Lina, you have not previously shared that link before, and I love it.
I do appreciate that all of our characters have special interests aside from running the kingdom. We are all beholden to forces greater than ourselves, and all by deliberate choice.
Oh also
EVERYBODY LEVELS UP!!!!!!!!
Meneas Level Up Information: Cavalier 5
HP up to 46 (6 from HD, 1 from Con, 1 from favored class)
+ 1 rank Bluff
+1 rank Diplomacy
+2 ranks Intimidate
+1 rank Ride
+1 rank Sense Motive
+1 rank Survival
+1 rank Handle Animal
+1 rank Linguistics (Added Hallit to languages known)
Gained Class Ability: Banner: At 5th level, a cavalier’s banner becomes a symbol of inspiration to his allies and companions. As long as the cavalier’s banner is clearly visible, all allies within 60 feet receive a +2 morale bonus on saving throws against fear and a +1 morale bonus on attack rolls made as part of a charge. At 10th level, and every five levels thereafter, these bonuses increase by +1. The banner must be at least Small or larger and must be carried or displayed by the cavalier or his mount to function.
Useful stuff, that.
Veil Level Up information
Gains +1 SR
Gains DR 5/cold iron
+8 HP (+3 Con, +5 from HD)
Weapon Focus (Hooves) feat
+1 rank to Stealth
Happy Holidays Everyone!
Signy Inquisitor Level 4
+1 BAB
+1 FORT, WILL
+8 HP (+5 HD, +2 CON, +1 FCB
+1 Stern Gaze
+1 Track
2nd Level Spells: Invisibility, Honeyed Tongue
5th Level Feat: Drunken Sing-Along:
With a raised tankard and catchy tune, you can get large groups of people on your side.
Prerequisite(s): Diplomacy 1 rank, Performance (sing) 1 rank.
Benefit(s): While in a tavern or other drinking establishment, you can change the attitude of the patrons from unfriendly to indifferent or from indifferent to friendly by spending 10 minutes engaging in a group sing-along. For the following 24 hours, your attempts to gather information in that tavern take only 2d6 minutes if the patrons are indifferent or 1d4 minutes if the patrons are friendly. You must be able to speak the same language as the majority of the patrons to use this feat.
Special: You can use this feat with a large crowd of people outside of a tavern if you supply at least 5 gp worth of alcohol to the group.
Skill Ranks +7
+1 Diplomacy, K Arcana, K Dungeoneering, K Local, K Planes, Perception, Stealth.
Background Skills +2
+1 Perform Sing, Perform String
Oh, I forgot that we get feats at 5th. I'll have to figure out what I want to invest in there.
Good Yule, merry Christmas, happy Hannukah, and all the holidays of the season, as may suit all and some!
Hmm. For skills, Lina will mostly continue to play to her established strengths this level – I thought about putting a rank in Kn. (dungeoneering), but if Signy’s got that covered, I’ll put a rank in Use Magic Device for when we start running into weird magical apparatus and stuff that’s not on anyone’s spell list.
For feats, this time around I’ll go with Ritual Hex and, for her magus bonus feat, Craft Wondrous Item, which mostly gets the last bits of the mechanical side of Lina’s build up and running. This Death Star is fully operational! ;)
New spells from leveling up will be mathematical curse and umbral weapon. Just because.
@Meneas: I’m all for overkill, and for us all trying to make more charge attacks to get the benefit of your banner, but have you considered one of the variant banners? Given how often we seem to get drawn into slugfests around a single monster, I can’t help but think the ‘knave standard’ might be handy, and, oh, the possibilities for what Meneas’ might look like, as someone who’s deeply unimpressed by the dominant branch of his birth family! :)
I did consider it, yeah. I wasn't sure I wanted to, but the flanking might be useful.
A couple of build thing regarding Signy.
@Lina: Signy did put a point into K Dungeoneering since it's a class skill. However Signy gets no INT bonus on skills so she's always going to be underwhelming outside of Monster Lore. She can add her WIS bonus specifically to identifying creature strengths and weaknesses.
