# Ever see a Strengh 18/00 rolled legitimately?



## Wik (Feb 11, 2011)

I mean, classic D&Ders will know many characters with 18/00... but how often has it been seen legitimately rolled?  On the first try (no "that was a practice roll" or "that was an 18/10, roll ,and kind of lame, lemme retry").  

I only saw it once.   In an unusual twist, I was a player and not the GM... it was the GM's first time running a game, but he was a pretty dedicated player.  We had a few other players, including this guy Ian, who had never played any RPG before.

He decided he wanted to be an elven fighter.  And he started rolling stats.  After allocating them, it was something like Str 18, Dex 16, Con 16, Int 13, Wis 13 Cha 13 or something ridiculous like that.  

Then we explained the percentage strength thing, and he rolled his strength - 00.  I remember he was really upset, and begged for a re-roll, because he thought his character was gonna be super weak.  When we explained "00" meant "100", he got pretty excited.  None of us had ever seen a legit 18/00, and we were all pretty dumbfounded.

This was in 98 or so, and I still remember that character - his name was Drake, and he was nigh unstoppable.  My half-elven druid/enchanter was quite the badass, too, but nothing next to Drake.  

Never seen it since.


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## kaomera (Feb 11, 2011)

Not personally, and in 1e AD&D we typically rolled 3 1st-level PCs per player with 8-12 players in a starting party being pretty typical. I actually saw at least 3 players try to just roll up massive numbers of PCs to get one, and eventually give up. Someone I played with sometimes did, apparently, get one; but I wasn't actually there to see it. I think you would expect to need 700+ games (assuming completely evenly distributed results) to "guarantee" seeing one; given the number of people I gamed with and the frequency of new games starting I think we might have managed that in 10 years or so...


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Feb 11, 2011)

Sure.

... after about 35 tries.


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## Stormonu (Feb 11, 2011)

Not quite - closest I saw was an 18/98.

However, back in 1E the group had a wizard who managed to roll an 18 Strength (and an 18 Int too; we used the method out of the back of UA).  Just for yucks, I had him roll percentile.  He got an 18/56 and begged me to keep it.  Figuring he'd never get the chance to use it (he was a wizard), I let him keep it.  It never really had an affect on the game except once - at about 5th level, when caught in a duel with another wizard and low on spells, he reached over and slugged the enemy wizard.  Guess the guy had a glass jaw, cause it not only disrupted the spell, it put his lights out.  

His remark?  "Now that's how you cast a proper _sleep_ spell, buddy."


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## amerigoV (Feb 11, 2011)

Wik said:


> I mean, classic D&Ders will know many characters with 18/00... but how often has it been seen legitimately rolled?  On the first try (no "that was a practice roll" or "that was an 18/10, roll ,and kind of lame, lemme retry").




I saw it every time I ran a Fighter! What are the odds!


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## DumbPaladin (Feb 11, 2011)

Yep, in my first D&D game, the DM's boyfriend joined after about the game had been going on for almost a year, and he rolled an 18, then followed it up with double zero on 2d10.  He didn't know it was a good thing, but he was pretty happy with the 18 as he was a Roman soldier.


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## Vegepygmy (Feb 11, 2011)

Wik said:


> I only saw it once.



Same here.


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## Umbran (Feb 11, 2011)

I saw it twice.  Once by another player, witnessed by the entire group.  It was kinda cool to see them come up.  The other time didn't count, but not in the way you'd think.

We were playing using Unearthed Arcana rules for character generation - where humans had different dice they'd roll for each stat by class, so if you were playing a Wizard you'd roll 9d6, take the best three for Intelligence, but only straight 3d6 for Strength.

I was playing the party wizard, and rolled a 17 for Int, and an 18 for Strength.  The DM, just for kicks, told me to roll percentiles to see what my strength would have been if I'd been playing a fighter.  They came up 00.

Biggest friggin' waste of an 18/00 ever.  

But is was still fun to play a wizard that could beat the party barbarian in arm wrestling.


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## Tanstaafl_au (Feb 11, 2011)

A few times. 
And yes, thats as DM watching not as the player rolling.


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## FATDRAGONGAMES (Feb 11, 2011)

in 31 years of playing AD&D I've only ever seen that once, and that was nearly 25 years ago. It was legit, there were about 7 or 8 of us rolling up and we all witnessed the guy do it.


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## Mouseferatu (Feb 11, 2011)

Probably about half a dozen times over the years. (Alas, none of those were for my own character.) Yes, legitimately.

A whole hell of a lot more than half a dozen if we take out the strict "legitimate" requirement, and yes, in _that_ category, I count a character or two of my own.


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## ExploderWizard (Feb 11, 2011)

Seen with my own eyes, only once. It was December of 88 and the gang was rolling up characters for a brand new campaign I was about to start in my homebrew world.

I miss the free time I had when 12+ hours at a stretch could be spent just drawing maps.


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## OnlineDM (Feb 11, 2011)

Sorry for being a total newbie, but could someone explain to an unenlightened new-school player like me how the rules for rolling percentage for Strength worked in older editions? I only have any familiarity with the rules for 3e and 4e.

Clearly from the context you roll both 3d6 as well as percentile dice... but what does that MEAN? Is 8 / 99% better than 18 / 5%?

Funny note: When I tried some simple Googling to see if I could figure this out on my own, this EN World thread from 2003 that asks the same question came up!


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 11, 2011)

Never saw one rolled up, but I did play one with DM's permission.  He also had 18s for Dex & Con...but his mental stats added up to 18.

The coda to his story was most recently told here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/301069-greatest-best-ever.html


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## Mercurius (Feb 11, 2011)

I rolled 18/00 once - yes, three 6s followed by two 0s (I don't even think it was 4d6). It was 15-16 years ago and I was playing a one-on-one game where the other guy and I would switch off DMing. He was a total prick in all facets of life, including D&D--he didn't like the fact that I rolled 18/00 so he killed off my character in the first session - he sent me up against a giant scorpion, I believe (I know, I should have run).


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## pawsplay (Feb 11, 2011)

Twice, I think.


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## kaomera (Feb 11, 2011)

OnlineDM said:


> Sorry for being a total newbie, but could someone explain to an unenlightened new-school player like me how the rules for rolling percentage for Strength worked in older editions? I only have any familiarity with the rules for 3e and 4e.
> 
> Clearly from the context you roll both 3d6 as well as percentile dice... but what does that MEAN? Is 8 / 99% better than 18 / 5%?



