A player who almost always crits


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I play with a group where the DMing duties get passed around every now and then, but no matter who has the job they always face the problem of our one player who almost always rolls crits, no matter what d20 he uses.

What ends up happening is that in order to create an encounter that he doesn't blow through a monster in one hit every round (doesn't matter if it's level 1 or 15+) the monsters have to be beefed up to the point where they can easily kill everyone else in the group. Boss fights have ended in three rounds or less. Everyone else in the group feels pretty much useless most of the time, like we're just there to keep things busy until he can vaporize them. There's generally not much challenge, so not much drama.

He's played a dwarf ranger, and the two weapon fighting style with a dwarven waraxe only made it worse. He played a half-orc inquisitor and I had to change the racial proficiency with greataxes and falchions for the sake of balance, convinced him to go ranged but heads still exploded. Now he's playing a dwarf gunslinger and oh-dear-gods-the-musket-does-how-much?

Once we gave him a cursed weapon where every crit he rolled would be a fumble. He had no way of knowing it was cursed. Only two people knew what the weapon did, me and the DM. The topic was never discussed while he was in the same building, yet when he equipped the "badass" new axe, it was his worst night of rolls ever, never came close to rolling a crit. The force is strong with this one.

We've watched him. He rattles the die around in his hand, he tosses it into the air, it rolls, and 9 times out of 10 it's a 19 or 20. And if it's not that, it's not too far off the mark. We've made him use a different die. We've made him use our own d20s that have never given up a 20 to save our lives. Same result. We made him use a dice rolling app I have on my ipod and that brought his rolls back down to a normal level. He still hit, but he wasn't doing 4x damage. It made our DM happy, but our high roller wasn't pleased with not being able to use real dice.

Any tips on how to deal with a player with unreal dice rolling luck that will keep him and any DM happy?


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Tell him to go play craps in Las Vegas, I doubt he'll bother playing RPGs once he finds out what his dice-fu can do there!

Shadow Lodge

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Elementals and Oozes :) they are both immune to crits.

Scarab Sages

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Skaz wrote:
We've watched him. He rattles the die around in his hand, he tosses it into the air, it rolls, and 9 times out of 10 it's a 19 or 20. And if it's not that, it's not too far off the mark. We've made him use a different die. We've made him use our own d20s that have never given up a 20 to save our lives. Same result.

I spent last weekend playing with a player who felt his dice betrayed him when he rolled a 15.

His lowest roll of the night.


Yeah, he gambles. Always walks out of the riverboat with more money than he went in with. I have no idea why he doesn't do it more often. With his luck he could probably go pro.


least it's better than a player who rolls 1's on a regular basis, 5 or 6 out of ten rolls, lol but then the gm in the group just wants to play as a pc, so gm duties get handed to the fumbling player, but do to group size he still plays his pc till we get more players, lol kid you not the guy starts rolling 17, 18, 19, and 20's on regular basis, where before he couldn't roll a 20 to save his life. And yeah, the fumbler is me, and would even show the roll to the other two guys in the group we all lol'ed so hard. They even wanted me to start keeping track of my 1 rolls before I switched it was so sad how often I kept fumbling

Shadow Lodge

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Put in things with fortification armor. Or even better, elementals and oozes. You could also throw in things with misfortune to make him reroll crits.


If he is really just a very luck guy, ask him to play a god wizard instead of a DPS character. He will be even more powerful but a god wizard shares the spotlight and wins because he uses the party. If he just has 15-20 crit range and 4 attacks a round then it is expect that he will get a crit almost every round. In this case you need to use many more low powered minions and give the leaders fortitude or its lesser version of a way to deflect a blow like crane wing.


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Hmmm...either physics and probability do not work the way scientists and casinos have relied on for centuries, or your observation and/or reporting of your friend’s luck is flawed.

No advice needed.


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Determine how he is cheating and make him stop. Contrary to popular belief playing Pathfinder does not confer any magical ability.


If he was cheating we would have caught him by now. We have set the game aside and made him roll a variety of dice while watching everything he does. There's nothing special about the way he grabs the dice or throws them. They hit the table and roll and he keeps critting most of the time. It even happens when he DMs.

