Big pools of even bigger dice

[Slyme]

Am I the only one who dislikes rolling bucket loads of larger dice?

I mean 9d12 sounds good and all...until you realize that means you could get a number anywhere from 9 to 108...

The 'average' sounds ok at 58.5...but that is just an average. You will just as often get 28 damage as you will 78 damage.

It feels way too swingy and unreliable to me...I mean I could either run up and tickle the boss...or obliterate him in 1 hit.

In a game where the odds of failure on any given hit are as high as they are, having such insanely swingy damage feels like a huge mistake.

[Albatoonoe]

As someone who spent a good chunk of time in Shadowrun, I don't really see the large dice pools as either being common enough or big enough to actually worry about. By default, you are only going to be rolling a few dice. It tends to be high level crits that push rolls as high as you are talking about.

[Voss]

Slyme wrote:

Am I the only one who dislikes rolling bucket loads of larger dice?

I mean 9d12 sounds good and all...until you realize that means you could get a number anywhere from 9 to 108...

The 'average' sounds ok at 58.5...but that is just an average. You will just as often get 28 damage as you will 78 damage.

It feels way too swingy and unreliable to me...I mean I could either run up and tickle the boss...or obliterate him in 1 hit.

In a game where the odds of failure on any given hit are as high as they are, having such insanely swingy damage feels like a huge mistake.

Well, you likely won't get a one-hit obliteration. The big die pools are required since they decided to up the hit point bloat even more.

But yes, a lot of damage effects (and attacks past your first two) are an exercise in shoot-for-the-moon dice rolling and not much else.

[Slyme]

At higher levels all those 2 handed melee characters are going to be swinging around like 6d12 greatswords and such, Wizards are going to be dropping 9d12 lightning bolts, etc.

I don't mind large dice pools...I used to play in a Champions/Hero System game where the average attack was 12 to 15d6. But when you make the dice pools large, then magnify that with larger dice like d12s the variation in dice rolls gets absolutely insane...when you can have a variance of 99 points of damage on a hit before any modifiers...with no critical involved...That leads to problems.

9d12 is mathematically the same thing as 1d100+8...same number range, same average...I personally do not want to roll either one for damage.

[RealAlchemy]

Slyme wrote:

At higher levels all those 2 handed melee characters are going to be swinging around like 6d12 greatswords and such, Wizards are going to be dropping 9d12 lightning bolts, etc.

I don't mind large dice pools...I used to play in a Champions/Hero System game where the average attack was 12 to 15d6. But when you make the dice pools large, then magnify that with larger dice like d12s the variation in dice rolls gets absolutely insane...when you can have a variance of 99 points of damage on a hit before any modifiers...with no critical involved...That leads to problems.

9d12 is mathematically the same thing as 1d100+8...same number range, same average...I personally do not want to roll either one for damage.

9d12 will have the same number range and the same average with 1d100+8, but definitely not the same distribution. Average will be significantly more likely than either extreme.

[oholoko]

9d12 has a 1 in 12^9 chance of getting a 9.
1d100+8 has a 1 in a 100 chance of getting an 9.
Just because something has the same min/max and average... Doesn't mean its the same.
I mean 9d12 has like a 50% chance that the rolled number is between 52 and 65

[Slyme]

Ok...not completely the same. Still...that does not make buckets of d12s a good dice option for a game.

When a hulking level 20 Barbarian, or a level 20 Wizard lay into something, I do not think there should be a chance of it doing such a pittance of damage on a successful hit. It is incredibly anti- climactic, and does not feel heroic at all.

9 damage wouldn't even kill a low level creature under the current PF2 system, and a the only way a high level character might die from it would be laughing itself to death.

I would much rather have a large static bonus/large minimum damage and less dice rolling, than having a night full of underwhelming dice rolls causing a combat to take an hour longer than it should have...or TPKing a part because the boss rolled near max damage on almost every roll.

