Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => Gear => Topic started by: JoeNapalm on <08-11-16/1341:19>
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Am I reading this right?
They're listed as $250 / 0.05 ESS, sold individually, but you have to buy two to receive any benefit?
Why in the name of Dunklezahn's Ghost wouldn't you just write that as $500 / 0.1 ESS for +1 DV?
I mean, that's just....GAH.
Eschew obfuscation!!
-Jn-
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You get a benefit from one: P instead of S damage with your punch
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You get a benefit from one: P instead of S damage with your punch
I cannot think of a less efficient way to accomplish that. ::)
-Jn-
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True, but that's what you get for being cheap and not buying a set ;)
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You can't put them on cyber hands as I recall.
So if you have a cyberarm on your right side, you only need to buy 1 for the left...
(Of course, why your not punching with your metal right hand is beyond me...)
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It could have less Strength/Agility than your normal one...
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Maybe your a Nartaki who lost an arm in bad fishing accident?
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Oh bloody...
Looks like Striking Calluses and Bone Density Aug won't stack with Knucks?!
I guess I can see that, but I'd think a tougher, denser limb behind the hardliner gloves would still let you strike harder -- one of the limits of how hard you can hit someone is how tough your hands are.
In any case, that's a dead even heat -- $14k for 17[9] 7P, or $15K for 15[8] 9P.
Of course, the latter also costs me 10 Karma and the Wanted Neg Quality.
*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*
-Jn-
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Liberal application of striking calluses are part of how you end up with unarmed damage in the low twenties.
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Liberal application of striking calluses are part of how you end up with unarmed damage in the low twenties.
I would assume that's on a Troll? :o
I've finagled it up to 9P[8] -4 AP with four Striking Calluses, Level 2 Bone Density Augmentation (#@$%ing HOBO CHARGEN!) and a weak-ass Qi Focus.
I guess the Qi Focus doesn't affect damage, but it does offset somewhat losing the Weapon focus.
You can't put them on cyber hands as I recall.
So if you have a cyberarm on your right side, you only need to buy 1 for the left...
(Of course, why your not punching with your metal right hand is beyond me...)
Also - you've still only got 1 pair, so no bueno, no bonus.
-Jn-
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Adept power Critical Strike confers +1 DV doesn't it?
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Yup, and Penetrating Strikes is -1 AP/level, which is kind of the same thing.
Unless this hobo is punching other hobos.
Bum fights, and such...otherwise anti-armor is pretty much plus damage.
-Jn-
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Not exactly, AP is only about 1/3 as effective as +DV
If you can, you should look at Adept Spell (Elemental Aura). That one has huge damage potential.
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Not exactly, AP is only about 1/3 as effective as +DV
If you can, you should look at Adept Spell (Elemental Aura). That one has huge damage potential.
Okay, since each die only has about a 1/3 chance of being a hit? I guess that does make sense.
In that case, Penetrating Strikes has diminishing returns. Rank 1 gives me a 33.3% chance of nullifying a hit on their damage resist roll.
But R2 is only +22.25%, R3 +14.81%, and 9.88% for R4.
At that rate, I might drop it from R4 to R3, dumping that point back into Combat Sense R3...also diminishing returns, but balanced out vs my current PS 4/CS 2.
-Jn-
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Not in all cases: When you are dealing with Hardened or Vehicle Armor, AP becomes very important.
That said: Yes, Combat Sense R1 is a very good power to have - not so much because of the defense bonus but because it becomes a lot harder to surprise you.
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I would assume that's on a Troll? :o
I've finagled it up to 9P[8] -4 AP with four Striking Calluses, Level 2 Bone Density Augmentation (#@$%ing HOBO CHARGEN!) and a weak-ass Qi Focus.
I guess the Qi Focus doesn't affect damage, but it does offset somewhat losing the Weapon focus.
Cyclops is a little better, but yeah.
Troll or better, with striking calluses on both hands and both feet, exceptional strength, genetically optimized strength, strength augmented to max by whatever means, critical strike: unarmed, and maxed bone density (preferably alpha grade) via restricted gear.
Comes out to...
Strength 16.
+2 from striking calluses.
+3 from bone density.
+1 from critical strike.
=21P.
From there, you can add more from martial arts. Ji Dhao, most notably, is an easy +1.
Options to go up from there? Cyclops gives you one more point of strength. HMHVV gives you more strength. SURGE can give you more strength and can give you more limbs to put striking calluses on. Elemental Aura does terrible, nasty things to your unarmed strikes. Or, you could shapechange into an elephant and wreck all of the things.
Okay, since each die only has about a 1/3 chance of being a hit? I guess that does make sense.