It's not just a problem for us. It's gotten to the point that he feels bad about critting and apologizes every time it happens now. Not a happy, laughing apology, but a *sigh* and a genuinely disappointed "I'm sorry." After 5 years of gaming with him, he sounds like he's on the verge of quitting because his lucky rolling is causing problems.

Shadow Lodge

Have him roll up something like a metal oracle or a melee cleric if he likes melee. He won't have such a high BAB so it will be a tad more difficult to confirm all of his critical threats and he will do less damage. Or suggest he rolls a sword-and-board tank that 1 hands a dwarven waraxe. The typical Sword and Board has penalties on attack rolls because of Combat Expertise Fight Defensively. He will be taking up to a -10 penalty on those confirmation rolls (scales so that at low levels its less), so he will be able to let the whole table have more fun and won't feel as bad about critting so much.

Sczarni

Skaz wrote:

I play with a group where the DMing duties get passed around every now and then, but no matter who has the job they always face the problem of our one player who almost always rolls crits, no matter what d20 he uses.

What ends up happening is that in order to create an encounter that he doesn't blow through a monster in one hit every round (doesn't matter if it's level 1 or 15+) the monsters have to be beefed up to the point where they can easily kill everyone else in the group. Boss fights have ended in three rounds or less. Everyone else in the group feels pretty much useless most of the time, like we're just there to keep things busy until he can vaporize them. There's generally not much challenge, so not much drama.

He's played a dwarf ranger, and the two weapon fighting style with a dwarven waraxe only made it worse. He played a half-orc inquisitor and I had to change the racial proficiency with greataxes and falchions for the sake of balance, convinced him to go ranged but heads still exploded. Now he's playing a dwarf gunslinger and oh-dear-gods-the-musket-does-how-much?

Once we gave him a cursed weapon where every crit he rolled would be a fumble. He had no way of knowing it was cursed. Only two people knew what the weapon did, me and the DM. The topic was never discussed while he was in the same building, yet when he equipped the "badass" new axe, it was his worst night of rolls ever, never came close to rolling a crit. The force is strong with this one.

We've watched him. He rattles the die around in his hand, he tosses it into the air, it rolls, and 9 times out of 10 it's a 19 or 20. And if it's not that, it's not too far off the mark. We've made him use a different die. We've made him use our own d20s that have never given up a 20 to save our lives. Same result. We made him use a dice rolling app I have on my ipod and that brought his rolls back down to a normal level. He still hit, but he wasn't doing 4x damage. It made our DM happy, but our high roller wasn't pleased with not being...

That's how my friend is when he plays. There is a certain way to toss it, and hold it before tossing that it will ensure a higher roll than average. He gets 15-20 very often on his rolls. We call him the "luck vampire" as it seems the peoples rolls to his immediate left and right tend to suck as his tend to shine.

There's really nothing you can do about it. If you're that concerned, bump up the opponents health to prolong the fight. As everyone levels things will change, especially depending what type of creature they're fighting. I wouldn't consider virtual rolling as that's quickly and easily fudged.

Shadow Lodge

FORTIFICATIONYou don't really have to beef up the foes to be murderers as quickly as he is, you just have to make them harder to crit.


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What you're describing is extremely unlikely.

If you genuinely believe there is no cheating taking place and still wish to play with this person have someone else roll his dice, or use a PC program or tablet app for his dice rolls where he isn't physically interacting with the dice.

Scarab Sages

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Keep Calm and Carrion wrote:

Hmmm...either physics and probability do not work the way scientists and casinos have relied on for centuries, or your observation and/or reporting of your friend’s luck is flawed.

No advice needed.

Probability does not work as advertised.

I've tracked my d6 rolls over thousands of instances and my average is just over 2.7


Keep Calm and Carrion wrote:

Hmmm...either physics and probability do not work the way scientists and casinos have relied on for centuries, or your observation and/or reporting of your friend’s luck is flawed.

No advice needed.

iammercy wrote:
Determine how he is cheating and make him stop. Contrary to popular belief playing Pathfinder does not confer any magical ability.
Blue_Drake wrote:

What you're describing is extremely unlikely.

I'm sorry, I didn't fully explain what I'm asking.