@Meneas: Signy will be liking flanking when it comes up for her. Sanctified Slayer gives her sneak attack dice, actually starting this level, though I forgot to include it in my level up summary. On the other hand, Signy is also primarily an archer, so it's hard to say how much you might want to take this into consideration.
Since I had a bit of free time due to the holidays for this level up, I did some thinking/planning around further advancement. Signy stillhas a couple, maybe 3 archery feats left to take, but they're mostly out of reach at the moment due to BAB and other requirements at this time. This level is a feat that Signy simply must have because she is who she is, but I'm also thinking about secondary specialities she might pick up.
I considered an Intimidation build, but the seems more Meneas's bailiwick. Besides, I just don't imagine Signy to be physically or temperamentally scary at all. However, if Meneas isn't going to develop that ability, Signy could mechanically speaking do Intimidation really well.
I also looked at non-magical healing as a possibility. With the Healing Hands and Signature Skill feats she could be very good at healing. Inquisitors don't do magical healing well, so it would need to be that route. However, is Brental committed to taking care of healing? It's not so easy for Druids as Clerics, if Brental is only taking on the role because he feels obliged to, Signy could do it instead.
Otherwise Signy could keep investing in Stealth for a bit more roguing about and some sniping when the opportunity comes along.
Sense Motive or Perception are also good Signature Skill options for Signy. Sense Motive along with Snake Style would help with Initiative and AC, making melee more of an option for her so easier switching from ranged if called for. Perception for the obvious benefits, and maybe Blind Fight and the Bloodhound spell so nothing can hide or sneak up on us?
Any thoughts or suggestions anyone?
I wasn't planning on spending feats on intimidation, though I do have maxed ranks for Meneas' intimidation. I think I will take Knave's Banner, though.
Hm, I took a look at possible Intimidation builds. They're either too feat intensive for an Inquisitor, or they don't really deliver much for what they cost. So much for that idea.
I wasn't planning on spending feats on intimidation, though I do have maxed ranks for Meneas' intimidation. I think I will take Knave's Banner, though.
Oh, by all means, take whichever banner feels more your speed, and if that’s the normal one, I’ll try to be more of the fun sort of elf rather than the serene, contemplative type, and try to charge around a bit more. :)
What do they call it, a Zerg rush? (I’ve never played Starcraft.)
A couple of build thing regarding Signy.
@Lina: Signy did put a point into K Dungeoneering since it's a class skill. However Signy gets no INT bonus on skills so she's always going to be underwhelming outside of Monster Lore. She can add her WIS bonus specifically to identifying creature strengths and weaknesses.
I’ll keep that in mind, and see if I can see my way to splashing some more ranks (dungeoneering)’s way later on, if we think we’re likely to need it. For now, though, I imagine just having someone trained is likely enough.
Longer term, for Lina, Ritual Hex will let her try some hexes out before settling on a few for the long haul, and she might dabble in the elven combat style feats, or possible some of the things that chain off Arcane Strike. Expect a bunch of hexes and magus arcana down the line, mainly.
Owl Style and its later dependents looks like it might be fun, if one wants some sneaky stuff, and has feats to spare compared to skill points, but Lina's pretty starved for both if I want to get her as witchy as I would like.
Nah, flanking is really useful, too. Especially since two of us have/will have Sneak Attacks.
Would it be alright with everyone if I threw some dice for the next kingdom turn over the next couple of days?
On a related note, I know you're hugely busy, Rackal, so no pressure, but when you have a moment and the energy, could you please bring the kingdom hex map up to the front on Roll20?
I have a vague idea of sort of jotting down a schematic representation of what we're building where for ease of reference.
