# Three Natural 20's in a Row



## TarionzCousin (Mar 5, 2011)

Last night, while DM'ing combat, I rolled 3 natural 20's in a row. The game was 4E, so they all did maximum damage. Two were on one character and immediately bloodied him.

I rolled in the open, on three different dice, in front of six players. 

Why can't I have this sort of luck when I am playing? 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





Have you ever seen anything like this?


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## Stormonu (Mar 5, 2011)

Back in 2E, we had an instance of SIX twenties in a row. We were using a house rule of 20s again (if you roll a 20, you make another attack to hit, and if you roll 20, you can continue to roll again). <EDIT: That's 1 in 64 million chance of occurring).

The attack was by a monk who was jumping off a two-story tower to attack a drow wizard protected by a cube of force.  As I recall, it went through the cube and reduced the wizard to somewhere near -50 hp.  I ruled he'd kicked the skeleton out of the wizard's body.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 5, 2011)

Yep.


I had a 1Ed/2Ed dual class Ftr/Cleric of Tyr with 2 weapons: a Vorpal Sword and a Mace of Disruption.  She routinely rolled a Nat 20 in the most crucial situations.  After rolling one to disrupt a Lich on an evil demiplane, the DM said I needed to roll another to see if the disruption effect actually worked on the plane at this time.  I did, so the Lich was disrupted.  I said to the DM that it was so unlikely an event that her god Tyr might have actually noticed.  He agreed, giving me a 1% chance of success.  I rolled an 01.  I further argued that he might take personal action upon that notice.  Again, he said 1% chance...which again resulted in a roll of 01.  Tyr showed up, granted her a +1 Fighter level and disappeared.  This was great because it boosted her to the next level of multiple attacks!
I had a Dwarf in a DarkSun campaign that did the exact opposite.  He was charging a wizard who cast some kind of noxious, toxic AoE spell.  The Dwarf had an über-high Con, but still failed his roll to not have the magic affect him- a 1% chance.  He then failed his save, which he only would on a 1.  Then he had to save against the poison effect of the spell- which he only would fail on a 1.  I rolled a 1 and keeled over, still alive, but just barely.  The Wiz then targeted him with a polymorphing spell.  AGAIN he failed his saves against magic, etc., at the same probabilities, resulting in him becoming a frog, and then he failed his system shock roll and died.  When the Wiz launched a fireball later that included the area in which his Kermit-corpse lay.  Just for giggles, I rolled to see what would happen had he still been alive.  Didn't make a single save roll.

And its not just me: the last 3.5 campaign I ran, the woman running the Paladin kept rolling 20s coupled with high damage rolls with ridiculous frequency.  No, it didn't matter whose dice she used.

As recounted elsewhere, her Paladin showed this uncanny ability at its best when she got the drop on a Necromancer, hitting him 3 times- 2 crits, with one being maxed and the other just a couple points off from that- to _open _the combat.


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## TarionzCousin (Mar 5, 2011)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> As recounted elsewhere, her Paladin showed this uncanny ability at its best when she got the drop on a Necromancer, hitting him 3 times- 2 crits, with one being maxed and the other just a couple points off from that- to _open _the combat.



Yeah, my three critical hits were my first three rolls in the surprise round. The group was in town, so they had split up. There were only two of the PC's in the fight (Warlock and Sorcerer). I thought I was going to obliterate them.

Then I rolled a 2 or a 3 on five of my next six rolls. Sigh.


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## Haltherrion (Mar 5, 2011)

TarionzCousin said:


> Why can't I have this sort of luck when I am playing?




Because you roll a lot more dice as a DM than as a player 

Interestingly, the odds of rolling 3 20s in a row is the same odds as winning the Oregon state lottery (average payout around $6M i think) during one year if you spent about $20 a week on the lottery.

But that illustrates the point: wining the lottery in a year of playing is the same as once a year, sitting down at the gaming table and rolling your 3 d20s hoping for three 20s in a row. Didn't make it? Too bad, try again next year.

If you as a play 24 times a year and throw the dice 50 times a night, you have about a 1 in 20 chance of doing getting 3 20s in a row any given year. Not very common...


