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Post by waysoftheearth on Aug 5, 2017 7:41:09 GMT -6
I've also been wondering for four or five years now whether it would be possible to run a long-term, multi-ref OD&D environment with a large(ish) body of players coming and going as they please. Finding and coordinating the necessary refs and players would likely imply it should be, at least in part, an on-line endeavor. It would be nice to think that tools like the internet, social media, smart phone apps etc. should be able to facilitate what might ultimately look something like a human-moderated MMORPG. In my musing it would likely begin from a hex map of a small "known world" comprising a few towns and dungeons. The key element would be division and management of refereeing responsibilities. The towns and wilderness areas would (initially) be created and run by an overall campaign "referee", but responsibility for specific towns and/or wilderness areas could be delegated, as necessary. However, each dungeon should be created and run by an individual "dungeon master". So, if there were (initially) five dungeons in the known world, then there would also be five DMs; one operating each dungeon. Players would start off being positioned at a town by the the overall campaign referee, who would also be responsible for administering the passage of campaign turns. Campaign turns would likely be tied to the real world calendar, so that (at least!) one campaign turn would transpire for, say, each real-world month. This would timebox the running of dungeon expeditions and keep the overall campaign moving along (albeit kinda slowly). Multiple campaign turns (say, 1--6?) could, of course, pass in one real month if no dungeon expeditions were in progress to help speed a dull winter along. For each campaign turn players would issue orders for their turn to the campaign ref. These would pretty coarse things, like: gather an army, rest and heal up, create a magic item, travel from A to B, etc. Players in towns could advertise for or join expeditions to travel to other towns, explore the wilderness, or to delve into the various dungeons. The campaign referee would resolve any "in town" activities, or delegate the running of each dungeon/wilderness expedition to the appropriate DM/ref on an "as needs" basis. This would be somewhat like convention gaming insofar as; an arbitrary group of players are assembled and assigned to an arbitrary referee for a dungeon/wilderness session. Multiple dungeon delves could be in progress at any one time across the known world, limited only by the number of groups the operating pool of dungeon masters could handle. It might be possible for a particularly (busy/popular) dungeon master to run multiple expeditions within a single campaign turn, or else delegate running of excess expeditions to his dungeon to a sub-ordinate DM. A single (busy!) player could theoretically run characters in more than one area within the known world--possibly encountering his own alts as NPCs? It should also be possible for a DM to operate player characters who visit dungeons other than his own. Each DM would have to "report back" a synopsis of any "events" that occurred at, or any expeditions to, his dungeon during each real month, including any change of status to any PCs involved. This could be advertising the addition of new levels or challenges, the elevation of new heroes, the demise of existing ones, and so on. The overall campaign referee would compile these reports into a monthly bulletin, which would be published for all players in the game to see. I imagine that the referee's World News bulletin would include all the DM's expedition reports as well as reports of new wilderness explored, new dungeons discovered, new town news/rumours, and something of a "leader board" detailing the location and status of all the PCs and major NPCs presently operating in the game. It might be something like a modern/internet version of The Ryth Chronicles. All that may sound ridiculously ambitious. It probably is. But consider what the Ryth guys managed to accomplish in the 70s with just pen and paper and a mechanical typewriter. Fun stuff to think about, for sure
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Post by waysoftheearth on Aug 4, 2017 22:40:06 GMT -6
O'course the 3rd Ed. CM (silver cover) appears out of chronological order It was apparently printed Jan-Feb 1975, shortly before Greyhawk 1st print in March 75.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 25, 2017 4:24:48 GMT -6
I've kicked around a few ideas over the years. One I keep coming back to is letting a M-U's number of starting spells be equal to the number of langs known due to intelligence. The first spells is always read magic, then I'll dice for the rest. A duplicate roll produces a freeeee spell scroll. Another one I like (but requires a bit more effort) is to invent obscure and mysterious (?) names for the spells. Some examples: The Mellifluent Concord Yizmund's Unlikely Rorqual The Schlemiel Disquiet Mizzlebrume The Zeligneous Perterbation Epifinication The Exigent Secernment The Dissumulation Etc. Only when a player learns (a.k.a. "unlocks") a spell (via starting with it, or using a read magic on a scroll or spellbook) do I reveal the human-readable spell name and the spell description to the player. At this point I assume the player can add the spell to one of his spells books (one spellbook per spell level). Possibly, there should be a limit to the number of spells in a spellbook, but I haven't really worried overly about it. I also let/encourage M-U players to invent one new spell each level; the output of their presumed ongoing "research". They also have to name it after their PC. E.g., Lluewen's Eerie Lambent. If the player is too lazy to invent something, they just miss out 'til next level. Hope that's useful
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 24, 2017 5:20:18 GMT -6
For completeness, these data compare each of the 16 possible combinations of weapon loadouts, with and without the drop rule: Note that the all important % advantage calculation is now the ratio of the observed kill ratio to the expected kill ratio if there is no advantage (i.e., 50,000 kills or exactly 50% kills). The final "% advantage" figures can be aggregated into two simpler tables, like this: Each cell of these two summaries comprises 400,000 bouts (100,000 for each of four possible armor types). So each of the two summaries span 400,000 x16 = 6.4 million bouts. The two summaries cover 12.8 million simulated, one on one bouts. (No real orcs were harmed in the making of these tables). A couple of general observations: * The green cells have identical belligerents, so should produce 50% bandit kills and 0.0% advantage. That these cells vary by around +-0.1% implies "a degree" of confidence in these figures. * We should expect the result of A vs B to be equal and opposite to the result of B vs A in each case. That almost all these cell pairs are exactly equal and opposite again implies that the whole thing is, at least, not hopelessly broken. You can download the raw data here.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 24, 2017 2:50:38 GMT -6
Awesome new banner Verhaden! Perhaps the background grid could reproduce an authentic-hand-drawn dungeon map on graph paper?
