Situationally effective dice roll patterns

[hoangtrunglien]

I rolled double snake eyes the other day. In the process I failed my MASC roll and blew out my hips.

But in recounting the story I realized that compared to double 12s double snake eyes is mostly ineffective.

So it got me thinking.  Are there other unusually memorable dice patterns that are only situational despite their rarity and memorability?

[elf25s]

yes there are and they are mostly remembered for one thing...they are not in your favor
http://geekandsundry.com/dice-shaming-a-fantastic-source-of-mirth-through-misery/
so my suggestion is perform the excorsism on your dice asap

[JadeHellbringer]

Heh... if you think a '2' is ineffective, you've never run a Kraken. Those Ultra ACs jamming up adds up fast. (Trust me, I know... I don't want to talk about it.)

I think the one that comes to mind for me was a furious battle in a grinder between myself and another player over what would happen to an Arrow IV missile. This was a grinder game, and one of the house rules was that you started with two edge points- you could use them as normal, or you could use one to call in an Arrow homing missile to strike your target (with a high modifier to keep it from being TOO broken of an ability). I spawned in a Vanquisher, the one with the quad Ultra-5s. Not a great Mech, but 100 tons at least, so armored like a battleship (and half as fast). My opponent got behind me, called in an Arrow from his Mongoose, and the battle was on...

...because there's only one place a Vanq is vulnerable, and that's its ass.

So he calls in the missile, and it's a hit. I don't use one of my edge points because I don't care about a 20-point hit, so long as it hits a limb. Well, it doesn't- he hits the rear center torso. That's a problem, so I burn edge and make him re-roll the location. He hits a leg- then uses his remaining edge point to roll a third location and gets the center again! NO. Second edge point from me, knock it off! It goes to the left arm. Whew!.. wait, why are you all laughing?

Another player burned his last edge point (he was leaving early anyway). Now, that's kind of shady- using an edge point for someone elses' roll is questionable. But, hey, it's funny, so let's go with it. (By now this missile has been comically flying around in circles above my head). Location this time is... rear right torso.

Now, take a moment, if you would, and check what's in that location for crits. I'll wait.

...

...

...

...Yeah. Yeah, that's a problem. That, for those not able to check, is an XL engine and three tons of Ultra ammo. I need this to not go badly. I need to luck out big time. I need-

-to not be ME, because if you have any idea who the hell I am you know what comes next... ammo crit, touches off the other two bins, engine is destroyed, pilot is turned into raspberry jam in his seat, Mech is down for the count and NEVER FIRED A SHOT in the game.

I still hate both of those Mechs as a result, and break out in hives when someone fires an Arrow round at me.

yes there are and they are mostly remembered for one thing...they are not in your favor
http://geekandsundry.com/dice-shaming-a-fantastic-source-of-mirth-through-misery/
so my suggestion is perform the excorsism on your dice asap

[Force of Nature]

I figured that once Hellbie responds to this thread about dice rolls and knowing the kind of, for that lack of a better term, his EPIC DICE ROLL FAILS, that this thread could be pretty much locked at this point.

Hellbie has responded to previous threads about his dice rolling. There is bad and unfortunate dice rolling, but as far as I am concerned, Hellbie takes bad dice rolls to levels unimaginable. It is hilarious and yet sad. I feel for Hellbie, I really do, but dice are just a part of Battletech and we all struggle with them. Some struggle more than others though...

[JadeHellbringer]

I figured that once Hellbie responds to this thread about dice rolls and knowing the kind of, for that lack of a better term, his EPIC DICE ROLL FAILS, that this thread could be pretty much locked at this point.

Hellbie has responded to previous threads about his dice rolling. There is bad and unfortunate dice rolling, but as far as I am concerned, Hellbie takes bad dice rolls to levels unimaginable. It is hilarious and yet sad. I feel for Hellbie, I really do, but dice are just a part of Battletech and we all struggle with them. Some struggle more than others though...

It's my superpower. ;)

Want more? I've got a greatest hits album.

http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=49292.0

[Force of Nature]

Bummer of a Superpower Hellbie.  ;)

Yeah, that is the thread I was talking about.

Thank you for the link Hellbie.

An example of what I mean about levels unimaginable (from the link).

+One of the more famous stories comes from teaching new players in Spokane, WA in 2005. Part of it was doing Clan Trials of Position- take a medium or heavy Mech of your choice, defeat a Mech randomly selected from a weight class one lower than what you took, and win. If you do, you can then try facing one of your own weight, and if you beat THAT you can take on one a class BIGGER than you are. Obviously that's no easy task! In this case, the player had a Mad Cat S, waxed a Black Hawk quickly and then got a lucky hit on a Linebacker to move on to the third round, where he faced a Kraken (the standard model). Obviously the Kraken isn't a great Mech for the job, but the trick was obviously to get to high ground and get in as many hits as possible before those pulse lasers and SRMs warm up. Once I had a clear shot, all ten cannons were put to double-rate and the trigger was pulled. I expect to jam one or two as time goes on. But... no. Out of ten guns, I jammed SEVEN of them, including all five in the right arm. This was rolling on set of dice ten times, and it just kept coming up wrong. By the end of it the table was laughing hard enough that none of us could even play right. The dice involved were taken outside and melted into a little black puddle by a pocket-torch (I smoked not-tobacco back then).

[worktroll]

At a recent game I was fortunate enough to play in with the Chicago Division, we saw an absolute corker.

Short form, a Marauder had fallen into Level 1 water behind hills, tripped, fell, breached a leg ... dragged itself out, limped, and finally had a chance to fire at long range, needing 12s to hit. Fired both PPCs.

Both hit.

Now my dice were hot that game - rolling 10+ most of the time, a pair of the generic CGL dice that I was allowed to take away with me - but that put us all to shame. Twin boxcars.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

It's impossible to compete with Hellbie when it comes to bad luck (he's mentioned by name under the Tabletop Games entry for Epic Fail for a reason), but I do have an instance that sticks out.

During an official game at Gen Con one year, the scenario was Ghost Bears vs WoB.  The Bears were moving through a city with omnimechs and Elementals, taking out pockets of Word forces (BA and vehicles, mostly) that were holed up in buildings.  The Word was also calling in Arrow IV support.  Three times they managed to drift a missile over to a hidden Purifier squad and squish it via friendly fire.  I think that at the end, they did more damage to themselves via artillery than they did to the Bears.

[Highball]

.

[SteelRaven]

When you roll the dice, you are literally tempting fate. Not sure what accent deity Hellbie pissed off to seemingly all ways end up on one side of the bell curve but most things should even out when you add up all rolls, good and bad.   

[faithless]

The game I played Sunday it was miss by 1 day. No matter how high or low the to hit was. And for crits I seemed to be a heat sink assassin if I was lucky enough to get one.

[Baldur Mekorig]

Not much "bad" or "good" luck on Battletech, but i have seen, in my recent D&D 5ed campaigns, rolling D20 with advantage or disadvantage, and rolling twin 20`s or twin 1`s.

[The_Livewire]

From back in the day.

I take a Warrior VTOL, stock, against a Thunder Stallion 2.  Op for has been dealing with TAG equipped VTOLs raining Arrow IV death down them so anything with rotors strikes fear.  He alpha strikes with the thing.  Short range for everything.

Misses.  Every Single Shot.  Then to add insult to injury I hit him with the AC 2 and the SRM 4, which I had loaded with inferno rounds :-)