No, its not. You're looking at the marginal percentage chance that it goes off and not its marginal value. You're also ignoring the diminishing marginal returns on increased hit points and the the diminishing marginal returns on actions. You're also ignoring the opportunity cost of blocking an attack
You are greatly mistaken. I'm ignoring none of these. The only argument that you can make that holds any water is that with a higher staff value it might be easier to pass on a 1st round attack that you felt was less threatening than a future attack might be. The problem with this is by holding off you offset the potential gain by the possibility that you would fail to get to use the power at all. I exactly calculated the odds of using the power. There is no way to argue it's use gets exponentially better as you gain con, it only gets marginally better and it's margin is decreasing.
Why does diminishing marginal returns on actions and hit points increase the returns on protection? Well, your expected value for loss depends on both the chance you get hit, the damage you take, and actions you lose. So as the damage you take gets higher and the actions you lose get more costly, its more important to block those attacks.
This is fluff. Your actions and hit points do not change in relative value over time. The game scales in a linear fashion, it's just as important to not get stunned at 4th level as it is at 14th as it is at 24th. More importantly since you can only block one attack per encounter with the staff, beyond the point where you're nearly always getting to use it, there is almost no increase in benefit.
Now, the cost of blocking an attack is the chance that you can block another. So initially, with a low value you get a chance to block an attack you pretty much have to take it, the cost of not doing so is low(you might not be able to use it again), but the gain is relatively high.
You have this backwards, but I understand your point. I agree there is a slight gain in utility (nothing close to exponential) by increased confidence that you could pass on blocking a non condition attack in an early round and still have a relatively high confidence you'll block another later. This also has a chance of failing to work and potentially costing your character his life (which is a massive decrease in utility). I think they mostly offset but I'm willing to concede that there is a slight benefit. Since frequently monsters are unleashing their encounter powers early, this is a lot less benefit than you're trying to imply.
However, as your percentage chance of blocking anything increases, those opportunity costs increase for all attacks that are of low value, since you can get hit by something of high value instead and as your percentage chance of that happening increases the cost increases. But remember what opportunity cost is, its what we're giving up. Since the value of blocking any one attack is static then our other options must be increasing in value.
This is false. It also ignores the chance you'll fail to use the power. In any event if the attack is of low value you can still choose to ignore it regardless of how good your staff is. The same opportunity costs apply to both. The math gets better as you increase the con score but only slightly per increment and ever decreasingly. I can do the math of the probability of getting hit twice and it will definitely show this to be true. You're also ignoring the fact that a subsequent attack might do less damage than the one passed upon and thereby guarantee your decreased utility. Bottom line you argument regarding opportunity costs is very very weak and certainly not the basis for an EXPONENTIAL gain in utility.
And since we know that there is a decreasing marginal return on hit points and action(that is to say that attacks that take away more hit points or actions have an increasing marginal cost to us for every hit point and action they take away) we know that we're essentially increasing our marginal utility of our total expected payout faster than we're increases our marginal utility based on the question of "will i be able to use this". Because the question is rightly "will i be able to use this to block an attack that damages me greatly". I.E. since the vast majority of attacks do not impose a high cost, the ability to choose lets you choose the highest cost to block. The chance to block any single attack with a +1 gives you a linear increases in the payout of blocking that attack. The increasing chance to use that on a higher value attack means you must be increasing your payout in an increasingly marginal fashion.
Your argument is totally flawed here as you disregard the very real possibilities of NEVER getting to use the power as well as the possibility you'll have to use it on a weaker attack later or even worse, you'll get yourself killed because no future attack fell in the range. These are massive opportunity costs of the decision to "withhold use". It's marginal utility is definitely not increasing. I totally understand the concept of attempting to hold it for a more important attack but you're not factoring many real facets of the game, especially the concepts that the strongest powers are often released in the first 2 rounds and failing to use the power at it's first opportunity can get you killed.
Its for this reason that the wand bonus also has an increasing marginal return, because the question is not "do i get more of a chance to use this" or "do i get to to increase my return on any specific attack" but "do i get to hit with my best attack when i need to, and do i increase that probability?"
