Problems with "Lucky" characters

[pawsplay]

Allowing 3 sides to explode really breaks the d4 action die, so I am tempted to house rule that no more than 50% of an action die's value may result in a die exploding.

"This feat may never cause more than half of a die's faces to explode, i.e. 3-4 on a d4."

That just seems cludgey to me since there is only one die-size the topic ever comes up on.

As a former computer programmer, I have three things to say to that. First, it's spelled kludge. Second, it is never a mistake to implement a design with open-ended functionality that currently has only one actual use. Third, that means that my answer is not a kludge, it's an modular object-oriented solution. "Fortunate dice never explode" is a kludge... as with other kludges, this is neither praise nor a condemnation.

[Morgenstern]

As a former computer programmer, I have three things to say to that. First, it's spelled kludge.

Really? *looks it up* Huh. Did not know that .

Second, it is never a mistake to implement a design with open-ended functionality that currently has only one actual use. Third, that means that my answer is not a kludge, it's an modular object-oriented solution. "Fortunate dice never explode" is a kludge... as with other kludges, this is neither praise nor a condemnation.

Given that it doesn't uniformly explain which faces actually explode when the trigger condition is met, yeah, I'm still going with 'its a kludge' .

And future proofing, while good, does not always address the problem at hand. Offering dice that don't explode is simply a restriction - one I've used elsewhere to prevent unwanted interactions, so it doesnt' seem so out of place here to me. I'm not sure going to a tool a second or third time allows the drawer that tool is kept into be labeled "kludge" anymore.

[Agent 333]

I'll note that making Fortunate's dice not explode helps make up the difference in power level between it and Fortune's Fool.

[pawsplay]

And future proofing, while good, does not always address the problem at hand. Offering dice that don't explode is simply a restriction - one I've used elsewhere to prevent unwanted interactions, so it doesnt' seem so out of place here to me. I'm not sure going to a tool a second or third time allows the drawer that tool is kept into be labeled "kludge" anymore.

So what about action dice that are natively d4s? You're fixing Fortunate, but not the math.

[paddyfool]

So what about action dice that are natively d4s? You're fixing Fortunate, but not the math.

Since you can't have more than 4 of them, and that you can only get 4 rather than 3 as part of a 3 point benefit, it wouldn't seem so scary to me.  Certainly, you could take the Adventurer specialty with Tales of the Rascal and Lady Luck's Smile, but you'd only really have awesome action dice to play with for levels three through five, and that as a substantial part of the build.

[Morgenstern]

So what about action dice that are natively d4s? You're fixing Fortunate, but not the math.

quick Sidebar - when it's the campaign quality tipping things past half the faces exploding, the GM just doesn't get to complain that he's got Chance-monkeys all over the place... He actively invited them to the party . Very few campaing qualities affect all builds uniformly, and that one has text in invisible ink at the bottom that says "you're a fool not to take Fortunate in this environment." My fix goes a long way towards smudging that invisible ink .

When it's Lady Luck's Smile and Tales of the Rascal, at that point I'm more comfortable that the player is paying steeply for the privilige, especially if its only the 3-4 starting action dice and some bonus dice earned in play and not the heap of Fortunate ones on top of that .

Basically, if the situation worries the GM (and I can see how this one does) sometimes the most textually simple fix is worth more for ease of play than a more thorough solution that takes 3 sentences to clarify all the resultant interactions. Adding "these dice do not explode" to Fortunate is a simpler solution to integrate than "If any combination of character options will cause more than half the faces on an action die explode, the player needs to choose when faces will actually explode." and even then I'm not sure WHEN the player should choose. Each time they roll? When they level up? The change to Fortunate does not resolve every scenario, but it does mitigate the problem to a couple of times per session at a couple of early games in the campaign. You reach level 6 and the exploding d4 are gone.

Now, if Jacks or Better gets into the picture, you can get the first roll to always explode, but that still only the first roll. I'd actually rather NOT intrude a rule that causes Jacks or Better to do nothing for a player for the first 5 levels of the game. THat's kinda sucky for a core ability to be nuetered that way.

[Krensky]

It's been too long and I never went high enough, but does that math account for the explosion happening on 1, 2, and 4 rather then 2, 3, and 4?

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Hold on, I lost the thread somewhere:

Is the problem only with the feats themselves?  Or is it when you use both the feats and Bold Heroes?

[pawsplay]

So what about action dice that are natively d4s? You're fixing Fortunate, but not the math.

quick Sidebar - when it's the campaign quality tipping things past half the faces exploding, the GM just doesn't get to complain that he's got Chance-monkeys all over the place... He actively invited them to the party . Very few campaing qualities affect all builds uniformly, and that one has text in invisible ink at the bottom that says "you're a fool not to take Fortunate in this environment." My fix goes a long way towards smudging that invisible ink .

I was more bothered by the idea that d4s roll better than d6s than a hypothetical overabundance of Chance-monkeys.

Basically, if the situation worries the GM (and I can see how this one does) sometimes the most textually simple fix is worth more for ease of play than a more thorough solution that takes 3 sentences to clarify all the resultant interactions. Adding "these dice do not explode" to Fortunate is a simpler solution to integrate than "If any combination of character options will cause more than half the faces on an action die explode, the player needs to choose when faces will actually explode." and even then I'm not sure WHEN the player should choose. Each time they roll? When they level up? The change to Fortunate does not resolve every scenario, but it does mitigate the problem to a couple of times per session at a couple of early games in the campaign. You reach level 6 and the exploding d4 are gone.

