So if a player wanted 20s in all stats permantly assuming they had a year and 14000 gold and plans for a bag of beans they could do it?
on average each bag will provide 3.2 stat points, on average (this can change with con saving throws i used a level 6 paladin with 18 con with resilience and 14 cha standard array I added bless and come of age and absorb elements) this is a rare consumable magic item so they only cost 1000 gp make.
I see two complications each bean has a 10% chance of summing a Trent that 50% of the time is CE and each bean has a 10% chance of summoning this cr 5 land shark thing. But a group of mid level adventures this should be doable. Am I missing something?
A bag of beans has an average of 7 beans, each bean has a 10% chance of giving an average of 5 chances to increase a stat. Standard array (plus +2/+1 racial bonus) starts you 45 stat points away from all 20s so you need about of 9 of the right bean (it is actually more factoring in odds of succeeding 20 DC CON save, but I don't even need to get into that).
Now this is where the math gets tricky. Getting a 1 in 10 chance twice is not 1 in 20, but rather 1 in 100. The odds to get a 1 in 10 chance 9 times, is 1 in 1,000,000,000. Probability is never 100%, so lets see how many bags of beans it takes to have a 50% chance of getting 9 of the stat boosting bean. I'll save you the trouble of the math and just say the answer is around 700,000,000 beans or 100,000,000 bags of beans give or take a million. Which is... A lot.
Don't believe me? Try it. Keep rolling for beans until you rolled 9 81-90s (or roll a d10 until you roll 9 8s). I bet you will be a lot closer to 1 billion than you are to 90.
Ok, here is the math:
1-(1-.000000001)^X=.5
.999999999^X=.5
X=log(.999999999).5
X=693147199.82
Rolling that many times has a 50% chance of rolling 9 of the right bean.
My players rounded up and used 8 beans per bag. They should have used 7.5. Think you stats are off that’s the odds of rolling them back to back. Example roll 8d10 tell me if you have a single 8 in all numbers rolled.
they also did factor in the saving throw I admit they used a high con save custom linage paladin example, with a 2d4 +1d20 +9 Imo the extra d4 from the coming of age thing was a little cheesy but technically legal. Meaning on average they pass the save 70% of the time.
yes it takes a year and yes they would have to get plans for the item but a group of mid or high level players getting 20s is very doable
So, I ran the numbers assuming 8 beans per bag. The expected number of stat-increasing beans is 0.8 (it's a binomial distribution, sum from n=0 to 8 of n * the probability of n egg results) per bag, times 5.5 stat increasing eggs, times 0.7 (chance of succeeding the Con save) gives 3.08 stat increases per bag.
Assuming 45 stat increases away from all 20s, that's about 15 bags per character. Each bag takes 200 days of work and 5000 gold, which means that, assuming every character in the party is able to make their own bags, it would still take over eight years (flat) and 75,000 gold (per character) to accomplish.
Is it possible? Sure. Is it realistic? Not even a little bit. If my players said "we want to take eight years out of adventuring/doing the plot to make a bunch of magic items in the hopes of boosting our stats to 20" I'd just end the campaign there.
Don't believe me? Try it. Keep rolling for beans until you rolled 9 81-90s (or roll a d10 until you roll 9 8s). I bet you will be a lot closer to 1 billion than you are to 90.
I threw together a real quick and dirty Python script to do this, because I was curious about some experimental results. Across 10,000 trials, the average number of 8-bean bags it took to get 9 8s on a d10 was 10.5 (if you think I did something wrong, feel free to check me). If I find the time I may update it with all the variables (number of beans, number of stat points, and saving throw) to get a rigorous experimental result.
[EDIT] I did update the script. As I suspected theoretically, the number of required bags settles to about 15. This goes down to ~12 for 20-th level character who have already acquired 10 stat increases by leveling up. It'll also give you the minimum and maximum number of bags it took across the number of trials, in addition to the average.