A Fighter (possibly some subclasses of Fighter as well) who scored an 18 in Strength was entitled to make an additional roll of d%, which was then parenthetically noted with this score. Yes, a higher percentile roll was better, and even an 18/01 was better than a straight 18. Note that every percentile score had a different bonus - the gradations in 1e where 01-50, 51-75, 76-90, 91-99, and (of course) the mighty "00".

Compared to a character with a straight 18, a Fighter with an 18/00 enjoyed a +2 to hit, +4 to damage, 2250# of weight allowance, a 2 in 6 open doors chance, and an improvement of +24% to the chance of bending bars or lifting gates.


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## Greg K (Feb 11, 2011)

I had seen it three or four times in twenty years (once being my own character).  

The scary thing was that one of those players also rolled 18/99 and 18/98 in front of me.  He was also was freakishly lucky with the percentile dice (including those belonging to other people) in combat when we played Rolemaster.


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## Mercurius (Feb 11, 2011)

If I remember correctly, an 18/00 gave a +3 to hit, +6 damage.

_Checks PHB...

_Yup, at least in 1E. I don't have a copy of the 2E PHB anymore.


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## jonesy (Feb 11, 2011)

I've seen it with my own eyes only two times, and the second character didn't survive long enough to do anything with it. 

But I've seen a lot of characters who've arrived to games like that, and the players swore they were legit.


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## Wiseblood (Feb 11, 2011)

I did it. In 2009 we were playing 2e. I had just handed the DM reigns to my wife and was rolling my character in front of evryone. I said out loud before I rolled " Now I just have to roll 100". I couldn't believe my eyes.

I have played two characters with this score but I was not the roller of the other and was not present for the rolling.

Incidentally, the character I actually rolled, was competeing in an obstacle course against mages. One obstacle was a Wall of Ice per the spell. I couldn't climb it or leap over it. So I asked if I could lift it. After a little cajoling I persuaded the DM to allow me a chance. She said ok you have a 2% chance of lifting it. I rolled a 1. I came in second without using magic. I got a medal for that one. 

Percentile dice seem to have a 100% probability of suprising me.


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## Animus (Feb 11, 2011)

Once legitimately. My freshman year playing 2e when the guys got together to roll up characters, the guy playing the fighter rolls "00" legit first time. Never seen a legit one before or since.


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## Kafen (Feb 11, 2011)

I had a DM way back in the first days - 1e... He rolled my % for the stat and came up with 100. It was my only character to have that by dice rolls. Then again, I never used it. I got squashed by an anchor fighting  sea creatures.


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## kitsune9 (Feb 11, 2011)

I rolled an 18/99 fighter once, but I don't think I hit 18/00.


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## Sepulchrave II (Feb 11, 2011)

I've never had an 18, let alone an 18/00. I've _seen_ a couple of 18s on other people's character sheets.


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## The Shaman (Feb 11, 2011)

I saw a legit 18/00 once and a legit 18/99 once.







ExploderWizard said:


> I miss the free time I had when 12+ hours at a stretch could be spent just drawing maps.



*_sigh_*

Yeah . . .


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## Peraion Graufalke (Feb 11, 2011)

I don't think I ever saw an 18/00 outside of CRPGs. The highest I rolled was an 18/8x.


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## catsclaw227 (Feb 11, 2011)

When I was a young Monte Hall DM (8th grade, 1978, give me a break) I decided that i wanted to run crazy game.  I ran Barrier Peaks and they got a ton of Monte Haul huge treasure.

Then a new guy joined. I swear I did watched him go 18/00 and then 17, 16, 5, 4, 4.  He kept it.  Then they went into the killer of all dungeons.

DMing the Tomb of Horrors, the players... well....   

If you listen quietly, you can still hear their screams....


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## Heathen72 (Feb 11, 2011)

Wik said:


> Ever see a Strengh 18/00 rolled legitimately?
> 
> He decided he wanted to be an elven fighter.  And he started rolling stats.  _*After allocating them*_, it was something like Str 18, Dex 16, Con 16, Int 13, Wis 13 Cha 13 or something ridiculous like that.
> Never seen it since.




It depends what you mean by legit? What the GM allows? 4d6 keep best 3? 
If it was strictly by the book old school rolling (from memory, here) mind, you didn't allocate - you rolled 3d6 for each stat in order and that was it. So you only got one shot rolling an 18 for strength . So 1 in 216 x 1 in 100 gives you 1 character in 21,600 who has a_legit_ 18/00 for strength. 

I saw an 18/00 in a one shot, once, and that was with 4d6 keep best three and then allocate. In campaign play the best I ever saw was an 18/97. And that was 4d6 keep best 3, then allocate, and the GM let you roll again if you rolled up a crap (or boring) character.  Suffice to say, these allowance significantly increase the odds of you rolling a character with 18/00!


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## Orius (Feb 11, 2011)

Wik said:


> Then we explained the percentage strength thing, and he rolled his strength - 00.  I remember he was really upset, and begged for a re-roll, because he thought his character was gonna be super weak.




It would take a particularly evil DM to tell him, "Sure, you can reroll."

A DM like me....



Stormonu said:


> However, back in 1E the group had a wizard who managed to roll an 18 Strength (and an 18 Int too; we used the method out of the back of UA).  Just for yucks, I had him roll percentile.  He got an 18/56 and begged me to keep it.  Figuring he'd never get the chance to use it (he was a wizard), I let him keep it.  It never really had an affect on the game except once - at about 5th level, when caught in a duel with another wizard and low on spells, he reached over and slugged the enemy wizard.  Guess the guy had a glass jaw, cause it not only disrupted the spell, it put his lights out.
> 
> His remark?  "Now that's how you cast a proper _sleep_ spell, buddy."




This sort of thing is why I let players roll for their stats, though it works best when you use 3d6 or a method where they have to roll in order.



Mercurius said:


> If I remember correctly, an 18/00 gave a +3 to hit, +6 damage.
> 
> _Checks PHB...
> 
> _Yup, at least in 1E. I don't have a copy of the 2E PHB anymore.




