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DaemonKain
Warrior
312 Posts
    
 | | 03/17/2006 1:55 PM |
| So I've been putzing around with the numbers for Dreamblade, based on what we know of the rules. I'm amazed at how much analysis could be done to drive warband building (are they warbands? what is the proper term?)
The main topic I've been examining so far is the expected value and standard deviation of spawn points available per turn.
I think this one will be vital for balancing the costs in a warband. A risk-averse balance of costs in the creatures making up the warband should allow you to use up most or all of your spawn points every turn, take advantage of freak bonuses in the number of spawn points available, and deal with turns in which you recieve very few spawn points. Turns in which the spawn phase is skipped would need to be dealt with on a tactical level, but I don't think they alter the balance of costs that should be in a warband too dramatically.
The big questionmarks for me right now are how many turns the average game will last, and the expected value of kills per turn (since this increases spawn points). Expected # of kills against you is a function of the life points of the creatures in your band, so it'll vary by band, and it's a wierdly circular problem. # of turns the game will last, and the deviation there, would be important to balance the risk of running out of creatures to summon at some point during the game.
Any other topics people expect to analyze? | |
-DaemonKain
Proud Mascot of Team Amish | |
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Wrackspawn
ChristopherGroves
Warlord
6093 Posts
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striderlotr
Commander
3370 Posts
| | 03/17/2006 2:06 PM |
| | I've been looking at all the different abilities and blade powers. There are many different combinations and after reading about the ability to move a figure that already attacked into a new cell and have it attack again... wow. There are some great possiblities for combos where a figure could end up attacking several times in one phase. | |
Sean Banks
Champion of Elementals
Official Organizer
Gen Con 05 maxminis Event | Winterfantasy 06 maxminis Event | Gen Con 06 maxminis Event | Winterfantasy 07 Community Event | |
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DaemonKain
Warrior
312 Posts
| | 03/17/2006 2:15 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by ChristopherGroves
Well, it's first to win 6 right ... so anywhere from 6 to 11 turns/rounds.
So I'm hoping, and this is just a hope, that Mr. Donais may see fit to ... grace us ... with a spoiler stat here and there ... what do you think Mr. Donais?
Right, but it's probably more likely that the number of rounds is between 9-11 than 6-8. I'd like to know how much more or less so I can predict how many times I'll spawn creatures, on average. If, for instance, in 80% of the games I'll get a maximum of 8 spawn rounds (since for a few we'll roll 1's, etc), then I might be safe building a band that is structured to summon all of it's 16 creatures in the spawn points I'm likely to get over 8 rounds. I'm unlikely to waste spawn points later because I actually have no creatures left. Or whatever. | |
-DaemonKain
Proud Mascot of Team Amish | |
|
Balduran I
Sergeant
404 Posts
| | 03/17/2006 2:20 PM |
| It's interesting that Power translates into the amount of damage you should expect, statistically, to do eah time you attack with the creature.
With the die having values of Blade (0), 0, 0, 1, 2, 3, if you roll six dice you should get 1 Blade and 6 damage. In short the average damage done per die is 1. So each point of Power translates into 1 point of damage per attack.
An easy way to look at figs and likely results when fighting. (Unless I'm totally screwed up in what the odds really are...) | |
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rickert
Skirmisher
9 Posts
Indiana
| | 03/17/2006 2:44 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by ChristopherGroves
Well, it's first to win 6 right ... so anywhere from 6 to 11 turns/rounds.
So I'm hoping, and this is just a hope, that Mr. Donais may see fit to ... grace us ... with a spoiler stat here and there ... what do you think Mr. Donais?
Actually it might be skewed a bit higher. There can be tied rounds that don't go to either player. | |
Rick Teverbaugh
WOTC Delegate
Dreamblade Rules Advisor | |
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DaemonKain
Warrior
312 Posts
| | 03/17/2006 3:36 PM |
| quote:
Actually it might be skewed a bit higher. There can be tied rounds that don't go to either player.
Good point on this, I've noticed it as well. I think this may be fairly common, but who knows. One thing to point out is that with the minis we've seen so far, I don't see any way for someone to win round 1. You literally can't get to one of your scoring locations in two actions, given that you won't be able to fight anyone on turn 1. | |
-DaemonKain
Proud Mascot of Team Amish | |
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Arnminster
Warrior
296 Posts
| | 03/17/2006 4:20 PM |
| Its imposible to win round 1 and imposible to get into combat until round 3 unless there are non-combat abilities I am missing.
