[GRIM TALES] varying action dice by level - yay or nay?

[Wulf Ratbane]

Dude, MAX and MIN functions, they are your friend.


=SUM(J2:L2)-MIN(J2:L2)

is a lot easier than

=IF(J2>K2,J2+(IF(K2>L2,K2,L2)),K2+(IF(J2>L2,J2,L2)))

There you go again Bryon. Taking my convoluted and conplicated formula for adding the largest two of three numbers and dropping the lowest, and rendering it useless and unnecessary with one sentance for a quick and easy, non-formulaic-involved fix.

Thanks for (again) preventing me from over-complicating my Excel. This is why I am a BryonD client.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Somewhere on a South Pacific island, sits a young man staring at the surf
His native girlfriend died a death quite violent. They tribal sacrificed her to the earth

A HA! That's been bugging me for a while now. Finally placed it. (You have good taste.)

Say, Bryon-- as long as you're peeking at the dice spreadsheet:

Is there a formulaic way to figure out the average of "Roll n X-sided dice, drop lowest, and total the remainder?" that scales infinitely and I can plug in any kind of die-- something easier than typing out all the values in every iteration?

Wulf

 

[BryonD]

Somewhere on a South Pacific island, sits a young man staring at the surf
His native girlfriend died a death quite violent. They tribal sacrificed her to the earth

A HA! That's been bugging me for a while now. Finally placed it. (You have good taste.)

Umgawa

Say, Bryon-- as long as you're peeking at the dice spreadsheet:

Is there a formulaic way to figure out the average of "Roll n X-sided dice, drop lowest, and total the remainder?" that scales infinitely and I can plug in any kind of die-- something easier than typing out all the values in every iteration?

Wulf

Yep,

= if('problem is screwed up probability'$a$1 = TRUE,CONTACT=CRGREATHOUSE,"")

Seriously, I don't think there is a flat formula for the problem you described. But I'd be surprised if some probability guru hasn't pounded out a complicated solution somewhere along the way and you just need to talk to the right expert.

I recall joking with Charles at one point about rolling 100d6 and taking the middle three for ability scores. He gave me some kind of answer and that was good enough for me.

I could code out an n by X^n array that automatically did the brute force solution. But, honestly, I could manually brute force quite a few variations myself in the same amount of time.....

 

[GlassJaw]

Wulf, use the RANDBETWEEN function. It's in the Analysis ToolPak Add-In. Go to Tools > Add-Ins > Analysis TookPak.

You can then choose a range of numbers and it will return a random number in that range. So you can make a cell in which you choose the die type and then create a function RANDBETWEEN(1,XCELL).

You can then just make a column that repeats this function for as many dice as you want to roll.

If you want to drop the lowest, Sum all the values and then subtract the MIN from the same list. SUM(CELLX:CELLY)-MIN(CELLX:CELLY).

It's a little clunky but it works.

 

[BryonD]

That will give a large number of random results that should approximate the correct answer.
But it will not give the discrete true average.

EDIT: Though honestly, a spreadsheet preset to crank out 1,000 interations of 20 dice and take the top N-1 out of the first N would probably serve just as well as a "perfect" soultion.

 

[Yuan-Ti]

Did I wander into a math convention?

 

[soulforge]

Can you guys explain to me the reasons to pick up the burn die feat? I understand why you would want to lower the burn die when your casting, but why would an adept want to raise it?

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Can you guys explain to me the reasons to pick up the burn die feat? I understand why you would want to lower the burn die when your casting, but why would an adept want to raise it?

It depends on the base spell die used in the campaign, and how high your Spell Burn Resistance is:

If your spell burn resistance exceeds the maximum result on the die, it might be better to raise it up.


Wulf

 

[GlassJaw]

Can you guys explain to me the reasons to pick up the burn die feat? I understand why you would want to lower the burn die when your casting, but why would an adept want to raise it?

I asked Wulf about this very recently. Basically, if you lower the die, you increase your chance of boosting the caster level of the DC if you roll the max. But in doing so, you also increase your chances of rolling a 1, which is autonmatic spell burn.

If you raise the die and you have a lot of spell burn, you chances of rolling the max decrease but so do your chances of rolling a 1.