this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
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Dealing with players rolling terribly in combat? (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by Zonetrooper@lemmy.world to c/dnd@lemmy.world
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Everyone has bad dice days. Everyone has that one time you get a Nat 1 at a critical moment.

But guys, my party is in trouble.

They're consistently rolling terribly in combat across multiple sessions, classes, and dice types. And I mean terribly. Over time, you'd think their d20 rolls would average out to about unmodified 10, right? Plus or minus a bit. Hah. No. They're averaging about 7. Other rolls (damage, healing, etc) also often suffer from this. It's turning combat into a slog; anything with an AC of above 12-14 or so is proving awful to fight, and when attacks do hit they often do little damage.

We're all experienced players, and it's a digital platform - so I can both know they're not missing modifications to the raw d20 roll, and know it's not "bad dice". Unfortunately, they're also experienced enough to figure out ACs from misses/hits, so it's not like I can even give them "free passes" on attacks as anti-frustration measures.

It's at the point where I'm thinking the honest only way to "fix" this is to artificially nerf NPCs or vastly reduce the CR I'm used to them being able to handle. Is that really it, folks?

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[–] harmbugler@piefed.social 7 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Why would a fix be required? It seems like you expect the bad rolls to continue.

[–] Zonetrooper@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Well, I'd like to fix the frustration (for both me and my players). Whether that means fixing the rolls or fixing the encounters to account for bad rolls, something needs to be altered.

[–] Lycist@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

some of us have terrible rng... I roll poorly like 70-80% of the time. Out of 20 attack rolls the other day, 14 were misses, like 5 nat 1's. This is normal for me, every damn session.

This is across multiple systems, and 8+ years of ttrpgs. My rng is dogshit and has been the entire time, I expect the bad rolls to continue.

[–] DrFistington@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Don't you have several sets of dice, and don't you 'dog walk' your d20s at the beginning of a session to see which one(s) are the lucky ones for the night? Asking for a friend....

[–] Lycist@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

I've used dozens of sets, including a dozen different online dice rollers. Its all abysmal luck on every platform.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

check your dice. Bet they're loaded. if you're just using acrylic dice, saltwater works. (or any liquid they can float in otherwise.) It's quick, easy and only takes a few tries. if it's biased in any major way it's going to keep coming up that way.

(I did this to the murderhobo in my party once. it was... hilarious)

[–] Lycist@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

8 years = a lot of platforms. 10 different sets of physical dice at least, roll20, maptool, dndbeyond, brockjonesdiceroller, drawsteeltool, orcpub, dozens of different digital platforms.

All abysmal rolls all the time.