3e Combat Simulations - Damage vs Affliction

[RasmusM]

Hi rstehwien.

It's great that you have decided to do you own simulations.

On a broader scale this should bring the community closer to actual facts on how to best use afflictions and damage powers, and how they compare.

It seems you have done your calculations with a critvalue of 20 correct?

As most of my simulations are done with 16+ crit, we only have one directly comparable figure.
Basic Damage (where i also did a 20 crit simulation.)

Your result for damage shift 0 is 10,13
My result as shown on the damage graph above was 10,14
In Elrics simulations he also found the average time to be 10,1.
So everyone pretty much agrees on that baseline. Thats a good first step.

As a note) You might want to do more than 10.000 simulations. If found that results could vary a lot especially with combats taking longer than 5 average rounds. So i did all calculations with at least 300.000 simulations. when doing 300.000+ simulations i found the results would consolidate at the same answer down to 1 decimal.

Unfortunately im not a licensed ruby programmer, so i cant be much help there.
However i have a couple of questions for you:
1) When calculating your degree of fail, you seem to use 1-4 = 1 degree, 5-9=2 degree, 10-14= 3degrees, 15+ 4 degrees
The numbers should be 1-5:1, 6-10:2, 11-15:3, 16+:4

2) When progressive: End of round saves only seem to add one or subtract one degree on a sucessful or failed save. A succesful save should remove all conditions, and a failed save should add 1, 2 or 3 degrees depending on how much the end of round save was missed by.

3) When cumulative: failure to save only seem to bump up the degree by 1. As in 2). Failures should bump up with 1,2 or 3 depending on how much the roll was failed by.

4) It seems you do not take a crit into account when doing end of round saves. You always roll saves vs a DC 20 (and not 25 in the case of a crit)?

5) Do double staggers lead to incapacitated? I just could not find it. I guess it does since our numbers are similar.

As i mentioned. I have never looked at Ruby programming before, so i might just be misreading or missing these things.

[Belial666]

Afflictions aren't equal. Not by a long shot. A slowed, immobilized, incapacitated affliction is nowhere near as effective as a vulnerable, compelled, controlled one, for example.


And has anyone done tests with extra effect/limited degree afflictions?

[saint_matthew]

*shrugs*

And?

Not to be an arse about it, but so what? I mean its not like the rules say you can only have one or the other.

An to play devils advocate for just a second, the point of affliction was never to be an encounter ender. It exists to give us a mathematical formula for the non damaging effect... Its the set up, to the one two knock out punch that is damage.

You can't really use mathematics to determine which ability is more useful in game terms, because to do so, you would first need to be able to determine the normal operating pattern for the oppositional force in any given game... An there isn't one: There is no such thing as a standard MnM game.

Any given ability is only as useful as it turns out to be in any given game.

[rstehwien]

It seems you have done your calculations with a critvalue of 20 correct?

As most of my simulations are done with 16+ crit, we only have one directly comparable figure.
Basic Damage (where i also did a 20 crit simulation.)

My first round of tests was using the baseline crit value of 20. Changing the Attack.min_crit would change that threshold.

Mainly I wanted to see what the default power uses were and my players don't typically buy improved crit and not to 16+ even then.

I'm also not exporing damage and defense shifts yet, but the code lets you setup whatever values you want.

Your result for damage shift 0 is 10,13
My result as shown on the damage graph above was 10,14
In Elrics simulations he also found the average time to be 10,1.
So everyone pretty much agrees on that baseline. Thats a good first step.

Yes, first I checked that my damage was in the same range as yours and Elric's.

As a note) You might want to do more than 10.000 simulations. If found that results could vary a lot especially with combats taking longer than 5 average rounds. So i did all calculations with at least 300.000 simulations. when doing 300.000+ simulations i found the results would consolidate at the same answer down to 1 decimal.

I'll bump it up, these were quick runs for initial values.