I'm pretty sure it was the same in 2e.  The break point for the rolls too.



Sepulchrave II said:


> I've never had an 18, let alone an 18/00. I've _seen_ a couple of 18s on other people's character sheets.




Yeah, probably as in a couple of 18s on the _same sheet_, right?


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## Dice4Hire (Feb 11, 2011)

One time. I also used percentiles for other stats in 2E, so I saw a few rolled for Int and Dex for sure, maybe a Con also.


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## wedgeski (Feb 11, 2011)

Once, to a chorus of cheers.


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## Runestar (Feb 11, 2011)

Once, though it was in baldur's gate 2. I was rolling up a dwarf wizard slayer character, and 18/00 just appeared on my screen! The total wasn't very good, but I could still get max str/dex/con and have 10 in mental stats, so I accepted it (especially since he couldn't magic gear).


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## slwoyach (Feb 11, 2011)

No.  Best I ever got was a 96.

And this should be a poll.


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## sellars (Feb 11, 2011)

Never. Seen a lot on character sheets, but the thill of actually see one getting rolled.... I'm saving that one for a rainy day


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## avin (Feb 11, 2011)

I rolled it once. Everybody was joking/rolling while the DM was in the bathroom.

On my turn I rolled 18/00.

As it was my first roll and we had four witness, DM allowed me to keep it.

In a couple of months we migrated to 3.0, tho


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## S'mon (Feb 11, 2011)

Yeah, my friend Upper_Krust's PC, Thrin.  Made it from 3rd level Cavalier to Lesser God with 117 levels and is still a feature of my main game-world.


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## Tarek (Feb 11, 2011)

I've rolled an 18/00 strength. Once.
That particular combination will come up one time in twenty thousand rolls, approximately, so it's not at all unheard of.

I routinely had characters with an array of stats all of which were twelve or higher; typically with seventeens and sixteens in there. I've never had one where there was more than one eighteen, though.


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## rkwoodard (Feb 11, 2011)

*nope*

Not legit.  

The closest I got was back in High School (83ish).  I was home sick, bored so I started rolling dice.

I was rolling percentile.  I rolled a 00 and decided to roll up a character.  4d6 drop the lowest, no other re-rolls, but assign as you see fit.  Sure enough, one roll was an 18.

I knew my DM would not believe me, so I told him exactly how I did it.  He let me keep it (nice guy, I let him be the best man in my wedding years later).

The character turned out to be a Dwarven Gladiator (from a Dragon Mag NPC article I think).

I have never seen it done either.


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## billd91 (Feb 11, 2011)

I think probably twice - it's hard to be sure after so long, it might actually be one or more times beyond that. But it was pretty rare.


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## Wednesday Boy (Feb 11, 2011)

I rolled an 18/97 strength for my deva and used Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes to up it to 18/00.


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## Scott DeWar (Feb 11, 2011)

in 1984 ( 27 years ago?! yikes!!) I rolled an 18/00 for a fighter legitamately. since then the closes is an 18/96 in 1986. Then I never could do it again. *sigh*


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## frankthedm (Feb 11, 2011)

I see the big deal about rolling the 18/00 for the first few levels, but since the first STR booster item was Gauntlets of Ogre Power also STR 18/00, I always did assume this was intended to level the field later on. While its true there were no guarantees on getting any specific item back in the day, when the lowest booster bumps you up to human maximum, that is a fairly big _nudge, nudge, wink-wink_  .


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## TarionzCousin (Feb 11, 2011)

I was in a Dark Sun campaign with only two players. The DM had us make up our own character classes (from the 2E DMG, I think). We rolled 3d6 in order. In front of both of us, the other player rolled an 18/00 Strength and an 18 Intelligence. Then he rolled 00 to give his character psionics. That was a badass fighter/wizard/psionicist.

I played an illusionist/thief with a 16 in Dexterity. I think my Strength was 7.


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## Achan hiArusa (Feb 11, 2011)

I think I count 33 legitimate 18/00, so that means there should be 712,800 characters out there without it (just using statistics).

My brother who was really lucky with the dice did it, he also rolled maximum human size and weight using the alternate rules in the DMG.  So he was almost 8 foot tall and over 400 lbs.  Just enough to not take size L damage from weapons.  He named him Hercules.


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## Jeff Wilder (Feb 11, 2011)

I saw 18/00 rolled once.  Of course, I saw 18/00 on character sheets several times ...

(Best I ever did was 18/92, unless you count my half-ogre PC.  Half-ogres got a big bonus -- forget what it was -- on the d% roll.)

I did once roll 00 for psionics, though.


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## Ron (Feb 11, 2011)

I rolled a 98 for my first ever AD&D character. That's the highest score I've seem and I watched hundreds of characters being rolled in front of me.


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## saskganesh (Feb 11, 2011)

I saw it twice in AD&D.

one time the character had 3 hit points. I'm not sure about the other one.

neither lived that long actually. false sense of invulnerability by the player and fairly bloody campaigns.


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## Goonalan (Feb 11, 2011)

Never seen one rolled in 30 years, best probably something like 18/96.

Seen dozens on character sheets, pre-gens and the like.

Goonalan


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## the Jester (Feb 11, 2011)

Once, in 2e.  The players was ecstatic.  

Then the party entered a dungeon.  He took point, relying on his infravision to spot dangers.  Come a room temperature danger and he died without ever striking a blow!


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## noffham (Feb 11, 2011)

Seen it twice. Once was my 3rd ever character Noffham. A big, bluff, fun-loving fighter on the model of Fafhrd.

Then one DM had a trapped room with a machine that changed alll your stats to the average of what you rolled. So he ended up with all stats at 12. That's the day I retired him.


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Feb 11, 2011)

Only when generating a character for Baldur's Gate.


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## dagger (Feb 11, 2011)

Yes I have seen it rolled in 1e and have done it my self...

I also rolled for Psionics in 1e and got ALL 100's...what are the odds of that!!


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## Mark Hope (Feb 11, 2011)

Once.  I did it on my second AD&D character ever (a paladin) back in 1984, in front of the DM.  Only played the character a few times over the years, though.  Think I retired him around level 8 or something.