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## Iron Sky (Mar 5, 2011)

Reminds me of a story I heard from back in the 2e days when the group was fleeing a dungeon, low on resources, and ran into the vampire lord's son at the far end of a 100' long, 6' tall hallway.

The group groaned and looked at their sheets, trying to figure out how they were going to get out of it alive.

The archer in the group said "if I break the tip off of one of my arrows, can it be like a stake if I hit it in the heart?"

The DM thought about it for a moment and said "yes, but with the broken shaft, low ceiling, poor light, and distance to the target you need to roll two 20s in a row to make the shot."

The table went silent as the archer's player stood up and began shaking his dice. Roll: 20.

A cheer goes up, but he's still go to roll another 20. He picks up his dice and everyone stands up, unable to sit with the tension around that roll. He rolls it, they lean in, and... 20!

The vampire lord's son explodes in a flurry of ash and the group limps out of the dungeon (to talk about it years later around the table and eventually to be spread elsewhere).

---

The closest I've come as a player in DnD is when our 4e group was at the depths of an abandoned dwarven fortress (based on Boatmurdered) and ran into Sankis the flaming ghost that had been randomly popping out of walls, punching people with a laugh, then disappearing.

He rose out of a pool of magma, starting to deliver a rambling, insane speech when my Ranger rolled initiative. He moved up, used Armor Splinter to drop his AC(critting with one attack and getting a free one from Two-Weapon Opening), then unleashed Blade Cascade, critting on two of the attacks(each giving him another Basic Attack).  The elite died in one round to a flurry of 8 attacks, three of which were crits in the 70-90hp range(Level 15) - and I still had two attacks left in my Blade Cascade that I didn't get to use!


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## bobhayes (Mar 5, 2011)

TarionzCousin said:


> Have you ever seen anything like this?




Yes, about once in every series of 8000 rolls. It's simple random chance.


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## Ulrick (Mar 5, 2011)

I've seen three natural 20s rolled in a row before with similar results. 

But I've seen a guy roll four natural 1s in a row, get mad and throw the offending d20 across the room against the wall, only to have the d20 roll back toward him and come up as a 1. 

He threw that cursed d20 away.


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## Marx420 (Mar 5, 2011)

Just last night I witnessed two 1's rolled, then a 2, and ANOTHER 1 by my irish friend (he froze then smashed this die as an example to others). This was in a combat vs a single weak eurypterid (Serpent's Skull Paizo ap) in which there was no less than 4 CONFIRMED fumbles on the side of the PCs (I use the fumble deck). 

In contrast, I scored 3 CONFIRMED critical hits with some nasty rusty skeleton scimitars and killed the witch but three encounters into the path (there was 25% chance of wrecked ship being rotten [So she feather fell down into hull] as well as 25% chance of being haunted by undead, guess how I rolled with my evil percentiles). Moral of story, don't split the party, and don't underestimate the demonic power of any dice handled by the dm (DEMON MASTER).


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## Diamond Cross (Mar 5, 2011)

I was playing a game of d20 Star Wars and I was a very good pilot. I'd maxed out my skill in piloting and had a high Dex to boot. I was about 4th level.

So i was in a race. The GM let me use my piloting skill. I'd made every other turn but not easily. Then I came to a stretch with a very low DC, basically, I needed a five or higher to succeed.

Instead I rolled a 3.

The GM let me rolled again.

I rolled a 2.

He was kind of frustrated and decided to give me a "luck" roll. If it was high, I'd just lose the race.

So I rolled the die.

I rolled a 1.

I has a spectacular crash and burn. Needless to say I ended up killing myself and my trusty co-pilot.


Nobody every let me race again.

However, he did bring my character back through cloning.


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## Asmor (Mar 5, 2011)

Deleted because I'm a moron and apparently can't multiply.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 5, 2011)

_*pop* hsssssssssssssss fup fup fup_  So much for THAT balloon!

Don't you just love it when the mathmagicians just suck the wonder out of something fun and quirky?


