I just "won" at the Deck of Many Things. I'm legit curious. Beyond that actually. What are the odds of what just happened, happening?
(Also, the DM reading my character flaws and letting me find this is one of the lowest moves I've ever seen pulled.)
Context: I just leveled up. I am 0 XP over level 11 (i.e. I have exactly 85,000 XP total). I am True Neutral. I have no money or non-magical items on my person. I can only stop drawing single cards after drawing Talons. Drawing Talons is a Campaign End card unless I've drawn The Moon or The Fates.
Drawing as many cards as possible, what are the odds of drawing a beneficial order of cards from the Deck of Many Things (with a Good End)?
Card class (Good, Neutral, Bad) can change depending on order drawn.
No cards that end in a Bad card class by stopping. I must draw until I hit a stopping condition. Cards are not replaced after being drawn per a homebrew rule, which gives progressively worse odds of drawing a bad card.
To help with the math/reasoning here's a list of cards and card class:
- The Fates - Good (Negate any single card draw)
- Vizier - Good
- Comet - Good
- Gem - Good
- Jester - Good
- Key - Good
- Knight - Good
- Moon - Good
- Star - Good
- Sun - Good
- Balance - Neutral
- Throne - Neutral
- Ruin - Neutral
- Fool - Neutral (Bad if drawn after Jester or Sun, draw again)
- Flames - Neutral (Technically Bad but fine for our case)
- Rogue - Bad (Unless Moon drawn before stopping)
- Donjon - Bad
- Euryale - Bad
- Idiot - Bad
- Talons - Bad (Stopping Condition, must have Moon or Fates to become Good End)
- Skull - Bad (Stopping Condition, Bad End)
- The Void - Bad (Stopping Condition, Bad End)
Additional Note: Moon gives 3 wishes, which you can use like Fates for our purposes; you cannot wish for more wishes, and you cannot wish it back in the deck. To keep it more simple, we're looking for max benefit with max cards, so using more than a single Wish or Fate to avert Talons (our required stopping condition) is bad.