grimwild dice probabilities
So after reading Grimwild recently I wondered what the probilities were of getting the various results. This is something I often think about with relation to dice pool games (see also Fabula stats/WoDu results, in fact I've made a tag for it) and you know, it's probably missing the point to work these probabilities out. One of the aspects of dice pools is that they take you away from precise odds calculation and don't lead to you thinking "hmm I get +2 on that, an extra 10% chance".
That having been said, here are the percentages for 1 to 6 dice (more than four is not that likely but possible) and 0 to 3 thorns (3+ thorns is an auto fail - eta: if they come from difficulty, anyway, but you can push them over that, though more than 2 feels like it would be rare).
| Dice
| Thorns
| Disaster
| Grim
| Messy
| Perfect
| Critical
|
| 1
| 0
| 0.00
| 50.00
| 33.33
| 16.67
| 0.00
|
| 2
| 0
| 0.00
| 24.31
| 43.21
| 29.71
| 2.78
|
| 3
| 0
| 0.00
| 11.57
| 42.01
| 39.01
| 7.41
|
| 4
| 0
| 0.00
| 5.43
| 36.44
| 44.94
| 13.19
|
| 5
| 0
| 0.00
| 2.51
| 29.79
| 48.07
| 19.62
|
| 6
| 0
| 0.00
| 1.15
| 23.52
| 49.00
| 26.32
|
| 1
| 1
| 12.50
| 45.83
| 29.17
| 12.50
| 0.00
|
| 2
| 1
| 6.08
| 29.03
| 39.83
| 22.28
| 2.78
|
| 3
| 1
| 2.89
| 19.18
| 41.26
| 29.26
| 7.41
|
| 4
| 1
| 1.36
| 13.18
| 38.56
| 33.71
| 13.19
|
| 5
| 1
| 0.63
| 9.33
| 34.36
| 36.06
| 19.62
|
| 6
| 1
| 0.29
| 6.74
| 29.89
| 36.75
| 26.32
|
| 1
| 2
| 23.96
| 41.67
| 25.00
| 9.38
| 0.00
|
| 2
| 2
| 13.33
| 31.73
| 35.45
| 16.71
| 2.78
|
| 3
| 2
| 7.69
| 24.70
| 38.26
| 21.94
| 7.41
|
| 4
| 2
| 4.65
| 19.52
| 37.35
| 25.28
| 13.19
|
| 5
| 2
| 2.96
| 15.59
| 34.78
| 27.04
| 19.62
|
| 6
| 2
| 1.97
| 12.53
| 31.61
| 27.56
| 26.32
|
| 1
| 3
| 34.38
| 37.50
| 21.09
| 7.03
| 0.00
|
| 2
| 3
| 21.27
| 32.66
| 30.76
| 12.53
| 2.78
|
| 3
| 3
| 13.86
| 28.09
| 34.18
| 16.46
| 7.41
|
| 4
| 3
| 9.53
| 23.98
| 34.33
| 18.96
| 13.19
|
| 5
| 3
| 6.86
| 20.39
| 32.85
| 20.28
| 19.62
|
| 6
| 3
| 5.11
| 17.30
| 30.60
| 20.67
| 26.32 |
(this table as a CSV)
Thoughts
I don't see that the above would change the way you play in any way. As standard one would want to (a) avoid Thorns and (b) roll as many dice as you can, and that's kind of what the numbers say. Grimwild isn't the sort of game where you carefully minmax your numbers, that's not the point, and it doesn't seem that there are any weird outliers.
If there's one thing it's that one or two Thorns aren't massively influential, and even three are manageable if you have decent numbers of dice - with four dice and three thorns you still have about a 2/3 chance of getting a messy or better. Having a Thorn is worse than losing a die, so if that comes up as a choice somehow, drop the Thorn rather than gain an extra die, but it's not worse than losing two dice. You can't get a "Disaster" without Thorns so having one will always produce that nagging fear that something might go super super wrong, which makes them feel more dangerous - unlikely in most cases but with low dice vs thorns, you had best be prepared for that situation.