In that case, Penetrating Strikes has diminishing returns. Rank 1 gives me a 33.3% chance of nullifying a hit on their damage resist roll.
But R2 is only +22.25%, R3 +14.81%, and 9.88% for R4.
At that rate, I might drop it from R4 to R3, dumping that point back into Combat Sense R3...also diminishing returns, but balanced out vs my current PS 4/CS 2.
-Jn-
No, there really aren't any diminishing returns, unless you're facing incredibly lightly armored enemies. If you take four dice away from your opponent's soak pool, each individual die had a 1/3 chance of coming up a success. Or 5/9 if they edge for rerolls. This is independent of how many dice you take away.
-4 AP is slightly better than +1 1/3 DV.
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Okay, since each die only has about a 1/3 chance of being a hit? I guess that does make sense.
In that case, Penetrating Strikes has diminishing returns. Rank 1 gives me a 33.3% chance of nullifying a hit on their damage resist roll.
But R2 is only +22.25%, R3 +14.81%, and 9.88% for R4.
At that rate, I might drop it from R4 to R3, dumping that point back into Combat Sense R3...also diminishing returns, but balanced out vs my current PS 4/CS 2.
-Jn-
No, there really aren't any diminishing returns, unless you're facing incredibly lightly armored enemies. If you take four dice away from your opponent's soak pool, each individual die had a 1/3 chance of coming up a success. Or 5/9 if they edge for rerolls. This is independent of how many dice you take away.
-4 AP is slightly better than +1 1/3 DV.
How is that not diminishing returns?
The odds of an individual die coming up with a hit is 1-in-3, but you're talking about the odds of each additional die in the cumulative distribution.
Odds of successfully nullifying additional cumulative hits based on Rank:
1 - 33.33%
2 - 22.25%
3 - 14.81%
4 - 9.98%
Each additional Rank costs the same as Rank 1, but drops off in effectiveness.
The more Magic you pump into it, the less it buys you.
Diminishing returns.
-Jn-
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How is that not diminishing returns?
The odds of an individual die coming up with a hit is 1-in-3, but you're talking about the odds of each additional die in the cumulative distribution.
Odds of successfully nullifying additional cumulative hits based on Rank:
1 - 33.33%
2 - 22.25%
3 - 14.81%
4 - 9.98%
Each additional Rank costs the same as Rank 1, but drops off in effectiveness.
The more Magic you pump into it, the less it buys you.
Diminishing returns.
-Jn-
I don't know how you're coming up with this math, but it looks like you're reading dice from right to left until you find a single success and then stopping, which is not how AP works. Your soak pool always applies in its entirety as a penalty to your target's soak pool, so long as your AP doesn't exceed their armor.
Let's say you have no AP. You are punching Officer Bob, who has Body 3 and Armor 12, for a soak pool of 15.
Each individual die has a 1/3 chance of coming up a success. Therefore, with fifteen dice, you see an average of 5 successes to soak.
Now, you take rank 1 penetrating strike. You have AP -1. You penetrate one point of armor, reducing Officer Bob's soak to 14 dice.
Still, each individual die has a 1/3 chance of success, so with 14 dice, you see an average of 4 2/3 successes to soak, down from 5. That first rank is worth a third of a point of damage.
Now, you take rank 2 penetrating strike. You have AP -2. You penetrate 2 points of armor, reducing Officer Bob's soak to 13 dice.
1/3 chance of success per die, 13 die, average of 4 1/3 successes, down from 4 2/3, so that second rank is worth a third of a point of damage.
Third rank. AP -3. Soak pool is 12.
Average soak result of 4, down from 4 1/3. That third rank is worth a third of a point of damage.
Fourth rank. AP -4. Soak is 11.
Average soak is 3 2/3, down from 4. The fourth rank is also worth a third of a point of damage. Every single rank is worth a third of a point of damage. There are no diminishing returns.
If your AP is -4, that means your target is rolling four fewer dice to soak, which means they have four fewer chances to get successes. They could have come up all successes. They could have come up all 1's. But now, they can't, because they aren't being rolled at all.
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Every die roll is independent; meaning the outcome of one is unaffected by other dice. Rolling a second die after rolling the first one is not going to affect the outcome of the first. And not vice versa. Hence, every die will have a 1/3 chance to roll a hit. Regardless of the amount of dice.
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Every die roll is independent; meaning the outcome of one is unaffected by other dice. Rolling a second die after rolling the first one is not going to affect the outcome of the first. And not vice versa. Hence, every die will have a 1/3 chance to roll a hit. Regardless of the amount of dice.
Absolutely true...
...if you only care about the outcome of one die.