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## Thunderfoot (Mar 5, 2011)

Oh, do I have a story for you.  2nd edition AD&D, my wife, who was playing a ranger with a bugbear hatred, was attacking a bugbear compound.  She had a +2 longsword in her right hand and a +2 RETURNING throwing/hand ax in her left.

She gets five attacks every two turns (3,2,3,2).  Her first roll (longsword) is a one, before the 3e confirm rule, she had to roll to determine what happened she rolls, a one - throwing her longsword down the hall. 

Her next next FIVE attacks are natural 20s, all made from her left hand in melee mode - she was so pissed off she forgot to change hands or throw her ax.  She cut a swath of destruction that caused the bugbears to fail their morale and turn tail.  

The corollary is that every time she starts rolling poorly, everyone tells her to throw her weapon down the hall.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 6, 2011)

If you love your weapon, let it fly- if it doesn't slay everything in it's path, it was never yours to begin with.


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## Storminator (Mar 6, 2011)

I was DMing for my son and his friends. THey wanted to use the optional rule that 3 20s was an instant kill. Knowing the odds are SEVERELY against PCs on this rule, I declined to let them use it.

Every time I rolled a pair of 20s I asked if they wanted to start using the 3 20s rule.  They were shocked how often it came up for me, and didn't for all of them combined...

PS


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 6, 2011)

Back maybe 10 years ago, we had a campaign where there were a limited amount of firearms, but if you rolled a natural 20, it was max damage & open-ended... meaning, you kept rolling.  So, I think it was 12 points of damage for the natural 20, then you would roll to hit again.

The DM in that situation rolled five 20s in a row - all on the table in front of the group.

It was over 60 points of damage, and that was 2E days when 60 points of damage were a lot.   Also, this was part of a long-running (10 year old) campaign and that moment almost killed the guy who was the group leader and focal point of the group.

Also, back in 1E days when I was a DM, we had one guy roll a natural 00 for his 18 Strength.  Even I high-fived him after that one.


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## Heathen72 (Mar 6, 2011)

There are some really odd statistics being thrown around in this thread. Without giving it too much thought I would have thought that,  on average, 3 20's in a row happened every 1 in 8000 times you rolled 3 dice in a row - as Bob Hays suggested. 
I am not sure where the 1 in 1600 figure comes from, though, and I find it hard to believe you will win the Oregon lottery by buying 8000 tickets, though to be honest I don't know how the Oregon lottery works...


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## amnuxoll (Mar 6, 2011)

bobhayes said:


> Yes, about once in every series of 8000 rolls. It's simple random chance.




The truth is that it's even more likely than that.  Most players will roll the die by picking it up and letting it roll off their hand directly to the table.  (And why not?  Anything more vigorous and your die may roll off the table or into another player's space.)  The pick-up and drop/roll motion becomes pretty habitual after a while and, as a result, certain numbers are more likely than others depending on your particular rolling motion and how the die was sitting when you picked it up.  That's why they make you throw the dice so they bounce off the side wall at the craps table in a casino.

:AMN:


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 6, 2011)

For the longest time, I used to roll into the top of the box from one of the sets...but they got so abused over time I had to stop.


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## TarionzCousin (Mar 6, 2011)

Asmor said:


> So while interesting at the time, it's not particularly noteworthy.






Dannyalcatraz said:


> _*pop* hsssssssssssssss fup fup fup_  So much for THAT balloon!
> 
> Don't you just love it when the mathmagicians just suck the wonder out of something fun and quirky?


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## Fallenibilis (Mar 6, 2011)

I rolled 5 1's in a row before 3 on the first die then out of superstition i switched to my friends D20 and got another 2 1's... 

Our DM however while he doesn't roll consecutive 20's gets about 5-7 crits per encounter, and before anybody says anything he rolls in the open. He's just really lucky, where as i can't seem to roll above a 4 half the time....

Fallenibilis


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## Beginning of the End (Mar 6, 2011)

In the Depths of Khunbaral

Not quite the same thing. But epic.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 6, 2011)

The priestess of Tyr did much the same to a campaign's equivalent to the Lord of the Nazgûl...the others decided to run.