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 23, 2017 6:48:20 GMT -6
I've now run several millions of simulated combats thru my sim and collected a bunch of data. For this thread, I think it's worthwhile starting with the following as a "baseline": TABLE A Table A is a summary of 3.2 million simulated bouts between individual orcs and bandits. These belligerents were chosen because they are both 1 HD man-types with FC of "1 man". In other words: they should have equivalent combat performance. Therefore, any difference in performance observed may be attributable to the equipment loadouts they are given. In Table A the orc is always equipped with a weapon and no shield. Meanwhile, the bandit is tested against the orc in 100,000 bouts for each of four different loadouts, and the bandit's "win rate" observed. The whole exercise is repeated for each of the eight possible combinations of: four armor types with/without the (U&WA) drop rule in play. At the right-hand side of Table A I've calculated the mean number of wins for the bandit across all four armor types, for each of his loadouts. Since the orc is equipped with a weapon and no shield, we expect the bandit to get 50% wins when he has exactly the same loadout. In fact, we observe 49.948% and 49.946% with/without the drop rule, respectively, so that's pretty close. From there we can compare the mean performance of the bandit's other loadouts against the supposed "fair" loudout (the 50/50 win rate). In other words: what advantage do the other loadouts deliver? I've calculated these advantages (in terms of win rates) in the far right column. I think what it's telling us there is: Without the Drop Rule * The first three loadouts (weapon+nothing, weapon+shield, weapon+main-gauche) perform equally. * Carrying a shield delivers about a 4% advantage. With the Drop Rule* The main-gauche loadout now delivers about a 1% advantage. * Carrying a shield still delivers about a 4% advantage. These numbers seems reasonable to me; the main-gauche loadout is advantageous because the bandit cannot be disarmed (and therefore cannot lose a round having to re-arm). But this still isn't as good as the shield loadout, which reduces the chance of being disarmed and offers better AC... more on this below. Okay, so then we can give our orc army shields and repeat the above exercise: TABLE B This time the bandit's weapon+shield loadout represents the "fair" case where we expect him to win 50% of bouts. So... skipping straight to the far-right column, we can see pretty much as expected: Without the Drop Rule* The first three loadouts perform equally again, all carrying just shy of a 4% disadvantage vs against the shield loadout. With the Drop Rule* The main-gauche loadout once again has slightly less than a 1% advantage compared to the first two loadouts, which are again about 4% worse off than the shield option. Okay, so by the book shields look good. If we play the drop rule, then the main-gauche option may be useful, but it's not as good as a proper shield. So returning at last to sixdemonbag 's original proposal: here are some house rules that might prove useful, all being equal in terms of DPR, just choose based on personal preference: Two-handers reroll 1's for damage and two-weapon fighting earn a +1 to-hit. This makes all three main loadouts mathematically equal (sword and board, dual wield, and two-handed). An empty hand provides no mechanical benefit aside from carrying torches, potions, magic items, scrolls, grabbing, punching, etc. and nor should it, IMO. How do sixdemonbag's equal DPRs translate into combat wins between bandits and orcs (supposedly "typical" 1 HD sorts)? Let's see... TABLE C So this time the two-handed weapon loadout rerolls any damage die of 1 (any number of times), and the dual-weapon loadout has a +1 advantage to hit. Looking again to the far right column, we can see the two affected loadouts delivery similar advantage--somewhat under 4%--without the drop rule. The shield continues to deliver the 4% we saw previously. What's potentially interesting is that the "seemingly obvious" equivalence between the +1 AC advantage of the shield and the +1 to hit advantage of the main-gauche is perhaps not quite so obvious in the numbers. Or perhaps it's all down to random variation? With the drop rule in play, the main-gauche option cannot be disarmed, and shield option has only a 50% chance of being disarmed. So, if the dual-weapon +1 to hit advantage cancels the shield's +1 AC advantage, then we should expect the main-gauche to gain a bit more ground than the shield due to its never being disarmed. However, the