Hope everyone's been doing well as we get ready to fall off the edge into the new year! :)
Starting Treasury: 19 BP
Bit of a waste of a natural 20, but since we had no unrest going into this turn, BP +1
Pay Consumption (0)
Narratively: As the first year of Helikia reaches the end of a somewhat turbulent winter, its leaders' decisive action to deal with vandals and squatters mean that things have quite settled down by the time the equinox comes around and the first days of spring. The first blooms are out, to Lina's delight, in ample time for the eponymous Gozren festival, and between that and Jhod's plans for Planting Week for Erastilians, Brental has more than enough to keep ecumenically busy.
Claim Hexes (1): Rickety Bridge Hex (-1 BP, Plains Hex, River)
Build Terrain Improvements (2)
Roads: Rickety Bridge Hex (-2 BP)
Farms: Rickety Bridge Hex (-2 BP)
Create and Improve Settlements (1)
Herbalist (10 BP, +1 Loyalty, +1 Stability)
House (3 BP, first House per turn doesn't count vs. building limit)
Holiday: Firstbloom / Planting Week
Narratively: The lengthening and warming days, while still only edging toward the growing season, are promising, and offer quite some possibilities for useful projects. Lina is able to organize the repair of the rotten bridge that put Meneas' rotten kinsman in such peril, and Planting Week is a most suitable time to open up the environs for new farms thereabouts. Closer to home, work is completed on the houses needed after the bout of vandalism, and, as part of checking on her own plots scattered around Limen, Lina (and the friends she sweeps along in the wake of her chaotic activity) get to know some few gardeners, healers, and herbalists beginning to settle in town.
13 + 4 BP from the mines & sawmill = +17 BP
Narratively: With spring proper still to come, it's woodcutting and the mines that do much of the heavy lifting of Helikia's economy through Pharast, right now, but there is still some trade in what can be spared from the last harvest, ice fishing, and the newest fangberry wine, for example.
Narratively: Mercifully, given the work involved in getting the planting done, along with the appropriate festivals, and any number of other projects, no huge disturbances interrupt any of that/them. Things seem to be getting off to enough of a good start that Lina thinks it might be a good idea to build granaries soon to build up reserves and make it easier for nearby farmers to trade, and maybe a more suitable estate to house her and her friends. The dream is a castle, of course, but that's still far off, and even a fancy villa is indulgent enough that even a weird witch was able to tell that it would be an awkward project alongside rehousing the victims of vandalism rather more humbly than that.
Ending Treasury: 19 BP
Ending Unrest: 0
Meneas would support a Granary over a villa. We don't have enough nobles (other than and other officers) to make that more than a vanity choice, in his opinion.
Hi all. I want to apologize for my extended absence. First things first, I fully intend to keep up with the campaign if you’ll still have me. Second, I’ll offer an explanation. (Posting this to all of my currently active campaigns).
I wish I could say that there was one big thing, but instead it was a lot of small to medium things. Physical and mental health problems, almost 20% of my waking hours spent traveling in the last month and a half, some work-related woes, the stress of the holidays, internet outages, writer’s block, etc. In the few times that I had sufficient time and energy to even look at the Paizo boards, I found myself overwhelmed by the high number of new posts and was experiencing terrific guilt and anxiety about having missed so much. I have been composing this message for a couple of days now, trying to provide a semblance of apology.
And now I am trying to catch up in earnest.
Thank you for your patience with me, especially those who reached out here or on Discord. I tried my best to respond as I was able, but I know I missed some of you.
Heya Brental! Welcome back and no worries! Things have been slow on the boards for a few weeks now, so I only began to wonder what might be up in the last few days. I'm glad you're alright and everything's okay!
Ooof, I’m sorry to hear that things have been tough for the past little while, Brental. Something seems to be up in the air for a bunch of us, more than the usual holiday stress.
I’m glad to hear that things seem to be looking up enough that you can brave the boards again, and no apologies needed! I hope the anxiety and guilt beggar off, and that things only get better for you.
On a lighter note:
Meneas would support a Granary over a villa. We don't have enough nobles (other than and other officers) to make that more than a vanity choice, in his opinion.