I once saw my sister roll 18, 18, 18, 17, 16, 16 for an assassin she was playing.  Totally outrageous.  She only played the character for a bit, though, claiming it was "boring", heh


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## Herschel (Feb 11, 2011)

I did it once. The character made it to fifth level, and was crit by a goblin chucking a spear center mass. So much for that character.

I also had a fighter with an 18/94 at ninth level and he was teleported with the wizard in to solid rock. Maybe my favorite character ever.


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## mach1.9pants (Feb 11, 2011)

Yeah at my boarding school were 3 or so of us played DnD all the time we had pretty much every guy in our year (plus others) try it out for a bit. The biggest guy in our year, a monster of a rugby player, rolled 18-00... very appropriate 

He only played a couple of times.


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## Storminator (Feb 11, 2011)

Never saw one, and we had some "generous" rules. 4d6 drop low, arrange, make PCs until you got an 18, two 17s or three 16s+. Our PC generation sessions saw such witty banter as; "I just rolled up a baker!" and "you just rolled up the town drunk."

Sometime we rolled up entire villages before we ended up with PCs.

25 years later my son "rolled" up a party of 4 PCs. No stat among the 4 less than 12, every PC with an 18 except the guy with two 17s. I told him I knew he was cheating. He denied it. I pulled out my ancient binder of PCs and showed the characters I "rolled" when I was 12... We bonded. 

PS


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## Diamond Cross (Feb 11, 2011)

Three different times in about four years of play witnessed by the entire group because we all decided to roll stats in front of everybody to prevent cheating.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 11, 2011)

It just occurred to me that 18/00s were kept artificially low to a certain extent- only warriors made that roll.  And, as I recall, certain races and even genders couldn't roll for extraordinary strength, either.


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## Wednesday Boy (Feb 11, 2011)

Jeff Wilder said:


> (Best I ever did was 18/92, unless you count my half-ogre PC. Half-ogres got a big bonus -- forget what it was -- on the d% roll.)




In 2nd Ed. half-ogres strength was 1d6+13 with a 6 treated as 18(00) strength and on a 5 rolled normally for extraordinary strength.  That's the only way I legitimately had a 18(00) strength character.


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## Jeff Wilder (Feb 11, 2011)

Herschel said:


> I also had a fighter with an 18/94 at ninth level and he was teleported with the wizard in to solid rock.



If he were as tough as Chuck norris, he'd have survived that.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 11, 2011)

_*pfft*_

If he were as tough as Chuck Norris, the wizard's spell would have realized the error in targeting, bitch-slapped the spellcaster, then teleported the _M[U/I] into solid rock._


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## nedjer (Feb 11, 2011)

18/99 just the once. Which is a totally raw deal, as I used to go for fighter multi-classes, paladins and rangers all the time in 1e and should, statistically, have had at least one 18/00


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## ExploderWizard (Feb 11, 2011)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> It just occurred to me that 18/00s were kept artificially low to a certain extent- only warriors made that roll. And, as I recall, certain races and even genders couldn't roll for extraordinary strength, either.




Only fighter types could roll for it at all. Gnomes & halflings were capped before 18 so no rolls for them. Elves were limited to 18/75, Dwarves and half-orcs could get up to 18/99 IIRC. Females of the various races were capped at percentages below the males of their race.  Only a human male fighter could have an actual 18/00 per the PHB STR table.


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## Ulrick (Feb 11, 2011)

<<<<------------ 

Ulrick was the name of my fighter in 2e AD&D. I rolled an 18/00 strength in front of my friends some 12 years ago using 4d6 drop the lowest method. I rolled an 18, then I rolled percentile dice and got 00.  

Ulrick having such strength, at least from the DM's perspective,  was unbalancing, considering that Ulrick also specialized in Bastard Swords _AND_ the DM allowed stuff from the Skills and Powers so Ulrick could wield a bastard sword in each hand with only a -4 penalty to each attack (by the high strength this canceled out). With 2nd edition giving fighters multiple attacks per round, Ulrick could kill low-level enemies with ease. 

Some pointed out that Ulrick was Drizzt clone. "Nope," I said. "Drizzt uses scimitars and is a Dark Elf. Ulrick is human, uses bastard swords, and doesn't have Dark Elf angst." 

Also, Drizzt, as far as I know, never had an 18/00 strength. 

I win. 

Unfortunately the campaign didn't last very long. But I still have the character sheet.


Edit: And yes, I rolled 18/00 on my first try.


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## nedjer (Feb 11, 2011)

ExploderWizard said:


> Only fighter types could roll for it at all. Gnomes & halflings were capped before 18 so no rolls for them. Elves were limited to 18/75, Dwarves and half-orcs could get up to 18/99 IIRC. Females of the various races were capped at percentages below the males of their race.  Only a human male fighter could have an actual 18/00 per the PHB STR table.




Those were my guys. Split class elf fighter/ magic-users and split class half-orc fighter/ thieves - the latter the only option for the 18/99; just enough HP to hack the lower levels on split class and a backstab to die for at 7/7th level 

More happy memories than angel there.


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## Gryph (Feb 11, 2011)

Just once. A friend rolled a cavalier under the UA rules. Started with an 18/70 ish strength and raised it to 18/00 at level 5 or 6. Never saw one rolled straight. I rolled a 96 for a half-elf F/MU but had to drop it to 90 due to the racial max.


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## Crazy Jerome (Feb 11, 2011)

I had forgotten about the half-ogres.  We had those in a few games, but I don't think any of them every got the 18(00). 

The only time I saw it legitmately was in those old games we did in high school, where we started on Friday after school and played straight through to Sunday afternoon, with breaks only for meals.  Typically, we'd go through around 5 characters per players--so about 30 to 35 total.  Brutal.  We were using that Unearthed Arcana method one weekend (9d6 for primary stat, et. al.)  One guy got the 18(00) and then promptly rolled a 7 for his Con.  I think he lasted until the wee hours of Saturday morning.  So a 8 hour run or so was pretty impressive.  When he died, the rest of the group saluted the character sheet before putting it to rest. 

I'm detecting somewhat of a recurring theme in this topic ...

The funny thing with the percentage to us though were the number of times someone rolled in the high 40's or low 70's.  And then the elf fighter would roll a 92.  No one every rolled, say, an 05.


