Variable Dice?

I'm new to Roll20 and still finding my way around. But I have a quick question about the availability of Variable Dice.  These are dice I've used in various systems for generating a minor variation to a given roll result. So, for example I use them to create minor turn on variations in initiative during combat encounters, so that characters don't always act in the same order. Physically they are six sided dice, one negative (BLACK), and one positive (RED) with the sides numbered 2,3,3,4,4,5.  I think they are also sometimes referred to as probability dice. When rolled they produce a variable modifier to an existing number in the range -2 to +2, but with a higher probability of Nil or +/-1. I've checked the Roll20 Dice Reference and noted that there is a Fate/Fudge Roll feature.  But that only provides an even chance of -1,0,+1.  So, I thought I ask the community if they know of anyway to recreate a variable roll as described.

You can do this with rollable tables.

Would {1d3-1d3} work for you?  Or maybe {1d2-1d2+1dF}? Both give you the range of -2 to +2 but not sure which would give you the bell curve you are looking for.  Also thinking on it a bit more in my sleep deprived state multiple fate dice do create a curve.  From  here. So just using 2dF might work for you after all.  2dF 2dF = (-1,0,+1): n P(n) P(n-) P(n+) --- ------- ------- ------- -2 1/9 11.111 11.111 100.000 -1 2/9 22.222 33.333 88.889 0 3/9 33.333 66.667 66.667 1 2/9 22.222 88.889 33.333 2 1/9 11.111 100.000 11.111 Chance of very low result ............... 11.111 Chance of acceptable result (+/-1) ...... 77.778 Chance of very high result .............. 11.111 Chance of hitting trait level exactly ... 33.333 Chance of missing trait level ........... 66.667

HoneyBadger said: You can do this with rollable tables. Ok! I shall look up rollable tables, and see if I can work out how to use them. ++++ SOLVED I've looked at rollable tables and I think they will work perfectly. I could either create a probability dice table with six entries 2,3,3,4,4,5 and just use that twice deducting one result from the other.  Or perhaps a neater solution would be just to create a variation table that contains 36 entries listing the probable modifiers resulting from a variable roll.  That way I could just call for a variable directly.   Oh! hang on I'm not sure if you can enter negative numbers in a rollable table, I'll have to check that.  But either way it's do-able. Thanks for your help. 

John R. said: Would {1d3-1d3} work for you?  Or maybe {1d2-1d2+1dF}? Both give you the range of -2 to +2 but not sure which would give you the bell curve you are looking for.  That wouldn't be quite the same though.  The idea of the probabilty dice is that they are deliberately design to increase the chance of a Nil or +/-1 result.  Whereas I think your solution would give an equal chance of any result from -2 to +2.

Didz said: John R. said: Would {1d3-1d3} work for you?  Or maybe {1d2-1d2+1dF}? Both give you the range of -2 to +2 but not sure which would give you the bell curve you are looking for.  That wouldn't be quite the same though.  The idea of the probabilty dice is that they are deliberately design to increase the chance of a Nil or +/-1 result.  Whereas I think your solution would give an equal chance of any result from -2 to +2. Anydice says the probability of 1d3-1d3 works out to be 11.11% chance of -2, 22.22% chance of -1, 33.33% chance of 0, 22.22% chance of 1, and a 11.11% chance of 2.  This works out to be the same chance as the 2dF that I linked above.  I would graph the 1d2-1d2+1dF on anydice but I am not sure how to do the fate dice on that program. 

John R. said: Didz said: John R. said: Would {1d3-1d3} work for you?  Or maybe {1d2-1d2+1dF}? Both give you the range of -2 to +2 but not sure which would give you the bell curve you are looking for.  That wouldn't be quite the same though.  The idea of the probabilty dice is that they are deliberately design to increase the chance of a Nil or +/-1 result.  Whereas I think your solution would give an equal chance of any result from -2 to +2. Anydice says the probability of 1d3-1d3 works out to be 11.11% chance of -2, 22.22% chance of -1, 33.33% chance of 0, 22.22% chance of 1, and a 11.11% chance of 2.  This works out to be the same chance as the 2dF that I linked above.  I would graph the 1d2-1d2+1dF on anydice but I am not sure how to do the fate dice on that program.  Yes! I saw that.  So, it's not quite as even as my initial reaction assumed.  I'm just wondering how that probability compares with the six sided probability dice.  There you have a 1 in 36 chance of a +3 and the same for -3, which I think is about a 2% probability for +/-3 modifier. Having said that the truth is that the only reason I'm using probabiity dice is because I happened to have them in my dice box for use when tabletop wargaming.  So, there is no reason why I couldn't use your idea and accept a slightly higher probability of a +2/-2 occuring.  In fact, it might even make things more interesting.  I don't think the WFRP initiative rules suggest any variation at all, so this is just a house rule I added to create a bit less preditability to the combat sequence.

There's probably a better way to define these in AnyDice, but here are your original dice vs the 1d2-1d2+1dF: <a href="http://anydice.com/program/646f" rel="nofollow">http://anydice.com/program/646f</a> You can setup a Rollable Table for this pretty easily (I just tried it to be certain it works). &nbsp;Here are the rows and weights needed: Name Weight -3 1 -2 4 -1 8 0 10 1 8 2 4 3 1 You can then roll it with other dice using the syntax 1t[VariableDice] &nbsp;(or whatever you named the table. &nbsp;Here I did: [[1d20+1t[VariableDice] ]] :

The Aaron said: There's probably a better way to define these in AnyDice, but here are your original dice vs the 1d2-1d2+1dF: <a href="http://anydice.com/program/646f" rel="nofollow">http://anydice.com/program/646f</a> You can setup a Rollable Table for this pretty easily (I just tried it to be certain it works). &nbsp;Here are the rows and weights needed: Name Weight -3 1 -2 4 -1 8 0 10 1 8 2 4 3 1 You can then roll it with other dice using the syntax 1t[VariableDice] &nbsp;(or whatever you named the table. &nbsp;Here I did: [[1d20+1t[VariableDice] ]] : Thanks Aaron

can you do this -- &nbsp; 3t[VariableDice]kh1 to report only the highest result? or does it not recognize the actual value of the output?

You can, but the format needs to be: [[ {3t[VariableDice]}kh1 ]] You have to surround the reference to the table in { } for the kh1 to give you the right result.

so to drop that in as a query so you can select # of dice with default of 3... it would be [[ ?{{Number of Dice|3}t[VariableDice]}kh1 ]] and if inside a dropdown menu as an answer -- all of the {| would have to be HTML coded?

You would need to enclose the query in the {} too: [[ { ?{dice?|3}t[VariableDice] } kh1]] A drop down would only need html end brackets } if you are planning to use attribute calls etc i believe, generally you should be fine if all of your values are plain text or numbers: [[{?{dice?|3|2|1}t[VariableDice]}kh1]] [[{?{dice?|Three,3|Two,2|One,1}t[VariableDice]}kh1]]

ok thanks - plugging into the correct terms for my system and testing... if I crash and burn I will move to new thread to stop hijacking this one. new thread (with solution):&nbsp; <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2237861/dropdown" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2237861/dropdown</a>...