A question about dice rolling

[Amechra]

A question for you all; how powerful would it be to have an ability that caused every d20 you rolled to be treated as if you rolled 1 higher? Meaning, for example, that a roll of 1 would be treated as a roll of 2, and that a roll of 19 would be a 20?

How effective would the reverse of this be as a debuff? Meaning every 20 is now a 19, and every 2 is now a 1?

Can anyone run the numbers on this?

[Mixster]

A question for you all; how powerful would it be to have an ability that caused every d20 you rolled to be treated as if you rolled 1 higher? Meaning, for example, that a roll of 1 would be treated as a roll of 2, and that a roll of 19 would be a 20?

How effective would the reverse of this be as a debuff? Meaning every 20 is now a 19, and every 2 is now a 1?

Can anyone run the numbers on this?

Like bless?

[cru]

Luckstone, 20,000 gp
+1 luck bonus on saving throws, ability checks, and skill checks

Ioun Stone, Pale green Prism, 30,000 gp
+1 competence bonus on attack rolls, saves, skill checks, and ability checks

What other d20 rolls are there? Dispel checks, initiative (perhaps an ability check), SR rolls...

Would 19 be treated like a natural 20?
Treating a 1 like a 2 is certainly nice.
Altogether, it is not something that a feat should give. Perhaps a feat chain of at least 3. Or a capstone of a lucky prestige class.

As a debuff, it seems less painful.

Edit: It is similar to what a negative level gives... takes

[Amechra]

I probably should have explained it better; it's not a +1 or a -1.

Basically, let's take saves for example. You roll a 19; due to this ability, it's treated as a natural 20, and you automatically make the save. If you had rolled a natural 1, you would be treated as having rolled a 2, thus not auto-failing.

The inverse would be true for debuffing; in effect, they can't roll natural 20's, and the chance of them rolling a natural 1 is doubled.

[cru]

And what do you want to hear?

[Nytemare3701]

The real effects of it would depend on the TARGET numbers. Other than that you pretty much summed it up.

Infallible Luckstone
A person in possession of this stone seems to narrowly dodge the worst of any disaster, as well as stumble into the luckiest situations.Bless
50,000gp value

Edit: The previous item was pulled entirely out of my ass.

[cru]

I'd value this higher than 50k. I can see an aura of this as a 9th lvl spell, with duration rounds/level. Perhaps dismissible to get a natural 20 on one roll.

[Nytemare3701]

Edited to have 10 charges.

[Amechra]

I'm just trying to gauge if a BBEG with a permanent effect of this would be too much for equal level, unoptomized players.

Basically, the villain is going to be one lucky bastard (basically, Spellthief 5/Fortune's Friend 1 to start, as the players level the levels in Fortune's friend start going up as well. He has Master Spellthief through Precocious Apprentice.), for whom combat seems to go in his favor excessively. Basically, I was planning on using the positive version on him and the negative version on the players.

And what do you want to hear?

Really, I want to know how much having both effects up would fuck up probability.

[Mixster]

I'm just trying to gauge if a BBEG with a permanent effect of this would be too much for equal level, unoptomized players.

Basically, the villain is going to be one lucky bastard (basically, Spellthief 5/Fortune's Friend 1 to start, as the players level the levels in Fortune's friend start going up as well. He has Master Spellthief through Precocious Apprentice.), for whom combat seems to go in his favor excessively. Basically, I was planning on using the positive version on him and the negative version on the players.

And what do you want to hear?

Really, I want to know how much having both effects up would fuck up probability.

Then it really depends on the party, and his saving throws.

Are his saving throws so good he will only fail on ones? Then this ability is crazy good. If he'll fail on twos as well, it is about the same as +1 to saving throws for that part.

Is the party attempting to use a vorpal weapon? Is he? If he is, then this ability is about the worth of a 5-7th level spell on that area. If the party is, then it is about the same as a +6 weapon.

[RelentlessImp]

I'm just trying to gauge if a BBEG with a permanent effect of this would be too much for equal level, unoptomized players.

Basically, the villain is going to be one lucky bastard (basically, Spellthief 5/Fortune's Friend 1 to start, as the players level the levels in Fortune's friend start going up as well. He has Master Spellthief through Precocious Apprentice.), for whom combat seems to go in his favor excessively. Basically, I was planning on using the positive version on him and the negative version on the players.

And what do you want to hear?

Really, I want to know how much having both effects up would fuck up probability.

It'd remove the 5% auto-fail. That's the only thing I can think of at the moment that it would do in terms of probability.

[Amechra]

I just thought of something;

Wouldn't it increase his critical range by 1 and decrease that of the party by 1?

How powerful would this be if I changed it to run off his Charisma modifier (+3 effective roll for him, -3 effective roll for the party)? I mean, he just got 15% more for criticals, he autosaves on a 17 or higher, and the party has about a 20% chance of autofailing a save...

Would that be too strong?

[wotmaniac]

this is definitely a bit different than a simple +/- 1 modifier .... though, the major implication would really only be relevant to attack rolls and saves:
- double the chance for an auto-succeed/fail (10% instead of 5%)
- +/- 5% chance of crit-threat.

yeah, this seems huge.
I can see having this be a [luck] feat, with a bit of a feat tax involved ...

Give and Take [Luck]
Prereq: Victor's Luck; Advantageous Avoidance; either Better Lucky than Good -or- Dumb Luck, character level 6+
Benefit: as an immediate action, you can activate this feat to cause a specific roll made by any creature within 30 feat (including yourself) to be adjudicated as if the die result were either 1 higher or 1 lower than the actual result.
You gain 1 luck reroll per day.

maybe add a "special" -- can use this feat once to increase and once to decrease in each encounter.

[bearsarebrown]

+1 on all rolls means,

+5% greater chance to succeed roll (Assuming no values have left the RNG)
+5% chance of success in the case of nat 1
+5% chance of automatic success

What you're left with is Keen saves, +1 critical range, and never critically failing. And a +1 Awesome bonus to everything.

[Amechra]

I think I'll make it the feat. So my player's can take it eventually; I mean, everyone likes luck, don't they?

Thanks everyone, you've been a great help.

[Nytemare3701]

I would take that on every character ever, just to negate critical failures.

[Amechra]

Idk, I probably would only take it if I were going for a lucky bastard, which I am in this case; otherwise, you need 3 feats for it.

[Prime32]

"I'm afraid its AC is so high you can only hit it on a 20."
*gulp* "Okay." *rolls* "Sweet! That's just what I got."
"No, you rolled a 21. Your attack misses."
"But..."

[Amechra]

Well, since a 20 is the highest you can roll, it would cap at 20.

Didn't think that needed to be said.

"Ha, the only way I can fail is if I roll a 1!"
"Alright, what did you get?"
"I got a 1! Fuuuu-"
"Nope, that's a 0. Your cool."