figures in Table C do not illustrate this nuance; possibly this may be due to random variance in the numbers, an error on my part, or something I haven't thought of yet? This next one is perhaps more interesting: TABLE D Here, the orcs get shields and continue to do battle under sixdemonbag's house rules. As explained above, the "fair" case is now the mutual weapon+shield loadout, where we expect (and observe) close to a 50% win rate for the bandits. The 0.6% observed advantage of the main-gauche loadout over the shield without the drop rule concerned me enough that I ran this scenario over. But I observed a similar outcome several times. So (unless I've screwed up somewhere) I think the main gauche loadout genuinely has another edge over the shield loadout, and I think it comes down to this: Every figure wins unilateral surprise 8 times in every 36 bouts (that's 22% of battles), and the combat algorithm assumes that surprise attacks are also rear attacks. Rear attacks discount the shield's AC advantage. So, if you have the shield loadout, you will loose its +1 AC advantage in the first round 22% of the time. If you have choose the main-gauche loadout, you never lose its +1 to hit advantage (ignoring the case of losing one or other weapon is dropped, because this is the "without drop" case. Besides which, this can happen to a shield just as frequently in the "with drop" case). So the main-gauche loadout has an asymmetric advantage over the shield, which appears to be worth about 0.5%. It's also interesting to observe in the above table that the two-handed weapon loadout appears to trend downward from ~51% versus unarmored orcs to ~49% versus plate armored orcs. Possibly, we're observing the damage advantage of the two-handed loadout decreasing as the target gets harder to hit. To run with that one for a moment, it's further possible to speculate this effect may become more significant in longer duration combats involving belligerents with more hp. So, to finally wrap up, I think these combat simulations suggest that the interplay between loadout, AC, the drop rule, and surprise attacks is more subtle than it may at first seem. I don't think we can say that "all three main loadouts mathematically equal", but nor are they going to be vastly different without larger adjustments.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 21, 2017 8:34:36 GMT -6
I don't agree with using the x in 6 drop rules for two reasons. 1. It's not fun in practice 2. In a one-minute combat round, I would say you have time to drop and recover an item. It seems odd to model this action particularly when everything else is abstracted or narrated. If I were to run the sim, I would not include drops. If I ever "finish it" (cough), you'll be able to toggle whatever options you like on/off. Meanwhile, the point of this effort was to get a handle on how effective some different weapon options are. As I posted upthread: . A figure carrying a two-handed weapon will be disarmed. . A figure carrying two weapons will not be (wholly) disarmed. . A figure carrying sword and shield may be (50% chance) disarmed. So the drop rule differentiates these weapon options by the chances of being disarmed. I'm interested to see what difference it makes, just for the sake of knowing. That's not to say I'm insisting everyone must use the drop rule in at the game table; it just means we'll all get a better understanding of how that rule affects combat, and what we're doing when we choose to exclude it. re: time to re-arm: I'm not in the one-minute combat round camp, so I don't share the concern about how long it seems to take a disarmed figure to re-arm. At the end of the day, the duration of a combat round doesn't impact the outcome of the sim, so there's no need to dive down into that one. Anyways, tonight's effort was to start counting wins/losses across x many battles. Don't read anything into these numbers but, below are some preliminary outputs to give the general idea where it could go. Here it's only reporting the "kill events", but of course it could report every detail: surprises, number of drops, gained/lost initiative, number of attacks, hits/misses, damage caused, etc. The first one shows that bandits and orcs (statistically equivalent, for the purpose of the sim) were on equal terms. The second one shows that a verteran with the same loadout as an orc has an edge; the veteran's +1 pip of HD and FC equates to something like an 8% advantage. The third one puts the veteran in plate armor, and you can see what happens. Okay, so next I'm gonna focus on putting in sixdemonbag 's weapon rules and see what we get...
