D&D 5E What's up with Vicious Mockery?

[TallIan]

Had you read the thread you linked fully, you might have noticed that I'm very active in it. I argue against the above interpretation as technically incorrect, but somewhat useful.

To hit you with disadvantage at a 2, my chances to hit go from 20/400 (1/20) to 39/400. That's a change of 19/400.

At a 11, the chance to hit go from 200/400 (1/2) to 100/400 (1/4). A difference of 100/400.

At a 20, the chances to hit go from 20/400 (1/20) to 399/400, a difference of 379/400.

Disadvantage has the largest effect at 20.

Parceling out damage as some fractional per round value is misleading. If you're hit by the giant, you don't take a fractional amount of the 29 damage. Dice do, over time, trend to the trend, but any given roll doesn't care what was last or what is next. So, at an 11, disadvantage halves your chance of being hit. That's nice. At a 20, though, it's almost 20 times lower. If you have the choice between giving disadvantage to a target number of 11 or one closer to 20, you'll always get more effect out of the higher target number. Any reduction is good, of course, so hitting the giant with disad when he's pounding on the mage is still a nice thing, but if you have the choice between having the mage hold the door while blurred or the fighter, the size of the "effect" is obvious.

I must admit I did not follow that thread very closely, as the OP of that thread was repeating information he had posted in another thread that I was more involved in, but it was less specific to ADV/DIS mechanic.

However, the effect I’m looking at in this case is that of damage taken - the product of to hit and damage rolled. I don’t care about the % decrease of the to hit probability.

To that end I ran a little white room simulation: 5 rounds of being attacked by a d12+6 damage run 20 times

Requiring a roll of 2 to hit Damage went from 61.15 to 57.6 therefor disadvantage saved me 3 or 4 HP’s
Requiring a roll of 11 to hit Damage went from 31.7 to 14.65 therefor disadvantage saved me 17 HP’s
Requiring a roll of 20 to hit Damage went from 6.3 to 1.4 therefor disadvantage saved me just shy of 5 HP’s

Now which of those three has the bigger effect? Which would you rather take?

 

[Eltab]

My group uses narrative to indicate "the enemy has less than 10 HP" so my Bard uses Vicious Mockery to kill the weaklings. He's a Tiefling, so he rumbles some insult- and cussword- laden threat in Infernal at the target. The target believes he has been damned to the Nine Hells and just dies at the thought.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I must admit I did not follow that thread very closely, as the OP of that thread was repeating information he had posted in another thread that I was more involved in, but it was less specific to ADV/DIS mechanic.

However, the effect I’m looking at in this case is that of damage taken - the product of to hit and damage rolled. I don’t care about the % decrease of the to hit probability.

To that end I ran a little white room simulation: 5 rounds of being attacked by a d12+6 damage run 20 times

Requiring a roll of 2 to hit Damage went from 61.15 to 57.6 therefor disadvantage saved me 3 or 4 HP’s
Requiring a roll of 11 to hit Damage went from 31.7 to 14.65 therefor disadvantage saved me 17 HP’s
Requiring a roll of 20 to hit Damage went from 6.3 to 1.4 therefor disadvantage saved me just shy of 5 HP’s

Now which of those three has the bigger effect? Which would you rather take?

You never take 57.6 damage, or 31.7 damage, or 1.4 damage. You get hit and you'll take d12+6. Your analysis only works if you're roll an infinite amount of times. I'm not. Using your example of 20 attacks, looking at being hit at least 1, at least 5 times, at least 10 times, and at least 15 times at targets of 2, 11, and 20 with and without disadvantage:

To be hit at least x times	@ 2	@ 2 diad	@ 11	@11 disad	@20	@20 disad
1	100.00	100.00	96.88	76.21	22.62	1.24
2	100.00	99.96	81.25	36.72	2.26	0.01
3	99.88	99.20	50.00	10.35	0.12	0.00
4	97.74	92.22	18.75	1.56	0.00	0.00
5	77.38	59.87	3.13	0.10	0.00	0.00

As you can see, the best chance to not be hit (and suffer NO damage) is @20 with disadvantage. If you have a choice of making the enemy need an 11 or 20 before applying disadvantage, then choosing 20 makes the absolute best sense because the effect is the largest effect possible -- you reduce the chance to be hit to effectively 0.