Don't believe me? Try it. Keep rolling for beans until you rolled 9 81-90s (or roll a d10 until you roll 9 8s). I bet you will be a lot closer to 1 billion than you are to 90.
I threw together a real quick and dirty Python script to do this, because I was curious about some experimental results. Across 10,000 trials, the average number of 8-bean bags it took to get 9 8s on a d10 was 10.5 (if you think I did something wrong, feel free to check me). If I find the time I may update it with all the variables (number of beans, number of stat points, and saving throw) to get a rigorous experimental result.
I thought something was up, but every search result for probability of getting a result multiple times said to multiply, and since I just woke up I didn't put together that its the odds of 2 in a row.
If you use the new crafting rules in xanathars it’s much faster. It’s a consumable so only 5 weeks and 1000 gold to craft each, still a long time at 70 weeks, but that’s still only a year and a bit
So, I ran the numbers assuming 8 beans per bag. The expected number of stat-increasing beans is 0.8 (it's a binomial distribution, sum from n=0 to 8 of n * the probability of n egg results) per bag, times 5.5 stat increasing eggs, times 0.7 (chance of succeeding the Con save) gives 3.08 stat increases per bag.
Assuming 45 stat increases away from all 20s, that's about 15 bags per character. Each bag takes 200 days of work and 5000 gold, which means that, assuming every character in the party is able to make their own bags, it would still take over eight years (flat) and 75,000 gold (per character) to accomplish.
Is it possible? Sure. Is it realistic? Not even a little bit. If my players said "we want to take eight years out of adventuring/doing the plot to make a bunch of magic items in the hopes of boosting our stats to 20" I'd just end the campaign there.
It's especially annoying when you consider that having a 20 in all your dump stats doesn't even get you that much.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
If you use the new crafting rules in xanathars it’s much faster. It’s a consumable so only 5 weeks and 1000 gold to craft each, still a long time at 70 weeks, but that’s still only a year and a bit
Whether or not it's a consumable is a bit up in the air. I certainly wouldn't call it one, and neither does D&D Beyond. I get how some GMs could rule it as one, but yeah. Nothing's forcing you to.
If you use the new crafting rules in xanathars it’s much faster. It’s a consumable so only 5 weeks and 1000 gold to craft each, still a long time at 70 weeks, but that’s still only a year and a bit
Whether or not it's a consumable is a bit up in the air. I certainly wouldn't call it one, and neither does D&D Beyond. I get how some GMs could rule it as one, but yeah. Nothing's forcing you to.
In what way? It has finite uses, it has an explosive fireball option, after the bean is used it’s gone like a charge. How is that not consumable?
Consumable items are basically entirely restricted to things that you make one at a time and have single-use - IE potions and spell scrolls.
That being said, there is at least one other discussion about what makes an item consumable in dnd (linked here), but ultimately comes down to whatever is considered consumable is said to be consumable in their respective books and has the tag "Consumable" on Dndbeyond, which the bag of beans lacks in both cases.
So if a player wanted 20s in all stats permantly assuming they had a year and 14000 gold and plans for a bag of beans they could do it?
on average each bag will provide 3.2 stat points, on average (this can change with con saving throws i used a level 6 paladin with 18 con with resilience and 14 cha standard array I added bless and come of age and absorb elements) this is a rare consumable magic item so they only cost 1000 gp make.
I see two complications each bean has a 10% chance of summing a Trent that 50% of the time is CE and each bean has a 10% chance of summoning this cr 5 land shark thing. But a group of mid level adventures this should be doable. Am I missing something?
You would also need a year of downtime in your game, which may or may not be a thing your DM includes.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Let's crunch some numbers.
A bag of beans has an average of 7 beans, each bean has a 10% chance of giving an average of 5 chances to increase a stat. Standard array (plus +2/+1 racial bonus) starts you 45 stat points away from all 20s so you need about of 9 of the right bean (it is actually more factoring in odds of succeeding 20 DC CON save, but I don't even need to get into that).