1) When calculating your degree of fail, you seem to use 1-4 = 1 degree, 5-9=2 degree, 10-14= 3degrees, 15+ 4 degrees
The numbers should be 1-5:1, 6-10:2, 11-15:3, 16+:4

The code matches the output of http://www.d20herosrd.com/#TOC-GRADED-CHECKS

Here is it running in irb (the ruby REPL)

Code: Select all

d:\Users\RES\Documents\code\MnM3ECombatSimulator>irb
irb(main):001:0> def degree(difficulty, check)
irb(main):002:1> result = check - difficulty
irb(main):003:1> (result/5) + (result<0 ? 0 : 1)
irb(main):004:1> end
irb(main):005:0> degree(20,0)  => -4
irb(main):006:0> degree(20,1)  => -4
irb(main):007:0> degree(20,4)  => -4
irb(main):008:0> degree(20,5)  => -3
irb(main):009:0> degree(20,6)  => -3
irb(main):010:0> degree(20,9)  => -3
irb(main):011:0> degree(20,10) => -2
irb(main):013:0> degree(20,11) => -2
irb(main):014:0> degree(20,14) => -2
irb(main):015:0> degree(20,15) => -1
irb(main):016:0> degree(20,16) => -1
irb(main):017:0> degree(20,19) => -1
irb(main):018:0> degree(20,20) => 1
irb(main):019:0> degree(20,21) => 1
irb(main):020:0> degree(20,24) => 1
irb(main):021:0> degree(20,25) => 2
irb(main):022:0> degree(20,29) => 2
irb(main):023:0> degree(20,30) => 3
irb(main):024:0> degree(20,31) => 3
irb(main):025:0> degree(20,34) => 3
irb(main):026:0> degree(20,35) => 4
irb(main):027:0> degree(20,36) => 4


2) When progressive: End of round saves only seem to add one or subtract one degree on a sucessful or failed save. A succesful save should remove all conditions, and a failed save should add 1, 2 or 3 degrees depending on how much the end of round save was missed by.

You are correct that a succesful save end the effect and I've fixed that. However, you are incorrect about a failed save as it only increases the degree by one:
From http://www.d20herosrd.com/6-powers/effe ... ion-attack

Progressive: This modifier causes an Affliction to increase incrementally without any effort from you. If the target fails a resistance check to end the Affliction, it not only persists, but increases in effect by one degree! So a target affected by the first degree of a Progressive Affliction who fails to resist progresses to the second degree of the effect at the start of his next round. A successful resistance check still ends the Affliction, as usual. +2 cost per rank.

3) When cumulative: failure to save only seem to bump up the degree by 1. As in 2). Failures should bump up with 1,2 or 3 depending on how much the roll was failed by.

From From http://www.d20herosrd.com/6-powers/effe ... ion-attack

Cumulative: Normally, an Affliction does not have a cumulative effect on the same target, so getting two results of one degree, one after the other, has no more or less effect than a single one degree result; you have to get a higher degree with a later attack, which replaces the initial result. A Cumulative Affliction adds any further degrees to the existing degrees on the target. For example, if you hit a target and impose a vulnerable condition (one degree), then attack again and get one degree on the effect, you impose the Affliction’s second degree condition. +1 cost per rank.

So I totally misread that for a while, we only had cumulative bump up by one not add the degrees. Fixed.

4) It seems you do not take a crit into account when doing end of round saves. You always roll saves vs a DC 20 (and not 25 in the case of a crit)?

You are correct, I'm not having a critical hit effect end of turn resistances. The rules aren't clear that this happens (To me). Clearly it increases the intial resistance by +5 (the whole point) but the end of round resistances are never mentioned. Only place where future resistances are mentioned is in increased duration "concentration" which explicitly states that future resistances don't benifit from the critical hit.

So erring on the side of caution and not wating to track critical hits at the table, I'm just not doing it (and what if the first cumulative condition was a crit and the second was not).

5) Do double staggers lead to incapacitated? I just could not find it. I guess it does since our numbers are similar.

Yes, the Attack.cumulative_statuses array lists the degrees which accumulate. For damage it is set to [2] and for cumulative afflictions it is set to [1,2]. Note that I don't bother with accumulating 3rd degree since my code limits status to 3rd degree (so no optional rules on death by higher degree).

As i mentioned. I have never looked at Ruby programming before, so i might just be misreading or missing these things.

No problem, you hit on several things that needed correcting.

[Belial666]

Any given ability is only as useful as it turns out to be in any given game.

