So, I'm wondering, how many out there are as unlucky as me? I've never rolled a 20 on an attack during the 3-4 years that I've played D&D so far. Granted, in my first campaign I played a cleric, but I did attack often enough with d20 rolls, and in my current campaign I play a fighter. It's not that I miss the attacks super often either, it's just never a critical hit.

I guess it was silly of me to roll a half-orc with a racial that boosts critical hits lol.

I've rolled nat 20s, but only on skill checks for instance.

So I'm wondering if I'm the only one? Tell us your story :)

Have you checked your dice? Maybe they’re unbalanced. Or it’s just a weird run of luck. 

Quote from Vince_Snetterton >>

Quote from KanedaSyndrome >

 Is this a serious thread? C'mon man, do you really want someone to do the math? It can be done, if you give us the information. How many d20 attack rolls have you made in 3-4 years? ( I have no idea how to integrate nat 20's for non-attack rolls, so will ignore them.)

 Ah yes, the thread is serious. I thought it'll be fun to hear other people's stories of bad luck. I don't need my abysmal luck calculated :) I know how improbable it is, but if I were to guess? With an average of 1 session per month for 4 years, that's around 48 sessions, with what I'll estimate to contain 10 d20 attack rolls per session, so about 480ish d20 rolls attached to an attack and not a skill check etc.

But Vince, you could try and take it for the light hearted fun this is meant to be.

"Normal" - no, but yes.

Each of your d20 rolls has a 5 % chance to roll a 20 (if your die is fair). Previous rolls do not modify that chance, so you could actually never roll a 20 on a given die, and it would still be natural. Normal in a sense of likely - no. Normal in a sense of possible - yes.

Especially given that you rolled 20s, just not for an attack roll, I don't consider this to be a freak (non)occurrence.

Well it did happen, but thanks for doing the math on it :)

Consider the impact on the wave equation that human thought might have. Normally not a physical model that I subscribe to (the consciousness part), but it does seem that we have some limited ability to involuntarily choose a world line in the multiverse. In your universe I probably didn't make this thread :) This is the same effect we see in the quantum immortality effect.

Anyway..

While not provable, there is a very strong likelihood of confirmation bias.

For example, Will Wheaton has and promotes a reputation for obscenely bad luck with dice. It's entirely possible that the statistics have not been in his favor, but when he makes a big show of every 1, and dismisses every better than average roll and Nat 20, it's literally easier to forget the events that don't reinforce the expected narrative.

This is related to the larger issue of eye-witness testimony.

Quote from Memnosyne >>

While not provable, there is a very strong likelihood of confirmation bias.

For example, Will Wheaton has and promotes a reputation for obscenely bad luck with dice. It's entirely possible that the statistics have not been in his favor, but when he makes a big show of every 1, and dismisses every better than average roll and Nat 20, it's literally easier to forget the events that don't reinforce the expected narrative.

This is related to the larger issue of eye-witness testimony.

 Ah yes, the confirmation bias. It's a strong possibility that we can't trust our own brains. I feel quite confident that it's not bias in this case though, but of course I'd say that -.0

How about the chance of rolling 20s on skill checks, but never when doing an attack. It's probably the same calculation still, as one event mathmatically doesn't affect the probability of the next event when it comes to fair dice.

Anyway, I was hoping to hear stories from other people feeling unlucky.

The forums are full of Dice Jockeys, so it's a bit of a sensitive topic. ;-)

One question worth asking is whether your groups make use of variant rules such as flanking, and other circumstantial bonuses that would normally grant advantage on attacks. In normal play, teams regularly use the Help action or magic items to get advantage on skill checks, but are usually too focused on their own issues when fighting.

We also usually care more about Criticals in combat than Skill checks as Nat 20s don't officially mean anything for skills. We hope for a 20 in combat, and are pleasantly surprised with a 20 otherwise.

Quote from Vince_Snetterton >>

Quote from KanedaSyndrome >>

So, I'm wondering, how many out there are as unlucky as me? I've never rolled a 20 on an attack during the 3-4 years that I've played D&D so far. Granted, in my first campaign I played a cleric, but I did attack often enough with d20 rolls, and in my current campaign I play a fighter. It's not that I miss the attacks super often either, it's just never a critical hit.

