Math That "Just Works"

[Blicero]

All depends on how you flavor it. I'd think a level 16 wizard would be using a bunch of buff spells to aid him. It's just that 4E tries to simplify things by not worrying about having a balance sheet of buffs, and just giving you a final modifier. How you flavor it is up to you.

The problem (well one of them, at least), is that 4E characters already have a shittonne of magicitems that they wear to give them boring bonuses to their primary stats. (Also: Is this mentioned in the fluff anywhere? At all?) So assuming that highlevel characters have even more various items and buffspells and shit on them makes them not so much Magicitem Christmas trees as Magicitem Supernovæ or something. Which is honestly kind of stupid, like a lot of 4E.

[Swordslinger]

The problem (well one of them, at least), is that 4E characters already have a shittonne of magicitems that they wear to give them boring bonuses to their primary stats. (Also: Is this mentioned in the fluff anywhere? At all?)

No magic items grant bonuses to ability scores in 4E.

As for it being mentioned in fluff, it's not, but it's never explicitly stated the other way either. So being that it's a storytelling game, you can describe it however you want. If your fighter kills something with a sword, did he stab it in the chest or did he behead it? The rules don't say and you do what makes for a better story.

But hey, your power source as a wizard is "Arcane", so it only makes sense that you're getting your bonuses in some arcane fashion.

Of course if you want to describe it as the old wizard kicking down a door like a barbarian, you can, but don't complain that 4E makes you do this. You've only your own lack of creativity to blame there.

[Username17]

No magic items grant bonuses to ability scores in 4E.

So?

In 4e, your primary stats are your damage, your to-hit bonus, your defenses. Your ability scores don't really do anything or represent anything. They are just one of the things that goes into calculating your actual numbers that you use in play. You might as well be trying to win the argument with the fact that no magic items grant bonuses to your character level.

-Username17

[FatR]

All depends on how you flavor it. I'd think a level 16 wizard would be using a bunch of buff spells to aid him. It's just that 4E tries to simplify things by not worrying about having a balance sheet of buffs, and just giving you a final modifier. How you flavor it is up to you.

Why in the hell I should do the job that people who are actually paid for it should have done? If your system is very narrow and straightjacketed (so matching up fluff and crunch shouldn't be much of a problem), and I still must pull out explanations for quirks of your mechanics out of my ass, before even getting into actual powers, I'll prefer to spend my time on a better system.

[Doom]

Exactly, if my mage is using buffs, I should *know* it, not just make it up to rationalize what's happening.

If I had the ability to give my mage minor buffs like that, I wouldn't waste it on being able to open doors. I'd rather run faster, have a full head of hair, not have acne....using various magic to open a door pales compared to that stuff, in my book, not that I don't respect that others might want to use this 'spare' magic for other things.

[Sashi]

Exactly, if my mage is using buffs, I should *know* it, not just make it up to rationalize what's happening.

Bullshit. You don't need to be told the explicit source of your bonuses. What's the explanation for how a magic weapon gives you bonuses to attack and damage? Magically sharper/heavier/longer/harder/etc? Nope, the game has never cared about this. The explanation is left up to the reader.

If I had the ability to give my mage minor buffs like that, I wouldn't waste it on being able to open doors. I'd rather run faster, have a full head of hair, not have acne....using various magic to open a door pales compared to that stuff, in my book, not that I don't respect that others might want to use this 'spare' magic for other things.

And that's exactly why you don't have the ability to give your mage minor buffs like that. So that the Wizard doesn't become an all powerful ubermench next to the Fighter just because "it's magic".

You can complain about 4E's "numbers" being poorly designed (they are). And you can argue that it would be better if the Fighter had a "strong" tag which put him on a fast level-based progression for strength tasks, while the Wizard has a "weak" tag that keeps him from progressing much at all so that a "weak" character's level progression won't ever overwhelm a first level "strong" character (it probably would). But the fact is it's a good thing that the 16th level Wizard isn't completely off the RNG on strength checks compared to the 16th level Fighter (which is what noone pays attention to when whining about the 16th level wizard vs the 1st level fighter, a character he will never interact with numerically).

