Pyramid's Combat Effectiveness Rating for Foes

[doulos05]

Originally Posted by Langy

Can you give a quantitative description of 'gobbledy****'? Are we talking 'one build of four reasonable starting DF characters had a total 100 CER, while another had a total of 400 CER', or more along the lines of '100 to 150' or even '100 to 200'?

Really, just an 'Iconic Party' would be helpful even if they aren't perfectly generic.

Would it really be helpful? How would it be helpful? A new GM might see the comparison for an iconic party and say, "OK, so this monster is Worthy for a party, so I'll include 3 of them so it's a challenge." And then TPK his party because they were lower CER than the iconic party.

I love the ability this adds to GURPS. I think GURPS needed this badly. But this doesn't turn GURPS (even DF) into D&D and I think making comparisons to an iconic party is a step towards that.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Langy

Can you give a quantitative description of 'gobbledy****'? Are we talking 'one build of four reasonable starting DF characters had a total 100 CER, while another had a total of 400 CER', or more along the lines of '100 to 150' or even '100 to 200'?

Again, I thought so too, but it's not helpful. I had ranges from as low as 70 for four characters to as high as I think 320(ish). It was too wide a band and in the end, there was no way I could present a concrete enough example that would be both useful and accurate to the reader. It's why I ditched it.

Originally Posted by Langy

Really, just an 'Iconic Party' would be helpful even if they aren't perfectly generic.

I don't know how many more ways I can say it. I know Dungeon Fantasy is an extremely prescriptive line - it's more firm than normal GURPS because it has to be - but this isn't DnD where you get a set number of abilities at each level. Whether it's hit dice, class powers, attacks/attack bonuses, whatever. In such a system, you can create an iconic party, because there is no flexibility in the character creation - well, not a lot any ways. Because GURPS is a points-based system, it is flexible, which means variation. Variation means that trying to set a general standard is going to be hard or near-impossible.

And it's not going to matter to begin with because every single delving party is going to be different. They are going to have different weapon choices, different spell choices, different armor choices, and whatever else. I know it seems like knowing what a "average" delving party might look like is helpful, but it's not. It's quicksand. If you throw out such a metric, then every GM is going to be comparing their delving party against it, and some are going to say, "No, you need at least a CER 55 to be a helpful wizard - redesign your character." We've all seen it happen in other systems and I think GURPS has enough perceived bagged without adding more to it.

I'm not going to stop anyone from trying to create or tally such a yardstick - but I doubt I'd endorse it (not that that need matter either!). I think this is where such systems have bogged down in the past - people try to measure what a "archetype" might do against its opposition. But that's not helpful because each group is going to have something that while may not be wildly different from said archetype will be different enough that I doubt it would matter.

It's kind of like saying "I want to describe what the perfect grains of sand look like." You can do that. On the outside they all look the same, but if you put it under a microscope you'll quickly see how wrong you are.

[Balor Patch]

To what extent is it possible to equate a CER value with a Mass Combat TS?

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Balor Patch

To what extent is it possible to equate a CER value with a Mass Combat TS?

It follows a similiar premise and I'm writing it as fast as I can (along with some more stuff for hacking Mass Combat for your games).

[Gnome]

OK, I'm not looking for "generic," "iconic," or "typical" here. I just want someone to take ANY 250-pt. template-created fully equipped DF character and calculate CER, showing their work. Preferably a wizard or other spellcaster (since I'm quite sure that would be the most challenging). I don't have time to do it myself at the moment, though if I find time at some point I will start to do this for some of our past characters to see how they measure against each other and/or monsters they've faced.

Perhaps we should include this disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: This is not to be the basis of a yardstick, litmus test, or any other measure by which to compare future DF characters, parties or enemies. This is purely an exercise to help understand how CP and $ spent in a sample case contributed to CER. Individual results may vary. The writer is not responsible for any cakewalks or TPKs resulting from this exercise, etc., etc.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Gnome

OK, I'm not looking for "generic," "iconic," or "typical" here. I just want someone to take ANY 250-pt. template-created fully equipped DF character and calculate CER, showing their work. Preferably a wizard or other spellcaster (since I'm quite sure that would be the most challenging). I don't have time to do it myself at the moment, though if I find time at some point I will start to do this for some of our past characters to see how they measure against each other and/or monsters they've faced.

