Dungeon Delver Quest (Original Fantasy... again)

[X] Just see who approaches you tomorrow
[X] Just see who approaches you tomorrow 2

edit

 

Actually in the two encounters you are talking about we only lost 1HP- we lost the remaining HPs over the course of several encounters that weren't described in details, and we were told we went back because Murden didn't have any spells left, and likewise we didnt have any dailies.

When we lose less than 1HP/encounter, and we now take less damage from 3HP attacks than we did from 1HP attacks before, we actually flat out can't lose HP against the types of mobs we had last night...except maybe the magic types.

 

But we aren't going to stop just at those mobs, are we?

 

we used up our dalies to preserve our HP. Our dailies were not necessary for victory, they were only serving as an extra HP buffer

That is simply not true.

Here we lose our first HP, during our first skeleton encounter

Here we lost the other 2, this happened during the big fight alongside the crazy swordswoman when we faced the necromancer spamming skeletons. We used dailies to preserve our HP
---

Those type of mobs are literally the weakest mobs out there, and even yesterday we already encountered more dangerous kind (the necromancer).
It doesn't matter how well we can handle them, it matters how well we can handle exploration of the first level. Our current limit is stamina. Getting armor that makes it so the skeletons can't hurt us is awesome for stamina, it is a massive boost that lets us tear through them. But we are still going to be running out of resources, and that resource is HP first and foremost.
Our dailies don't take an opponent we can't beat and let us beat them, our dailies take an opponent we can beat anyways, and let them beat them at a lower HP cost.

 

As I noted in my earlier post, if we were going in to fight more skeletons, there is simply no point in bringing a healer (and we'd be perfectly fine going solo). The skeletons cannot do any damage to us, since the armor means we get a minimum of 2 successes on defense, and the skeletons can't have more than 1D damage, based on the previous outcome.

In order for a 3-person party to be 'worthwhile' (as in, not having to ask, "Why didn't I just come in here and solo everything?"), we are going to have to fight stuff that is going to be capable of damaging us.

Spoiler: Review

Vs skeletons as we were (3 Toughness, no armor), we should have taken an average of 0.24 damage per attack. We should expect to lose 3 HP over the course of a dozen (maybe upwards of 15, if lucky) attacks.

The first encounter was vs 4 skeletons, and we took 1 damage. Because of our miserable Agility, the skeletons had their full attack before we struck back. All 4 got an attack in the first round (where we took the damage); then we broke one, and Murdan roasted another; then we took out the last two without taking more damage.

So, we took 6 attacks in that fight (4 in the first round, 2 in the second), and took 1 damage.

We took another 2 damage in the fight in the necromancer room, including fighting against better-armed opponents.

And finally, while we didn't use up the last potion, we did get worn down through the rest of the run, to the point we could have used that potion to recover our wounds, but it wasn't worthwhile because we still needed to rest due to ability timers being down.

We probably took a total of about 6 damage during the entire run.

A little math about our current defense status:

Spoiler: Damage

This table describes the expected damage we'll take when facing a monster that has the offensive stats on the left, per attack.

No Equipment
1D	0.0
2D	0.0
3D	0.023
4D	0.086
5D	0.19
+1 Equipment
1D + 1	0.0
2D + 1	0.058
3D + 1	0.13
4D + 1	0.37
5D + 1	0.60
+2 Equipment
1D + 2	0.14
2D + 2	0.36
3D + 2	0.64
4D + 2	0.96
5D + 2	1.30

As you can see, anything without equipment bonuses is pretty inconsequential. We only take about 1 damage per 5 attacks against a 5D mob.

Once the mobs start getting quality weapons, though, the damage starts increasing rapidly. And given that mobs with quality weapons are probably going to have higher stats as well, we can certainly see where we need to start being concerned.

I'd say anything at 4D+1 and higher, or 2D+2 and higher, is where we need to start being concerned. +2 will likely only show up for special/boss mobs, so mostly it's the +1s we need to be concerned with. 4D+1 would be 4 Str, D skill, and a +1 weapon.

Spoiler: Target analysis

If we fight stuff without quality weapons, or natural (unweaponed) mobs (eg: lizards, bees, hounds, etc), then extra healing will be less valuable, even pushing all the way to 5D mobs.

On offense, our 4D+2+2? should average 3.48 against a mob with 3D+1 defense. We should be able to kill such mobs in 2 hits. We'd take 3 damage every 4 mobs, if they had 4D+1 offense.

