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I’m trying to determine what the math is if you use the AGE STUNT system, but first roll Xd6 and choose the 2 that you want to keep. Note, the STUNT Die would be rolled at the same time as the Xd6 and the player would know the Difficulty Check (DC) of the task.

I saw this great post, but didn't know how to alter the equation and make it work

The challenging part is that when you have lower DCs, you don’t have to take the highest dice rolled to get STUNTS and still succeed.

For example, on a DC 11, if you roll 3, 3, 5, STUNT = 6. Taking highest would be 3 + 5 with a result of 14, but you could take 3 + 3, for a result of 12 and then also get 6 STUNT points.

How the STUNT system works

You have 3d6 that you are rolling and one is called the STUNT Die. You roll those 3d6 and if any of those dice are doubles you then look to see the value on the STUNT die. The STUNT Die is then how many STUNT Points you get. So if I roll a 3, 4, STUNT 4. That means I stunted because there are doubles represented on the 3d6, and I would get 4 STUNT Points because the STUNT Die was a 4. If you rolled 3, 3, STUNT 4 it would be the same number of STUNT Points but a different result because, in the game system, the sum of the dice is your roll to beat a given Difficulty Check.

If you roll 4+5+6(SD), you most likely hit, but get no STUNT Points.
If you roll 3+4+4(SD), you get 4 SPs if you hit.
If you roll 2(SD)+6+6, you get 2 SPs if you hit.

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    \$\begingroup\$ @Medix2, good questions. So in the standard Stunt Die system you roll all 3d6 (SD included) at the same time and you do know the DC you are aiming for. In this variation I’m going to say that its all the same, you just happen to be rolling additional non-SD dice, and then you have the option to choose which ones you want to keep \$\endgroup\$
    – Leberus
    Apr 16, 2021 at 14:20
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Medix2, yep. I read through the whole thing and it looks great. Thanks a lot for helping out with restructuring the question \$\endgroup\$
    – Leberus
    Apr 16, 2021 at 14:39

1 Answer 1

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Here's a tweaked version of the function from my earlier answer that should work for any number (≥ 2) of ordinary dice, with the player choosing two of them:

function: stunt points for DICE:s and STUNT_DIE:n vs TARGET:n {
  if {1,2}@DICE + STUNT_DIE < TARGET { result: 0 }  \ miss \

  \ it's a hit; can we choose a pair that will give us stunts? \
  if 1@DICE = STUNT_DIE { result: STUNT_DIE }
  if DICE = STUNT_DIE & 1@DICE + 2 * STUNT_DIE >= TARGET { result: STUNT_DIE }
  loop I over {1..#DICE-1} {
    if I@DICE = (I+1)@DICE & 2 * I@DICE + STUNT_DIE >= TARGET { result: STUNT_DIE }
  }

  result: 0  \ hit but no pair \
}

The first line in the function (checking if the roll is a miss) is the same as in my old code, except that I'm explicitly summing only the highest two ordinary dice rolled using {1,2}@DICE: if those plus the stunt die don't meet the target, then no combination will. Conversely, if they do, then we'll at least get a hit, but we might or might not get any stunts.

(Replacing the result: 0 on the first line with result: d{} will make the code calculate the distribution of stunt points conditioned on the roll being a successful hit, i.e. as if all misses were rerolled until they hit. You could also change this line to e.g. return -1 to distinguish misses from hits with no stunts.)

Next, I'm checking if the player might be able to choose two dice out of however many they rolled that will given them a hit with stunts. Here, there are three possibilities, which the code checks for in this order:

  1. If the highest ordinary die matches the stunt die, then simply choosing the highest two ordinary dice will give a hit with stunts. (We know it will, because we just checked that at the start of the function.)

  2. Otherwise, if any ordinary die matches the stunt die and if that die plus the stunt die plus the highest roll will meet the target, then the player can choose those and get stunts.

    (In the code, DICE = STUNT_DIE compares a sequence with a number, returning true if any value in the sequence matches the number. We don't actually need to know the index of the matching die in the sequence, if any, since we know its value anyway — it's equal to the stunt die!)

  3. Finally, we loop over the dice and check if any two consecutive dice in the (automatically sorted) sequence have the same value, and if so, whether that value twice plus the stunt die is enough for a hit. If so, the player can choose that pair and get stunts.

    (Since we know the sequence is sorted in descending order, and since this is the last possibility checked for, we could actually abort the loop early and return 0 from the function as soon as we find that 2 * I@DICE + STUNT_DIE < TARGET, as no smaller pair can possibly give a hit either. Implementing that minor optimization is left as an exercise for the reader. :)

Finally, if none of those checks succeeds, the function returns 0 indicating that the player could not get any stunts but still rolled a successful hit (choosing e.g. their top two ordinary dice plus the stunt die).


When called with 2d6 as DICE, this function is a drop-in replacement for the one in my earlier answer, and indeed gives the same results.

What about for more dice? As we can see, as the number of dice to choose from increases, the probability of getting stunts increases.

AnyDice screenshot

In general, higher stunt counts are more likely than lower ones, which makes intuitive sense: the higher you roll on the stunt die, the more likely you are to hit and to be able to choose a hitting combo that includes two identical dice. However, the specific shape of the curve varies depending on the target difficulty: DC 10 above, for example, gives fairly smooth looking plots, but DC 11 seems to favor odd numbers of stunts, leading to a more staircase-like graph:

AnyDice screenshot

Notably, for five or more normal dice and DC 11, the probability of getting a hit with stunts is actually slightly lower if you roll a 4 on the stunt die than if you roll a 3. (Of course you still get more stunts if you do get any, and your overall hit probability is higher too, so a higher roll on the stunt die is still better.)

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  • \$\begingroup\$ FWIW, just in case the asker is wondering what happened to the earlier answer to this question, its author seems to have deleted it after I noticed that my code was producing slightly different results and pointed out a bug in their code causing it to miss some valid stunt combos for rolls with a low stunt die, such as (6, 3, 2, STUNT = 2) with DC 10. So far I'm fairly confident that my own results are correct and bug-free, but of course I cannot be sure, so independent verification would still be welcome! \$\endgroup\$ Apr 17, 2021 at 22:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ Wow, thanks a ton. I’m going to have to process this information. So that being said, was this article also incorrect? scottsgameroom.com/2013/11/11/age-dice-probabilities. This one actually corroborated with the original solution that was posted, but it seems to be different from your results, unless I’m reading the graphs wrong. \$\endgroup\$
    – Leberus
    Apr 19, 2021 at 16:51
  • \$\begingroup\$ Oh no, I think i have it working out now \$\endgroup\$
    – Leberus
    Apr 19, 2021 at 16:52

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