Assuming one accepts everything else you said, the above statement still isn't true. For two hypothetical abilities A and B, if B can do everything A can plus something else, then it will be more useful than A regardless of the circumstances. If B is simply A except with more ranks/greater numerical effect, then again it will be more useful than A regardless of the circumstances. That is why one tests which ability is more useful in an abstract way. To find if B is indeed more effective than A in general and thus, by extension, in particular.

[rstehwien]

An to play devils advocate for just a second, the point of affliction was never to be an encounter ender. It exists to give us a mathematical formula for the non damaging effect... Its the set up, to the one two knock out punch that is damage.

Heard that before. I respectfully disagree in that I expect my 3rd degree afflictions to come up more often than they do, which is on average every 100 rounds for equally matched opponents using base affliction... which is 10 times longer than it takes "Capt Punch-You-In-The-Face" to end the combat. Just being "Junior Inconvenience-The-Bad-Guy" isn't always satisfying. And yes I know that you can have both damage and affliction, that isn't the point.

But what is the point of having some afflictions if you can never expect to see the 3rd degree affliction? What is the point of having an encounter ending degree for an affliction at all if it never can end the encounter?

Or what if your affliction has a pretty low probability of actually helping at all unless your entire team waits to act after you and dog-piles the person you target?

Why is it that only some setups of affliction seem worth a damn?

My group played for a while with affliction as written and mostly using the afflictions given in the book (dazzle, snare, mind control, plus a few custom) and found it very unsatisfying. So we looked at the probabilities to make sure our dissatisfaction wasn't just perceived due to some strange dice rolls. We also wanted to judge if the costs felt right.

I've got several other threads where I (and others) go into the problems we have with affliction and our solution:
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=45679
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=38393&start=105#p863478

You can't really use mathematics to determine which ability is more useful in game terms, because to do so, you would first need to be able to determine the normal operating pattern for the oppositional force in any given game... An there isn't one: There is no such thing as a standard MnM game.

Any given ability is only as useful as it turns out to be in any given game.

Yes tactics, the opposition, etc all come into play. The probability of results does too. Even if there is no standard operating pattern probability matters... try playing the game but increase the difficulty by 5 for everything and tell me it plays the same for your group.

But if the group is pretty much of the mind to "never take afflictions because they are useless" or always build them in certain ways (progressive, attaching a weaken to the save, etc) it shows that something isn't working for your group.

Besides nobody is forcing you to read discussions on probability and look at combat simulators. Some people find it interesting to see what the averages are in straight one on one combats even if it isn't what always happens (but it does)

[RasmusM]

@Belial666 and saint_matthew:

The comparisons i did was to answer the thesis that: "Affliction is sub-par to damage, when it comes to Incapacitating the enemy."

To answer that question i had to make some assumptions. For one, that it was a straight up 1 vs 1 fight. A situation that does not hold true in most settings, but one that was necessary in order to get a valid answer.

Not all afflictions are equal, as you say. But there is actually a surprisingly small difference, on the average time it takes to incapacitate with a progressive affliction regardless of its 1st and 2nd degree. This is mainly due to the fact that optimally the affliction is used heavily effect-shifted, and when it hits, it most likely either takes out the bad guy right away, or it progresses to incapacitated at the end of his turn (So you never get to strike again).

But Afflictions are not superior to damage in every situation. Damage powers are also very important, and are superior in their niche.

For instance, when many are facing 1 higher PL enemy, the situation is completely different. Damage is much more viable, as the conditions and bruises stack between characters, where afflictions are unique and only stack with them selves.

There is definately situations where Damage is (focus fire being one) more potent, but also many situations where afflictions are superior (as detailed above).

At all comes down to "Choosing the right tool for the job" where i as outlined above show that in some situations afflictions are not the way to go (vs a highly defense shifted opponent for instance), and in many others they are.

You could run simuations on different afflictions in a group situation, but the results would vary a lot depending on your team on what enemy you are facing. The answers you would get from those simulations, would be extremely specific, and would not really tell us much, beyond that specific situation.

If you "Belial666" have specific situation you want tested, i will be happy to help you.