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 20, 2017 8:20:19 GMT -6
There are lots rules options out there, so my code allows you to configure a "rules engine" before you start the sim. You pick whatever combination of (supported) rules you want to test out, pick the opponents, their loadout, then go. It will start with support for a minimal core of OD&D rules. That currently includes: - AC/HD/hp/FC support - A whole bunch of monster stats (but sims only valid for basic man-types at the mo) - Loadout (including armor, shield, helm, one-handed and two-handed weapons, main-gauche) - Fantastic/Normal attack determination - OD&D surprise odds - (no encounter distance determination; presumes 1" distance) - OD&D dropping rule (with dynamic AC/armament modification, no re-arming yet; coming next) - M2M rear attack rule (surprise attacks are presumed to be rear attacks) - FAQ initiative rule (the M2M initiative rule is more work to implement) - Normal attack (first column of Attack Matrix I only) - (No support for helm/no-helm vs. M&T's 10% head hits yet) - Normal damage - OD&D kill rule (dead at 0 hp) - 465 unit test assertions (all passing) Execution of each rule during each battle sim creates one or more events, which are streamed to a battlelog (and optionally tee'd to a console) for analysis after the fact. In it's current (infantile) state a battle report can only output the "raw" even stream of one battle sim, like this: The plan is to add some smarts to the battle report so it can aggregate stats from lots of battles and report back a summary. So then, finally, we can see what impact the different loadouts really have on player "success" in these one on one battles...
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 19, 2017 3:46:12 GMT -6
I’ll walk back my earlier statement a bit and admit there could be ambiguity if this rule is broken down sentence by sentence, and that ambiguity comes in, I think, because of the “some item” in the first sentence. But reading the two sentences of the rule together as a unit, as they’re meant to be taken, I think provides a clear procedure. I guess I was deliberating between: A. There is a 25% chance that any character surprised by a monster will drop an item. If a character drops an item, roll again to determine what is dropped remembering that only those items held could be so dropped. and B. There is a 25% chance that any character surprised by a monster will drop something. Roll separately for the possibilit y of dropping each item, remembering that only those items held could be so dropped. It seems the consensus here is A, so that's constructive information. The practical upshot of the A is that when the 25% chance comes up: . A figure carrying a two-handed weapon will be disarmed. . A figure carrying two weapons will not be (wholly) disarmed. . A figure carrying sword and shield may be (50% chance) disarmed. The question then becomes: What happens to a figure who is disarmed? Presumably there should be some kind of opportunity cost, but what exactly is it? Thoughts? FWIW-- The Dalluhn ms has: "If a player must drop his bow for a hand weapon, the opponent will get a free chop, and the player will hit second in the melee round." which appears to imply the player misses his attack in the first round while switching to another weapon, and then is considered the defender (thus attacks second) in the second round. (One might note that a round is, in this scenario, about as long as it takes a combatant to switch from a bow to a sidearm).
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 18, 2017 7:24:18 GMT -6
Sure, so is it... . Sword and shield/dagger/lantern/etc; 50/50 either item is dropped. . Sword in one hand and nothing in the other; sword is always dropped? Or is 50% likely to be dropped? . Two-handed sword; is always dropped? Or is 50% likely to be dropped?
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 18, 2017 4:48:27 GMT -6
Don't be sorry Normal men got their own attack matrix in Holmes (see p18), but I'm not sure they were considered "0th level" at that point.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 18, 2017 4:15:37 GMT -6
"NM" could also be "F0" if you like. They are equivalent. If this is OD&D, then the footnote below Attack Matrix I Men Attacking says: "Normal men equal 1st level fighters." (M&M p19). So normal men use the first column (as do all the 1st level player-types). Notice that there's no entry on Attack Matrix I for any 0th level types
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 18, 2017 3:33:29 GMT -6
So I'm underway with a new combat simulator that will test the efficacy of various combat options, above. Interestingly, code must always be explicit where the 3LBBs frequently are not. A case in point is: how should the dual-weapon/two-handed-weapon options work with the dropping stuff by surprise rule? The earlier prints say: "There is a 25% chance that any character surprised by a monster will drop some item. If he does, roll for the possibilities remembering that only those items held could be so dropped." (U&WA p12) The blue word is these in later prints, but this seems to be merely a typo. That aside, the first sentence appears to imply that exactly one item could be dropped. But the second sentence appears to imply that several held items could be dropped. Which is it? If only one item can be dropped, which item does a player carrying sword and shield risk dropping? If several items can be dropped, how is the stated 25% chance applied to a player carrying sword and shield? Reducing the risk of being totally disarmed is potentially an advantage of the dual-wielding and two-handed options. Exactly how it works would determine whether this represents a meaningful advantage. Or not. Thoughts? p.s. FWIW: if a player has a 1/8 (12.5%) chance of dropping each of two items, then he has an overall 15/64 (23.44%) chance of dropping at least one item. That's near enough to 25% for me
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 15, 2017 5:48:36 GMT -6
Waaaay back I wrote a combat simulator to compare the "survivorship" of 1st level fighters equipped with different armor types vs different monster types. I might be able to dig up and modify that code to track DPR and LDO (Lifetime Damage Output) for thousands of 1st level fighters participating in series of simulated one on one battles, and then compare the (simulated) effect of the above proposed player options in terms of DPR and LDO. Hmm... Yeah, so I unearthed my old code and discovered I'd left it in a pretty shabby state. After a bunch of friggin' about I've decided to start over. Give me a few weeks to procrastinate, then a few days to get it going...
