Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6264117" data-attributes="member: 42582">There is, at least currently, no way to simply apply superiority dice as bonus damage.Dirty Trick permits either bonus damage (d6, or d10 from 15th level) or advantage on the next attack, if the die roll equal or exceeds the target's WIS mod.The worst-case for trade-off is if the target has a +6/+10 WIS - in that case, if I roll a 5 (or 9) I get that much damage, whereas the higher roll confers advantage.So is advantage on an attack worth 5 (or 9) bonus damage?Let's compare 1st and 15th level.At 1st level, to hit is (say) +1 for Prof and +3 for Stat, or +4. Damage, let's say, is 1d8+3, or 15/2.So when is advantage worth +5 to damage?The relevant equation can be worked out as follows:At 1st level, the increase damage expectation from attacking with advantage has to equal or exceed 5 damage.For a given AC, chance to miss equals (AC-1-bonus to hit)/20, or at 1st level equals  (AC - 5)/20. (The additional -1 is because a roll equal to the AC hits rather than misses.)The chance to hit without advantage therefore equals 1- (AC-5)/20, = (25-AC)/20.The chance to hit with advantage equals 1 - ((AC-5)^2)/400.The additional chance to hit, with advantage, therefore equals  1 - ((AC-5)^2)/400 - (25-AC)/20,= (400 - (AC-5)^2 - 20(25-AC))/400= (400 - AC^2 +10AC -25 -500 + 20AC)/400= (30*AC - AC^2 - 125)/400.For an AC of 13, this gives an extra chance to hit of 0.24. For that to be worth 5 damage, expected damage on a hit would have to be almost 20 and 5/6ths. Conversely, if expected damage on a hit is 15/2, then advantage on the attack is comparable to +1.8 damage.The effective bonus to hit peaks at AC 15 (the derivative of the above equation is (30 - 2*AC)/400, which equals zero when AC = 15). At that rather high AC, the bonus chance to hit = 0.25. At which point advantage on the attack is comparable to +1.875 damage.So at 1st level, Dirty Trick is really not that effective: given that few creatures will have WIS bonuses above +1 or +2, it's analogous to a little bit less than +1 or +2 to damage. I'm not sure I want to say it's a trap choice, but it's not making a huge contribution to damage output.At 15th level it's no better. Let's say the bonus to hit is now +5 (prof) +5 (stat) +1 (magic), or +11 overall, and damage is 1d8 +5 (stat) +1 (magic), or 21/2.The chance to hit without advantage is now 1- (AC-12)/20, = (32-AC)/20.The chance to hit with advantage equals 1 - ((AC-12)^2)/400.The additional chance to hit, with advantage, therefore equals  1 - ((AC-12)^2)/400 - (32-AC)/20,= (400 - (AC-12)^2 - 20(32-AC))/400= (400 - AC^2 +24AC -144 -640 + 20AC)/400= (44*AC - AC^2 - 384)/400.For an AC of 13, this gives an extra chance to hit of just less than 1/20. That is worth around 0.5 hp of damage. For an AC of 15, it's about 1/8th, hence a bit more than +1 to damage.The effective bonus to hit peaks at AC 22 (the derivative of the above equation is (44 - 2*AC)/400, which equals zero when AC = 22). At that extremely high AC, the bonus chance to hit = 0.25. At which point advantage on the attack is comparable to just over +2.5 to damage.Because the chance to hit actually scales faster than opponent AC, at least in the current playtest, Dirty Trick actually becomes weaker at 15th level, because the 1d10 means you're more likely to get advantage, which is not as strong as +1 or +2 damage from the die. I think that does count as a trap. Maybe  [MENTION=66111]Cybit[/MENTION] can comment on whether this has been addressed in more recent versions of the rules.This is a bit mathematically ugly: when is 2 attacks with advantage better than 3 normal attacks? Assuming a 16 DEX for the same to hit chances as the fighter above, we are asking when2*(1 - ((AC-5)^2)/400) >= 3 * (25-AC)/20. (The average damage doesn't matter, as it is constant across the two options, so only expected number of hits counts.)40*(1 - ((AC-5)^2)/400) >= 75-3*AC400 - (AC-5)^2 >= 750-30*AC-400 + (AC-5)^2 <= 30*AC - 750AC^2 - 10*AC + 25 -400 +750 - 30*AC <= 0AC^2 - 40*AC +375 <= 0.(AC-15)(AC-25) <=0So only if AC is 16 or above is advantage on 2 attack actually superior to 3 attacks. (At AC 15 they're equivalent. At AC 14 or below 3 attacks is superior.)This reminds me of Power Attack: what looks like an option but in many cases really isn't one, and hence we have a trap for new players. I think they would be better off rid of it: make a decision about how you want to handle Flurry, and implement that. Alternatively, make it so that you can only spend the point on Supreme Flurry if you've already spent a point on normal flurry.The possibility that a mathematically weak player might make the mistake of thinking that his/her 2nd level option is more powerful than the 1st level one, when for most ACs you'll face at that level it's actually weaker, is to me quite frustrating and a sign of bad design.I haven't done the maths, but the 2nd level option will only get weaker at high levels - just as Dirty Trick gets weaker for the fighter - because the benefits of advantage decrease as the bonus to hit scales faster than AC, whereas an extra attack is a 3/2 damage multiplier. (Until 8th level, at which point it's a 5/4 damage multiplier and the maths has to all be redone. I'll leave that to someone else. And I hope monk players enjoy their quadratic equations!)I don't think that's right. Abjure Enemy imposes the frightened condition, which is an immobilising debuff. And Vow of Enmity grants advantage on attacks for 1 minute, and as far as I can see doesn't require an action to use.</blockquote>

Verification