Quote from: Thanlis;334308You also don't understand the difference between 75% and 100%, so I think I'm gonna smile politely and let you keep believing whatever you'd like to believe.

Dude, you do realize that is most definitely not what you just did, right?
"You, Sir, are a moron, but I'll just gloss over this fact and move on" is not what I'd define as a "polite smile".

Quote from: David R;334226This whole forum is the Pundit's cock. And anti 4E threads is the K-Y.

Regards,
David R

And you can't help but watch?

I ran a single PC against a single Standard monster in 4e, several times. 50/50 kill ratio.

3-6 minions can kill a PC. 23 minions, even one at a time, is far more than a PC could handle, without over-optimizing - A threat in any edition.

Let's look at numbers. Supposing they have a 50/50 chance to hit each other. An average combat minion does 4 damage. Supposing the PC has 28 HP. Healing Surge of 7.

The chance to hit can be dropped; algebra. They're matching pairs.

35 / 4  = 8.75

If you're going to hate WotC, at least use proper math.

For the record, WotC stole from me when they pulled their .pdfs from drivethru. I'm not defending WotC. I'm defending good math.

4e doesn't inspire me. I have to work to be creative in it. It's too blandified in the powers.

But the *Math* is good.

Quote from: Nazgul;334327And you can't help but watch?

I do more than watch, brother.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Thanlis;334308OK, but that's not what you said. You said "You can certainly change the rules, but you'd be changing the rules for all combats, so you'd likely get similar results." Alas, when the results turned out to be different, you told me I couldn't change the rules any more.

Actually, I demonstrated why the results would end up the same (in terms of proportion), but I'll go over it more clearly for you. You'd have to factor in the chance the fighter could get to a corner (completely negating flanking), the probability of getting to a wall (nearly negating flanking), or a doorway (probably negating flanking), add in the expectation of the bonus for cleave and the like (canceling, possibily even overmatching, the three way calculation previous), and don't forget to cross reference versus the probability of being in a narrow hall or dead end corridor. So, no, unless you can prove otherwise, it's the same. Keep in mind, no matter what probability you set (say, 15% chance of finding a corner), someone can argue that it's something different (gee whiz, I'd put it at 90%, can't hardly remember ever seeing a dungeon without a corner).

So, may as well do 1 on 1, to avoid such irrelevant ramblings.

QuoteYou also don't understand the difference between 75% and 100%, so I think I'm gonna smile politely and let you keep believing whatever you'd like to believe.

Heh, you don't seem to understand expectation very well; you'd have to weigh in that 25% chance of not getting a kill versus the better than 50% chance of scoring the extra hit necessary on the next swing, over the fact that you're only looking at less than 8 goblins. So, needing an extra swing only matters for mathematically less than 2 goblins, which will probably only get one more swing at most before dying anyway. So, assuming the worst, maybe one less goblin. Thus, the results of the tests (namely, a huge jump for DnD4.0) are addressed..

I hope this clarifies things for you.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;334333I ran a single PC against a single Standard monster in 4e, several times. 50/50 kill ratio.

3-6 minions can kill a PC. 23 minions, even one at a time, is far more than a PC could handle, without over-optimizing - A threat in any edition.

Let's look at numbers. Supposing they have a 50/50 chance to hit each other. An average combat minion does 4 damage. Supposing the PC has 28 HP. Healing Surge of 7.

The chance to hit can be dropped; algebra. They're matching pairs.

35 / 4  = 8.75

If you're going to hate WotC, at least use proper math.

For the record, WotC stole from me when they pulled their .pdfs from drivethru. I'm not defending WotC. I'm defending good math.

4e doesn't inspire me. I have to work to be creative in it. It's too blandified in the powers.

But the *Math* is good.

I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers from.  A typical level 1 fighter has an AC of 19 (scale, heavy shield), a goblin cutter has +4 to hit, thus needing a 15 or better, which is more like 30%, not 50%; the fighter has way better than 30% chance of hitting the cutter, pretty much negating everything you say after that point. In any event, the site explains exactly what they're basing the calculations on, their math is good, for what it is.