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## Jeff Wilder (Mar 6, 2011)

bobhayes said:


> Yes, about once in every series of 8000 rolls. It's simple random chance.



This is true, but it ignores the significance of the rolls.  In this case, they were attacks (and even more significant, they were criticals in a system that doesn't require confirmation).

I'm sure that I've seen three 20s in a row dozens of times and didn't even make special note of it.  But in eight years of playing 3E-era D&D, I've only seen it twice during attacks.

Significance matters as much as the math.


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## Jeff Wilder (Mar 6, 2011)

amnuxoll said:


> The pick-up and drop/roll motion becomes pretty habitual after a while and, as a result, certain numbers are more likely than others depending on your particular rolling motion and how the die was sitting when you picked it up.



Not really, no.  The uncontrollable factors -- what Ian Malcolm simplistically calls Chaos Theory in _Jurassic Park_ -- will create more than enough random "noise" to override a non-cheater's rolling method "signal," no matter how habitual and similar from roll to roll.



> That's why they make you throw the dice so they bounce off the side wall at the craps table in a casino.



They do this because people actually _try_ to cheat at craps, and this is the best way to discourage even the attempt (which takes time and is annoying), despite the fact that controlling dice like this is impossible (outside of a Fritz Leiber short story (look it up)).

At a game table, a cheater -- someone actually trying to roll non-randomly -- could probably affect his or her rolls noticeably enough for a chi-square test, because there aren't quite as many "noise" factors to the roll at a game table (e.g., the distance from roll to result is much shorter, and the surface isn't as bouncey).  But it would be barely noticeable, barring a world's class cheater.

And, BTW, it's the end wall of the table at a casino, at least in Vegas.


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## Drowbane (Mar 6, 2011)

TarionzCousin said:


> Last night, while DM'ing combat, I rolled 3 natural 20's in a row. The game was 4E, so they all did maximum damage. Two were on one character and immediately bloodied him.
> 
> I rolled in the open, on three different dice, in front of six players.
> 
> ...




I was one of the six players. After his 3 20s he rolled a 2, a 3, and I think another 2... which is just as interesting to me (especially considering one of those 2s was against my PC).


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## bastrak (Mar 6, 2011)

I've seen it before.

I've also seen four natural 20's rolled in a row once too.


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## delericho (Mar 6, 2011)

I don't recall three 20's in a row, but I did once roll two 20's at _just_ the right time:

(This was in 3e...)

The party were fighting some demons, and one of the characters went down. The party fighter decided to move over, taking the most direct route. When I pointed out he'd take an AoO from one of the demons, he casually said they had no chance of hitting, so he'd go for it.

He _was_ right - IIRC, they needed 19+ to hit his character.

So, I picked up the dice, rolled in the open (as is my wont), critted, and downed his character.

Good times.


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## 3d6 (Mar 6, 2011)

A few sessions back, I rolled a series of natural 20s against a party of 1st level characters. Three critical hits turned a fairly difficult encounter into a TPK. This was followed up by a string of 5s and 6s when the newly rolled up party ran into the same encounter, and they won in a cakewalk.


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## Sir Robilar (Mar 6, 2011)

Yes, it occured to me once, although I was at home alone and no one else saw it. Also heard the sound of the single clapping hand that day.


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## the Jester (Mar 6, 2011)

Oh yeah. 

I remember in the 1e days, one of my players had a three natural 20's in a row moment when the party looked to be having a tpk.

This from a fighter whose whole schtick was, "I will not take a life." 

Awesome. 

Just yesterday, the party imc was storming this cult dungeon and the master vampire that was the bad guys' leader was about to escape (25 hps left, insubstantial and flying 12- and one square away from being out of sight at the top of a 50' deep pit that the pcs had to descend to enter the dungeon). 

The last pc to go before the vampire burned his action point to get there and cast a fireball up at the vampire. I'm thinking, "Hah! He's going to get away!"

CRIT... 53 damage. 

Aargh, that becomes 26.

This, of course, right after two other pcs crit the solamith demon and kill it.


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## TarionzCousin (Mar 6, 2011)

amnuxoll said:


> The truth is that it's even more likely than that.  Most players will roll the die by picking it up and letting it roll off their hand directly to the table.



