Ao the Overkitty
First Post
Bad d20. No cookie!
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Dice Survivor, Finale: d6 vs. d20
- Thread starter Gez
- Start date
fanboy2000
Adventurer
Roll a natural 30.
... followed by about half a page of math.Celebrim said:
So if you have some limited supply of magical "boosts", you should save them for those situations where you are almost certain to miss, rather than when it's likely to just put you over the edge. Ehm... does that seem intuitive to you? It doesn't to me...
Keep in mind that I framed the question as "when should I use my *last* +2 arrow". The absolute damage increase is the same regardless of whether it's a hard or easy hit, so I fail to see how my example was wrong.
Easily: it won't go significantly faster in either case. If you need a 17 to hit on 3d6, you should be thinking of finding better ways to attack and/or getting the heck out of there. And if you hit on a 6, you're already hitting a solid majority of the time anyway.
What makes you think that? I was quite serious.TheEvil said:
However, this does seem to be a point that's hard to explain to people whose experience of roleplaying systems have already been warped by d20 or other linear systems. As soon as people start asking (as Celebrim did above) "so show me how you would calculate the probability", I know they're missing the point altogether...
Celebrim
Legend
Conaill said:... followed by about half a page of math.
The half page of math was only to show you that you don't understand the problem nearly as well as you think you do. The problem with all the d6 systems - whether West End Games Star Wars or GURPS - or even the World of Darkness d10 system is that the GM doesn't have complete control over the difficulty of the challenges he's giving because he just doesn't understand the implications of what he's doing. He can't easily foresee how difficult a challenge actually is by playing out average scenarios in his head. Pardon the phrase, but he's just pulling things out of his ass.
No, it wouldn't. You're analysis above is based off of your intuitive understanding of the math, but your analysis is leading you astray. Your deeper intuitive sense - as evidenced by your assertion in your previous post - is that you should save your limited resources for the difficult situations. That is correct, as I just demonstrated with a little tuitive excersive in math. The intuition of someone who wasn't exposed to the math of D20 or GURPS or whatever would lead them to the correct analysis. Your tuitive understanding of math is leading you wrong.
That doesn't matter. The math stays the same whether its the last 10 arrows or the last 3 arrows or the very last arrow, the really important question is 'At what time should I use this arrow so that the odds favor the most drastically effect on the outcome of the battle'? And the answer to that is intuitive answer, 'When the fight is tough'. (Note that I restrict the discussion to '+2 to hit' arrows, because things get slightly more complicated with '+2 to hit and damage', but in the above case the answer would have been the same.) Lets say that the fight is over when someone in the group hits with the 3rd arrow. When should you use your last +2 arrow? On that fight when everyone in the group would have a hard time hitting, not on that fight when you'd likely hit anyone. It doesn't really matter that your +2 arrow is more likely to miss. It's that on average in the hard fight every +2 to hit arrow you fire shaves a bigger fraction of a turn of the length of the combat, which means that the enemy has less times to attack you.
I know you fail to see that. That is my point. Lets say I hit the hard target with every 4th arrow. If I need to hit with 3 arrows, it takes me 12 rounds. If I can change that by firing +2 arrows to hitting with every 3rd arrow, then the fight lasts on average 3 less rounds. But against the soft target, if I hit with almost every arrow I might shave the total number of rounds in the fight by 1 or so. So, then answer is 'Don't fire +2 to hit arrows at mooks, but only at hard targets'.
And again, in both cases you are missing the complexities. Sure, if you need a 17 to hit on a 3d6, you probably should be thinking of finding better ways to attack - like finding a +2 bonus to hit. If you need a 15 to hit, you've gone from hitting like 1 in 64 times, to hitting like 1 in 11 times. You are now 6 times as likely to hit with just a +2 bonus. The fight lasts 1/6th as long! Meanwhile, with the +2 bonus on the other end, you go from like a 90% chance to succeed to a 98% chance to succeed. If the thing you are trying to succeed at is hitting the opponent, this is no big deal because presumably its going to take more than one good swing. Again, you aren't shaving many rounds off the fight. But, if the thing you are trying to do is catch the ledge while jumping over the bottomless chasm, a +2 bonus IS HUGE, because your only a 1/5th as likely to fail.
And that's why things go crazy when you are trying to referee a 3d6 system. That -4 penalty to success can be freaking huge and it can be freaking huge in totally unpredictable ways depending on whether the character in question needs 15, 13, or 11 to succeed normally (or in the case of GURPS, if he needs lower than those totals).
Where as D20, the math behind the game is so simple and straight forward (every +1 or -1 is a flat 5% change) that I don't have to think about it. It's easy.
Oh bloody hell. I've refereed GURPS games. I've refereed Vampire games. I've refereed Marvel Superheroes games. I've refereed all sorts of games. Likewise, I've played in all sorts of games. I'm not the one missing the point here. I went to d20 from GURPS because the extra complexities of GURPS are in practice just not worth it. The linear systems simply do the job better. If you are thinking of something like GURPS, then understand that you've got a mechanic with an underlying bell curve, but you can't shape that bell curve in a particularly interesting manner. You are just giving out linear modifiers to it, and linear modifiers can have really amplified results depending on where on the bell curve each particular character lies. Now, if on the other hand you are doing Vampire games, you can shape your bell curves in interesting manners - but your a better man than I if you can really keep track of whether 3 successes vs. difficulty 7 is harder or easier than 2 successes vs. difficulty 8 and so forth. Eventually, you decide that all of that abstraction of the actual probablities is nothing but a headache. You might as well use a coin flip mechanic, and let the player call heads or tails. In practice, you'll have about the same degree of control over the system.
Linear mechanics aren't perfect. Heck, any mechanic built around dice is going to have flaws based on the spread between the high and low values. But linear mechanics are alot simplier to use and predict than complex ones - and they accomplish the very same thing. You can run a 3d6 system using a d% if you want, and the advantage there is that a linear bonus or penalty has a much more predictable effect because you aren't leaping up or sliding down a curve.
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