Main-gauche vs. Dagger

[phiwum]

Henry, maybe I'm just thick, but what are you talking about? A few more details would be helpful.

[hcobb]

DX 15 -1 for Pole Weapons Expertise and another -1 for Shield Expertise is adjDX 13, a one point advantage over DX 12.

[phiwum]

I guess that's a partial explanation. You've given the layout of the 9/15 fighter, more or less. I guess it's a 35 point fighter, since he has 11 IQ.

So, who is this 9/12 fighter who can beat the 9/15 guy? And supposing there is a 9/12 fighter who can regularly best a particular 9/15 with adjDX 13, does that show that the rule of thumb Nils suggests is wrong? (Plumb wrong interpretation of Henry's post. My fault.)

The simulations Nils mentions would surely have to be fairly rudimentary, not taking into account all of the many options that talents provide. It's just a rough rule he's observed, not a universal claim.

[hcobb]

Let's lay out the two starting characters.

Stabby, Human, age 20
ST 9, DX 15, IQ 8, MA 12
Talents: Bow, Brawling, Knife, Running, Shield, Sword
Language: Common
Weapons: dagger (1d-1), rapier (1d), small bow (1d-1)
Armor: Small shield stops 1 hit

Spinter, Human, age 20
ST 9, DX 12, IQ 11, MA 12
Talents include: Knife, Pole Weapons Expertise, Running, Shield Expertise
Language: Common
Weapons: dagger (1d-1), javelin (1d)
Armor: Small shield stops 2 hits, -2 to be hit

Who wins?

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Let's lay out the two starting characters.

Stabby, Human, age 20
ST 9, DX 15, IQ 8, MA 12
Talents: Bow, Brawling, Knife, Running, Shield, Sword
Language: Common
Weapons: dagger (1d-1), rapier (1d), small bow (1d-1)
Armor: Small shield stops 1 hit

Spinter, Human, age 20
ST 9, DX 12, IQ 11, MA 12
Talents include: Knife, Pole Weapons Expertise, Running, Shield Expertise
Language: Common
Weapons: dagger (1d-1), javelin (1d)
Armor: Small shield stops 2 hits, -2 to be hit

Who wins?

I see now that I was mistaken about who had the expertise. Five posts in, I finally understand your example. You have shown that a general rule of thumb has exceptions and if we cook up the example just right, the lower adjDX guy might have an advantage.

I'm not sure that anyone thought otherwise, but at least we have it sorted now.

[Nils_Lindeberg]

Originally Posted by phiwum

The simulations Nils mentions would surely have to be fairly rudimentary, not taking into account all of the many options that talents provide. It's just a rough rule he's observed, not a universal claim.

It wasn't that rudimentary. And it did take the few talents that exist into account. It had some limitations like:
No grid, just distance and a few rules of thumb about things like when to defend against a pole arm charge and when not to, and so on.
No ranged weapons since they depend on arena size.
No special weapons like Bola, or combination of weapons like net and trident.
No HtH option, but the UC talents were included.
No racial options, just humans. Even though a couple of monsters were included like a couple of sizes of dragons for comparison (but they could be excluded from the dataset matchups.)
We only compared 32, 36 and 40 point characters. Created from scratch, so no differentiating based on actual xp spent to get expertise and mastery talents.
We culled a lot of similar builds like only using the best weapon for each ST category (pole arms were all included together with their non pole arm counterpart, etc). We made no differentiation between a chainmail + small shield wearer and a Cloth + tower shield wearer, so a bigger shield was always preferred over heavier armor.
No enchantments or fine weapons which skew the result in favor of small weapons and builds with low adjDX.
Limiting the fights to 25 or 50 rounds if I remember correctly since some dagger+armor builds could go on for a very long time.
No wizards and no spells.

But other than that, the result were pretty good and completet I think.

[Nils_Lindeberg]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Let's lay out the two starting characters.

Stabby, Human, age 20
ST 9, DX 15, IQ 8, MA 12
Talents: Bow, Brawling, Knife, Running, Shield, Sword
Language: Common
Weapons: dagger (1d-1), rapier (1d), small bow (1d-1)
Armor: Small shield stops 1 hit

Spinter, Human, age 20
ST 9, DX 12, IQ 11, MA 12
Talents include: Knife, Pole Weapons Expertise, Running, Shield Expertise
Language: Common
Weapons: dagger (1d-1), javelin (1d)
Armor: Small shield stops 2 hits, -2 to be hit

Who wins?