But if you buy more than one Rank, you care about the cumulative distribution. It's not about rolling a hit on one die, that's always 33.3% -- it's about the chance of rolling cumulative hits across all the dice.
At Rank 1, you have a 33.3% chance of having nullified a hit.
At Rank 2, since you nullify two dice, you have a 55.56% chance of nullifying one hit, and an 11.11% chance of nullifying a second.
Rank 3, you're weighing in at a 70.37% chance of one hit, 25.93% for two, and 3.7% for three.
Rank 4, it's 80.25%, 40.74%, 11.11%, and 1.23%.
It's called a Chi-squared distribution. As you increase your Rank and roll more dice, yes, your chances improve -- but the actual results are modeled not by the odds of rolling a hit on a single die (that is, indeed, always 33.3%) but by the distribution of hits across multiple dice.
As you can see, yeah, Rank 4 gives you a bigger chance of one hit, but it's NOT a 133.2% chance! As I said...twice...Rank 1 gives you 33.3%, but that second Rank only buys you an additional 22.25% for one hit. Because it's about more than one die, now.
Diminishing returns. For reals. Stay away from dice pools and casinos until you grok this.
-Jn-
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You're wildly over complicating the statistics to the point that you've lost the forest in the trees.
The probability of negating one hit is not important. The part you care about is how many successes your enemy gets, and that gets abstracted as an average.
Every die you take away reduces the target's average result by one third of a success. That simple. There are no diminishing returns.
And yes, you can have a 133 1/3% chance of negating a success and still sometimes not negate any because you can accomplish the goal of negating a success multiple times on a single roll and every time you accomplish your goal counts equally.
An increase from 33% chance of one to 55% chance of one and 11% chance of two is still a 33% improvement. (55-33)+11=33%. No diminishing returns.
Stay away from casinos until you learn to aim those statistics at the right rules. You can crunch all the numbers in the world, but if you crunch the wrong numbers, you get meaningless rubbish out.
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You're wildly over complicating the statistics to the point that you've lost the forest in the trees.
The probability of negating one hit is not important. The part you care about is how many successes your enemy gets, and that gets abstracted as an average.
Every die you take away reduces the target's average result by one third of a success. That simple. There are no diminishing returns.
And yes, you can have a 133 1/3% chance of negating a success and still sometimes not negate any because you can accomplish the goal of negating a success multiple times on a single roll and every time you accomplish your goal counts equally.
An increase from 33% chance of one to 55% chance of one and 11% chance of two is still a 33% improvement. (55-33)+11=33%. No diminishing returns.
Stay away from casinos until you learn to aim those statistics at the right rules. You can crunch all the numbers in the world, but if you crunch the wrong numbers, you get meaningless rubbish out.
*facepalm*
No. You don't add them.
Those are the odds of rolling AT LEAST that number of successes. That 55.56% chance of at least one hit means a 44.44% chance of ZERO hits. Not 33.3%.
The fact that you're suggesting that you can have a 133.2% chance to roll a hit on four dice shows you have no idea how this works and are not open-minded enough to learn otherwise.
You can easily roll four dice and score zero hits. Nearly a 1-in-5 chance, as a matter of fact. Try it out.
Whether you're rolling four dice or hoping to remove four of their dice doesn't matter -- it's the odds of the number of hits on those dice. In fact, the more dice you opponent is rolling, the less impact this ability has, compounding the diminishing returns.
Don't take my word for it. Look it up. Or flip a coin. By your math, if you flip it twice, one MUST be heads.
Done debating this. Going round and round over ambiguous rules is one thing, but this is cold hard math.
-Jn-
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Cold Hard Math, and you are both right. Because you are talking about different things.
Joe, you are (like Blue Rose said) taking a complex and in depth look at the broad statistics of the dice rolls. Going into the deep aspects of probability and statistics.
Blue Rose, Adamo, etc. are all talking about the simplified raw average chances. They use these numbers because not everyone has studied (or cares to analyze) the complex statistics behind complex probabilities. They are basing their numbers on the raw probability that a single die will get a hit (which is 1 in 3).
If you remove two dice, you are removing two 1:3 chances of getting a hit. Yes, statistics show that this does not remove 2:3, because there are a lot more possibilities out there and complex analysis will show a whole slew of data. But on the fast and narrow, we don't want to add even more math that doesn't directly help us with our goals.
So we simplify, each die is a 1:3 chance of getting a hit. Therefore for every three dice, we will get (on average) 1 hit. Ergo, removing three dice from someone's pool will remove (on average) one hit from their successes. Yes, complex analysis of the statistics and probability shows that removing (or adding) three dice does not guarantee a change of one hit, but the average success rate is all that most people are looking at. We aren't breaking it down into the chances of getting every possible outcome and the inherent probabilities that creates.
