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Well, suppose that the foes hit Dextrous monk on A rolls out of 20. If they get a flanking bonus of +1, they will hit on A+1 rolls, which is an increase of 1/A*100%. Exactly the same foes hit Strong Monk on A+1 rolls. With +1 for flanking, they will hit on A+2 rolls out of twenty, which is an...

Exactly. Strong Monk's first trog drops sooner, so he faces three foes for fewer rounds. Similarly, he faces two trogs for fewer rounds, and one trog for fewer rounds. If you work it out (as I did), facing three trogs means taking six times as much damage as facing one trog. Strong monk is ahead...

Okay, here we go. Suppose that combatant is facing n similar foes in mêlée. Obviously, his best strategy is to concentrate on one foe until that goes down, then switch to another, then to the next, and then to the next, until they are all down. His chance of hitting with any attack is not...

It doesn't. I thought it did, but I worked through fights between Strong and Dextrous 6th-level monks and three troglodytes each, and it didn't make any difference. Strong Monk outclassed Dextrous Monk by the exactly same percentage in the three-on-one fight as in the one-one one. The reason is...

Yes, but not in D&D. In RuneQuest I've played Humakti Death-worshippers and other warriors who adventured alongside completely non-violent Chalanna Arroy healers. In SF campaigns and campaigns set in various periods of the 20th century I have played on occasion detectives who never used lethal...

I'm glad that you are ready for disappointment, because it doesn't work out that way. Moving 2 characteristic points from DEX to STR gives both the monk and his/her opponent one extra hit per twenty turns. The primary effect is to speed the fights up, the secondary effect is an advantage to the...

Let's pit those two 6th-level monks against level-appropriate challenges, such as an average xorn. Xorns take half damage from slashing weapons, so the monks won't use their kamas. Dextrous monk: hp 36, AC 16, AB +6/+3, damage d8+2 (bare hand). Strong monk: hp 36, AC 15, AB +7/+4, damage d8+3...

Is it worth looking at a strong monk fighting a dextrous monk? Let's try the Level 6 NPC specimens out of the DMG. Dextrous monk: hp 36, AC 16, AB +8/+5, damage d6+3 (kama) Strong monk: hp 36, AC 15, AB +9/+6, damage d6+4 (kama) Dextrous monk hits on a 7 and a 10, a total of 25 times in...

Another good idea is not to run games like that. They aren't a lot of fun.

Not perhaps my favorite character, but the one I played for longest and with whom I am most associated by my gaming buddies, was a chap called Pausanias of Lacedaemon. Pausanias was the eldest son of a lesser noble from a duchy with an austere military tradition. During the last war between the...

A DEX-first character with an attack bonus of A and armour class of B, who does C points of damage on an average hit is fighting an opponent who has an attack bonus of X, an armour class of Y, and does an average of Z points per hit. The character hits (10 + A - Y) times out of twenty. Call...

That's the crucial issue. We aren't in the race to re-train, re-indoctrinate, re-equip, and re-organise the British Army to deal with dragons, spellcasters, magnetic mutants, and invisible assassins. It would probably be hopeless even trying to warn them of what to expect, because their likely...

I see the parallel between 12 soldiers and 12 apostles (though, as I mentioned it before, I think that the magicians would have to have a very good reason for it to make it worthwhile interfering in operationsla matters). But I don't see the parallel with the knights of the Round Table. There...

My first was Arcanacon, some time in the early 80s. I don't think it was Arcanacon I. It must ahve been Arcanacon II, in 1984. I remember discovering that in Melbourne hamburgers come without onion or beetroot, unless you order them as an extra. (Jeez I was poor back then!). I remember that a...

Yes. But if a carbuncle were blue, it would be a sapphire. In other words, you wouldn't do it that way, or more to the point, the officers you sent wouldn't do it that way. Military efficiency depends on teamwork and established ways of doing things. You say to one man 'go', and he goeth, and he...

Bad idea. The interior of the tower is small and offers no concealment. It is a good place for mêlée combatants and a bad place to put people who depend on ranged weapons. Even its top is bad place to put snipers, because I am pretty sure that there would be a lot of dead ground on the slopes of...

Make the plane a nuclear-armed bomber, to help the military create a public flap, and justify such precautions as evacuating the town and erecting a cordon. I would be tempted to put some sort of nuctear emergency teams on all the approach roads, but I'm not sure that Briatin has such. I would...

I take it you are a fan of Ultraviolet.

Quite tangentially, I note that the same world excluded the vast majority of men from anything but the work they were raised to. Precious few men had any more choice of career than women, and most of the work was back-breaking, monotonous, dead-end labour, dangerous and unhealthy.

Beats me. Ask the DM.