The Pink Dice Chronicles

So Crayla has a Stealth of +7.  According to the one source, guards ( this one or this one ) have perceptions in the +1 to +4 range which matches other places I have looked.  So given this, what is the probability of pulling off a heist? Some aspects to consider: How many guards will there be? How many guards will actually get a perception check against Crayla? What is an acceptable level of risk? What is the likely reward? If you check out the Opposed skill check reference sheet here , you can get the opposed skill check probabilities. For Crayla, I am +6 to +3 better than the opposing check skill level: +3 -- 60% chance of success +4 -- 64% chance of success +5 -- 68% chance of success +6 -- 72% chance of success However, each check is independent.  If the GM is fishing for failures by making me make multiple checks, the odds aren't as good: Advantage 1 Check 2 Checks 3 Checks 4 Checks +3 60% 36% 22% 13% +4 64% 41% 3...

It's a common scenario... a group wandering along through a wide-open forest, cavern, mountain, set of hills, etc, and they come across a scene of interest... the broken down wagon, a burnt down, house, a cave, a sinkhole, a camp of thieves.  How do you know how close your party is when they spot it? First pick a DC for the thing you're trying to notice.  For example, a thieves camp might be a DC 5 at night.  Then apply modifiers for the scenario: -2 because there is moonlight. Then have your party place their characters in a small grid assuming a travel direction.  Then have them roll perception.  The distance to detect is given by: distance = perception -(DC to notice + modifiers) * 10 feet Compare this across your characters and their relative positions to determine which character detects first. For example, our thieves camp is detected by a ranger out front with a perception of 17.  He detects at range of 17-(5-2) = 140 feet.

So after more thought I have decided to revisit expected damage. Consider the case with a 20/x2 critical, which is reasonably standard. Probability of Hit (No Critical) ~=  (20-(AC of target - attack of attacker))/20 Minimum is always 1/20, maximum is always 19/20 The probability of a critical hit is always 1/20 Mean Damage = (Max Damage + Min Damage)/2 Expected Total Damage = Prob of Hit * Mean Damage + Prob of Crit  * Mean Damage In our 20/x2 case: Expected Total Damage = Mean Damage * (21-(AC-Attack)/20 Consider 3 undead (+3 attack, 2d6+2 damage) attacking an AC 14 PC Expected Total Damage = (14+4)/2 *(21-(14-3)/20 = 9*10/20 = 4.5 With 3 undead, this means expected damage of 3* 4.5 = 14 damage per round If we ignore criticals, the answer would be only 12 damage per round, a 17% difference! Generically we can expand the formula for any critical hit as follows: Expected Total Damage = Mean Damage *((20+Critical Rolls*(Critical Damage Multipli...

A battle with too many monsters and PCs can be tough.  A couple of weeks ago I had an encounter where a group of 5 PCs and a companion animal were caught in a cemetery with around 30 undead.  How am I supposed to keep track of 30 monsters? So here is a proposed solution that I am calling "Expected Damage". Simple formulas:   Probability of Hit = (20-(AC of target - attack of attacker))/20  (Minimum is always 1/20, maximum is always 19/20) Expected damage = Probability of Hit * Half Maximum Damage So now, given a defender and an attacker, I can estimate the amount of damage the defender will take per round. (Note that this formula does not take into account criticals.  The min and max values take into account miss on natural 1, hit on natural 20) Back to the scenario -- 30 undead of the same class.  Given a PC AC, I can estimate the amount of damage they get per round and ignore having to run individual hits from each undead. Examp...