Of course, that's just one-on-one. The next risk is mob groups. If multiple mobs roll high against our defense, we can end up faceplanting before we can get healed.

A 4D+1 offense can do a max of 3 damage to us. If we take two such hits in the same round, we're down to just 1 HP. Of course there's only about 1% chance per attacker to take that kind of damage, but 3 attackers each doing 2 damage each is the same type of threat.

Overall, I think we can manage going up to a pair of 4D+1 mobs. More than that, and we're trusting in luck to keep us alive. Hopefully that's a high enough challenge level for this floor that we won't be coming across multiples of them at a time.

As long as the healer doesn't have some stupid limit like "3 heals per day", that should be a manageable challenge tier for the group, if we have a healer with us. I'd also expect it to be a fairly lucrative challenge tier, relative to what we got from the skeletons.

Going without a healer means we can mass-farm easy mobs, and do so very quickly (and probably more efficiently, for leveling purposes) with a group, but that doesn't seem like the type of fighter Yuuka is.

If we include the healer, mass-farming +0 mobs (no special equipment) with occasional weaponed mobs, should be pretty easy, up to 5D. Basically, lots of strong, but fodder, mobs, with mostly no damage, but sporadic moments of high damage that the healer can cover.


Also, current quick tally:

Vote Tally : Dungeon Delver Quest (Original Fantasy... again) | Page 10 | Questionable Questing
##### NetTally 1.4.2

[9] Someone who can heal
[9] Someone with some range
[8] Just see who approaches you tomorrow
[4] None
[1] Someone who can sneak
[1] Go it alone.
[1] A good supporter
[1] Just see who approaches you tomorrow 2

Total No. of Voters: 17

 

Was gonna save this for the next tutorial, but since people have been doing Calc already, let me note that for each attack past the fourth you suffer in a turn, your attacker gets one bonus dice. So fifth attacker gets +1, sixth gets +2 etc. This is to simulate the increased difficulty of fighting an entire mob at once.

 

[X] Someone who can heal
[X] Just see who approaches you tomorrows

 

Why do you assume we will fight nothing but the weakest enemies, when so far we have in a grand total of 2 fights had encountered stronger enemies already? (the necromancer).
And we also smelled an encounter that was clearly not skeletons (rot)

Also, if we are fighting nothing but skeletons than it doesn't matter if we carry a party with us, and if we do have a party we can push through the skeletons to the next harder area and fight monsters that are worth more DC (I am going to shorten Deucite to DC from now on)

It was mentioned skeletons can pile up and overrun people with numbers, if this was meant literally than it is possible that there are flank mechanics in play and surrounded mechanic that would give them a sufficient bonus to hurt us

 

Cutting our take in half matters. It does.

 

Depending on how much further each party member allows us to raid longer, and how much loot drops from stronger enemies, a single party member's take -whether half, third, or even a quarter- can be more than what a single Tower raider can do.

Of course, it can be less as well.
+shrugs+

 

Sure we are. We have only so much time in a day, and if we have to protect a squishy that can't fight himself we aren't going to go at it so much faster. Getting the greatclub to C means being able to fight deeper without having to come down for the night but it also means not improving our defenses as much (only doublind them, while we have *6 them).

As is, though, we hit worse than yesterday as we had a DPS along. So we hit worse, but we can't take damages from the earlier enemies... this end up meaning we'll go even less far than yesterday unless 'by luck' someone else cleared the places and we'll begin with new enemies.

They were used to protect our mage. Like we'll use them to protect the healer.

Oh right, we did lose 2Hp during that fight. Which still means we'll either get 0 or 0 or 0.

Except we are at a point where we cannot take damage unless we go at it alone against 6+ enemies, and then only by being unlucky.

Our dailies are also used to save our squishies' HP. So we'll use our dailies to save the priest, because we can't take damage ourself.

Loing our DPS but gaining a squishy that can't heal an uninjured self means we'll get less total and even less ourself.

 

Eh, we have Warrior's Challenge, and that has both passive and active effects that keep a high Threat rating on us. Yuuka used that to protect Murdan the once in the narrated fight against the necromancer and skeleton mobs.

Well, my vote in particular also looks for someone who has range, and most ranged attackers are DPS anyway, but I guess you're gonna say less loot against that argument.
+shrugs+

 

[X] Someone who can heal
[X] Just see who approaches you tomorrow

I'd rather a small party than a large no one, but getting to know people early is important. This is more about networking than setting up a permanent party.

 

I'm not assuming that. I'm using that as a baseline to compare risk factors.