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 15, 2017 5:33:14 GMT -6
Could this be the opportunity to upgrade the banner image?
The picture quality and small size of the booklets has always seemed a bit of a lost opportunity. Perhaps it would be appropriate to include a 2nd Ed Chainmail and 1st-3rd print LBB covers? Might it also include a Holmes cover?
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 15, 2017 3:04:15 GMT -6
It is very similar to blackmail. I believe it more closely resembles extortion
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 14, 2017 2:41:01 GMT -6
I agree that OD&D combat is abstract. This is particularly so for fantastic combat, and perhaps less so for normal combat (which is resolved at the level of "blows" and "swings"). But I don't agree that a shield is just a wall to obstruct one possible hit in any combat round; I read it more as a tactical obstacle in a melee. The mere presence of a shield restricts the possible avenues of attack, hence the frequency of viable attacks, and hence the overall likelihood of being struck in any period. From that perspective, I'm content that a shield can be effective versus multiple frontal attacks in a combat round, regardless of its period (see below*). As was originally discussed in the fall of shields thread, shields reduced missile kills by almost half in CM's mass battles missile fire rules. They were about half as effective vs missiles in MtM; about half as effective again vs melee attacks in MtM; and about half as effective again vs THAC2 attacks via the Alternative Attack Matrices. Despite all that, a shield's 1 pip of AC still improves a player's protection against normal (THAC2 17) attacks on the Alternative matrices by an average of 13.6%. I.e., consider a defender against a THAC2 attack: - Plate 25% likely to be hit - Plate and shield 20% likely to be hit --> plate+shield is 1/5th (20%) less likely to be hit. - Mail 35% likely to be hit - Mail and shield 30% likely to be hit --> mail+shield is 1/7th (14.3%) less likely to be hit. - Leather 45% likely to be hit - Leather and shield 40% likely to be hit --> leather+shield is 1/9th (11.1%) less likely to be hit. - Unarmored 55% likely to be hit - Shield only 50% likely to be hit --> shield is 1/11th (9.1%) less likely to be hit. Average advantage of a shield vs THAC2 attacks = (9.1 + 11.1 + 14.3 + 20) / 4 = 13.6%. If we consider just mail and plate armoured figures, carrying a shield makes them (on average) 17.15% less likely to be hit by a THAC2 attack. That's 1 in 6 territory. * p.s. (If you aren't already weary of it): the duration of an OD&D combat round.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 7, 2017 16:56:15 GMT -6
giving up your shield for a possible +1 damage is still better every single time, across every armor type. It's an interesting proposition sixdemonbag. To be more finicky (what me?) about the above assertion, I think it would be more accurate to state: +1 damage is better in terms of maximising DPR. The underlying assumption is that maximising DPR is always the optimal player choice. More realistically, I think it's reasonably obvious that prolonging player survival is critical to success, and therefore that some kind of "lifetime damage output" metric would be a better indicator of player success (and hence be a better guide as to optimal player choice) than the DPR metric. Waaaay back I wrote a combat simulator to compare the "survivorship" of 1st level fighters equipped with different armor types vs different monster types. I might be able to dig up and modify that code to track DPR and LDO (Lifetime Damage Output) for thousands of 1st level fighters participating in series of simulated one on one battles, and then compare the (simulated) effect of the above proposed player options in terms of DPR and LDO. Hmm...
