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#695350 14/10/20 02:32 AM
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Your chance to hit in game needs some kind of explanation into how it works. A tooltip would be nice. It doesn't follow core rules whatever it is.

I've determined that to some extent, elevation and lighting affect chances to hit, HOWEVER this goes out the window at various instances of the game. I've noticed that in dark places (goblin keep, caves, etc.) that casting a dancing lights cantrip next to a monster is enough to make 33% -> go to 60% -ish... but that's it, even if you have elevation on it. You can even cast divine strike and you will not rise above 60-65% after illuminating monsters in the dark- and they can be illuminated quite well. (On this note: I'm unsure divine strike even does anything. I mean it SAYS it does, but after casting it i dont notice any increased chance to hit at all, its the same.)

FUTHERMORE, what the **** is with monster size not affecting chances to hit? How can someone have a 33% chance to hit a giant ogre standing directly in front of them?! IN DAYLIGHT? How can someone have a low chance to hit an absolutely massive monster point blank? (i wont spoil anything ahead).

In the core rules, size transfers DIRECTLY to a -# in AC because they are easier to hit. A towering ogre is objectively easier to hit than a rat. However in this game, the largest monsters available will have an incredibly low chance to be hit, even after being illuminated. This is problematic considering they have 75-105 hitpoints. How are we supposed to kill a 105 hitpoint monster with 40% chance to hit which essentially means 10/12 of your strikes will miss because this games hit math is completely rekt. I tested a spell (ray of enfeeblement) across several encounters. The visual indicator went from 65-80% chance to hit consistently. It took 8 casts to get it to hit, 2 of them critically missed. Meaning of the 8 casts, only 1 hit and 2 rolls were critical fails for a spell that should be hitting 7/10x.

How do those numbers make sense? Even when we arent being lowballed in the visual percent chance to hit indicator, we seem to be lowballed in the hidden roll too.

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Sample size too small etc.

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My favorite is when the game says I have a 100% chance to hit and roll a 1 and miss, the fact is you never have a 100% chance to hit in 5e dnd, even with advantage you can still roll a 1 twice.

Last edited by Zaxtaj; 14/10/20 02:37 AM.
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Originally Posted by Medinvaire
Your chance to hit in game needs some kind of explanation into how it works. A tooltip would be nice. It doesn't follow core rules whatever it is.

I've determined that to some extent, elevation and lighting affect chances to hit, HOWEVER this goes out the window at various instances of the game. I've noticed that in dark places (goblin keep, caves, etc.) that casting a dancing lights cantrip next to a monster is enough to make 33% -> go to 60% -ish... but that's it, even if you have elevation on it. You can even cast divine strike and you will not rise above 60-65% after illuminating monsters in the dark- and they can be illuminated quite well. (On this note: I'm unsure divine strike even does anything. I mean it SAYS it does, but after casting it i dont notice any increased chance to hit at all, its the same.)

FUTHERMORE, what the **** is with monster size not affecting chances to hit? How can someone have a 33% chance to hit a giant ogre standing directly in front of them?! IN DAYLIGHT? How can someone have a low chance to hit an absolutely massive monster point blank? (i wont spoil anything ahead).

In the core rules, size transfers DIRECTLY to a -# in AC because they are easier to hit. A towering ogre is objectively easier to hit than a rat. However in this game, the largest monsters available will have an incredibly low chance to be hit, even after being illuminated. This is problematic considering they have 75-105 hitpoints. How are we supposed to kill a 105 hitpoint monster with 40% chance to hit which essentially means 10/12 of your strikes will miss because this games hit math is completely rekt. I tested a spell (ray of enfeeblement) across several encounters. The visual indicator went from 65-80% chance to hit consistently. It took 8 casts to get it to hit, 2 of them critically missed. Meaning of the 8 casts, only 1 hit and 2 rolls were critical fails for a spell that should be hitting 7/10x.

How do those numbers make sense? Even when we arent being lowballed in the visual percent chance to hit indicator, we seem to be lowballed in the hidden roll too.


The AC in D&D combines both armor/hide/scales and the ability to dodge and avoid damage. And in the Monster Manual a rat is actually easier to hit than an ogre. The ogre has tough hide. And it probably moves much faster considering its size. Whatever works for you imagination. A knight with a shield and in full plate, is not dodging all your attacks, his armor is absorbing it.