It seems like an effective Warband would consist of
8 3(min?) to 5 cost creatures (including their Aspect cost)
4 less than 10 cost creatures (not including their Aspect cost)
4 9+ creatures (not including their Aspect cost) with most of them on the low end - Maybe one realy high cost creature. | |
Champion of the Rust Monster
Proud Member of Team Amish | |
| 2005 D&D Miniatures Champion
Fenris
Sergeant
974 Posts
| | 03/17/2006 5:12 PM |
| One thing I only noticed on my second read-through of the rules is that to satisfy aspect costs, you can use creatures in play OR in your graveyard. So, spawning low-cost, low-health creatures not only gets you on the board quickly but even after they die, these creatures help bring out the big guns later. You get the 2 free spawn points the turn after they die AND they satisfy an aspect cost for the rest of the game.
That affects warband building too, tho I'm not sure exactly how yet. [:)]
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Dagni
Sergeant
870 Posts
| | 03/17/2006 5:30 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by DaemonKain
Right, but it's probably more likely that the number of rounds is between 9-11 than 6-8. I'd like to know how much more or less so I can predict how many times I'll spawn creatures, on average. If, for instance, in 80% of the games I'll get a maximum of 8 spawn rounds (since for a few we'll roll 1's, etc), then I might be safe building a band that is structured to summon all of it's 16 creatures in the spawn points I'm likely to get over 8 rounds. I'm unlikely to waste spawn points later because I actually have no creatures left. Or whatever.
Well, the real question is how many turns a close game will be, as opposed to a typical game. If one side or the other dominated, then a few more spawn rounds weren't going to matter. The most obvious answer is that a close game will be 10-11 turns, plus the first (two?) turn(s), plus any other tied turns later. However, that's not necessarily true. I think that there will be agressive, tempo style warbands versus slower, late-game control style warbands. A warband that tries to kill every one of the opponent's creatures doesn't care about the score, so long as the enemy doesn't reach 6. Once the bulk of the enemy's forces are gone, he'll be able to clean-up at will.
In other words, two overall strategies, either sacrifice early scores for board advantage, or vice-versa, sacrifice board advantage for scores. A really close game between warbands with such different strategies could end 6-2, as the tempo band barely manages to score one last time before the control band takes board control for good. Or it could end 6-5, with the control band getting complete control just soon enough to prevent a 6-1 loss, and then winning the last few turns easily.
A tempo-style band, presuming such a strategy can be effective, would likely want to have a lower total Spawn cost of the warband as a whole. The goal, after all, is to win quickly enough that it doesn't matter that you don't have much left in reserve. When they win versus a pure control band, it'll be 6-2 or 6-3, after all. They won't win games 6-5, because in longer games, the control band has all the advantages.
Another, perhaps minor, issue is whether or not the final turn's reinforcements even matter. Since they start on the spawn row, they may or may not be valuable the turn they spawn. That could affect the math of the ideal warband's total spawn cost.
Then too, the concept of minimizing risk comes into play since the number of skipped spawning rounds is highly vairable, as is the number of spawn points awarded each round. Since running out early could be so devastating, warband builders will likely include some level of buffer points in case of surprisingly high results each turn.
- Dagni | |
Proud member of the GRUUMSH fan club! | |
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Aricanius
Skirmisher
5 Posts
| | 03/23/2006 1:05 AM |
| Here are the probabilities for the number of spawn points available per round. The numbers in parentheses are the chances of recieving at least that many spawn points.
First round:
5: 10% (100%)
6: 10% (90%)
7; 20% (80%)
8: 20% (60%)
9: 20% (40%)
10: 10% (20%)
11: 10% (10%)
When the score is tied:
0: 33.33%
5: 6.66% (66.63%)
6: 6.66% (59.97%)
7: 13.33% (53.31%)
8: 13.33% (39.98%)
9: 13.33% (26.65%)
10: 6.66% (13.32%)
11: 6.66% (6.66%)
When the score isn't tied:
0: 30.55
4: 2.78 (69.45%)
5: 5.56 (66.67%)
6: 8.33 (61.11%)
7: 11.11 (52.78%)
8: 13.89 (41.67%)
9: 11.11 (27.78%)
10: 8.33 (16.67%)
11: 5.56 (8.34%)
12: 2.78 (2.78%) | |
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Aricanius
Skirmisher
5 Posts
| | 03/23/2006 5:18 AM |
| And the probabilities for damage:
http://m.1asphost.com/Aricanius/statistics.htm
Top is dice, left is damage. The probability is for getting that number or higher. | |
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Wrackspawn
ChristopherGroves
Warlord
6093 Posts
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striderlotr
Commander
3370 Posts
| | 03/23/2006 8:23 AM |
| Wow, that is a ton of data... I'm not sure I'll be tryin to commit that one to memory.
