What exactly is a high roll?

I keep seeing this with the early gen games, and I kindaaa understand it, but I’d like to hear the mathematical side of it too, and what games does it apply to? Why does it happen? How exactly does it happen?

Pleaselog inorregisterto add a comment.

It’s called a highroll, not a highrole. In all games, when using moves that call the damage formula (i.e. not moves like Dragon Rage or Seismic Toss), there is an intentional random source of fluctuation designed to make it so that you can’t simply rely on the second hit dealing exactly as much damage as the first one did, and in borderline cases where the first hit did very close to 50%, gives you something to consider as far as whether you want to risk going directly for the KO next time.

In general, the random fluctuation is designed to subtract up to about 15% off the move’s idealized damage figure. In the GB games (up through Crystal), this was accomplished by (in effect) rolling a 39-sided die, numbered 0-38, and subtracting the rolled number out of 255 as a fraction of the damage. From the GBA era onward, the metaphorical die is reduced to having 16 sides (0-15), and the die result is taken as a fraction out of 100 to be removed.

The above is the formula for damage calculation. As you can see, in addition to the formula with power and attack stats, etc., there is a randomly generated number between 85 and 100. This is the roll calculation. What this means is that the damage you deal can be 85% of the maximum damage. A low roll would be when the random number is closer to 85, and a high roll would have the number something closer to 100.

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