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## aco175 (Feb 11, 2011)

The first game we officially played after the introduction game and going out to buy our own copy of the red box, the original one.  Maybe it was when the first hardcover books came out, the old first edition AD&D, It was like 30 years ago.  My father was the dm and my brother rolled it strait-up, before we started with alternate rolling methods, it was 3d6 straight down the line.  The only catch, we were playing a party of dwarfs and could only get 18.99.  I think we were too young or too new with the rules to change it to keep the .00.

How may times did someone bring a character with .00 that was 'rolled up at home, honest'.


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## Wik (Feb 11, 2011)

ExploderWizard said:


> Only fighter types could roll for it at all. Gnomes & halflings were capped before 18 so no rolls for them. Elves were limited to 18/75, Dwarves and half-orcs could get up to 18/99 IIRC. Females of the various races were capped at percentages below the males of their race.  Only a human male fighter could have an actual 18/00 per the PHB STR table.




Not so much in 2e, which I think was a better way of doing it.  And I don't remember the exceptional strength gender caps in 1e, either, but then, I didn't exactly play many female characters.


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## Roland55 (Feb 12, 2011)

Mouseferatu said:


> Probably about half a dozen times over the years. (Alas, none of those were for my own character.) Yes, legitimately.
> 
> A whole hell of a lot more than half a dozen if we take out the strict "legitimate" requirement, and yes, in _that_ category, I count a character or two of my own.




You are either profoundly lucky ... or you have played a LOT of D&D!

I've been at it for well over 30 years, but have only seen it twice.  The first time it was my spouse ... my ridiculously lucky spouse.  She rolled 2 18's, a 17, and a 16 for her character ... straight up rolls!  And then capped it with that double-0.  A ranger, as I recall. 

The second time was much later, during the 80s.  And that fellow only played for 3 months before being sent overseas.

The next closest was an 18/93 back in the late 80s.


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## rgard (Feb 12, 2011)

Only once.  It was another player.  I did roll an 18/99 for a half-orc fighter/assassin once.


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## Zelligars Apprentice (Feb 12, 2011)

The best I personally saw was an 18/97.

I have a friend who once ran a game where one character had legitimately rolled all 18's down the line, with strength being an 18/00.  The character died in the third room.


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## Glyfair (Feb 12, 2011)

ExploderWizard said:


> Only fighter types could roll for it at all. Gnomes & halflings were capped before 18 so no rolls for them. Elves were limited to 18/75, Dwarves and half-orcs could get up to 18/99 IIRC. Females of the various races were capped at percentages below the males of their race.  Only a human male fighter could have an actual 18/00 per the PHB STR table.



Indeed, in my early RPG years (pre-1980) I saw an 18/00 rolled and _wasted_.  The player was known for always playing an elf.  He decided to play a fighter/wizard multiclass after having an 18 for Strength and 16 for Intelligence.  His exceptional strength roll was 00.  He tried to convince the DM to allow his elf to keep it, but when that didn't fly he dropped it to the 18/75.


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## nedjer (Feb 12, 2011)

Of course I played 21,600 fighters 

Or whenever I got an 18 out of the 6 rolls I went for a fighter class/ sub-class for years. So I was calculating the number of 00s (or not) arising from those 18s. This was deeply statistically wrong of me and I will beat myself with sticks to atone


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## Man in the Funny Hat (Feb 12, 2011)

I've been playing D&D since 1976/77 or thereabouts and in these 35 years of gaming I've known it to happen only once and I'm the one who managed it. I rolled it for an elven fighter I was making. Everybody was SO jealous when it happened.

The sad part is it made virtually no difference in the game because it was a munchkin cheese fest with the other fighters running around wearing girdle/gauntlet combinations, most of them dwarves with dwarven thrower hammers. My elf who looked like Arnold Schwarzeneggar was a certified weenie when actually compared to other fighter PC's with christmas trees of magic items. Elves in particular came to be derided by other players as effeminate if not closeted homosexuals and neither I, nor my Ogre-strong character were ever given any respect.


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## Steel_Wind (Feb 12, 2011)

18/99? Yes.  18/100? No.


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## Wik (Feb 12, 2011)

Okay, this is bugging me.  The odds are NOT 1 in 216,000 of you getting a fighter with 18/00 strength.  Or rather, they're only 1 in 216,000 if you cannot allocate your stats to suit the relevant attributes, because 1 in 216K means that you are rolling 3d6 only once and taking the result.

The actual odds would be something like 216/6(100), or 3,600, which is a bit more reasonable and keeping in line with the experiences of the players on this thread.  Actually, I think the odds would be even better for the player;  this is using a straight 3d6 roll, and I'm sure a lot of people used 4d6 fairly often.


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## LeStryfe79 (Feb 12, 2011)

I rolled an 18/100 for a ranger(I made him 6'8" to explain it lol). It was for a campaigns that lasted a single adventure.  I even drew a sketch dammit haha. Anyways we usually allowed rerolls for characters to get above 18/50, but I don't remember personally playing one of those blasphemies.


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## megamania (Feb 12, 2011)

18 / 00   once


many 18 // 90 and somethings.



memories......


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## Particle_Man (Feb 12, 2011)

Once, I rolled it (I have been playing since 1982).  He was a paladin too!  2nd ed, with a kit, as I recall.  Alas, the game didn't last that long.


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## Plane Sailing (Feb 13, 2011)

I saw it once, back in 1978. Someone new to D&D rolled up his first character. Rolled 3d6 for Str and got an 18. I handed him the percentage dice and told him to roll them, and he rolled 00.

Never seen it legimitimately rolled apart from that circumstance.


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## Mishihari Lord (Feb 13, 2011)

None for me, but I do recall my brother rolling up a cavalier under the 2e UA rules.  You roll percentile for social class and ... yup, 00.  His character's dad was a king.  Never seen it before or since.


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## Votan (Feb 13, 2011)

We had a time when we wanted to break from power gaming.  I think we did 4d6 drop one.  The player who got an 18 strength threw the percentile dice and it came up '00'.  It was a very shocking turn as illegitimate exceptional strength had been a feature of previous game sessions.  

The overall character, aside from the strength, was pretty unimpressive.


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## Corathon (Feb 14, 2011)

I saw it once. Rolled in front of me.