This argument is repeated all over DnD forums, that still doesn't make it right and it's certainly not mathematically correct. You're totally ignoring that in most uses of wand it fails to change the outcome of the attack. By about a 7-1 ratio on average. Even with an 18 dex, the wand is only useful 1 time in 5. The fallacious logic that it's on "the big attack" is dreadful reasoning since few if any monsters are slain by one big attack. A lot of orb lock down arguments try and say this increased chance magnifies the orbs power but that's simply ignoring the fact that by the time you have lock down with the orb you have multiple powers that can inflict a debilitating effect. In the same 5 encounters the +1 of staff will likely block 3-4 hits by itself and the staff interrupt will block another 3-4. Blocking 8-9 attacks is massively more valuable than landing an additional attack (even if it's your big daily). The only way to argue wand is even remotely close to an equal utility is in getting a lock down stun on a solo. But since solo's are the majority of encounters and the wand still only changes about 1 roll in 7 this is really poor utility.
And again, that is not what we care about. We care about how long, on average, any enemy will be held. I.E. we don't necessarily care that the +1 doesn't help us on a roll of a 4, but we do care when they start rolling above 10. The marginal utility rightly then becomes for the first +1 1/10 and for the second 1/9 and for the third 1/8.
You're quite mistaken here as well. We do care about holding monsters as long as possible but these are not exponential gains, they are slightly increasing marginal gains but this still ignores the fact that +1 more orb only impacts about 1 encounter in 7. That's the reality. The math you're quoting pretends there is an increase in utility for holding something 10+ rounds.
Now, there is a limiting factor in that total lockdown is unnecessary since you're only going to be fighting for so many rounds(though this increases as time goes on), however this factor is not rubbed up against until you're looking at the huge marginal utility gains brought on by having +9 or more wisdom. A number which precludes a strong value in constitution, making an argument about its marginal utility at those values pointless for our discussion. Before that, the increases in utility are overhwelmingly marginally positive.
Once again, marginally positive is still not exponential gains. +9 for wisdom will not benefit your pc as much as +3 con, +6 wisdom (probably even 3/7 or 4/6 if you consider the opportunity costs associated with having a wisdom + 9 wizard). By starting with a 20 wisdom, your pc with will likely have terrible hitpoints and fortitude and will be perpetually behind in ATT which translates into a great number of misses over the life of a pc. Even as the number of rounds of combat go up, holding a significant monster out of combat for 4-5 rounds will drastically change the encounter dynamics. There is definitely a rapidly decreasing utility in forcing failed saves beyond a certain number of rounds.
Status effects on enemies you're attacking aren't all that valueable. If you were attacking the monster you would be laying down your encounter and at-will effects making him weaker. The idea of a status effect is to remove an enemy from the fight so that you don't have to deal with him. At epic levels you're going to be dealing with 10-15 round fights. Anything you do to increase your average hold over that is a big deal.
At what expense? You're endlessly talking about opportunity costs but don;t take any of the inverse opportunity costs into account. If you play an orb wizard and try for lock down by raising wisdom above INT you're ignoring all the times you've missed by a roll of 1 and would have started an additional status effect. No matter how you argue about marginal utility +1 on orb still only changes 1 roll in 20 saves on one single condition in an encounter (this averages out to about 3 rolls an encounter). The +1 ATT affects every attack roll in the encounter. This averages out to about 15-30 rolls per encounter. You're going to actually change about one save every 7 encounters with +1 wisdom but you're going to gain about 6-10 additional hits in that same time. Some of those might deliver a status so you might actually cause more rounds of status by not having as good an orb value but having a better ATT. Not to mention the massive increase in damage you'll be contributing to the effort.
Optimal play strategy has the wizard landing a save ends that hampers on an enemy and then ignoring it while they kill everything else. Marginal returns on the time itself are only slightly dimished(since the enemy is not dealing damage there is no increasing marginal cost imposted as combat extends and your hit points and surges get lower[these things being marginally more valuable the less you have]) compared to the massive increase in time that higher values represent[its possible that marginal returns are initially negative though i find it unlikely, but the margin on the margin is overwhelmingly positive]
You're deluding yourself.
Wand is an immediate interrupt. You apply it after the roll like the staff, you just don't apply it after the damage roll.
