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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 6726153" data-attributes="member: 3586">Originally posted by Clutchbone:Wow! This is amazing work, thanks! So it seems that Evokers are even better than they seem, based on the flat Dex scores across most monster types/CR levels.Originally posted by GladiusLegis:Great work, though I have one question. On saving throws, would it have been better to take just bonuses into account, rather than the ability score proper? Because many monsters have proficiency in saves, and just plotting ability scores doesn't account for that.Originally posted by Sorxores:and maybe add teh legendary resistance as well, since they are very important for both party and DM strategy. I won'T go cast disintegrate against a lich as my first spell, I'll wait for the lich to burn his legendary resistance on smaller spell like fireball, hold person and contagion.Originally posted by raleel: I could have, yes. Perhaps another table, but it is quite a bit more work for that. Maybe with immunities as well <img src="http://community.wizards.com/sites/all/modules/custom/forest_site/smileys/wizards/smile.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> However, most creatures don't have specific ones, and this was averaged over type and CR. You are likely to be fighting stuff that has a similar Proficiency bonus to you, so... essentially they should come close to cancelling. Stat inflation won't, though. What this does say is that as you increase in level, certain stats will go up naturally, regardless of proficiency bonuses. it will only get worse if they do have proficiency bonuses. Consider dragons. Many of them have proficiency with Dex, which means that they won't be that easy to hit with a fireball. But they also have proficiency with Con, which does increase with level. Thus, Con is going to be very bad because they are at least matching your stat increase and matching your proficiency.Originally posted by raleel: yes, as a whole. Proficiency ends up effectively neutrallizing each other, and you end up with your stat increase against theirs. Since you are likely going to be dropping every last point into your casting stat, up to 20, you will increase in relative effectiveness.Originally posted by raleel: I'll probably drop that in with immunities. That's quite a chunk more data to add in <img src="http://community.wizards.com/sites/all/modules/custom/forest_site/smileys/wizards/smile.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Originally posted by TheBigHouse: Awesome work on this raleel. I would also be intersted in seeing the numbers with prof bonuses added in. It would be intersting to see if certain monster types tend to have prof bonuses which affect which defense is optimal to target.Originally posted by Bloodlust1997:This is great PLAYER knowledge, not very useful in game if you're playing first level characters progressing upwards, otherwise you're using Meta Gaming.Originally posted by Tfuture:Awesome analysis.. my only suggestion would be to perhaps remove the Terrsaque from your analysis as IMO its meant to be a ridiculously overpowered monster and would come under a statisitical outlier and i dont think realistically a party would/should encounter without an extremely sadistic DM.. like i said just my opinion, feel free to disregard.Originally posted by raleel:I left it in there for the sake of completeness. I would personally ignore everything over about CR17. the are so specially geared and matter for only a small part of the game. re: prof bonuses. Perhaps when I get some more time. I think it does matter. I looked at several monsters with high Cons and they didn't have prof bonuses there, but had bonuses to shore up their weak stats.Originally posted by R123456:Any chance you would be willing to share your data file used to do the calculations and visualizations? I'd like to pull the data into R-Studio and do some analysis. My MM will arrive next week and having the same data you used would save me a lot of time.Originally posted by Clutchbone: Many people tailor their character concept and progression to be "coincidently" optimal down the road. "Oh gosh, I sure am lucky that my evocation focus is great for fighting the low-dex-save dragons we're encountering on this adventure [Hoard of the Dragon Queen]!" Others metagame as a whole party to make sure that multiple roles/proficiencies/spell saves/etc are covered. "Wow, isn't it great that a fighter, wizard, cleric and rogue all happened to be in this exact tavern at the exact moment the cultists attacked?" Also some people just like seeing the data and design behind a gaming system. Originally posted by borg285:Please open your doc for public viewing.Please add linear regression equations to scatter plots rather than averages. While showing the standard deviation is a nice simplification, oft-times just looking at the data gives us intuition on whether or not we have enough data to safely rely on a model we use. Please reduce on how many significant digits you use. As is, it's TMI. I'd prefer 1-2 digits after the decimal point.Rather than showing max - min, which biases towards outliers, please use the lower and upper quartile to show the spread. Instead of the average, consider the median which should lower the spikyness of your data.Please mention what sources you are using to feed your data.Originally posted by 7he_professor: See my Sig for links to data files on Creatures and Spells. They do not contain Intellectual Property of WotC (Beholders, Slaad, etc) though, so they're not 100% complete.Feel free to add tabs to the spreadsheet with graphs, charts, pivot tables or other data as well.Originally posted by Havenward: I would be very careful about makeing this leap. At higher CRs Abilities mean less for saving throws than at earlier CRs because of the influence of proficiencies. But also important, Dex spells tend to have a lot of other mitigation aimed at them than saves. Resistance and temp hit points for example. While I would agree looking at these graphs gives the impression that useing a damaging spell with a dex save against a creature with a 12 dex at cr 15 may be better than using a damageing spell with a con save against a creature with a 30 con at cr 20. However compare that with AC that rises to about 18 at cr 15. However, you can't make the same comparison with wisdom or charisma for example, cause the effects of those spells are different than the effects of a dex based damage spell. Their effects are also not subject to the same mitigation factors like resistance, Hit Points, or Temp Hitpoints. What I am not saying: That Evocation and it's dex save spells aren't good. You may be absolutely correct. I'm just saying its hard to make that conclusion based on Dex growth.</blockquote>

Verification