Bows, bows & more bows

[ister]

Originally posted by wanderon: Actually it doesn't just boil down to the math becuase there is no way to determine what damage each attack will do or how many hit points a given target will have to figure out how effective those extra 10% of hits might be or might not be.

Yeah you're right. I should have said "on average". And on average the math tells you exactly how much more effective the bracers are on Kivan than on Imoen. If correct, the idea that this might not be true because we don't know how many hit points the opponent has would invalidate most of science. Statistics tell us that for a large number of tests (and in Baldur's Gate there are an extremely large number of to hit rolls) the outcomes are extremely predictable. If the game were only to last 5 minutes (after you get the bracers) you'd be right. But in general all the other stuff you want to talk about will average out. These are the facts. Central limit theorem, plus the fact that the game works on a very simple mathematical model.

Now you can certainly question my assumptions. These are
-Kivan does more damage per hit than Imoen (true unless she is shooting better arrows than him)
-Kivan will fire his bow more often than Imoen (might not be true)
-On enemies will reasonably often survive being hit by a regular arrow (otherwise the extra damage doesn't matter, and Kivan's extra attack won't come into play)
-The goal is to be to inflict as much damage as possible on enemies

If you accept those assumptions I don't see how you can't agree that Kivan should have the bracers.

So I have been thinking about your position and how I might be wrong. I would argue one of the following:
1) You'll tend to use Kivan in melee much more than Imoen, to the point where she will be going through a lot more arrows than Kivan. I don't use Kivan (or Imoen) that way, but if you find that she runs out of arrows significantly more frequently than he does it's quite likely that she should have the bracers. In fact you could limit the argument to hard battles - if in hard battles you end up with Kivan in melee for most of the battle while Imoen is firing arrows for most of the battle, there is no doubt that she should get the bracers. Not the way I play but it's a good argument.
2) The enemies that you most care about are enemies that cannot usually survive a single hit. In this case it doesn't really matter who gets the bracers. I think this is a harder argument, but if I have everyone on scripts until I run into something nasty, and my main concern in playing the game is to be able to leave them on scripts I think the case can be made.
3) Spell disruption is your most important action for archers. In this case we don't care about how much damage is done, or indeed how many hits per round we get, we simply care that we can get one hit in while the spell is being cast. So we want to minimize the chance that everybody misses. (Obviously this doesn't work if the caster has mirror images up - then we care about getting the most hits in as quickly as possible). In this case the character with the worst chance to hit needs to get the bracers.
4) Kivan isn't that much better of a choice to have the bracers, and having the most effective group isn't the be all and end all of the game. And that's an excellent argument.

For my money I'll go with my original statement: Why have one superb archer and one mediocre one when you can have two excellent ones.

Imoen with the bracers is still only a decent archer - nothing like as good as Kivan without them. The real decision is between making a mediocre archers quite a bit less awful, and making your main killing machine even more effective.

Both are important to the game- both will attack and kill enemies - if Kivan is facing one and Immy is facing one Kivan will kill his whether it takes two shots or three but without the bracers Immy might not kill hers and with them she might. Its not math its just common sense.

Well your statement here isn't right. It's never true that Kivan will kill any enemy in 2 or 3 shots. There is always a chance that he'll miss three times in a row no matter how crappy the enemy is. So really what your trying to do is increase the odds
that both enemies will end up dead in 2 rounds (for example). In that case Kivan will have 5 shots at his target, and will be able to use any left over shots (less the target change which probably costs one attack)against Imoen's target. Imoen will have 4 shots to take out her target and can use any left over shots agaisnt Kivan's target. In almost any combination of armour class, THACO, and hit points the odds that one of the two enemies gets through will be better if Kivan has the bracers. The obvious exception is when Kivan needs to roll a 1 to miss, but in that case giving the bracers to Imoen will take you from a ridiculously low chance that an enemy survives to an even lower chance that it survives.

[wanderon]

Average smamerage...

1)I am NOT a math nerd but I am fairly intelligent and despite the fact that math nerds tell us that statistics are wondrously accurate overall I have an inherent distrust of them. Yes the game does rely on a huge amount of math but whats impossible to "average" with the math is the way any given battle is actually played out. Specifically who targets who and how long it takes to kill them. As I understand the game engine if a player has 2 attacks per round and he kills an enemy in 1 hit he LOSES any remaining attacks and his next attack starts a new sequence (excep in the case of 3/2 attacks where it finishes the sequence started by the first attack.) Now its possible that if you are running scripts and the character automatically targets the next enemy this may not be so but without scripts many characters will just stand there when they have finished killing thier target until you redirect them or they are attacked.

In any event the playing out of these individual battles are in fact impossible to predict accurately IMO with the use of averages just becuase of the sheer number of variables involved.

As to my statement about having one superb archer and one mediocre one vs two excellent ones I fail to see why you keep referring to Imoen as "awful". She has higher than average dex and with good equipment can be a top archer in her class- just because she is not a warrior with warrior THAC0 does not make her "awful" she is about as good as a thief can be without the bracers and considerably better with them. If you insist on ranking archers strictly by their THAC0 and ignore their class (meaning only a warrior class can be "excellent" in your mind) then fine I will restate the obvious.

