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Old 11-15-2015, 06:53 PM   #51
Christopher R. Rice
 
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Default Re: Pyramid's Combat Effectiveness Rating for Foes

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pseudonym View Post
  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?
That's an excellent question. Figure damage by using Margin of Success - 11. So if your skill is, say, 20, then your damage would be 20 - 11 = 9 or 9 crushing.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pseudonym View Post
  1. 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?
No, it's very specifically your best attack because most likely that's going to be the one you use the most. This particular part went through even more rigorous and exhaustive playtesting/refinement and what was found is that most of the time in Dunbeon Fantasy you stick to a single mode of attack (your best) - even if you change it up somehow. That said, if you wish to include multiple attacks then use the rules from Heroes on the Mass Scale (which uses a similiar framework - though it has been changed to be as generic as possible). Heroes says:

Quote:
Attack is determined by taking the hero’s best attack,
minus five. If the character’s primary skill is 15 or higher
and if would be beneficial to do so, take the skill level for
his second-highest skill and subtract 10. If the character’s
secondary skill is 15 or higher, take the skill level for his
third-highest skill and subtract 15.
Do note that that will drastically change how calculations are done and I'm honestly not sure how the system will hold up with merging the two like that.

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Originally Posted by Pseudonym View Post
  1. 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?
The one that gives you the highest rating bump (which isn't always the highest base damage).
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Old 11-16-2015, 07:33 AM   #52
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Default Re: Pyramid's Combat Effectiveness Rating for Foes

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Originally Posted by Ghostdancer View Post
No, it's very specifically your best attack because most likely that's going to be the one you use the most. This particular part went through even more rigorous and exhaustive playtesting/refinement and what was found is that most of the time in Dunbeon Fantasy you stick to a single mode of attack (your best) - even if you change it up somehow. That said, if you wish to include multiple attacks then use the rules from Heroes on the Mass Scale (which uses a similiar framework - though it has been changed to be as generic as possible).
Ah yeah, looking at that, it definitely sounds like it is not worth it to respec everyone's CER. Thanks for the answer on constriction as well.
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Old 11-16-2015, 12:56 PM   #53
Christopher R. Rice
 
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Default Re: Pyramid's Combat Effectiveness Rating for Foes

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Originally Posted by Pseudonym View Post
Ah yeah, looking at that, it definitely sounds like it is not worth it to respec everyone's CER. Thanks for the answer on constriction as well.
No problem.
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Old 07-29-2022, 09:56 AM   #54
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Default Re: Pyramid's Combat Effectiveness Rating for Foes

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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.
I think there's some internal inconsistency here.

If we assume:

1) That CER is a decent estimator of an player/enemy/group's power

2) That adventure authors have been able to successfully suggest encounters, both in random encounters and dungeon rooms while only knowing the rough point-value of the players

3) That CER is unable to suggest iconic party levels or iconic encounter levels because of the massive party strength variance

Then something is up.

If there was massive party strength variance to the degree that easy fights for one group are near impossible for another (and this is a common occurrence), then pre-made adventures would be next to useless as well.

Yet, pre-made adventures exist. The N system in mirror of the fire demon works well enough. It seems pretty reasonable to me to build a bog-standard knight, wizard, thief, cleric straight from DFRPG totally rules as written, gear purchased from wealth rules-as-written. Is there actually that much variance there? I'm more than willing to spin up some bog-standard parties and have folks point out where they think I deviated from bog-standard.

If your party deviates from bog-standard to be better at fighting, you're going to be better at defeating monsters, and your GM should probably use more/harder baddies. Same deal in reverse. Notably, this is also how encounters in pre-made adventures are still useful, despite being prescriptive.
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