[Vic Ferrari]

Slyme wrote:

9d12 is mathematically the same thing as 1d100+8...same number range, same average...I personally do not want to roll either one for damage.

Ha, yeah, I wold prefer a toning down of the numbers from PF1, not ratcheting them up. Maybe one goes through stages, or it depends on the game, but at one time I didn't mind absurdly high numbers in 3rd Ed/PF1 and 4th Ed, but after awhile I became disillusioned with it.

The numbers mean more to me when there is a ceiling (like in AD&D), otherwise I start to lose points of reference.
The classic TSR Marvel Superheroes game has some big numbers (but no fist fulls of dice, ever), but the reference points are clear.

[Nightwhisper]

Plugging in 9d12 into anydice.com, it seems you have less than 1% chance to get a total lower than 35.
You have less than 0,5% chance to get a total less than 26.

You are more likely to roll a natural 20 than you are to get a result less than 41. You are more likely to get a total of at least 86 than you are to roll two natural 20s in a row.

I wouldn't worry about having a full night of underwhelming rolls. One underwhelming roll maybe, but if you get a full night of crap for damage on a 9d12, you might want to check your dice.

[Mats Öhrman]

Anydice.com is a good site for comparing probability curves for various dice rolls. (EDIT: Heh, ninja-ed by five minutes. :) )

Here is 9d12 compared to 1d100+8:
https://anydice.com/program/11f21. Click the button named "Graph" in the center to see a graph that shows the two rolls together.

[Melkiador]

I'd be more worried about how long it will take for everyone to roll and calculate Xd12+Y for every attack that hits. Online this would be super easy, but at a tabletop, this sounds super boggy and error prone.

[Nettah]

Well if you don't want to roll all the dice saying that you get the average result from some of the dice should be an easy houserule. But those 6d12 greatsword attacks aren't really that common unless you often play lvl 20 characters. But house-ruling that anytime you would roll more than 3 dice you instead get the average rounded down (or up for that matter) seems simple enough.

And a situation where you rolled 9 or 10 with 6d12 will forever be a memory from that table, and it will likely never happen again. So I see it as a strength of the system not a weakness. I do believe extended combat without online calculation might get tiresome, but then see the houserule to solve that.

[Partizanski]

Personally, I enjoy the big buckets of dice way more than high level characters doing 1d4+25 damage.

Sure its a little slower to actually add up, but it is way more fun as a martial character to get to actually do the handful of dice that has been only a casters domain for years.

As others have said, if you don't like it, just house rule that additional damage dice from magic weapons do average damage.

So a if you have a +4 greatsword, instead of 5d12, do 1d12+26

[Vic Ferrari]

Partizanski wrote:

Personally, I enjoy the big buckets of dice way more than high level characters doing 1d4+25 damage.

I know exactly what you mean, like rolling d20 + 57 to hit, it gets stupid. As usual, a balance is nice.

[Fumarole]

Some of my players roll dice that are hard to read due to the patterns on them. Counting large numbers of these can indeed be a problem and will slow the game down. Since I like rolling dice and rolling lots of dice is even better, I picked up two sets of Dice of Rolling. They're easy to read and each type is a unique color so it is easy to grab them quickly from a pile. I wouldn't go back to individual sets, these are just so darn convenient.

[Megistone]

9d12 is 9 to 108, but with an heavy tendency for average results.
Only one out of about 200 rolls you will go outside the range of 5d12+26, which is 31 to 86 with the same average. It's almost the same.
About 1 out of about 10 rolls you go outside the range of 3d12+39, which is 42-75, again with the same average. A good compromise if you don't like to roll many dice.
Finally, about 40% of 9d12 rolls go outside the range of 1d12+52, or 53-64. This is a bit extreme IMO, as the die becomes almost meaningless, but if you like the big static bonuses of PF1 you can do it.

