Great Size, Adversaries, Favoured Abilities and Weariness

[Glorelendil]

That sounds about right Glorelendil. How does that change if the snow troll is Weary?

That was weary.

Here's the code (In an extreme case of metagaming I was comparing attacking with the sword in forward stance versus making Prepared Shots with the Great Bow.)

Code: Select all

  sword = 0
  bow = 0
  dice = Dice.new
  10000.times do |i|
    dice.roll 3
    if (dice.test 12) && (dice.feat >= 10)
      dice.roll 3, true, 8, 0
      if !dice.test 18
        sword += 1
      end
    end
    if i % 2 == 0
      dice.roll 2
      if (dice.test 18) && (dice.tengwars > 0)
        dice.roll 3, true, 8, 0
        if !dice.test 16
          bow += 1
        end
      end
    end
  end
  puts "sword: #{sword}   bow: #{bow}"

And the output:

Code: Select all

sword: 456   bow: 69

Please find a bug in my code because those results are pretty discouraging...

[bluejay]

Looks right to me. I really should write my own simulator at some point. Perhaps I'll make an app for this...

[Angelalex242]

Clearly a nod to the virtues of axes and cultural rewards. In fact...just for lulz, 13 dwarves using Ax of Az Keen Fell Greataxes vs. 3 snow trolls. Fur lulz, add in a hobbit with a king's blade keen fell sword. See who wins.

[zedturtle]

That sounds about right Glorelendil. How does that change if the snow troll is Weary?

That was weary.

Here's the code (In an extreme case of metagaming I was comparing attacking with the sword in forward stance versus making Prepared Shots with the Great Bow.)

Code: Select all

  sword = 0
  bow = 0
  dice = Dice.new
  10000.times do |i|
    dice.roll 3
    if (dice.test 12) && (dice.feat >= 10)
      dice.roll 3, true, 8, 0
      if !dice.test 18
        sword += 1
      end
    end
    if i % 2 == 0
      dice.roll 2
      if (dice.test 18) && (dice.tengwars > 0)
        dice.roll 3, true, 8, 0
        if !dice.test 16
          bow += 1
        end
      end
    end
  end
  puts "sword: #{sword}   bow: #{bow}"

And the output:

Code: Select all

sword: 456   bow: 69

Please find a bug in my code because those results are pretty discouraging...

Does dice.feat return > 10 for a Gandalf?

What does dice.roll have as operands... I'm assuming from context it's something like

returns int dice.roll (int NumberOfDice, bool Weary, int Modifier, int RerollFeat)
{
...
}

[zedturtle]

Oh, and in case anyone was interested in how it turned out...

Mirabella (small hobbit with a King's Blade), hits, pierces! Troll goes down for the count.

Now, the second Troll is trying to run away; and the third has mysteriously vanished.

So what are the trolls afraid of?

[zedturtle]

It's also true that a part of a role-playing game is (or used to be, yer whippersnappers) learning good strategies and tactics. If the party is killed by snow-trolls they thought they could take, the players won't make that mistake again.

And since it's upsetting me... This wasn't a case of them running up to three Snow-Trolls and saying "Wanna fight?"

This is them being a bit incautious around one Snow-Troll and then having really bad luck on the dice to cause two other trolls to wake up and join in.

You've made a lot of assumptions in this thread. That's your prerogative, but I encourage you to think about how we are a lot of different players, united by a love for a game... one that has space for different play-styles and a ruleset that often says 'there is no absolute answer here'. I do appreciate the feedback, in any case.

[Stormcrow]

In any event, the fact remains that if combat with one of these beasts happens...whether or not it was due to player inexperience or foolishness...the odds of unlucky dice leading to TPK are actually rather high.

Indeed. That is exactly my point.

[Angelalex242]

I've said earlier, "If 13 dwarves and a hobbit can't take 3 trolls...what chance do you have?"

Fortunately, LM Tolkien was a nice guy and said 'Okay, I don't want a TPK here, I'll have Gandalf come back and save everybody.'

[Glorelendil]

In any event, the fact remains that if combat with one of these beasts happens...whether or not it was due to player inexperience or foolishness...the odds of unlucky dice leading to TPK are actually rather high.

Indeed. That is exactly my point.

In that case, suggesting that players who fight one are foolish and/or inexperienced is a roundabout way of agreeing with the OP.

[Glorelendil]

Oh, and in case anyone was interested in how it turned out...

Mirabella (small hobbit with a King's Blade), hits, pierces! Troll goes down for the count.

Now, the second Troll is trying to run away; and the third has mysteriously vanished.

So what are the trolls afraid of?

Hobbits, apparently.