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 7, 2017 4:10:12 GMT -6
Worthwhile noting also that carrying a shield yields more than just 5% protection. I.e., specifically vs THAC2 attackers: Plate 25% likely to be hit vs plate and shield 20% likely to be hit --> plate+shield is 1/5th (20%) less likely to be hit. Mail 35% likely to be hit vs mail and shield 30% likely to be hit --> mail+shield is 1/7th (14.3%) less likely to be hit. Leather 45% likely to be hit vs leather and shield 40% likely to be hit --> leather+shield is 1/9th (11.1%) less likely to be hit. Unarmored 55% likely to be hit vs shield only 50% likely to be hit --> shield is 1/11th (9.1%) less likely to be hit. Average advantage = (9.1 + 11.1 + 14.3 + 20) / 4 = 13.6%. That's almost 3 in 20 over all. If we consider just mail and plate armoured figures, carrying a shield makes them 17.15% less likely to be hit. That's 1 in 6 territory
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 6, 2017 15:36:40 GMT -6
Average Bonus Chance to Hit a Given AC1d20 = +0% 1d20+1 = +5% 1d20+2 = +10% A 1-3 level fighter has THAC2 17, and therefore a 20% chance to hit AC2. With a +1 bonus the same fighter now has a 25% chance to hit AC2. I.e., a +1 adjustment gives him a (25/20 = 1.25) 25% advantage. Assuming all ACs are encountered equally frequently, a +1 to hit adjustment gives a 1-3 level fighter an average 13.33% advantage. To figure a "global" +1 advantage across all of Attack Matrix I, we'd need to state a working assumption about how frequently each column on the matrix is used... without figuring it the odds, I suspect it might be nearer to 10% than to 5%.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 26, 2017 1:59:27 GMT -6
Clerics come into their own when Alignment counts, and is tracked. And channeling the power of your gawd through your wangnoodle means something. There needs to be a Cleric Game they are best at, same as the combat game and magic game. This is good. Part of the btb cleric game is: clerics own the Undead. If you really want to nobble clerics, then you could exclude the undead, or don't allow clerics to turn them, or let any player with a Cross turn them.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 24, 2017 20:16:54 GMT -6
I agree with the gist of your post Scott Anderson, but not necessarily all the detail. A few belated observations might be... The opening assertion that "Clerics have the same fighting capability at low levels as a Fighter" could be challenged. E.g., At 1st level a fighting man has FC man+1. So he has +1 on his attack rolls vs normals. The cleric does not. At 2nd level a fighting man has FC 2 men. So he has two attacks vs normals. The cleric does not. At 3rd level a fighting man has FC hero-1. He's now in heroic territory. The cleric is not, and will not be until 6th level. Re: hit points: You don't mention that, btb, clerics have a "soft cap" at 7 HD (at top level, after which hp growth slows dramatically). Fighters go up to 9+3 HD, which is virtually equivalent to 10 HD. Re: weapon selection: lack of missiles is a significant thing, for sure. There is arguably a case that clerics can throw war-hammers (M&T p31), but even these are one off and have only 3" range. However, you forgot to mention that clerics don't get spears (which are almost as important as missiles) and that, btb, magic weapons are essentially for fighters. The 8% (from memory) of magic weapons occurring which are usable by clerics are also usable by fighters! So there would have to be a pretty darn good reason why the fighters wouldn't get first dibs on these. re: find traps: the assertion that "a Find Traps spell ... is the only sure way to determine whether something or some place is trapped" could be challenged too. I.e., dwarves "they note... traps... in underground settings" (M&T p7). Besides which fighters get magic swords that detect traps (M&T p29), magic-users get wands of secret door and trap detection (M&T p25), and there are wish spells, and more besides I'm sure. re: healing: It's also worth noting, if one is enthused by Chainmail's perspective of the fantasy trope, that Heroes are unaffected by fewer than four normal hits in a melee. I.e., Heroes don't require healing after normal combat. Like Conan, Achilles, Lancelot and so on, heroes just keep on keeping on-- without clerical help. The useful thing about this in the D&D context is that: fighters can keep on fighting, and clerical healing spells can be reserved for more serious/fantastic afflictions. Enjoy
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 24, 2017 19:22:03 GMT -6
FWIW, you can easily roll 1-20 with a single 20-sider by using a control die (e.g., 1d6, 1-3 = 1-10, 4-6 = 11-20) or by marking one set of faces. For marking faces I've heard of coloring the entire side; making a dot; writing a one; outlining the pre-inked number with another color; or using a razor blade to make a mark (just heard this one last weekend from an older player). Both of these methods (control die and marking) are mentioned in Holmes Basic. See vintage pics here of marked dice: Marked 20-sided dieGreat article Zenopus. FWIW, it's also easy to get numbers 1-20 with 3d6: First die has 50% chance of yielding either 10 or 0. Second die has 50% chance of yielding either 5 or 0. Third die yields 1-5 (you have to re-roll any 6s). Not sure if anyone used this method back in the day, but I've seen long-winded 'zine articles explaining complex dice probability systems, so it's plausible someone was aware of it. The scarcity of 20-siders in the early 70s may have been a motivation to think about it.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 24, 2017 19:01:33 GMT -6