This was three different d20's, none of which were previously sitting with a "20" showing face up.

I once rolled 4 20's in 5 rolls playing a barbarian in Hackmaster--that rage lasted for "hours" IIRC. The other characters ran after my PC chopped in to the ranger's leg. Then my guy killed something like 80 kobolds.


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## TanisFrey (Mar 6, 2011)

We were facing a Great Wyrm Blue dragon in 2ed.  The cleric cast Wyvern Watch and stays within it.  The dragon has killed over half the party of 6th level characters.  It flies at the cleric, runs into the spell,  DM rolls a 1 on the saving throw, then remembers that the dragon has spell resistance and rolls a 00.  Result the cleric picks up a magical Long sword and kills the helpless dragon.


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## TarionzCousin (Mar 6, 2011)

Drowbane said:


> I was one of the six players. After his 3 20s he rolled a 2, a 3, and I think another 2... which is just as interesting to me (especially considering one of those 2s was against my PC).



Yeah, but I'm not complaining--considering I turned your character into a female the session before.


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## SSquirrel (Mar 6, 2011)

Haltherrion said:


> Interestingly, the odds of rolling 3 20s in a row is the same odds as winning the Oregon state lottery (average payout around $6M i think) during one year if you spent about $20 a week on the lottery.
> 
> But that illustrates the point: wining the lottery in a year of playing is the same as once a year, sitting down at the gaming table and rolling your 3 d20s hoping for three 20s in a row. Didn't make it? Too bad, try again next year.
> 
> If you as a play 24 times a year and throw the dice 50 times a night, you have about a 1 in 20 chance of doing getting 3 20s in a row any given year. Not very common...




Either your math is awful or your state has the easiest lottery in history.  For example, Powerball has a 1 in 195,249,054 chance of winning.  20*20*20 is only 8000.  There is no way the Oregon state lottery pays out $6M on a 1:8000 chance.

As far as dice rolls, my wife was rolling 2 weeks ago.  She has ridiculous dice luck (which balances out my craptastic rolling nicely) and her Ranger didn't even have Thievery, but she thought she would try a few rolls for lockpicking.  20, 20, 19, 20.


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## Dice4Hire (Mar 6, 2011)

Always good stories about good and bad rolls in RPGs.


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## Wereserpent (Mar 6, 2011)

I wish I could actually roll just one natural twenty on something important.


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## Ainamacar (Mar 6, 2011)

SSquirrel said:


> Either your math is awful or your state has the easiest lottery in history.  For example, Powerball has a 1 in 195,249,054 chance of winning.  20*20*20 is only 8000.  There is no way the Oregon state lottery pays out $6M on a 1:8000 chance.




He was saying a 1 in 8000 chance if you spent $20 a week for the entire year...not those odds per $1 ticket or anything like that.  That's roughly $1000 dollars, and if the odds are as stated, one would expect needing to pay that 8000 times in order to win once...expending 8 million dollars in the process.  That passes the sniff test.

We've had the triple 20 on an attack come up a few times in play, but I can't remember whether or not the DM at the time ruled it an instant slaying attack or not, probably because it wasn't in a clutch situation.


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## Diamond Cross (Mar 6, 2011)

Well, we used the original Critical Hit and Fumble rules way back in an old dragon magazine. The DM's wife was playing a ranger.

The hafling Thief was using a short bow to provide some extra support. 

So on his first attack he rolled a 1.

Then he rolled a hit friend in throat for triple damage.

The ranger was the only one in front of the halfling so the DM rule that it hit the Ranger. So she ended up with an arrow sticking in her neck through the back.

That was bad enough.

But the other side happened to have an archer too. So the DM targeted the ranger rolled a natural 20. All rolls were in front so everybody could see.

He rolled Critical hit neck triple damage.

So the ranger ended up have two arrows in her neck, one from the back, and one from the front. She came really super close to dying. Fortunately the cleric had some healing left.