Probably not the best abbreviation, since DC is typically used for "Difficulty Challenge". Maybe DP for Deucite Pieces? (comparable to Gold Pieces)

Most likely means what Yrs just mentioned: each mob past the 4th gets +1 die. Yuuka could handle up to perhaps 8 skeletons on her at once, now, with the armor (plus a bored healer). 9+ skeletons might get a bit tricky, with spike damage.

Fighting a group of higher-tier mobs is far more risky, though.

 

It's a shame we can't somehow calibrate the level of risk we take on based on the number of allies we recruit.

For me, though, it's not about the shards. It's about getting to know people in the old-fashioned, Oni way... by engaging in battle with them (against or alongside - it matters not). We know that we're *eventually* going to want a party. We have a skill that pretty much screams that we're intended to be at least somewhat party-focused. It's a good idea, then, to meet everyone we can who seems like they'd be a decent ally, head in for a trip with them, and get an idea of what's out there - who's worth knowing, and who isn't. Then, once we've made the rounds once, we can make a much more refined decision as to who we want to spend time with - and that'll be about the point where we want to maybe take on one of the bosses that you *want* a full group for.

 

Agreed, pretty much.

Honestly, if we had more than one potion, I'd opt for a group of fighters for this run. Random exploration of the low-ish mobs, just seeing what other people can do, and what enemies are out there. Up to modest die levels, it'll be pretty rare to take more than 1 damage in an attack, and ~3 potions would let us go for a pretty good run.

However, without any spare potions, we're either stuck at the lowest tier mobs, or we need the healer to supplement things. But as soon as we get the healer, we need to push towards higher tier mobs to really make it worthwhile.

If we were a conservative and careful player, it would again be fine since we could just farm the skeletons solo for a bit to get some cash for some more potions, and proceed normally. Again, though, we're limited by both personality and plot mechanics. While Yuuka isn't stupidly gung-ho, she isn't the most cautious, either. She'll likely want to do some general exploration (such as for finding alchemical ingredients to sell). And I'm sure there will be a vocal group who doesn't want to hang around doing 'boring' stuff.

For exploration, we'd want someone with good observation skills. Yuuka only has a 2 Perception. Interestingly, both the ranged option and the healer option are likely to have reasonable Perception and knowledge skills. We don't have to make this a fight run. We could just wander around, exploring.

With Yuuka's tankiness, she can keep everyone safe from minor rabble, and the team as a whole is strong enough to deal with much higher-tier mobs if they're encountered. Even the random option instead of the ranged option should be fine.

So yeah, with this teamup, I think we'd be good just spending the entire day exploring the first floor, gathering interesting ingredients, and figuring out what sorts of fights we're going to be up against when we get serious.

 

Math. Ignore if you're not interested.

Spoiler: Lotsa math

Note: This is primarily to get a feel for what Yuuka's stats mean when presented with a gradiant of opponents with nearby stat values. We don't know what stats any given mob has, so we can't make choices like, "Go fight the lizards; they're a 3D/2D mob and make good farming fodder." Rather, this gives an idea of how much threat is presented as the difficulty scales up, so that we can decide on resources needed for whatever level challenge we're preparing for.

Redoing things a bit to show the probability of taking any given damage value, since that distribution is more useful for our purposes than just the overall average.

This is what Yuuka's damage taken looks like vs mobs with increasing attack dice and equipment bonuses:

		Damage
Dice	Add	0.	1	2	3	4	Average
1		100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0.000
2		100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0.000
3		98%	2%	0%	0%	0%	0.023
4		92%	7%	1%	0%	0%	0.086
5		84%	12%	3%	0%	0%	0.198
1	1	100%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0.000
2	1	94%	6%	0%	0%	0%	0.058
3	1	84%	13%	2%	0%	0%	0.180
4	1	72%	20%	7%	1%	0%	0.365
5	1	60%	25%	12%	3%	0%	0.603
1	2	86%	14%	0%	0%	0%	0.144
2	2	69%	25%	6%	0%	0%	0.365
3	2	54%	30%	13%	2%	0%	0.642
4	2	41%	31%	20%	7%	1%	0.959
5	2	30%	30%	25%	12%	3%	1.304

She doesn't start taking 2 damage per attack with any frequency until 5D+1 or 3D+2. We shouldn't be hitting anything of that difficulty among the fodder mobs of the first floor (hopefully). Taking 1-damage hits is rare against lower tier mobs, but happens at moderate frequency once the mobs get +1 weapons.