But i established one thing: Afflictions are contrary to the many "afflictions are SO underpowered" threads, actually very viable for incapacitating the enemy, under certain conditions, and therefore have a place in most PCs teams.

Beyond that, there are many other reasons to include both afflictions and damage powers in any PCs array of powers.
(Unless you make serious changes to the mechanics of how afflictions work. For instance, let them stack with each other, and lets afflictions "bruise" resistance checks for other characters. In that situation i suspect that afflictions would be superior to damage in all circumstances. On the other hand you could also make damage progressive, and damage would be much much more effective than afflictions in incapacitating enemies.)

[Belial666]

Afflictions imposing "vulnerable", "impaired", "disabled" and similar conditions do stack simply because once a guy makes the enemy impaired, the enemy will have -2 to checks against other characters too. Once someone is made vulnerable, their defenses will be halved against other attackers just fine.

Last but not least, the conditions "stunned" and "compelled" effectively (though usually temporarily) take someone out of the fight with the 2nd degree of an affliction, not the 3rd degree, making the affliction that much more dangerous.

[rstehwien]

(Unless you make serious changes to the mechanics of how afflictions work. For instance, let them stack with each other, and lets afflictions "bruise" resistance checks for other characters. In that situation i suspect that afflictions would be superior to damage in all circumstances. On the other hand you could also make damage progressive, and damage would be much much more effective than afflictions in incapacitating enemies.)

As a FYI, my house rule for the modifier "Damaging +0/rank" which makes an affliction behave like damage (save DC of Rank+15 and adding to the cumulative save penalty for other damaging effects) isn't allowed to be stacked with Progressive or Cumulative. But considering some combos of afflictions I might make Damaging a +1/rank modifier so it won't be superior. The main reason for the mod is how my group feels about afflictions and their general place in combat (see other threads for long winded explanations, whining , etc)

[saint_matthew]

Any given ability is only as useful as it turns out to be in any given game.

Assuming one accepts everything else you said, the above statement still isn't true. For two hypothetical abilities A and B, if B can do everything A can plus something else, then it will be more useful than A regardless of the circumstances.

Except if B= Affliction, then B cannot do what A does, if A= Damage Effect.

By definition.

Its kind of like saying that ice-cream is better then a fridge, because you can't eat a fridge. While it is true that the fridge is not edible, the fridge does not serve the same function as the ice-cream, nor is anyone suggesting that it should.

Likewise damage effects don't serve the same purpose as an affliction. An afflictions only job is to apply a non damage based condition to a character. Where as the function of a damaging effect is... well... damage.

Heard that before. I respectfully disagree in that I expect my 3rd degree afflictions to come up more often than they do, which is on average every 100 rounds for equally matched opponents using base affliction... which is 10 times longer than it takes "Capt Punch-You-In-The-Face" to end the combat.

Except it has never been afflictions job to end combat. Afflictions only purpose is to apply negative conditions to a target. That single power not being able to win a combat as quickly as someone doing direct damage is to be expected... Its kind of like building a complex mathematical chart showing the direct correlation between damage done from damage effects, versus damage not done by a guy sitting in a rest stop bathroom 3 states east of the encounter, picking his teeth, while thinking about elctoral candidates.

Unsuprisingly the one that does damage, does more damage then the one that isn't trying to do damage. I didn't really need a chart to determine that.

Just being "Junior Inconvenience-The-Bad-Guy" isn't always satisfying. And yes I know that you can have both damage and affliction, that isn't the point.

Um, really struggling to see what the point is. Even in this one paragraph you seem to be saying "oh it so unfullfilling to try to win a fight with only afflictions" but then go on to say "but i know there is more then just afflictions."

to me that seems counter intuitive... Kind of like sitting and watching paint dry, declaring it a boring activity, then saying "i know i could do something else, but i'm just going to do this instead, oh how i wish there were something else i could be doing."

But what is the point of having some afflictions if you can never expect to see the 3rd degree affliction?

But you can expect to see it. In fact a simple linked weaken effect in fact can assure success, even if it is a little slimy, as far as building goes.

An frankly anyone building a three stage affliction with the idea of it coming up often is looking to side step the entire fun process that comes from
A. Playing in a group with others.
B. Playing in a combat encounter with level relevent enemies (since mooks always go to the worst result on a failed saving throw).