She never played again and she didn't have any sex with her husband for the rest of the year. No joke and no exaggeration. She was that pissed off at him. She almost made him quit the game entirely. She burned the books but then a coupl of months later bought him some new ones. Why I don't know.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 7, 2011)

> So the ranger ended up have two arrows in her neck, one from the back, and one from the front. She came really super close to dying. Fortunately the cleric had some healing left.




On the plus side, the Ranger could now do Tibetan Throat music.


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## Nivek (Mar 7, 2011)

As a DM I've rolled two 20s in a row followed by two 1s. 
Ever since that day it seems like I haven't been able to roll as many 20s as I have done in the passed.


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## SSquirrel (Mar 7, 2011)

Ainamacar said:


> He was saying a 1 in 8000 chance if you spent $20 a week for the entire year...not those odds per $1 ticket or anything like that.  That's roughly $1000 dollars, and if the odds are as stated, one would expect needing to pay that 8000 times in order to win once...expending 8 million dollars in the process.  That passes the sniff test.
> 
> We've had the triple 20 on an attack come up a few times in play, but I can't remember whether or not the DM at the time ruled it an instant slaying attack or not, probably because it wasn't in a clutch situation.




I still say that's an easy lottery.  Powerball is 195M:1 odds or over 24 times harder to win than that math.


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## haakon1 (Mar 7, 2011)

Best I ever saw was in the 1980s, in Oriental Adventures (AD&D).

They messed with an altar to Orcus, and I rolled for a chance for Orcus to notice (yes) and gate in (yes).

They were only 4th level at the time.

The samurai (PC of the youngest player) was a very good archer, and a very lucky character.  He fired an arrow at Orcus and got a natch 20.  That was a crit in our rules, I believe at the time it was double damage + a free roll.  He ended up getting 4 NATCH 20's in a row.  Orcus ended up pretty low on HP and gated out on his initiative, never actually attacking the party.

Never seen anything like it, in my 30 years (in August) of D&D.

Luckily, Oriental D&D had an honor system . . . honors were heaped upon him!


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## Heathen72 (Mar 7, 2011)

Ainamacar said:


> He was saying a 1 in 8000 chance if you spent $20 a week for the entire year...not those odds per $1 ticket or anything like that.  That's roughly $1000 dollars, and if the odds are as stated, one would expect needing to pay that 8000 times in order to win once...expending 8 million dollars in the process.  That passes the sniff test.
> 
> We've had the triple 20 on an attack come up a few times in play, but I can't remember whether or not the DM at the time ruled it an instant slaying attack or not, probably because it wasn't in a clutch situation.




The maths is complicated, but suffice to say it's nothing like 1 in 8000, because he is still only spending $20 each week, even if he is spending $1000 over the course of the year.


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## Ainamacar (Mar 7, 2011)

spunkrat said:


> The maths is complicated, but suffice to say it's nothing like 1 in 8000, because he is still only spending $20 each week, even if he is spending $1000 over the course of the year.






			
				spunkrat said:
			
		

> ...I find it hard to believe you will win the Oregon lottery by buying 8000 tickets, though to be honest I don't know how the Oregon lottery works...




The math is not complicated if we make some reasonable assumptions, and based on your second quote you appear to have misunderstood the original poster in the first place.



			
				Haltherrion said:
			
		

> Interestingly, the odds of rolling 3 20s in a row is the same odds as winning the Oregon state lottery (average payout around $6M i think) during one year if you spent about $20 a week on the lottery.




The original post states that the odds of winning the Oregon state lottery _in a year_ are about 1 in 8000 if you spend $20 a week for that entire year.  The number of tickets this buys isn't specified, and doesn't matter if every ticket has the same chance of winning over the course of a year.  How frequently they select a winner is also not specified and doesn't matter, or at least doesn't matter very much.  (Depending on the details of the lottery both of these may affect the expected number of winners per drawing, so there may be some effect depending on the pot sharing rules for multiple winners.  Likewise, if the probability of a ticket winning depends on the number of people playing or if the pot size is not fixed, then some corrections would be necessary.  But unless they do something really bizarre these are 2nd order effects that can be ignored in a back-of-the-napkin calculation, particularly one in which only information about the average results over the course of a year are provided).

