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Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Can we have a discussion about the assumptions we make in terms of balance?
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<blockquote data-quote="Amrûnril" data-source="post: 9148470" data-attributes="member: 6841183"><p>One place I think a lot of discussions go wrong is an overemphasis on precision and an underemphasis on uncertainty.</p><p></p><p>When estimating damage, for instance, one needs to make assumptions about parameters like enemy AC and saves, rest frequency, encounter distance, and frequency of concentration checks. Arguing about the "right" values for these parameters, or citing decimal-precision calculations based on a given parameter set, is ultimately misguided because the appropriate values will be different at every table and in every encounter. Hypothetically, one could present in-game results as a probability distribution, but doing this in a mathematically rigorous way would require data collection and statistical analysis at the level of an academic publication rather than a forum post or youtube video (and would still require debatable assumptions).</p><p></p><p>What's far more helpful to balance discussions is isolating the specific tradeoffs (or lack thereof) that distinguish competing options and considering whether those tradeoffs are fair. When comparing the Champion and Battlemaster, for instance, calculating overall DPR is less informative than asking how many attacks per rest it takes for improved crit to break even with superiority dice and how reasonable a number that is. </p><p></p><p>If one does find a metric of in-game effectiveness desirable, though, it's essential to recognize that such calculations may differ from what's happening at the average table, and that what's happening at other tables may in turn differ from that average. This may be unsatisfying, but honestly communicated uncertainty is a far better foundation for a discussion than falsely confident precision.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Amrûnril, post: 9148470, member: 6841183"] One place I think a lot of discussions go wrong is an overemphasis on precision and an underemphasis on uncertainty. When estimating damage, for instance, one needs to make assumptions about parameters like enemy AC and saves, rest frequency, encounter distance, and frequency of concentration checks. Arguing about the "right" values for these parameters, or citing decimal-precision calculations based on a given parameter set, is ultimately misguided because the appropriate values will be different at every table and in every encounter. Hypothetically, one could present in-game results as a probability distribution, but doing this in a mathematically rigorous way would require data collection and statistical analysis at the level of an academic publication rather than a forum post or youtube video (and would still require debatable assumptions). What's far more helpful to balance discussions is isolating the specific tradeoffs (or lack thereof) that distinguish competing options and considering whether those tradeoffs are fair. When comparing the Champion and Battlemaster, for instance, calculating overall DPR is less informative than asking how many attacks per rest it takes for improved crit to break even with superiority dice and how reasonable a number that is. If one does find a metric of in-game effectiveness desirable, though, it's essential to recognize that such calculations may differ from what's happening at the average table, and that what's happening at other tables may in turn differ from that average. This may be unsatisfying, but honestly communicated uncertainty is a far better foundation for a discussion than falsely confident precision. [/QUOTE]
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Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Can we have a discussion about the assumptions we make in terms of balance?
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