Assassin Preview at Gencon

[Fifth Element]

A will have expected bonus damage of 12*4.9 = 58.8
B will have expected bonus damage of 6*11.9 = 71.4
C will have 4*18.9 = 75.6
D will have 3*25.9 = 77.7

QED. Waiting as long as possible is best.

It's not as simple as that, though, because if you delay the damage each individual enemy is less likely to be dead next round and can therefore cause more damage to the party. So there is a tradeoff.

 

[Fifth Element]

And primal? The barb was kinda shoehorned in there so the druid would have a buddy, and then two other classes were contrived to give them their four core.

I can see you don't like the new primal classes but I have to object to the statement that the barbarian was "shoehorned" into primal, even if it is qualified with a "kinda". Barbarian is about as primal as you can get.

 

[Cadfan]

Simple ... you must use your shrouds prior to your attack, and a miss deals damage equal to a shroud less. The mathematicians have already calculated that every other round is the best for DPR. So simply shroud-and-attack every round, you may not get your bonus damage, if you miss.

I quite like what I've seen of the Assassin so far.

Every other round is NOT best for DPR. Waiting as long as possible is best for DPR.

Think of it this way. You have your hit damage, and your miss damage. Your hit damage is a straight y=mx type equation. If you hit you get no bonus for waiting, you do precisely the same damage per round no matter when you attack.

But your miss damage is different. The equation for miss damage DPR, if X is number of shrouds and D is damage, is (X-1)D/X. That's shroud damage for all shrouds but one, divided by the number of rounds it took you to get to that point.

If you like, go ahead and graph Y=(X-1)D/X. You'll see that as X grows, the equation approaches a limit of Y=D. Y is DPR from misses in this case, and every round you wait increases it. Of course you get diminishing returns the longer you wait, but there's never a point where waiting isn't strictly better than not waiting.

This is of course in a mathematical abstraction that doesn't deal with issues like your shroud target getting killed by one of your allies while you're busy building up more and more shrouds, or the uselessness of having 50 shrouds on an enemy with 5 hit points, and of course you can never pass X=4 in the actual game.

But in mathematical abstraction, every other round is NOT the best option. Waiting for the full four rounds is best.

 

[Cadfan]

It's not as simple as that, though, because if you delay the damage each individual enemy is less likely to be dead next round and can therefore cause more damage to the party. So there is a tradeoff.

Well, right, the math is a mathematical abstraction of DPR against a foe with infinite hit points. If you're facing a bloodied enemy who's been kicked around a few times since the DM announced that he was first bloodied, you may not need to pump damage up as far as possible. But if pumping up damage as far as possible is your goal, you wait as long as possible.

 

[Mort_Q]

Ki!! see, it's still around, sort of
certainly sounds interesting, hm...

Indeed. I though Ki was subsumed in Psi?

 

[The_Fan]

Indeed. I though Ki was subsumed in Psi?

The Monk was subsumed into psionics, but we just assumed that meant all ki classes would be as well. Other classes like the Shugenja and Wu Jen are more suited to Elemental, and if they bring back the Sohei it'll probably be martial.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Indeed. I though Ki was subsumed in Psi?

As a power source, it was. The Assassin uses the Shadow power source. The use of "ki" in describing his focus item is a bit unfortunate.

 

[Cadfan]

As a power source, it was. The Assassin uses the Shadow power source. The use of "ki" in describing his focus item is a bit unfortunate.

Its a nod to the fact that the assassin is secretly a ninja.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I wonder if when they orginaly had this idea it was 2 simalar classes...
Ninja Ki striker
Assasin Shadow striker

and when they droped Ki, they folded some ideas into the assasin...

 

[Herschel]

Its a nod to the fact that the assassin is secretly a ninja.

Too bad a pirate would kick his butt.