Adjusting rolls on the fly to use average values isn't hard, but it could slow down the game more than just rolling for people that aren't quick at math. In this case, a little premade table can help a lot.

[avr]

With some dice types (not so much d12s) if you have a small supply of physical dice and roll the same 1-2 dice multiple times you're more likely to get the same result multiple times than you'd think. d4s, d10s and d6s are the main offenders here. Most people will have plenty of d6s at least though.

[Slyme]

Statistics on a calculator are all well and good...but as someone with 40 years of gaming experience, I can tell you, with 100% certainty...

You will absolutely run into instances where you roll below average for an entire game session...even if you switch out dice...do a voodoo ritual...pray...cry...flip tables...etc.

You will also run into nights where you roll dice like the your dice are loaded and only have the top 10% of the numbers printed on them. Even if the GM thinks you are cheating and makes you roll in the open...using their dice. (Back during 1st edition D&D, I actually rolled a character with perfect 18 stats across the board...using the 3d6, in order down the line method...in front of multiple witnesses. Then watched in horror when that same character died in the 2nd session I played it in)

The more dice you roll, the crazier the results can get...sure, the odds of rolling all 1s or all 12s are slim...but people win the lottery every day. People also get struck by lightning multiple times, survive injuries that should have been fatal, etc.

[Gorbacz]

Slyme wrote:

Statistics on a calculator are all well and good...but as someone with 40 years of gaming experience, I can tell you, with 100% certainty...

You will absolutely run into instances where you roll below average for an entire game session...even if you switch out dice...do a voodoo ritual...pray...cry...flip tables...etc.

You will also run into nights where you roll dice like the your dice are loaded and only have the top 10% of the numbers printed on them. Even if the GM thinks you are cheating and makes you roll in the open...using their dice. (Back during 1st edition D&D, I actually rolled a character with perfect 18 stats across the board...using the 3d6, in order down the line method...in front of multiple witnesses. Then watched in horror when that same character died in the 2nd session I played it in)

The more dice you roll, the crazier the results can get...sure, the odds of rolling all 1s or all 12s are slim...but people win the lottery every day. People also get struck by lightning multiple times, survive injuries that should have been fatal, etc.

So, one other day you'll roll above average. If you'd record all your dice rolls over 40 years of your gaming career, you'd arrive at the conclusion that the math is fine.

Dice aren't magical. Your rolls don't get worse with age or better with the amount of apples you eat. Your luck in sex life doesn't influence your luck with dice and vice versa. There are no "I always roll poorly" people, there are just "I dwell on bad rolls so hard that I don't even notice the good ones" people.

[necromental]

Gorbacz wrote:

Slyme wrote:

Statistics on a calculator are all well and good...but as someone with 40 years of gaming experience, I can tell you, with 100% certainty...

You will absolutely run into instances where you roll below average for an entire game session...even if you switch out dice...do a voodoo ritual...pray...cry...flip tables...etc.

You will also run into nights where you roll dice like the your dice are loaded and only have the top 10% of the numbers printed on them. Even if the GM thinks you are cheating and makes you roll in the open...using their dice. (Back during 1st edition D&D, I actually rolled a character with perfect 18 stats across the board...using the 3d6, in order down the line method...in front of multiple witnesses. Then watched in horror when that same character died in the 2nd session I played it in)

The more dice you roll, the crazier the results can get...sure, the odds of rolling all 1s or all 12s are slim...but people win the lottery every day. People also get struck by lightning multiple times, survive injuries that should have been fatal, etc.

So, one other day you'll roll above average. If you'd record all your dice rolls over 40 years of your gaming career, you'd arrive at the conclusion that the math is fine.

Dice aren't magical. Your rolls don't get worse with age or better with the amount of apples you eat. Your luck in sex life doesn't influence your luck with dice and vice versa. There are no "I always roll poorly" people, there are just "I dwell on bad rolls so hard that I don't even notice the good ones" people.

