Re: Does Dodging have to be random ?

On Mar 20, 4:23 pm, David Damerell <damer...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Weapon concerns may be different. While Mr Armour can safely fight
something that can theoretically kill Mr Dodge in one hit, Mr Dodge
can also survive against something that will kill Mr Armor in one hit.

Except that in a permadeath game neither of them should be facing such a
beastie.

A good point in theory, but in practice information is incomplete.
In a well played RL game all fights should be against monsters that
have a very low probability of killing the player, but sometimes the
player will unknowingly face extremely dangerous unknown opponents and
he'll need to survive a brief exposure before successfully fleeing; in
these cases low variance can help.

Assuming there are many gradations of damage between not getting hit
at all and taking full damage, both dodging and armour can randomly
decrease the average damage taken; but the damage reduction from
dodging should have a very wide and flat probability distribution
(e.g. uniform between 0 and 100% of maximum damage plus two lumps at 0
and 100% that vary with skill and difficulty and represent failed
dodging and complete evasion), while damage reduction from armour
should have a narrow and unimodal distribution (e.g. triangular or
similarly shaped, symmetrical around a positive average).
So I think that for mostly dodging charactersgreater randomness of
damage is unavoidable; maybe the probability distributions can be bent
to be less different (dodging with a peak around a certain "typical"
partial result, armour with a long tailed distribution approaching or
reaching 0 and 100% of damage and representing unusually good and bad
impacts), but the main remedy is emphasizing something other than
damage that is countered more randomly by armour than by dodging.
Paralysing touches and similar attacks that should be dodged can have
this role if Mr Dodge effectively gets a saving throw against an
almost always reduced effect while Mr Armour risks the worse full
effect (and probably his all or nothing saving throw is harder).
Armour damage with sudden degradation and breakdown could match the
risks of unsuccessfully dodging: in a major fight Mr Armour can
suddenly find himself less protected than his hit point budget allows.
A different knob that can be turned is mitigation of unlucky results.
For example, magical items or spells that inflict as much damage to
opponents as they deal the character shift the effect of damage
variance from the risk of death to the length of the fight.

Some possible differences between dodging and armour could be
interesting enough to be implemented:

- Dodging can cause fatigue, getting hit in armour can cause nonlethal
bruises.
- Dodging a very skillful attack can cause random unintended
movements, getting hit in armour by a very strong attack can cause
knockback.

Lorenzo Gatti

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Does Dodging have to be random ?
    ... at all and taking full damage, both dodging and armour can randomly ... while damage reduction from armour ...
    (rec.games.roguelike.development)
  • Re: Oh for crying out loud, invisible!
    ... per blow in melee only, ... Heavy armour is only reliable in melee. ... as light armour does - with no guaranteed damage reduction ... Yes, Dodging ...
    (rec.games.roguelike.misc)
  • Re: Simple vs. Simple Weapons
    ... hit and the amount of damage dealt by a hit. ... best armour modifies your chance of being /hit for full damage/ by only ... Ditto big ass weapons ...
    (rec.games.frp.dnd)
  • Re: STR affecting "to hit" (was Re: DEX Bonus to damage feat)
    ... to find a weak spot in the armor. ... So, why isn't that same to-hit, bigger damage? ... Because armour in D&D isn't DR, ... but making a high enough attack roll to hit their AC ...
    (rec.games.frp.dnd)
  • Re: |[4E] - Mike Mearls on magic-less parties
    ... that's how a fighter avoids "getting hit". ... In the real world, fighters *don't* avoid getting hit, no matter how ... might be abstracted into a single "hit for damage". ... armour or putting a little weight behind them at a good angle. ...
    (rec.games.frp.dnd)
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