Battle Scoreboard

[Gansk]

Said a different way: the army of an alignment consists of one monster of every variety that has been published in all of the source material.

You got it.

Can we get a count of how many we have in the list? If NG only has 800 to N's 850, for instance, that lets me know I've got to get a 50 creature lead by the end.

Unfortunately, I can't give those kinds of numbers, because I don't know them yet! I only finished organizing the CR 4 monsters yesterday. I have 16 more CR's to go!

I would use the announcements as a barometer to whether you are ahead or not. If your alignment is forced to send out a higher CR monster first, then you're behind. If not, then you're ahead.

 

[GuardianLurker]

If your general goes down, you lose, scoreboard or no scoreboard.

To get a better understanding of what is going on, you need to keep in mind that the good and neutral alignments have an inherent disadvantage compared to the evil alignments. The evil alignments outnumber their neutral factions in Round 1 of the Battle, so they can afford to have a losing record. The other alignments don't have that luxury.

So a winning record for a good alignment just means they are keeping pace with their neutral faction, but they are still in danger of losing.

That being the case, why not just do the general battles? Because the rest is absolutely meaningless. Or stated another way - you might as well calculate when the general would enter the battle in terms of CR, and just start the arenas from there. Based on the current scoreboard, it's averaging a one-for-one exchange with Neutral, so the general's entrance is very predictable.

Mind you, I don't think this will prove anything. There's a real risk that the general might die to a lower CR monster, especially since you start seeing "Save or Die" effects in the upper CRs, and as long as a general can die to the effect if he rolls a 1, all you've really shown is that bad rolls SUCK. And if there's enough of a number difference, that will happen.

 

[Infiniti2000]

That being the case, why not just do the general battles? Because the rest is absolutely meaningless. Or stated another way - you might as well calculate when the general would enter the battle in terms of CR, and just start the arenas from there. Based on the current scoreboard, it's averaging a one-for-one exchange with Neutral, so the general's entrance is very predictable.

Mind you, I don't think this will prove anything. There's a real risk that the general might die to a lower CR monster, especially since you start seeing "Save or Die" effects in the upper CRs, and as long as a general can die to the effect if he rolls a 1, all you've really shown is that bad rolls SUCK. And if there's enough of a number difference, that will happen.

Why do you play D&D? It's not like you win, so what's the purpose? When you find the answer to that, then you'll also have the answer to your question.

 

[GuardianLurker]

Why do you play D&D? It's not like you win, so what's the purpose? When you find the answer to that, then you'll also have the answer to your question.

I play it for many reasons, very few of which involve rolling dice, and many of which aren't applicable here. But that's not really the point.

The point is that this tourney is advertised as showing which Alignment Forces are "toughest". Which is not a bad question, and you could gain quite a lot of valuable analytical info along the way. And it's an incredibly massive undertaking. It could be incredibly boring, so an idea to make the process fun is a good one. And a "tourney" could be a pretty good test. Moreover, the fact that you actually run the battles vice doing pure number crunching is a good one, since it allows for the optimum use of abilities, and demonstrates real-game capabilities (something hard to extract with pure number analysis).

The question is what is meant by "toughest"? Whatever the answer to that question is what the tourney should measure and reward. Ideally, the overall winner of the tourney should be the one who excels at the most of the measured items. I'd submit to you that the items in the Battle Hall of Fame are all better indicators of "toughness" than the actual trophy, and that there is little correlation to winning those and winning the trophy. Which to me implies that the trophy is a poor measuring stick.

Analytically, the stuff that interests me are situations like the Fire Falcon combat, or the Dog's apparent strength, or the Baboon. Even the Ekrat points out a few interesting things.

But from a competitive viewpoint, the *only* thing that interests me is how the generals do.

What I'm suggesting is that Gansk would be better served by changing his victory conditions to bring the competitive and the analytical into agreement. One way to do this would be to treat each of the Hall of Fame awards as an "event", awarding bronze-silver-gold in each, and then calculating the overall winner based on an event-based point system. At that point, every combat matters. Alignments with more monsters still have an edge, but it's not an unassailable one.

 

[Gansk]

What I'm suggesting is that Gansk would be better served by changing his victory conditions to bring the competitive and the analytical into agreement. One way to do this would be to treat each of the Hall of Fame awards as an "event", awarding bronze-silver-gold in each, and then calculating the overall winner based on an event-based point system. At that point, every combat matters. Alignments with more monsters still have an edge, but it's not an unassailable one.