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No, no we are not "both right."
If I'm discussing the actual probabilities of dice pools and diminishing returns on Rank investment, and someone comes into my thread and challenges the math based on rolling a single die, they aren't equally correct simply by then saying "I don't care about math."
If you don't care about how it actually works, then don't start %#ге on a thread about the math.
This isn't arguing interpretations of RAW vs RAI. This is how dice work. It's not really debatable. You can test it. Grab a handful of dice, start rolling, track your results. We are NOT "both right" and it only takes a few throws to prove it.
Absolutely done here. Dropping the mic. Nothing to be gained from additional ranting. Just throw the dice. If you can fail with three or more dice, you've got your answer.
-Jn-
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If you are discussing the need to get to a certain threshold (eg to hit, to overcome soak, etc), then you need to worry about a lot more than 1/3 of a success, as low rolls fail, but high ones don't improve things.
If you are discussing the average amount of damage something will do, given that it'll be over the threshold, then 1/3 is fine.
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Hoo, boy.
*Pops her knuckles.*
Here we go.
Statistics is not math.
Statistics is a logical method that incorporates math as a principal tool. You can do the math flawlessly, but if you select a nonsensical model or fail to interpret data sensibly, the math becomes useless.
I find your math sound and your statistical analysis to be an abject failure in model design and interpretation. Good math plus bad logic leads to bad conclusions.
You have correctly calculated the probability that increasing AP values from one to four will prevent at least one success, and assume in your model that preventing two, three, or four successes is a distinction not worth accounting for.
Let us call preventing a success our event. If your AP manages to prevent a single success, then 100% of an event has occurred. If you prevent two successes, 200% of an event has occurred! You can have percentages greater than 100%, depending on your model. You just have to interpret what that percentage means. That 133 1/3% does not mean that if you roll three times, there will be four separate rolls in which an event occurs. It means on average, 400% of an event shall occur overall because an event can occur more than once per roll.
By your own math, of AP -4 having an 80.25% chance of negating at least one success, a 40.74% chance of negating at least two successes, an 11.11% chance of negating at least three successes, and a 1.23% chance of negating four full successes, you agree with me. Once you count every event, that 80.25% where a first event occurs, plus the 40.74% where a second event occurs, plus the 11.11% where a third event occurs, plus the 1.23% where a fourth event occurs? That's an average of 133 1/3% of an event per roll!
Here is a big spreadsheet full of lots of random numbers and some math. (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RfbK_jEFnXG0dU5-bJXob4twq7urrR8kiXRSEFkPvSY/edit?usp=sharing)
What I did here was assume a Body 4 human wearing an armored jacket. I used randbetween(1,6) to model a 6-sided die, spread across 16 rolls, then columns all the way out to column ZZ.
Below that, I constructed a sum of if(CELL>4,1,0) statements adding up all 16 random die rolls in the respective columns.
Below that, I did the same, counting the top 15 dice, then 14, then 13, then 12 dice.
On the far left, I took the mean of each set of randomly rolled successes for each number of dice rolled.
The results?
16 dice: 5.35 successes on average.
15 dice (AP -1): 5.021429 successes on average.
14 dice (AP -2): 4.698571 successes on average.
13 dice (AP -3): 4.361429 successes on average.
12 dice (AP -4): 4.06 successes on average.
In other words, what I've been saying all along. Each additional point of AP reduced average number of successes by approximately one third of a success. Each point of Penetrating Strike was equally valuable, as the goal of the ability is to reduce the average number of successes your opponent scores on soak rolls. No diminishing returns.
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I don't know why you would use a chi-squared distribution, this is a binomial distribution. Number of hits = X~Bin(n, 1/3)
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By your own math, of AP -4 having an 80.25% chance of negating at least one success, a 40.74% chance of negating at least two successes, an 11.11% chance of negating at least three successes, and a 1.23% chance of negating four full successes, you agree with me. Once you count every event, that 80.25% where a first event occurs, plus the 40.74% where a second event occurs, plus the 11.11% where a third event occurs, plus the 1.23% where a fourth event occurs? That's an average of 133 1/3% of an event per roll!
That was a well-written post, and I appreciate the civility of the discourse.
I really swore I was walking away from this, but I'll respond in spite of myself. :-\
You're adding stuff together that doesn't get added together. You can't have a probability greater than 100% in this context. Only the ground has a kill ratio of 1.
What those percentages represent is the probability of rolling at least that many successes. The chance of rolling at least one success includes the probabilities for rolling more than one success. You can't have a 100% chance of rolling a hit on a dice pool, even if you had an infinite number of dice.
