Which foes are stupid enough to not attack the casters first?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Scavion wrote:

TLDR of his post was;

If you're going to formulate an argument based on one passage from his post out of context despite that if you read the entirety of his post would have generally found the answer why your rebuttal didn't work(In regards to Wrath), not only is it a jerkish thing to do, but also quite clearly...how do I put this kindly? Not a smart thing to do or indicative of a person who isn't actually trying to discuss the game, just looking to megaphone their opinion despite data of contrary revelations.

There's lots of posters who do that frustratingly enough. So while demanding anything is kinda off, I don't believe it's that outrageous to want people to be a decent person and actually listen and hopefully understand your entire viewpoint before going off about a single sentence they only caught by skimming your post without reading/understanding the context it's in.

AHHH too many word! Can't read! My time is too precious to read things, but not so precious that I wouldn't waste my time on a forum!

Let me try.

TL;DR Comments have context that may address your replies. So read them.


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Orfamay Quest wrote:
Aratrok wrote:
I demand that ...

I stopped reading at this point. There are, in fact, people in the world who are entitled to demand things of me.

Random nerds on an internet forum aren't normally in that select company.

If it rubs against your sensibilities, try substituting the word "insist" instead of demand and reading the entire post. It isn't as nefarious as you seem to be afraid.

Shadow Lodge

Scavion wrote:
There's lots of posters who do that frustratingly enough.

Guilty as charged! :D


Tryn wrote:

For this I would advise you to participate in some 5 vs 5 man sword fights (e.g. by participate in a LARP) and you will see how difficult it is to pass some swordfighter to get to the second row without being hit.

Sure in PF a Longsword hit is only 1d8+X dmg, but it's a roleplay and it also have effects beside this "1d8+x Dmg" e.g. pain.

So my advise is to roleplay not to rollplay here :D

Why do people assume its going to be a fight of even numbers? Most monsters above animal intelligence are not going to attack or even fight a group of armed adventurers unless they out number them or are confident in their ability to defeat such heavily armed foes. so its not going to be 5 on 5 its going to be 10 on 5, sending 6 to take care of the front line and 4 archers to turn the back row into a pin cushion. Although chance are one of my bad guys is also going to be a caster.

The Exchange

Scavion wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Aratrok wrote:
I demand that ...

I stopped reading at this point. There are, in fact, people in the world who are entitled to demand things of me.

Random nerds on an internet forum aren't normally in that select company.

TLDR of his post was;

If you're going to formulate an argument based on one passage from his post out of context despite that if you read the entirety of his post would have generally found the answer why your rebuttal didn't work(In regards to Wrath), not only is it a jerkish thing to do, but also quite clearly...how do I put this kindly? Not a smart thing to do or indicative of a person who isn't actually trying to discuss the game, just looking to megaphone their opinion despite data of contrary revelations.

There's lots of posters who do that frustratingly enough. So while demanding anything is kinda off, I don't believe it's that outrageous to want people to be a decent person and actually listen and hopefully understand your entire viewpoint before going off about a single sentence they only caught by skimming your post without reading/understanding the context it's in.

In response, and probably going to get attacked for it.

It is possible to read someone's entire post and only respond to part do it.

It is also possible that reading an entire post, only part of it is relevant or correct, therefore the rest doesn't need to be responded to.

It is also possible that the points being made by a poster are inaccurate, or arguing a completely different point than what is being discussed. As such, they too do not need to be responded to.

So, for the debate turned argument between myself and aratrok, it started as a statement of me saying a feat isn't standard. He claimed it was. It was then shown by a number of posters that he was incorrect. He then changed the goals (as happens quite a bit on these boards, frustratingly). He then proceeded to show how effective power attack was, which is completely irrelevant to the argument and can therefore not be responded to.

Please note, he did demonstrate it can be effective. I never once disagreed with that, although I maintain its effectiveness decreases with level as anything outside a stepping stone for some feat chains.