That's a valid proposition, and it's worth exploring. Here are my initial thoughts on the subject:

1) The second and third in each category is going to have a lot of ties.
2) The higher CR monsters are going to dominate the Hall of Fame. Do we need to award points after each CR is completed in all arenas?
3) Is this going to alter monster behavior into chasing certain records?

I'm willing to hear other people's opinions on this subject.

 

[GuardianLurker]

1) Not a bad point. I suspect that will be less true as we get higher and higher, since the monsters will be more varied in their capabilities. I see two potential resolutions a) give it to all of them; b) stage an exhibiton match.
2) Hmm. I was just thinking at end-of-tourney, but that's another option.
3) Only the ones under direct "sponsor" control. Most of those are ones you'd want us trying for anyway (the first 8 for instance). The only ones that seem really susceptible are the two "Longest X" categories. The first is probably better measured as "most consecutive opponents defeated", and I'm not sure the other tells us anything at all. The rest (all the "Most Damage" categories) aren't under player control really.

And Gansk - thanks for being rational when I wasn't.

 

[Gansk]

I've added a +/- number next to the alignment on the scoreboard. This number is the differential between the number of monsters each alignment can lose before introducing a higher CR monster and the number of monsters that Neutral can lose.

So, for example, LN is behind 5 monsters if they want Neutral to introduce a CR 4 monster before they do. Every combat they win will add one to the number, every combat they lose will subtract one from the number, and every draw will keep the number the same.

As soon as a higher CR monster is introduced into the arena, this number will be re-evaluated. So even though NG has a positive number now, they will be in for a real shock when the CR 2 monsters are introduced.

 

[Greybar]

GuardianLurker and Gansk:
If I understand things, there is very good reason not to do the Generals battle first.

Let's say as NG, since I hear I have a short list, my General might be called in while my opponent has 12 creatures left and then the General. My General has to wade through those last 12 creatures just to get to the opposing General. That's very different from facing him down on the spot.

I like this, and it might help rebalance things for the good-aligned guys, who have a tendency to have healing powers. For instance, if I choose an Angel of some kind to be my General, I might be able to take on my opponents CR19 monster, use a Heal in the moment I have between rounds, beat the CR20, use another Heal, then take that deep breath before facing the enemy General.

 

[GuardianLurker]

True. The problem is the plethora of "Save-or-Die" abilities at high CRs - like a Balor's implosion SLA. And once you're dead, all the heals in the world won't help you.

But the real problem is that aside from determining when the general enters, the rest of the combats are essentially meaningless. This is compounded by the problem that we're all real close to 50/50, so there isn't going to be much variance (if the trend continues as is likely) from just counting the monsters up.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I don't mean to get on your case about this, GuardianLurker, but I really disagree with you. I for one don't care which alignment wins overall nor do I plan to make little marks in my books to modify individual creature's challenge ratings by one or two. The only thing that interests me here are how the battles themselves are carried out. I'm doing my best to make them interesting and fun to read, and ugulu's combats are a blast as well. I've tried to convince friends of mine to read these threads and their reaction probably explains the low interest we are having here (we barely have enough to cover the alignments, with Gansk still tackling the whole N). They don't want to read the combats like they were chess matches, but interesting battles and lots of description.

I think having the ulterior motive of an analytical evaluation of the monsters and determining valid metrics for comparisons of the challenge ratings is fine. The primary purpose, however, as with D&D, should be to have fun and make it enjoyable for readers. I'd like to see so many people interested that Gansk could spend all his time rolling dice and doing behind-the-scene calculations. (ENWorld has how many members and we have only 9 or so participants?) Lurkers could then read through the battles and not only enjoy them, but perhaps it would stimulate them into using some of the descriptive text or create adventures on based what they read. I'm sure also that reading these combats will help every reader out there learn about the rules, tactics, and how to run a successful game.

So, when you say that the entirety of the low-level combats are meaningless, I not only disagree (okay, some of them are, but not all), but I also feel offended that you think our efforts are wasted. So, please, I urge you to reconsider your attitude on the overall exercise and I hope that the lurkers read this and remain interested and hopefully encourage themselves and others to participate.