But it's totally bullshit to complain about having to use your imaginaion while playing an RPG.

[Orion]

In a great deal of fiction, powerful wizards are physically strong, even if they don't look it. They are "filled with power". If you look at 4E fluff, especially epic destinies, it's clear that a wizard isn't someone who knows how to do magic, but someone whose body is full of magic.

[Doom]

Ok, but now why does a high level rogue get to do it, too?

I agree letting the mage do everything is silly, but if I have to make up rationalizations for why he's physically strong, I feel that rationalization should also apply to other character classes.

Granted, I should just use my imagination, but 5,000 pages of books should have something to help with opening a door.

[Orion]

Maybe because doing all those crazy climbs, jumps, and acrobatics that high-level rogues do is impossible without superstrength?

[cthulhudarren]

It sounds like a lot of reaching to me to come up with justifications for the scaling DC for our bash down a door example. I could understand if it had to do with SKILL (and I'm not buying any BS about looking for weak points in a door either). But we're talking about something that requires nothing but brute force.

[CCarter]

I agree with what is being said here, but I don't understand why a d100 system isn't better. I'm not getting it. Maybe it's a just a product of how my lizard brain works. There is more wiggle room in 100 than in 20. for example, in d20, there is a 5% chance of an automiss, failed save, or an autocrit. d100 you can do 1,2,3,4, or 5. To me this extra granularity is desirable.

They only thing that d20 has over d100 is that it's more fun to roll a d20.

As Frank said...you can roll a second die in situations when you need additional granularity. The classic case is 3.5 critical hits...if a critical hit is triggered on a 19-20 and then requires a second confirmation roll against the original AC, then the probability of scoring a critical hit is exactly one-tenth the probability of hitting (while on the RNG). That is if I hit you on a roll of 15+ (6 numbers or 30%) there's an exactly 3% chance of any given hit being a critical.

D20s are also faster in use that d100s, since you don't have to 'pair up' the dice. If you want, you can roll individual saves for 30 guys toasted by a fireball pretty easily.

As far as Granularity goes: you can build a system that uses percentiles but those percentiles aren't actually accurate to within 1% of reality - so there's no point. Having a system actually be realistic enough that the 1% is useful on most rolls would require an insane amount of complexity.

So remember when you roll your fighters archery 65% that its bullshit unless you apply a +2.5% for prevailing wind conditions, use [surface area of target/surface area of sphere with radius equal to target distance] to calculate to-hit adjust for range, remembered to check beforehand for bowstring breakage from when it rained yesterday, and have a to-hit adjustment from DEX that's calculated from FBI marksmanship data.
Leading Edge Games worked on this sort of thing for awhile. It wasn't pretty.

[Doom]

It's funny, one time I reviewed a Paintball boardgame.

It was insane. To take a shot, you have to use these special ruler things to get the deflection bonus/malus (game called it malus). Then throw in the shooter's movement malus. Then throw in the targets movement malus. Then throw in the cover malus. Then throw in off/def boni/mali for each player. Then throw in an aimed or snap fire bonus/malus. Then throw in a multi-shot malus based on prior shots in the turn.

Once you totalled all that up, guess what die you rolled to see if you freakin' hit?

A d20.

I'd like to see a system with high granularity that works. It seems like the old Runequest used a percentile system that was plenty of fun, but the neat experience point system probably had something to do with it.

[Roy]

Roy: You seem to be missing my point. Of course if you bring enough raw power to bear on a weak enough boss, you can kill him with essentially any strategy. But in DQ9, judging from my experience, a "steady state" strategy can beat a boss with a weaker party than any other.

Well no. Because the bosses I were describing as being two rounded are also among the hardest in the game. And they actually are hard.

Giving bosses hugely inflated HP increases the attractiveness of a defensive strategy relative to other strategies. If you do it enough, it makes a defensive strategy best. As you grow more powerful, more strategies start working, but that doesn't mean they're equally good, it just means that you have a big enough intrinsic advantage to still win with an inferior strategy.

