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<blockquote data-quote="abirdcall" data-source="post: 8496159" data-attributes="member: 6748898">Here is an analogy for people who aren't getting how the math works:Let's say I'm playing poker and my opponent shows down a superior hand. I can pay 10% of the pot to force them to draw a new hand. Also if I do this next hand I get an extra card.How bad must my hand be compared to a random hand for this to be a bad decision?Yes, if the spell save DC is 18 and the monster has a +16 then Silvery Barbs isn't going to be useful in that situation. But why are we in that situation to begin with?I don't want to go to showdown with 9 high very often. And if I do I'm not paying the 10% extra into the pot. So there is a case where it wouldn't be a good ability. But if I did have this option and no one else did I would win all the money.To finish the analogy - if I paid the 10% and my opponent redrew their hand and still got one that beat me it would still have been a good decision. The expected value in most cases is much much higher than what I paid for it. The outcome isn't important, the EV of the decision is what is important.I hope that makes it more clear.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="abirdcall, post: 8496159, member: 6748898"] Here is an analogy for people who aren't getting how the math works: Let's say I'm playing poker and my opponent shows down a superior hand. I can pay 10% of the pot to force them to draw a new hand. Also if I do this next hand I get an extra card. How bad must my hand be compared to a random hand for this to be a bad decision? Yes, if the spell save DC is 18 and the monster has a +16 then Silvery Barbs isn't going to be useful in that situation. But why are we in that situation to begin with? I don't want to go to showdown with 9 high very often. And if I do I'm not paying the 10% extra into the pot. So there is a case where it wouldn't be a good ability. But if I did have this option and no one else did I would win all the money. To finish the analogy - if I paid the 10% and my opponent redrew their hand and still got one that beat me it would still have been a good decision. The expected value in most cases is much much higher than what I paid for it. The outcome isn't important, the EV of the decision is what is important. I hope that makes it more clear. [/QUOTE]

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