Optimum Level of Deceptive Attack

[dublindog]

Originally Posted by Lupo

1) often, a Deceptive Attack will grant a very minor benefit. It is somewhat less useful than I thought. E.g., for attack skill in the 15-17 range, a DA improves your chances to hit by +5%/+10% AT MOST.

Yes, this is true. But also remember that 15-17 is a very sensitive range because of the expanded critical hit rule. When you move your skill from 16 to 14, you are moving the chance of a critical down from 9.26% to 1.85%. 15 to 13 lowers P[Crit] from 4.63% down to 1.85%.

Also remember that the benefit is absolute, not relative. At 17/11 the DA level is 2 giving -4/-2 = 13/9. This moves P[landed blow] from 42.6% to 53.1%. Sure, that's only a 10.5% benefit, but it's a ~24.6% improvement.

I know percents are often confusing in this respect.

For example, if your initial chance was 20% and DA moved it to 40% that's a "benefit" of 20%, but an improvement of 100%. Meaning hits are twice as likely as they were, 40% is 200% of 20%. See how easy it is to use three different percents to represent the same thing? Since the later two are easier to get confused with imprecise language, I stuck with "benefit" being the actual additional improvement in chance to hit.

A benefit can never be more than 100%, but an improvement can be above that. For example:

Attack 24 / Defense 16. Without DA, your odds of landing a blow are 10.91%. You need a critical hit.

Chart says that optimal DA is 6 levels bringing the contest to: 12/10 = 37.97% chance of landing a blow.

Benefit chart says 27.06, which is true, 10.91+27.06=37.97

But this more than tripled your chance of success! You are 3.48 times more likely to hit.

That's a 248% improvement!

In the Skill 15-17 range you can see improvements of 20-40% over the original values.

[dublindog]

the "best DA option" is often not intuitive at all, and it changes weirdly.

E.g., if you are facing an enemy with an effective Defense of 16, and your attack skill is 16, your best option is an ordinary (not Deceptive) attack. But if your attack skill is either 15 or 17, your best option becomes a -6/-3 Deceptive attack!

TRUE! It's not intuitive, that's why I made a chart not a rule.

16 is a special case, because the odds of a critical with skill 16 = 9.26%. With 14 (one level of DA) = 1.85%.

17 to 15 goes from 9.26% to 4.63%. Not as big of a drop.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

With skill 15, -6/-3 isn't even legal.

This is true as well. Ooops.

I had fixed this by hand in my initial small chart but after I redid the formula to expand it, I forgot to double check again. There are actually 4 optimal moves on the chart that are not allowed because they lower your effective skill below 10.

Skill 13 vs. Defense 15,16,17 and Skill 15 vs. Defense 16.

Seeing as there are only 4 instances where you'd ever WANT to lower your affective attack score below 10, and in those instances you would want to, I wonder why that's even a rule and not just a suggestion.

I see no reason in my campaigns to not allow players to lower their effective skill below 10.

If you want to be a strict follower of the Floor = 10 rule, then here's the amended chart:

http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/7...eattackfix.png

Good catch.

[kure]

Originally Posted by dublindog

I'm not perfect, so there could be an error, but you're going to have to be more specific on what flaws you see.
...

Can you see how this works?

My bad, i just wrote faster than make math myself. DA is less intuitive than i realize first time.
Second case i just forget Criticals, but result of neat 50 did look suspicious :)

Anyway Im sorry :)

[Bruno]

I suspect everyone who tries this sort of analysis forgets criticals in their first draft.

I sure did :D

Those 0 regions on the defense chart are prime areas for switching to Dual Weapon Attack or Rapid Striking (or if you're crazy, All Out Attack Dual) to try and improve your chance for a critical hit, thereby bypassing the defenders amazing defenses completely.

They're even better regions for you to start to consider completely changing your tactics :D

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I suspect everyone who tries this sort of analysis forgets criticals in their first draft.

I sure did :D

Those 0 regions on the defense chart are prime areas for switching to Dual Weapon Attack or Rapid Striking (or if you're crazy, All Out Attack Dual) to try and improve your chance for a critical hit, thereby bypassing the defenders amazing defenses completely.

They're even better regions for you to start to consider completely changing your tactics :D

And then there's the diminishing Parry/Dodge score...

Really, analysis beyond the 1 attack / 1 defense is too complicated to use in real time without Intuitive Mathematician or (Eidetic Memory + Lightning Calculator).