However, role players are people. There are huge numbers of reasons why they don't take effective feats. There are so many cool feats out there now that to many players, power attack just isn't a good choice any more. It's also quite easy to be effective at this game without optimising or building cookie cutter builds. Dark hole and I were discussing this.

Not everyone builds for optimisation. Many people build for theme, or interest, or just to try something new. As such, large numbers of Martials won't have power attack, therefore it is not standard, even for something not a twf martial.

The rest was a debate on the relevance and accuracy of the maths models used on these boards. That part got ugly quickly, and I have since apologised.

Dark Archive

Wrath wrote:
Dark hole...

Had to correct this.

Darkholme. As in Mystique's (from the X-Men) (Raven Darkholme) surname.

FYI: A holm(e) is a small island in a river or lake.

Dark hole sounds like some kind of bad rectal joke, and I would rather not have such a thing become commonplace.

As for the math models, that did get rather ugly, and I'm glad we came back from that.

However, I do agree that we could be using more useful calculations than DPR.
Average Rounds to take out a CR appropriate foe, combined with odds of taking out such a foe in 1 standard action, 1 round, 2 rounds, 3 rounds etc would be much more useful.

The Exchange

Darkholme wrote:
Wrath wrote:
Dark hole...

Had to correct this.

Darkholme. As in Mystique's (from the X-Men) (Raven Darkholme) surname.

FYI: A holm(e) is a small island in a river or lake.

Dark hole sounds like some kind of bad rectal joke, and I would rather not have such a thing become commonplace.

Auto correct on my iPad strikes again. Sorry mate. I even re read my post before sending and still missed that one.

Dark Archive

Wrath wrote:
Darkholme wrote:
Wrath wrote:
Dark hole...

Had to correct this.

Darkholme. As in Mystique's (from the X-Men) (Raven Darkholme) surname.

FYI: A holm(e) is a small island in a river or lake.

Dark hole sounds like some kind of bad rectal joke, and I would rather not have such a thing become commonplace.

Auto correct on my iPad strikes again. Sorry mate. I even re read my post before sending and still missed that one.

I understand the frustration that is autocorrect. Just thought you misread. :)

Dark Archive

@Wrath: Here is a new thread you may have an interest in.


Degoon Squad wrote:
Why do people assume its going to be a fight of even numbers? Most monsters above animal intelligence are not going to attack or even fight a group of armed adventurers unless they out number them or are confident in their ability to defeat such heavily armed foes. so its not going to be 5 on 5 its going to be 10 on 5, sending 6 to take care of the front line and 4 archers to turn the back row into a pin cushion. Although chance are one of my bad guys is also going to be a caster.

I'd think that fights of even numbers -- or even stacked in the party's favor -- are actually more common than the other way around. There are several reasons for this, both in-game and out-of-game.

In-game,... you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had. A band of marauding ogres is not likely to have any bowmen with them (their listed equipment are clubs and javelins) and probably no casters, either (Int 6, Wis 10, Cha 7). And while picking a fight with a group of adventurers might seem to be a bad idea in hindsight, people don't wear their level on their livery. (I'm reminded of an old Dragon cartoon, where the fighter has "88 HP" embroidered on his surcoat. The caption reads "Not really, but it puts off most of the literate monsters.") The five-man band of ogres has seen humans before -- the fact that this group is level 8 instead of level 3 isn't obvious.

Still in-game, it's not even like you always have a choice to fight. If the reason for the fight is because our intrepid heroes are engaged in housebreaking, burglary, and attempted murder, then the ogres will be fighting to defend their lair.

Out of game,... fights with 10+ monsters are boring. If it's a level-appropriate challenge, then the monsters are so weak as to be pointless. (10 CR 3 ogres are roughly a CR 10 encounter, so our 10th level fighter could quite probably drop an ogre with a single hit.) If it's not a level-appropriate encounter, then I certainly hope it's a rare epic fight. But this, in turn, means that the monsters are individually dull (they don't have any challenging abilities for the party) and it turns into a rather boring attrition battle.