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## Abraxas (Feb 14, 2011)

I have rolled 18/00 once (using 4d6, drop lowest, allocate) and have seen it rolled once. I have also gotten 18/81, 18/27 and an 18/05. Between the years 1978 to 2000. Including a 2 year stretch where we would have a TPK every time we got to 5th level. So - a lot of characters created - not a lot of 18 STR scores.

On a much more humorous note I once saw a player get 00 for a system shock roll followed up by getting 00 on a resurrection roll after saying - both times - I only fail if I roll double zero. That was one dead character.


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## Holy Bovine (Feb 14, 2011)

Twice.  I rolled one for my 1E Cavalier (what a waste as the Cavalier we were using got to add +2d10% to his Strength every so many levels) and my brother in law rolled 18/00 for his dwarf barbarian.  Those are the only 2 I ever witnessed but it was by far the most common stat of people I played with for fighter.


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## Thunderfoot (Feb 14, 2011)

Okay, yes this DID happen....
Have I seen an 18/00 yes.  We had three players who were playing fighters (me included).  We rolled at the table.  I rolled an 18/98, another rolled an 18/99 and the third an 18/00.  While this may have been the "dream team" fighter line-up it was short lived...   When we rolled for hit points, we all rolled 1s, even with a +1 or +2 to hp, we were more fragile than the mage.  We never made it past first level.

I actually remember this game fondly, believe it or not.


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## Heathen72 (Feb 14, 2011)

Wik said:


> Okay, this is bugging me.  The odds are NOT 1 in 216,000 of you getting a fighter with 18/00 strength.  Or rather, they're only 1 in 216,000 if you cannot allocate your stats to suit the relevant attributes, because 1 in 216K means that you are rolling 3d6 only once and taking the result.
> 
> The actual odds would be something like 216/6(100), or 3,600, which is a bit more reasonable and keeping in line with the experiences of the players on this thread.  Actually, I think the odds would be even better for the player;  this is using a straight 3d6 roll, and I'm sure a lot of people used 4d6 fairly often.




Wik, I am sad that you are distressed. And indeed, as you say, the odds are not 1 in 216,000. 

However, if you read my post, the first which made mention of the statistic in question, you might find that the odds referred to are actually 1 in 21,600 - not 216,000. You also might find that I was clearly making reference to the days when you rolled your stats straight, without assigning them - which means, as you say, that you got one chance per character of rolling an 18 strength, and hence only one chance per character of rolling percentile dice.

My post was ultimately about what to consider legit. 18/00 isn't that special when you you roll 4d6 keep best 3, assign how you like, roll again when you roll a boring character because some feeble GM lets you. Hell, I know a fair few GM's who were happy to let you roll characters until you had one that had at least an 18. Roll percentile on that and you get a character with 18/00 1 in every 100 characters. But who cares? And if you are are then rolling a new character every week or if the only 18/00 you ever rolled was when you were playing nethack it becomes even less remarkable. 

Legit means different things to different people. But rolling 18/00 - with one shot at the roll - mean that your character would truly be one out of the box - a potential Cuchulain or Ulysses


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## Upper_Krust (Feb 15, 2011)

Hey all! 

I actually rolled an 18/00 for a character called Thrin back in 1988 who began life a 3rd level Elf Cavalier and ended up as a 117th-level Human Lesser God.

Immortality


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## Twowolves (Feb 16, 2011)

More than once, and legitimately.

Starting up a new group for a long running sandbox 1st ed game, the guy making the ranger rolled an 18 for Str, then dropped the first d10 of the percintile pair and got a "0". Everyone snickered and laughed, until the second die dropped also hit "0"....

He died lots though. Brutal world. Fortunately, I was his druid buddy, and I had a bag big enough to drag his body (or what was left of it) back to his temple to get raised every time he did something bone-headed. I called it my "Bag of Ranger Holding".


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## Irked Particle (Jan 13, 2022)

Wow. This is that rare?? I've only ever played a couple campaigns, the most recent about 15 years ago. I played a Barbarian & one of my friends played a fighter. We both legitimately rolled 18/00 when rolling characters. We made our rolls on carpet with different sets of dice, if that matters. But our DM absolutely did not allow re-rolls.

At the time it happened, our DM ranted & raved about it, saying he'd never seen anything like it in maybe a decade of playing. I just figured he was exaggerating a bit trying to get us pumped or something.

Then he told us that if we both created characters together every day for the rest of our lives, the odds of two people simultaneously rolling 18/00 in the same session was EXTREMELY unlikely. I was floored.

I've always been pretty lucky at winning things, stuff like that. I will say my charisma was like a 9, so that wasn't good. We ended up having a lot of laughs from that while playing, saying what my character lacked in looks her made up for in strength. We had some pretty amazing situations having two characters both with 18/00 who didn't understand their own abilities at first. I had no idea what it really meant in game until our DM explained the kind of strength we were both capable of. It was ridiculous but a ton of fun.

I have never posted on any D&D forum in my life, & there's a lot I don't remember. But today I just happened to be thinking about the odds pf 18/00 he explained back then, for some reason, & decided to look it up to get some other opinions & found this thread. So it turns out, according to all you guy's posts, our DM was totally right: it's incredibly rare to legitimately roll. And by some miracle, I was part of a twofer in the same session.

I realize I'm just some random dude with no reputation here, but I'm telling you this story is absolutely true. I suppose you'll have to either take my word or not. Instead of D&D, I should've played the lottery that day, sheesh!

We were so inexperienced & such casual players that I feel kind of unworthy of such a rare circumstance.

Having read this thread now, I realize how special that really was. Incredible!

Anyway, this will likely be the only post I make since I'm not in contact with anyone who plays anymore. I wouldn't be against trying again in the future, but I'd have to meet people who play & such.

I don't even know if anyone will read this, but I figured someone might want to have this story documented. Thanks for reading!


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## Irked Particle (Jan 13, 2022)

Wow. This is that rare?? I've only ever played a couple campaigns, the most recent about 15 years ago. I played a Barbarian & one of my friends played a fighter. We both legitimately rolled 18/00 when rolling characters. We made our rolls on carpet with different sets of dice, if that matters. But our DM absolutely did not allow re-rolls.

At the time it happened, our DM ranted & raved about it, saying he'd never seen anything like it in maybe a decade of playing. I just figured he was exaggerating a bit trying to get us pumped or something. Then he told us that if we played for rest of our lives, the odds of two people simultaneously rolling 18/00 in the same session was extremely unlikely. I was floored.