Um... NO, unless it's been errata'd it's a free action and it is applied before the roll. It is not an interrupt. This might explain your belief that it compares because that is not RAW and it most definitely is crippled by not being an interrupt.
Ironically if you rule that the ability cannot be used after you know whether or not it hits, the marginal utility increases dramatically, because for every + you add, not only do you increase linearly the chance you turn a miss into a hit, but you also decrease the uncertainty that exists from the question of "will this bonus on this attack hit the enemy" and "do i need to use this bonus to hit the enemy". Both of these will increase your expected return.
this is pseudo math. Blatantly false and barely makes sense.
The ability to place a scorching burst is much lower.
This is ridiculous. While it is true, you can impact further around an obstacle (but most likely only by cheating via metagame knowledge the pc wouldn't have) If you kept trying to hit monsters around corners you can't see as a DM I would leave the pieces in positions that didn't correspond to their exact location making you waste your turn frequently with blind fire. More importantly suggesting this compensates for the vast range of options given to the caster of scorching is ridiculous. You're still counting on several feats and being paragon level.
E.G. A wizard with thunderwave can land a blast at T while being in the position W by placing the origin square at O even if there is a wall at -
Code:
TTTT
TTTT
TTTT
TTTT
----0
W
In many situations this extends the wizards ability to hit enemies just as much as a scorching burst can when terrain is very open.
pretty situational and definitely cheating if you don't have some means of targeting the creatures.
Combat round time increases increasing the liklihood that people will be using their at will. The presence of a strong push at will increases the versatility of the player to choose effects on his encounters that do not overlap, this gives him more tactical control of the situation.
The first part is questionable, high level pc's will have more magic items, more encounter powers, more dailies, if combat rounds goes up the encounter is likely difficult and as such the pc's will be MORE likely to use up dailies. You're still not making a point that's relevant in the second part of this. No one is arguing that thunderwave isn't tactically valuable in a lot of situations. You've just come to the biased conclusion that this is both indispensable and too costly for your build. opportunity costs for your choices are a good thing. Having only one viable build is not. It's obvious that push 4 is better than push 2 but if you settle for push 2 you get other things in return. That's the nature of the game.
2 Feats. One of the three i listed is unnecessary. And Ray of Frost certainly doesn't with distance advantage and other abilities
If you couple ray of frost with wintertouched and lasting frost, you grant combat advantage to everyone in your party who takes wintertouched with every cold power. If they also have cold powers or a frost weapon you're talking about +5 damage on EVERY hit and +2(CA) on EVERY ATT (and sneak damage) for everyone. This is a massive combo.
You're not making it more powerful. You're increasing the power of non-optimal builds. Its the same thing as saying "great weapon fighters are at a disadvantage compared to sword and board fighters and should get an increase somewhere"
LOL, only if we accept your version of optimal build. It might be a lot of peoples contention that you're now giving the true optimal build a better version of T-wave.
The other option is to nerf the option for wisdom based wizards or to add effects to other at wills that scale with their respective secondary stats (effects that are as strong as the push on thunderwave)
are there hoards of players arguing t-wave is broken?
They do. They increase their ability to lock down enemies with save ends. In just the same way, staff wizards get a beneficial impact from pumping constitution. They get an increase in the ability to block an incoming attack once per round. Why should one of them get an increasing marginal return on an at will while the other doesn't. [Push strength is an increasing marginal return]
This is another very circumspect argument. There is no requirement for all secondary or tertiary ability scores to get equal treatment. The wizard description says secondarily on wis, dex and sometimes con. This implies that wis is the secondary stat. Is this bad?
The opportunity cost of choosing a wisdom based wizard is increased when you give the other options the ability to have that strong control mechanism.
The opportunity cost of choosing a staff wizard or wand wizard is static when you give them the ability to have that strong control mechanism. Their opportunity cost is unchanged, their benefit is increased.
is there a point here?