And what’s wrong with a little vanity? A bit more room so we’re not always under each others’ feet and have less chance of awkward encounters with Kesten and such like might be nice. Or, just, we can chalk it up to elves and humans having different ideas about what counts as civilized living and mod cons. :p
I might post a bit of nonsense in character about the festival in gameplay, just because, but I’m happy to press on whenever everyone’s happy to.
Welcome back, Brental! Hope things have been improving for you.
Thank you, all. Slow and steady is the right road to recovery.
Also, it looks like Brental should level up!
Brental: Druid (Green Faith Initiate) 5
HP: 33 --> 41
Spells: I GET LEVEL 3 SPELLS, MOFOS! *ahem* Summoning is going to be much more feasible, and there are so many things I can do now.
Feat: It took me a while going back and forth on this before I settled on Natural Spell. The other frontrunner was Summon Guardian Spirit, which is really interesting and might be better applicable at Level 7 (but will face stuff competition then as well). But now I can wild shape and cast spells instead of one or the other. But rather than leaning into summoning, I'm going to keep on focusing on Brental's melee with a side of support.
Skills (7): Handle Animal (+7), Knowledge (nature) (+10), Knowledge (religion) +2, Linguistics (+11), Perception (+9), Ride (+7), & Survival (+14)
Languages (2 new): Ignan and Skald. Brental has been studying with and paying attention to Signy and wanted to have another useful language with which to converse with her. And Ignan seems useful both for summoning and for deepening his connection to Salazar's sword. I can now speak all four elemental languages!
Can anyone tell/remember what direction(s) Brental might be building towards?
Responding to a few other things.
I also looked at non-magical healing as a possibility. With the Healing Hands and Signature Skill feats she could be very good at healing. Inquisitors don't do magical healing well, so it would need to be that route. However, is Brental committed to taking care of healing? It's not so easy for Druids as Clerics, if Brental is only taking on the role because he feels obliged to, Signy could do it instead.
Healer's Hands, Signature Skill, and Incredible Healer are all amazing feats for a party without a dedicated healer. Brental keeps a CLW in the tank for wandless emergencies, along with some wands of CLW, and has a healer's kit and a decent Heal check on which he can take 10 to top us off without using too many resources. But I doubt he'll be investing in it much more. So if you want to move in that direction, I highly encourage it!
I don't have too many other specific recommendations for anyone right now, but Brental and Vod can start taking some teamwork feats if it would benefit the cavalier and/or the inquisitor. The druid and his mastodon have a tendency to get into flanking as well, so although we can't qualify for outflank yet it is on the list.
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That was a great kingdom turn for us. Thanks, Lina.
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I need to think a bit more on Vod's new feat before I finalize his update. There are several worthwhile options. Blind-Fight, Disruptive Companion, Intercept Blow, Spell Sponge, and Tenacious Hunter (for later) are the most exciting, but the fundamentals like Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Bull Rush, and Improved Overrun can't be overlooked either. Even Great Fortitude, Iron Will, and Lightning Reflexes are good on an animal companion.
I'll get a gameplay post up this evening!
Shoot, I think I still need to choose a feat for Meneas...
She also serves on the "best beer" judging panel. The runaway winner is a simple, medium bodied ale, bottom fermented and flavored with a hint of raspberries. The brewer, a farmer named Naes Bentles receives a brass-capped stirring paddle to keep until the competition next year, but mostly it's about bragging rights.
*Is hopelessly lost.*
Oh no, a tasting! Lina has nowhere near the ranks in either Knowledge (nobbiness) or, uh, (local?) – whatever it is that covers that etiquette – not to embarrass herself. *Swirls wine far too vigorously, downs an unnecessarily large gulp out of nerves.* “Ah, yes. Lovely carmine appearance, good long nose with a hint of pencil shavings, lovely, er, croquembouche, with hints of chocolate and a smooth, creamy finish. All in all, lopsided in the best possible way, very well connected and expressive. Love it.”
...