This isn't to say that you get to pick what the giant needs to wallop you -- you usually don't. This is to say that disadvantage maximizes it's value at 20, not 11. It's still, as shown above, a good bet @11. It's just not the largest effect.

Honestly, I'm not sure what the pushback on this is. There seems to be an argument that the biggest reduction in income damage between non-disadvantage and disadvantage is the mark of effectiveness, yet if you have 15 hitpoints, it appears disadvantage @11 still kills you with your numbers above -- and I'm not sure what you're doing there for your trials. Are you generating 100 random numbers for each target number (100 pairs take worst for disad) and then multiplying the # successes times 67.5 and dividing by 20? That's odd since you seem to be fine averaging out over perfect probability for everything else. Wouldn't you take each possible roll from 1 to 20 and factor it that way? Much simpler. There you have:

@2, perfect averages, hit % 380/400, 5 attacks, 13.7 damage each attack (67.5 max) would be 67.5*(380/400)=64.125 damage.
@ 2 disad, hit %361/400, that's 67.5*361/400 = 60.919 damage.
@ 11 normal, hit %200/400, that's 67.5*1/2 = 33.75.
@ 11 disad, hit %100/400, that's 67.5*1/4 = 16.875
@20 normal, hit %20/400, that's 67.5*1/20 = 3.375
@20 disad, hit 1/400, that's 67.5/400 = 0.169

So, @2, the disadvantage difference is that I take approximately 5% less damage from normal. @11, the disad difference is 50%. @ 20, the disad differnce in damage is 95%. But, again, at not point will I take these damages. Using the average damage optional rule, all my damage is quantized into 13 point lumps. So, the odds I take 65 damage (hit 5 times) is above in the table for each value. There's a 3% chance I take 65 damage from 5 attacks @11, and a 0.1% chance I take that @11disad. But @20, either case, you need a lot more zeros after the decimal to estimate your chances. The actual chance @20disad of being hit 5 times is 6.59EE-12. That's a huge chance to take NO damage at all, not 1 point less (which I cannot actually take 1 point less).

This is the problem with math -- it leads to overconfidence because you've done math and math is right. The real question that's forgotten is "have you done the right math." I contend you have not, which is why you think disadvantage works best when you need an 11, despite the obvious fact that if you had the option between needing a 20 verses needing an 11, both with disadvantage, you'd always take the 11 because you still have a chance of hitting that's reasonable.

 

[TallIan]

You never take 57.6 damage, or 31.7 damage, or 1.4 damage. You get hit and you'll take d12+6. Your analysis only works if you're roll an infinite amount of times. I'm not. Using your example of 20 attacks, looking at being hit at least 1, at least 5 times, at least 10 times, and at least 15 times at targets of 2, 11, and 20 with and without disadvantage:

No that was the average damage from 20 5 round combats. The way I wrote the formula didn't show the individual fights. But the average gives me an idea of how many resources (healing potions, healing spells, HD or whatever) I will need to get ready to the next fight. It uses less if I impose DIS on an attacker requiring 11+ that if I do the same for an attacker requiring 20+ to hit.

As you can see, the best chance to not be hit (and suffer NO damage) is @20 with disadvantage. If you have a choice of making the enemy need an 11 or 20 before applying disadvantage, then choosing 20 makes the absolute best sense because the effect is the largest effect possible -- you reduce the chance to be hit to effectively 0.

Your table on shows the chance of being hit - not something that is important. I want to see where the biggest effect lies, which means where to a make the biggest difference to incoming damage. Yes I am more likely to suffer no damage by imposing DIS on a to hit of 20, but I am likely to suffer very little in the first place. If I can impose DIS on an 11+ to hit I will make the biggest reduction in damage compared to being hit on 11+ without DIS.

This isn't to say that you get to pick what the giant needs to wallop you -- you usually don't. This is to say that disadvantage maximizes it's value at 20, not 11. It's still, as shown above, a good bet @11. It's just not the largest effect.

It is, it creates the biggest reduction in damage, which is the resource I am looking to conserve.