If you only have a push 2 you can prevent the flank on the rogue, but you can't stop the enemy from shifting again and striking the rogue. If you have a push 4, you can push the enemy to a position where he has to shift twice or provoke an OA for movement from the fighter.
who cares? this is totally anecdotal. You're not making an argument here. I understand push 4 is situationally better than 2. If you want to have a dominating wave, then pump wisdom if you're willing to accept a lesser wave, then so be it this is getting to the point of whining about wave. I don't have wave in my build. I took the opportunity cost at 1st level to trade a 3rd at-will for 1/encounter teleport. I shouldn't get both, that's what makes building pc's fun. You need to decide on your vision and tactics and build to suit.
Yes, the body is amazing but it is very vulnerable too. Know those weaknesses (arteries, tendons) and you can defeat an attacker with a fast cut more efficiently than hoping a heavy blow lands in the right place or a thrust to the body doesn’t get caught on the ribs etc.
ridiculously anecdotal. More people killed by swords in combat than knives by a factor of likely 10-1
I don’t think so. Some of the guys I train against are recognised as some of the best in the world. However my reference to daggers is probably misleading. I use dual knives. The blade is a foot long and flat on the reverse side, for blocking (as you know daggers are bladed on both sides).
Do you think you would fair well against a sword and board knight in chainmail? I don't. A trained fencer with an epee/foil? I don't. A samurai with a katana? I don't. A germanic barbarian with a maul or great axe? I don't. All of the present various problems for your system. You're not always going to be the best trained or the fastest and if you're not both of those you're likely going to die when wielding two knives vs a more imposing weapon. I guarantee you can't block my one handed swing with a long sword with a dagger. If you're inside the arc you're going to take damage and then it becomes a matter of recovery vs counter. I can feint you into exhaustion because you need to work overtime at avoiding being hit. I also guarantee that you can't strike a vital blow with a 1' knife if I shield bash you and extend my arm. Meanwhile I'm taking your balance and opening you up to a host of attacks from front leg attacks to a reach around thrust or an overhand crushing blow. Who ever you're sparring with is not using high force attacks because your wrist and forearm will not take the amount of energy a 6'5" 250lb man can generate even when spread out via the flat edge. Against a novice attacker you might be able to step inside a blow and fend off a heavy attack close to the hilt but a trained attacker will feint a chop and run you through when you step inside the blow. I know a little bit about two weapon fighting, two of my friends are "dog brothers". They train quite a bit and have regular gatherings for full contact stick fighting. They totally agree that switching which weapon is defending and which weapon is attacking is a fundamental part of two weapon combat, it still maintains my position that the second weapon doesn't actually grant a second attack (except rarely)
In the hands of an accomplished martial artist a weapon is merely an extension of their body. Ideally it should react as quickly as their own hands as well as having the structural strength behind it to block powerful blows.
I question this. I understand the techniques used to block heavy blows with knives (or tonfa) but there is a point where you can't maintain the block or the force with either overwhelm the defense or render the blocking arm less useful to some degree.
Due to their smaller size and weight you can fight with knives almost as quickly as you can use bare hands. Their lightness means you can change direction with them lightning fast too. And as I said above, it takes just one cut to a variety of areas to finish a fight.
I understand all of this but there are still two problems. First this still implies a defense and an offense which means 1 attack and second it ignores the very real possibility that you'll be killed before you ever close the range gap.
You are also seriously underestimating the effectiveness of having a second weapon. With a single weapon it’s like fighting in a fist fight with one hand tied behind your back. You’re options are severely restricted which makes you much more predictable.
bad analogy because even if i never hit you with my left hand it still can block your right or be used for control, leverage, grappling etc.
I was of course referring to experience or training with weapons. I’m assuming that you would have had some training in the SEALs with knives but as you know the training in them is very limited as the vast part of your training is with guns and other utility equipment. In fact, most people would be surprised to learn that in the whole of the armed services bare-handed and knife combat has little place in training, besides bayonet drilling. Most of the guys in the SAS here actually get their martial arts training outside of the forces and even fewer get proper training with weapons.
fighting with swords and knives is marginally obsoleted by firearms. The preponderance of military training is focused on weapons with greater range and has been for ages because killing the other team before they get in range is very effective.