I've always been pretty lucky at winning things, stuff like that. I will say my charisma was like a 9, so that wasn't good. We ended up having a lot of laughs from that while playing, saying what my character lacked in looks her made up for in strength. We had some pretty amazing situations having two characters both with 18/00 who didn't understand their own abilities at first. I had no idea what it really meant in game until our DM explained the kind of strength we were both capable of. It was ridiculous but a ton of fun.

I have never posted on any D&D forum in my life, & there's a lot I don't remember. But today I just happened to be thinking about the odds pf 18/00 he explained back then, for some reason, & decided to look it up to get some other opinions & found this thread. So it turns out, according to all you guy's posts, our DM was totally right: it's incredibly rare to legitimately roll. And by some miracle, I was part of a twofer in the same session.

I realize I'm just some random dude with no reputation here, but  this story is true. I suppose you'll have to either take my word or not. Instead of D&D, I should've played the lottery that day, sheesh!

We were so inexperienced & such casual players that I feel kind of unworthy of such a rare circumstance. Having read this thread now, I realize how special that really was.

Anyway, this will likely be the only post I make since I'm not in contact with anyone who plays anymore. I wouldn't be against trying again in the future, but I'd have to meet people who play & such.

I don't even know if anyone will read this since the most recent prior comment is 11 years old, but I figured someone might want to know this happened at least once. Thanks for reading!


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## Irked Particle (Jan 13, 2022)

Wow. This is that rare?? I've only ever played a couple campaigns, the most recent about 15 years ago. I played a Barbarian & one of my friends played a fighter. We both legitimately rolled 18/00 when rolling characters. We made our rolls on carpet with different sets of dice, if that matters. But our DM absolutely did not allow re-rolls.  

At the time it happened, our DM ranted & raved about it, saying he'd never seen anything like it in maybe a decade of playing. I just figured he was exaggerating a bit trying to get us pumped or something. Then he told us that if we played for rest of our lives, the odds of two people simultaneously rolling 18/00 in the same session was extremely unlikely. I was floored.  

I've always been pretty lucky at winning things, stuff like that. I will say my charisma was like a 9, so that wasn't good. We ended up having a lot of laughs from that while playing, saying what my character lacked in looks her made up for in strength. We had some pretty amazing situations having two characters both with 18/00 who didn't understand their own abilities at first. I had no idea what it really meant in game until our DM explained the kind of strength we were both capable of. It was ridiculous but a ton of fun.  

I have never posted on any D&D forum in my life, & there's a lot I don't remember. But today I just happened to be thinking about the odds pf 18/00 he explained back then, for some reason, & decided to look it up to get some other opinions & found this thread. So it turns out, according to all you guy's posts, our DM was totally right: it's incredibly rare to legitimately roll. And by some miracle, I was part of a twofer in the same session.  
I realize I'm just some random dude with no reputation here, but  this story is true. I suppose you'll have to either take my word or not. Instead of D&D, I should've played the lottery that day, sheesh!  

We were so inexperienced & such casual players that I feel kind of unworthy of such a rare circumstance. Having read this thread now, I realize how special that really was.  

Anyway, this will likely be the only post I make since I'm not in contact with anyone who plays anymore. I wouldn't be against trying again in the future, but I'd have to meet people who play & such.  

I don't even know if anyone will read this since the most recent prior comment is 11 years old, but I figured someone might want to know this happened at least once. Thanks for reading!


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## Wolf72 (Jan 14, 2022)

I want to say "sure have!" ... but the more I think about it, the more likely I didn't.

I do remember someone getting a 90+ ...

AND my first character in Pool of Radiance was a Fighter, with a natural 18/00 ... no modifying! ... my second character was an Elf Fighter/Mage that had some sort of glitch when I was using Hillsafar (Hillsfar?) where you could get some extra xp and whatnot.  That glitch gave him an 18/00 up from his 18/75.  Kept that when I went thru Streams of Silver (was that the 3rd game?)


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## beancounter (Jan 14, 2022)

No, but I once legitimately rolled double zeros for psionics.


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## Maxperson (Jan 14, 2022)

Wik said:


> I mean, classic D&Ders will know many characters with 18/00... but how often has it been seen legitimately rolled?  On the first try (no "that was a practice roll" or "that was an 18/10, roll ,and kind of lame, lemme retry").
> 
> I only saw it once.   In an unusual twist, I was a player and not the GM... it was the GM's first time running a game, but he was a pretty dedicated player.  We had a few other players, including this guy Ian, who had never played any RPG before.
> 
> ...



I've seen it 3 or 4 times.


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## Maletherin (Jan 14, 2022)

Yes.


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## R_J_K75 (Jan 14, 2022)

I personally did it once in 2E about 1996-1997 while rolling up a fighter, but it didn't matter at all though.  That one stat didn't make the character memorable because I can't remember anything else about that PC, their name, race, any adventures I played them in (if I even ever played them at all) what level I reached or how they died.  I'm guessing this one falls under the rolled and never played column or rolled, really excited to play, and was dead in 15 minutes column.  Either way what a drag it is getting old.


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## Lanefan (Jan 14, 2022)

This is an old thread but has since had a happy ending: at my table, about 2 years after this thread was started, @Wik got to see another player knock off a legit 18.00.

The character in question, though, turned out to be a real glass cannon and didn't last very long.  Ah, Khawy, we hardly knew ye...


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## aramis erak (Jan 14, 2022)

Wik said:


> I mean, classic D&Ders will know many characters with 18/00... but how often has it been seen legitimately rolled?  On the first try (no "that was a practice roll" or "that was an 18/10, roll ,and kind of lame, lemme retry").



I've done it personally a couple times since 1981.
I've seen about half-a-dozen. 

I'll note that some players do exceed the odds on 3d6 throws or even 4d6K3 rolls, possibly by semi-conscious ability to control release to get desirable results.

I've seen a player roll 3× 18 on a single character twice.

I pretty much don't use rolled attributes anymore.


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## Galandris (Jan 14, 2022)

Legitimately... how is rolling thousands of character illegitimate? It's not my fault the 843 previous character I rolled until now all had the concept of "passionate for mushroom omelettes" and no NWP in mycology despite leaving in Flyagaricsburg?

