Recent content by CapnZapp

I don't think I have. Not in D&D. I have rolled for monster hit points, but only very rarely, and only in games where numbers are lower and one or three dice outcomes actually matter.

While you're obviously free to like what you want, the argument here is that a game set in, say, Middle-Earth is much more suited to this line of thought. While an Elf is assumed and even expected to be plain superior to a Man in many and varied regards, this simply does not hold true for D&D...

If we agree rolling a 1 is more bad than rolling a 6 is good, what we're saying is the average isn't really 3,5 but lower. But I'm talking about the fact that risk is in itself a cost. For example, if we agree the "true" average of rolling a d6 for HP is only 3.1 and not 3.5 because a 1 is...

No, while the prospect of rolling a 6 mathematically compensates for the scenario where you roll a 1, it doesn't compensate you for taking the risk in the first place if you dont have to.

Know what @ichabod ? I'm not here to force you to do something you clearly don't want to. What is that? Face the facts. What you're doing is you're attempting to reduce my statements to "opinion", and that sort of anti-science stance isn't worth my time. I'm not having the "opinion" that risk...

I have explained the reason enough times. I don't think there's more to say.

I did and got no warnings. This is probably good - using http instead of https is inherently unsafe - though I cannot completely rule out the browser remembering my choice to "trust anyway".

Risk is a cost. Many people aren't good at realizing this. Presenting risk as the fun choice, where the fun is the reward, is equivalent to hiding that risk. (Cue every lottery and casino ever) Hiding and/or not compensating for cost is an unfortunate design decision in a role-playing game.

Absolutely - and thrill-seeking people do not need rational arguments. Others, like me, do. Asking players to choose between a fun risky thing and a predictable AND statistically better option is, in my view, a trap. All it does is try to lure players into taking the inferior option...

Yes I opted for this simple approach because I didn't bother parrying the scenario where the code purchases an array of, say, [13, 13, 13, 13, 13, 9] for your first 26 points and then loops until the generator generates another Charisma; the only ability you can afford at this stage. Yes...

It is an universal aspect of risk assessment and valuation.

@ezo, two comments: I would like more information than just the expected value to make an informed decision. What does the bell curve (with the expected score "on top") look like for each of the numbers? (How likely is it that, say, that second number is a 15 instead of your 14? How big of a...

For dragons, what I do is utterly ignore the limits of breath attack areas. That 30 ft cone? Have the dragon continuously exhale during its entire round's movement! So if it flies in a straight line with Speed 80, then it paints not a 30 by 30 square on the ground, but it moves one edge of...

In an unrelated thread someone posted a link to this site, which generates entirely random but still legal 27 point buy characters with a single click, using the method of purchasing one random ability point at a time until all 27 points are used up. I liked the idea more than the code so I...

Just a heads up, Xoth: when I attempted to download the file just now my 2024 Firefox browser throws up the "download risk" popup where you need to confirm that you indeed dare download the file. This did not happen back when I last downloaded the file... I am no web wizard, so I don't know the...