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Post by Joseph Barros on Oct 25, 2013 19:14:14 GMT -8
For out of character (OOC) talk.
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Post by Joseph Barros on Jan 18, 2014 9:13:18 GMT -8
I think I addressed all the rules questions that came up in the last game that I either wasn't sure of or there seemed to be a disagreement about. If there was some other ruling I made that seemed questionable let me know and I'll look it up.
I also made a cool little printout to put on the player side of my DM screen to clarify line of sight rules with the diagrams from the PHB.
Finally, I totally blanked last time, but the reason why I didn't put the list of minor actions in my screen is because of how comprehensive the standard and move action list is. If it's not on one of those lists 97% chance it's a minor or free. The 5% covers actions not on any list anywhere in which case I have to just make it up.
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Post by Brian Williamson on Feb 5, 2014 0:37:19 GMT -8
Rob-- Just sayin'...
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Post by Brian Williamson on Feb 5, 2014 0:51:03 GMT -8
As I was trolling the googles for character portraits, I came across a pre-made character from WOTC with a similar build to mine. One thing they did differently is that it seems like they added his STR and DEX mods to his melee and ranged damage (respectively...can you do that? I thought it was just added to the attack roll... Referenced Sheet
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Post by Joseph Barros on Feb 5, 2014 6:13:55 GMT -8
Not only can you, but you must. Whatever ability the power or basic attack relies upon adds the ability modifier to both attack and strength. You might be confusing it with weapon proficiency bonus which is attack roll only. If it helps think of your melee and ranged basic attacks as at will powers that key off of strength and dex respectively. Melee basic does 1W+str damage and melee ranged does 1W+dex damage.
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Post by Joseph Barros on Feb 6, 2014 6:56:28 GMT -8
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Post by Joseph Barros on Feb 7, 2014 6:41:50 GMT -8
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Post by narutoanbu on Feb 9, 2014 11:19:26 GMT -8
True but also Brian, Rogues get to add Dex. instead of Str. To their at-will melee (unless otherwise posted.). But a melee basic is still plus Str.
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Post by narutoanbu on Feb 9, 2014 11:22:54 GMT -8
Joseph can we wishlist non monetary, equipment rewards?
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Post by Joseph Barros on Feb 10, 2014 16:04:18 GMT -8
L2Read Brian. The wishlist thread will answer your question.
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Post by Brian Williamson on Feb 15, 2014 10:28:49 GMT -8
I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not (reading over D&D blogs the last couple of days to get ideas for my wish list makes me think people might have a sense of it) but I thought I'd share with you guys some math that might affect some of your choices as you're equipping your character:
In probability there's a concept called 'expected value,' which is essentially just the average of all the possible outcomes of a random event. The expected value of a d4 roll, for instance is 2.5, meaning that if you roll a d4 an infinite number of times and average the results you would get 2.5. Obviously, you can't roll a 2.5, but there are some ways that knowing this can be applied. What jumped out at me when I started thinking about this (in the drivethru, waiting for food--where we all do our best thinking, I'm sure) is that this gives you a way to directly compare rolls of different size dice.
The expected values on each size die are as follows: d4: 2.5 d6: 3.5 d8: 4.5 d10: 5.5 d12: 6.5 d20: 10.5
As you can probably tell, each increase in die size results in increase in 1 for expected value, meaning that you can expect on average to do 1 extra point of damage with a die one size up. Once you start to factor in powers, this starts to add up. An attack that does 3[w] will result in 3 more points in damage on average if you can increase your die by one size.
Another, more specific example: Bryan and I are both playing rogues, so sneak attack forms the bulk of the damage that we deal. Bryan took the feat Backstabber, which increases his sneak attack from the normal 2d6 to an upgraded 2d8. I haven't taken Backstabber with my rogue yet, so effectively Bryan's sneak attack damage is 2 higher than mine, 1 point in damage extra from each dice roll.
Just something to think about as you're building your character's arsenal.