Well no again. Those same bosses can flat out kill people, full to dead in 1 turn. Every round you let them live is another round they can totally fuck up your shit. Might be true if the enemy doesn't have any real offense, but that's not the example being described right now.

And I don't have the faintest idea what point you are trying to make there. I was saying that the easiest way to get a favorable damage ratio on the boss is by reducing the boss's average net damage output to zero (or very close) rather than increasing your own. That...has no relation whatsoever to iterative probability that I can see.

You described a "steady state" strategy for individual fights. I then went on to say D&D is about that in the long term. And this is true regardless of what edition it is, or how fast or slow combats are there. And what you just described is called IP proofing.

Also, speaking of overly complex mechanics, can you imagine what would happen if some video game's mechanics were straight up copied into a tabletop game?

Here's an example:

You go to hit an enemy with your sword.

There's a page, literally a full page of mechanics to determine if you hit the enemy with the sword, and how much base damage it would do, including non physical damage. Then any item or skill procs get checked, and even low level melee characters are liable to have at least a half dozen different things that can modify the parameters of that attack. Then you actually do the damage and possibly kill the enemy. Did I mention these attacks happen at a rate greater than 1/second?

Now in the game in question, you just hold down the attack button and watch your character go. But just imagine that in a tabletop game.

[Judging__Eagle]

Really, basing game mechanics off of ones that are observed to function is a good thing. Since you "know" what they should look like, you know what your system will be able to generate in terms of results.

Ultimately, it's all about creating a "Storytelling Equation" (aka, the math and mechanics) that will tell the sorts of stories you are trying to tell.

Really, that's The Gaming Den's core purpose, to create Storytelling Equations, and analyse existing ones. We want to be able to tell games of varying levels of wackiness/grimness/horror/humor that are balanced/fair/reasonable/thematic to the type of story the equation has been written for.

[Manxome]

So you're suggesting that a defensive posture is not the best strategy, because the boss has a random chance of doing damage that you can't recover from, and thus you will eventually die no matter how defensively you play?

That could in principle be a valid objection, but I'm pretty sure it's untrue in the case of all the DQ9 bosses I've fought, including several post-game ones. One-rounding a single character is still recoverable to a party with combat resurrection, and almost all of the really dangerous attacks can be nullified by various counters (for example, the risk of instant death from criticals can be eliminated by a tank with forbearance and the shield scroll).

Of course, assuming your standards of viability don't require a 100% win rate, then even occasional unrecoverable damage wouldn't necessarily prevent a defensive strategy from being the only viable one for a significant power range. You'd need to consider the actual probabilities involved.


And my larger point about the strategies that tend to result when you give monsters massive HP totals is, of course, totally independent of any conclusions we draw specifically about DQ9. But I doubt anyone in this thread is concerned about that point anymore.

[Spike]

So... the only way to make defensive strategies unattractive to players is to have a boss that essentially heals like a player and hits like a player?

[RadiantPhoenix]

You could also make combat healing suck to the point where it's useless because of the action economy.

[Judging__Eagle]

You could also make other options to disincentivize defensive posture combat.

Such as:

Make each additional round of combat Costly:

Yunalesca in FFX's "Death to Living" effect needs to be countered by having a party member with the Zombie status... who will use a party-res, die; and raise again when Yunalesca uses the same special attack; killing the living characters, and reviving the Zombied one).

Even though you can survive the attack, each time it happens you're wearing out valuable resources. So you try to end the fight earlier, in order to be able to actually survive the encounter.

Meta-resource costs, such as say Con damage/drain to PCs that can Heal HP damage, but can't easily/aren't prepared for Ability damage, is an other way to make aggresive stances more favourable. I've actually had a lot of good experience with using con-damaging undead with RoW barbarians. They can Fast Heal the damage from each fight, but the Con damage cuts into their overall HP pool. Making them not want to have a fight drag on, since it will make subsequent fights harder.

The length of a(ny) particular combat will affect the Plot:

Timed adventures means that messing around with defensive posture is a bad idea. This can be from anything from a Hostage situation to a Time Bomb situation, or even a Race or Chase.