Math may work out over the period, but can also be unsatisfactory. The reason some people liked PF1 (including me) was that you could get reliable results. Now every action success is a coin-flip while simultaneously you can get surprisingly underwhelming damage. Also there is the problem where adding a crapton of dice is tiring, prone to making mistakes and just plain chore and not fun.

[Ninja in the Rye]

IMO they would be better served adding static damage to the equation than calling for more dice. Convert, say, half the dice to average damage. This will both speed up gameplay and make your limited use spell less likely to feel like a failure (even on a success).

[WatersLethe]

I personally don't like rolling and counting up loads of dice. I plan to house rule that you can choose to roll as many as you want as long as you roll one, and take the average of the rest.

9 times out of 10 I picture myself taking the average, but if things are getting hairy and a high roll could really help us out I might roll all the dice.

[Claxon]

I use HeroLab, including the built in dice roller.

I was fine when I was only rolling 1 or 2 dice, but it gets to be too much.

I think I would have been happier with weapon specialization a la Starfinder, wherein you gain your level in damage. Although, running the damage numbers gaining damage equal to your level doesn't keep up with the increase from potency runes for d10 and d12 weapons. Although for d8 weapons it's pretty close.

[Gorbacz]

necromental wrote:

Also there is the problem where adding a crapton of dice is tiring, prone to making mistakes and just plain chore and not fun.

It's the XXI century, people still roll those funny plastic things instead of using apps?

[Darigaaz the Igniter]

Gorbacz wrote:

necromental wrote:

Also there is the problem where adding a crapton of dice is tiring, prone to making mistakes and just plain chore and not fun.

It's the XXI century, people still roll those funny plastic things instead of using apps?

Yes, a vast majority of the time, in fact. People also use physical books, character sheets printed out on paper, and pencils to make adjustments to said character sheets.

[Gorbacz]

Darigaaz the Igniter wrote:

Gorbacz wrote:

necromental wrote:

Also there is the problem where adding a crapton of dice is tiring, prone to making mistakes and just plain chore and not fun.

It's the XXI century, people still roll those funny plastic things instead of using apps?

Yes, a vast majority of the time, in fact. People also use physical books, character sheets printed out on paper, and pencils to make adjustments to said character sheets.

Wow, that's some nostalgia. I gotta try that some time.

[Mary Yamato]

We did Jade Regent in PF1 with two people who were slow with arithmetic and dice-counting. Both of them ended up with characters with high numbers of attacks, and it caused big problems at the table. I would pick up a book or something and tune out after 10 minutes going by with no actions; then they would have to get my attention, I wouldn't know what was going on, and it caused player friction.

Eventually I said, either we do averaged damage or I quit. They chose the former, and we did character sheets for each character that simply said "This attack does 32 damage."

It was still slow, because of buffs; the attack really did 32+2+1+4 or something, and with 7 attacks that's still a problem for an arithmetically challenged player. But it helped.

PF2 maybe has fewer attacks, but if you make the weapon damage more than a couple of dice each, it's still problematic. Two successful attacks with 12 dice each is nearly as bad as 6 successful attacks with 2 dice each. (Not quite as bad, because of attack rolls and modifiers. One of our players found switching between figuring bonuses to attack and figuring bonuses to damage particularly tough; another player would routinely roll all attacks before rolling any damage, but this led to annoying backtracking when he'd drop one opponent and then encounter a different AC for the next.)

The thing that makes Fireball bearable to me is that (barring a short catastrophic period in 3.0) you are generally only casting one of them, and there is only the damage roll. A character that could do three Fireballs in a round, much less 7, would be unacceptably slow.

[John Mechalas]

Teach people to use apps. I know there's a great tactile feel to rolling dice, but when the pool size gets large enough you are doing everyone a favor by using an app to roll.

[Mats Öhrman]

The games I’ve played that used lots and lots of dice are early editions of Shadowrun and the Warhammer/WH40k miniature games, and there you just counted the number of dice who came up with a given target number. Are there any other games where you have to add up large numbers of large dice like this?