Overall, she shouldn't take much damage, but over a long period of time she'll take more damage than a single healing potion can cover.


This is what kinda of damage Yuuka can do against mobs at varying levels of defense dice:

		Damage
Dice	Add	0.	1	2	3	4	5	6	Average	Hits
1		0%	5%	22%	35%	27%	10%	2%	5.200	1
2		2%	12%	27%	31%	20%	7%	1%	4.759	2
3		7%	18%	29%	27%	15%	4%	1%	4.273	3
4		14%	22%	28%	22%	11%	3%	0%	3.758	4
5		23%	24%	26%	18%	8%	2%	0%	3.236	5
1	1	5%	22%	35%	27%	10%	2%	0%	4.096	1
2	1	14%	27%	31%	20%	7%	1%	0%	3.544	2
3	1	25%	29%	27%	15%	4%	1%	0%	2.985	4
4	1	36%	28%	22%	11%	3%	0%	0%	2.454	5
5	1	47%	26%	18%	8%	2%	0%	0%	1.974	8
1	2	27%	35%	27%	10%	2%	0%	0%	2.716	2
2	2	41%	31%	20%	7%	1%	0%	0%	2.147	3
3	2	53%	27%	15%	4%	1%	0%	0%	1.657	6
4	2	64%	22%	11%	3%	0%	0%	0%	1.254	10
5	2	73%	18%	8%	2%	0%	0%	0%	0.933	17

The "Hits" count assumes the mob has 2x their defense in Toughness, and 1x their defense in Willpower. With that much HP, that's about how many swings it will take for Yuuka to kill one.

Because the number of hits needed grows at a steady pace, that increases the risk of damage taken from the earlier chart. A single mob with 5D+0 offense and defense will almost certainly do at least 1 damage to Yuuka before the end of the fight. 3D+1 is about the same. If she had to fight two at once, then one of the mobs would have gotten in about 10 attacks before it was killed, and Yuuka would have taken about 3 total damage from the two mobs. (This doesn't count additional damage done by other party members, to shorten the fight.)


Basically, at that challenge level, while Yuuka can certainly win, she's going to be taking damage every fight, and the fights will be slow.

If we end up fighting mobs in the 2D to 4D +0 range, or 2D+1, that's pretty much the ballpark for what Yuuka can handle in a fairly quick and efficient manner.


If she goes on an exploration run, hopefully most of what she'll encounter is in that efficient range. We do know, however, that people haven't gotten past the first floor of the tower. That means that there will be a decent number of challenges towards the higher end of that range. Probably even higher, since Yuuka will jump up in power quite a bit once she hits C Greatclub + 6 Str (should be able to kill a 5D+2 defense mob in 6-7 hits instead of 17), which shouldn't be that high a threshold for the tower raiders.


What does that mean for the run planned for today? Basically, if she's fighting 3D+0 mobs, and has to deal with them in groups of 3-4 (like the skeletons), and is being assisted by 1 other fighter, she can expect to take 1 damage about every 5 fights. Adding a third damage dealer might stretch that to 1 damage every 7 fights. If that's all she ever fights, a party of 3 DDs (no healer) could kill about 100 mobs before needing to return, on just a single healing potion.

On the other hand, if the party is hit by just a pair of 4D+1 mobs, she should expect to take 3 or 4 damage in that fight, if 1 other party member is assisting on doing damage. With 3 fighters instead of 2 fighers and a healer, she'd probably take 2 damage.

So, 6 damage over ~100 mobs, vs 2 damage from 2 mobs. Similarly, she'd likely take 1 damage every 3 single 3D+1 mobs, with one DD assist. And that doesn't even get into 'leader' mobs.

If there's any uncertainty, or likelihood of even sporadic higher-level mobs, though, there's a very high risk of, at best, a very short run, if you don't take a healer along (or at least lots of potions).


On the other hand, you can drop the healer and go with just DDs, as long as you know that what you'll be fighting will be in the 'safe' zone. In fact, it's such an obviously efficient method of getting early XP, and Yuuka is so obviously suited for it, that I would be completely unsurprised if the 'someone' who approaches her was looking for someone to help them in exactly that sort of leveling effort. Basically, leech off of her capabilities so that they can gain shards for little to no effort.

While it was not my intent, the conclusion reached makes me much more against the "Just see who approaches you tomorrow" option. It sounds like the perfect opportunity for a leech group to try to use Yuuka for their own benefit (big, strong, and newly arrived at the tower, so doesn't know how everything works). Such a group would also likely ditch the healer as a "waste of space", given their strategy, so an encounter like that combined with Yuuka having already recruited a healer would likely lead to an uncomfortable conflict.