Also, timed Buffs of any kind will also encourage proactive character work. A really good example of this is Diablo II and Experience Shrines. Players tend to be less cautious, since the benefits of being in combat and dropping lots of enemies nao outweigh the potential costs of being mobbed up or potentially killed.

Unpredictableness:

Maybe the Mob(ile) has a chance of something bad happening, the longer that the fight runs. Maybe it's a chance of happening every round.

Either way, if they drop their Nova/Nuke/Quake/Your Mum/Exterminatus, you're not going to be happy campers. Thus, you must wreck the enemies face nao.

==========


I find that my own approach to this sort of thing varies a great deal between the sort of game I'm playing. In board games, I engage encounters as I need to do them; not really seeking them out, but not really avoiding them either.

In TTRPGs, I am always apprehensive about unknown encounters/enemies, and form some sort of plan with the other warparty members. For encounters I know/understand, I'm fine with engaging enemies in a proactive manner; D&D combats take enough time as it is.

In Larps, I tend to avoid combat and aggressive actions. Which is seemingly fine for a character who "isn't a fighter". The problem is that statement is highly ironic, since my character at my primary larp is also one who wears head to toe plate, on chain, on leather; is known for owning multiple weapons of different types (I'll tell you one thing, larpers don't usually bring more than a single weapon for their character; the fact that my character brings several bastard swords, silvered weapons, maces and ranged combat gear is highly incongrous with how the other characters are equipped, especially the so-called "fighters" in town), and carries one of the larger sized shields.

On the surface, it seems odd, but really, I'm just playing the game's rules to my own character's advantage for survival. Armour HP doesn't cost XP to buy, and suited up I can hit anywhere from 80-100 points of armour (on top of my starting hp of five). Actually "having" 80-100 HP on the character would cost me more than a season's worth of XP.... and wouldn't do anything to increase my character's actual power in a fight.

....

Which leads me to some thoughts on things that do encourage defensive postures

-Being exhausted (attacking takes more effort than holding a spot in a shield wall)

-Enemies striking for more than a non-defensive character can survive

-Enemies striking in manners that can be prevented if acting in a defensive manner

-Enemies having abilities that need special defences to be Saved from.

[Manxome]

Assuming that the boss is supposed to win by inflicting a sufficient amount of damage on you, healing is rather problematic because it counters everything, and moves the battle farther from completion rather than nearer.

If you don't have a strict limit on how many times you can heal, and your healing exceeds the boss's damage output, then you're basically invincible--just keep healing away all of his damage. Of course, if your healing is less than the boss's damage output, then you're worse off at the end of any round you spend healing, so why would you bother?

So what can you do:

• Don't have in-combat healing.
• Limit the amount of healing you can do per battle (e.g. strict mana/item limits, healing surges), which is usually similar to adding the healing limit to max HP.
• Small healing that doesn't cost all your actions (e.g. lifesteal, regeneration, max 1 healer in party). Thus, you get a net gain in the number of attacks you can make before you die, but you can't completely counteract the boss's damage. This helps more in long battles, though, which incentivizes turtling.
• Make the boss win in some way other than dealing damage (e.g. time limit, condition track, save-or-dies...SoDs are problematic for other reasons, of course). Naturally, if his only win condition is non-damage, healing is back to worthless...but if damage is one of multiple win conditions, then healing fends off one win condition at the cost of giving the boss extra time to work on the other(s), so it can be useful without being an "I win" button.
• Make the boss heal, so that there's an absolute minimum damage output in order to win the fight at all. If the game happens to be balanced so that the players can't fully negate the boss's damge and meet that minimum, then they can't just go all-healing (or rather, they can, but it only achieves a stalemate). Note this requires that the boss is subject to one of the above or else is forced to use suboptimal tactics.

[Roy]

So you're suggesting that a defensive posture is not the best strategy, because the boss has a random chance of doing damage that you can't recover from, and thus you will eventually die no matter how defensively you play?

That could in principle be a valid objection, but I'm pretty sure it's untrue in the case of all the DQ9 bosses I've fought, including several post-game ones. One-rounding a single character is still recoverable to a party with combat resurrection, and almost all of the really dangerous attacks can be nullified by various counters (for example, the risk of instant death from criticals can be eliminated by a tank with forbearance and the shield scroll).

