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<blockquote data-quote="TheCosmicKid" data-source="post: 7141304" data-attributes="member: 6683613">Dude. This isn't even spin, this is just plain mistaken. You acknowledge that doing 2 points per hit &quot;will add up over time and in the abstract&quot; as if that were a minor concession, when really it's the crux of the matter. Over time, you're not doing &quot;only 2 points&quot; more damage. You are, as ever, doing 44% more damage. You're reducing that 150 hit points to zero 44% faster. It will take you only 21 rounds on average to do it, where it will take the weaker guy 30. So on this 150-point scale, you're not doing 2 more damage -- you're doing about 42 more damage.Furthermore, the more you roll, the less the variations in the dice rolling matter. The standard deviation tightens around the mean as you add more dice, as good and bad rolls tend to cancel each other out. Further still, on 1d8+5, more than half of the average damage is in that constant +5 anyway. I said the average time to kill our hypothetical 150-hit-point monster with 20 Strength was 21 rounds. The SD on that distribution is about 3 rounds. Less than 1% of these fights are going to go to 30 rounds or more. You're gonna notice the difference.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="TheCosmicKid, post: 7141304, member: 6683613"] Dude. This isn't even spin, this is just plain mistaken. You acknowledge that doing 2 points per hit [I]"will add up over time and in the abstract"[/I] as if that were a minor concession, when really it's the crux of the matter. Over time, you're not doing "only 2 points" more damage. You are, as ever, doing 44% more damage. You're reducing that 150 hit points to zero 44% faster. It will take you only 21 rounds on average to do it, where it will take the weaker guy 30. So on this 150-point scale, you're not doing 2 more damage -- you're doing about 42 more damage. Furthermore, the more you roll, the [I]less[/I] the variations in the dice rolling matter. The standard deviation tightens around the mean as you add more dice, as good and bad rolls tend to cancel each other out. Further still, on 1d8+5, more than half of the average damage is in that constant +5 anyway. I said the average time to kill our hypothetical 150-hit-point monster with 20 Strength was 21 rounds. The SD on that distribution is about 3 rounds. Less than 1% of these fights are going to go to 30 rounds or more. You're gonna notice the difference. [/QUOTE]

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