Similarly, fights with 10 monsters on the board tend to drag on, because it takes time for the game master to adjudicate every action.

You can see this in the published adventures -- I just checked some of the Skull and Shackles books, which were designed for a four-person party, and there's nothing I could find quickly that involved more than 5 opponents at a time.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I've missed a lot. Here comes a mega-post.

Wrath wrote:

<sigh> I absolutely respect your right to have a different point of view.

I don't have any respect for the methods you're trying to use to prove it.

Those are two different things. If you want myself, and many others, to come around to your point of view, you need to use something other than DPS calculations. You'd be surprised by the large number of people who don't find those things useful or accurate at all. Especially when the calculations you are using are completely irrelevant to the number of people who actually use Power attack. All your maths did was show that in a generic set of conditions, power attack can be useful.

That's the entire point. A generic set of conditions (or, in more precise terms, an average set of conditions). When you know what happens in an average result, you know what happens at least half of the time. In Power Attack's case, you get superior results with higher attack bonuses relative to your target AC, and worse results with lower attack bonuses relative to your target AC. Unless going down one point in accuracy immediately erases the benefit of Power Attack, that implies that more than half the time it is a benefit.

Quote:
You are correct in stating I haven't provided real data. However, the Quantification of anything is not essential in order to be academically honest. Especially when a claim that something is "standard" is made and I can tell you from experience that its not true.

I didn't say anything about academic dishonesty. I mentioned intellectual dishonesty, which is a policy of avoiding using standards for yourself that you would apply to others. Or, put simply, judging other people's input and data more harshly than your own. Put in the plain terms, you were looking at these two data points:

Statistics about an average situation created via mathematical model

Personal accounts that have not yet been put into a readable form

And judging the first to be worthless, while the second is overwhelming. That's what intellectual dishonesty is. It's not the same thing as lying, and doesn't have to be an intentional thing. Which makes the name rather unfortunate, since it implies a willful maliciousness that isn't necessarily present.

Quote:

So, What I'll do is ballpark some figures at the moment, based on my current knowledge of the players in my area playing melee types. I would say of the 40 or so that I know of with melee types (sticking to your proposed model of a melee type), about 22 of them don't have power attack. I will try to check those numbers for you, but I am confident I am within + or - 2 of the actual figure.

Now that is a small sample size to be sure. It may well be a regional thing. So, I would propose that you do something similar in your area. Maybe even others as well.

I would appreciate that. However, I'd also ask that you collect data about the characters in question's attack routines and the foes they regularly encounter. Knowing whether people in a subgroup choose to take Power Attack or not is useful for determining how many people utilize it, but doesn't help with determining its actual effectiveness (or whether it qualifies as a standard).

Quote:

And on a more positive note, I will apologise now for any anger or angst this is causing you. I will apologise for being a dick, if that's how I am coming across to others. I will endeavour to tone my posts down a little and hopefully we can return this thread to the civil discussion it was before we started at each other.

Cheers

Apology accepted. I think I got a bit ticked off at Artanthos (particularly for carving out a horizontal slice of a post to respond to, while accusing me of things I did the exact opposite of) and started taking it out on you, so I owe you one in response.

@Darkholme's Data
Thanks for the help! I've recently taken to using this spreadsheet for my data, though I didn't have it available when I made the first post (I should probably revise that...). It looks like both you and whoever made it (some fellow on Something Awful, I'm told) got the same (or close to the same, I didn't compare every single section) information, which is extremely nice for reinforcing its accuracy.

@Darkholme & Wrath's Model Suggestions
I'd like to do a good analysis using target hitpoints and percent chance for a kill on each round, but factoring criticals and other aspects into it produces a lot of variance between weapon choices and some other snafus that I don't really have the personal time to resolve.

