Someone decent at statistics needed -- help debunk Lhynn's claim

[King Crispy]

So in Shoutbox, Lhynn has been claiming for some time now that he once rolled a character in D&D who had the following stats:

STR 18/00 (see edit)
INT 18
WIS 18
DEX 15
CON 15
CHA 18

This was supposedly using the 'roll 4d6, drop lowest result then arrange your stats freely' method (an old one, outlined in the DMG I believe at least since 2.5E).

He also claimed today to have rolled another equally unbelievable character:

Someone please calculate the odds of rolling that first character, then the odds of the second one. I simply don't believe him and I and Night Goat think he cheated or is simply lying.

Helton?

EDIT: Below, it's clarified that the STR score was further rarer exceptionally to the tune of being 100 out of 100, driving us deeper into the world of make-believe.

 

[King Crispy]

So there's a .01% chance to get three 18's using that method? Would four 18's be like .001%? Lower?

 

[Khor1255]

Takes me back to a time when a friend of mine would use his other hand to hide the dice roll then 'accidentally' bump the table when I wanted to see it. Because of him (and another dork) I came up with a system where a 20 wasn't a 20 necessarily. I would roll a die after them and my number would = 1 and each following number would be 2, 3, 4, etc.
I ended up just avoiding playing with guys like that. I mean, if you have to cheat in an rpg...

 

[Lhynn]

18/00 18 18 15 15 18 FYI

 

[Mastermind]

Even if the odds are low it doesn't necessarily mean he was lying. After all extremely lucky rolls are bound to show up once in a while.

 

[Lhynn]

Satistics are useless. the character with the best rolls ive ever got was my thief with 17 18 16 18 18 18

My most powerful character was a wizard that started with 10 16 10 17 15 14. wizard level 22 when the final campaign ended.

Fact is, the best way to go is treat all characters as disposable, then rolls dont become such a big deal and every new character is interesting in its own way. Problem with the new generation of players is that they play games in which they cannot lose, thus stats take a much bigger importance. If DMs were properly lethal rolls wouldnt even matter past the "oh shit, thats a nice character" phase.

 

[Thor Kaufman]

Someone's gotta be blessed by Fortuna. Stop hatin

 

[King Crispy]

So we have a character with 18 18 18 15 15 18 and another with 17 18 16 18 18 18. That's 8 out of 12 18's not to mention the other high stats.

All I want to know are the odds that a human being would roll those stats within his lifetime, while not cheating. You say statistics are useless, but I say after a claim like that statistics are good lie/cheat detectors.

 

[King Crispy]

Yes, many times lower.

Edit: If you do the anydice program given in the article, http://anydice.com/program/3eff, It gives the probability of the 4th highest roll being at least an 18 at .0000010074379954267722 (.0001%)

You also have to consider that the next two rolls were at least 15s and the percentage chance of rolling at least two 15s on two rolls is .053583676268609945 (5.36%) according to this, http://anydice.com/program/62f1. The chances of both of those events happening (multiplying the probabilities together) is .00000053982231407645507833102732169529 (.00005%)

So there is roughly a 1 in 2 million chance that he rolled at least that good. Unless I messed up in any of the math.

The only thing that might change the probabilities is racial modifiers. Assuming a +1 to one stat and a -1 to another, that would create raw rolls of 18 18 18 17 16 15. I think those would be slightly more likely, although I haven't calculated it and I don't think it would make it drastically more likely.

Lhynn is indeed a liar or a cheater.

Let's not even get into the probability for his second claim of even higher stats.

Nice. I want more zero's. We need to factor in that second character.

 

[Andhaira]

This thread is the KEY to understanding why Crispy is still a virgin

 

[Night Goat]

What do you think are the chances of djinn involvement, Andhaira?

 

[Khor1255]

Satistics are useless. the character with the best rolls ive ever got was my thief with 17 18 16 18 18 18

My most powerful character was a wizard that started with 10 16 10 17 15 14. wizard level 22 when the final campaign ended.