Welcome to the boards. | |
Sean Banks
Champion of Elementals
Official Organizer
Gen Con 05 maxminis Event | Winterfantasy 06 maxminis Event | Gen Con 06 maxminis Event | Winterfantasy 07 Community Event | |
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Aricanius
Skirmisher
5 Posts
| | 03/23/2006 3:04 PM |
| Thanks for the greetings :)
I added the blade probibilities to the bottom of the statistics page I made. How would people like the cumulative probabilities done? % chance for that many or less, or % chance for that many or more? Both situations happen in game (like with positive and negative blades). | |
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Dagni
Sergeant
870 Posts
| | 03/23/2006 3:19 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by Aricanius
And the probabilities for damage:
http://m.1asphost.com/Aricanius/statistics.htm
Top is dice, left is damage. The probability is for getting that number or higher.
Very nice. After having played just a couple of games, it's also important to know the probability of getting at least X blades when Y dice are rolled. A table with Dice on top, and number of blades rolled would be cool.
The one that I'd really like to see, though, is dice rolled, and the chance of getting a particular damage result, split into two parts: that much damage, zero blades rolled, versus that much damage, 1 or more blades rolled.
For example, when an Iron Thug attacks by himself, he rolls 6 dice and does either the amount of damage he rolled, or that damage -2, if he rolled a blade. Or the Noble Dragon attacking by himself does Payback damage, if he rolls one or more blades.
For a calculator, which I might try to create myself sometime, the info that the user would input would be:
Number of dice: (self-explanatory)
Blade 1: (The best +dmg ability in the combat, left blank if there are none)
Blade 2: (second best, blank if there's only one blade ability that affects damage)
Blade 3: (third best)
(Blade 4, etc, if ever really needed)
Double Blade: (best double blade ability)
Double Blade 2:
(more if needed)
Multi-Blade: (the +/- to damage from the best multiblade ability)
Double Multi-Blade:
For example, Noble Dragon and Misshapen Mutant attack together in a fight where payback will do +6 dmg. So 9 dice, B1: +6, B2: +5, Multi: -5. Then the calculator gives that same damage column as in Aricanius's spreadsheet, only it takes blade abilites into account. Even blade abilities that don't affect combat can sorta be checked, if desired. E.g. Night Queen (with the Purge double blade ability) attacks with the Misshapen Mutant. 6 dice, B1: +5 dmg, BB1: +100 dmg, M: -5 dmg. The +100 damage results will show the likelihood of getting the Purge. Subtract 100 to see the real damage done in the actual combat.
Anyway, that's the sort of thing I'd like to see. [:)]
- Dagni | |
Proud member of the GRUUMSH fan club! | |
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Aricanius
Skirmisher
5 Posts
| | 03/23/2006 4:01 PM |
| Creating a calculator to take all of that into account would be extremely complex. A more simple solution is to just do column subtraction.
For example, an Iron Thug attacks and wants to do 4 damage. He has an 80% chance of dealing that much, but has a 66.5% of getting at least one blade.
To find the probability for succeeding you need to take into account the possible scenarios.
Scenario #1: 0 blades (34%), 4 damage (80%)
Scenario #2: 1 blade (40%), 6 damage (41%)
Scenario #3: 2 blades (20%), 6 damage (26%)
Scenario #4: 3 blades (5%), 6 damage (12%)
How did I find the percentages? If you get 1 blade, that means you only have 5 dice remaining. So you look in the 5 dice column and find how much damage you need to do (6, since with a fumble you do -2) and that's the chance. If you get 2 blades, look in the 4 dice column.
How do you find the final % for success?
34% * 80% = 27%
40% * 41% = 16%
20% * 26% = 5%
5% * 12% = .6%
27 + 16 + 5 + .6 = ~50% (after all the decimals that I took off)
This is a lot of work, but the problem with automating the process is that there are so many variables to take into account and every situation is unique. Each mini will require its own set of statistics. | |
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