Optimum Level of Deceptive Attack

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by dublindog

You'll notice the effect of critical hits along the bottom especially, where you lose the benefits of DA by dropping your chance at a critical hit (on a 5 or 6) combined with the odds of a defense roll of a 17 or 18 always being a failed defense (lowering a defense of 18 to 17 or 16 garners the attacker no benefit in odds of a successful attack).

There's an interesting region beyond Defense 18, where it actually pays for a high skill attacker to stack DA until his effective skill is 10ish, even though it reduces chance of success. It's an "in for a penny, in for a pound" sort of scenario - you have to invest so much in DA to see any effect at all on the foes defenses that you're better off to keep throwing more skill penalties after and make the sacrifice worth something.

Of course, in a practical situation it's better not to DA at all in that situation if you can help it, because it's better to attack a different way, or at least not directly. Grenades, area effect attacks of all kinds, or trying to relocate the battle to someplace the defender doesn't have such a staggering advantage over you are all better tactics at that point.

If you don't have the resources to try an indirect attack like that, a skill 22-23+ attacker vs a high-defense foe is better off to Rapid Strike as much as possible than to DA, because he can double or even triple his chance of a critical success (which completely negates even the highest defenses).