This gaming group is aged 30+ with decades of gaming experience and we've been gaming together for the last 5 years on a fairly consistent basis.

I appreciate the constructive feedback, but I'm not asking if he's cheating. That theory has been run into the ground with thousands of rolls and no proof of any foul play has ever arisen. I'm aware it's statistically unlikely, that is quite obvious and that's why we're having a hard time compensating for it over the course of an entire campaign. I'm asking for ideas on how to compensate for this statistical anomoly.

I just wanted to clear that up a little bit. So far the other suggestions have been helpful. Thank you all for that.


http://www.dicecoach.com/dicesets.asp

The Exchange

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No, no, this is far worse than mere cheating. This is the guy I always knew existed. For years I've been dogged by "statistical probability clustering" - any d20 I roll comes up a 2, 3, or 6. I always knew that somewhere in the universe some other guy was getting constant 15s, 18s and 19s in order to maintain the overall statistical perfection of the probability curve. Beg your friend to give up RPGs so I can get the ability to roll like a normal human being again! Has he no mercy? My followers are more help in combat than I!


Durinor wrote:

http://www.dicecoach.com/dicesets.asp

Yeah, we've looked into that sort of thing. I can't imagine the time it would take to learn that with six different shaped dice and finding the sweet spot on every surface he rolls on. Thick stacks of paper, hard back books, hardwood tables, plastic tables, metal tables, tables with a playmat on it. If he consistently rolled on only one surface type, I'd be concerned, but every different surface will affect the die roll differently. And when he's throwing the dice and they bounce from tabletop to paper stack to playmat, it would take Rain Man to have that figured out.


Try rolling the dice the way he does and see if you start getting the same results. Pay attention to details like if he always starts with the die in the 20 position before he rolls. Dice manipulation is a tricky skill to learn and a bit imprecise but it can be done. Casinos actually watch for people who roll well to see if they are using a repeatable technique for getting their numbers. Some people may not know they are even doing this.

Silver Crusade

Get a dice tower. They look cool, you still use real dice, and they eliminate ANY chance he's affecting the rolls, unconsciously or otherwise.

Shadow Lodge

Roll dice in a cup if its concerning you guys, just pass a cup around the table and everyone roll yahtzee style.


Skaz wrote:
Durinor wrote:

http://www.dicecoach.com/dicesets.asp

Yeah, we've looked into that sort of thing. I can't imagine the time it would take to learn that with six different shaped dice and finding the sweet spot on every surface he rolls on. Thick stacks of paper, hard back books, hardwood tables, plastic tables, metal tables, tables with a playmat on it. If he consistently rolled on only one surface type, I'd be concerned, but every different surface will affect the die roll differently. And when he's throwing the dice and they bounce from tabletop to paper stack to playmat, it would take Rain Man to have that figured out.

It takes about 5 minutes to learn how to throw a d20 to increase your odds of getting a 20 to about a 1 in 6 chance. The surface your die lands on has only a little bit of affect on the outcome. The trick is which number is on top of the die when you launch it and the amount of spin you impart. One of my old GM's showed me how to manipulate dice rolls. In less than five minutes our whole table was able to get 20's pretty consistently. Learning how to do that has helped me notice which players are honest at my tables and which are not. Some players may not be aware they are manipulating the dice. They just know that they have a lucky way of rolling.

Anyways without being there it is hard to see if there is actually any dice manipulation going on. I would suggest that he roll up a caster that focuses on blasting. If that is not an option then as a DM just ignore every other attack he does. That should bring him down to about the rest of the parties effectiveness. If the party starts to catch up with his ability then just adjust it back to normal. Just don't tell him that you are doing this.


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Do golf rules. 1's crit and 20's miss.


Buy him a Dice Roller. Still rolls real dice, will help decrease his luck.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Chessex-Dice-Boot-Revised-Clamshell-Packaging-/3009 15253027?pt=Games_US&hash=item460ff25f23


Do any of you guys have smartphones? There are any number of free RPG dice rolling apps that you can get, where he could use that have the computer do the rolls itself, even though he'd be the one pressing the screen/button to "roll" it.

That should clear up the problem without much difficulty. Otherwise, yeah, just get a dice tower or have someone else roll for him.


