new death save == leave your buddy on the floor for 3 rounds?

baberg · Mar 22, 2008

Because I'm a total dork, I ran these simulations and graphed them in Excel. The "with Save" chart is 10,000 20's rolled with around 27,000 deaths. Then, after re-reading the rules supplement and hearing nothing about a natural 20 saving, I decided to run 100,000 death trials with no saves (though Excel only gives us space for 64k, so I had to dump some of the results) The results are in the "no Save" graph, and it changes the math quite a bit.

I've got the .XLS file if anybody else wants it.

deathdonut · Mar 22, 2008

Revinor said:
Very strange math. Chances of dying on the 3rd round is exactly 0.5^3, which is exactly 12.5%. We could probably discuss about the other numbers, as they are not that obvious, but not about chances of rolling 1-10 on d20 3 times in row...

Most of the other numbers you gave are also off by few percent here and there.

The 9% assumes that you have been on the ground for 2 rounds. That means you haven't stood up on the prior two rounds (conditional probability). Also, a strike happens on a 1-9, not a 1-10. I made that mistake with my first round of numbers too.

([Chance of strike]^3)/([Chance to not stand]^2)

Revinor · Mar 22, 2008

deathdonut said:
The 9% assumes that you have been on the ground for 2 rounds. That means you haven't stood up on the prior two rounds (conditional probability). Also, a strike happens on a 1-9, not a 1-10. I made that mistake with my first round of numbers too.

([Chance of strike]^3)/([Chance to not stand]^2)

No, chance of dying on third round is just [Chance of strike]^3. You don't have to take stabilization into account, because if you roll 'strike' 3 times in the row, for sure none of the rolls was 20. On further rounds it gets more complicated, this is why I used probability tree to produce the table instead of just math equations which gets quite ugly with following rounds.

Gundark · Mar 22, 2008

Henry said:
Under 3.5, the standing rule at our table as to leave the downed PC on the ground for (10+X) rounds, where X was the negative hit point number. If you were downed at -1 or -2, the common phrase is, "relax, we've still got 7 rounds to get to you! We'll have the combat sewn up by then."

In 4e, it looks like you've got two things: You're likely to die in three rounds without help, and combat takes a lot longer than two or three rounds to resolve. So, if it plays like it sounds, then unless someone takes time out of the combat, then things get dicey.

Which sounds great

Mephistopheles · Mar 22, 2008

Henry said:
Under 3.5, the standing rule at our table as to leave the downed PC on the ground for (10+X) rounds, where X was the negative hit point number. If you were downed at -1 or -2, the common phrase is, "relax, we've still got 7 rounds to get to you! We'll have the combat sewn up by then."

In 4e, it looks like you've got two things: You're likely to die in three rounds without help, and combat takes a lot longer than two or three rounds to resolve. So, if it plays like it sounds, then unless someone takes time out of the combat, then things get dicey.

Exactly. I do like the idea of there being a variable in how long it takes someone to die. That combined with the round count being higher the party will likely need to respond to someone dropping in a way that won't generally always be "Kill the enemy faster".

jaelis · Mar 22, 2008

Don't know if anyone's done the exact calculation yet, but I get that the probability of eventually dying is exactly 729/1000, and of eventually recovering is 271/1000.

(Assuming you bleed on 1-9, nothing on 10-19, recover on 20.)

drjones · Mar 22, 2008

I think I'll definitely be having the pcs roll for themselves. For one thing, if they are bleeding out they hardly have anything else to do on their turn, not to mention feeling like they are more in control of their destiny.

Of course rather than screwing them I'd be more likely to fudge on 3 1s in a row if I was doing it which is not such an option when they see each roll.

deathdonut · Mar 22, 2008

Revinor said:
No, chance of dying on third round is just [Chance of strike]^3. You don't have to take stabilization into account, because if you roll 'strike' 3 times in the row, for sure none of the rolls was 20. On further rounds it gets more complicated, this is why I used probability tree to produce the table instead of just math equations which gets quite ugly with following rounds.

You assume that the person is still lying down at the end of 2 rounds. That means that you pre-suppose he did not stand up during those rounds. This is conditional probability. Trust me man, I'm an actuary with a degree in statistics.

If the question was "What is the chance of someone who just went unconcious dying in 3 rounds?", you would be right.

Instead, the question I tried to answer is: What is the chance of dying on the THIRD round assuming you have been unconcious for TWO.

Look at it this way, the only way these events could occur is if you did not rolled a 1-9 for three rounds running. In this, you are right. What you forget is that the Universe of possible rolls is only 1-19 for two rounds.

So the situation only occurs in (9/19)^2. On the third round, it's possible to die or stand up. That means the total answer is: (9/20)*(9/19)^2

As it happens, my number is off due to a quick attempt to correct the "strike on a 10" error that I started off with too. So while the number is off, the logic is right. The actual answer is 10.1% rather than either 9% or 12.5%. Guess we were both off

catsclaw227 · Mar 22, 2008

Has anyone taken into consideration an chances that a cleric, paladin or warlord will use a per encounter ability that heals an ally in addition to it's normal effects?

I imagine that this can happen once or twice over a three round period.

Now, I don't know what these per encounter abilities actually ARE, but....

FireLance · Mar 22, 2008

Well, just as an anecdotal example, when I ran a 4e playtest last week, the paladin went into the negatives in the first encounter, and the cleric immediately used a healing word to put him back up. I believe the players were not thinking "We can relax - he's got three rounds left." They were thinking "We're outnumbered by kobolds and one of our defenders just went down? We need him back in the fight STAT!"

new death save == leave your buddy on the floor for 3 rounds?

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