Mythic Forum

Current thread: Mythic forums > General > 7 red demons on level 0?! OH COME ON
AuthorMessage
WarWorld
1/21/2010 1:34:39 PM
party of five just about to go to level 2 jumped at short range by 7 red demons? PUFF party! Randy IMO this can not be allowed any more. I just wasted 4 hours of my time to get them almost to level 2 to be wiped out in one combat sequence? NOT good for keeping players.
WarWorld
1/21/2010 1:37:28 PM
did not have spellcasters with communincation spell.
Legion
1/21/2010 2:49:01 PM
I just added more data to the log of dead people to help see what monsters kill the most people at each level. I have a very detailed formula for calculating monster difficulty but some elements are not always easy to gauge. The added data will help. Its possible for example that I'm undervaluing monster spellcasting, such as on the small red demon. Monsters like this are tricky, because once they cast their spell they are worthless, averaging 9 hp, negative attack ratings, and d2 damage.

For what its worth, small red demons are ranked between wolves and orcs, so your freak encounter could have been 7 wolves or orcs too. I'm not sure that the small red demons are any harder so it might not be a case of them being too hard, but rather that any encounter generated at the extreme difficulty was going to be fatal. I guess one thing to consider is what percentage of encounters might be three levels outside the expected range such as that. Currently its just a bit over 1%. The odds of a 7xp encounter under those circumstances is about 1 in 252. So, the total odds of 7 lvl-3 montsers in a level 0 is less than 1 in 20,000. If it really was 7, I don't have that logged. Also consider the range of the encounter. Without alarm, encounters can start at any range from 0 to 3 with equal odds. Obviously at any range other than melee, most of those guys get away since they're fleeing every round, often with more than 1 chance ber turn if you've used "remove all" to get their speeds up into the blue range. You mentioned your encounter started at short range. That gave you two opportunities to flee. I can only assume you used the group-flee choice since none escaped. Had you fled individually some would have made it, maybe all of them actually. But that should not hide the fact that 1/4 of those encounters will start in melee range where you can lose everyone. So thats somewhere less than 1 in 80,000 that you're ambushed and an entire party killed before you even know you have an encounter. Are those appropriate odds? Remember I want there to be a chance that people die despite a players best choices. No character should be "safe" at any point even with perfect play.

Please realize I'm not saying its a perfect system at all, I'm just doing some research and calculations here in the forum rather than in private so people can see what we're dealing with and how much thought I put into each step of things. The odds of an encounter like that are so small, that they're ok IF thats the question. But the question probably really is, should encounters be generated using a normal randomization curve or should there be some sort of limits in place that make it impossible to find small red demons in a level 0, or impossible to find an ogre in a level 3, and so on. Maybe. My feeling is no, let freak encounters happen but if it turns out that it is ruining the experience for too many players, I will consider alternatives.

I do see your lvl 2 success rate has been climbing since the staging area and +hp on spellcasters were added, so I think things have been moving in the right direction. As I mentioned, I don't think I'm looking for a drastic change right now but I'll continue to bias updates and features toward making it easier for first level characters. Logging more information will make it easier for me to make informed changes.

Don't forget when you see those certain-death encounters coming to "remove all" equipment before you set flee and click continue. If you did have five guys (the log showed just 4, from 21-25xp) usually at least one or two will get a good init roll and with the large speed bonus from having no equipment and a fist usually some will go before the monsters. Losing them all in one round was truly unlucky.

1/22/2010 2:15:02 PM
Thanks for the added info here, like the remove all to increase odds of fleeing :)

1/30/2010 9:59:11 PM
I just had a dungeon lvl 0 with: 1 hob sergeant 46 hp, 2x hob warr 40, 32 hp each, 1 shaman w/27 hp, hob vet w/32 hp, and 8 hob w/ between 3 and 17 hp. party of 3 that were good prospects killed - 1 in round 1 and 2 in round 2 after selecting flee. This encounter was, i believe at short range or less.

Post new message (use of HTML is permitted)
Username New player? Join mythic warfare.
Password
Body
Submit