Why doesn't he play a class that doesn't roll dice. Or a character that crits are no big deal with.
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Bard - Buff spells, CC, Bard songs, and use a short sword... big deal if he crits.
Cleric - Caster focused. Heals, CC, Buffing. Use a mace. Again who cares if he gets a crit.
Wizard - Most spells dont have a roll. Other roll vs his DC.

Just dont play a melee character that is primarly dps with a X3 or X4 crit weapon. Problem solved.


He's cheating. There's a reason the casinos make people bounce the dice off a wall.


Loren Pechtel wrote:
He's cheating. There's a reason the casinos make people bounce the dice off a wall.

Here is the solution. Have him bounce the dice off of something. Roll in a box or something similar.

Shadow Lodge

Skaz wrote:

If he was cheating we would have caught him by now. We have set the game aside and made him roll a variety of dice while watching everything he does. There's nothing special about the way he grabs the dice or throws them. They hit the table and roll and he keeps critting most of the time. It even happens when he DMs.

It's not just a problem for us. It's gotten to the point that he feels bad about critting and apologizes every time it happens now. Not a happy, laughing apology, but a *sigh* and a genuinely disappointed "I'm sorry." After 5 years of gaming with him, he sounds like he's on the verge of quitting because his lucky rolling is causing problems.

If he is cheating, why is he considering quitting? If he actively knew he was rolling the dice in a way, why wouldn't he just stop rolling dice like that? Give him some credit, it isn't easy to trick someone for 5+ years when you see them regularly. Seriously, there are other possible explanation, like maybe, he is that 1/100000000000000000000 chance person. If that person couldn't exist, there would be no one.


In other news, we'll try the dice tower, see what happens.


Ostracize and punish him for making a pact with the devil and his evil can not be tolerated!

Apply contact poison to his "lucky" dice!


This was a very fun and interesting story, hopefully you will come back here and tell us how the dice tower affect his rolls.


Rzach wrote:
It takes about 5 minutes to learn how to throw a d20 to increase your odds of getting a 20 to about a 1 in 6 chance. The surface your die lands on has only a little bit of affect on the outcome. The trick is which number is on top of the die when you launch it and the amount of spin you impart. One of my old GM's showed me how to manipulate dice rolls. In less than five minutes our whole table was able to get 20's pretty consistently.

I've got five minutes to spare any time you do. :)

@ the OP: (1) He may be throwing dice in the way Rzach describes without having any idea that doing so affects the outcome.

(2) He may be living proof that micro-PK exists. If so, the solution is to have him use an electronic die roller, which will take away the physical dice he's unconsiously influencing.


If any of you can achieve these kind of law-of-probability-defying results in the long run in controlled conditions (high numbers or low), there's a million dollar prize to be won.

Although if such powers do exist, I imagine they're imposed by a 'cosmic joker' who immediately departs as soon as the cameras start rolling. Which would be a solution to your problem; film the die rolls.


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Keep Calm and Carrion wrote:

Hmmm...either physics and probability do not work the way scientists and casinos have relied on for centuries, or your observation and/or reporting of your friend’s luck is flawed.

No advice needed.

I'm not sure you realize this, but...probabilities do not rely on every single person everywhere always rolling the average.

They rely on overall averages.

Somebody might roll a 20 every roll he makes (however unlikely) and the average would still be preserved if there was a a guy somewhere who always rolled 1s.


Skaz wrote:
We made him use a dice rolling app I have on my ipod and that brought his rolls back down to a normal level. He still hit, but he wasn't doing 4x damage. It made our DM happy, but our high roller wasn't pleased with not being able to use real dice.

Here is your solution.


If he was merely lucky, there is absolutely no reason his luck would not extend to computer simulations of dice.

No, this guy does something with the dice. You may not call it cheating. I would.

He doesn't even care that it has become a big problem. If he loses interest as soon as his winning streak stops, well, it's obviously the case that his "sorry" means very little.

Put him on dice roller apps. Or offer to let another player, or yourself, roll for him. You could try a dice cup first.


Artanthos wrote:
[I've tracked my d6 rolls over thousands of instances and my average is just over 2.7

Few commercial game dice are perfectly balanced, and what we do to decorate them can also affect the balance. Are the dots for the "6" all colored in with crayon, for example? Or are they numerals? Also, the dice wear with age and use, and this makes them even less impartial.