But I’m sure now that you’re older and wiser you can see how pretty stupid you were getting yourself into bar fights, especially one every couple of weeks. In fact you’re lucky to be alive. To go into a bar fight and not know 1) how good your opponent is, 2) whether they are armed or 3) whether they have several friends nearby ready to jump you from behind is pretty crazy. My instructor was a bouncer for a several years and has several knife wounds from his years on the door. People out there are pretty crazy.
Even when I was younger I realized the potential for a serious negative outcome. I grew up in an area where Italians and Irish didn't always agree, and though I've never actually started a fight, I'm not particularly good at walking away. I have grown up, and I'm someones dad now. Only twice since my children were born has a situation arose where fighting seemed the only option. I probably could have avoided one of those with some serious effort but the other involved a pair of drunk men beating on a woman in a gas station and me verbally saying "hey, take it easy" precipitated an encounter.
HP's are a necessary abstraction to make dnd fun. No one enjoys automatically losing a pc every 50 or 100 attacks.
I have already explained that a simple cut can kill a person, that’s not a ‘weak’ attack if they’re bleeding to death. Whether they’re armed or trained is irrelevant to the point. And if they’re armoured then a) that slows them down making my additional speed much more of an advantage and b) a thrust with a knife using the right body dynamics and structure can be very powerful and penetrate most armour (assuming they’re covered from head to toe and have no exposed areas you could attack instead)
while a simple cut "can" kill a person, the truth is it most likely won't. I've seen someone with a punctured heart survive. I totally agree it's possible to generate enough force to puncture most armors with a knife. The tricky part here is if your opponent is trained he's likely going to be impeding your ability to generate a perfect attack either through his posture, his active defenses, or his offense. His passive defenses are therefore vastly improved because most of your attacks will wind up being sub optimal.
Reach is an advantage when using similar weapons (hands in your case) and you are evenly matched in ability.
Reach is pretty much always an advantage. Obviously if someone has a 15' pike and you pass his guard it's game over but a 30" sword has a MASSIVE advantage over a 12" knife. Give me a broadsword and a spiked buckler and I'll dominate your two knife system even though my training is extremely minimal with that pairing. I'll certainly teach you a massive lesson about lead leg vulnerability. The suggestion that it's easy to close the range or that it's really hard to use a spear to good effect on an attacker who is trying to close seems poorly chosen. Men have hunted lions with spears for ages. Hunting lions with knives would be tantamount to suicide. An elephant? Rhino? Dragon? DnD has to abstract weapons into a balanced game. 1' knives would be pitiful against a scaled dragon with a 10-15' reach. Any weapon would be seemingly pitiful but it's a lot easier to imagine a sword or spear having effect than a dagger.
Sorry not true. I can stop a full swing from a baseball bat with one knife. As I mentioned before, it’s a matter of getting the right technique and body structure. Don’t try it at home readers. It takes years of training to get it right!
A trained attacker will shift his angle slightly and seriously damage your forearm. Your wrists must be extremely flexible or the knives shaped oddly to get enough surface on your forearm. If you're suggesting that you're deflecting rather than blocking I'm suggesting your attackers are not good. I also think you're mistaken that you're blocking a full swing. There's a lot of energy being created by the head speed of the bat/sword and the knife is not spreading it over the entire forearm like a tonfa might.
Well, APC, I don’t blame you but you obviously don’t know how to use 2 weapons properly.
One of the problems with sparring that might lead you to a mistaken conclusion is the belief that you can repeatedly block a full speed sword swing under an adrenal state. If they were sparring against you with a bat or sword and took a full swing you would have a serious chance of being injured. This leads me to believ you're not facing full force attacks from a suitable weapon. This isn't something easily replicated for training and the mechanical 1/4 speed training you might have done most likely DOES NOT REPLICATE actual combat.
And you can’t bring the comparison of modern warfare into this either. A bayonet is attached to the end of a gun for a reason. A soldier, would never drop their gun to draw 2 knives, you of all people should know that. However, 2 knives has a massive advantage over a stick with a knife on the end of it.
DnD has lions and bears and dragons... I think you would rapidly change your mind when presented with these situations. I'm also of the opinion if this was the case, there would be statues of double knife wielding warriors in in Rome.
