nathan@mit-eddie.UUCP (Nathan Glasser) (12/19/83)
Someone mentioned before something about rings of teleportation which weren't cursed. To the best of my knowledge, any rings of teleportation which you do not remove the curse from are always cursed. Can anyone say anything otherwise about this? There was a question about the difference between things like 1d5/1d5, 2d5, and 5d2. 2d5 means 2 rolls of a 5-sided die (1-5). 5d2 means 5 rolls of a 2-sided die (1-2). There is a big difference in what you get from these. 2d5 has an average of 6, while 5d2 has an average of 7 1/2. The difference between 1d5/1d5 and 2d5 is that 1d5/1d5 signifies that the monster gets two attacks, and each one that successfully hits is 1d5 for damage. So it is always better to be attacked by a 1d5/1d5 monster than a 2d5 monster (not that you get to make that choice.) - Nathan Glasser (Pulsar) ..decvax!yale-comix!nglasser ..genrad!mit-eddie!nathan
ews@hammer.UUCP (Ed Sznyter) (12/19/83)
So it is always better to be attacked by a 1d5/1d5 monster than a 2d5 monster (not that you get to make that choice) Well, most of the time. However, imagine that you have 2 hit points left, and the monster has a 20% chance to hit you. If the monster does 2d5, he will kill you 20% of the time. If the monster does 1d5/1d5, he will kill you (.16 x 3/5) + (.16 x 3/5) + .04 = 23% of the time, since he gets two tries, and either one of those tries has a good chance of doing you in. Ed Sznyter tektronix!tekecs!ews