Your big table is impressive, but it's not a dice pool, it's a spreadsheet using a simple RNG. You're modeling one die rolled over and over, in sequence (which is always 33.3%) not a big pile of dice rolled all at once (which is vastly more complex).
If your maths and tables were correct, there would be no 3D6 Bell Curve, Gary Gygax would cease to have existed and we never would have had this conversation. :o
Here's the real deal:
(http://i.imgur.com/MJmHFV4.png)
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jUrA6CWdFLw/Tb7GNn1gW3I/AAAAAAAAAD0/gKDlZwmsFBQ/s1600/Shadowrun_success_graph.jpg)
-Jn-
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You two are talking past each-other, talking about different things.
JoeNapalm is identifying the individual probabilities of several different dice pools and comparing the relative proportions of the chance of getting the various number of hits. This is perfectly identified in the chart he just posted.
Everyone else is talking about the statistically average number of successes one is likely to get based on given dice pools.
Go back into your raw data, using the probabilities of getting exactly a certain number of hits, and take the number of successes that is getting the highest probability for each die pool. More than likely it will be the "average" result, or one third of the number of dice rolled.
Take your chart, the 9 row. If we separate out the data the chances are: 9 hits (0.01), 8 hits (0.09), 7 hits (0.73), 6 hits (3.42), 5 hits (10.24), 4 hits (20.49), 3 hits (27.31), 2 hits (22.41), and only 1 hit (11.71), which leaves a 3.59% chance of getting 0 hits. The result with the highest probability of occurring is 3 hits (at ~27%). As you increase the number of dice the standard deviation increases, making other numbers less "statistically outlandish" but the average or most statically probable result will always be one third of the number of dice rolled.
And no, technically rolling a big pile of dice vs a single die and tabulating the results based on groupings does not have different results. Each individual die is still a randomly generated number between one and six. Rolling six dice simultaneously and a single die six times has the same probabilities of getting any individual set of six results. There is a bell curve, if you take all of the results on that chart (Rows 18, 20, 22, and 24; Column C - ZZ) and make a Bar graph where the value in the cell is the X axis and the number of times that result occurs is the Y axis you will see your curve.
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<Reads>
<Stares>
<Blinks>
<goes and gets dictonary, chair, and cooler filled with Beer>
<reads more>
<reads more after drinking most of the beer>
Can I get that in "non-uber-math-geek" speak please? Some of us are too drunk to put on our "smrtz hatz:...
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<Reads>
<Stares>
<Blinks>
<goes and gets dictonary, chair, and cooler filled with Beer>
<reads more>
<reads more after drinking most of the beer>
Can I get that in "non-uber-math-geek" speak please? Some of us are too drunk to put on our "smrtz hatz:...
Which part has you lost, Reaver?
Basically JoeNapalm is analyzing the probabilities of getting a certain number of hits based on a given dice pool, and is showing how increasing your dice pool doesn't necessarily increase your chances of getting that number of hits by the same amount.
For example: Tripling your dice pool doesn't mean you triple your chances of getting 2 (or more) hits.
The other argument is talking about average results of those given dice pools and completely bypassing the probability involved.
For example: you could say that the average result of 9 dice is 3 hits (I think I pointed that out pretty clearly in my last post). And if you add three dice to that (for a total of 12 dice), you have increased the average result by 1 hit, to 4 hits total.
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I really cannot stress enough the extent to which understanding the probabilities beyond the napkin math of "3 dice=1 hit" matters if you're interested in efficient character (or encounter, for GMs) design. You need to weigh risk tolerance (mitigated by Edge) against wasted hits (hits beyond your Limit) and understand the requirements of the various types of tests in the game.
Back on topic, are multiple pairs of callouses really that common? Do GMs allow 3 pairs (say, elbow, hands, and feet) to add +3 DV?
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<Reads>
<Stares>
<Blinks>
<goes and gets dictonary, chair, and cooler filled with Beer>
<reads more>
<reads more after drinking most of the beer>
Can I get that in "non-uber-math-geek" speak please? Some of us are too drunk to put on our "smrtz hatz:...
Which part has you lost, Reaver?
Basically JoeNapalm is analyzing the probabilities of getting a certain number of hits based on a given dice pool, and is showing how increasing your dice pool doesn't necessarily increase your chances of getting that number of hits by the same amount.
For example: Tripling your dice pool doesn't mean you triple your chances of getting 2 (or more) hits.
The other argument is talking about average results of those given dice pools and completely bypassing the probability involved.
For example: you could say that the average result of 9 dice is 3 hits (I think I pointed that out pretty clearly in my last post). And if you add three dice to that (for a total of 12 dice), you have increased the average result by 1 hit, to 4 hits total.
