Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Dodge This

Question: Ignoring Relics, what's the highest possible DV and Soak that a Legend 12 God can have, assuming they've maxed on every appropriate stat to increase those abilities?

Okay, roll up your sleeves - theoretical math post!

Let's start with maxed Dexterity and Athletics, which are the basic stats for DV. With maximum dots in those, our starting DV for a Legend 12 god is 62 ([10 Dexterity + 10 Athletics + 12 Legend] / 2 + 46).

Powers a goddess can add to bolster her DV include:

Animal Feature: adds half Animal boons (10, assuming the maximum of 19 boons) to DV for scene
Assumption of the Land: adds Legend rating (12, assuming the maximum) to DV for scene
Finger Moon: adds Moon boons (23, assuming the maximum) to DV against projectiles for scene
Form of the Jotun: adds +2 to DV for scene
I Say Thee Nay!: adds successes (114 on average, assuming maximum stats with Animal Aspect) to DV for scene if protecting someone
Rabbit Reflexes: doubles base DV in response to a surprise attack (adds 62 again)
Riastrad: adds Courage dots (8, assuming the maximum) to DV for scene
Solar Shield: adds half Sun boons (9, assuming the maximum of 17 boons) to DV for scene
Solar Crown: adds Sun boons (17, assuming the maximum) to DV against projectiles for scene
Tornado Tamer: adds double Sky boons (40, assuming the maximum of 20 boons) to DV for scene
Untouchable Opponent: adds Epic Dexterity dots (10) to DV for scene
Water Control: adds Water boons (19, assuming the maximum) to DV for scene
Water Vortex: adds double Water boons (38, assuming the maximum of 19 boons) to DV for scene

In addition, she also has the option to use Lightning Reflexes to base her Dodge DV on her Wits instead of Dexterity or Empowered Deflection + Legendary Parry to use her Parry DV and base it on her Strength instead, and she can invest in Monkey in the Middle to avoid letting multiple foes drop her DV by overwhelming her with numbers.

Now, obviously some of these are mutually exclusive; our hypothetical DV-happy goddess can't have both Enech and Jotunblut to stack those bonuses, and it's unlikely that she could be both surprised into using Rabbit Reflexes and already protecting someone from danger with I Say Thee Nay! (or protecting anything at all if she's in Riastrad). But, with all that stuff above, our best possibilities are:

If surprised by a projectile attack while flying around in her combination tsunami-tornado during a warp-spasm, our Tuatha goddess has a maximum possible DV of 310. If she is attacked without surprise by projectiles while protecting someone from danger in the middle of a water-tornado, her maximum possible DV is 354. If she is not surprised and has no one to protect because she's freaking out in riastrad, she has a maximum possible DV of 248. The last one's the only one she can probably sustain for long; Rabbit Reflexes applies only to a single attack and is then gone, dropping the first possibility of 310 down to 248 again a moment later, and the second one is more steady but requires her to do nothing but continue to defend her target, making her unable to take any actions not associated with that defense lest she drop down to 240. In every case, Monkey in the Middle will ensure that her DV can never drop lower than 46, even if thousands upon thousands of enemies are all trying to hit her at the same time.

Technically, because I Say Thee Nay's DV bonus is based on a roll, the defender DV option can actually go higher; 354 is based on the average roll of 114. If you were some kind of freak of nature who pumped everything into that roll - maximum Bona Fortuna, maximum Animal Aspect, maximum Arete (so dropping the Enech bonus), Faunaphagia, a Become the Herald bonus, a juicy Final Countdown bonus, maximum Fatebonds and somehow getting a ten on every single die rolled for all of those rolls, you could rock a DV of a whopping 800.

But the chances of achieving that are something along the lines of 1.e-456%, which is a number so small I don't want to put it here because the number of zeroes would take up too much space. You have a much better chance of being the sole person on the planet to be struck and obliterated by a tiny meteor with your initials on it than of ever getting that roll.

This game's theoretical math is stupid.

11 comments:

  1. This is awesome. This is ridiculous. This is ridiculawesome.

    ... I hesitate to point this out buuuuuut the question also asked about Soak

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    1. That is an excellent point.

      ...John, tag in, I'm math-exhausted.

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    2. Lol i was just about to state....he asked about soak...but with that much DV who needs soak geeze lol but soaks would be interesting to know lol

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    3. Ok, griff since you pointed it out...you get to decide....is highest dv and soak on the same character? or do we find highest possible soak by itself, which might be a different pantheon?

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    4. I WAS the original asker, so....

      Not necessarily the same character. Just the highest possible Soak or DV obtainable under your rules, assuming they had the maximum everything.

      I presume that max Soak would be an Aesir, but I don't know. It's why I asked

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  2. And now I have the sudden urge to play the hypothetical deity with the maxed-out DV, just to troll Titan Avatars with how unhittable I am. :p

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  3. Yes chaos does ruin the best-laid plans unfortunately.

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  4. Wait, with the roll upping things, what about Serendipity? 3 successes for 10s instead of 2?

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    1. You're right, and we already assumed maximum Magic because of Bona Fortuna.

      So... quick math says about 1023 DV with one extra success on every die? The math is like a labyrinth now.

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    2. I continue to love pretty much every aspect of this game.

      ...

      Mostly the setting though.

      ...

      And your vlogs.
      They're amazing.
      "Keep making them" /overt order

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