strange...statue draconian

[radinms]

red draconian + statue form

you lose AC from draconian, but remain rF from red draconian.


very strange.

[dynast]

And if gray you lose the +5 extra AC. Strange indeed since gray has earth affinity.

[tasonir]

All +AC mutations meld in body transmutations (not appendage/blade hands if I recall correctly - not sure about necromutation, I believe it keeps ac mutations). Imho most ac mutations should probably still work, scales can combine with stone just fine, but then someone has to go and actually work out what's balanced and fair. It'd be nice to be able to use statue form on nagas and keep their scale ac, but that's a lot of special casing and exceptions, and the status quo isn't that terrible, it just makes it somewhat better/worse on various races.

I wonder if you could simply allow all AC mutations in statue/ice/dragon/spider form, if that would cause balance issues? There would certainly be flavor issues, as octopodes get +1 ac for their rubby body, so now you'd have a rubbery statue body, but would it be a balance problem? Draconians and demonspawn would see a large boost from this, but I'm not sure it would be an unfair one, as that boost is already part of their design for demonspawns, it may be a bit too much on draconians, dunno.

[duvessa]

how about this: don't make transmutations fuck with your mutations for no reason, and don't have a species whose design is "can't wear heavy armour, gets the benefit of heavy armour for free instead"
there, now all the balance and clarity problems are solved

[Sandman25]

"can't wear heavy armour, gets the benefit of heavy armour for free instead"

I think the point of these species is to encourage casting.

[dynast]

draconians dont get gdr which is the main benefit of heavy armour and yeah, because they dont have to bother training armour, they make decent hybrids.

[duvessa]

draconians dont get gdr which is the main benefit of heavy armour

oh right, i forgot i was on tavern for a second there

[radinms]

usually GDR is not worth consider.

[Sar]

Uh, guys, I think it was a joke.

[dynast]

oh right, i forgot i was on tavern for a second there

You do that often, dont you?

[neil]

The whole mutation-suppression mess needs to be looked at again. I was mostly winging it, and made some bad decisions. On the one hand, we mostly conflate mutations that depend on shape with mutations that depend on metabolism, using a single "form_based" flag for that; on the other hand, we go and special-case scales mutations in statue form* even though that form supposedly keeps form_based mutations. The idea here was that statue form replaces your skin (and hence the scales AC) but leaves your basic shape (so is generally a "keeps mutations" form). That was for "realism", not principle, and should be simplified.

The original motivation for mutation suppression, by the way, was "nagas in spider form should be rP-".

* It's actually even worse than it sounds. Only the AC from scales is suppressed: the other properties of the same mutation are not.

[Berder]

Here's a nice rule of thumb: wearing armor with X% GDR is equivalent to having roughly X% greater durability in melee combat - like having X% more HP. It reduces AvEffDam incoming by a factor of approximately 1/(1+X/100). This rule holds true against many kinds of enemies, such as yaks, black mambas, death yaks, deep trolls, etc. It works across all AC values beyond a low threshold. eg. with GDR 0.34, if your AC is 68% of the enemy max hit, then your GDR is fully effective.

It's even slightly more effective than just the AvEffDam would indicate, because it reduces the spikiness of damage, which means it's safe to continue tabbing to a lower HP total before you need to use a consumable to avoid risk of instant death.

So... GDR is pretty damn good, for melee.

[dowan]

We did this dance a while back, comparing a draconian with ozo's to a character in armor with the same AC value. As I recall, gdr accounted for about a 13% reduction in damage, which is certainly considerable, while not being that huge.

Obviously GDR is better against spikes like berder said, which makes it a little more valuable than it's average damage reduction would suggest, but again, keep in mind it does absolutely nothing against non melee attacks.

I'll need to see some math & fsims to be convinced that it's roughly equivalent to that much more health, I'm not seeing how that could be true.

The funny thing about GDR is that it's both highly overvalued, and very undervalued at the same time. This sort of thing usually leads a community to overcompensate, so we can expect in about a year to have the same argument, but with all participants on the opposite side of the debate.

[Sar]

undervaluing GDR is better than overvaluing GDR because it won't lead to poor armour choices and if you wear a heavy armour you still get GDR even if you don't know about it

[dowan]

Perfect information is better for making good choices. Of course, you may be right that if you must be wrong, it's better to be conservative.

That wasn't a political statement, I swear...

[Berder]

We did this dance a while back, comparing a draconian with ozo's to a character in armor with the same AC value. As I recall, gdr accounted for about a 13% reduction in damage, which is certainly considerable, while not being that huge.

That is going to depend on the armor GDR amount, and on whether the character has at least the threshold amount of AC compared to the enemy attack. That is, with a GDR of X, you need at least 2*X*(enemy max damage) AC in order to get full benefit from the GDR. I suspect your test didn't use enough AC, or was affected by the randomness of fsim.

My statement is based on several tests using my drf (damage reduction factor) function, which is more precise than fsim and allows instant testing. For example, with 20 AC vs a death yak, GDR 0.34 is worth about 37% better defenses compared to GDR 0. To see this in fsim you want to look at the AvHitDam (defending) entry. The ratio of the 0-GDR result to the 0.34-GDR result will be about 1.37. This will vary due to the randomness of fsim.

[dowan]

Yeah, it does depend on the enemy, as you say. I believe we settled on 13% as a pretty good average from a few fsims, but I'm certainly open to being convinced otherwise via evidence. Show me some fsims with and without gdr at various realistic AC values vs various realistic monsters for those values, and I'll believe whatever the numbers present, and you, by extension.

[Berder]

Yeah, it does depend on the enemy, as you say. I believe we settled on 13% as a pretty good average from a few fsims

fsims of what? 13% would be reasonable for leather.

