Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Napolean Bonabard 03-27-05, 04:48 PM	Hey just started playing,actually finished the first quest we've played last night.I was looking at the whip and it said it does 1d3 of damage.How does that work?As far as i know there's no such thing as a 3 sided die amd my dungeon master,while a great storyteller,is'nt extremely well versed in the rules.
The_Grikk 03-27-05, 04:52 PM	you use a d6. there are two ways you can do this: 1=1 or 1=1 2=2 ... 2=1 3=3 ... 3=2 4=1 ... 4=2 5=2 ... 5=3 6=3 ... 6=3 at least those are the two ways my group likes.
simen_88 03-27-05, 05:15 PM	1d6/2, round up.
Rondulin 03-27-05, 05:17 PM	I have special 6-sided die that is printed 1,2,3 twice.
Flamberge 03-27-05, 07:49 PM	Or use a d12 and divide by 4.... :D
Fargren 03-27-05, 07:55 PM	I' tried to build a three sided dice, but that never worked. Maybe it can be done, but i just dont know how(even thoug i've seen a two sided on)
Nayk 03-27-05, 07:57 PM	You can also use a d4 and ignore any 4 ;)
Begle1 03-27-05, 07:58 PM	Well, when you finally make a 3-sided dice call NASA and JPL because you just broke into the 4th dimension...
The_Grikk 03-27-05, 08:05 PM	well you could make a trianglular prism. just have the two ends round instead of flat. and that would be a 3 sided die. and... I' tried to build a three sided dice, but that never worked. Maybe it can be done, but i just dont know how(even thoug i've seen a two sided on) im truly hoping that was a joke since a quarter (or any flat surface... anything, is in fact a two-sided die)
scwolf 03-27-05, 09:11 PM	well you could make a trianglular prism. just have the two ends round instead of flat. and that would be a 3 sided die. A triangular prism, even one with rounded ends, would roll about as horribly as your standard tetrahedral d4. It's a symptom of dice where the angle where faces meet is an acute one. If a die's faces don't meet at at least a right angle, and preferably an obtuse angle, it takes a lot more momentum to tip the die from one face to another. A higher momentum requirement means you get less tumbles from face to face once the dice hit the table, and less tumbles mean that it's easier for a determined cheat to gimic the roll. If we're talking prism-shaped dice, I'd reccomend a hexagonal prism, with the same "each number gets two faces" numbering scheme you see on cubic d3s. And Grikk, I wouldn't worry about Fargren talking about d2s, as like you say, anyone with a pocket full of change has some. It's the people who have a d1 in their dicebag (like myself) that you have to worry about.
Two_Piece 03-27-05, 09:31 PM	I' tried to build a three sided dice, but that never worked. Maybe it can be done, but i just dont know how(even thoug i've seen a two sided on) How is that 2-sided die possible? The smallest you can get a polygon is 3 sides! :confused: There are three-sided dice out there, search google images for "d3". Two_Piece
The_Grikk 03-27-05, 09:34 PM	your right in the fact that you could cheat. But if you trust yourself (and the person rolling it) then it shoudl be fine. Or make a rule that you have to roll it by throwing it at least 2 feet off the table and with considerable spin; the outcome should be rather hard to cheat.
Galstaf, Sorcerer of Lite 03-27-05, 09:52 PM	How is that 2-sided die possible? The smallest you can get a polygon is 3 sides! :confused: It's called a coin. Heads = 1, Tails = 2.
Elendur 03-27-05, 09:59 PM	Hmm, that gets me thinking. A coin is actually a 3 sided object: 2 sides plus the edge. It's a cylinder. So theoretically if you could make a cylinder that landed on it's side as frequently as it's 2 ends, that'd be a 3 sided die.
The_Grikk 03-27-05, 10:21 PM	to be technical (but still not have the ability to spell it) the only truly 2-sided die is a plane. But since a true plane only exists in mathamatics its kinda hard to roll one. But you can sure try. which gets me thinking, does a point have any sides???