When it comes to the math, I can't say I noticed any abnormalities except for a few critical hits and misses that should not have counted as such. The dice rolls felt like they were falling randomly like dice do. Look at the rolls yourself in the combat log. They seem fine.

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Correct me if I'm wrong but I think most of the frustration people are having with the percentages is simply that they're there and there are to many things effecting it besides what's normally taken into consideration by most DMs. A percentage is misleading simply because there's almost no explination as to why it's that way. The easiest fix I think would just be to remove the percentages all together cause it really doesn't serve a purpose besides frustrating a player when it seems like a high chance to hit and then missing.

When you're playing D&D it's not like your DM is telling you the AC of the monsters in the first place so there's always that element of the unknown when facing a new monster. A change in the interface that simply shows whether you have Advantage or Disadvantage before attacking, I think, would work better. The little pop out menu that shows the math behind the rolls is nice and for some reason it's easier to handle missing by knowing I rolled a 4 instead of having no info at all but maybe there's a way to communicate that instead of the percentages in an intuitive way. I'm not a UI/UX designer though so I'm not sure what that could look like.

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5th edition does not directly link size to armor class the same way previous editions did. An Ogre should have an AC of 11 because it's a lumbering brute... but that is only made up of a low dex and hide armor. A Fire Giant wears plate and has an AC of 18, nothing to do with size whatsoever. Both of these are also explaining how hitting a mob is one thing, but damaging it is another. A Fire Giant might be hit on a 16 but the blow just glances off the armor.

Remember to look at 5th edition and not try to use previous edition rules to form arguments.

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Size lowering something's AC exists in 5e too newb, no where did I quote this was a mechanic purely from an older edition.

And an AC of 11 is EXTREMELY easy to hit. A rat, with an AC of 10 (again according to 5e) is only marginally easier to hit. It sure as shit isnt a 30-60% percentage as is displayed in the game. Make a lvl 4 fighter and roll the dice yourself, you'll be hitting the vast majority of the time.

Last edited by Medinvaire; 14/10/20 07:48 AM.
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Originally Posted by Artist4Hire
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think most of the frustration people are having with the percentages is simply that they're there


It's that human brains are notoriously bad with probability (nothing to do with a lack of "INT" or anything. It's just the way it is. They may be aware of the randomness (in this case the rolls), but actually expect something else. This can go even for paid, professional QA.

https://youtu.be/MEewLWDpscA?t=1498

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I think they should remove the % to hit. We are so bad at understanding probability that it invariably leads to frustration. "That's XCOM baby!" is a almost a meme at this point because of this.

If they display AC to hit and your bonus to the roll, then we can guestimate the chances ourselves, which would probably be better just because of how the human mind works.

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Personally I do not even see the benefit of the %

Just attack, roll, roll twice if advantage/disadvantage, compare against AC, determine hit, done.

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If they can't show it before, then they can show it in the log after. But they can show everything before, except the roll result, which is done at the moment of action.
Haven't checked, too many things to watch, but it's quite easy to miss in this game.

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I'm new to DnD and I have to say that the combat is one of the things I'm having a hard time understanding. Like you said, how can you miss a hit when the enemy is in front of you? Or the game telling you that you have 25% of hitting the enemy that is standing in front of you? I used a super power spell and I was positive it could hurt the enemy and I get "Critical Miss". Seriously?

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I think having % to hit is a useful tool, particularly when dealing with ranged attacks. When playing on a grid I need to keep track of how far my enemies are so I don't have disadvantage. Which is not something I can do in this game, particularly since the maps have different heights.

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Originally Posted by Lady Avyna
I'm new to DnD and I have to say that the combat is one of the things I'm having a hard time understanding. Like you said, how can you miss a hit when the enemy is in front of you? Or the game telling you that you have 25% of hitting the enemy that is standing in front of you? I used a super power spell and I was positive it could hurt the enemy and I get "Critical Miss". Seriously?


Because it's based on D&D rules. You have an armor class, which includes your reflexes (dex), your armor (+shield if you have one) and any magical enhancement. Then you have the advantage or disadvantage, which is 2 dice instead of 1, you keep the better result in case of the former and the worst result in case of the latter.

Then you roll a d20 (or 2 in case of advantage/disadvantage). You add all the bonuses you have from your weapon skills and must do equal or above the armor class number of your target.

A natural 1 is always a failure, even if you had 100% chance to hit. A natural 20 is always a critical success, even if you had 0% chance to hit.

