Thursday, October 2, 2014

three foot putt


Pretty basic situation toward the end of a round  -- I should be able to win this, but what attack minimizes the probability of something going wrong?

Random buttons!
Your turn to attack

q(20) q(20) (8/12) (6/12) (4)
Button: Sven
Player: ElihuRoot
W/L/T: 2/2/0 (3)  •  Score: 52 (+10 sides)
Dice captured: (30), (6/10=6)
q(20)
10
(8/12=8)
7
(4)
4
(6/12=6)
 6 
5
F(4/8=8)
2
(6)
5
s(8)
Dice captured: q(20), (6/12=6)
W/L/T: 2/2/0 (3)  •  Score: 37 (-10 sides)
Player: irilyth
Button: Jota
F(4/8) (6) (6/10) s(8) (30)


4 comments:

James said...

My gut instinct would be to use the 8-sided option die to capture the fire die. That makes the q(20) and the (4) safe, and if the 8-sider rolls a 3 or 4, it is also safe.

I figure that the aim here is to keep the q(20) safe no matter what, since that is enough to ensure that you win the round.

alwayslurking said...

Take the F8 with the 8/12? Makes the 4 safe and ensures you only have to use the q20 once, to take the shadow die.

Ted said...

OK, though note that if your 8-sided option die rolls a 1 or 2, i. could capture it with his d6, and if it rolls a 5 or a 6 [this would happen with probability 1/12] you'd be forced to reroll the q20 with some chance of losing. Also if the 8-sided option die rolls to 7 after its attack, i. could do a skill attack with a 1/6 chance of rolling high enough on both the s8 and d6 to force you to retoll the q20 (total probability of this occurrence is 1/48] -- so with probability 1/12 + 1/48 = 5/48, you'd have to reroll the q20 into danger.

On the other hand, if you take the s8 with your 8-sided option die, while it could also roll a 1,2, or 7 with similar outcomes, you'd be facing MUCH less danger on if you had to reroll the q20 as a lone fire die can't make power or shadow attacks. On the other hand, even if the 8-sided option die rolled 3,4,5 or 6, i. might be able to force a reroll by making a power attack assisted by the fire die -- still, the danger after a successful such attack would only be 1 chance in 20, as opposed to 5 or more out of 20 in the first case.

James said...

That's very interesting --- certainly, the nuances were obviously lost on first impressions.

After looking at the problem again, I tried to work out the actual probabilities for the case where the shadow die is captured first, but I got lost in my cursory attempt, because of the complication that the Fire die changes value upon firing.