Nobody shows you the actual probability distribution against a specific HP target — which is the thing that decides whether the enemy drops this round or gets another turn to hit you.

Diceplots is a tool I built to settle these arguments with exact math. Type two dice expressions, set a target HP, and it computes the full probability distribution for each — as exact rational fractions, not floating-point approximations. When it says the greatsword kills at 11 HP with probability 72.22%, it means 13/18. No Monte Carlo, no sampling noise, no "we ran 10,000 simulations."

What it does

The homepage is a side-by-side comparison tool. The default pair — 2d6+5 vs 3d4+4 against 11 HP — demonstrates the single most counterintuitive thing in dice math: the higher-variance expression wins despite a nearly identical (actually lower) mean. Edit either expression or the HP slider and the distributions recompute live.

The engine handles the standard notation plus the modifiers that matter for tabletop and CRPG builds: kh/kl for advantage and disadvantage, ! for exploding dice (Savage Worlds aces), r1 for reroll-1s (Great Weapon Fighting), and additive mixing for multi-type damage.

There are preset comparisons you can load with one click — greatsword vs greataxe, advantage vs disadvantage, crit vs normal, exploding vs flat, GWF vs raw, fireball-class spells — each with a one-line explanation of what to look for.

The concepts section

The Concepts page is where the deeper writing lives. Each article takes one counterintuitive statistical fact that build guides tend to skip and works it out with the actual distributions:

Variance and kill probability. When crit chance beats base damage. Reliable vs nuke builds (same mean, opposite shapes — the winner flips depending on which side of the HP threshold you're on). Advantage as a curve that peaks at AC around your to-hit + 11 and drops to roughly +1 at the extremes. Exploding dice fat tails — 1d6! is more than 1d6 + 0.7, and the mean shift isn't why the mechanic matters. Expected strikes to kill via the elementary renewal theorem. Split damage and resistance hedging.

Every article links back to the comparison tool with the relevant expressions pre-loaded, so you can poke at the numbers yourself.

Who it's for

Tabletop players who want to make informed build decisions. BG3 players wondering whether that +1 weapon is worth the damage die trade-off. Game designers who need to understand the feel of a dice mechanic beyond its expected value. And anyone who's ever been told "just take the higher average" and suspected that wasn't the whole story.

diceplots.com — exact dice math, no hand-waving.