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Post by Bolo on Oct 24, 2011 20:47:09 GMT -5
What is the mechanism for a PC to attempt to appraise the value of an item? Is there a mechanism for learning to be a more skilled appraiser?
I am talking here of judging the value of jewelry, art, spices, fine cloth, furs, antiques, etc. Not anything magical.
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Post by Dead Greyhawk on Oct 25, 2011 6:05:35 GMT -5
Historically it has been 4d6 vs PER. It was a learnable nonweapon proficiency, like bind wounds, that thieves and assassins automatically got. I believe we didn't give it to monks by default.
I'd probably give dwarves and gnomes an innate ability on gemstones too.
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Post by venger on Oct 25, 2011 6:16:01 GMT -5
Trommer has the skill because his secondary skill roll was trader/barterer. Thieves/assassins receive it automatically.
Is it 4d6 vs perception or vs. the greater of intelligence / wisdom, like a bind wounds?
I think we've been doing the latter.
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Post by Dead Greyhawk on Oct 25, 2011 16:38:36 GMT -5
Your call. I'd suggest giving thieves a bonus on the roll equal to their level to make them better at it than a cleric or Mage.
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Post by venger on Oct 25, 2011 16:57:45 GMT -5
Your call. I'd suggest giving thieves a bonus on the roll equal to their level to make them better at it than a cleric or Mage. How's about-- At 4th level (Robber) and every level after a +1 bonus to their appraisal roll. +1 at 4th, +2 at 5th, +3 at 6th, etc.
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Post by Dead Greyhawk on Oct 25, 2011 17:51:10 GMT -5
Let me run some numbers comparing an average INT thief and a 16 INT Mage or Cleric. Here's the raw probabilities. 4D6 Total Combos Result % Chance of this total or higher 4 1 0.08% 100.00% 5 4 0.31% 99.93% 6 10 0.77% 99.62% 7 20 1.54% 98.85% 8 35 2.70% 97.30% 9 56 4.32% 94.60% 10 80 6.17% 90.28% 11 104 8.02% 84.11% 12 125 9.65% 76.08% 13 140 10.80% 66.44% 14 146 11.27% 55.64% 15 140 10.80% 44.37% 16 125 9.65% 33.57% 17 104 8.02% 23.92% 18 80 6.17% 15.90% 19 56 4.32% 9.73% 20 35 2.70% 5.40% 21 20 1.54% 2.70% 22 10 0.77% 1.16% 23 4 0.31% 0.39% 24 1 0.08% 0.08% What this means is that someone with a 16 INT or WIS has an effective appraisal percentage of 76% (100%-the probability of rolling a 17 or higher) and someone of average Intelligence or Wisdom (which is a 14 with 4d6 drop lowest, reroll 1s, see gannon-house.com/projects/dnd.html) has a 54% chance. It wouldn't be until 6th level that the thief becomes as good as any mage or cleric with a 10% XP bonus. It looks more like, for the way we roll stats, that +1 every other level is more appropriate.
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Post by venger on Oct 25, 2011 19:27:58 GMT -5
we miss you brother
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Post by Bolo on Oct 25, 2011 22:44:08 GMT -5
someone of average Intelligence or Wisdom (which is a 14 with 4d6 drop lowest, reroll 1s Two quibbles, one minor, one of unknown size: If you're looking at the top graph on the site you reference, it's the mode that's 14, not the mean. And the tail on the right is cut off, so the mean is going to be less than this. Looking at the bottom graph, I'd say that the mean is more like 13.5. This is the minor, persnickety quibble. The average intelligence or wisdom score of a thief is systematically even lower. We allow players to choose which score to put on which ability, and a player rolling up a thief is going to put his high roll on dexterity. So the average intelligence or wisdom for a thief is going to be based on something like "4d6 drop lowest reroll 1s and then repeat six times setting aside the highest", not just "4d6 drop lowest reroll 1s". I have no idea whether this makes a significant difference. In any case, either of the proposed schemes sounds good to me.
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Post by Dead Greyhawk on Oct 26, 2011 4:37:02 GMT -5
Nothing is cut off on the right because an 18 is the maximum score for a human, which AD&D considers its base character race.
I agree that a thief is not going to have a high wisdom or intelligence, but rather DEX. I'm not sure I see your point though. We can approximate an average character, a thief in this case, by giving them all average rolls and seeing what the effect would be on the rule. I think that attempting to consider the likely variation in a small number of rolls (given that you only roll 6 stats) and player choice in allocating characteristics would be overly complex.
I might even go so far as to use the average for 3d6 rolls as what you set your rule against (hence my original suggestion that it be +1 per thief level). That way the rule's applicable more broadly and the PCs are just better at appraising, like they are generally better than NPCs.
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Post by venger on Oct 26, 2011 8:08:10 GMT -5
Considering two of the party's thieves have 17 and 18 intelligences (soon to be 18 and 19) I'm not terribly worried.
Every other level should be sufficient to keep them ahead.
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Post by Bolo on Oct 26, 2011 22:31:41 GMT -5
For the record, I've done the math: Rolling 4d6, rerolling 1s, and dropping the lowest, the average result is 13.4. Repeating this six times, the average value of the highest of the six attempts is 16.3. The average value of the other five attempts is 12.9. So if you assume that a magic user (or cleric) is going to put his best roll on INT (or WIS) then that score will average 16.3. And if you assume that a thief is going to put his best roll on DEX, then his INT and WIS will average 12.9. So at +1 per even-numbered level, the average thief will catch up with the average spellcaster when he gets to 8th level. Per Dana's request, I have also done the calculation assuming straight 3d6 rolls rather than 4d6, reroll 1s, drop lowest. The average roll is 10.5. Repeating six times, the average value of the highest roll is 14.2. The average value of the other five rolls is 9.8. So on this basis, the average thief would catch up with the average spellcaster when he gets to 10th level. Some caveats (the fine print -- you will probably want to skip this): Because we increment ability scores by a percentile roll each level, a spellcaster's primary ability is likely to increase from its original value, whereas a thief's INT and WIS are not, or at least not initially. This will tend to make the average thief catch up with the average spellcaster somewhat more slowly than stated above, at least until they both max out their primary abilities. On the other hand, the appraising roll is against the better of INT and WIS, not against a particular one of them or against their average (i.e. PER). This means that the thief's appraising roll is going to be somewhat better than the average of the not-best five as calculated above. Calculating either of these adjustments would be a big pain in the keister, so I'm not going to. Calculations are at www.mit.edu/~dfm/thiefdex.xls if you want to check my math.
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