@2, perfect averages, hit % 380/400, 5 attacks, 13.7 damage each attack (67.5 max) would be 67.5*(380/400)=64.125 damage.
@ 2 disad, hit %361/400, that's 67.5*361/400 = 60.919 damage.
@ 11 normal, hit %200/400, that's 67.5*1/2 = 33.75.
@ 11 disad, hit %100/400, that's 67.5*1/4 = 16.875
@20 normal, hit %20/400, that's 67.5*1/20 = 3.375
@20 disad, hit 1/400, that's 67.5/400 = 0.169

So, @2, the disadvantage difference is that I take approximately 5% less damage from normal. @11, the disad difference is 50%. @ 20, the disad differnce in damage is 95%. But, again, at not point will I take these damages. Using the average damage optional rule, all my damage is quantized into 13 point lumps. So, the odds I take 65 damage (hit 5 times) is above in the table for each value. There's a 3% chance I take 65 damage from 5 attacks @11, and a 0.1% chance I take that @11disad. But @20, either case, you need a lot more zeros after the decimal to estimate your chances. The actual chance @20disad of being hit 5 times is 6.59EE-12. That's a huge chance to take NO damage at all, not 1 point less (which I cannot actually take 1 point less).

@2 there is a small difference (3.375)
@11 there is the biggest difference (16.875)
@20 there is a small difference again (3.206)

My HPs are not measured in percentages, they are measured in absolute terms and regenerating them costs resources. So, long term I will see the largest reduction in resources lost by imposing disadvantage on attacks that hit @11+ and doing something else if I'm getting hit on 20+.

To use the money analogy again; Donald Trump says you can have half his money; The parking attendant says you can have all of his money; what gives you the most money; 50% of several billion or 100% of a few hundred?

This is the problem with math -- it leads to overconfidence because you've done math and math is right. The real question that's forgotten is "have you done the right math." I contend you have not, which is why you think disadvantage works best when you need an 11, despite the obvious fact that if you had the option between needing a 20 verses needing an 11, both with disadvantage, you'd always take the 11 because you still have a chance of hitting that's reasonable.

I contend that I have, and we are both doing the same maths and getting he same answers. We are just interpreting it differently. Though I have not allowed for edge cases, where a single hit will probably kill you, like if you only have 13HPs. Then you haven't got time to play the odds and you are looking at much more specific tactical considerations.

 

[AmerginLiath]

Given the choice between saying “I shoot the goblin” and getting to quote the French guard from Monty Python & The Holy Grail, the math is irrelevant.

 

[5ekyu]

No that was the average damage from 20 5 round combats. The way I wrote the formula didn't show the individual fights. But the average gives me an idea of how many resources (healing potions, healing spells, HD or whatever) I will need to get ready to the next fight. It uses less if I impose DIS on an attacker requiring 11+ that if I do the same for an attacker requiring 20+ to hit.



Your table on shows the chance of being hit - not something that is important. I want to see where the biggest effect lies, which means where to a make the biggest difference to incoming damage. Yes I am more likely to suffer no damage by imposing DIS on a to hit of 20, but I am likely to suffer very little in the first place. If I can impose DIS on an 11+ to hit I will make the biggest reduction in damage compared to being hit on 11+ without DIS.


It is, it creates the biggest reduction in damage, which is the resource I am looking to conserve.


@2 there is a small difference (3.375)
@11 there is the biggest difference (16.875)
@20 there is a small difference again (3.206)

My HPs are not measured in percentages, they are measured in absolute terms and regenerating them costs resources. So, long term I will see the largest reduction in resources lost by imposing disadvantage on attacks that hit @11+ and doing something else if I'm getting hit on 20+.

To use the money analogy again; Donald Trump says you can have half his money; The parking attendant says you can have all of his money; what gives you the most money; 50% of several billion or 100% of a few hundred?



I contend that I have, and we are both doing the same maths and getting he same answers. We are just interpreting it differently. Though I have not allowed for edge cases, where a single hit will probably kill you, like if you only have 13HPs. Then you haven't got time to play the odds and you are looking at much more specific tactical considerations.