Rulebook 03-27-05, 11:47 PM	ive made a 3 sided die before. its easy. its just like the guy said. a triangular prism, but bring the ends to tapered points. the number on the bottom is the number you rolled. (okay it was a useless excersize for me, but i had some spare wood and got bored)
scwolf 03-28-05, 01:08 AM	Hmm, that gets me thinking. A coin is actually a 3 sided object: 2 sides plus the edge. It's a cylinder. So theoretically if you could make a cylinder that landed on it's side as frequently as it's 2 ends, that'd be a 3 sided die. It wouldn't be easy. There are generally two factors that determine how frequently a side on a solid shape comes up when the shape is thrown as a die: surface area on the side, and how prone the die is to tumbling from each individual side to each of it its neighboring sides as the die rolls to a stop. The propensity to tumbling from one side to a neighboring side is affected by the angle the two sides meet, and both sides' relationship to the die's center of gravity. In short, a cylinder that has an equal chance of tumbling from circular face, to "edge" to circular face will have an "edge" that has more surface area than the circular faces. End Result: the edge comes up more often then the circles. A cylinder that has an "edge" that has an equal surface area to the circular faces results in an "edge" so narrow that the die's center of gravity very rarely settles over the edge side and has a tendancy to tumble over one last time to land on one of the circular faces before coming to a rest. What'd you'd have to do, is come up with some sort of internal works that allows for a variable center of gravity inside the cylinder, similar to the principle of putting an hollow ocathedral cavity that contains a freely moving weight, inside of a sphere, to get a "spherical d6". And for those of you who are concerned about coins not being "fair" d2s because of the chance of landing on Edge (very very improbable, but not impossible), there is an alternative: a "Convex Lens" shape that consists of the intersection of two spheres and has exactly two sides.
IceFractal 03-28-05, 01:13 AM	A d3 (of the triangular prism type) would roll ok as long as the edges were rounded instead of sharp cornered.
scwolf 03-28-05, 02:00 AM	A d3 (of the triangular prism type) would roll ok as long as the edges were rounded instead of sharp cornered. True enough, given signifigant rounding.
Elurindel 03-28-05, 03:48 AM	The dice generator on Wizards.com allows you to "create" your own dice. Alternatively, my party uses d6's like so. 1 and 2 = 1 3 and 4 = 2 5 and 6 = 3
scwolf 03-28-05, 04:00 AM	Alternatively, my party uses d6's like so. 1 and 2 = 1 3 and 4 = 2 5 and 6 = 3 Just like the second method listed in post #2 (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=5783241&postcount=2) of this thread.
Nephlite 03-28-05, 08:19 AM	Hey just started playing,actually finished the first quest we've played last night.I was looking at the whip and it said it does 1d3 of damage.How does that work?As far as i know there's no such thing as a 3 sided die amd my dungeon master,while a great storyteller,is'nt extremely well versed in the rules. I'd just use a Whip dagger, you autoproficient with whip dagger if you are proficient with whip. Whip daggers deal lethal damage and do 1d6 (meduim).
NimbleToes 03-28-05, 09:36 AM	They have three sided die taht you can purchase. I believe they were made for the Vampire role playing system. They are long and rounded at the two ends and have only three sides it can land on. it is a Triagle not a pyramid. you can find them here. http://www.rpgshop.com/product_info.php?products_id=35687& They are caled Rock, Paper, Sissor Dice.
aleph_woodenglenn 03-28-05, 03:14 PM	I have used a d3 as explained above, it works well and is about as easy to cheat with as a d4. they sell them in some shops and on line, but the d6/2 round up method is what I usually do (the d3 belonged to a friend). you could also toss a coin twice: HH=1 HT=2 TT=3 use any number above 3 randomly generated (provided the range is evenly divisible by 3), divide by three and use the remainder (0=1, 1=2, 2=3) for your random 1d3 number.( i think that would work...just came up with it and now it seems a touch on the stupid side.)
Phrennzy 03-28-05, 04:15 PM	Ya know, I use the 1 & 4 = 1, 2 & 5 = 2, 3 & 6 = 3 method. So do all my friends. So it was a great surprise when we had a new guy join the group, and he rolled a 4 and said it was a 2. We were dumb founded. It was like he was cheating. Like he rolled a 20 sided, got a 3 and said "17". After he explained how he read it, it got worse! 1 & 2 = 1? WTF? Heretic! Burn the witch! We got past it, but only because building a pyre is too much work.
