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"Each Strike counts toward your multiple attack penalty, but the penalty doesn’t increase until after you’ve made all the Strikes."
They all have the same chance to hit, they aren't affected by MAP.
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"Each Strike counts toward your multiple attack penalty, but the penalty doesn’t increase until after you’ve made all the Strikes."
They all have the same chance to hit, they aren't affected by MAP.
I think he's determining probability by multiplying 40% by itself and going through the motions of that method. Since 40% times itself is 16%.
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Even if you start with a 65% chance to hit, which I think is more realistic if you're fighting multiple creatures, it goes like:
65% chance to hit at least one target.
42% chance to hit at least two targets.
27% chance to hit at least three targets
17% chance to hit at least four targets
11% chance to hit all five targets
It really isn't that great. It's not bad, not at all, it has its uses, but unless you're fighting mooks and have a bunch of stacked buffs, you're hitting about 2 people most of the time.
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If you hit on your first attack, Chain blast was a good use of two actions. It also significantly increases your chance of getting crits on your turn as well, which becomes a bigger deal once you get property runes with interesting riders.
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I would like to point out that even a level 1 Kineticist wouldn't have a 40% hit chance against the stated 12 AC. It would be 50% at that level.
I would also like to point out Chain Blast is a level 10 feat so comparing success chances with level 1 numbers is mildly odd.
Comparing actual bonuses at the actual level of the feat reveals that even against an on level enemy with an AC in the High category you'd have a 50% chance to hit the first attack.
And the majority of enemies are below party level. And remember that was the High AC.
That was also without any buffs on the Kineticist or debuffs on any enemy.
So the math of the original post is fairly off.
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The math really should be for 10th level when you get the feat. So you should be expert and have 19 dex.AC is 30.
+10(level)+4(trained)+4(dex) = +18 to hit. Still a 12 on the die. What more do you want? lol
A level 10 Kinteticist is Expert in blasts, and should have a +2 item bonus if you are going all in on blasting. So lets go with +20 instead.
Edit: This isn't even looking at the possibility of having one enemy on the battlefield flat-footed, or getting any status or circumstance bonuses to attacks.
Edit Edit: Thanks DMercless
A level 10 Kinteticist is Expert in blasts, and should have a +2 item bonus if you are going all in on blasting. So lets go with +22 instead.
This is also wrong. Trained is +2, not +4, so they were already counting expert proficiency but calling trained. The correct value for what most level 10 Kineticists should have is +20.
So you'd hit an at-level creature on a 10 and a level-2 on about a 7 or 8. That's why I used 65% on my calculation. 70% would probably have been slightly more accurate if all of them were -2s, but I still don't think that makes the ability super outstanding.
good catch
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If you have 5 targets, odds are they're below party level. Having 2 or 3 on level creatures would reduce it's value along with everything else you can do to them so the relative value of chain blast remains the same. As long as you have 2 or more targets, chain blast has higher value than your regular blasts. Of course if you are a universalist, you might find more value in gather amalgam at 10th level.
My numbers were mildly off. At 10 against on-level high AC you have to roll 10. And that's not 50% that's 55% vs High AC on-level for.
Against a fairly typical APL -2 monster in the same bracket it's actually 70% going to moderate bracket bumps that to 75%. Low bumps it to 85%
APL -3 is 80% in high, 85% in moderate, and 95% in low.
As far as backing up my claim his original math is off, he is sending level 1 stats at an AC of 18. Looking at the Building Creatures rules that's 1 lower than an extreme AC for a level 1 monster and isn't moderate until a level three monster.
His math he claims is a common AC and comparing against is APL +2 for the stats he's using.
So yeah. Factually not reflective of a monster those stats would run into more than two of.
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Chain Blast isn't as good as people think.
40%
16%
6.4%
2.55%
1.0%So there is a 1% chance of hitting all 5 targets with an AC of 12.
Only a 16% chance of hitting the target twice.
6.4% for 3 hits.
It's not really that great.
You're making some hard assumptions here. Things are not as difficult as you think.
According to the "Class VS Monsters" tab on [url=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SpzEGKgmPNI3fxab4wQtPZm8weqXDgAJeIubIiU-B4U/edit#gid=284920423]All Easytool Monsters Spreadsheet[/usr] the hit rate of a PC with the same level of monsters is around 60% and not 40%. But in the 5 opponents situation you are never facing a creature with the same level as the party they are at the last level 1 below or you will break the experience budget table even for extreme encounters.So let's assume your initial hit rate is around 65%. Let's see what happens if you just try to do 3 normal Elemental Blasts/Attacks with normal MAP:
1st hit chance: 65% (15% to critical)
2nd hit chance: 40% (5% to critical)
3rd hit chance: 15% (5% to critical)
Now let's calculate the chances of Chain Blast hitting considering that each sequential attack had to hit the previous one to be attempted:
1st hit chance on target: 65% (15% to crit on this individual roll)
2nd hit chance on target: 42% (15% to crit on this individual roll)
3rd hit chance on target: 27% (15% to crit on this individual roll)
4th hit chance on target: 18% (15% to crit on this individual roll)
5th hit chance on target: 12% (15% to crit on this individual roll)
So your chance to land your first 3 attacks is higher than your chance to land 3 hits with 3 actions (or even 2 hits with 2 actions). Also due to your MAP not lowering your crit chance stay the same, the 2nd hit has the same crit chance and so on.
And even if your Clain Blast fails on the 1st attack and you lost 2 actions, your 3rd action is still at -5 MAP, so you can try it the same way you can try a 2nd attack after a normal Impulse or you can still use your 3rd action to do anything else you normally want.