What is the point of having an encounter ending degree for an affliction at all if it never can end the encounter?

For the same reason that when you order food at restaruant, they don't bring you a plate of poop... Sure its going to end up that way eventually, but there is an entire time period between ordering food & pooping, in which you can enjoy the process of eating the food. Same goes with combat... Who wants to short cut the combat, with an insta-win. There's a reason why the third stage afflictions are so hard to pull off: Because they are so very powerful.

Or what if your affliction has a pretty low probability of actually helping at all unless your entire team waits to act after you and dog-piles the person you target?

What if i create a damage effect that only damages hamsters? What if i create a protection power that works only when i'm singing polka songs in the shower, on every second friday of the month?

Thatas not a problem with the power, its a problem with how i'm trying to use it.

Fact is that even a 2 tier affliction is pretty powerful. Take Snare for instance: It can render a villain immobalised at its higher level, an just hindered & vulnerable at the lower level of success: Both useful effects.

Why is it that only some setups of affliction seem worth a damn?

Why is a damaging effect that only works on hamsters not worth a damn? Because its not... Unless you fight hamsters every single battle, in which case its a brillaint power.

My group played for a while with affliction as written and mostly using the afflictions given in the book (dazzle, snare, mind control, plus a few custom) and found it very unsatisfying.

Except you are coming from a faulty hypothesis that entails afflictions being meant to finish every combat, rather then being a ladder of successive effects.

try playing the game but increase the difficulty by 5 for everything and tell me it plays the same for your group.

No thank you, i'm perfectly happy with the current level of difficulty for effects.I honestly have no interest turning my MnM game into a D&D 3E "save or die" game of Russian Roulette.

[RasmusM]

Except it has never been afflictions job to end combat. Afflictions only purpose is to apply negative conditions to a target. That single power not being able to win a combat as quickly as someone doing direct damage is to be expected...

Hi there Matthew. I have to comment on this.
Im sure we can both agree, that the actual intent of afflictions is for the designers to know, and us to speculate about. The fact of the matter is that if i use an Affliction 15 vs a Resistance check +10, im just as likely to Incapacitate him as if i used a Damage 15 vs Toughness 10. So i would argue that its as much afflictions purpose to end a combat as it is damage's. They both apply negative conditions to a subject. The difference being a slight change in their mechanics, and damage being fixed in terms of what conditions it apply.

Unsuprisingly the one that does damage, does more damage then the one that isn't trying to do damage. I didn't really need a chart to determine that.

Thats basically not true. Progressive afflictions especially with impaired and disabled conditions that affect resistance checks, actually Incapacitates an opponent much faster than a damage effect. Nothing else considered. One can therefore argue that afflictions in some cases cause more damage than damage-effects.

But you can expect to see it. In fact a simple linked weaken effect in fact can assure success, even if it is a little slimy, as far as building goes.

I agree on your point that 3rd degree conditions actually apply relatively often. Either through high effect-shifting as i have shown with the simulations. Or through the addition of weaken.
I have done several simulations with linked weaken progressive afflictions. The weaken effect actually only impacted the maximum effectiveness at a relative effect shift around 4 a very small amount.
It did however make -2 to 3 relative effect shifts much closer to max effectiveness.

But all in all i think we agree largely on the "right tool for the job" viewpoint.

[saint_matthew]

Im sure we can both agree, that the actual intent of afflictions is for the designers to know, and us to speculate about.

Except we don't need to speculate, its spelled out in the first line of the power listing.

You can impose some debilitating condition or conditions on a target by making a close attack.

That is literally the intention of the power. Its so literal that it literally says it in the description of the power.

The fact of the matter is that if i use an Affliction 15 vs a Resistance check +10, im just as likely to Incapacitate him as if i used a Damage 15 vs Toughness 10. So i would argue that its as much afflictions purpose to end a combat as it is damage's.

Sure & i could build a Blast 70 & it would destroy planets, that doesn't mean that the intention of blast is to destroy worlds.

The intention of affliction is exactly what it says in the book, which is to add conditions to a target... Thats it: No more, no less.

