Re: (TFT) TFT: Various Fire Missile Spells

[dwtulloh@zianet.com]

Dave Seagraves writes:

> Dan writes . . .
> 
> >Lessee ... the odds of rolling a 13 or less on 4 dice is
> >575/1296 whereas the odds of rolling a 13 or less on 3
> >dice is 181/216.  So the Expert Swordsman does, on average,
> >5 points of damage each time he hits (not exactly right,
> >but for the purposes of this discussion it will do), so
> >that means his expected damage delivered is (5*181)/216 =
> >4.19 points per turn.   The Novice does 7-2=5 pts on each
> >hit, so his expected damage is (5*575)/1296 = 2.22 per turn.
> 
>    Both figures should be doing the exact same amount of damage:
> 

This is expected value damage per turn ... different from the
average amount of damage given a hit.

> 
> >You know, I've been thinking about the TFT method of adding
> >or subtracting a D6 to represent the increased or relaxed
> >difficulty of achieving a task and the more I think about
> >it, the more I don't like it.  I would advocate the following
> >instead:
> 
>    Interesting mechanic, Dan.  I like it.  I might inflict it 
> on my players and see how it turns out.  Might be a pain to 
> implement on a spreadsheet, however (I use a notebook computer
> and Excel to automate some GM duties).   One really nice facet
> of this rule I just thought of: You never have to look in the 
> Codex to interpret extreme results, e.g. Triple Damage is
> /always/ a 3, no matter how many dice are rolled.  Less dice 
> to count as well (I hate counting all those damn dots).  Cool!
> 

One of the reasons I proposed this methodology!  One of the 
problems with the "add/subtract" rule is that it can make a 
difficult task impossible.  The max/min methodology adjusts
the probabilities of each of the 3d6 results.  Values at the
tail end of the distribution are no longer impossible, just
improbable (or more probable, depending on which of the 
distribution are you are looking at).

Dan
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