[Dire Ursus]

Grouping by 10 saves loads of time. My group are all pretty happy about being able to roll more dice. Especially as martials who never get to roll many damage dice in 1e.

[Slyme]

John Mechalas wrote:

Teach people to use apps. I know there's a great tactile feel to rolling dice, but when the pool size gets large enough you are doing everyone a favor by using an app to roll.

Why not just forgo tabletop gaming all together and just play WoW?

I play tabletop games to get away from electronics, interact with real human beings, etc. I'm not about to start incorporating electronic devices just because the developers decided to make a game with ridiculous dice rolling.

[Megistone]

WatersLethe wrote:

I personally don't like rolling and counting up loads of dice. I plan to house rule that you can choose to roll as many as you want as long as you roll one, and take the average of the rest.

9 times out of 10 I picture myself taking the average, but if things are getting hairy and a high roll could really help us out I might roll all the dice.

I would ask everyone to decide what they are going to do before the game actually starts, and keeping that decision for the whole session.

Choosing everytime on the fly could become a form of metagaming abuse.

[MerlinCross]

Gorbacz wrote:

necromental wrote:

Also there is the problem where adding a crapton of dice is tiring, prone to making mistakes and just plain chore and not fun.

It's the XXI century, people still roll those funny plastic things instead of using apps?

I might use online apps to host games, sheets and all manner of things but rolling huge amounts of dice digitally loses out on the "Shake shake shake" and the sound of plastic on rolling across a table.

Seriously, I might sound old here but how's it fun to roll a bunch of dice if you aren't ACTUALLY rolling a bunch of dice?

On topic, this is one of those weird things for me. I don't like the change but I also wasn't thrilled with 1d8+25. Come on, really?

[John Mechalas]

Slyme wrote:

John Mechalas wrote:

Teach people to use apps. I know there's a great tactile feel to rolling dice, but when the pool size gets large enough you are doing everyone a favor by using an app to roll.

Why not just forgo tabletop gaming all together and just play WoW?

I play tabletop games to get away from electronics, interact with real human beings, etc. I'm not about to start incorporating electronic devices just because the developers decided to make a game with ridiculous dice rolling.

You're being dramatic. I play tabletop, and we have pen and paper, and real dice. But when someone has to roll 12+ of something, we use an app. Because it's faster.

It's possible to have the best of both worlds. They are not mutually exclusive.

[Ninja in the Rye]

John Mechalas wrote:

Slyme wrote:

John Mechalas wrote:

Teach people to use apps. I know there's a great tactile feel to rolling dice, but when the pool size gets large enough you are doing everyone a favor by using an app to roll.

Why not just forgo tabletop gaming all together and just play WoW?

I play tabletop games to get away from electronics, interact with real human beings, etc. I'm not about to start incorporating electronic devices just because the developers decided to make a game with ridiculous dice rolling.

You're being dramatic. I play tabletop, and we have pen and paper, and real dice. But when someone has to roll 12+ of something, we use an app. Because it's faster.

It's possible to have the best of both worlds. They are not mutually exclusive.

If a 3rd party app is essentially required for the game to remain functional at high levels then that's a design problem.

[Gorbacz]

It's not essentially required. Some people don't have issues with rolling 5+ dice. They'll be fine.

Some folks will have a problem, and apps are a great way to help them.

Just like some people are absolutely fine with using pen and paper to run their characters while some won't ever run one without HeroLab or PCGen or any other software.

From my personal experience, the amount of moments when somebody casting fireball or making a sneak attacks would grab their 10 dice and other players would go "geee, so many dice, wish any of my attacks did that much" was noticeable, while the amount of situations where somebody would be unhappy with having to roll so many dice was negligible.