Why have one super archer and one "awful" one when you can have one excellent and one "decent" one.

In the end tho my real argument for giving the bracers to Imoen is not really about Imoen at all. I simply do not feel that Kivan needs them. I DON'T believe that in real game action his having those bracers makes a noteable difference in the number of enemies he takes out or the time he takes to do so. Perhaps he will use a few less attacks to do so and save a handful of arrows but I have played with him not using them and have experienced no problems what so ever he is still extremely effective and thus I have decided that giving them to him is a waste while giving them to a more mediocre archer can be a more noteable improvement in THEIR perfomance. In fact I think if you look at your numbers closely you will indeed find that adding the bracers effects to a character with mediocre THAC0 compared to adding the same effects to an excellent THAC0 the mediocre THAC0 gets a bigger "relative" boost...doesn't it???.

[ister]

Just because Kivan is great without the bracers doesn't mean he isn't even better with them.

And you're right about the relative boost. If Imoen (otherwise) has a 15% chance to hit an enemy while Kivan has a 35% chance to hit the enemy then it is true that Imoen's odds will go to 25% with the bracers while Kivan's will go to 45%. The relative boost for Imoen is much better. But no-one should care about the relative boost - what matter is how often you hit the beggar. And they get exactly the same boost to how often they actually hit. Maybe it's more noticeable when 15% goes to 25% than when 35% goes to 45%, but the change is the same. Human intuition about these sorts of things is notoriously bad.

And it is obviously true that there are a hge numebr of variables that affect the outcome of a given battle. But you can vary basically every parameter and in almost all cases Kivan will be more effective than Imoen with the bracers. I've identified a couple of situations where Imoen would be better. I honestly can't think of any others - the only advantage to giving them to Imoen is to minimize the number of misses, and you'll very rarely want to minimize misses rather than maximize kills.

Let me try to put this another way. Suppose that we can identify all of possible battles, and we can define exactly how a player will fight each of these battles. The number of combinations is clearly immense, much larger than the number of dice rolls in the game. But I think it's broadly true that we can define every single battle and every single 'fighting style'. For each combination of battle and fighting style we can exactly calculate the odds of all possible outcomes. Once we've defined the battles and fighting styles this part is indisputable. We can then calculate whether the outcomes are more favourable (say by calculating total number of hps lost by the party in each case, or total number of party deaths in all outcomes, or potions consumed or whatever) with Kivan wearing the bracers or with Imoen wearing the bracers. To work out the best outcome we'd then need to decide what is a good measure of 'most favourable' and add up all the outcomes for all the combinations to see which is better. All of this is an immense amount of work, but theoretically it could be done. Now my argument is that in almost all battles and almost all reasonable fighting styles Kivan will be more effective. If there are a reasonable number of combinations of battles and fighting styles in which Imoen will be better then the questions of how we define a favourable outcome, what the incidence of the different battles will be, and what fightign styles are likely will play a big role in evaluating which is the better choice.

But I think I can show that in almost any battle situation and in almost any fighting style Kivan will make better use of the bracers than Imoen. This is because he fires the bow more often (until he kills his target) and each of his hits does more damage.

I do concede that if your fighting style is such that Kivan will be in melee combat when facing tough opponents Imoen should get the bracers. And that for situations where Kivan can only miss on 1, Imoen should get the bracers. And that when you're trying to disrupt spell casters and not cause damage (or bring down mirror images) Imoen should get the bracers. And that in cases where oppenents are easy to hit and are usually killed by a single arrow it makes no difference who gets the bracers. However I think it should be clear that if both are only firing arrows, Kivan is better with the bracers when faced with two melee-only half-ogres on a bridge, or with a half dozen kobold commandos in a dungeon.

My argument is not therefore that we can predict the expected outcome of all battles. (Although theoretically we can.) It is that the situations where it makes more sense for Imoen to have the bracers are vastly outnumbered by the situations where it makes more sense for Kivan to have the bracers, and that the importance of the situations where it makes sense for Imoen to have the bracers is generally pretty low by any reasonable measure.

[wanderon]

But you insist that the bracers allow Kivan to do more damage to the enemy and I say if he gets them the effect is Immy does less. I say that Kivan does enough damage already and Immy doesn't. They are not competing to see who does best they are shooting at different enemies and trying to stay alive so to take the bracers away from Immy to give them to Kivan when he doesn't need them is a waste. He already gets more attacks per round so he is already going to take down his enemies faster and does not NEED any help to do so. On the other hand while he is taking down his enemy if Imoens enemy is taking fewer hits then it stays alive longer and has the potential to damage other members of the party for a longer period of time.

You are only looking at how wonderful Kivan is going to be and not looking at the downside to Immy NOT being more useful when its possible to make her so and your theory that with lower enemies that can be taken down in a single hit it doesn't matter who gets them shows that. I say in that situation it DOES matter becuase if Immy can't hit them she can't take them down and Kivan can only target one at a time
no matter how good he is. So Imoens MISSES can have as large if not larger detrimental effect on the party as Kivans prowess can have a good effect.

Now put that in your little calculator and crunch it...


I also think its mumbo jumbo to even speculate that it would be possible to mathmatically account for every possibilty in every battle...