Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Million Dollar TTRPG Crowdfunders
Most Anticipated Tabletop RPGs Of The Year
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Vicious or Supremely Vicious?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="bganon" data-source="post: 4976057" data-attributes="member: 60886"><p>Yeah, the previous posts are right about the math.</p><p></p><p>More technically: the optimal thing to do is reroll anything that comes up less than average. As keterys said, for d8s this pops the <strong>average</strong> result from 4.5 up to 5.5. However, as also noted, because of your rerolling, you're more likely to get results of 5 and higher than 4 and lower -- in fact the ratio is 3:1. Thus the result is both more consistent (the deviation from the mean is smaller) and skewed to higher results, as compared to a d10. </p><p></p><p>More numbers as an example: with supremely vicious, and rerolling d8s on 4 or lower, you'll get a 6 or higher about 56.25% of the time (compare to 50% with a d10). Of course, rolling 9 or higher is impossible (but happens with 20% of d10 rolls).</p><p></p><p>The real win, as keterys also pointed out, is that "supremely vicious" also lets you reroll any other crit dice too, such as what you get from the "high crit" property, and these can be d12s already. If you have Devastating Critical and have a +3 vicious d12 weapon with high crit, then your extra crit damage is 5d12+1d10 (average 38). With the same feat and a +3 <strong>supremely</strong> vicious d12 weapon with high crit, then your extra crit damage is 3d8+2d12+1d10 with the ability to reroll, which pops the average up to 41.75. So you get a 10% increase in average damage, <strong>and</strong> it'll be more consistent and skewed high on top of that, so that's a pretty good advantage.</p><p></p><p>Just to be clear, the advantage doesn't really depend on paragon levels, it's just that Devastating Critical makes it more obvious.</p><p></p><p>Short summary: without high crit plain vicious is better. With high crit on a d12 weapon, supremely vicious is better. It really takes off if you start tacking on extra crit dice in other ways, too.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="bganon, post: 4976057, member: 60886"] Yeah, the previous posts are right about the math. More technically: the optimal thing to do is reroll anything that comes up less than average. As keterys said, for d8s this pops the [B]average[/B] result from 4.5 up to 5.5. However, as also noted, because of your rerolling, you're more likely to get results of 5 and higher than 4 and lower -- in fact the ratio is 3:1. Thus the result is both more consistent (the deviation from the mean is smaller) and skewed to higher results, as compared to a d10. More numbers as an example: with supremely vicious, and rerolling d8s on 4 or lower, you'll get a 6 or higher about 56.25% of the time (compare to 50% with a d10). Of course, rolling 9 or higher is impossible (but happens with 20% of d10 rolls). The real win, as keterys also pointed out, is that "supremely vicious" also lets you reroll any other crit dice too, such as what you get from the "high crit" property, and these can be d12s already. If you have Devastating Critical and have a +3 vicious d12 weapon with high crit, then your extra crit damage is 5d12+1d10 (average 38). With the same feat and a +3 [B]supremely[/B] vicious d12 weapon with high crit, then your extra crit damage is 3d8+2d12+1d10 with the ability to reroll, which pops the average up to 41.75. So you get a 10% increase in average damage, [B]and[/B] it'll be more consistent and skewed high on top of that, so that's a pretty good advantage. Just to be clear, the advantage doesn't really depend on paragon levels, it's just that Devastating Critical makes it more obvious. Short summary: without high crit plain vicious is better. With high crit on a d12 weapon, supremely vicious is better. It really takes off if you start tacking on extra crit dice in other ways, too. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Vicious or Supremely Vicious?
Top