Just as I've heard "basically Pathfinder requires you to use a 3pp app to manage their character" more often than I did hear that pen and paper is the only correct way and using software kills the spirit of the game. We live in the age when we have the tools to make our life easier, discarding them in the name of nostalgia makes no sense to me.

[Rysky]

I use apps and dice and like both, which one I use depends on my mood and/or situation.

*happily goes back to PBPs*

[Rysky]

Slyme wrote:

John Mechalas wrote:

Teach people to use apps. I know there's a great tactile feel to rolling dice, but when the pool size gets large enough you are doing everyone a favor by using an app to roll.

Why not just forgo tabletop gaming all together and just play WoW?

I play tabletop games to get away from electronics, interact with real human beings, etc. I'm not about to start incorporating electronic devices just because the developers decided to make a game with ridiculous dice rolling.

You do know WoW isn't a single player game, right?

[John Mechalas]

Ninja in the Rye wrote:

If a 3rd party app is essentially required for the game to remain functional at high levels then that's a design problem.

Who is saying it's required?

The original post is this:

Quote:

Am I the only one who dislikes rolling bucket loads of larger dice?

If someone dislikes rolling large pools of dice, then use an app. An app on a phone is an easy way to solve the problem using something that most of us probably have.

If one doesn't want to use an app, then have someone else roll. If one doesn't want to have someone else roll, then use the "average" method. The point is, there are solutions.

If none of those solutions sound good to them, then they are not going to be happy with the game, but that doesn't make it a design problem. That makes it a matter of personal taste.

But telling the OP "you should roll dice" does not address their concern.

[Voss]

Gorbacz wrote:

Just as I've heard "basically Pathfinder requires you to use a 3pp app to manage their character" more often than I did hear that pen and paper is the only correct way and using software kills the spirit of the game. We live in the age when we have the tools to make our life easier, discarding them in the name of nostalgia makes no sense to me.

Most of the time it isn't 'nostalgia.' It's limited table space and keeping people in the game rather off on the web somewhere.

[Ninja in the Rye]

IF you write a rule that says roll X dice for damage, then you have to assume that people who are playing the game might actually sit there and roll X dice, and evaluate how that plays at tables. This is a playtest and how the game actually functions in the real world should be a huge consideration.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

John Mechalas wrote:

Teach people to use apps. I know there's a great tactile feel to rolling dice, but when the pool size gets large enough you are doing everyone a favor by using an app to roll.

Disagree.

This is no different than saying for someone to steal the answer key from the teacher's desk to pass an exam. They learn nothing by using an application. What dice do they roll? What bonuses and penalties apply? What's the end result of my action? A player who just "uses an app" doesn't learn anything from the gameplay to better themselves both as a player and a person.

If a player can't add it up or configure the bonuses, I would much rather introduce techniques and methods that physically help the player in their innate ability to add it up, because they learn more (and are more engaged to the game) than having some calculator or app do all the work for them, and they thereby learn nothing.

Quite frankly, this suggestion of using apps should also be pointed at the developers as a meand for solving the math that PF2 can't get right if we want to be realistic here. Why waste human time when we can just use an app that does it for us, right? But that would be, without a doubt, insulting and insensitive to their skills at their profession.

[Slyme]

Rysky wrote:

You do know WoW isn't a single player game, right?

It might as well be...you are not interacting with people like you would in a face to face setting. The vast majority of WoW players don't even use voice chat, so it might as well just be a game with message board like interaction.

Back to the original topic...

My problem has less to do with the size of the dice pools, and more to do with the size of the dice in those pools, and how larger dice make things way more swingy.

I would rather roll 18d6 than 9d12. When you rolls dice with a larger range, especially in larger numbers, the chances of getting exceptionally high or low rolls becomes unacceptable IMHO. I know that mathematically, the odds of rolling the bare minimum damage is extremely low, I am saying the odds of doing that should simply not exist.

You should never, ever be able to crit someone with a +5 greatsword and only do 12 damage, period. Unfortunately, the way PF2 is currently written, you can.

