Cairn-ish Content: Odd Math, Part 3

 More questions need to be answered:

• How much does always attacking first do for you?
• How do Detachment rules affect matchups?

(I'm saving the question about multiple attackers, since that will require me to do a little more programming before I'm ready, whereas these other questions can be answered pretty quickly with the tools I already have working.)

DEX saves

This one is quick: how much of an advantage does it give you if you can guarantee you'll go first?

At the weak end of the spectrum, it's a 20% bump against an even match, and the benefit falls off to 10% at the opposite end of the spectrum. Armored opponents reduce the impact of going first, and the stronger you are to begin with, the less the DEX save matters. Both of those make sense: the longer a combat lasts, the less going first actually matters.

I wanted to check the flip side too, though. If you're guaranteed to go second, how bad is that?

There's some nice parity here. The result is almost the inverse, at least along the diagonal. Minus 20% on the weak end, minus 10% on the strong end. Similarly, you're about 10% worse off against weaker opponents (if they're only a little bit weaker, that is)

So, in raw combat, the DEX save does little to even the odds, but it does make a meaningful difference in a roughly even matchup.

Out of curiosity, I checked winning the DEX save combined with Impairing your Foe and Enhancing your Attack:

(Since we already know that having Armor and Impairing your Foe is a huge deal, I've hidden the rows where the player has Armor)

Congratulations, you can now reliably punch two tiers up! Three if you aren't at the weakest end of the spectrum.

Detachments

I realized after my first entry on this subject that the Detachment I had used in some matchups was actually quite a strong one: there's absolutely nothing stopping you from applying the detachment tag to a relatively weak stat block. A detachment of goblins. Or a swarm of hornets! (Think about it: the basic notion of a detachment is that they are composed of many units, that they can effectively attack multiple opponents at the same time, and that they are difficult to effectively combat without Blast damage; this is actually a very good description of a swarm of small creatures!)

So, to check this idea, I began with the same standard method: my previously established batch of stat blocks, arrayed against each other in every combination. This time, however, the enemy will always behave like a detachment in addition to their given stats. Let's see how it plays out:

For once, the left side of the diagonal is the interesting part. (To be fair, till now we've always looked at how advantages strengthen the player; this time we're seeing how they help the monster!)

Consider the weakest Detachment: it can fight pretty evenly with a player "one tier up" (in terms of raw attributes). And, just like the Armored player, an Armored Detachment is a force to be reckoned with. The strongest player can only reliably beat a Detachment with attributes 2 tiers below them. But even a point of armor and the same effort becomes futile.

Don't mess with Detachments!

Future work

I still need to look at how multiple attackers can shift the odds. When I do, I will be sure to check against Detachments again, as their default Blast damage is sure to keep things interesting!