Then you haven't played very long.

The hard bosses regularly nuke your whole party for 300+. While Forebearance and the shield scroll works fine for the criticals, it means a single AoE nuke auto kills the tank. Which, among other things means other attacks can hit whoever they want. They get 3 turns.

Meanwhile, Kazing is the only viable in combat rez. Zing means they just die again, if it works at all. The items that raise the dead require grinding for, and not to mention once one person dies, others are likely to follow.

Of course, assuming your standards of viability don't require a 100% win rate, then even occasional unrecoverable damage wouldn't necessarily prevent a defensive strategy from being the only viable one for a significant power range. You'd need to consider the actual probabilities involved.

Even if you consider this, every round you give the enemy is a round they can fuck up your shit even if you're in perfect condition. Therefore, the optimal strategy is the shortest path to victory.

And my larger point about the strategies that tend to result when you give monsters massive HP totals is, of course, totally independent of any conclusions we draw specifically about DQ9. But I doubt anyone in this thread is concerned about that point anymore.

Massive HP totals, alone yes. High stats in general? No.

[Manxome]

Then you haven't played very long.

The hard bosses regularly nuke your whole party for 300+. While Forebearance and the shield scroll works fine for the criticals, it means a single AoE nuke auto kills the tank. Which, among other things means other attacks can hit whoever they want. They get 3 turns.

I've fought nine out of twelve grotto bosses, and two of what I can only assume are "legacy bosses" (though only at their starting level). In addition to, you know, finishing the main game.

I'm pretty sure none of them have ever made more than 2 attacks per round, and every attack I've seen that hits the whole party for even close to 300 is reflectable with either Magic Mirror or Reverse Cycle, except possibly for one thing that the final story boss did exactly once when I fought him (which killed my main tank and my main healer, because he used it exactly when my tank paused to refresh his counter moves, but I revived them and went on to win).

There are certainly bosses I haven't fought, but I think any pattern that starts after this point qualifies as an exception, not the rule.

Meanwhile, Kazing is the only viable in combat rez. Zing means they just die again, if it works at all. The items that raise the dead require grinding for, and not to mention once one person dies, others are likely to follow.

I have more yggdrasil leaves than I am ever likely to use, and I have successfully used zing in numerous boss fights that I went on to win (though obviously one couldn't rely on zing if one were seriously trying to get the win rate to exactly 100%).

I'm also willing to hazard I speak from considerably more experience than you on this particular point, unless you wiped your solo run data to replay with a party.

Even if you consider this, every round you give the enemy is a round they can fuck up your shit even if you're in perfect condition. Therefore, the optimal strategy is the shortest path to victory.

That's flatly false. Faster is better all else being equal, but a strategy that lets you win in 10 rounds if the boss happens to miss with every attack is not better than one that lets you win in 11 rounds with 99% certainty by any reasonable definition of "optimal".

But even if that were true, my thesis is that there is a substantial power range where a defensive strategy is the only one with any appreciable chance of victory. If that's true, then (for that power range) it is also the fastest path to victory, due to being the only path to victory, so your statement would not contradict mine.

[Swordslinger]

It sounds like a lot of reaching to me to come up with justifications for the scaling DC for our bash down a door example. I could understand if it had to do with SKILL (and I'm not buying any BS about looking for weak points in a door either). But we're talking about something that requires nothing but brute force.

Really? You're telling me a rogue can find a weak spot on an iron golem or a black pudding, but he can't find a structural weakness in a door?

[Sashi]

It's obviously some kind of skill. The Rogue/Wizard's strength score isn't increasing, just his modifier on strength checks. Meaning he can't lift/carry any more weight than he could at first level, he's just able to do better on strength-based checks.

[Roy]

Then you haven't played very long.

The hard bosses regularly nuke your whole party for 300+. While Forebearance and the shield scroll works fine for the criticals, it means a single AoE nuke auto kills the tank. Which, among other things means other attacks can hit whoever they want. They get 3 turns.

