rolling the worst in a group that was consistently rolling bad Truth be told, though, I'm more than a little surprised that several players decided to burn dailies on that fight, as I did not think it would be that difficult at all

[mangosta71]

First session in my first 4th ed game, I rolled three 1's in a row while trying to scale a tower. I'm just glad I was on the ground so I didn't have far to fall.

[Turcano]

This thread exists because of this thread. Just look at the attack rolls. Just look at them! Ignore the way we get out of initiative order, that's not the point. The point is the attack rolls.

The dice-rolling program on these boards sucks the big one. in the Mage Slayer run, one-third of my d20 rolls were 1s.

[Tam_OConnor]

Star Wars, Serenity system, my PCs were running a blockade.

Most of the party's in a massively over-armed transport (standard loadout: one fixed laser cannon. Their loadout: the original cannon converted into a turret, a souped-up laser turret in the rear and a concussion missile launcher), flown by the group's barely competent auxiliary pilot. The group's hotshot pilot was in a TIE Defender, in all of its glory.

The opposition: two squadrons of TIE Fighters, launched from two Nebulon-B Frigates (who were too far away to meaningfully engage) and a prototype missile boat, whose orders are to engage only if they slip past the TIEs.

Early missile launches take out a good chunk of the TIE Fighters. Eventually, it ends up so the transport is booking with seven TIEs on its tail, while the Defender pilot dogfights with ten. Rolls have been average all around (excepting a missile fired without a lock that somehow hit).

In the dogfight, our ace pilot (as in, Rogue Squadron good) starts nearly fumbling his Pilot rolls, and the TIEs rip through his shielding at a good clip.

Meanwhile, the transport pilot is nearly maxing all of her rolls; the TIEs are having trouble with the rear turret, and it all looks peachy. And then she doesn't roll quite so amazing, and TIE Squadron Gamma more or less maxes attack and damage rolls. Translated to d20 rules, it's like all four Gamma pilots left confirm criticals in the same round.

After that round of devastation, though, the transport pilot's rolls stay good enough to get them out of danger, and the rear turret picks off the TIEs. Then the Missile Boat tries to get a lock. And fails. Utterly. Multiple times.

In summary, in that blockade run, a pilot's ability was inversely proportional to their performance. Crazy stuff.

Oh, and as to the natural 1 = lose weapon, every time our party fought a Dragon in human form (4, 5 times, altogether), they threw their weapons away violently, usually in the first few rounds. Fun times.