Use of a cup or tower helps ameliorate both issues.


As has already been given - it's entirely within statistical probability that this happens.

Alternately, since you've given enough conditions I can't see loaded dice or set techniques working - call your player a witch and prepare your local mob. Preferably use the larger set of scales to be sure it's a witch.

Sissyl wrote:
If he was merely lucky, there is absolutely no reason his luck would not extend to computer simulations of dice.

See, I'd accept the same logic if it wasn't for the fact that most dice rolling/number generating programs aren't actually random at all. The majority of the time, they're just using algorithms to determine their outcomes.

Kirth Gersen wrote:
Artanthos wrote:
[I've tracked my d6 rolls over thousands of instances and my average is just over 2.7

Few commercial game dice are perfectly balanced, and what we do to decorate them can also affect the balance. Are the dots for the "6" all colored in with crayon, for example? Or are they numerals? Also, the dice wear with age and use, and this makes them even less impartial.

Use of a cup or tower helps ameliorate both issues.

Assuming a dice with dimples/otherwise dipped surface on each side to denote the number for that side, whatever said dimples are covered would have to be significantly heavier than the rest of the surface, or it wouldn't come out with an outcome less than 3.5 (in expected distributions). But this is all speculative. We clearly must analyse Artanthos' dice to see what's going wrong.

The Exchange

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Physically Unfeasible wrote:
...since you've given enough conditions I can't see loaded dice or set techniques working - call your player a witch and prepare your local mob.

Ooh, idea for a cartoon. (I miss "Dragonmirth".) SCENE: Typical landscape with castle in background. CHARACTERS: Knight and witch. Knight has hands on hips. Witch is holding up a d20 for inspection.)

Witch: I know it doesn't look like much, but it's the best familiar I've ever had.

Shadow Lodge

Skaz wrote:
We made him use a dice rolling app I have on my ipod and that brought his rolls back down to a normal level. He still hit, but he wasn't doing 4x damage. It made our DM happy, but our high roller wasn't pleased with not being able to use real dice.

Sorry, but if randomisation is a problem with regular dice, this is the solution.


Most dice rolling algorithms, indeed, most computer randomness, goes off a random seed, gotten from the clock of the computer. For all practical purposes, unless you are using a horribly large number of random rolls, it is pretty damn close to random. But don't take my word for it. Make a short program that checks the average die roll over a million rolls using this technique.

So, yes, if he was merely lucky, it would extend to computer dice as well.


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Skaz wrote:

This gaming group is aged 30+ with decades of gaming experience and we've been gaming together for the last 5 years on a fairly consistent basis.

I appreciate the constructive feedback, but I'm not asking if he's cheating. That theory has been run into the ground with thousands of rolls and no proof of any foul play has ever arisen. I'm aware it's statistically unlikely, that is quite obvious and that's why we're having a hard time compensating for it over the course of an entire campaign. I'm asking for ideas on how to compensate for this statistical anomoly.

If there's no funny business going on (impossible for any of us to speculate really, unless we get actual statistics) then you dont need to do anything (and indeed, can't do anything).

Under the assumption that the results so far are entirely a statistical fluke, rolling a 20 nine times out of ten historically means your chance of rolling a twenty next time is 1 in 20.

From what you've said, I dont think it's likely that it is a statistical anomaly, but if you accept it as such, there's no point doing anything about it.


He is a chosen agent of the dice gods, do not punish him. You do not wish to incur their wrath.

Let him be.

Liberty's Edge

There is no such thing as luck. This guy is doing something, either intentionally or unconciously, to affect the dice. I suggest you have him close his eyes (better yet, blindfold him) and hand him a bunch of d20s to roll. This way he can't see what number is facing up etc. have him roll like this 10 times or so and see if his magical 'luck' continues ...


Luck with dice is nothing more than getting statistically improbable results.

If you are truly convinced he isn't cheating then just have the guy next to him do all his rolls.

By your posts the guy himself is bothered by the fact that he's never under a 15 so just have the guy beside 'em do the rolling.

Problem solved forever.

-S

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