Dysfunctional Dice

There are just some days where the dice just are against you. One session I went through 5 dice sets hoping for an improvement in numbers, and still only made 3 successful hits during the 2 hour session. I ended up having to turn to spells that had saving throws in order to do anything against my players. While running an encounter for Hoard of the Dragon Queen, I had my group running a mission in Greenest to save the mill. Thankfully for them they had a high enough insight check to know that the raiders outside of the building were staging a fire but not actually doing any damage to the building. Mar’Ksss (the kobold rogue) and “Purrs” (the Tabaxi Wizard) had high enough perception to see that there were indeed cultists inside the building waiting to ambush them. Seven, the warforged juggernaut fighter, was able to “Koolaid- man” his way through the side of the building to give the party a new way in after defeating the threats outside. This is when the dice decided that they were rooting for the heroes for the rest of the evening. Our barbarian Enara used her Ancestral Protectors which is a great feature that causes the first creature she hits during rage to have disadvantage on any attack that isn’t against her. My big bad thugs just were not able to hit her AC of 17 and when they turned to fight off Seven (who can take out half their hit points in one swing), the disadvantage made it worse. The roll that made me saddest was rolling a 2, 3 and 4 on the dice for trying to attack the two of them (2 and 4 against Seven, the 3 against Enara). Even the casters who were not in the front lines were having dysfunctioning castings of their spells. Tasha’s Hideous Laughter was the golden key that knocked our kobold rogue out of commission. Two of my other cultists threw the spell witch bolt and some fire bolts with, as we say, no dice. Each time I change dice sets my players tell me no to keep them, but the dice really do write the story. Of all the rolls of that evening’s two hour session, only three hit (with 19 and 18 on the die) and all the rest of my attack rolls were 10 or under. The dice made sure that the heroes saved the day.