I’m disappointed in Thief. We always knew that she was greedy, violent, and very possibly evil, but I wouldn’t have pegged her as wasteful.

You see, a single d20 only has so many natural 20s in it. You might have a powerful die or a weak one, but any seasoned adventurer will tell you that there’s a limited supply of luck inside each and every icosahedron. According to widely-accepted theory, if you waste those rolls persuading beggars or searching for traps in un-trapped hallways, those big numbers won’t be available for the more important attack rolls or saving throws later in the session.

In a recent interview, Fighter expounded on his personal philosophy of wasteful rolling.

“You don’t want to spend too much time on skill checks,” said the lantern-jawed dullard. “That’s how you wind up saving, like, three copper on stabling fees when you should be critting for infinity.”

Recent research supports this folk wisdom. Most characters with levels in Expert agree that rolling well outside of initiative order is disappointing and lame.

“Blood,” explained one widely-cited researcher. “Blood-blood-blood.”

Asked about the competing theory of “getting the 1s out of the way” up front, the researcher glowed with an ominous red light and vibrated in his scabbard.

We now turn the question over to the court of public opinion. Have you ever wasted a 20 on an unimportant roll? Do you feel that it negatively affected your subsequent performance? Tell us all about your (un)lucky successes in the ̶l̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶e̶d̶i̶t̶o̶r̶ comments down below!

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