[John Lynch 106]

Gorbacz wrote:

Some folks will have a problem, and apps are a great way to help them.

Just like some people are absolutely fine with using pen and paper to run their characters while some won't ever run one without HeroLab or PCGen or any other software.

D&D and Pathfinder have great for me to learn how to do addition in my head. I always find it disappointing when someone chooses to use an app vs learn a new skill. But not everyone has any desire to learn I suppose.

Character Building software is out and out bad for learning how to play the game. Consistently I see people who exclusively use such software fail to learn basic rules (of the game and their character).

[Rysky]

Slyme wrote:

Rysky wrote:

You do know WoW isn't a single player game, right?

It might as well be...you are not interacting with people like you would in a face to face setting. The vast majority of WoW players don't even use voice chat, so it might as well just be a game with message board like interaction.

Just because it's not face to face does not make it not be interaction or even a lesser interaction, not everyone has the luxury of being around people they like in person. PBPs and MMOs have an abundance of interacting with people in them.

[Nettah]

Slyme said wrote:

Back to the original topic...

My problem has less to do with the size of the dice pools, and more to do with the size of the dice in those pools, and how larger dice make things way more swingy.

I would rather roll 18d6 than 9d12. When you rolls dice with a larger range, especially in larger numbers, the chances of getting exceptionally high or low rolls becomes unacceptable IMHO. I know that mathematically, the odds of rolling the bare minimum damage is extremely low, I am saying the odds of doing that should simply not exist.

You should never, ever be able to crit someone with a +5 greatsword and only do 12 damage, period. Unfortunately, the way PF2 is currently written, you can.

Well just use an average of a number of the dice as almost everyone have suggested. I for one would like that variance, and damn that would be a fun/weird/memorable moment if someone rolled a total of 12 with 12d12. (Even though it's almost statistically impossible, if every person on the planet rolled 12d12 a bit over 1000 times only a single person should get a total of 12, so winning the lottery is suddenly quite likely compared to this.)

[John Mechalas]

Nettah wrote:

Slyme said wrote:

My problem has less to do with the size of the dice pools, and more to do with the size of the dice in those pools, and how larger dice make things way more swingy.

Well just use an average of a number of the dice as almost everyone have suggested.

Or, if you want some randomness, use the average for half and roll the other half.

[Slyme]

Just because the odds of rolling something are low does not mean it will never happen. As someone who has rolled a perfect character (18s across the board) back in the old school D&D days of 3d6 straight down the line, in front of witnesses, I can tell you it can and will happen.

Using averages and other homebrew options has 2 problems I can see right off the bat.

#1 It defeats the purpose of having the rules in the first place if you are just going to replace them with whatever you feel like anyways.

#2 For people like me who play almost exclusively PFS/Organized play, where you are required to play RAW, it just isn't even an option.

[Nettah]

Slyme said wrote:

Just because the odds of rolling something are low does not mean it will never happen. As someone who has rolled a perfect character (18s across the board) back in the old school D&D days of 3d6 straight down the line, in front of witnesses, I can tell you it can and will happen.

Using averages and other homebrew options has 2 problems I can see right off the bat.

#1 It defeats the purpose of having the rules in the first place if you are just going to replace them with whatever you feel like anyways.

#2 For people like me who play almost exclusively PFS/Organized play, where you are required to play RAW, it just isn't even an option.

Well dice can be loaded (not intentionally i'm sure) but the odds of you actually rolling that is quite frankly next to impossible, if the rolls are properly made, and for sure would never happen again (well almost). (Its 1 out of 101,559,956,668,416) So i'm going to say that either the dice were badly crafted/loaded or you didn't roll them properly, because the odds are less than pretty much every other thing in your daily life that you actually rolled that by chance.

If PFS need to follow RAW then Paizo should consider making it optional in RAW (though mostly PFS doesn't play at that high of a level does it?)