Write yourself a note:
"Joe owes me a beer."
You can roll one die over an over and over and have a 1/3rd chance of scoring a hit. So if you have Rank 4 in Penetrating Strikes, all four dice have a 1/3rd chance of a hit...or, in this case, of having been a hit if you hadn't removed them.
But it's important to realize that 4 dice does not equal a 99.9% (and definitely not 133.2%) chance of one hit. It's really more like 80%. You've still got around a 1/5 chance of not scoring any hits.
There are diminishing returns on your investment into the pool.
This only matters if you're looking at the probabilistic efficiency. A bigger dice pool will perform better than a smaller dice pool. It's just not a 1-to-1 trade off on your investment. You're not cranking it past 100%...ever...and yeah, you could get up to four hits, but the chance of that fourth hit is very very small.
-Jn-
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ok....
And does all this extra math take into account the hundreds of rolls a character could make, over the lifespan of the character???
<Remember, some of us have hangovers..... Until we can get to the liquor store>
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ok....
And does all this extra math take into account the hundreds of rolls a character could make, over the lifespan of the character???
ou
<Remember, some of us have hangovers..... Until we can get to the liquor store>
The more times you roll, the more true both of these things will be.
If you just rolled the dice once, it might not look anything like what we're talking about. If you took all the rolls you made in a session, you'd probably start to see it.
You take the rolls over the lifespan of a character, they're going to look pretty much exactly like the probability tables.
-Jn-
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This is about as close to Mortalspeak as mathematics can be. You need to understand maths in order to actually grasp it. Unfortunately.
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Also note that with something like AP, we're talking about more than one column on last page's chart. So while the diminishing returns for a single hit is pretty apparent (2->3 is +14.81; 3->4 is +9.88), as long as the total armor is equal to or greater than the AP value, your variance/standard deviation is going to increase with each additional point of AP. -1 AP has a 33.33% chance of taking one hit off the table. -2 AP has a 44.4% chance (not 66.66%) of taking exactly one hit off the table, but it also has an 11.11% chance of taking two hits away. So you have a 55.56% chance of doing something, but your ceiling is higher. Looking strictly at game mechanics, I think there's an argument to made for increasing your variance since damage has certain meaningful thresholds (wound penalties, death, etc.), so not every box in your condition monitor has an equal value. Now it's probably worth your time to cost the different forms of advancement in the game to maximize your ROI.
More specific example:
You want to be able to reliably drop an average opponent with your Predator with two shots, so each shot needs to do 5 boxes of damage. Finger waving the attack and defense rolls, we'll say you can reliably get 2 net hits, bringing your DV to 10P/-1.
Vs. a Body 3, Armor Jacket opponent, this will get you 5+ boxes of damage 47.55% of the time. Not as reliable as you'd like.
Now, let's imagine APDS is available in different grades.
Grade 1 (10P/-2) gets you to 55.2% (+7.65).
Grade 2 (10P/-3) gets you to 63.15% (+7.95)
Grade 3 (10P/-4) gets you to 71.1% (+7.95)
Grade 4--actual APDS--gets to 78.69% (+7.59)
Grade 5 +5.69
Grade 6 +4.26
Grade 7 +2.75
The overall process does involve diminishing returns--Grade 7 APDS turns out to be a bad investment--and you can get a mental picture of the curve based on these values. However, adding to the armor value--let's give him a helmet and forearm guards and some PPP kits--moves these numbers as well, essentially shifting the drop off point to the right. Not surprisingly, higher levels of AP are more valuable against more heavily-armored opposition.
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And just to make it more complicated, with my build (which is just a build for building's sake, unless my current character bites it), the best (well, only) place I can really pull the Magic for Penetrating Strikes from would be Combat Sense.
So I'm effectively trading my Defense dice for theirs, but at 2-for-1 because Combat Sense is twice as expensive.
2-for-1 sounds like a good deal, but generally your better off increasing your Defense vs your damage, because a PC generally fights more numerous but weaker foes, or you and your teammates are teaming up on fewer stronger foes that you really really don't want to get hit by, but are dealing damage to as a group.
That said, Combat Sense still operates pretty much the same (well, inverse, but you know what I mean) of Pen Strikes, and I have more Defense dice than I do Damage dice, meaning that more levels of Combat Sense are less likely to produce net hits than Pen Strikes.
This is the @#$% that keeps me up at night. :P
-Jn-
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Nope. Combat sense is essential.
Not for the one defense die, but for the surprise immunity. That is the difference between having defense and having no defense & -10 ini.
