Dungeon Run: Saving Throws
Chapter: Comics, Season Five
I am back from GenCon and neck deep in ConCrud but I wanted to get this posted.
It was an AMAZING GenCon this year and I have a lot to tell you all but let me get my thoughts together and kick this crud first. Thanks for your patience, everyone.
Hover-Text: It helps if you imagine the breath weapon sound effect like a dub step beat drop. SHRRRRRNNNNN BRAN BRAN BRAN SHHHRRRRRNNNNN
I can totally hear it.
He fired the bass cannon. D:
Dub Step Cannon… ACTIVATE!
GAH!!! Someone confirm Phillip’s die. I think he’s fudging his rolls.
I love the “aw, dang.” look on Carlos’ face.
GAH!!! Someone confirm Phillip’s die. I think he’s fudging his rolls!
Yea I was thinking the same
I too was calling Shenanigans with the d20
I call a Loaded Die!
I’ve seen it done, mostly because a player I once had the unfortunate opportunity to play with, had a “Special d20” that he considered his “Penultimate Luck”. It was loaded so that it ALWAYS came out on a Nat 20.
It took us only half a game session to realize he was rolling quite a few Nat 20.
Die Check! (maybe a hand check too 😉 ) cant possibly get nat 20’s so conveniently!
futher proof, is he accomplishes the perfect saves after managing to put https://d20monkey.com/2014/06/10/dungeon-run-flame-on/ together, which, while im not well versed in the way things work in DnD, i assume took some damn good saves
They did, YourAlterEgo.
That takes either some damn good scores, depending on the edition.
Clearly they aren’t level one, I would guess maybe somewhere between 10 and 15. Even then, for Dove (Whom I am assuming is playing a warlock), to have high enough scores to be THAT successful.. The whole knocking the rock loose is at least a DC 10, which isn’t that difficult, but then to do the whole spell, and ride ontop of the lava, that’s easily a DC 15 if not a DC 20. Hell, as a DM, I’d be inclined to push that DC to a 25 for being able to ride the lava using the rock.
Fact is, Dove may be using his “sleight of hand” skill, while the DM isn’t paying attention. He’s not exactly wearing a t-shirt.
I agree, not because he is a character you just love to hate (though admitted here for sure), but rather that is the second time he got a 20 on a critical junction where most rolls aren’t mentioned for the sake of the narrative. Granted, that could be the comic just using it to quell any sort of possible alternative to the success of his action, but this is the second 20 in a game changing situation (first being the blasting-through of the earth mage killing that player character) and something starts to be smelling fishy here.
I dunno. He strikes me as the kind of lawful evil asshole who’s extra insufferable because he stays within the letter of the law and lets you know it at every opportunity.
That being said, I hope I’m wrong, because if he’s cheating, he’s toast and we never have to see him again.
As a player, I am lucky if I EVER get a Nat 20.
As a DM, it’s not uncommon for Nat 20’s that I had to come up with a table to roll against, so that Nat 20’s weren’t always an automatic critical.
quick question everyone keeps assuming that he is rolling a nat 20 when all he said was 20 could he have rolled a 18 and his save bonus popped him to 20?
Dove rolls too many convenient 20s…
Ain’t that the truth.
DoucheDove seems to be rolling quite a few twenties. (Maybe not a statistical anomaly yet, but mildly suspicious.) :/
Well at least with their ranged attacks they’ll be able to attack it without getting too close.
True! I can also see Dallas potentially avoided more breath weapons due to her being a Ranger (of sorts), so she must have a high Reflex.
Dove has the magic to attack, Dallas the ranged attack. They might get it down to fairly low hitpoints (or dead-ish!) if they strategize and *gasp* work together!
As much as I too want to cry foul on the seemingly surprising number of 20’s Dove is rolling, I can attest to dice rolling high very often.
My husband has quite a few complete sets of steel dice. He has a ritual he puts his dice through where he has them attune to the elements. I can vouch that his dice has been the bane (for myself and a few other players) of rolling as they have rolled numerous 20’s, very often. I myself have a d20 that I have dubbed my “Mojo d20” due to it rolling 20’s more often than any of my other d20’s.
I can believe Dove may have chosen his best set of dice to bring with him to a competition, knowing how well they usually roll, spreadsheets or not.
But yes, part of me is yelling “Someone check his dice! He just CAN’T roll 20’s that often!” and part of is is also saying “Yeah, he must have brought his mojo dice with him.”
But, we shall see what happens next!
Might wanna get your “mojo 20” or your hubby’s steel dice checked. If you’re rolling 20s in a statistically significant way, more likely than not you’ve got dice that are loaded, whether intentionally or not.
Now if you were only rolling crazy high some of times and not consistently, linked with any dice, however… that’s different.
For me the consistency is more than once every blue moon. I don’t usually roll 20’s very often and when I know I need one, I go to my mojo d20. My husband just has insane luck with his dice.
FWIW, I’ve had weird runs of luck like this. In the first round of the final boss encounter of the first 3E game I ran (I’ll give you a moment to sort that out), I rolled 8 20s out of 10 rolls. On 6 different dice. And then the boss rolled a 1 to save vs. a Disintegrate…
I have had a somewhat similar experience where in a D&D conversion of Final Fantasy 6, my group ran into a green dragon. Wanna know how it died? I cast Phantasm on it and it rolled a 1 on the Will save.