I'll present any future information with additional terms for standard action attacks to kill and full attacks to kill, though. That alone can help you ballpark it since, for example, someone that takes .5 full attacks to slay a target is obviously much more likely to dispatch their target, rather than merely taking them out on an average full attack- and additionally, could redirect extra attacks to a new target (positioning willing).

Figuring out how often full attacks can be launched is a bit of a challenge, given the variety in capability between classes, but if you're looking for a generic martial, using quickrunner's shirts you can usually guarantee at least one in a fight past low levels, assuming that if your target survives they flee and deny you another one (though some targets might just brawl back with the martial, and occasionally win).

Accounting for the effects of maneuvers is difficult as well. Grappling usually doesn't increase your damage output, but aids allies and restricts your target's escape from full attacks. Tripping can provide excellent bonuses to hit in addition to lockdown. Even Dragging or Repositioning people into another person's full attack. There are so many things that those options can do to affect combat, it's far easier to dwell on the end result of the person whose attack is being boosted. I think including attack bonuses with a -6 to +6 modifier in increments of 2 would help, as a way to abstract the effect of very bad situations to very good situations on output, and get a solid overview of what you can expect in a "good" tactical situation versus a "bad" one. It also helps accommodate for the effects of buffs and debuffs on combat.

Wrath wrote:

In response, and probably going to get attacked for it.

It is possible to read someone's entire post and only respond to part do it.

It is also possible that reading an entire post, only part of it is relevant or correct, therefore the rest doesn't need to be responded to.

It is also possible that the points being made by a poster are inaccurate, or arguing a completely different point than what is being discussed. As such, they too do not need to be responded to.

That's not quite accurate to what happened in this thread. I posted that I was "pleased to learn and admit that Power Attack has reduced effectiveness for Two Weapon Fighters and classes with large sources of damage but no (or few) increases in accuracy." Artanthos responded to that post, quoting only "The statement was that it was effective on all martials.", which was in response to his assertions about rogues, by yelling at me and telling me I was dismissing the Swashbuckler as 'not a martial', when I was doing the opposite and accepting that it fit into the established trend from the Slayer comparison. That's what upset me. I used the word "demand" specifically because it was in response to you telling me that I was demanding people read my posts, when (as Scavion usefully elaborated) what I wanted was for people to know what they were responding to when they responded to me (so situations like Artanthos accusing me of something I wasn't doing wouldn't occur).

Quote:
So, for the debate turned argument between myself and aratrok, it started as a statement of me saying a feat isn't standard. He claimed it was. It was then shown by a number of posters that he was incorrect. He then changed the goals (as happens quite a bit on these boards, frustratingly). He then proceeded to show how effective power attack was, which is completely irrelevant to the argument and can therefore not be responded to.

I wouldn't say a 'number of posters have shown I'm incorrect'. It's less definitive than I originally claimed- which I've openly admitted- due to a handful of exposed cases where a martial character receives less benefit from the feat (TWF and +Damage without +Accuracy, which is normally due to precision damage).

I think a lot of our disconnection stems from having different ideas of what "standard" means. I treat it as being an accepted normal or average (this is close to the dictionary definition). As in, most of the time you'll want to take Power Attack on a melee oriented martial, because most of the time it will give you a tangible and significant benefit. There may be cases where you don't want Power Attack for mechanical reasons, and we've exposed a few of those, but having cases where it's not a good idea doesn't dethrone it from being a standard option until it's no longer a good idea most of the time.

Aside, 'changing the goals', or as it's formally defined "Moving the Goalposts", is a term referring to changing the goal of a competition while it's in progress. It would be like if I challenged you to best out of 3 Rock Paper Scissors, and declared it was best out of 5 after I lost for the second time. Or if I challenged someone to provide a build with certain criteria, and then changed those criteria when their build matched it. Given what seems to be a difference in perception of what a "standard" is, I think you're perceiving my point as disproven when I'm perceiving it as a weakened (but not undermined) claim.