My biggest complaint about the Cleric is that it doesn't dictate a style of play at the table as far as i can see. I primarily view them as something like a support class. So I gave them "vows." First up is a vow of peace. This means the Cleric can't attack non-demonic non-undead creatures. Which is huge. I'm sure 90% of people will hate hate hate this change. But for me it elegantly solves a ton of problems that I have. 1. The Cleric to me is forced to act like a Cleric in combat. Focusing on healing and helping. 2. They can attack a non undead non demon entity but they lose use of their spells until they level up again. 3. As time goes on they gain more vows, like one of poverty which stipulates they can't keep any gold for themselves. Anyways, I have a few other tweaks I made to them and their spell list. But the biggest change has been the most fun so far since it really redefines the play at the table. Seems like you are describing a specific sub-type of cleric, rather than the entire class. That's fine for a temple- or setting-specific thing. An analogy with the fighting class would be to rule that all fighting men must (for example) conform to the swashbuckler archetype. Or the cavalry man, or the archer, or whatever. These narrower sub-types are useful, for sure, but none of them define the entire fighting class. I primarily view them as something like a support class. Sounds like NPC territory. What player wants to run the porter, torch bearer, or second-fiddle healer? Healers are boring. Clerics are awesome. Falling into the heal-bot mindset is a trap. So true
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 23, 2017 18:19:40 GMT -6
Sure Dan, I'm trying to leave it open to interpretation so as not to shut out any particular view. Re: using treasure types to inform important treasures, I only meant that it's a possible tool the ref has at his disposal. Maybe it is silly, but thinking back to recent events in my own game; we had a medusa room with treasure. So what treasure would/should/could a medusa have? I could have used the dungeon treasure table, but I decided it should be an "important" treasure. From there I could have fabricated anything I wanted, sure. But being lazy (i.e., having a day job, night study, domestic duties, a family, and a shade of a social life) I just went ahead and used treasure type F as a guide. It's probably the topic of another thread (surely there are a few on this already?) but it's interesting that treasure types can come up empty. Personally, I'm not a fan of a design that causes me to go through a long-winded procedure to come up empty; I'd prefer to short circuit it with an "empty" roll up front. But it is what it is. Anyways, for the coins and gems (not jewelry or magic), I'm inclined to rule that an "empty" roll indicates some minor fraction (maybe a tenth or a quarter) of the potential treasure rather than zero so that that the treasure generating procedure always generates some treasure, even if it is relatively minor. I've long thought there's a latent opportunity there to do another kind of treasure types for your own game.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 15, 2017 4:54:24 GMT -6
As far as I can tell, though, you don't really deal with the issue of how much treasure or magic items should be found on each level. Of course, neither did Gygax & Co., really. I find this odd. I guess I don't understand this. Seems to me the 3LBBs have very detailed tables for filling dungeons with treasure. If nothing else, these give us a baseline against which we can compare the "richness" of dungeons crafted by any other methods.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 15, 2017 4:41:12 GMT -6
The biggest bugaboo is with magic items. IF XP is awarded for magic the numbers will surely change a bit. Sure, but I assume zero XP for magic items, per the 3LBBs. Possessing magic items will usually enable players to reach more treasure, so awarding XP for the items themselves seems (to me) to be a kind of double dipping. The other issue for me would be treasure types treasures. I think for this to be really accurate, you would need to look at the monster level lists (1-6) and average the treasure types for each level of monster. Then you could factor in the "unguarded" type above in the proper ratio. Whether or not "Lair treasure" a.k.a. "Treasure Type" A thru K (or whatever) should or could or could ever without being defamed occur in dungeons has been debated extensively. For the purpose of this thread, I assume that the Treasure Types might (or might not) inform the composition of the important treasures that refs can place, if the ref is so inclined. But since these important treasures are "secreted in out-of-the-way locations" the possibility of the players finding them is lower than their chance of finding the regular dungeon treasures. So... although the important treasures have higher value, there is a lower chance of finding them. For the sake of simplicity (and practicality), one could assume that on average the important treasures therefore contribute about the same as the regular treasures. Sure, it's rough. Dealing with averages and assumptions is never gonna be an exact science.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 11, 2017 17:09:28 GMT -6