I scared a dragon to death!
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU—
Double posted earlier, sorry about that.
All I know is I am stealing this Horde Dragon for a game some day.
Glad you had a good Gen Con, I know I had a blast and came home with enough games to hopefully last me till next years show.
I’ll be honest, I don’t see how two players are going to top this beast. But good luck to Dove & Dallas!
(Also, my hopes that Carlos would win have been cruelly dashed. Such is life when you go up against an animated hoard dragon, I suppose.)
And then Dove casts Dispel on the Heart, insta-win. 😀
Dove’s roll probably includes a save bonus, so I doubt it was a natural 20. Everyone calm down.
Alternatively, his magely powers may grant him the ability to take 20 a few times each day on certain checks.
I was thinking the same thing. I’m sure there are modifications to his roll.
We know he’s a fire-bound mage.
Mage normally implies weak reflex save (which I assume is the saving throw in use here), but the fire association could provide a bonus (or put his reflex on the strong save progression), as could a high Dexterity score, and we don’t know what level they’re at, so he could have a positive reflex save bonus.
Depending on how all those shake out, Dove could have reasonably rolled anything from 12 up, say, and still announce a ’20’ as his result. Especially since he made a point, when hitting Amy’s mage, of announcing that he had rolled a natural 20.
I wonder if they will work together? I have to admit I’m interested to see them try.
I’m thinking of something similar to the scene from pirates 2 with Jack, Will and Norrington. Taking shots at each other whenever they get an opportunity while still teaming the other person.
Yeah, that would be grand.
I wanna know how there were 5s and 3s, weren’t those saves modified by anything!?
Depends on what their stats and levels were. I know some classes have a poor reflex save and Carlos’ character might be of those classes.
He’s a bard. He should have a good reflex save and a decent dex score.
If Dove wins, I’m moving to Canada.
Welcome to the Great White North, eh? Here’s your complimentary syrup, bear repellent, and beer. Perhaps more importantly, we can now buy code red mountain dew without a trip over the border.
Maxim 29: “The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy. No more. No less. ”
Maxim 9: “Never turn your back on an enemy.”
Spoken like a true Genii. Dove cannot be allowed to win.
“My enemy’s always my enemy, but we can both get smart and put that aside while we deal with a common threat.”
Throughout high school one of the players I DM’d for was a “d20 counter”. He had a bag of d20s, and he would keep them sorted by which ones were “due” for a 20, based on their ratio of 1’s v 20’s.
As much as we ridiculed him, on more than one occasion he would for all observable purposes roll a 20 on demand, when it was most needed, using a d20 that had 5 more 1s than 20s over the course of the campaign, because it was “due”.
Crazy bastard. I miss him.
Another Natural 20? come ON? thats how many? im still calling loaded dice. either shaved or weighted. i could see a clutch 20, but thats too many in a row.
Oh I don’t know, I can roll 1s all day long…
Why do I think these two might be in cahoots? They look like they were pushing buttons for the groups. Now they are the only pair here. . .
It’s hard to say if Dove is cheating or not. He may just be having a run of good rolls. I’ve not met a gamer who doesn’t have a session or character that had time as dice Jesus. And, as was stated above, he didn’t specify that it was a natural 20. It could very well just have been a standard roll with modifiers. It would also explain Carlos’ roll a bit if he had a negative modifier to the save.
Another thing that makes me a little suspicious, is that DouchDove isn’t looking at his dice when he calls out the 20, everyone else is looking at their dice.
*DoucheDove
It’s dice karma. It rolls all those 20s right until it’s needed most….
Saving Throws were never my friend. I don’t remember EVER making a successful save.
I’d have been dead meat if I’d been facing that thing 🙁
Three out of five getting one-shot right at the beginning of the encounter? All based on a single roll of the dice? That’s kind of sucky.
I can understand why for the purposes of shortening the comic length, but I’d hate it if a GM pulled that on my gaming group.
It’s also a competitive one-shot event in which PvP is positively encouraged and there is a single winner. I also believe such “deathtrap” dungeons and settings are more typical for conventions/competitions (e.g. IIRC The Tomb of Horrors was originally conceived for tournament play).
But it’s not even really a test of skill, intelligence, or character design. It’s basically a straight up, unavoidable, coin flip, with a live or die outcome. With Tomb you at least have a choice of what you want to do, but with this there doesn’t appear to be any avoiding the do-or-die luck test.
Alternative way of looking at it: Carlos, Jeanie and Trev were all badly injured, remember? There’s no reason to think that the dragonfire was a “save-or-die” situation for a healthy character. What would you suggest, stop attacking weakened characters since one roll could finish them off, and that’s luck?
Why do I feel like Philip has a set of “fixed” dice?
Hmmmmm somebody sure is rolling a lot of 20’s.
Ok Dallas just get in there and smash the heart freeing everybody else and scoring the real victory.
That heart looks to be a pretty big weak spot, so I’m guessing that you can totally take it out with two people, some lucky rolls, and strategy.