Saturday 6 February 2010

Saturday Night Fight Club - Fighting with Dinosaurs

Old School? How old is old? Will 65 million years do you? Yes, back to when dinosaurs walked the earth, Status Quo were just starting out and fights were that little bit bigger.

T-Rex


Move 15”
AC5
HD 18 (that’s an average of 81 hit points)
No of attacks 3 (although if we’re talking about his arms, I don’t think that they have much of a chance so I’m ruling them out of the equation)
Damage per attack 1-6/1-6/5-40
THAC0 of 7 so to hit a troll he’d need a 3 or better. Hmm. Will he do it? And to hit an ogre he’ll need a 2 or better.
Swallows man-sized opponents whole on an 18 or more.


Troll




AC4
HD 6+6
3 attacks
Damage per attack 5-8/5-8/3-12 (that’s an average damage of 20.5 per round)
Regenerates 3 hit points per round 3 rounds after being damaged
THAC0 of 13 so to hit Rex, they’d need 8 or better.


Ogre



AC5
HD 4+1
No of attacks 1
Damage per attack 1-10 or by weapon
THAC0 15 so they need a ten or better to hit Rex.


Okay, so we’ll send the trolls up against Rex first.

Round 1 – let’s see what happens.

Trolls move in for the kill – or so they think.

Troll 1
Rolls his attack dice – 6,5,14
That’s only the bite that hits. Damage of 6

Troll 2
Rolls his attack dice – 3,14,18 hits with a claw and a bite, damage of 5 and 8

Rex gets a 2, which actually misses the troll.

End of the first round, the trolls are unscathed and Rex is down to 62. Does he look angry? Hell, he's T-Rex, he always looks angry. I bet he looks angry on his birthday.


Round 2

Troll 1
Rolls his attack dice – 12,16,14 claw claw bite all hit home. Damage of 5,6,7


Troll 2 rolls his attack dice - 5,12,6 only one claw makes contact for 5 damage

Rex rolls an 11 and does damage of 20 on troll 1, who will start to regenerate on round 5

End of that round, Rex is down to 39, troll 1 is on 13

Round 3

Troll 1 – to hits of 13,14,19 – damage of 5, 6 and 7 (didn't we just have those damage scores?)

Troll 2 – hit dice rolled for scores of 1,13 and 18 – damage of 5 and 8

Rex rolls, gets a 5, which is good enough to hit the troll. Damage of 17 against troll 2 (I just checked for it)

End of that round, Rex is on 8hp, troll 1 is on 13, troll 2 is on 16.

Round 4

Troll 1 rolls that d20 for 13,18,16 - damage of 7,7,7
Troll 2 borrows the d20 from his mate, rolls 16,5,12 - damage of 5 and 10

Rex bites and hits with a 6, damage of 23 damage which kills one of the trolls. Unfortunately, he’s just taken 36 damage and keels over.

I did do a combat between Rex and one troll, which he won easily. Although he has great HD, a superb THAC0 and hefty damage (although the damage only averages out at 22.5 per hit), his relatively high AC and the fact that the trolls get three attacks per round means that with anything more than 1 troll, Rex is swiftly overwhelmed and brought down. Perhaps this explains why the dinosaurs became extinct – a gang of trolls arrived in the late Cretaceous via a time portal.

So the king of the dinosaurs didn’t fare too well against the green and warty ones. Let’s see how he gets on if he encounters a pack of ogres, no strangers to a bit of a scrap themselves.


Round 1

Ogre 1 rolls to hit, gets an 11 – damage of 4
Ogre 2 rolls and gets a 10 - damage of 7
Ogre 3 misses with a 6
Ogre 4 doesn't do too well either with a 7

Rex rolls a 6 but with his THAC0, he’ll find it hard to miss. Damage of 23 and he’s bitten the first ogre clean in half.

Rex is down to 70 and the ogres are looking worried. This isn’t the way that a fight usually goes for them.

Round 2

Ogre 2 he's clearly picked the unlucky d20 out of the box, as he's rolled a 3
Ogre 3 he's had somewhat better luck and scored 12 – damage of 9
Ogre 4 keeping up the good work with a 10 - damage of 5

Rex rolls a 15 and inflicts damage of 19 on ogre 2, which knocks him to the ground. He won't be getting up again.

So now Rex is on 56 and there are only two ogres left, checking their insurance policies.

Round 3

Ogre 3 – gets a 15 on his hit dice - damage of 6
Ogre 4 - rolls a 1 - good job that I'm not making him roll for fumbles.

Rex rolls to hit, gets a 9 and inflicts damage of 17 on the third ogre, who is now staggering around on 2hp.

Rex is down to 50

Round 4

Ogre 3 rolls a to hit of 4

Ogre 4 rolls a to hit die of 6

Oh dear – both miss. Hmm...I wonder what will happen next.

Rex rolls a 12 – and damage of another 17 – since ogre 4 will probably have been pressing home his attack, I’ll rule that he takes this damage.

Both ogres are now on 2hp each and Rex is on 50 still. Not much point in the ogres running, since I think that Rex can actually move faster than them, and definitely on their current battered state. Let’s fight on!

Round 5

Ogre 3 – scores 3 with his attack die.

Ogre 4 – scores an 18 and does 2 damage.

Rex bites home with a 6 and does another 17 damage, ripping ogre 3 to shreds.


Round 6 – Ogre’s last stand.
He rolls a 17, which is a good to hit, but with damage of 4, he’s not stopping Rex, who hits with an 18. This would be enough to swallow a man-sized target whole, but the ogre is just that little bit bigger and he takes 21 damage, which leaves bits of him all over the countryside.


















"Trolls? I can't believe it!"


Well, there we are – dinosaur pride recovered somewhat. Join us next week when we pit two prime specimens of simian monstrousness against each other – the Carnivorous Ape against the Yeti.

3 comments:

  1. Great post!
    And Of course I'm looking forward to Carnivorous Ape vs. Yeti!!

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  2. Maybe in the past the Trolls could domesticate and ride into battle plant eating dinosaurs. I'd like to see that movie.

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  3. Trolls - average damage per attempted claw=4.225 (x2 per round= 8.45), average damage per attempted bite=4.875
    Total average damage per round of combat (per troll)=13.325

    T-Rex - average damage per attempted bite=20.25

    So leaving aside the vagaries of rolling dice and just looking at this from the viewpoint of pure statistics, and assuming the t-rex focuses its attacks on first one troll then the other, by the beginning of the third round it should be 1 troll at -7.5 HP (dead for the time being), 1 troll unharmed, and T-rex at 27.7 HP. In two more rounds the T-Rex will have killed the second troll and be down to 1.05 HP.

    So, statistically speaking, your results are a little bit of an anomaly. T-Rex, on average, can kill both trolls in 4 rounds and still have 1 HP left. Now, obviously, this is hardly a huge margin for error so an unlucky roll here or there could easily tip the scales the other way.

    Troll average HP=33
    T-REx average HP=81

    Average damage per attempted attack calculated by multiplying chance to hit (65% in the case of the trolls) by average damage.

    I am not a stats guy so perhaps someone else could critique my methods, but I am pretty sure that the T-Rex is slightly favored statistically speaking, and both trolls would be dead long before their regeneration capabilities kick in.

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