Spinter by a fair margin. Spinter is a top contender, Stabby is not.
I am talking against the collected results against the whole set of possible fighters. Against each other specifically, Spinter will also win if I remember correctly.

[Nils_Lindeberg]

I have to correct myself when it comes to Stabby and Spinter.

I looked at one of the few simulation data sheets that I have left and there are a few problems. It was coded pre legacy, during playtesting, so Expertise was set at IQ 10. Which makes expertise builds a lot stronger than the current RAW.

We also didn't have a rule for when shrewd should be used or not, so we had builds that used it all the time against all enemies, and another build that never used it. In real play, it should of course depend on individual enemy armor and adjDx set up, which should make expertise slightly better overall. I don't know if these two problems cancel out or not.

In the simulation, the 9/13/10 javelin+small shield build got a 69.73 win rating. Tower shield version a 70.52 win rating and Large shield version a 70.94 rating.

The 9/15/8 rapier and small shield got a 33.55 win rate. The lowest of all the rapier builds.
A few of the other rapier builds:
9/15/8 rapier with Plate and tower shield got a 53.3 win rate. (Very surprising). Very long and boring fight. Average number of turns was 26.63, so very long fights indeed. I think max number of turns was set to 100.

9/13/10 rapier expertise and small shield. 60.97
9/13/10 rapier expertise and large shield 63.64.
9/13/10 rapier expertise and small shield (going shrewd all the time) 54.72
9/15/8 rapier and cloth + tower shield. 48.44
9/15/8 rapier and leather + tower shield 54.9 (A solid tank build).
13/11/8 morningstar and small shield. 64.94
11/13/8 1H Spear and Cloth Tower shield 49,42
11/13/8 2H Spear 54.7
13/11/8 Halberd 64.73
15/9/8 Pike Ax 56.02
10/12/10 Cutlass, Fencing, small shield 78.07 (best in test, but not Legacy RAW).
8/12/12 UC3, Kick 60.46
16/8/8 Greatsword 43.58 (Not as bad as expected).
8/14/10 Dagger, Leather, Tower shield, Expertise. 57.33
12/12/8 Broadsword, large shield 63.22
11/13/8 Mace, Cloth, Tower Shield 61.27

[Nils_Lindeberg]

Overall summary of the simulations.
Don't under-estimate armor, nor low damage weapons, but expect longer fights.
The system is very balanced as a baseline. Some weapons like the special weapons are not balanced. But the base system is.

Don't be afraid of low adjDX, it will be swingy and a little boring to miss a lot, but it is not a suboptimal tactic. Especially if you fight with others so you can get a side, rear or attacking prone target bonus.

If you know your opponent and can adjust your adjDX to be one higher than theirs, it will give you an advantage, even if you have to ditch your shield.

Expertise is a valid option, that will cost you IQ points, especially if you also take Shield expertise, but you get a wider range of talents to choose from. Balance-wise, it is not a bad option. Getting expertise later in the game is very expensive.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg

It wasn't that rudimentary. And it did take the few talents that exist into account. It had some limitations like:
No grid, just distance and a few rules of thumb about things like when to defend against a pole arm charge and when not to, and so on.
No ranged weapons since they depend on arena size.
No special weapons like Bola, or combination of weapons like net and trident.
No HtH option, but the UC talents were included.
No racial options, just humans. Even though a couple of monsters were included like a couple of sizes of dragons for comparison (but they could be excluded from the dataset matchups.)
We only compared 32, 36 and 40 point characters. Created from scratch, so no differentiating based on actual xp spent to get expertise and mastery talents.
We culled a lot of similar builds like only using the best weapon for each ST category (pole arms were all included together with their non pole arm counterpart, etc). We made no differentiation between a chainmail + small shield wearer and a Cloth + tower shield wearer, so a bigger shield was always preferred over heavier armor.
No enchantments or fine weapons which skew the result in favor of small weapons and builds with low adjDX.
Limiting the fights to 25 or 50 rounds if I remember correctly since some dagger+armor builds could go on for a very long time.
No wizards and no spells.

But other than that, the result were pretty good and completet I think.

My mistake, Nils. Sounds more thorough than I expected.