This shows your limited understanding in the use of weapons. A weapon is only dangerous when it enters a certain zone around you where it can reach you. When the weapon can reach you, you can reach it.
you're mistaken. I'm well aware of the liabilities of weapons as well as their strengths. People attacking with a weapon often lose focus and pay attention entirely to their weapon thus if you control the weapon you control them.
An untrained person only thinks about attacking the person “looking for an opening”, not attacking the weapon and controlling it so you can then attack the person. You overlooked this most crucial part of my post, that after deflecting/blocking then you attack the hand/arm that has the weapon, as we say “defang the snake”.
You overlook the most important part of my post. More often than not, offense trumps defense in combat. More often than not you'll be killed before you reach knife range. If your argument held water we would have seen a lot more of that system in historical combats. When I said looking for an opening I meant an opening to advanced my position without letting you advance yours. I've actually had firearms and knives pointed at me in the heat of the moment and I'm still here, so I think you might assume that I'm well aware of the concept of attacking the weapon/weapon hand.
As you say in another post, armies are actually made up of people who aren’t well trained. Put a stick with a blade on the end in their hands. Form them up and march them at the other side. I don’t know where you got 20% dead from but the vast majority of deaths occurred after the actual battle from injuries that were usually poorly treated.
No I never said that. I said that reach weapons often allowed lesser trained troops to kill better trained troops before they could close and use their training. Many armies had tons of training. You're not really making a point here. I gave you hard numbers I can prove and you're commenting on woeful medical practices in medieval times. I just pointed out your assertion that most combats end in a few seconds is simply not true or else a battle that lasted hours would see casualty rates beyond anything ever experienced. An average centurion would carve you up without missing a step because he has more training, more experience, and better reach.
you're really kidding yourself. How many hours a day do you train?
Only more formidable in the sense they can do greater crushing damage from their sheer weight. Recovery time is not the major disadvantage of a reach weapon. It’s once you’re past the pointy end, from either a miss or a deflection that the user is pretty much at their opponent’s mercy.
History must be wrong. You keep assuming the miss incidentally. What happens when they don't miss? what happens when you face an even marginally well trained attacker who knows that 1' knives can't protect your leading leg? how will you close then? There are also a lot of weapons that you can't ever gain a real advantage on. A 20" gladius sharp on both sides, can be used to attack your weapon hands or leading leg and it's speed is comparable to that of a knife. You can almost never get insides it's reach but it still has an advantage when striking you first.
Never fought someone with a short sword and shield, so I can’t really comment on it unless you want me to give it some serious thought and come back to you. And I’ve always agreed with you that having two daggers shouldn’t mean you get an extra attack. I only spoke out against you saying that two daggers was an inferior fighting form when my direct experience and training says otherwise
OK, I'm not there when you train but I suspect that you can't mirror real world combat and safely train your style and as such some things fall through the cracks. Stopping one heavy sword blow (i.e. a perfectly placed baseball bat attack) and stopping several during the fluidity of combat are not the same. I'm unsure how your system would respond to punches from a spiked buckler, or shield with sharpened edges. Your system has to rely on agility and a shield rush can take away a lot of options.
Please don’t treat me like I’m some teenage kid who hasn’t been around the block a bit and is just going by what he sees on TV or reads in comics. I know the dangers of live weapons, I know how a sword can be used in combat and I also know how to counter it. I never said it was easy but using two knives gives you options that a single sword user just doesn’t have.
I fully agree with you when it comes to the D&D game, we can’t make it a simulation of reality. But I’m not arguing that, I’m taking you to account on what you perceive reality to be when you haven’t trained in it.
Point taken. I apologize. I'm not trying to be little you but I think there is a lot of empirical data that says sword and shield was the combo of choice. I don't think your training mimics actual combat close enough to be sure that a heavy sword attacker won;t cave in your defenses under a flurry of blows. Heavy swords sometimes caved in the defenses of heavy shields and you can't really believe blocking with a dagger is easier or less risky than blocking with a shield.
There are definitely many ways a sword and shield can work together but I would argue that two short knives in your hands work much faster and more harmoniously/fluidly.
I agree on fluidity and speed. Harmoniously is a judgment call. My problem is that I perceive the reach advantage to be significant enough to overcome the fluidity/speed.