Fact is, the best way to go is treat all characters as disposable, then rolls dont become such a big deal and every new character is interesting in its own way. Problem with the new generation of players is that they play games in which they cannot lose, thus stats take a much bigger importance. If DMs were properly lethal rolls wouldnt even matter past the "oh shit, thats a nice character" phase.

Well no. If you have a decent 'physics' system your ability score directly correlate to your chances of a successful outcome in any endeavor the stat covers. This is a huge advantage in games where the character has - you know - challenges to overcome.

 

[King Crispy]

Okay, so there's more to it. Lhynn actually claims that the first character, above and beyond his already incredible stats, rolled a 100 on d100 for his Exceptional Strength score:

I'm no expert, but I'm p. sure that further reduces the odds by at least a factor of one thousand.

 

[King Crispy]

18/00 18 18 15 15 18 FYI

Sorry, missed this post. So this plus the screenshot above claim the same thing.

And this isn't something that Lhynn simply came up with to troll me. He's been claiming this (actually, I do remember the 18/00 thing from before) for like six months or more.

Compulsive liar?

 

[King Crispy]

Andhaira, you don't need to tag me ITT. It's my thread.

 

[Lhynn]

Well no. If you have a decent 'physics' system your ability score directly correlate to your chances of a successful outcome in any endeavor the stat covers. This is a huge advantage in games where the character has - you know - challenges to overcome.

Not really in games where challenges can be overcome in a deterministic way with magic. As i said, my most successful character had like 50 hp at lvl 22.

The fighter that got the 18 18 18 15 15 18 actually survived 7 saving throws that werent influenced by stats with a chance of failure of 50% vs magic death, to crown that same round with a double natural 20 to hit an armor class i couldnt have actually hit otherwise.

That very same fighter actually survived a nuclear blast at lvl 9. That very same fighter actually managed to fight and defeat a fallen Solar at lvl 7.

And dont even have me bring up my 10th character, the wizards son, a sorcerer that was fighting liches at level 8 and whose biggest problem was surviving every party member he ever had. due to sheer dumb luck and clever use of low level spells. He got 3 20s on his dispel checks against that lich. he also was lucky enough to find a ring of magical reflection when all was said and done (returns 1d10x10 % of any spell directed at him, gains saving throw against all spells with a bonus equal to the number on the d10. even against spells that give no saving throw). That simply made him nasty.

My thief character, the one with the insane stats, actually beat a minotaur at level 1 due to the stupid minotaur missing 6 rounds in a row due to consistent 1s 2s 3s while my character was getting 19s and 20s every round.

Play PnP long enough and youll see plenty of good and bad rolls to make for countless anecdotes, but i have had my share of shitty characters, my first character ever made died in his 3rd story, my second character died within 5 minutes of creating it and starting to play. I had a mage warrior elf that died in his first story eaten by goblins.
Eventually you realize probability is meaningless, sometimes you just gotta ride the dice and let it fall where it may.

 

[Night Goat]

Remember that kid from elementary school who would just make shit up all the time? The guy whose dad worked for Nintendo and let him play all the upcoming games before they came out, and who was best friends with the Red Ranger? Lhynn is what happens when that kid grows up.

 

[King Crispy]

Helton's on it. His results should appear shortly.

 

[Johannes]

Okay, so there's more to it. Lhynn actually claims that the first character, above and beyond his already incredible stats, rolled a 100 on d100 for his Exceptional Strength score:

I'm no expert, but I'm p. sure that further reduces the odds by at least a factor of one thousand.

P. easy to tell it reduces the odds exactly into 1/100th


But who cares about this shit. Let him keep lying or telling the truth, what's it to you? The codex is full of pathological liars anyway, what does one more do.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Somebody needs a new avatar.

 

[Night Goat]

Also, your character having really lucky things happen to them in game, being able to defeat opponents that seemingly overpower them, or other cool and amazing things happening to them, is usually not strictly a matter of luck. DMs have immense control over what happens and it is usually an exciting game if cool and amazing stuff is happening. I'm not even just talking about fudging dice either (some DMs will never do this). DMs control everything else in the game as well.

