Belkar's combat math viz. Monks OtooPC spoiler

[jsh]

I made a good faith effort to search this topic, and I didn't find anything.

Regarding the conversation Belkar has immediately prior to joining the team:
Belkar tells the monk that the monk may get a lot of attacks with his flurry attack; however, he has a low attack bonus and is therefore not very effective. That got me thinking about some old war math that I cannot find to cite, where it turns out that more not-so-good chances of hitting is better than fewer good chances of hitting.

I made a spreadsheet where I assumed a hypothetical character was deciding between monk & fighter, and wanted to look at the basic expected damage without modifiers other than level and class. Setting a +0 bonus as 1.00, +1 bonus as 1.05, &c. giving average damage for the monk's hands (3.5 on a 1d6) and a fighter's longsword (4.5 on a 1d8), and then giving a flat 50% chance chance of hitting (AC 10 for the opponent) I calculated expected damage for levels 1 through 13.

(In doing this, I assumed that there'd be symmetrical complications and they could be ignored.)

The results are interesting: at levels 1 through 5, the monk inflicts more expected damage than the fighter; at levels 6 and 7, the fighters inflict more damage (about 1/3 more at those two levels); at level 8, they are about even; and from levels 9 through 13, the monk inflicts more damage. Here is the fighter's expected damage as an approximate percentage of the monk's expected damage:

Level F % of M
1 88%
2 86%
3 84%
4 82%
5 80%
6 134%
7 133%
8 100%
9 99%
10 98%
11 92%
12 92%
13 98%
(The table ain't pretty, but I'm sure you can handle it.)

Obviously, there's more to consider than just this; however, it's still interesting.

[Lyinginbedmon]

Wrong forum, methinks

[jsh]

Wrong forum, methinks
Hrm...I had Belkar on the brain; though ultimately, it does relate to Belkar's recruitment strategy. I also forgot to say which set of rules I was using; I've no idea how different they are. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/monk.htm

[Lyinginbedmon]

Order of the Stick is based on Dungeons & Dragons V3.5, however this topic is more suited to the Gaming/Homebrew section, because a small tidbit of knowledge from the comic is used as the jumping point for a lot of mathematics on the game system.

[UltimaGabe]

Though a monk does indeed mathematically end up dealing more average damage by your calculations, your calculations are going purely off of base damage. There are so many other factors that you aren't taking into account- specifically, Fighters are going to be far, far, FAR better in the damage output category due to several factors.

Much higher attack bonus (higher strength [since strength is typically their most important stat], Weapon Focus & Greater Weapon Focus, cheaper enhancement bonuses [normal weapon cost for a +X weapon compared to 3x cost for an amulet of mighty fist+X means the fighter will have the enhancements much earlier]), higher damage output (Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Specialization, option of two-handed fighter, power attack, aforementioned cheaper enhancement bonuses), and more combat options all mean the fighter is much, much, MUCH better off in the ways of damage output.

But for a person deciding between the two classes, nobody is going to be looking at them purely for damage output. If the Monk was even comparable to the Fighter in damage output, why in the world would anyone play a Fighter? Monks have far more things they can do than just damage (as do Fighters, but you get my point), and so it's not really that big of an issue.

Well, maybe to Belkar.