The.Vortex 03-28-05, 04:30 PM	you could also toss a coin twice: HH=1 HT=2 TT=3 What about TH? A coin can never be used to simulate any die except d2, d4, d8, d16, etc. since the number of possible results only has 2 as a prime divisor
Santrilla 03-28-05, 04:55 PM	What about TH? A coin can never be used to simulate any die except d2, d4, d8, d16, etc. since the number of possible results only has 2 as a prime divisor TH would be the same as HT. If both coins are T, 1 If one coin is T and one coin is H, 2 If both coins are H, 3 EDIT: And here's how to simulate a D6 using only 5 coins :P HHHHH = 1 HHHHT = 2 HHHTT = 3 HHTTT = 4 HTTTT = 5 TTTTT = 6 Although, you would probably be much better off spending those five coins on some real dice.
Nayk 03-28-05, 05:17 PM	Santrilla: That doesn't work! TT = 1 TH = 2 HT = 2 HH = 3 See, two chances to get 2 and 1 chance to get 1 or 3. That's not correct. You would need to ignore HT to have accurate **random** results :D Y@
NimbleToes 03-28-05, 05:42 PM	um TH and HT would be considered the same as the chances do not go upthe 2 is basicly a combination of Heads and Tails where as the one is 2 heads and the tail is 2 tails it makes logical sense but it makes not sense at all just use a 6 sider a whole lot easier and it won't **** your DM off like fliping coins in the air and losing them on the floor and if you reroll you die that land on the floor then you would hafta re flip you coin Man what a head ache buy a 3 sider or just use a 6 sider why make a simple thing complicated
The_Grikk 03-28-05, 05:46 PM	Santrilla: That doesn't work! TT = 1 TH = 2 HT = 2 HH = 3 See, two chances to get 2 and 1 chance to get 1 or 3. That's not correct. You would need to ignore HT to have accurate **random** results :D Y@ same with the d6! youd almost always get a 3 or 4 and almost never get a 1 or 6. and NimbleToes i believe you are mistaken since you would have a 25% chance for TT, 25% or HH, 25% HT and, 25% TH. So thats a 50% chance of a 2 and only 25% chances on getting a 3 or a 1.
Santrilla 03-28-05, 06:06 PM	My mistake. You're right there, guys. Guess you would have to ignore HT, then.
DwarvenFremen 03-29-05, 03:18 PM	the HT result is the absolute same as the TH result. the only difference is the coin that it is on. if you roll HT and swap the coins its TH the order doesnt matter
simen_88 03-29-05, 03:30 PM	the HT result is the absolute same as the TH result. the only difference is the coin that it is on. if you roll HT and swap the coins its TH the order doesnt matter You are wrong. To prove this, I'll make you a nice little chart showing all possible outcomes. T--T TT: 1 (25%) / \ / H TH: 2 (25%) O< \ T HT: 2 (25%) \ / H--H HH: 3 (25%) Note that the chance of the result 2 is 50%, while all other results are 25%.
Alluvian 03-29-05, 03:51 PM	Before anyone argues that HT and TH are the same in the coin argument, please get a statistics book and read it. There are FOUR outcomes to flipping 2 coins, not three outcomes. The coin flip method only would work if you flipped one first, then the other, and ignored one of the outcomes (like HT) and re-flipped on that result. This is the same as rolling a d4 and rerolling any 4's. Anyone who wants to continue arguing should flip a pair of coins 100 times and record the outcomes. You will get about twice as many 2's as you will get 1's or 3's using that system. The system given a few posts up for flipping 5 coins to get a six sided die was even MORE painful, considering 1 and 6 would each come up only once every 32 'rolls' on average. Rerolling a die is so simple, anytime we need a bizzarre die roll I just roll the next higher die and reroll anytime a valid number does not come up. Even people bad at stats usually understand that the number there is still random. Some people are so painfully bad at stats though. I had a guy think that rolling a d6 and a d4 and adding then up was the same as rolling a d10 (he lost his d10). I drew it out and did the math and everything but he refused to pay attention. He also wondered why we didn't just roll a d20 for stats and ignore the rolls of 1, 2, 19, or 20. I wanted so bad to force him to make 1000 rolls both ways and see the difference, but I didn't bother playing in that group again. This guy was the least of that group's problems.