Now this is where the math gets tricky. Getting a 1 in 10 chance twice is not 1 in 20, but rather 1 in 100. The odds to get a 1 in 10 chance 9 times, is 1 in 1,000,000,000. Probability is never 100%, so lets see how many bags of beans it takes to have a 50% chance of getting 9 of the stat boosting bean. I'll save you the trouble of the math and just say the answer is around 700,000,000 beans or 100,000,000 bags of beans give or take a million. Which is... A lot.
Don't believe me? Try it. Keep rolling for beans until you rolled 9 81-90s (or roll a d10 until you roll 9 8s). I bet you will be a lot closer to 1 billion than you are to 90.
Ok, here is the math:
1-(1-.000000001)^X=.5
.999999999^X=.5
X=log(.999999999).5
X=693147199.82
Rolling that many times has a 50% chance of rolling 9 of the right bean.
My players rounded up and used 8 beans per bag. They should have used 7.5. Think you stats are off that’s the odds of rolling them back to back. Example roll 8d10 tell me if you have a single 8 in all numbers rolled.
they also did factor in the saving throw I admit they used a high con save custom linage paladin example, with a 2d4 +1d20 +9 Imo the extra d4 from the coming of age thing was a little cheesy but technically legal. Meaning on average they pass the save 70% of the time.
yes it takes a year and yes they would have to get plans for the item but a group of mid or high level players getting 20s is very doable
So, I ran the numbers assuming 8 beans per bag. The expected number of stat-increasing beans is 0.8 (it's a binomial distribution, sum from n=0 to 8 of n * the probability of n egg results) per bag, times 5.5 stat increasing eggs, times 0.7 (chance of succeeding the Con save) gives 3.08 stat increases per bag.
Assuming 45 stat increases away from all 20s, that's about 15 bags per character. Each bag takes 200 days of work and 5000 gold, which means that, assuming every character in the party is able to make their own bags, it would still take over eight years (flat) and 75,000 gold (per character) to accomplish.
Is it possible? Sure. Is it realistic? Not even a little bit. If my players said "we want to take eight years out of adventuring/doing the plot to make a bunch of magic items in the hopes of boosting our stats to 20" I'd just end the campaign there.
I threw together a real quick and dirty Python script to do this, because I was curious about some experimental results. Across 10,000 trials, the average number of 8-bean bags it took to get 9 8s on a d10 was 10.5 (if you think I did something wrong, feel free to check me). If I find the time I may update it with all the variables (number of beans, number of stat points, and saving throw) to get a rigorous experimental result.
[EDIT] I did update the script. As I suspected theoretically, the number of required bags settles to about 15. This goes down to ~12 for 20-th level character who have already acquired 10 stat increases by leveling up. It'll also give you the minimum and maximum number of bags it took across the number of trials, in addition to the average.
I thought something was up, but every search result for probability of getting a result multiple times said to multiply, and since I just woke up I didn't put together that its the odds of 2 in a row.
If you use the new crafting rules in xanathars it’s much faster. It’s a consumable so only 5 weeks and 1000 gold to craft each, still a long time at 70 weeks, but that’s still only a year and a bit
It's especially annoying when you consider that having a 20 in all your dump stats doesn't even get you that much.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Whether or not it's a consumable is a bit up in the air. I certainly wouldn't call it one, and neither does D&D Beyond. I get how some GMs could rule it as one, but yeah. Nothing's forcing you to.
In what way? It has finite uses, it has an explosive fireball option, after the bean is used it’s gone like a charge. How is that not consumable?
Consumable items are basically entirely restricted to things that you make one at a time and have single-use - IE potions and spell scrolls.
That being said, there is at least one other discussion about what makes an item consumable in dnd (linked here), but ultimately comes down to whatever is considered consumable is said to be consumable in their respective books and has the tag "Consumable" on Dndbeyond, which the bag of beans lacks in both cases.
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