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<blockquote data-quote="tomedunn" data-source="post: 9799606" data-attributes="member: 7040979"><p>There's a lot to take in here, so forgive me if I miss something.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The values I'm feeding into my calculations are always the adjusted values. If a monster with 50 HP heals for 10 HP per round then that'll translate into them having 80 for their adjusted HP. Rather than listing out all of the various ways I handle bonuses, here's a link to an <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C4G8KUULAK5DwOV5cEq7RDgne7hrmUJyOF5I-qcSBS0/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">example version of the spreadsheet</a> I use when entering data that covers just those monsters in the 2024 SRD. Columns BA through BN contain the columns that matter. I try to add comments to the cells that require special adjustments explaining my thinking.</p><p></p><p>I should also point out that while there are columns in that spreadsheet that calculate CR and XP through various methods, I don't use those columns in my analysis. For that, I pull the data into a Python notebook and do the calculations there. So there may be differences between that spreadsheet and values that show up in my posts. Here's a link to the <a href="https://github.com/tomedunn/the-finished-book/blob/master/_monsters/monster-manual-2024/monster-manual-2024.ipynb" target="_blank">Python notebook</a> I used for my 2024 MM analysis.</p><p></p><p>In regard to saving throws, when I started I used the 2014 DMG method of adding bonuses to AC based on the number of proficiencies, but lately I've been creating an effective AC by averaging the monsters adjusted AC and adjusted saving throw bonus, converted into an equivalent AC value. I doubt that's what WotC is doing behind the scenes, but it produces similar results and makes more sense to me.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I agree. There's enough we don't know that it's not practically possible to get everything exactly right. That's why I try to focus more on what I think makes the most sense based on what I can show mathematically, rather than trying to force them to match. In fact, when I'm entering new monsters into my dataset, I try to not look at how close they match until after I've finished. When I eventually do, if I notice a big difference, I'll only change things if I think I can justify the change.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I understand what you were going for with this and it's actually pretty easy to get here from the exponential form of my XP equation since C^(A + B) is equivalent to C^A / C^(-B). From there you can just approximate both exponentials to 1st order to arrive at a form should match what you have.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I just published a <a href="https://tomedunn.github.io/the-finished-book/theory/xp-approximations/" target="_blank">new post</a> that goes through how the AC + AB sensitivity differs between the 2014 DMG and MM and how those sensitivities can be extracted from monster stats (adjusted stats like the ones in the spreadsheet I linked earlier). It also looks at the accuracy of different XP calculations in terms of how well they predict the average damage the PCs would take. That's not specifically helpful towards the efforts of reverse engineering how WotC determines CR or XP, but it does speak to the specific usefulness of any such tool for balancing encounters.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="tomedunn, post: 9799606, member: 7040979"] There's a lot to take in here, so forgive me if I miss something. The values I'm feeding into my calculations are always the adjusted values. If a monster with 50 HP heals for 10 HP per round then that'll translate into them having 80 for their adjusted HP. Rather than listing out all of the various ways I handle bonuses, here's a link to an [URL='https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C4G8KUULAK5DwOV5cEq7RDgne7hrmUJyOF5I-qcSBS0/edit?usp=sharing']example version of the spreadsheet[/URL] I use when entering data that covers just those monsters in the 2024 SRD. Columns BA through BN contain the columns that matter. I try to add comments to the cells that require special adjustments explaining my thinking. I should also point out that while there are columns in that spreadsheet that calculate CR and XP through various methods, I don't use those columns in my analysis. For that, I pull the data into a Python notebook and do the calculations there. So there may be differences between that spreadsheet and values that show up in my posts. Here's a link to the [URL='https://github.com/tomedunn/the-finished-book/blob/master/_monsters/monster-manual-2024/monster-manual-2024.ipynb']Python notebook[/URL] I used for my 2024 MM analysis. In regard to saving throws, when I started I used the 2014 DMG method of adding bonuses to AC based on the number of proficiencies, but lately I've been creating an effective AC by averaging the monsters adjusted AC and adjusted saving throw bonus, converted into an equivalent AC value. I doubt that's what WotC is doing behind the scenes, but it produces similar results and makes more sense to me. I agree. There's enough we don't know that it's not practically possible to get everything exactly right. That's why I try to focus more on what I think makes the most sense based on what I can show mathematically, rather than trying to force them to match. In fact, when I'm entering new monsters into my dataset, I try to not look at how close they match until after I've finished. When I eventually do, if I notice a big difference, I'll only change things if I think I can justify the change. I understand what you were going for with this and it's actually pretty easy to get here from the exponential form of my XP equation since C^(A + B) is equivalent to C^A / C^(-B). From there you can just approximate both exponentials to 1st order to arrive at a form should match what you have. I just published a [URL='https://tomedunn.github.io/the-finished-book/theory/xp-approximations/']new post[/URL] that goes through how the AC + AB sensitivity differs between the 2014 DMG and MM and how those sensitivities can be extracted from monster stats (adjusted stats like the ones in the spreadsheet I linked earlier). It also looks at the accuracy of different XP calculations in terms of how well they predict the average damage the PCs would take. That's not specifically helpful towards the efforts of reverse engineering how WotC determines CR or XP, but it does speak to the specific usefulness of any such tool for balancing encounters. [/QUOTE]
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