Seriously, I have never seen it once happening, but my experience with 2nd ed was short. On the other hand, I have a legitimately rolled 5e char whose lowest stat is 14.


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## Scars Unseen (Jan 14, 2022)

I rolled it once back in the 90s.  Can't even remember the character's name.  It was pretty early in experience with the hobby, and we were still pretty much exclusively doing sessions of mindless dungeon crawls that we made with graph paper.  It was fun at the time, but none of the characters we used then had any actual _character._  I think I was 12 at the time.


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## Irked Particle (Jan 14, 2022)

We used the 4d6 & drop lowest, by the way, which definitely made the 18s easier. My friend & I both rolling 100, though. I can't explain. We did it individually in front of our DM, on carpet if that matters. Two different sets of d10.

My character was I believe a barbarian elf named Xrognogn (pronounced "Zhron" lol) & I'm an idiot because I can't remember my friend's character name.

If I remember right, we were playing maybe 3E? I'd have to see if I still have my PH to check, no idea where that would be.


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## Willie the Duck (Jan 14, 2022)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> Sure.
> 
> ... after about 35 tries.



I mean, that's the thing. Sure there is only a 1% chance on top of the likelihood of rolling an 18, but most players who played through the AD&D eras saw hundreds or thousands of characters rolled (especially if obviously not-going-to-work characters are discarded, which is something I believe both AD&Ds explicitly allowed for. They also both had multiple ways of rolling for attributes, some of which made rolling and placing* an 18. If the game never went past oD&D supplement I (so you had 18/%% strength, but IIRC still rolled 3d6 down the line for attributes), then 18/00 would have remained quite rare.
*and if you roll an 18, the best places to put it are in Str for a percentile strength check, Int if you want a MU who can learn all the spells per level, or maybe Cha to go paladin.



Lanefan said:


> This is an old thread but has since had a happy ending: at my table, about 2 years after this thread was started, Wik got to see another player knock off a legit 18.00.
> The character in question, though, turned out to be a real glass cannon and didn't last very long.  Ah, Khawy, we hardly knew ye...



There's the rub. Even if you get an 18/00, you can still roll a 2 for your fighter's starting hit points or all 1s on your starting gold and end up trying to survive your first dungeon in padded armor or heck just walk into an ambush. 18/00 was a wild enhancement in power for a martial character*, yet at the same time it doesn't erase all the ways that all the other dice rolls ('permanent' or immediate) and basic decisions determine game outcome.
*So much that I'd call it bad design to have such a character-ability imbalance except that, well, _gauntlets of ogre power_ just aren't that rare.


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## Nilbog (Jan 14, 2022)

I'm normally a pretty poor dice roller but I do seem to have good luck with percentiles when it's higher the better. 
I've rolled 18/00 for a character once 
The other good one was when we were creating Marvel faserip characters and I was rolling for the number of powers, I rolled a 98 the DM said that was too many and would unbalance the game, so after much arguing I did roll again and lo and behold 00. The look on his face was priceless.


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## el-remmen (Jan 14, 2022)

I saw an 18/99 and 18/68 rolled in front of me during the same session of character creation for a 2E game in 96 - so two different characters in the 1st level group had percentile strength. One would die by 3rd level though (18/99).


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## Mad_Jack (Jan 14, 2022)

I've seen it three times by other people in between the early '80's and the time 3rd Edition hit.

 And I've done it twice myself, although one of those times was probably a bit shady - I had recently acquired a new set of dice that turned out to be badly balanced...


(My 2nd Ed. fighter/thief Ripper couldn't have gotten an 18/00 since he was a halfling, but it didn't matter since some skillfully engineered shenanigans led to him acquiring _gauntlets of ogre power_ at a ridiculously low level, lol.)


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## THEMNGMNT (Jan 14, 2022)

In middle school I ran a Dragonlance game and right in front of me one player legitimately rolled 18/90something Strength.

His name was Matt.


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## Hex08 (Jan 14, 2022)

I think I did, but I am getting older and have a brain addled by too many years of beer and whiskey consumption to believe that my memories are 100% accurate...


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## DarkCrisis (Jan 14, 2022)

I did it once.  Funny enough the character is as going to be an homage to He-Man.  How right I was…


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## Lanefan (Jan 15, 2022)

Willie the Duck said:


> There's the rub. Even if you get an 18/00, you can still roll a 2 for your fighter's starting hit points or all 1s on your starting gold and end up trying to survive your first dungeon in padded armor or heck just walk into an ambush. 18/00 was a wild enhancement in power for a martial character*, yet at the same time it doesn't erase all the ways that all the other dice rolls ('permanent' or immediate) and basic decisions determine game outcome.
> *So much that I'd call it bad design to have such a character-ability imbalance except that, well, _gauntlets of ogre power_ just aren't that rare.



This guy came in at 4th level; he was a replacement in an established party of around 4th-6th level.  Didn't have a Con to speak of, rolled about average on h.p., and while he had some armour his AC wasn't stupendous.  He died twice in quick succession, both times against Giants and-or Ogres en route to a modified version of WGA4 Lost Temple of Tharizdun; and after the second death didn't have the resources to afford revival.

That said, I don't mind the randomness of h.p. and gold generation.  Even all 1s on your starting gold at 1st level, though unlikely, would still give a Fighter 50 g.p.; which is I think enough to get a shield, a weapon or two, and leather armour; and odds are very high that if you're playing a classic adventure module you'll quickly have the 400 g.p. to get yourself some plate...you just have to convince the rest of the party to go back to town with you ASAP and get it.


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## Mezuka (Jan 15, 2022)

18/00? No. All character creation rolls had to be made in front of me, by the player, with at least one witness to corroborate. Highest I've seen was around 85%.


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## irish44 (Jan 16, 2022)

I saw in the first time I sat down with a group to roll up characters.  I was all of 9 years old and was playing with a group of older kids 12 to 15 and when it happened didn't understand why everyone was freaking out.  I get it now but then thought maybe it happened all the time.  Feeling the excitement was cool to experience as a first time player.

I saw a lot of characters with 18/00 STR but only one that I can say was "legit".  Crazy.

Be well my friends.


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## cmad1977 (Jan 16, 2022)

Yes. With my own eyes in middle school. It was awesome.


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