Common Rolls for the Dice Tower Guide

[Butchern]

We have recently added a section to the end of the dice guide entitled "Common Rolls" to give some examples of the various dice functions in action. So far we have the following common rolls:

 

Ability Score Generation (3d6 x 6)
Ability Score Generation (4d6 drop the lowest x 6)
Attack and Damage (D&D)
New World of Darkness Dice Pool
Rolling a D20 with Advantage (D&D)
Rolling a D20 with Disadvantage (D&D)
Rolling Two Dice and Adding them Together

 

What other common dice rolls should we add to the list? We are looking for dice stings for popular game systems that don't already have their own specialized roll strings.

[BlueTrillium]

Unless it's been corrected since yesterday when I last checked, I think there's a typo in the Ability Score Generation (4d6 drop lowest x 6) example. The heading says 4d6 drop lowest, but the actual roll string is 3d6 drop lowest. xDD Got me some super low stats when I experimented with that one, heh.

 

Also I'm not certain how frequent this is, but there's another variation of Ability Score Generation that I run across fairly often personally, that is 4d6 drop lowest reroll 1s (x6). Maybe could optionally add that (if you think it adds any value over what you have already).

And for Ironsworn we are frequently rolling some sort of action (1d6+ability) vs two challenge dice (unmodified d10s) that we want to see individually (not added together) - on old MW I'd just go 1d10z 1d10z. Not sure you can do an example string for that since there's a variable ability value involved with the 1d6, but that might be another option to add if you want to.

[Butchern]

6 hours ago, BlueTrillium said:

Unless it's been corrected since yesterday when I last checked, I think there's a typo in the Ability Score Generation (4d6 drop lowest x 6) example. The heading says 4d6 drop lowest, but the actual roll string is 3d6 drop lowest. xDD Got me some super low stats when I experimented with that one, heh.

Good catch. Thanks. That was a cut-and-paste typo. Should be fixed now. 😄

 

I don't actually use any of these rolls or play any of these systems, so I need all the help I can get!

 

6 hours ago, BlueTrillium said:

Also I'm not certain how frequent this is, but there's another variation of Ability Score Generation that I run across fairly often personally, that is 4d6 drop lowest reroll 1s (x6). Maybe could optionally add that (if you think it adds any value over what you have already).

I will try to figure that out today. If anyone else can beat me to it, post the roll string here, and I'll add it to the guide.

 

6 hours ago, BlueTrillium said:

And for Ironsworn we are frequently rolling some sort of action (1d6+ability) vs two challenge dice (unmodified d10s) that we want to see individually (not added together) - on old MW I'd just go 1d10z 1d10z. Not sure you can do an example string for that since there's a variable ability value involved with the 1d6, but that might be another option to add if you want to.

We have an Ironsworn dice function request added to the feature request list, so it is likely coming eventually. Check out this thread and comment on it if you have any more insight into how to build it: https://test.myth-weavers.com/index.php?/topic/1778-ironsworn-players-dice-roller-question/#comment-22617.

 

Until then, I think this string should work:

Quote

Enter the Fray:1d6+3;1d10;1d10

The title ("Enter the Fray") can be changed, and the "+3" after the 1d6 can be changed to whatever modifier is appropriate.

 

I'll add this to the guide.

Edited January 2, 2023 by Butchern (see edit history)

[Butchern]

8 hours ago, BlueTrillium said:

Also I'm not certain how frequent this is, but there's another variation of Ability Score Generation that I run across fairly often personally, that is 4d6 drop lowest reroll 1s (x6). Maybe could optionally add that (if you think it adds any value over what you have already).

I think the roll would be - Ability Score:repeat(reroll(drop(4d6,lowest),1,below),6)

 

Question: when you are rolling "4d6, drop lowest, reroll 1s" is it customary to only reroll the 1s that are not getting dropped? Or do you reroll the 1s first before you drop the lowest? I think the latter would give you a better numeric result. Is there a customary approach for this?

 

If you want to reroll the 1s before you drop the lowest, I think the roll would be - Ability Score:repeat(drop(reroll(4d6,1,below),lowest),6)

Edited January 2, 2023 by Butchern (see edit history)

[Butchern]

[Edit] - After giving this some thought, I'm not sure that either approach would give you a higher numeric result. Regardless of how you get there—reroll 1s first then drop or drop then reroll 1s—the pool of numbers for each ability score is still statistically identical to 1d5+1 x 4, drop the lowest. I think. 😄 That seems right to me, but "I think" and "seems right" are dangerous terms when you are dealing with statistics. :D

[BlueTrillium]

Y'know, I'm not actually sure which order it was applied in the MW roller. Over there when I saw this roll, we used 4d6v1r1z repeated six times. I suppose if operations were performed in the order of the string, that'd drop lowest first, then reroll 1s, but no way to know without getting into MW roller code heh.

 

And I'm not sure if the order matters either. It's been a long time since my stats classes haha. But feeling-wise, I'd agree it feels like it'd give slightly higher results if you rerolled 1s first, and dropped lowest second. Because if you originally rolled a 1, that 1 is obviously the lowest, but when it's rerolled the new value may end up higher than one of the other dice that would've been kept, giving you a higher result than you would've gotten if you dropped the 1 first. Also if you drop 1s first, you're only rerolling at all if your original roll got multiple 1s... hm. Experiment time!

So example, original roll was 2, 3, 4, 1 on a d6. Reroll 1s first maybe gives you a 6 so now it's 2, 3, 4, 6. Drop lowest loses the 2 so your final total is 13.
Same original roll 2, 3, 4, 1 on a d6, drop lowest first loses the 1 so now it's 2, 3, 4. Nothing to reroll now, so final total is 9. Diff would've been smaller if reroll was < 6 but still.

So let's try something like, original roll 6, 6, 1, 1. Reroll first gives let's say 6, 6, 2, 3. Then drop lowest is 6, 6, 3 = 15.
Then original 6, 6, 1, 1. Drop lowest 1 gives 6, 6, 1. Reroll the one, gets 6, 6, 2 (same 1st reroll value from above) = 14. Less difference but still lower.

I can't think of a scenario where dropping the lowest first ever could give you a higher value compared to rerolling 1s first, only same or lower. Interesting. So yeah, unless someone can come up with that scenario, I'd go with my gut and say rerolling 1s first gives a slightly higher average than dropping 1s first. xD

 

*edit* Ahh, wait. In that second scenario above with 6, 6, 1, 1. If the reroll of 6, 6, 1 gives something higher than 3 (let's say 6, 6, 4) then your final total is 16...
Although, assuming the diceroller would give the same value for the 'first' reroll that would also give us 6, 6, 4, 3 --> 6, 6, 4 = 16 on the reroll first one as well...
Hrm. Complicated. But maybe it does average out so close to the same it doesn't matter. xD

Edited January 2, 2023 by BlueTrillium (see edit history)