I know nothing about tasting cultures that would allow me to roleplay someone who knows what she’s talking about, but on the other hand, since Lina’s a jumped-up commoner trying to fake her way into how she imagines toffs live, that’s a positive advantage. ;)
Hehe, actually I screwed up the post in its details. Ales are top fermented (which is what I should have written), while lagers are bottom fermented.
I was very broadly describing a Lambic style of beer from Belgium, which is sometimes flavored with fruit. If you've ever seen a beer called Framboise at the store, that's what it is. A Lambic flavored with raspberries.
Stiiiill catching up.
Lambics are DELICIOUS. A lot of wine-drinkers I know enjoy lambics even if they dislike most other beers. Polyfrequencies approves this post.
Vod update! I figured I'd kit out my expectations for his growth to help determine where he's going.
Spoiling planned growth a bit, my current plan (depending on story beats) is for Brental to take a level in mammoth rider somewhere around level 10 (so at the start of Book 4, probably), which will make Vod ! Just like the creature entry in the Bestiary.
There are many shenanigans one can get up to with a huge companion with all that reach, but my planned progression is for essentially to have this wooly mammoth be a walking, trampling, anticaster tank. So his 5th-level feat is going to be...Disruptive Companion! This opens up the whole Disruptive line, including such goodies as sunder blessing and spellbreaker. To add insult to injury, Vod has to take tenacious hunter and blind-fight just in case someone tries to go invisible again like that nasty will-o'-wisp. Forcing any spellcasters within reach to make increasingly difficult concentration checks to cast defensively and then attacking them whenever they fail is going to be delightful.
And a skill rank into Perception, meeting the minimum Perception requirement for Tenacious Hunter. The next two skill ranks will go into Stealth. And then...invisible enemies BEWARE!
Oooh, exciting! If you get a howdah, we can do an elf and oliphaunt bit like in The Return of the King film, only with them on the same side. ;)
On the Stealth note, I love Lina dearly, but I suspect she’s easily distracted enough that she could easily lose track of a literal elephant in the room, especially if Vod starts practicing to be extra sneaky. I can just imagine the scene now. XD
Re: jousting, and rites and ceremonies. Huh. If folks want to continue to dabble in exotic weapons or such – come to think of it, I think Brental’s the only one of us who isn’t proficient in all sorts of poky-slicey-bludgeony things – I could see about finding a way to add bestow weapon proficiency to Lina’s spellbook. I’m not sure if Jhod will eventually loosen up a bit, but us pestering him for spells probably isn’t going to help, not that that’s going to stop your resident Head Witch in Charge. ;)
I do wonder what Lina thinks about how Helikia’s druidry is shaping up. I think she’d pique herself on “rendering unto Caesar, etc.,” and happily let everyone do their own thing with gods and spirits and all (she’ll probably want to persuade an elven cleric or two to settle in town, eventually, but that’s just for her own sense of what culture looks like), but while she probably won’t say anything, she might raise a brow at how folks around here really seem to like collecting heads. OOC, I love it. Very Roquepertuse sanctuary vibes.
Who has two thumbs and the worst proficiencies in the party? This druid does! But I will survive by the power of my glorious cache of armaments (and skulls) claimed from the corpses of my enemies! I mean...
Hmmm, which direction is Brental's alignment moving again?
The good news for Lina is that once Vod is huge, his stealth check with huge size accounted for will probably be 3 (class skill) + 3 (ranks) + 1 (Dex) - 8 (size) for a whopping -1. But the image of a 13-foot-tall behemoth of a tusked creature playing hide-and-seek with the resident Head Witch in Charge (and having a decent chance of winning) is delightful.
I had to look up to the Roquepertuse sanctuary and will be reading more into it.
The game seems to have stalled, was anyone going to participate in the joust other than Brental? If not did anyone else have anything they would like to do during the ceremony?
I'll give it until tomorrow then move us forward.
I think maybe we’re all just maybe a teense worried about dragging each other into our own character’s drama?
So, for future reference, Lina’s always ready to go along with anything magical, alchemical, or plant-y, and will happily provide a sparring partner – on foot, anyway.
