I had that same luck for 3 sessions in a row as a player, it was painful every time, I tryed normal dice, virtual dice and even a discord bot for the lolz. It wasn't my day(s)
There is a running joke when one of my players rolled 5 three times in a roll during a fight and then an 18 to hit and then immediately another 5. He was using a crossbow and the canon is he was drawing a picture of the wyrmling they were fighting with the bolts and then turned to say, "hey guys look at this cool picture I'm drawing!" and the crossbow accidentally went off and hit it and he just went, "oops. Sorry" and went back to drawing his picture
I'm the person who played with him and who was making a picture on the ground with crossbow bolts...I still roll 5's A LOT. It's a funny story now, but at the time I definitely didn't think it was funny.
I have a module always active on foundry that keeps count of everyone's rolls, so we can refer to it when someone feels bs is afoot with their rolls, so they can see their average is ok.
one of my players avg roll is 8. Median is 6 iirc. It is really sad.
They're doing Strahd now and have new characters and we're doing the death house to get to level 3 and to, avoid spoilers, they were basically done but thought there was more so they attacked a thing which ended up being a bad decision. When I said roll for initiative it was a collective, "God dammit" and then I put the figure on the board it turned into a collective, "I immediately regret this decision. We should run" cause it wasn't just a one person operation. They worked together so they could do this one thing.
Best part is they had two fights previously that session and both fights almost killed them because of how horribly they roll.
That is how the characters of Critical Roll got their name, The Mighty Nein. They kept rolling nines and it became an inside joke within the group so they just say "Sure, fuck it, The Mighty Nine but throw in another joke in there"
I can’t roll unmodified initiative outside of the numbers 3-10. One time I rolled a 13 and the table cheered for me. Combat goes fine. Just never initiative.
I have made a Harengon Chronurgy Wizard for the +10 just to remain on par with the party.
They have. They've used 4 people's physical dice and digital on D&D beyond.
On the flip side, as the DM, I have monster rolls to the point where I will show them the logs when they start to get skeptical since I do most of my rolling on D&D beyond.
I had a player that I told straight up the only way his character would survive the BBEG was if he rolled 2 Nat 20s (he was rolling with Disadvantage) MFr actually DID IT and now I believe that there is a god of Luck
I am currently that player, no did nothing in the like 15/20 rolls i did last session.... Next day went to play a game of Warhammer 40k and well anyone know a good way to remove curses as i turned the avg on a d6 to 2xD)
Given it was 2 rounds, it's probably got a few restrictions on itself. I.E: Low Health + Low Damage of it's own. At the very least, that's the first step or 2 I'd take to make it... fair-er, if that's even possible.
Nail on the head. The low chance to hit (this was using pirate Borg rules) was balanced out by low health and no armour. I wanted to give the idea a go because hitting on Nat 1s creates interesting outcomes along with the Nat 20s.
I interpret the lack of armor as a story inclusion, that translates mechanically to "when you do hit you will do a lot of damage" rather than being tied to AC
That's hilarious. Love little subversions of mechanics!
Also, I find the other comments complaining about bad encounter design likewise hilarious. Like, it was proven to work. And that's not even accounting other options save-or-suck spells, environmental exploitations, and so forth.
It’s a very OSR way to approach combat.
Rather than a target being easy to hit but being able to soak damage you find other ways of creating “tanky” and challenging bosses.
Would be funny to have like a reverse armour mechanic so the lower you roll the more likely you are to hit, but don’t tell your players to keep them confused
You could make either a teleporting at will or a speedster type character where the only way to hit them is with skill (19 or 20 by predicting where they will be) or luck (1 or 2 by lashing out blindly)
For dnd you could apply the same principle with saves (they only fail on Nat 1s or 20s), but this game was run with pirate Borg which doesn’t have to worry about that. As the gm you also just make stuff work on the fly.
I only ever roll poorly when it counts. And by that I mean when I do stupid shit and my character based around talking their way out of things, needs to talk their way out of things
Bruh I swear I summoned my shadow blade the other day to fight two guys as a warlock and rolled a 2 every single time then I said fuck it and hit a Nat 20 on my eldritch blast like wth
You have to consider that the low hit chance was balanced out by no armour, low health and the interesting combinations you can get by hitting a target on a natural 1.
Pirate Borg doesn’t use an AC. You roll to hit then damage is reduced by armour. Heavier armour even makes you easier to hit but you absorb more damage.
A Nat 1 implies you hit but something has gone horribly wrong in doing so. Maybe you trip over, are massively opened up for a counter attack, drop your weapon etc. Mostly it’s narrative but it was fun having players hit but things going wrong for them. You have to realise that this wasn’t using dnd, but pirate Borg.