Such a group is also likely to very quickly bail in the event of any unexpected encounters. They'd have no interest in higher-tier mobs, given that strategy, but if they get hit by higher level mobs, the tank (ie: Yuuka) is left holding the bag with all the hate while the rest of them would probably run. Oh well; time to find another sucker.

We know there are thieves in the area (thus, the safe sleeping spots businesses), so other unsavory groups would be perfectly natural as well.

Spoiler: forum hate

Really irritating that, if one of the table cells has a value of '0', the forum software just leaves a blank cell instead of showing the value. Changed the column headers to '0.'. Not bothering with the +0 add rows.

 

DS = Deucite Shards?

 

For what it's worth, this is just who we're considering, rather than who we take. I'm pretty sure we'll have an opportunity to vote yea or nay on any specific characters we see. Also, I'm guessing that these correspond to the remaining unseen characters

[] Someone who can heal
- probably Linnea
[] Someone with some range
- possibly Lona?
[] Just see who approaches you tomorrow
- possibly Gui? Else grab bag
[] Someone who can sneak
- probably Shadow
[] A good supporter
- probably Du

It may not be quite that simple, but they do line up in a pretty straightforward fashion.

 

Alright, gimme the count up please

 

Vote Tally : Dungeon Delver Quest (Original Fantasy... again) | Page 10 | Questionable Questing
##### NetTally 1.4.2

[12] Someone who can heal

Spoiler: Voters

Xicree
Arkatekt
CptTagon
Darkened
Grosstoad
Kinematics
Larekko12
mrttao
Nohbody
Pipeman
prandom
Tavarokk

[10] Just see who approaches you tomorrow

Spoiler: Voters

Xicree
Bre Karn
Darkened
Guile
Minion #Q
Nohbody
Pipeman
prandom
Sirrocco
Smyter

[8] Someone with some range

Spoiler: Voters

Tavarokk
Arkatekt
Arkeus
CptTagon
Grosstoad
Kinematics
Larekko12
Smyter

[4] None

Spoiler: Voters

Arkeus
... Other

[1] Someone who can sneak

Spoiler: Voters

Sirrocco

[1] Go it alone.

Spoiler: Voters

Hangwind

[1] A good supporter

Spoiler: Voters

Bre Karn

[1] Just see who approaches you tomorrow 2

Spoiler: Voters

Minion #Q

Total No. of Voters: 19

 

Easy enough to avoid.

Rather this is good. We want to get a feel for other climbers and the community. Finding who not to party up with is just as good as finding who to party up with.

Worth noting here is exhaustion.

Large numbers of enemies give us increasing multiple-enemy penalties. The net effect becomes that those numbers would change for anything greater than 5.

Which means, assuming 8 hours of rest, we'd have 16 hours in a given day to deal with as many mobs as possible if we don't break to eat, rest, etc.

That comes to a bit over a kill every ten minutes to get the hundred, but we'd also need to go back to town or prepare a camp (risky) and clear a large area.

In this sense, while the math is overall right, it's nearly impossible in practice to find that many juicy weak little mobs, particularly as groups are actively reducing spawns near the base camp and there are likely encounters with others.

What does that mean? Well the 100/day strategy is pretty profitable on the surface, but it'll lose out dramatically to a strategy of clearing a little bit further in practice. And there are things like random bosses, etc where difficulty would spike and a healer would shine for the sustainability they'd bring.

 

Update should be out in the morning. Had some distractions to deal with yesterday.

 

[X] Bring her along, you're sure you can handle her.
[X] Just pick a direction and go

 

[X] Bring her along, you're sure you can handle her.
[X] Check out the clammy hallway

 

[x] Bring her along, you're sure you can handle her.
[x] Check out the clammy hallway

 

[x] Bring her along, you're sure you can handle her.
[x] Check out the clammy hallway

Hmmm... Clammy, might suggest some frost...

 

[] Bring her along, you're sure you can handle her.
[] Find your way back to that iron door you stopped at yesterday.

With three people, one of them a healer, we're pretty well-positioned to fight whatever's past that thing.

edit:

[x] Bring her along, you're sure you can handle her.
[x] Check out the clammy hallway

Thinking it over again, might be better to leave the iron door until after we've upgraded breaker a time or two.

 

In case folks were wondering the 'see who approaches' option was a grab bag. I rolled a die to see which as yet unintroduced character would show up.