"Accident of Math"???

[Gundark]

From the James Wyatt blog "Everyone will be balanced, because we've erased the accident of math."

Not too sure what he means by the accident of Math?

 

[gizmo33]

One time when I was a player I hit someone with a magic staff that did x3 damage. I rolled a 6, and said "6 times 3... 30 points of damage!" I got away with it too. Accidents of math are fun and should be left in the game.

 

[Pygon]

If I had to guess, I think the designers are reducing the concept of an L5 being 5x as powerful as a L1. Instead, a L5 is only 2x more powerful or something, and the power scale is very design driven.

One time when I was a player I hit someone with a magic staff that did x3 damage. I rolled a 6, and said "6 times 3... 30 points of damage!" I got away with it too. Accidents of math are fun and should be left in the game.

I want your DM.

 

[helium3]

Uhh. Someone else explained it and I think it goes as follows:

At low levels, say lvl-1 through lvl-4, the modifiers you'd add to a roll of the d20 are small compared to the range that the die could roll. The roll of the die matters more than the attributes of your character when determining success or failure.

At medium levels, say lvl-5 through lvl-10 (which some people consider the "sweet spot"), the modifiers you'd add to a roll of the d20 are larger so the die and the modifier contribute equally to determining success or failure.

At high levels, lvl-11 and up, your modifiers based on attributes are so high that it doesn't matter what the die roll is. Anything higher than a 1 is always a success.

Anyhow, that's how another poster explained it.

Frankly, if that is what Mr. Wyatt's talking about, I totally don't buy it.

 

[F4NBOY]

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3767508&postcount=27

I think what they mean is that the 'sweet spot' exists because the maths just happens to work at those levels - the modifiers to the dice rolls are between 25% and 75% of the range of the dice roll itself (that is, between +5 and +15 on a d20), where at very low levels the modifiers are largely irrelevant (as they get swamped by the variance on the die roll), and at high levels the die roll is largely irrelevant (as it gets swamped by the modifiers).

When the designers put together 3.X, they didn't fully account for this oddity in the numbers, and so caused the 'sweet spot'. In 4e, the designers have noted this fact, and are building the game to suit. Hence, they have eliminated the 'accident of math'.

I might be completely wrong, of course

 

[Nifft]

Not too sure what he means by the accident of Math?

That -- that's what mom used to call me... *sniffle*

Not sure either, -- N

 

[Oldtimer]

Uhh. Someone else explained it and I think it goes as follows:

At low levels, say lvl-1 through lvl-4, the modifiers you'd add to a roll of the d20 are small compared to the range that the die could roll. The roll of the die matters more than the attributes of your character when determining success or failure.

At medium levels, say lvl-5 through lvl-10 (which some people consider the "sweet spot"), the modifiers you'd add to a roll of the d20 are larger so the die and the modifier contribute equally to determining success or failure.

At high levels, lvl-11 and up, your modifiers based on attributes are so high that it doesn't matter what the die roll is. Anything higher than a 1 is always a success.

Anyhow, that's how another poster explained it.

Frankly, if that is what Mr. Wyatt's talking about, I totally don't buy it.

Let me say that this reasoning (that I've also seen around the boards) is complete nonsense.

Just make this thought experiment: Add +2000 to all skill modifiers and all DCs. Now you have modifiers that are a hundered times higher than what you can roll on a d20. Have you changed the probabilities of success? No, not a bit. It's a linear scale. All you've done is offset the possible outcomes and the target number equally.

Drawing any conclusions by comparing the size of the modifier with the range of the d20 is a fallacy. There are many other comparisions that can be made and a lot of interesting math involved, but this is not one of them.

 

[Sir Brennen]

From this thread, there was a pretty good summation of the "accident of math" concept:

I think what they mean is that the 'sweet spot' exists because the maths just happens to work at those levels - the modifiers to the dice rolls are between 25% and 75% of the range of the dice roll itself (that is, between +5 and +15 on a d20), where at very low levels the modifiers are largely irrelevant (as they get swamped by the variance on the die roll), and at high levels the die roll is largely irrelevant (as it gets swamped by the modifiers).

When the designers put together 3.X, they didn't fully account for this oddity in the numbers, and so caused the 'sweet spot'. In 4e, the designers have noted this fact, and are building the game to suit. Hence, they have eliminated the 'accident of math'.

 

[Oldtimer]

From this thread, there was a pretty good summation of the "accident of math" concept:

Which is completely wrong.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Just make this thought experiment: Add +2000 to all skill modifiers and all DCs. Now you have modifiers that are a hundered times higher than what you can roll on a d20. Have you changed the probabilities of success? No, not a bit. It's a linear scale. All you've done is offset the possible outcomes and the target number equally.

Drawing any conclusions by comparing the size of the modifier with the range of the d20 is a fallacy. There are many other comparisions that can be made and a lot of interesting math involved, but this is not one of them.

Except not all modifiers scale equally. AC's often lag behind 'to hit' modifiers. Saving throws (especially the "poor" category of a class) are almost irrelevant at mid-levels compared to spell DCs of a even a moderately focused spellcaster.