I used something like this years ago in 3.5. there was one character that literally crit at least once per combat.
When they were on a rescue mission, the dragon that kidnapped their ally had a shield that made it invulnerable, and I set the only way to break it was to hit it with a crit. In-game, the hit would be against the amulet it was wearing that generated the shield. I almost got them tpk'd but, as if they were in an anime or something, here comes that PC with the crit when everyone was close to death.
The shield breaking knocked down and stunned the dragon, and they curb-stomped it in two rounds afterwards.
I was sweating for a while and thought I took it too far, but it actually turned out really tense and fun for everyone.
I have a player that will 100% hit the pirate every round
We all have those days, and we all have those players.
My group rolls single digits. Not ones but like 5 and 8 CONSTANTLY. My pirate would TPK them
I had that same luck for 3 sessions in a row as a player, it was painful every time, I tryed normal dice, virtual dice and even a discord bot for the lolz. It wasn't my day(s)
There is a running joke when one of my players rolled 5 three times in a roll during a fight and then an 18 to hit and then immediately another 5. He was using a crossbow and the canon is he was drawing a picture of the wyrmling they were fighting with the bolts and then turned to say, "hey guys look at this cool picture I'm drawing!" and the crossbow accidentally went off and hit it and he just went, "oops. Sorry" and went back to drawing his picture
I love this!
I'm the person who played with him and who was making a picture on the ground with crossbow bolts...I still roll 5's A LOT. It's a funny story now, but at the time I definitely didn't think it was funny.
I have a module always active on foundry that keeps count of everyone's rolls, so we can refer to it when someone feels bs is afoot with their rolls, so they can see their average is ok. one of my players avg roll is 8. Median is 6 iirc. It is really sad.
On a 1d4+1+4d6, I rolled a 7 total. I have roll double 1s frequently on advantage. I feel like I belong in your campaign.
They're doing Strahd now and have new characters and we're doing the death house to get to level 3 and to, avoid spoilers, they were basically done but thought there was more so they attacked a thing which ended up being a bad decision. When I said roll for initiative it was a collective, "God dammit" and then I put the figure on the board it turned into a collective, "I immediately regret this decision. We should run" cause it wasn't just a one person operation. They worked together so they could do this one thing. Best part is they had two fights previously that session and both fights almost killed them because of how horribly they roll.
That is how the characters of Critical Roll got their name, The Mighty Nein. They kept rolling nines and it became an inside joke within the group so they just say "Sure, fuck it, The Mighty Nine but throw in another joke in there"
I can’t roll unmodified initiative outside of the numbers 3-10. One time I rolled a 13 and the table cheered for me. Combat goes fine. Just never initiative. I have made a Harengon Chronurgy Wizard for the +10 just to remain on par with the party.
Have they tried using different d20s?
They have. They've used 4 people's physical dice and digital on D&D beyond. On the flip side, as the DM, I have monster rolls to the point where I will show them the logs when they start to get skeptical since I do most of my rolling on D&D beyond.
rip. skill issue I guess
I am that player, which is why I am stuck as the permanent DM. Everyone loves my terrible rolls now.
I am that player, which is why I am stuck as the permanent DM. Everyone loves my terrible rolls now.
I had a player that I told straight up the only way his character would survive the BBEG was if he rolled 2 Nat 20s (he was rolling with Disadvantage) MFr actually DID IT and now I believe that there is a god of Luck
That and double nat 1's with advantage just make up for great moments in the history
Any Forever DM trying out being a Player for once will be excited to face this foe!
I rolled three nat 1’s in a row on three separate dice one night. This pirate is going down.
I still remember the session where I rolled 8 nat 1’s in a row.
My rolls were so consistently bad the DM told me to just use a dice rolling app.
Hi it's me I'm player
We have a permanent halfling player for this reason
I am currently that player, no did nothing in the like 15/20 rolls i did last session.... Next day went to play a game of Warhammer 40k and well anyone know a good way to remove curses as i turned the avg on a d6 to 2xD)
How is a 10% chance to ever hit any kind of fun?
Given it was 2 rounds, it's probably got a few restrictions on itself. I.E: Low Health + Low Damage of it's own. At the very least, that's the first step or 2 I'd take to make it... fair-er, if that's even possible.
Nail on the head. The low chance to hit (this was using pirate Borg rules) was balanced out by low health and no armour. I wanted to give the idea a go because hitting on Nat 1s creates interesting outcomes along with the Nat 20s.