The way you appear to be trying to use it, is wrong. The point of an affliction is not to insta-win an encounter by aiming for the 3rd tier effect. Its to add negative conditions to a target, to make there defeat easier & more fun.

What you seem to be doing, is the equiviliant of picking up a D20 & realising each role only gives you a 1 in 20 chance of rolling the 20 & then deeming the dice broken because you want the 20 to occour more often.

[Belial666]

a) Damage ends the fight by applying the "incapacitated" condition.
b) Affliction can apply the "incapacitated" condition as a 3rd degree effect, or effectively similar conditions.
thus;
c) Affliction can end a fight just as effectively as damage.

1) Damage whittles down enemy defenses by applying "bruises" and the "staggered" condition.
2) Affliction can whittle down defenses by applying "vulnerable", "impaired" and "disabled" conditions.
thus;
c) Affliction can whittle down enemy defenses similarly to damage.


The one and ONLY thing Damage can do that Affliction can't is actually kill someone (i.e. apply the "dying" and "dead" conditions). But killing is not required to end a fight in either case and effects such as "Transformed" are just as bad as death in some cases.

[rstehwien]

Im sure we can both agree, that the actual intent of afflictions is for the designers to know, and us to speculate about.

Except we don't need to speculate, its spelled out in the first line of the power listing.

Yes it is, there is a 3rd degree of affliction that takes someone out of the fight just like the 3rd degree status effect of damage takes someone out of the fight. Clearly affliction is meant to have the possibilty of end combats or it wouldn't have 3rd degree effects that do. What we disagree on is how often and at what price.

The way you appear to be trying to use it, is wrong. The point of an affliction is not to insta-win an encounter by aiming for the 3rd tier effect. Its to add negative conditions to a target, to make there defeat easier & more fun.

Not how I'm trying to use it at all. I'm not saying affliction should insta-win a combat any more than you are saying damage should. What is being looked at is "how likely is affliction going to EVENTUALLY win a combat compared to damage" because eventually winning a combat is what its all about (I suppose you could convince the opposition to stop but that is "winning" too). Both damage and affliction can apply combat ending effects so they are meant to. Both apply something to the target that makes them more likely to be defeated. The methods are just different and I'm curious about what the difference means mathematically.

Unsuprisingly the one that does damage, does more damage then the one that isn't trying to do damage. I didn't really need a chart to determine that.

Thats basically not true. Progressive afflictions especially with impaired and disabled conditions that affect resistance checks, actually Incapacitates an opponent much faster than a damage effect. Nothing else considered. One can therefore argue that afflictions in some cases cause more damage than damage-effects.

Saying (paraphrasing) "adding progressive makes affliction better than damage" isn't comparing apples to apples. Progressive is a +2 modifier making it cost three times as much per rank as a base damage effect for pretty close to the same ability to incapicatate. My group quickly realized that cumulative, progressive, or linked weaken was a way to make affliction effective but didnt' feel it should have to do so in order to "compete" with damage.

The hero/villian point mechanic would also have a stronger effect to reduce the power of afflictions than damage. A hero point guarantees a success against an even up affliction while leaving a 20% chance of the cumulative penality with damage. But I haven't included that in my simulator for two reasons. One is because saint_matthew is right and tactics and group dynamics have a strong effect and use/availability of those points is very group/personal dependent. Two is because a GM has an infinite supply and can easily make affliction fail until they feel like letting it happen which would give the player one to do the same so it is a cycle that would be hard to model (I could do it by assuming thier automatic use, give the player one and have the villian always use one and increment the player pool... but therin lies madness and potentially infinite loops).

[Belial666]

Two is because a GM has an infinite supply and can easily make affliction fail until they feel like letting it happen

That is why one should always seek to attack with a game-ending affliction that succeeds even if the opponent rolls a natural 20!!!

In this case, if the GM is using infinite HPs and paying the players back for them to "save the moment" when his villains fail, it is time to take out the Multiattack Afflictions with Ultimate Aim.
Simply multiattack with a rank 15 affliction and power attack to effectively raise its rank to 20. Couple that with Ultimate Aim that gives you a +20 bonus to your attack and you can guaranteed-hit your enemy with an affliction he will guaranteed-fail.


Of course, pissing off your GM like that is a bad idea.