If you want AP just get a weapon focus and elemental strike (Fire) for -6 AP
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Combat Sense isn't "surprise immunity" it only allows you to make a Perception Check to notice the surprise beforehand. Assuming you succeed at the given Perception check (which can still be ungodly difficult, just because you're allowed a Perception check doesn't make it easy), all this does is give you a +3 on the Surprise test.
Also, Elemental Strike doesn't say it gives any AP, open flames and fire weapons (flamethrowers) have a listed AP, but magically induced fire doesn't follow those trends. Since it is a magical ability, it wouldn't have AP unless the power says it does. Elemental Strike gives the ability for your hits to light people on fire.
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I should have been clearer: You are immune against GM fiat surprise situations by always getting a perception check - and those aren't really that hard if you keep your perception up and use audio and visual enhancement.
The Reaction+Intuition (3) test - well, every good combat adept should have enough dice to just buy those hits.
Also p.171 clearly states the AP Value for fire weapons - which elemental weapon and strike undoubtedly are.
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Well, no. Elemental Weapon and Elemental Strike are both Adept Powers. They each add elemental effects to a pre-existing weapon or the adept's unarmed attack. The weapons themselves aren't "fire weapons" which from the Core Rulebook is undoubtedly referring to weapons like flamethrowers. The elemental effect of Fire is that it can ignite targets. That would be what the adept power adds.
And just to be sure, I went back and read pg 171, Fire Damage. It specifically says "flame-based weapon" on that chart, which as I mentioned before the "base" of the weapons wouldn't be fire, but the unarmed attack or weapon focus. Not only that, but it is referencing that chart in relation to the use of the term "Fire AP" which could also be taken as an implication that this listing of AP doesn't actually aid the actual damage of the weapon. Those AP values are used when you check for if something is catching fire. Granted, they also match the AP values for damage purposes of flamethrowers and fire spells, but still.
My point is that those adept powers never mention an AP value being added to the attack, so it doesn't. Elemental Body specifically mentions that it functions as Elemental Strike, but it lists an AP value, further pointing out that Elemental Strike doesn't have one.
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So, in your opinion, you get all elemental effects, except the associated AP? ???
Is radiation damage affected by normal armor then? How about Pollution or Acid?
The text doesn't have to mention the AP because it gives (for once correctly) the pages where the rules for elemental effects are spelled out - including AP. Elemental body deviates from the normal rules and therefore gives specific instructions.
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Additional weapon AP is not one of the listed effects for Fire Damage.
Elemental Strike/Weapon is not a "flame-based weapon"
I don't see why choosing Fire for those powers should mean an additional -6 AP in addition to the extra effect of potentially igniting targets. None of the other elements provide additional AP either, and Pollution is handled separately via Toxic Strike.
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I gotta agree with Jack_Spade on this one.
The "fire elemental strikes are not fire-based weapons" relies entirely on a nuanced interpretation wherein you apply some but not all of the rules for fire weapons, without any explicit statement that this is the case. The splatbook just says the elemental effect now applies to the attack without any elaboration.
Whether or not that is RAI or balanced or whatnot is up for your GM to decide at your table, but just a straight reading of those sections indicates to me that the AP effect would apply.
-Jn-
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Back on topic, are multiple pairs of callouses really that common? Do GMs allow 3 pairs (say, elbow, hands, and feet) to add +3 DV?
No.
RAW no limit is mentioned. One should have been. I choose 1 pair.
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Back on topic, are multiple pairs of callouses really that common? Do GMs allow 3 pairs (say, elbow, hands, and feet) to add +3 DV?
No.
RAW no limit is mentioned. One should have been. I choose 1 pair.
If the text said something like "and if the user has a pair they gain +1 DV" then that would imply a single instance. But the exact text includes the qualifier "each pair a user has" which directly implies that you can have more than one pair. Not saying there shouldn't be a limit, just saying that the RAW implies you can have more than one pair.
It's also worth pointing out that Striking Calluses are described as being added to hands or feet (nothing more). Which would imply that you could only have up to 2 pairs (without having extra sets of hands/feet).
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Jupp, I always read it as +2DV max if you fight with hand and feet. A Nartaki might get a bit more out of it.
Striking Calluses are next to Narco the best thing to come out of Chromeflesh imho.
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Whatever limit your table picks at random is, of course, fine by me. Strict RAW the limit is Essence. A Prototype Transhuman Elf Physical Adept that is literally covered in Striking Calluses for a +5 Unarmed damage (or however many you stack on). Struck me as silly. I picked one pair as every other melee weapon or cyber implant weapon only benefited from at most two. Whatever other in game justification you roll with is all good. Someone should toss this up to the Errata team at some point for an easy clarification.
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Seriously, this is one of those things I read and thought:
"Now they're just doing it on purpose."