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When I took chain blast on my playtest character my calculus was basically "well, my other damaging impulses do damage in a 5' burst and a 30'line- I'm going to get to spend 2 actions to hit 2 or more people way more often with chain blast than I am with any of those." If nothing else "if I roll well, I can..." is more psychologically rewarding than "well, if the enemies happen to be standing in the exact right spots."
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I guess one nice thing about Chain Blast is that it's element agnostic for those who are dual or universal gate. Take the one feat, and you can use it for d4 S/B over a huge range, d6 F over a good range, or d8 B (with or without propulsive) over a small range.
You also don't have to invest extra feats in particular AOEs in particular elements, or worry about burning actions on moving to set up those AOEs or gather after overflow. And then no concern with friendly fire.
Ok, given the damage and DCs on the AOE options, I'm a believer in Chain Blast again if you're not dedicated gate. It may not be great, but it's efficient.
Also by level 10 I expect PCs to be able to keep their enemies flat footed in many scenarios.
I bring it up a lot but dust of disappearance is only level 9 and will make most enemies flat footed to you while also being a solid defense option.
Throw on an atk boost since anything that boosts weapon or unarmed attacks will work. Even at level groups of enemies have a solid shot of being chained. Use a reroll on that first attack if it is necessary :p (given that you don't declare heropoint spends in advance).
Also by level 10 I expect PCs to be able to keep their enemies flat footed in many scenarios.
I bring it up a lot but dust of disappearance is only level 9 and will make most enemies flat footed to you while also being a solid defense option.
Throw on an atk boost since anything that boosts weapon or unarmed attacks will work. Even at level groups of enemies have a solid shot of being chained. Use a reroll on that first attack if it is necessary :p (given that you don't declare heropoint spends in advance).
Yeah. A good AoE Fear would work wonders for this. And God have mercy on them if that was from a Bard with Inspire Heroics. They'd likely survive each taking a single blast but they gettin' chained for sure.
Shock runes on chain blast are as awesome as they are thematic and can actually be a decent way to stack some damage on the hardest target to hit as you target enemies around them
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Shock runes on chain blast are as awesome as they are thematic and can actually be a decent way to stack some damage on the hardest target to hit as you target enemies around them
It's very fitting to almost meme degree that the water element splash crit works really well with the shock rune arcing.
If you managed to crit multiple clumped people that would be...
Must... resist... saying... it would be shocking....
This is why white board math is never the end all. Jeesh.,
This is why white board math is never the end all. Jeesh.,
It would also help if the white board math was actually, you know, correct.
This is why white board math is never the end all. Jeesh.,It would also help if the white board math was actually, you know, correct.
Well, technically it's correct, it's just got the wrong data in it. If there is any situation where you are fighting three APL +2 enemies with moderate AC or multiple on-level foes with extreme AC that's valid math. Mind you that won't happen nearly as often as was implied.
Not shockingly a lot of the time in this system when a person is mad about something and tries to throw math at it to prove their point it's wrong because the system uses very precise math to balance everything. Making it really hard to use math against it.
Like a certain infamous YouTuber that made a big deal of a 60% damage difference that didn't really exist and gave one side a +24% boost in damage by not including a trait on the weapon. Making the math wrong by around 84% due to not having the correct data in a correct formula.
Garbage data in yields garbage data out. This is why we playtest by playing.
30 years
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Since I'm that kind of nerd, I ran the numbers in Excel. tl;dr is that Chain Blast is fine.
It's absolutely worth using against three or more targets, and situationally useful against two. (Against two targets, Chain Blast does provide an overall increase in expected damage if you have at least a 60% chance to hit. In most cases, however, this increase is small enough that focusing fire on a single target will usually still be a better idea.) I expect this is exactly what the devs intended.
For more detail: when you use Chain Blast, your chance to get an nth attack (not necessarily hit with it) is equal to (your chance to hit)^(n - 1). So, 100% for the first attack, since you always at least get to attack once; (your chance to hit) for a second attack, since you get it if and only if your first attack hits; (your chance to hit) squared for a third attack, and so on. Each attack you get is actually worth a number of expected hits equal to its chance to hit plus its chance to crit. So, I think this analysis is basically right:
Now let's calculate the chances of Chain Blast hitting considering that each sequential attack had to hit the previous one to be attempted:
1st hit chance on target: 65% (15% to crit on this individual roll)
2nd hit chance on target: 42% (15% to crit on this individual roll)
3rd hit chance on target: 27% (15% to crit on this individual roll)
4th hit chance on target: 18% (15% to crit on this individual roll)
5th hit chance on target: 12% (15% to crit on this individual roll)
Thus, taking crits into account, Chain Blast with a 65% chance to hit (8 or better on the d20) gets approximately 1.32 expected hits worth of damage against two targets, 1.66 against three, 1.88 against four, and 2.02 against five. By contrast, attacking twice normally gets 1.25 expected hits (65% hit/15% crit for the first, 40% hit/5% crit for the second). Furthermore:
And even if your Clain Blast fails on the 1st attack and you lost 2 actions, your 3rd action is still at -5 MAP, so you can try it the same way you can try a 2nd attack after a normal Impulse or...
This turns out to make a significant difference. If you're making a third attack, an 8 to hit means you have a 35% chance to make that third attack at –5 rather than –10. This turns out to be worth another 0.09 expected hits (all told, you get 1.61 expected hits compared to 1.45 for attacking normally). So, in both cases, Chain Blast is indeed better, but not by a huge amount.