The Math of D&D

A blog made in a desperate attempt to try to make sense of this game

[dungeonsanddivisions]

Here's how to calculate your chance of failure:

(Check DC - Skill Modifier - 1) * 5

So if your musclebard of buffitude with an athletics skill of +5 is facing a tough door with a break DC of 15, she has a (15-5-1)*5=45% chance of breaking it down!

Here's to walking into our failures with more knowledge in 2021 and have a wonderful new year y'all!

(This is a response to my previous horribly roundabout calculation of this, please refrain from direct eye contact if you come upon it)

[dungeonsanddivisions]

Horrible Homebrew: The Compaxe

Weapon (any axe), rare

Background:

An axe with a long metal hilt curving into a wide but short triangular blade, painted with red markings on either end of the head. The head is made of a specially tempered alchemical alloy making it lighter when moving towards the north pole of the planet. This peculiar weapon was created for an alchemy masterwork exam by Gillagain Lynchburg. The special alloy tempering techniques used as well as the sheer absurdness of the weapon (which according to rumors was only created because of a bet Gillagain struck with their friends). They earned the title of Master of Alchemy, and helped improve the accuracy of sailing and adventuring compasses while lowering their price mark. While many copies of the axe are in circulation recreating, the original still stands in the hall of fame of the Latwiak Brewmore School of Potioneering and Metalwork, facing north.

Description: You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. Additionally, you can always tell which way is north based on the tilting of the weapon. When attacking with the weapon, if your target is within a 60ft cone to the north of you, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls and a -2 penalty if the target is within a 60ft cone south of you.

[dungeonsanddivisions]

Crabs..

So, there is this table for mob attacks in the DMG (pg. 250), and as it turns out, it perfectly represents how many crabs you need to be overrun by to take 1 damage, based on your AC.

So if only you multiply that by your current health, you´ll know exactly how many ravenous crabs you need to be swarmed by to never wake up again.

Do whatever you wish with this information..

[dungeonsanddivisions]

Here’s your quick reminder that Gnomes, Halflings, underdressed Drow, Goblin, Kobolds and Kenku can, with Enlarge/Reduce cast on them, carry themselves and FLY using mage hand.

Here’s how:

You can fulfill your little Kenku’s dreams of flight easily by having 3 levels of sorcerer or wizard and taking Extended spell as a metamagic option or using Arcane recovery to regain level 2 spell slots, allowing you 3-4 minutes of limitless flight every day already at level 3!

[dungeonsanddivisions]

Tip:

You can actually calculate the chance of you succeeding at a check or saving throw!

You just take your appropriate modifier (like a +2 in Acrobatics), and add 1 to it (so it is +3). If that is equal to the last digit of the difficulty of the check (so 5 for DC 15), then your chance of success is 50%, every point of difference after that adjusts your chance by 5%, increasing it if your modifier is higher and vice versa (so since +3 is 2 smaller than 5, you have a 40% chance of success!)

Note 1: The DC number change is actually just -10, so it would be 12 for a DC of 20, but that sounds like math

Note 2: For attack rolls, your chances to hit is always at least 5% (for Nat 20′s) and never higher than 95% (due to Nat 1′s)