Quote:

However, role players are people. There are huge numbers of reasons why they don't take effective feats. There are so many cool feats out there now that to many players, power attack just isn't a good choice any more. It's also quite easy to be effective at this game without optimising or building cookie cutter builds. Darkholm and I were discussing this.

Not everyone builds for optimisation. Many people build for theme, or interest, or just to try something new. As such, large numbers of Martials won't have power attack, therefore it is not standard, even for something not a twf martial.

The rest was a debate on the relevance and accuracy of the maths models used on these boards. That part got ugly quickly, and I have since apologised.

Absolutely. It's the same reason I build Slayers that try to feint enemies and behead them, wizards that prefer re-enacting a Michael Bay scene instead of sticking behind the scenes, Dex martials, and "one big hit" characters, and my friends build stuff like a bard that two weapon fights with their bonded shield and a paladin that lasers evil to death. But I don't think the existence (or in some circles, emphasis on) eccentric builds negates or weakens something's status as a standard.

It occurs to me that some of the things I've said:

Aratrok wrote:
If Power Attack is not standard in your "neck of the woods", it's not a matter of playstyle difference. It's a matter of people failing to understand the math behind why it's always a good choice to include on a melee focused character.

Come off as implying that it's stupid to not take Power Attack when it would be effective. My apologies, in hindsight. I mean it in the same way that I can know that Power Attack is standard... and then willfully build a martial character that avoids it. But I still know that Power Attack is a standard, even when I'm subverting it and using other methods to achieve character effectiveness.

Edit: Look at that monstrosity. 1353 words without any of the quotes. I am become TL;DR, destroyer of informed discourse.

The Exchange

Nice post Aratrok. I think that's helped me with the disconnect and also buried the hatchet between us.

As for the extra data, I doubt I could get it for you. Most of the folks I'm in contact with play APs or homebrew. Only a few are into PFS and of those only one has a martial build as you define them.

The range of their character levels is from 2 to 18 as well. So if you get a few APs and have a look through them you'll get a good feel for what they're facing.

As for attack routines, that is going to be completely dependent on level and situation sorry.

What I will say is, from my data sample, it is possible that some of the lower level guys may take power attack later on to open up some feat chains. I can't confirm or deny that. What I've given is a snapshot in time of what I'm aware of right now.

It's also a basic summary of a series do discussions we've had in various groups about DPR threads and correlation to our games as a collective. It's close to a hundred on people over the last 2 years or so. Most of those are face to face in game or prior to games,or at meet ups at the game stores we visit.

We have crunched numbers on it at times, but I don't have that data at hand. It was done as an interest thing rather than theory proof thing. I gave an example up thread of some things we've done when I was talking to Darkholme.

Dark Archive

Actually, looking at that spreadsheet, I believe it (or a past incarnation of it) was my starting point (and I haven't diverged that far from it); I just had no idea where I found it.

The reason the numbers would be the same is that I haven't added more "bestiary" entries yet. I've been using those same entries to calculate statistics on things he wasn't calculating, and gradually filling in more detailed attack info so it can calculate more useful attack stats.

I've also been (slowly) going through those bestiary entries, and changing all of the single cells about attacks into several cells about attacks so I can see the number of attacks, averaged attack bonus, and averaged damage. Time consuming though.

And I have some other projects on the go also vying for my time, so this bestiary analysis has actually taken a bit of a back seat to some of those other projects.

If you guys want to help me with data entry and whatnot though, I wouldn't say no. Full disclaimer though, that I've been running these numbers not for PC capability measurement, but because I want to make use of the results in some 3PP Products I am chipping away at with the intent of becoming a 3PP for Pathfinder stuff with some of my ideas. However, I acknowledge that these calculations could be useful for the things that have been coming up in this thread as well.

