Should I take the initiative here? And if I do, then what?

 I would need to turn both focus dice to 1.

If I gain the initiative, I'd have know way of  summing to 18; but if I lose the initiative,  my f(12) could be captured, leaving me with no way to sum to 18.

If I *do* gain the initiative, what should I take? the z(12) feels very dangerous, especially with both focus dice having value 1 after gaining the initiative. On the other hand, if I hope to ever force the (20) to reroll, I have to take out the stinger die.

I think this problem could be tweaked to be more subtle, but it still illustrates an interesting computation.

I'm not sure this is hard -- devious obviously must take both of my dice to win -- but the weak dice might make the strategy trickier (or do they? I think I could tweak the values in this puzzle to make it a lot more borderline, this is close but not too hard to resolve)

Anyway, devious has 3 possible attacks, but  one of them (taking my (8) with the weak die with current value 7) is clearly no good, after the weak die reduces, there'll be no way to make a skill attack sum to 12. 

So should he take my (8) via skill attack? he'd have only two chances out of 6 (rerolling a 4 or 5) of being able to then take my s(12) and win.

Or should he take my s(12) via skill attack? both weak dice would reduce to 6 sides, and if I'm able to take both, I'll win. But if I only manage to take one, the other one will reduce to 4 sides when it recaptures me... From the current score, he'll gain 20 of my sides, but lose l lose 6 sides that are captured, and another 6 sides would be lost to weak-dice reduction... I think he squeaks through. 

But what are my chances of being able to take both of his weak dice?

I have a question, but not an answer.

This is not the most fun button to play -- but sometimes there might be an interesting decision to make. Is this one of those times?

I need to gain 50 more sides to at least draw. I can see two possible paths to that

To achieve a tie while only losing ONE p(30),  I'd have to capture all of von pinn's dice, for a net gain of 26 sides, and lose no more than the 4 sides of the g(4). To do this, I must immediately get the (12) sided die to safety.

On the other hand,  if I somehow manage to get both p(30)s captured, I'll probably win -- unlesss I eat the p(6,6) but not the (20) along the way. How likely is this to be achievable? And what should I do first if I wanted to pursue this strategy? Or should I just try to save the (12) sided die first, and then turn to this as a back-up plan?

"Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line"

 The_T can only win this round if I eat the poison. But is it safer for him to start capturing my dice with  the poison and hope it rerolls low enough to be captured, or to leave it vulnerable to the skill attack from my (4) and (8) and instead take my focus die with his (12)?

Mood Swing Computations

 

I have 3 possible attacks, though if I do attack with the mood swing, it has to make more sense to take the H(8), doesn't it?  The real choice is between 

• taking the poison with the (5) -- and we all know that has a 40% chance of rerolling 4 or 5 and thus winning, but the other 60% of the time, the H(8) will take the 5, grow-to-a-10-sided die and,  it must roll 1-4 (40% chance) for me to win. that's .4 + ,6*.4 = .64, which isn't so bad -- or .
• taking the H(8) with the mood swing, which seems a lot harder to calculate:
• what size will it become?
• will it roll 1-2? or 8 or more? what types of outcomes will result in my loss? how likely are they?

Can d. save this round?

 

I've almost won this round -- but is there any sequence of attacks devious could make that has a chance -- however improbable -- of winning? (Without assuming I cooperate to throw the round, of course.) 

Mr. Spock : Difficult to be precise, Captain. I should say, approximately 7,824.7 to 1. (quote from ST:TOS "Errand of Mercy")

 

This isn't that bad, but irilyth's only chance of winning is to lose his poison (but not his (4)), yet capture all my dice. This is pretty unlikely to happen no matter what attack he makes here, but what attack would give him his best chance of success?