If you need a pair to have any effect, having them sold individually makes no sense. Having them sold individually makes even less sense if you're not going to elaborate on how that works. Is "a striking callus" one callus on one knuckle? So I can have four per hand? Do they work on feet? Elbows and knees? Foreheads?
Why not just make it an augmentation you buy an get a set benefit, basically like everything else? Make different grades of it, if you want, like Bone Lacing. You don't have people trying to stack bone lacing, claiming it's for different bones...
...well, you probably DO, but they're the outliers. ::)
-Jn-
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Well, it was pointed out before. There is an effect for having just one. The damage code for your attack becomes (STR) P. So it changes your unarmed damage to Physical instead of Stun.
Descriptively, I read the Callus as basically the equivalent of installing hard-liner gloves into your hand. So my reading was 1 per hand. Trying to read more into the "non-stated information" is about on par with tring to read the cyber-skates and saying it doesn't say you have to install them in different feet...
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yeah i have to say this seems pretty clear to me, one set for the hands and another for the feet.
but i will post this question to the errata team for "clarification".
thanks
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So the next obvious question would be how abstract is your Unarmed Combat roll. If it's a single punch and you're wearing boots, then you'd only get the bonus from your hands. If it's more akin to how D&D defines things--an abstraction of feints and thrusts--then having multiple, exposed calluses could, in theory, stack DV.
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So the next obvious question would be how abstract is your Unarmed Combat roll. If it's a single punch and you're wearing boots, then you'd only get the bonus from your hands. If it's more akin to how D&D defines things--an abstraction of feints and thrusts--then having multiple, exposed calluses could, in theory, stack DV.
Exactly. A simple "... up to a maximum of +X DV." would be all that is needed, mechanically. Then let the players do whatever they're going to do.
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Then you start getting into strange territory...
Like 4 SC is more damaging then a combat knife....
Or adding SC damage to combat axes...
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Then you start getting into strange territory...
Like 4 SC is more damaging then a combat knife....
Or adding SC damage to combat axes...
Or really, why does it stack at all?
This is kind of my point -- why have this stack by adding more calluses vs having improved grades?
If I punch you with one hand, does it hurt more because I have Striking Calluses on my other hand? On my feet?
It would make sense to treat this like the Bone Density Augmentation -- higher grades of SC give you better materials resulting in better damage, and avoiding any weirdness when people try to do silly things.
-Jn-
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Yep, just list the + DV max and let the player fluff it however they want. More Bumps? Tougher Bumps? Bumpier Bumps? Doesn't matter if the mechanics are clear, the player can describe it however they want.
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Or really, why does it stack at all?
This is kind of my point -- why have this stack by adding more calluses vs having improved grades?
If I punch you with one hand, does it hurt more because I have Striking Calluses on my other hand? On my feet?
If you need a rationalization, then the more you have, the more opportunity you have to hit with one, and follow up with another.
If you have one fist, you can punch with one hand. If you have two, you can punch with whichever hand has the better shot, and give the old one-two. If you have both hands and both feet, you can take that opportune backhand and follow it up with a knee.
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Or really, why does it stack at all?
This is kind of my point -- why have this stack by adding more calluses vs having improved grades?
If I punch you with one hand, does it hurt more because I have Striking Calluses on my other hand? On my feet?
If you need a rationalization, then the more you have, the more opportunity you have to hit with one, and follow up with another.
If you have one fist, you can punch with one hand. If you have two, you can punch with whichever hand has the better shot, and give the old one-two. If you have both hands and both feet, you can take that opportune backhand and follow it up with a knee.
Combat is an abstraction, but it's not that abstract in SR. And you shouldn't have to rationalize it, were they implemented well.
It's not that they don't work the way they're written -- it's just the way they're written causes a lot of unnecessary cognitive dissonance.
Clarity and consistency are SR's Achilles' Heel...always been an unfortunate side-effect of the splatbooks. Content at the expense of a coherent rule set.
-Jn-
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As noted, the limit is, in most cases, 4 of them in all (One per organic foot, one per organic hand) ... this could change in certain instances (If you had more arms or legs, for instance) but, barring that, there's your top-end.
They're done that way for how combat is abstracted, since a 'melee attack' can be any number of punches or kicks, including, but not restricted to, "One punch to the face".
The single one taken is going to be rare, but, it fell into the general design I wanted in there, which was to list augmentations in single-form, but noting that they're usually taken in pairs, rather than having to break out single applications later. (For instance, taking a single cybereye isn't possible in core, which is silly.) ... so, I'd slip a small bonus in most for when you take pairs, but allow for you to take singles if you wanted.
My apologies for not making it more clear in the text. The errata team'll make it official later, but, figured you'd like to know while I'm passing through. :)