The Exchange

Darkholme wrote:

Actually, looking at that spreadsheet, I believe it (or a past incarnation of it) was my starting point (and I haven't diverged that far from it); I just had no idea where I found it.

The reason the numbers would be the same is that I haven't added more "bestiary" entries yet. I've been using those same entries to calculate statistics on things he wasn't calculating, and gradually filling in more detailed attack info so it can calculate more useful attack stats.

I've also been (slowly) going through those bestiary entries, and changing all of the single cells about attacks into several cells about attacks so I can see the number of attacks, averaged attack bonus, and averaged damage. Time consuming though.

And I have some other projects on the go also vying for my time, so this bestiary analysis has actually taken a bit of a back seat to some of those other projects.

If you guys want to help me with data entry and whatnot though, I wouldn't say no. Full disclaimer though, that I've been running these numbers not for PC capability measurement, but because I want to make use of the results in some 3PP Products I am chipping away at with the intent of becoming a 3PP for Pathfinder stuff with some of my ideas. However, I acknowledge that these calculations could be useful for the things that have been coming up in this thread as well.

If you're going to use this for 3pp stuff, be careful putting it on Paizo forums. The user agreement for these forums stipulates that whatever you put on here is effectively their property.

I don't imagine Paizo playing hardball, but it is something to consider.

Dark Archive

I have been very careful not to put up any of the stuff I intend to try to publish.

I have no plans on putting that stuff up here, I'm just saying that if we all crunch these numbers *together* I do plan on using those numbers to inform my game design ideas on my 3pp stuff I'm working on (and that me wanting to do some 3pp things is the reason I wanted to crunch these numbers and have a better understanding of how the game (and opponents) are put together to begin with).

Dark Archive

If that's cool, great; if you don't the chance that I might benefit from you helping me crunch numbers to reveal game system patterns and ease measurements and comparisons of creatures, we can work separately.


I don't have a lot to add to this discussion, and there's really no way I'm going to go through 15 pages, but I do want to say that I've been gone a year, and it's nice that some things never change.

Something everyone needs to remember is that the DPS formula doesn't take is the AC of the monsters. If my to hit bonus is higher than than the monsters AC and I have Power Attack, I will do better than someone who doesn't have Power Attack, even if their to hit bonus is 50 points higher than mine. We'll both hit 95% of the time, and the Power Attacker will do the most damage.

This group likes to throw out anecdotal evidence as it is, by definition, subject to certain situations. It's why 95% of this board says that Monks are grossly underpowered despite the fact that in my 30+ years of gaming, they've all been extremely effective in actual games.

If you're going to post on these boards, and not get frustrated, you just have to get used to those basic tendencies, and shrug them off.


Arcane Strike (arguably) being better for damage than Power Attack does not invalidate Power Attack as a standard option on martial characters. It just serves to highlight the martial/caster discrepancy. It's also not RAW, since a character with an SLA doesn't really qualify for the feat until errata is released to amend the rules.

This topic has kinda diverged, but since Power Attack remains the easiest and fastest way to increase a martial character's damage it's pretty much standard on all martial characters.

Lord knows I see it on the vast majority of characters that do not have alternatives - ie, everyone without caster levels or precision damage.


Jodokai wrote:
Something everyone needs to remember is that the DPS formula doesn't take is the AC of the monsters.

I don't know about in this topic as I didn't care enough to look, but yeah, a lot of the time target AC is used in DPR calculations, hence DPR changes based on AC. Raw damage potential means nothing if it can't actually land.


chaoseffect wrote:
Jodokai wrote:
Something everyone needs to remember is that the DPS formula doesn't take is the AC of the monsters.
I don't know about in this topic as I didn't care enough to look, but yeah, a lot of the time target AC is used in DPR calculations, hence DPR changes based on AC. Raw damage potential means nothing if it can't actually land.

One of the reasons of "I can do 300 DPR with my 10 level rogue" is always showed to be untrue.

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