Years ago in a stargate forum, i had a discussion on dice and damage etc with someone who insisted that since his d20 rolled 14 more often than any other number his calculations were based on that and that it was absolutely proper and accurate to base anslysis ob "the most likely outcomes"!!!


Definitely led to an agree to disagree moment.

"Yes I am more likely to suffer no damage by imposing DIS on a to hit of 20, but I am likely to suffer very little in the first place. If I can impose DIS on an 11+ to hit I will make the biggest reduction in damage compared to being hit on 11+ without DIS."

This is a key point.

You will be at lower risk risk of taking damage from a need-20 than a need-11 period but you dont get to control necessarily those situations. Other things being equal, most folks would be happier being in the need-20 to hit me case.

In such a case, a choice to use your action to apply disad is likely a poor one unless you literally have nothing else to do or there is some very critical need. Its just unlikely that the 20 vs twp 20s will either be a winning or losing difference if there is any other choice.

Meanwhile, if you are dealing with the more common situation mid-range of need-11 you are in a situation where you are likely to take damage over and over and where dropping the chance of hit from 50% to 25% shows a significant reduction in the threat and expected dmg.

Amusingly, in last night's game, the bard's VM for disad in the final battle played a critical role when it was used on the enemy leader who needed 10s and 11s to hit and i am pretty dang sure if it had been a need-20 situation the bard woulda been in there sword in hand instead for bigger impact.

 

[Ovinomancer]

No that was the average damage from 20 5 round combats. The way I wrote the formula didn't show the individual fights. But the average gives me an idea of how many resources (healing potions, healing spells, HD or whatever) I will need to get ready to the next fight. It uses less if I impose DIS on an attacker requiring 11+ that if I do the same for an attacker requiring 20+ to hit.



Your table on shows the chance of being hit - not something that is important. I want to see where the biggest effect lies, which means where to a make the biggest difference to incoming damage. Yes I am more likely to suffer no damage by imposing DIS on a to hit of 20, but I am likely to suffer very little in the first place. If I can impose DIS on an 11+ to hit I will make the biggest reduction in damage compared to being hit on 11+ without DIS.


It is, it creates the biggest reduction in damage, which is the resource I am looking to conserve.


@2 there is a small difference (3.375)
@11 there is the biggest difference (16.875)
@20 there is a small difference again (3.206)

My HPs are not measured in percentages, they are measured in absolute terms and regenerating them costs resources. So, long term I will see the largest reduction in resources lost by imposing disadvantage on attacks that hit @11+ and doing something else if I'm getting hit on 20+.

To use the money analogy again; Donald Trump says you can have half his money; The parking attendant says you can have all of his money; what gives you the most money; 50% of several billion or 100% of a few hundred?



I contend that I have, and we are both doing the same maths and getting he same answers. We are just interpreting it differently. Though I have not allowed for edge cases, where a single hit will probably kill you, like if you only have 13HPs. Then you haven't got time to play the odds and you are looking at much more specific tactical considerations.

Okay, then, simple question: you have two targets. The first needs an 11 to hit, the second a 20. You have disadvantage on your attacks. Who do you attack? Why?

Now, imagine a second layer. You hit for 10 danage. The @11 has 200 hitpoints, the @1 has 1. Who do you attack now?

That's my point -- choice matters. If you can choose, the @20 gets more from disadvantage. Frex, to get a 50% probability to kill the target in X attacks, a normal @11 needs to have 3x the hitpoints of an @20. Add in disadvantage and the @11 needs 398 times the hitpoints. If you can choose to put out an @20 disadvantage target or an @11 dusadvantage target, which will you choose? The @20 because the effective multiplier to hitpoints is staggeringly larger.

That's the issue, really. You're confusing the base cases with tge disadvantage cases. You see that you lose half as much of a big number vs 200 times less of a smaller number and think that bigger is better. You've confused the fact that an 11 is worse than a 20 normally (you lose 10 times more hitpoints @11 than @20 normally) and think that the big differences are because of disadvantage when they're 10x off on the baseline. In reality, disadvantage halves the lose @11, and reduces it by a factor of 20 @20. So, which is the bigger effect? Reducing a number by 1/2 or 1/20? Clearly, it's 1/20.