Perhaps we should include this disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: This is not to be the basis of a yardstick, litmus test, or any other measure by which to compare future DF characters, parties or enemies. This is purely an exercise to help understand how CP and $ spent in a sample case contributed to CER. Individual results may vary. The writer is not responsible for any cakewalks or TPKs resulting from this exercise, etc., etc.

This is basically why I wanted that 'iconic' party and said it didn't need to be particularly generic - I'd like to see a fully-fleshed out example, though I'd prefer a full party rather than just a single character.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Langy

This is basically why I wanted that 'iconic' party and said it didn't need to be particularly generic - I'd like to see a fully-fleshed out example, though I'd prefer a full party rather than just a single character.

Keep in mind that in any two DF games, that party is going to vary wildly, even sticking to the same templates.

The least bad way of handling this would be someone to make up a character based on each listed lens for each template in DF1, equipping each based on the loadouts in DF13, and calculating the ratings based on these. Use nothing other than Basic, Magic, DF1, DF2, DF3 (for the races), DF13, and that issue of Pyramid with Kromm's updated spell lists, and stick to 250 points. You'll have a range of values, and can make up a few sample parties to see where totals lie. You'd have to make sure the parties are playable as a group so you don't have a party of three wizards and a druid.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Gnome

OK, I'm not looking for "generic," "iconic," or "typical" here. I just want someone to take ANY 250-pt. template-created fully equipped DF character and calculate CER, showing their work. Preferably a wizard or other spellcaster (since I'm quite sure that would be the most challenging). I don't have time to do it myself at the moment, though if I find time at some point I will start to do this for some of our past characters to see how they measure against each other and/or monsters they've faced.

Perhaps we should include this disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: This is not to be the basis of a yardstick, litmus test, or any other measure by which to compare future DF characters, parties or enemies. This is purely an exercise to help understand how CP and $ spent in a sample case contributed to CER. Individual results may vary. The writer is not responsible for any cakewalks or TPKs resulting from this exercise, etc., etc.

Tell you what, you provide the character with any issues/traits you find problematic or hard to measure and I'll calculate its CER for you. Just post it here and I'll give an answer. (I'll probably cross-post it on my blog as well as an example.)

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Langy

This is basically why I wanted that 'iconic' party and said it didn't need to be particularly generic - I'd like to see a fully-fleshed out example, though I'd prefer a full party rather than just a single character.

Gnome's issue (which has been discussed in another thread) is that he's having a hard time adjudicating the CER of casters with certain spells and/or abilities. Again, I'm not going to stop you from creating your iconic party - but it's not going to help in a meaningful way. Furthermore, I probably wouldn't endorse such a thing as it sends GMs the wrong message. I'm going to stop talking about that topic at this point because my position is pretty well-established. If someone wants to carry this over to PM with a fresher perspective or point, I'm willing to entertain such questions there.

[Pseudonym]

I didn't see a rule against thread necromancy in the FAQ or general forum, and these are small questions in the realm of CER, so I thought it was more appropriate to post them here than start a new thread:

1. How does constriction work for CER? I was trying to base an enemy on the anaconda in the DF5, and I feel like it should be worth a lot, but dunno what it is. An affliction? An attack? What's the damage since it's a contest roll?
2. It looks like a character with several regular attacks only has one accounted for. Maybe I misread, but I feel like a character with the utility to execute a decent ranged attack and a decent melee attack should have that accounted for, or did I misread the calculation section?
3. When calculating the points for skill and damage it says to use the "Best" one. Is best a) the attack that is most likely to be used b) the one with the highest skill level or c) the one with the highest damage?

Thanks, friends.