Actually - some further tests of my own show my previous statement was not accurate. It was accurate for GDR 0.34, but lower GDRs don't have as much proportional benefit. Ring mail (gdr 0.24) has only about a 16% advantage vs a yak or death yak. Higher GDRs have even more proportional benefit; plate armor (gdr 0.39) has a 45% advantage vs a death yak once above the threshold, and a 52% advantage vs a yak.

It is a finding of my melee simulator code that GDR gives a constant proportional benefit against a given enemy, for all AC values beyond a threshold. You can see this in these pictures: viewtopic.php?t=14989#p205628 The two lines for GDR 0 and GDR 0.34 remain a constant distance from each other, once the threshold is passed, against each enemy.

[dowan]

Fsims of a draconian with ozos and some arbitrary AC value, and then an armored character with the same AC value, but obviously with GDR. Then I guess you'd use rings of protection to make up the difference, so you end up with both characters at the same AC, but with different GDR. So you can draw a few data points for a few monsters, yaks, stone giants, hobgoblins, etc. That's what we did for the last test, but you're claiming way higher numbers, so I'm curious if we missed something in the last test, or maybe you're mistaken.

I'd love to be shown that a 25 ac character in plate mail takes 45% less damage than a 25 ac draconian with ozo's armor against a death yak. But I don't think you can show me that, or anything close. But, I've been wrong before, and you've been right before, so maybe it will happen. You could prove that claim with 2 fsims. Or, you can explain why the fsims wouldn't show this, and what incorrect assumptions I'm making. I'm very open to being convinced, but so far I have not been.

[Berder]

Sure. For a naked xl1 human with one +25 ring of protection (25 AC), the AvHitDam (defending) is about 6.4, averaged over 7 fsims, versus a death yak.

For an xl1 human with one +15 Plate armor and no armor skill trained (25 AC, 39% GDR), the AvHitDam (defending) is about 4.4, averaged over 7 fsims, vs a death yak.

6.4 / 4.4 = 1.454545

[dowan]

Good to know! Now is that very high because of the high damage of the death yak, because of the relatively high AC, or does it hold true with the same GDR but weaker monsters and/or less AC? I saw that less GDR gives a lot less benefit as it gets lower, is the same true of AC?

[Berder]

Good to know! Now is that very high because of the high damage of the death yak, because of the relatively high AC, or does it hold true with the same GDR but weaker monsters and/or less AC?

It would hold true with the same GDR against weaker monsters with less AC as well. I mentioned it is about a 52% advantage vs a yak, which does much less damage. The only thing is that you do need enough AC to get over the threshold - for plate armour, that threshold is 78% of the enemy's max damage. Against a yak, that's 14 AC. For a death yak, it's 24 AC.

I saw that less GDR gives a lot less benefit as it gets lower, is the same true of AC?

No - the first few levels of AC are more beneficial than later levels. You can see the full story in viewtopic.php?t=14989 . The curves for marginal benefit of AC have an early bump and then decline, whereas EV peaks later.

[Siegurt]

Sure. For a naked xl1 human with one +25 ring of protection (25 AC), the AvHitDam (defending) is about 6.4, averaged over 7 fsims, versus a death yak.

For an xl1 human with one +15 Plate armor and no armor skill trained (25 AC, 39% GDR), the AvHitDam (defending) is about 4.4, averaged over 7 fsims, vs a death yak.

6.4 / 4.4 = 1.454545

As a side (but possibly relevant) point, the +25 ring of protection actually ends up with a sightly better total protection value against a death yak on a human with 10 str/dex and 0 dodging because the higher EV slightly-more-than makes up for the GDR. (Obviously that's only one data point.)

[Berder]

Sure. For a naked xl1 human with one +25 ring of protection (25 AC), the AvHitDam (defending) is about 6.4, averaged over 7 fsims, versus a death yak.

For an xl1 human with one +15 Plate armor and no armor skill trained (25 AC, 39% GDR), the AvHitDam (defending) is about 4.4, averaged over 7 fsims, vs a death yak.

6.4 / 4.4 = 1.454545

As a side (but possibly relevant) point, the +25 ring of protection actually ends up with a sightly better total protection value against a death yak on a human with 10 str/dex and 0 dodging because the higher EV slightly-more-than makes up for the GDR. (Obviously that's only one data point.)

A real character in plate probably has higher ac+ev than a character in lighter armor, or at least close.

[tabstorm]

I never understand these discussions about the merits of GDR. Why would you use not-heavy armor unless you're using spells of level > 5?

[Sandman25]

I never understand these discussions about the merits of GDR. Why would you use not-heavy armor unless you're using spells of level > 5?

1) High EV is really great, I would use AC 30/EV 50 instead of AC 50/EV 30.
2) IIRC average Dodging aptitude is higher than average Armour aptitude
3) Stealth
4) Accuracy (kidding)
5) Phase Shift

[Berder]

Yeah, EV is great particularly if you also have RMSL/DMSL. RMSL/DMSL are the equivalent of GDR for evasion. I haven't fully investigated exactly how powerful RMSL/DMSL are but I think they are very powerful.

[dowan]

Of course, it's worth mentioning again that GDR only protects against melee damage. But I guess I never realized how much it protects against melee damage.

I believe the earlier numbers I quoted tried to take EV into account, meaning if you have high GDR, you must have taken an EV hit from wearing the heavier armour. So the draconian vs the human in plate ends up with more EV, which makes up for a decent portion of the difference in damage.

Still, thanks for explaining it and running some sims. I doubt this will change my play in any way, since as tabstorm said, it usually makes sense to wear the heaviest armor you can anyway, but still, I suppose it could make a difference occasionally.