I would have to say the correlation between the previous editions Goblin and 1st level Fighter more resembles the correlation between the Goblin Warrior and the 4E Fighter than it does the Goblin Cutter(minion) and the 4E Fighter.

Using the cutter is a bad model for the original table, and the results are wildly different when you plug the Goblin Warrior into that table instead of the Cutter.

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;334376I would have to say the correlation between the previous editions Goblin and 1st level Fighter more resembles the correlation between the Goblin Warrior and the 4E Fighter than it does the Goblin Cutter(minion) and the 4E Fighter.

Using the cutter is a bad model for the original table, and the results are wildly different when you plug the Goblin Warrior into that table instead of the Cutter.

The results are also wildly different when you plug in silver dragons instead of goblins. But, the goblin cutter is the standard, most common, goblin you'll find (just crack open the KotS), and is, indeed, a very comparable creature to the 'typical' goblin one would find in editions of D&D (wherein goblins are easily killed, only dangerous in numbers, and slaughtered greatly and quickly against even 'lowly' level 5 characters, much less higher levels, which never happens with Goblin Warriors, which cannot even reasonably be one-shotted by a level 5 fireball spell).

If you use the Goblin Warrior (i.e., a goblin 10+ times as powerful as a typical goblin) in the DnD4.0 test, then you'd have to go back and redo all the previous tests with "goblin generals" (or whatever high level goblin is dangerous individually and cannot be trivially one-shotted by level 5 characters/spells) or whatnot.

Quote from: Doom;334374I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers from.  A typical level 1 fighter has an AC of 19 (scale, heavy shield), a goblin cutter has +4 to hit, thus needing a 15 or better, which is more like 30%, not 50%; the fighter has way better than 30% chance of hitting the cutter, pretty much negating everything you say after that point. In any event, the site explains exactly what they're basing the calculations on, their math is good, for what it is.

Good point. I have, however, ran minions against a fighter and, if not dribbled, they are deadly. But the same can be said of any goblin.

The math of 4e isn't good.  It is better than the math of 3e, but it isn't good, not by a long shot.

Quote from: Doom;334567If you use the Goblin Warrior (i.e., a goblin 10+ times as powerful as a typical goblin) in the DnD4.0 test, then you'd have to go back and redo all the previous tests with "goblin generals" (or whatever high level goblin is dangerous individually and cannot be trivially one-shotted by level 5 characters/spells) or whatnot.

In previous editions the fighter, in addition to the goblin, could be killed in one blow. That is not the case in 4E. So you're applying the "must be able to be killed in one blow" to the goblin but not the fighter. Your claim that goblins are only dangerous in numbers in previous editions is specious, because a lucky blow from one could take down your fighter.

The point about the goblin warrior is that it is much closer in combat ability to the fighter than the cutter is. It also better approximates the relative power of a goblin vs. a 1st-level fighter in earlier editions.

The fact that everything in 4E takes more than one hit to take down (excepting the new category of monster, the minion) is similar to the elimination of the save or die effects. It's not about 1st-level characters being more powerful. It's about them being able to survive more than a single attack. That's a design decision. It doesn't make 1st-level characters in 4E uber, because the monsters are similarly empowered.

No argument that the math of 4e is bad, especially once you hit paragon.

And, there were a few editions of D&D where a goblin, rolling a d6 for damage, was very hard pressed to deal out 10+ hit points of damage in a single hit, especially when there were no critical hits.

As far as "well, it only works because you're using the monsters that can be killed in one hit", that's a 'yep', change it to silver dragons, like I said before, and it changes dramatically. But, to be consistent, it makes sense to use the same types of monsters throughout all editions of D&D and, for DnD4.0. Whether the comparison is meaningful is absolutely a matter of personal opinion.