Yeah, it sounds like Lhynn had the most spineless doormat of a DM ever. If he didn't call Lhynn out on his obvious cheating, then I don't see any reason to believe he wouldn't have a nuclear explosion deal less damage than a fireball or play a solar so badly that a level 7 fighter could defeat him.

 

[King Crispy]

Okay, so Helton was good enough to do some calculating in Shoutbox, but it's still far from complete:

We still haven't factored in the non-18's in the first character, nor the second character whatsoever!

This is a mathematical problem that someone here should enjoy tackling, even if only to out-do Helton who apparently tutors young people in mathematics in-between his depressive coma/stupors.

Anyone?

 

[Kane]

So in Shoutbox, Lhynn has been claiming for some time now that he once rolled a character in D&D who had the following stats:

STR 18/00 (see edit)
INT 18
WIS 18
DEX 15
CON 15
CHA 18

This was supposedly using the 'roll 4d6, drop lowest result then arrange your stats freely' method (an old one, outlined in the DMG I believe at least since 2.5E).

6 dices with 18 sides each means a single specific roll has a probability of 1/18^6 = ~3e-8 = 3e-6% or 3 in a million. Not outrageously impossible, considering there have been a lot more than 3 million D&D characters. Rolling two "impossible" characters in a row is 1/18^6^2 = 1/18^12 = 8,6e-16 = a bit less likely than ten in a trillion.

 

[Khor1255]

Well no. If you have a decent 'physics' system your ability score directly correlate to your chances of a successful outcome in any endeavor the stat covers. This is a huge advantage in games where the character has - you know - challenges to overcome.

Not really in games where challenges can be overcome in a deterministic way with magic. As i said, my most successful character had like 50 hp at lvl 22.

It's a bad system that doesn't use stats is the framework for success in abilities. I don't care how you want to rationalize it.

The fighter that got the 18 18 18 15 15 18 actually survived 7 saving throws that werent influenced by stats with a chance of failure of 50% vs magic death, to crown that same round with a double natural 20 to hit an armor class i couldnt have actually hit otherwise.

That very same fighter actually survived a nuclear blast at lvl 9. That very same fighter actually managed to fight and defeat a fallen Solar at lvl 7.

Sounds like suspension of disbelief (in the game physics system) was essential to enjoyment. I've played games with crooked DMs or just bad systems and can get some enjoyment from it. But it only goes so far if you routinely get away with the impossible or die on a whim rather than some event that seemed likely to have killed you.

And dont even have me bring up my 10th character, the wizards son, a sorcerer that was fighting liches at level 8 and whose biggest problem was surviving every party member he ever had. due to sheer dumb luck and clever use of low level spells. He got 3 20s on his dispel checks against that lich. he also was lucky enough to find a ring of magical reflection when all was said and done (returns 1d10x10 % of any spell directed at him, gains saving throw against all spells with a bonus equal to the number on the d10. even against spells that give no saving throw). That simply made him nasty.

10th character? You remember the 10th character you've ever rolled?

Now I remember my first and a few firsts from various DMs but 10th?

Noob?

My thief character, the one with the insane stats, actually beat a minotaur at level 1 due to the stupid minotaur missing 6 rounds in a row due to consistent 1s 2s 3s while my character was getting 19s and 20s every round.

Play PnP long enough and youll see plenty of good and bad rolls to make for countless anecdotes, but i have had my share of shitty characters, my first character ever made died in his 3rd story, my second character died within 5 minutes of creating it and starting to play. I had a mage warrior elf that died in his first story eaten by goblins.
Eventually you realize probability is meaningless, sometimes you just gotta ride the dice and let it fall where it may.

Again, it sounds like a bad system you are playing. Dice rolls are supposed to gauge the range of probability within a reasonable parameter. Now, when you get consistent 1s or 20s (using 1d20 variable systems) the probability raises from 1 in 20 to 1 in 400 to one in 8000 (on 3rd 20 in a row). But that's still only a 1 in 8000 chance of this possible outcome.

3 consecutive 20s should not mean that one in a million events happen.

 

[Lhynn]

it was AD&D.