You can also use this on the fly to decide whether an action is worthwhile or not based on your damage total. If you're down to your last swing before you go down and you know an enemy's remaining hp is somewhere around 12, you can use this to decide whether or not you want to risk attacking with an at-will, pull out your daily, or if you should get out of Dodge. Say your weapon has you roll a d6, and your power is 2[W] + Mod. You can expect that you'll roll a 7 on your d6s, so if your modifier isn't 5 or higher, you may not want to risk it. I'm not sure how ramble-y or intuitive all this stuff is, but if it sounds at all compelling and you didn't already know it, I'm more than happy to try to explain it at our next session.
Also, it's been way too long since I've watched this:
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Post by Joseph Barros on Feb 16, 2014 14:43:28 GMT -8
I don't think it's common knowledge so much as widely available knowledge. That is, as awesome as it is, many take a glance and go "TL;DR." That said, not everybody enjoys what is known as character optimization (CharOp) as 4E in particular is balanced well enough that not being fully optimized isn't usually a problem, especially in the Heroic Tier.
That said; here is my input. What you are on to is only the starting point in true CharOp. The CharOp guys end goal for strikers is Damage Per Round (DPR). They will all use the math you used for expected value of the damage roll, but to stop there will lead to some very disappointing results on the battle field due to the significance of your chance to hit, because the expected value (EV) for damage on a miss is 0.
A simplified example; Assuming all else equal between you and Brian B., you take weapon expertise and he takes back stabber. That would mean you have +1 to hit more than he does in attempting a backstab, but his EV for damage unmodified damage rolls is 2 higher than you. If Cathal needs 11 or higher to hit that means his DPR on dice alone (no ability mods or any other bonuses) will be 5.75. Rigel however would only need a 10 or higher and so DPR for Rigel is 5.225 instead of 4.75 with no backstabber and no weapon expertise. The gap closed by nearly half a point!
This is ignoring a few other important factors, but the concept is sound that often early on, to hit bonuses can be worth more than damage bonuses for your DPR. Now while you must have EV>22 for a +1 to hit to be strictly better than +1 to damage it's the cumulative effect of multiple +1 to hits bonuses you're taking into consideration. This is why while taking backstabber before weapon expertise is totally justifiable at level 1, few CharOp guys will wait longer than level 6 or so to take weapon expertise. This is why many call weapon expertise a "feat tax," but that's an entirely different and lengthy discussion all its own. (WOTC made some subtle but significant math "errors" concerning balanced scaling of PCs and monsters at release in 2008 that were gradually uncovered and addressed over the first two years. Mostly mega-nerd territory that has been discussed at length on the interwebs; no need to beat a dead tarrasque here.)
Again, for the sake of simplicity, there are many other factors at play I intentionally left out that I'll let you work out yourself and/or read up on at your leisure. I am in no way saying +hit is more valuable than +damage. My point is that when making character building decisions +hit is a significant form of +damage. The CharOp boards and DPR King threads on the wizards boards is where you'll see more in-depth break-downs of how to calculate and maximize DPR if you are so inclined.
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Post by Joseph Barros on Feb 16, 2014 15:34:22 GMT -8
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Post by Brian Williamson on Feb 17, 2014 23:31:13 GMT -8
Love it! I love it because that is exactly the math I would have probably eventually come up with because it's textbook Expected Value (it's how to calculate how much you'd win or lose in a game of chance). Very cool application.
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Post by kore on Feb 18, 2014 10:49:25 GMT -8
That formula seems off to me, specifically in the area of "crit damage" as a whole; it should be "Dc = Average Crit Damage - Dh". Even then, Average Crit Damage is a calculated field which obfuscates why Dh is being substracted, that being that it was added at the beginning of the formula and must be removed to make way for maximized values. Personally, I like calculated AD as the sum of non-crit-hit-rate*average-hit-damage + miss-rate*average-miss-damage + crit-hit-rate*(average-extra-crit-damage + maximized dice); i.e. with DD as [M]aximized [D]ice:
AD = (HR-CR)*Dh + (1-HR)*Dm + CR*(MD+Dc)
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