I've fought nine out of twelve grotto bosses, and two of what I can only assume are "legacy bosses" (though only at their starting level). In addition to, you know, finishing the main game.

I'm pretty sure none of them have ever made more than 2 attacks per round, and every attack I've seen that hits the whole party for even close to 300 is reflectable with either Magic Mirror or Reverse Cycle, except possibly for one thing that the final story boss did exactly once when I fought him (which killed my main tank and my main healer, because he used it exactly when my tank paused to refresh his counter moves, but I revived them and went on to win).

There you go. You haven't played very long.

All the real bosses get 3 turns every single round, have normal attacks that do 200, or 300, or even higher, critical hits that OHKO you, and of course nuke your entire party for 300+.

As for Magic Mirror and Reverse Cycle, answer this:

What happens when you use one of these effects, and the boss uses the other? Every single one of the real bosses has both breath weapons and spells to do 300+ and fuck up your shit.

What happens when you get Disruptive Waved (which does not remove Forebearance by the way, but does remove the reflect skills), then blows up the tank, then starts on the others in the same turn? Every single one of them have that skill. Every single one.

There are certainly bosses I haven't fought, but I think any pattern that starts after this point qualifies as an exception, not the rule.

Why not? It's an example of when it counts. All main game stuff is easy. The regular grotto bosses are easy. Level 1 Legacy bosses can be soloed in 2 turns with 0 risk. Fight real bosses and we'll talk.

Required viewing to continue:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RhalE14oNM

That character has max stats, including seeds (which by the way, are 1/256 drop and you need anywhere from dozens to hundreds per stat) and is perfectly optimized for that boss, including max resist to his elements.

Firebreath still does 260.
Kaboomle does about 300.
Kafrizzle does more.

Disruptive wave + 2 of any of those = people start dying.

Keep in mind in a party, you can't have unique items on everyone, so resists will be a bit lower.

Did I mention that is the EASIEST of the real bosses?

Sure it looks easy there, but that's because he decided to actually not Disruptive Wave. Which he normally does at least one per three rounds, and often more.

I have more yggdrasil leaves than I am ever likely to use, and I have successfully used zing in numerous boss fights that I went on to win (though obviously one couldn't rely on zing if one were seriously trying to get the win rate to exactly 100%).

I'm also willing to hazard I speak from considerably more experience than you on this particular point, unless you wiped your solo run data to replay with a party.

Zing revives you with half health. That's 400-450 on a class maxed character, less otherwise. It also has a 50% chance to not work at all. No, you're fucked on real bosses. All that pussy shit you've fought so far is not a real boss.

That's flatly false. Faster is better all else being equal, but a strategy that lets you win in 10 rounds if the boss happens to miss with every attack is not better than one that lets you win in 11 rounds with 99% certainty by any reasonable definition of "optimal".

But even if that were true, my thesis is that there is a substantial power range where a defensive strategy is the only one with any appreciable chance of victory. If that's true, then (for that power range) it is also the fastest path to victory, due to being the only path to victory, so your statement would not contradict mine.

If you're talking about the easy pussy bosses, you can just 1-2 round them by straight up DPS. No risk involved.

If you're talking about the real bosses, every round you give them brings the chance that you lose closer to 1.

Here's another demonstration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqId_OqoqA0

See how he starts every turn at full health? Look where it ends it at. Notice how people randomly die even from full health.

[Manxome]

If you make a statement that you intend to apply only to "a handful of top-end bosses in DQ9 that 99% of players will never see because they require ridiculous amounts of grinding", but you forget to actually say that part, that makes your statement wrong, and sets off a multi-page argument because you failed at expressing yourself.

Let me reiterate: all the bosses *I* have fought, in over 100 hours of DQ9, including the entire main game and a large chunk of post-game, appear to be designed so that a defensive "steady state" strategy can beat them at a significantly lower power level than any other strategy.

Saying that the game as a whole is characterized by bosses that do not encourage a defensive posture is therefore entirely misrepresentative, even if that trend is suddenly and arbitrarily reversed at the very end.