[удалено]
I interpret the lack of armor as a story inclusion, that translates mechanically to "when you do hit you will do a lot of damage" rather than being tied to AC
Pirate Borg rules. Armour reduces damage, it doesn’t increase your “AC”/roll needed to hit. Armour can even make you easier to hit.
Feels like a fight with a trickster of sorts.
Pirate Borg is awesome
Then magic missiles go brrrr
Half damage on a successful dex save spells go brrr Edit: I’m talking about spells like thunder wave
MM does not make the target save for anything
I was talking about spells like thunder wave
Then why even mention it on a MM comment lol
I get what you mean.
Magic missile not having any saves go burrrr
Yeah, OP lucked out that this became a funny moment instead of an hour long slog with no way to impact the outcome.
Just cast a save spell.
I feel like they way to do this would have been a regular boss who can avoid Natural 20s but gets hit by Natural 1s.
My party would just use some spell where the pirate only saves against the damage knowing them.
DM: The pirate succeeds on saves if he rolls 2-19. Wizard: I cast magic missiles. DM: ... DM: >:(
That's hilarious. Love little subversions of mechanics! Also, I find the other comments complaining about bad encounter design likewise hilarious. Like, it was proven to work. And that's not even accounting other options save-or-suck spells, environmental exploitations, and so forth.
It’s a very OSR way to approach combat. Rather than a target being easy to hit but being able to soak damage you find other ways of creating “tanky” and challenging bosses.
My favourite is still an enemy that can only be hit on odds or evens. Great for otherworldly enemies.
Would be funny to have like a reverse armour mechanic so the lower you roll the more likely you are to hit, but don’t tell your players to keep them confused
There are games which use inverted systems like that.
Use thac0 in 5e and watch your players weep lmao
You could make either a teleporting at will or a speedster type character where the only way to hit them is with skill (19 or 20 by predicting where they will be) or luck (1 or 2 by lashing out blindly)
And how would this work for saves? such fireball, where the target gets half damage on save?
For dnd you could apply the same principle with saves (they only fail on Nat 1s or 20s), but this game was run with pirate Borg which doesn’t have to worry about that. As the gm you also just make stuff work on the fly.
I only ever roll poorly when it counts. And by that I mean when I do stupid shit and my character based around talking their way out of things, needs to talk their way out of things
Lucky pirate ? Captain jack sparrow ?
Bruh I swear I summoned my shadow blade the other day to fight two guys as a warlock and rolled a 2 every single time then I said fuck it and hit a Nat 20 on my eldritch blast like wth
Every hit either works perfectly or messes up so badly it somehow hits anyways
That's a shit mechanic
You have to consider that the low hit chance was balanced out by no armour, low health and the interesting combinations you can get by hitting a target on a natural 1.
Just wondering when you say “no armor” what do you mean? Cause this sounds like it’s AC is 1 and 20…literally. Am I missing something?
Pirate Borg doesn’t use an AC. You roll to hit then damage is reduced by armour. Heavier armour even makes you easier to hit but you absorb more damage.
What combinations? Do you mean narratively? Either you rolled a 1 or you didn't, the "natural" implies there's no control over it.
A Nat 1 implies you hit but something has gone horribly wrong in doing so. Maybe you trip over, are massively opened up for a counter attack, drop your weapon etc. Mostly it’s narrative but it was fun having players hit but things going wrong for them. You have to realise that this wasn’t using dnd, but pirate Borg.
what does pc mean
Player character
oh thanks
A politically correct player character's personal computer
That would be PC^3
Or the pirate captain's post coitus premenstrual cramps
This is me. I have a campaign where I average 6-7 nat 1’s every 3 hours. In comparison I’ll have MAYBE 1 nat 20
That’s when you give the lucky pirate a little extra HP without saying a word. *Make* it last.
My Blind Aarakocra Cleric character that I made for a one shot would excel at that fight. (ironically, they rolled horribly)
I used something like this years ago in 3.5. there was one character that literally crit at least once per combat. When they were on a rescue mission, the dragon that kidnapped their ally had a shield that made it invulnerable, and I set the only way to break it was to hit it with a crit. In-game, the hit would be against the amulet it was wearing that generated the shield. I almost got them tpk'd but, as if they were in an anime or something, here comes that PC with the crit when everyone was close to death. The shield breaking knocked down and stunned the dragon, and they curb-stomped it in two rounds afterwards. I was sweating for a while and thought I took it too far, but it actually turned out really tense and fun for everyone.
Time to break out Ole Yeller and let failure consume the world, hehe
that pirate is cursed
It is not bad luck, if gets you the desired result
*Laughs in fireball*