The 722 gp figure for DL1 is the average value of any treasure found on DL1, according to U&WA p7. I.e., a random treasure found on DL1 comprises: 100% chance of 100-600 sp 50% chance of 10-60 gp 5% chance of 1-6 gems 5% chance of 1-6 jewelry 5% chance of a magic item. So we would expect the mean value of hundreds of these treasures to approach: 1 x 35 0.5 x 35 (350 sp = 35 gp) 0.05 x 3.5 x 418 (the mean value of a gem; see odd74.proboards.com/thread/7606)0.05 x 3.5 x 3410 (the mean value of a piece of jewelry) So that's: 35 + 17.5 + 73.15 + 596.75 = 722.4 gp 83% of the treasure value is in jewelry, 10% is in gems, and 7% is in coins. So ultimately, gaining XP is very largely about finding jewelry. In terms of one solo fighter searching for jewelry on DL1, he theoretically has a 5% chance of finding it for each group of three rooms he explores. This may make the average search appear longer than the 9 room search I suggested above. This is because when jewelry is found on DL1 there will be (on average) 3.5 pieces worth a total of 3,410 x 3.5 = 11,935 gp. This is almost six times the XP the first level fighter requires, which skews the "average search", potentially making it appear one-sixth as long as it might really be for a solo figure. On the other-hand, it means that a single DL1 treasure which does include jewelry will (on average) yield enough XP for six players to reach 2nd level.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 10, 2017 23:12:14 GMT -6
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 10, 2017 23:10:45 GMT -6
I started writing a reply to the Number of Magic Items per Dungeon Level thread, but it morphed into something else, so I thought it better to start a new one. In addition to the question of how many magic items per dungeon level is typical, we might ask how much treasure per dungeon level is typical? This will vary a lot from game to game, but we might consider what's described in the dungeon design "rules" in U&WA to provide a "baseline". The question of treasure per dungeon level gets interesting because: * XP is gained from treasure. * Treasure occurs (primarily) in dungeons rooms. * There is a known probability of treasure occurring per dungeon room. * There is a known distribution of possible treasure values occurring per dungeon level. Therefore, we can describe the minimum, maximum, and mean XP value of treasure for any set of rooms on a dungeon level. As the number of rooms increases, the probable XP value of treasure per room approaches the average. If my quick calculations are correct, the mean value of a dungeon level treasure is: DL1 = 722 gp, DL2 and DL3 = 1,580 gp, DL4 and DL5 = 3,680 gp, DL6 and DL7 = 5,594 gp, DL8 and DL9 = 13,453 gp Etc. From here we can extrapolate the number of dungeon level rooms a player should, on average, need to explore in order to collect enough XP to advance. I.e., if a fighting-man requires 2,000 XP make him a Warrior, then he needs (2000/722=2.78) to locate 3 "average" treasures on DL1 to advance. Since we know treasure occurs, on average, in one-third of rooms our fighter need to explore 9 DL1 rooms to find the required treasure. This assumes he actually finds all the treasure he passes (unlikely?), and the he gets to keep it all for himself (!). Similarly, we can determine how many rooms our fighter needs (on average) to explore on each dungeon level to promote him through his fighting career, like so: I.e., suppose a fighter requires: 2k XP on DL1 to reach 2nd level, 2k XP on DL2 to reach 3rd level, 4k XP on DL3 to reach 4th level, 8k XP on DL4 to reach 5th level, 16k XP on DL5 to reach 6th level, 32k XP on DL6 to reach 7th level, 56k XP on DL7 to reach 8th level, 120k XP on DL8 to reach 9th level. Etc. He would need (on average) to explore: 9 rooms on DL1, 4 rooms on DL2, 8 rooms on DL3, 7 rooms on DL4, 13 rooms on DL5, 17 rooms on DL6, 30 rooms on DL7, 28 rooms on DL8. (All presuming a rather unlikely solo operation). Clearly this is not a "smooth curve" (not that it should be). Reaching 2nd level requires a player to explore more rooms (on average) than does reaching 2nd, 3rd or 4th levels. So reaching 2nd level is a real milestone; from there, in theory, it gets somewhat easier. The sawtooth nature of this progression implies that some dungeon levels have a higher risk to reward profile than others. I.e., DL3 exposes the players to more and tougher monsters than does DL2, without offering richer treasure. Hence, players might be excused for wanting to minimise time spent on DL3. From the above number of rooms for one player, we can figure out how many rooms a dungeon level "needs to have" in order to provide the XP required for "however many players" to level up. I.e., supposing a reasonably likely scenario where treasure found is split evenly between, say, five players... they would need to explore five times as many rooms as a single player in order to each earn their XP. This implies they would need to explore: 45 rooms on DL1, 20 rooms on DL2, 40 rooms on DL3, 35 rooms on DL4, 65 rooms on DL5, 85 rooms on DL6, 150 rooms on DL7, 140 rooms on DL8. (All presuming five players). So this starts to give us a notion of "how big" a dungeon needs to be in order to hide enough treasure for five fighters to advance thru to Lord status, assuming the random distribution of treasure outlined in U&WA, and assuming the players actually find it all. If they only find the treasure half the time, they'll need to explore twice as many rooms. Of course all this is tempered by the ref's ability to place "several of the most important treasures" with impunity throughout a dungeon level. These important treasure contain "various magical items and large amounts of wealth in the form of gems a jewelry" but should also be "secreted in out-of-the-way locations". The designer can without question influence (and totally define) the risk/reward balance in a dungeon level, so the averages are only a vague guide. It's also worth noting that while the quantity of treasure occurring is independent of the number of players, the number of wandering monsters occurring scales with the number of players (U&WA p11). So... more players will attract more wandering monsters, but not more treasure.
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