What matters is that on average you would have to spend that kind of money (i.e. 20*52, or about $1000) 8000 times to expect to win the lottery once over the period of time specified.  Well, 1000*8000 is 8 million, which is greater than the winnings of 6 million.  And, of course, to the state it doesn't actually matter whether that money comes from one guy or from thousands, or if it is spent over 1 giant year long lottery or lots of daily ones.  All that matters is the probability that someone who bought a ticket won.  (If multiple prize winners don't split the pot, they also care about the probability of there being two or more prize winners each time there is a drawing or whatever, which will be minuscule in any case).   In other words, for every 8 million dollars in lottery tickets the state takes in _from any source_, it could expect to pay 6 million dollars to winners.  If there are no other prizes and there is sufficient volume to account for fluctuations about this average, this is a perfectly sustainable lottery for the state.  Assuming a single ticket costs no more than $20, and all tickets are  equally likely to win, the best possible  odds to win with a single  ticket based on the given information would be 1 in 8000*52, or about 40000.  If, instead, every ticket costs $1, then each ticket has about a 1 in 8 million chance to win 6 million dollars.

Whether the actual Oregon lottery uses these approximate odds is of no interest to me.

So as to marginally contribute to the thread's topic, I will chime in with a fun story involving somewhat implausible odds:

We were fighting some kind of demon or devil in 3.5, and the party was in rough shape.  The cleric (of the god of death) perished, but was returned by his deity to finish the battle, with the understanding that whether he ended up succeeding or failing, he would permanently return to the higher planes immediately after the fight (if not during).  In the end he struck the final blow against the last remaining enemy...which proceeded to explode in its death throes and knock him to precisely -10 hp.  We never settled whether that was how the god chose to take his servant back, or if he was simply spared the trouble of needing to do it himself.


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## Heathen72 (Mar 8, 2011)

Ainamacar said:


> based on your second quote you appear to have misunderstood the original poster in the first place.




Hmm, You are correct there, at least. My bad.


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## Noctos (Mar 8, 2011)

when i dm 2 edition years ago i had to often rule on enemy creatures that a natural 20 did cause double damage or instant kill as suggested in dm's manual. More than once i had to allow a second or third roll by the player if they really wanted the instant kill a second 20 on main boss's meant double damage third meant instant death. 

yes it happens it's a stoke of pure luck but it happens 
just like players roll nothing but 1-3 all night long.


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## TheYeti1775 (Mar 8, 2011)

A rat killed my 4th level Rogue(2)/Wizard(2) human in 3E with a Triple 20.

Simple clear the tower of rats.
Splinter the Ninja Rat as he is known nowadays, somehow survived the Burning Hands of the room. To rip the thoart out of Theo.
It than proceeded to successfully avoid the rest of the party for 10+ rounds as they couldn't hit it.
This was one of Theo's many deaths.


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## outsider (Mar 9, 2011)

In the 2e days, I had a character with a vorpal sword.  In one session, I one shotted every single monster I attacked with it.  5 hour long session, probably at least 15 monsters.  It wasn't a continuous streak of 20s, there were lots of saving throws, proficiency checks, etc, I didn't roll a 20 on.  It was just every time I rolled an attack check, I got the 20.  The campaign fell apart that night, due to me one-shotting what was intended to be a powerful recurring villain, and the DM trying to deny me of the kill "You can't decapitate a dragon.  You cut off the end of it's tail instead".  Pity he couldn't adapt to how the dice fell, because fighting that dragon was a hugely heroic effort on my character's part(fueled by my ridiculous confidence I would yet again roll the 20, which is what happened).

There's a lesson in that.  Never give a vorpal sword to an unnaturely lucky risk-taker.


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## TarionzCousin (Mar 9, 2011)

TheYeti1775 said:


> A rat killed my 4th level Rogue(2)/Wizard(2) human in 3E with a Triple 20.






outsider said:


> There's a lesson in that.  Never give a vorpal sword to an unnaturely lucky risk-taker.



Agreed. On behalf of EN World, I must award your vorpal sword to Splinter the Ninja Rat.


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