(She’ll probably give the jousting a miss for fear of embarrassing herself (until she gets around to putting at least a rank in Ride), but she’d be thrilled to preside, provide decorous encouragement to anyone eager to catch the eye of the Lady of Helikia, and present prizes.)
While Lina’s really leaning into the whole witch angle, her skill-set and magic is really quite bard-ly, and she’s both spoony and hungry enough for affirmation to be easily dragged into general bardly shenanigans, so long as she gets to play the role of a fine lady as she understands it. And a perky goth, or whatever the botanical equivalent of that is.
* * *
There are two quick things I’d like to add that I’ll try posting about in-character by early tomorrow afternoon:
1) After the festival proper, Lina would probably like to take her Ritual Hex for a whirl. (I have ideas ;) )
2) How long did it take to organize the festival and actually hold it? If it’s been about 5 days since we left to the lizardfolk, I think the orders Meneas put in for us at the trading post should be coming in, and if there are any promising painters passing through, Lina would be tempted to commission a portrait or two in her fancy new duds. And official representations of the closest members of her council would also be fun, if any are so inclined. :)
Oh, I was thinking about the festival as a "one and done" kind of posting situation rather than ongoing. Signy won't be jousting, not her kind of thing at all.
Today is not the day for me to be able to think of anything remotely clever for further posts, too much to do already packed in. I might be able to tomorrow, but I'm also fine with moving on today if you prefer Rackal.
Meneas will, I suppose, join the joust. As with Signy, I had assumed it was a one and done thing.
I also remembered what feat I wanted - Improved Initiative, so I can get more sneak attacks (hopefully).
I think perhaps we can try to otherwise respond to each other's posts. It's sometimes difficult to think of hooks for other players/GM to respond to, of course.
I didn't figure on actually running the joust, as such encounters can be time consuming, and it seems unimportant in the long run to know who won.
The last thing I figured on was the conflagration, as I alluded to in my last gameplay post. But since the GM had been the one to propose that (in Brental's voice), I figured I wouldn't go through with it just yet in case she had anything particular in mind. But Brental (or Lina) can set it aflame and have a good old fire dance.
I figure we can also do things asynchronously and stitch things up in our heads. A bit of Rashomon (confession: I've never seen it) probably won't hurt anyone. ;)
I'm happy to move along if everyone's ready to.
Oops, put this in the wrong thread the first time around:
Oooh! Maybe Signy could be a hooded knight some day? She'd think that sounds so badass! Even if Meneas does occasionally creep her out, mostly when he laughs.
Lina would be able to find a few decent painters coming through town if wish would like to commission them... as for a price... maybe ten gold per portrait of a quality that a noble wouldn't be too embarrassed about displaying. If you're looking for something of higher quality 100 gold per portrait. That would be truly noble and outstanding quality.
It has taken about two weeks to set up the festival.
Oops, put this in the wrong thread the first time around:
Oooh! Maybe Signy could be a hooded knight some day? She'd think that sounds so badass! Even if Meneas does occasionally creep her out, mostly when he laughs.
He'd be willing to teach her, if she's willing to learn! He is quite strange, though, and she might become strange if she engages with it.
Yeah, Meneas sure is. He's going to get carpal tunnel from all that finger flexing. I suppose there is room for debate on the question of whether Signy is already strange, but I doubt she'd become more strange.
The big pull for her is the horsemanship, which she's into now. It used to be Aldori dueling, but that interest is fading for her at this point. She tends to pick things up and put them down later for something new. Most likely she wouldn't be a great hooded knight in the long run, but for a while she would be totally ride or die for it. (see what I did there? Hehe).
I forget if I ever mentioned this, but one of the first characters that I ever posted on these boards was a gnome inquisitor of Ng who would have made a fine (though unconventional) Hooded Knight.