Disadvantage has the largest effect at 20. If you can choose which target number gets used with disadvantage, it's obvious you'd choose the 20. Hence my statements to that effect. If you want to say that the guy with a target to be hit of @11 will taje more damage than the gal with @20, you don't need disadvantage to tell you this. Disadvantage, by having the largest effect where you're already taking less damage, will not tell you differently -- it's still better to have a high AC with disadvantage than a low AC with disadvantage, just like it's normally better to have a high AC over a low one.

If you're making holistic choices in encounters as to use of resources, then you're taking into account much more than largest effect. If you're baseline assumption that putting disadvantage on the low AC is better, you'll be disappointed by results a lot of the time. If you assumption is the high AC is best, you'll also be disappointed. Tactical choices must be made at the time. That doesn't impinge, though, on where disadvantage has the largest effect.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Years ago in a stargate forum, i had a discussion on dice and damage etc with someone who insisted that since his d20 rolled 14 more often than any other number his calculations were based on that and that it was absolutely proper and accurate to base anslysis ob "the most likely outcomes"!!!


Definitely led to an agree to disagree moment.

"Yes I am more likely to suffer no damage by imposing DIS on a to hit of 20, but I am likely to suffer very little in the first place. If I can impose DIS on an 11+ to hit I will make the biggest reduction in damage compared to being hit on 11+ without DIS."

This is a key point.

You will be at lower risk risk of taking damage from a need-20 than a need-11 period but you dont get to control necessarily those situations. Other things being equal, most folks would be happier being in the need-20 to hit me case.

In such a case, a choice to use your action to apply disad is likely a poor one unless you literally have nothing else to do or there is some very critical need. Its just unlikely that the 20 vs twp 20s will either be a winning or losing difference if there is any other choice.

Meanwhile, if you are dealing with the more common situation mid-range of need-11 you are in a situation where you are likely to take damage over and over and where dropping the chance of hit from 50% to 25% shows a significant reduction in the threat and expected dmg.

Amusingly, in last night's game, the bard's VM for disad in the final battle played a critical role when it was used on the enemy leader who needed 10s and 11s to hit and i am pretty dang sure if it had been a need-20 situation the bard woulda been in there sword in hand instead for bigger impact.

This is a situational analysis that determines best tactical choices, not the overall effectiveness of disadvantage. I could present an example where a high AC fighter is holding a door against a horde for many minutes vs a low AC mage getting attacked once and the "best" use of disad changes. This is spinning tales to try to justify an argument.

Mechanically, disadvantage has the largest effect at 20, not 11. Tactically, you need to use your resources to best advantage, and that's going to depend on the situation you're facing.

Curiously, though, assuming ad arguendo tgat you're right and disadvantage is much, much more effective at 11 vice 20, would you give a cloak of displacement to a high AC fighter or to a low AC mage? Why? I'd bet you'd pick the fighter because it will seriously reduce his chance of being hit and he'll take the brunt of the attacks over a campaign. So, even here, the choice is also dependant on tge likelihood of being attacked -- you cannot say you'll get the best bang from the mage even assuming your argument holds because the mage will suffer many fewer attacks than the fighter.

 

[Burnside]

As a player with a bard as my main PC, I am kinda annoyed by the cantrip Frostbite. It was introduced in Princes of Apocalypse and later included in Xanathar's. It's available to Druids, Wizards, Warlocks, and Sorcerers and is mechanically identical to Vicious Mockery except one major advantage:

- does d6 damage instead of d4

and three minor disadvantages:

- does Cold damage instead of Psychic (very few creatures resist Psychic damage)
- Calls for Con save instead of Wis (situational depending on opponent, but on the whole most 5E enemies have better Con than Wis)
- Requires a somatic component (Vicious Mockery doesn't, which means you can use it if tied up, grappled, etc)

 

[Dessert Nomad]

Con save instead of wis is pretty huge, especially since the creatures that tend to have high HP and 1-2 big attacks like giants or purple worms, who are good targets for giving disadvantage, also tend to have really high con saves. It seems a little biased to list 'does an average of 1 point per tier more damage' as a major advantage while treating 'goes against the best saves of the targets you're likely to use it on' and 'is more resisted' as minor disadvantages, when one of them halves the damage when it happens and the other makes it