Penny arcade pvp - battlerager

[Chris_Nightwing]

So if you do n average damage with a probability p of hitting, you deal np damage on average.
If you 'rage' then you do n+7 average damage with a probability p^2 of hitting and deal (n+7)p^2 damage on average.

So.. you should rage if n / (n+7) is less than the probability p of hitting. As an example, if you deal 1d12+3 damage, then you should rage if you hit on an 9 or less, but not on a 10+.

Edit: this is therefore terrible once you start including anything that makes n greater, such as combat superiority dice.

 

[Scipio202]

Ahh, you're right - flat damage is going to matter a lot. That makes raging much worse than I thought.

 

[Stalker0]

So if you do n average damage with a probability p of hitting, you deal np damage on average.
If you 'rage' then you do n+7 average damage with a probability p^2 of hitting and deal (n+7)p^2 damage on average.

So.. you should rage if n / (n+7) is less than the probability p of hitting. As an example, if you deal 1d12+3 damage, then you should rage if you hit on an 9 or less, but not on a 10+.

Edit: this is therefore terrible once you start including anything that makes n greater, such as combat superiority dice.

Don't forget the critical effect in your average damage. Your crit chance goes way down with disadvantage, so you may have a bigger damage loss than is normally considered.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

Don't forget the critical effect in your average damage. Your crit chance goes way down with disadvantage, so you may have a bigger damage loss than is normally considered.

If criticals do only maximum damage then it's an almost neglible effect, but yes, it means raging is even worse.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

What about the rest of the the... Ed Specility

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Yes that is what appears on the CS but in the podcast they were talking about maximising damage.

I'm thinking that's because the podcast seems to be one conversation (therefore about a month old, at least as old as the first portion they put online), and the character sheets seem to be made in conjunction with the new playtest rules rather than what they were actually writing down during the podcast. (For example, all the character sheets are level 5.)

So my guess is that the versions of these feats on the character sheet are after the development guys sacrificed Mearls to their dark god for making up feats off-the-cuff in a PR podcast, and fixed it up a bit to their liking.

The first feat, battle-raging, went from max damage to +2d6 damage (in return for taking disadvantage). This would probably need to scale with character level for it to be worthwhile at higher levels. But it's a lot better than max damage, which (a) isn't as much of a bonus, and (b) makes crits somewhat meaningless.

"Overpower" looks like an attempt to make the idea they were discussing in the podcast worth a feat. Right now it looks kind of like a crappy version of Cleave. I'm wondering if maybe it means ALL adjacent creatures take 2d6 damage, which would be more powerful and also more dangerous for allies who get too close.

Also from the podcast - I guess you get feats at levels 1, 3, 6, and 9 now (so two specialties), and as I suspected they haven't really started thinking about levels 11-20 yet. There will probably be some weird math adjustments to be made, unless we want level 20 rogues rolling 21d6 for sneak attack and fighters getting 10d20 expertise dice...

 

[1of3]

And it appears that Avenger has gone the way of the specialty.

 

[filthgrinder]

And it appears that Avenger has gone the way of the specialty.

it was mentioned Avenger as a specialty of paladin. Right now, who knows?

So this stuff is over a month old, but the released character sheets seem to be newer. On the podcast they were making level 10s, but these are only level 5s.

On the PAX schedule for the live event on Saturday, it was called, "The Lost Adventures" or something to that effect. So maybe they are doing a "flashback" adventure to before Binwin killed Al. After Al joined the party, but before he died in the acid and before they went to hell to get him back.

 

[The Shadow]

I don't suppose there's a transcript of those podcasts anywhere? Listening to them makes my head hurt - besides the fact that I'm not at all an auditory learner, the low SNR and the scattershot conversation is frustrating.

 

[Someone]

So if you do n average damage with a probability p of hitting, you deal np damage on average.
If you 'rage' then you do n+7 average damage with a probability p^2 of hitting and deal (n+7)p^2 damage on average.

So.. you should rage if n / (n+7) is less than the probability p of hitting. As an example, if you deal 1d12+3 damage, then you should rage if you hit on an 9 or less, but not on a 10+.

Edit: this is therefore terrible once you start including anything that makes n greater, such as combat superiority dice.

At least you can get drunk, be restrained, scared pantless and fight an invisible enemy simultaneously without any effective penalty.