Rithmomachia is also on my bucket list of things to try one day, but chess with more math is a hard sell to most of my friends and relations, for some reason. :p
As this scene is playing out, I can’t help but imagine the idea that it could go something like in The Dream of Rhonabwy:
And Arthur sat within the carpet, and Owain the son of Urien was standing before him. "Owain," said Arthur, "wilt thou play chess?"
"I will, Lord," said Owain. And the red youth brought the chess for Arthur and Owain; golden pieces and a board of silver. And they began to play.
And while they were thus, and when they were best amused with their game, behold … there came a young page … to the place where the Emperor and Owain were playing at chess.
And the youth saluted Owain. And Owain marvelled that the youth should salute him and should not have saluted the Emperor Arthur. And Arthur knew what was in Owain's thought. And he said to Owain, "Marvel not that the youth salutes thee now, for he saluted me erewhile; and it is unto thee that his errand is." Then said the youth unto Owain, "Lord, is it with thy leave that the young pages and attendants of the Emperor harass and torment and worry thy Ravens? And if it be not with thy leave, cause the Emperor to forbid them."
"Lord," said 0wain, "thou hearest what the youth says; if it seem good to thee, forbid them from my Ravens."
"Play thy game," said he. Then the youth returned to the tent.
It's late for me, so anyone who wants to ask questions can and should.
It's not something like meanness or grumpiness. I'm convinced it's a flawed bot that doesn't produce random results. Every couple of months I'll hit a trough of a couple of weeks to a month where I roll about a 6 or below half to most of the time. Conversely, I've never had a corresponding streak of good dice.
I've been playing here for a little over seven years and it's persistent. A player with a background in statistics in a different game actually did an analysis of my rolls a couple of years back when I was in one of my more prolonged troughs. It's a real thing, not selection bias:
Kaska of Red Talons wrote:
It's just amazing. How much of a bonus do I need to pile up before I can hit reliably? That crit attempt was made at a friggin' +17. For almost a month now less than 1 in 5 of my rolls will even break a 10 at all. I've about had it with the dice roller on these boards.
I actually checked up your numbers. In the last 50 posts you rolled the 1d20 45 times and only got 13 times a number higher than 10.
According to the Poisson Distribution the likelihood of such event is only 1%, and summing up the probability of that happening even less times, you get a 2.2% probability of that happening 13 or less times :O
Oh yeah, the RNG here is definitely weird. I'm struggling to find effective documentation on what sort of methods they use. I doubt that it's true random in any case. It's possible, of course, but it's unclear whether there was effort put into achieving that in this message board. Based on this, I don't think that it was.
I feel your pain. I don't think that it's targeted necessarily, but it might be worth bringing up on the support board. I wouldn't describe myself as a probability wonk, but during my (now-abandoned) PhD program I took far too many statistics classes. So I know some things.
*Puts on her “Trust me, I took a math course at uni once, honest!” t-shirt.* Yeah, like Brental said, I’m pretty sure it's considerably less random than even one’s average pseudo-random number generator. If I had to guess, I think I would that it points to something less freaky than ideal, like some weird decimal place in a timestamp or meteorological data or whatever.
… I never said I did well at math in uni. :/
I haven’t actually tracked the rolls, but I’ve got a crazy idea that one of my characters does better on Knowledge checks than in combat, and I wonder if that’s because when we’re in investigation rather than swinging swords and all, I end up posting at times when whatever the dice roller’s pointing at is more favourable.
Incidentally, according to the fellow behind xkcd, apparently the IEEE standard random number is 4? I say we blame the modrons/inevitables/axiomites.
Meneas gestures for patience. "A greenhouse isn't necessary yet." He says. "We have more practical matters to consider first, at any rate." There's resigned amusement in his tone.
Also, thank you, Meneas. I’m not sure if we’ve established a chief executioner (Kesten, maybe, if push comes to shove, since he’s Warden?), but you’ve definitely got the job of Lord High Buzzkill if you want it. ;)
You joke, but Meneas is absolutely willing to be executioner.
Besides, he's only sometimes the pragmatic one.