You know, it never actually occured to me that anyone would interpret what I wrote to mean other than what is given in the example, "3-4 on a d4." It's also impossible, since as you add each feat, you could not add other than the next consecuative face. What you wrote is not actually my suggestion. I said,

"This feat may never cause more than half of a die's faces to explode, i.e. 3-4 on a d4."

Nothing about player choices. Nothing about suddenly causing Lady Luck's Smile to be able to cherrypick which faces explode.

EDIT: You know what? This conversation has gotten way ahead of itself. None of Lady Luck's Smile, Bold Heroes, or Tales of the Rascal stack with each other. They all describe the same benefit: the highest or next-highest face explodes. None of them says anything about increasing the explosion range by 1 or anything.

[paddyfool]

EDIT: You know what? This conversation has gotten way ahead of itself. None of Lady Luck's Smile, Bold Heroes, or Tales of the Rascal stack with each other. They all describe the same benefit: the highest or next-highest face explodes. None of them says anything about increasing the explosion range by 1 or anything.

The problem is that they don't.  Lady Luck's Smile explodes on the next-highest value; the other two explode on a 1.   (Unless you're describing a new potential house rule).  Hence 1, 3 or 4 on a D4 giving a 3/4 probability of the die exploding.

[Bill Whitmore]

It's been too long and I never went high enough, but does that math account for the explosion happening on 1, 2, and 4 rather then 2, 3, and 4?

When you start doing the math, it makes no difference to the mean value which of the sides actually explode.  Intuitively, it doesn't seem right, and I had to read through my old calculus book and run about a hundred simulations in excel before I was able to convince myself of the truth of that statement.

It DOES make a difference on your chances of reaching or exceeding  a specific number.  For instance, you have a higher chance of getting a result of 7 on a d6 if 6's explode instead of 1's; however, you are more likely to reach a value of 2, 3, 4, and 5 on a d6 if your 1's explode instead of 6's (in fact, in that case you are guaranteed to get at least a result of 2).  In general, to reach the highest probability of reaching a given value on a given die, you want the numbers that explode to be as large as possible, but be LESS THAN the target number.

If there is interest, I can go over how I derived the formula I used to make these calculations in a different thread.

[MilitiaJim]

I just watched the mathiness of that do a flyby past my thick skull.  Is there a short explanation of how to get Excel to calculate the exploding dice?

[Morgenstern]

When you start doing the math, it makes no difference to the mean value which of the sides actually explode.  Intuitively, it doesn't seem right, and I had to read through my old calculus book and run about a hundred simulations in excel before I was able to convince myself of the truth of that statement.

Here's the less brain-anhilating version :

With a 1 in 4 chance of getting a result that will stop the re-rolls, your average number of rolls is... 4

In typical long-term average of four rolls on a d4 you can expect to see 1, 2, 3, and 4 (not neccessarily in that order).

The summ of 1 + 2 + 3+ 4 is 10... tada!

At no point does which face is used as a lock come into play. The average is 10 for any one face causing the d4 rolls to stop.

Now the real fun starts when you get into overkill-by-design vs. minimum reliability...  

[Bill Whitmore]

I just watched the mathiness of that do a flyby past my thick skull.  Is there a short explanation of how to get Excel to calculate the exploding dice?

Yea, sorry.  I spent a lot of time deriving that formula and I caught a lot of crap from my friends for voluntarily reading my calculus book to do so.  But it was worth it.  FOR SCIENCE!  (or, you know, gaming).  It's pretty bad when all my friends started calling be a geek... 

The formula is

Code:

(x + 1) / (2 * ( 1 - (y / x)))

x = sides of the die
y = number of sides that explode

If you want to plug it into excel just copy and paste this into any cell other than A1 or A2, then A1 will be the sides of the die, and A2 will be the number of sides that explode.

=(A1 + 1) / (2 * ( 1 - (A2 / A1)))

It'll look like this when it is in excel, with the 10 being where the formula is entered.

4	Sides of the die
3	Number of sides that explode
10	Mean average

Egads, even that came out seeming really complicated, but its the best I can do via text.

[Sletchman]

Hold on, I lost the thread somewhere:

Is the problem only with the feats themselves?  Or is it when you use both the feats and Bold Heroes?

Both, really.  If you have Bold Heroes, then Fortunate + Lady Luck's Smile becomes obscene.  If you don't, well, you just sacrifice a chance feat you only took to be a chance feat and pick up Tales of the Rascal for an identical benefit (just 1d4 down, obviously).

Also of note, I am a huge fan of Bold Heroes (as I was of it's ancestor Spirited).  On it's own, it's a fantasic quality, because there is really nothing worse then: "I'll boost this important roll with an action die...a 1...damn it!"  It's the combination of effects that causes problems, not the effects themselves.  I like Morg's suggestion of "these dice don't explode" - it's in the mage core, so it's not a new modifier, and it stops almost all the insanity - the only remaining insanity is a low level character with Bold Heroes/Tales of the Rascal and Lady Luck Smile.