I guess it was silly of me to roll a half-orc with a racial that boosts critical hits lol.

I've rolled nat 20s, but only on skill checks for instance.

So I'm wondering if I'm the only one? Tell us your story :)

 Is this a serious thread? C'mon man, do you really want someone to do the math? It can be done, if you give us the information. How many d20 attack rolls have you made in 3-4 years? ( I have no idea how to integrate nat 20's for non-attack rolls, so will ignore them.)

 Relax Vince!  OP was not asking for a statistical analysis!

Quote from Memnosyne >>

The forums are full of Dice Jockeys, so it's a bit of a sensitive topic. ;-)

One question worth asking is whether your groups make use of variant rules such as flanking, and other circumstantial bonuses that would normally grant advantage on attacks. In normal play, teams regularly use the Help action or magic items to get advantage on skill checks, but are usually too focused on their own issues when fighting.

We also usually care more about Criticals in combat than Skill checks as Nat 20s don't officially mean anything for skills. We hope for a 20 in combat, and are pleasantly surprised with a 20 otherwise.

 We don't use flanking or anything like that. We're generally not good at assisting each others in gaining advantage either.

That right there is definitely going to skew the results.

Try playing a Rogue or Barbarian in your next campaign, and I bet you'll see a significant difference.

Quote from KanedaSyndrome >> 

We don't use flanking or anything like that. We're generally not good at assisting each others in gaining advantage either.

 Just want to go on the record to state that (IMO) flanking is not a good mechanic in 5E (combats are arguably too short as is) and assisting is something that should feel organic rather than gaming the system. Luck aside, you're doing fine.

Ok, carry on.

Out of curiosity, is your table using the critical threat rule.  If I remember correctly that was official in 3/3.5 but I had seen it as a house rule both before and after.

In a nutshell, when using critical threat a nat 20 is a garunteed hit but not a guaranteed crit.  You have to make a 2nd attack roll that hits to get the crit damage.  This can significantly reduce the chance of getting a crit for non combat oriented characters.  

While in principle it's possible to just be unlucky, a hundred rolls with no 20s is suspicious for non-random causes, and two hundred is definitely time to consider causes other than luck (my experience is that it's mostly confirmation bias, but biased dice and bad die rolling practices also have their part).

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

While in principle it's possible to just be unlucky, a hundred rolls with no 20s is suspicious for non-random causes, and two hundred is definitely time to consider causes other than luck (my experience is that it's mostly confirmation bias, but biased dice and bad die rolling practices also have their part).

Getting nat 20s in skill checks seems to rule that out (even if you always have advantafge in skill checks it doesn't even double the chance of a "crit"

Kaneda are you sure you have NEVER had crit. While the odds of having no crit hits in 480 attempts is extremely low odds of having 5 or less is about 2 in a million, while  that is still very low it is likely to have happened to somone playing D&D, multiply that by all the other unlikely dice sequences (Never rolling a Nat 1, never rolling 12 for your greatsword damage, never rolling a nat 20 on a particular skill check etc).

I saw someone roll 48 damage on a level 3 fireball on roll 20 (8 sixes). The odds on that are 1.7 million to 1, thousands of times more likely than getting no crits in 480 rolls but on a par with only getting about 4.

It is a lot more likely but in 1 battle I went unconcious 3 times and on each occasion my first death save roll was a nat 20. (odds 8000 to 1).  It is moments like that which are truly memorable. Enjoy you for (or maybe next) crit.

Quote from Daefaroth23 >>

Out of curiosity, is your table using the critical threat rule.  If I remember correctly that was official in 3/3.5 but I had seen it as a house rule both before and after.

In a nutshell, when using critical threat a nat 20 is a garunteed hit but not a guaranteed crit.  You have to make a 2nd attack roll that hits to get the crit damage.  This can significantly reduce the chance of getting a crit for non combat oriented characters.  

 Nope we used the standard 5e crit rule of double dice on a nat20 attack.