I don't need a truly and perfectly random dice bot. Something that could plausibly mimic randomness would be fine. I wouldn't sweat the fine-grained details.
I doubt it's an individually targeted problem, and I know of other people who have similar problems with dice here. I also know a couple of people who have done what I've mostly done eventually in response, switch toward full caster characters that roll far fewer dice. I don't prefer full casters but at least they tend to force others to roll in response to them rather than doing it themselves. When these slumps come they are not game specific, it happens across all my games.
I've rolled a couple more d20s since my last post and the results were a 3 and a 1.
EDIT: Turns out there is a dice rolling thread in "off topic". Just rolled a sample of 20.
1d20 ⇒ 1
1d20 ⇒ 18
1d20 ⇒ 19
1d20 ⇒ 10
1d20 ⇒ 16
1d20 ⇒ 2
1d20 ⇒ 13
1d20 ⇒ 8
1d20 ⇒ 14
1d20 ⇒ 10
1d20 ⇒ 8
1d20 ⇒ 3
1d20 ⇒ 6
1d20 ⇒ 3
1d20 ⇒ 6
1d20 ⇒ 3
1d20 ⇒ 6
1d20 ⇒ 1
1d20 ⇒ 11
1d20 ⇒ 16
You might have already done this, but the quick and dirty stats there are a mean of 8.7 (as opposed to 10.5) and a standard deviation of 5.8 (as opposed to 5.9), plus a median of 8 (instead of 10.5). Now a sample of 20 is not a great way of determining the true randomness of the system, but for this sample it is definitely skewing low (though the variance is relatively intact).
One of the fallacies of our understanding of probability is that, for a d20 for instance, there is always a 5% chance of getting any given number on the die. Over time, the distribution should approximate something resembling the normal curve. But I have definitely called my physical dice cursed and set them aside after getting too many low rolls. It's absurd, of course--rolling a 1 one time has no effect on what will roll the next time, or any of the thousand times after that, because each roll is independent and the probabilities are static. Of course, that assumes a perfectly random system.
On these boards, there are thousands of d20 rolls happening every day. It's possible the "random numbers" are instead based on a preloaded predetermined sequence (like the old random number books). But however the numbers are being generated, the question is: how are those numbers being distributed? Is it alias-specific, profile-specific, or site-wide? I imagine that the distribution of d20 rolls site-wide is approximately normal, if you were to compile every d20 result since the earliest days of the feature. But I can imagine there would be problems if there was an attempt to enforce normal distributions to ever-smaller components of the system. Given the way that probability works in large systems, there will be a certain number of profiles, aliases, etc. that just...don't roll very well. It's possible (though statistically improbable) to have a character who only ever rolls 1s.
If I was better at coding, I could probably write a script to scrape the d20 rolls of my aliases and throw them into a spreadsheet to do an analysis. But I'm not and doing it manually would be time-consuming for minimal payoff, so *shrugs*.
I doubt distribution is taking place at the alias level, as I mentioned when this happens it's across all my active aliases. Consider the set of rolls a posted as a snippet of the rolls I've having for about the past two weeks, barely ever breaking a 10.
It will be somewhere between any day now and a couple of weeks when it ends. It rarely goes beyond about a month. Afterward I'll go back to something about like a normal distribution for two or three months before it happens again. Also, like I mentioned, the streaks are never clusters of high rolls over a period.
Today I've rolled in two games this morning, adding a 4 and an 8 to the 1 and 3 I rolled after posting yesterday.
And yes, it is with the bounds of probability that I could be among the top 4% or 5% of worst rollers, but I'm betting the probability that the roller bot is crap is a lot higher. There is after all, some degree of probability I'll get hit by a meteor on my way to the optometrist in a couple of hours. In fact there is some probability of anything that is at all possible happening.
A predictable and persistent (I've been rolling here for 7 years) pattern of very unlikely events is possible, but at a certain point it doesn't carry much explanatory power compared to lousy design.
In non-probability and better design, I saw this posted on Reddit the other day. It's an absolutely gorgeous map.