Pushing the Odds

Recently, we took a look at various probabilities relating to SBG that were key for every player to have in their back pocket for decision making in a game (you can find that here). Since then we've worked away on some examples that are a little bit more complicated to build towards a fuller picture, which we will continue to expand upon in the future. For now, keep reading to discover the impacts of two-handing your weapons in combats and what you should consider when resisting spells!

-1 to Duel Rolls

A common piece of feedback we got after the last odds article was that people were interested in what happens if a combatant had -1 to their duel rolls for situations such as using a two-handed weapon or being unarmed, so we've prepared the same tables for a combatant at -1 vs an opponent with no modifications to their dice. The top row shows the number dice you're rolling at -1 for various numbers of opponent's dice and is considered for when you are higher, lower, or equal fight.

As you can see, a -1 modifier to your duel rolls really hinders your ability to win combats. How could you alleviate these odds? Let's look at the example of a goblin with two-handed axe fighting a warrior of Minas Tirith to find out. The below table shows what happens if multiple goblins team up against the MT warrior and only one of them chooses to use their two-handed axe e.g. the 4v1 scenario considers one goblin with two-handed axe and three with one-handed weapon taking on the single die of the outnumbered Gondorian.

The Goblins are lower fight so have to have three in the fight to have better odds than a mere coin flip to win the combat and even more before they can be reasonably confident of victory. Once the mange to outnumber the MT warrior enough to feel confident in two-handing their weapons they stand a much better chance of chipping through his high defence.

Resisting Spells

When a wizard casts a spell targeting a warrior they have no choice but to sit there and take it, but heroes will often have a store of Will they can use to try and resist, but it can often be hard to know whether to spend that Will or save it for later. The below table shows your odds for resisting a spell for a given casting value and number of dice thrown to try and resist.

If you have a single point of Will and the enemy casts their spell on a 6 the chances of actually stopping it are slim enough that you may be better off saving your Will unless it's absolutely key that you stop it e.g. you've set up a brilliant heroic combat and you need to avoid being immobilised, or your General needs to dodge a Black Dart to avoid giving up VPs, but it's often not clear cut. Let's take a deep dive into one of the trickier examples, whether or not you should try and resist Sap Will.

Sap Will will cause your hero to lose D3 Will points and there are certain situations where it's obvious to know what to do e.g when you have a single Will point you might as well throw it to try and resist in the hope you get a six and keep it as in every other scenario it's going away, but what do you do if you have three Will and your opponent casts Sap Will on three dice? Are you more likely to lose more Will by trying to resist it or by just letting it go off? Let's look at the possibilities for when your opponent has cast Sap Will on a 6.

The percentages show your chance of losing a given number of will (the top row) for a set number of dice used to resist (the left column). Will lost can include that spent on unsuccessfully resisting, which is why you can lose more than three. As you can see, when cast on six you are much more likely to just make the effects of the spell worse if you try and resist! You can see similar breakdowns to above for different cast values here, but the general gist is that resisting on a single die is only really plausible on a cast value of three (as you might expect). The tables in the link will inform your odds for throwing more resist dice and controlling how many Will you have left, although the situations where heroes will care about this are niche e.g. you want a Will point on Floi Stonehand to use his ability in the upcoming turn. Niche as they are they will still be useful to have in your back pocket!

That's all for now, but odds discussion will return in the future.Let us know if there's something you want us to delve into and we'll have a go (as long as the maths isn't too hard . . . )