Captain Casualty 03-29-05, 03:56 PM	Well done I thought this place could not get any wierder and then we start having conversations about four dimensional die and the probability distributions of coin tosses. I AM going to refer people to this thread when they dare to suggest that The boards produce no new information and that we are all sad geeky losers BTW in the coin toss HT and TH are diffrent combinations and so would skew the results
simen_88 03-29-05, 04:10 PM	Well done I thought this place could not get any wierder and then we start having conversations about four dimensional die and the probability distributions of coin tosses. I AM going to refer people to this thread when they dare to suggest that The boards produce no new information and that we are all sad geeky losers BTW in the coin toss HT and TH are diffrent combinations and so would skew the results You've seen nothing. Some people here have calculated the exact chance of every single result when rolling stats.
Norseman 03-29-05, 06:10 PM	Ok, well for a d3, theoretically you could take something like if two d4s were sandwiched together (which would make a d6) and then smooth and round the 6 sides into three long sides. Another possibility is to have a sphere with 3 flat equally distanced planes on it. It would always land on just one of the three planes.
Jasoncorner 03-29-05, 06:57 PM	I have about four d3 dice because the game I used to play with used them. They have six sides, with the 1-3 written twice. They are white, unlike all of the other dice I have in my bag, which are marblized one color or another. Anyways, I am getting ready to run a game, and some of the players are over at my house getting ready to roll up characters. I am not paying much attention until there gets to be a little bit of swearing at the table. I look up, and notice that one of the players is borrowing my dice to roll my character. So far his stats had been 4, 7, and one 9. I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. :evillaugh Two hours later, my brother is getting ready to roll up a character. He likes to 'warm up' the dice before getting started. He rolls them about 15 times before noticing that their aren't any 4-6 on the dice. :rofl:
Phrennzy 03-29-05, 07:33 PM	Thank you guys for the Coin breakdown. When I first saw the talk of using coins as d3, I thought it looked funny, but I'm not strong enough in statistics. Of course, since I'm not strong in them, you guys could be wrong and I would never know. Hmm. Well, I guess I could toss a pair of coins 1,000,000 times. I'll let you all know how that works out.
Phrennzy 03-29-05, 07:35 PM	Okay - so that's done. Turns out: TT: 250,000 TH: 250,000 HT: 250,000 HH: 250,000 Who knew? Oh yeah, you guys did. Dang. Man my thumb is sore.
Jasoncorner 03-29-05, 08:46 PM	Hmm. Well, I guess I could toss a pair of coins 1,000,000 times. I'll let you all know how that works out. ....... Okay - so that's done. Man my thumb is sore. and in only 2 minutes! That's impressive! Over 8000 flips a second! :mymy:
XBobbis 03-29-05, 09:26 PM	Is a marble a d1 or a d∞?
The_Grikk 03-29-05, 10:02 PM	well now your breaking into an argument that you dont want. Wether or not anything can be a true sphere and have infinate sides. Or is it impossible to make a perfect one and thusly have VERY many sides/facets and not infinate. bla bla bla...
simen_88 03-30-05, 12:52 AM	Due to those *******ed atoms, a perfect sphere is impossible. By the way, I count marbles as d1.
Plastik 03-30-05, 02:27 AM	Is a marble a d1 or a d∞? It's a D1 because we count a D20 as a D20 and technically it's not really. It's got about a billion facets on every face.
The_Grikk 03-30-05, 05:32 AM	It's a D1 because we count a D20 as a D20 and technically it's not really. It's got about a billion facets on every face. is that a rough estimate? :P
Soepkommetje 03-30-05, 05:46 AM	well, if we're talking about a perfect mathematical sphere, it has one side, so I'd logically be a d1
Nephlite 03-30-05, 08:29 AM	and in only 2 minutes! That's impressive! Over 8000 flips a second! :mymy: Yeah, your thumb would be sore too. On second thought, your thumb would break off and leave you in pain,
blooddemon 03-30-05, 12:33 PM	)( <--piece of construction paper ^ side view top view is a circle. roll, pick up, look at bottom and bam.