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@op, were you trying to hit it with a ranged attack? If hes to close you get disadvantage on the attack. Were some other effects in play? Was a spell cast giving you a malus to your rolls?

Even just needing a 11 to hit is still a 50% to hit. Rolls 1-10 will miss it, simple as that. Each bonus to your hit rolls will obviously make it better by 5% per bonus to hit but still 40% chance to hit shouldnt come up unless its packing some armor and/or if disadvantage or penalties of some kind are in place.

That said I noticed that they deviated from monsters stats in alot of other places as well so maybe they just gave the ogres a set of armor to make the fight abit more challenging?

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Thank you. I will have to keep that in mind.

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I'm not sure whether removing the % would help, at least when it's replaced with what you need to roll then. Everybody knows that in Parcheesi you need to roll a 6 to start, but few don't get frustrated when they go long spells of not rolling that 6. In German the game is actually called "Mensch ärgere Dich nicht" ("Don't get angry"). laugh

Additionally, if the game automatically displays the probabilities, you don't need to be as familiar with D&D rules -- the game is doing all the Maths for you. Human brains may be notoriously bad with understanding probabilities, but the numbers itself are understood (higher chances are obviously better). It's tricky.

Originally Posted by Lady Avyna
I'm new to DnD and I have to say that the combat is one of the things I'm having a hard time understanding. Like you said, how can you miss a hit when the enemy is in front of you? Or the game telling you that you have 25% of hitting the enemy that is standing in front of you? I used a super power spell and I was positive it could hurt the enemy and I get "Critical Miss". Seriously?


You have disadvantage on any ranged attack when an opponent is TOO CLOSE to you (a spell is a ranged attack). You get to roll with a 20 sided dice twice, but have to take the worse roll. This naturally also increases the likelyhood of a critical miss (getting a 1 on either roll). This is the explanation why they're doing it that way:

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Combat#content

Quote
Ranged Attacks in Close Combat
Aiming a ranged Attack is more difficult when a foe is next to you. When you make a ranged Attack with a weapon, a spell, or some other means, you have disadvantage on the Attack roll if you are within 5 feet of a Hostile creature who can see you and who isn’t Incapacitated.





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Originally Posted by Medinvaire
Size lowering something's AC exists in 5e too newb, no where did I quote this was a mechanic purely from an older edition.

And an AC of 11 is EXTREMELY easy to hit. A rat, with an AC of 10 (again according to 5e) is only marginally easier to hit. It sure as shit isnt a 30-60% percentage as is displayed in the game. Make a lvl 4 fighter and roll the dice yourself, you'll be hitting the vast majority of the time.


Hello again! Apparently I needed to return here to point out if size, in 5th edition, was STILL linked to armor class would you care to explain why small creatures, who used to receive bonuses to their armor class in 3rd edition, no longer receive a bonus to it in 5th edition?

Perhaps you could also explain why the Enlarge/Reduce spell, a common size changer, has absolutely no effect on armor class? Could it be that size is NOT relative to armor class?

It's easy to make a mistake, but there's no need to fight people to the death when you do, just admit the mechanic of correlating size and armor class have been removed and move on to enjoy life.

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Taking the 5E rules TOO literally for interpretationw ith a game that uses precise modelling... thats basically it.

Someone else above stated: "... there are to many things effecting it besides what's normally taken into consideration by most DMs. A percentage is misleading simply because there's almost no explination as to why it's that way. .." - This is a highly accurate statement.

IN all the (albeit limited) DnD ive played a HUMAN DM will factor thing sout based on their interpretation, and probably err ont he side of being a bit more "fair" to the players.

A computer algorithm does no such thing.


I have been standing NEXT to an Ogre, on an ELEVATED position and been given a 4% chance to hit with Necrotic touch AND eldritch blast. How does this work?

THe miss chances are heavy. Im not quite finished with my first playthrough yet but I have combatted EVERYTHING so far just to try out the mechanic - and I put my overall miss rate at 66% or more... i miss sooo much on every character that it really boggles me. I have done more damage in fights with my Warlock going around hitting things with the Staff than I was with spells because I would miss constantly.

Interestingly as well - spells which have an AoE component OR thrown items with AoE do a FAR better job of "hitting" that anything else. I have noticed this with the NPC's as well. AoE such as firebombs and alchemists fire are absolutely devastating in this game and the strongest spell I have used has been SHATTER. It never misses and does huge damage compared to abilities like Eldritch Blast, Witch Bolt and the like.


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