Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

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Yxe
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Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

Post by Yxe » Fri May 27, 2022 9:10 pm

As requested. Although item itself cannot be properly tested on PGCC because the soft int to magic damage script is not working I ran the math on free tim to calculate differences between it, unfettered edge and normal keened double 1d4'd bronze weapon

Anyone can just copy the doc and edit some fields to see how the difference becomes visible with increasing target's Physical %DI
Math was done assuming Shard of the Moonmaiden can be perma essenced.

Code: Select all

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Qs9aID1oB_Kg0nK3CFRPNXNPodC2RTMN9xdscz23w0c/edit?usp=sharing
TL;DR Shard of the Moonmaiden outperforms Unfettered Edge only when target has high physical damage immunity. Otherwise even accouting defensive essences, unfettered edge comes out on top in crit damage. However the differences are very, very slight. However if the Int soft damage on Moonmaiden means it cannot have perma essence, the weapon drops down below Unfettered in every case.

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Re: Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

Post by Good Character » Fri May 27, 2022 10:04 pm

Not sure how I feel about the item. Maybe its creator can chime in, but I believe its overall effectiveness is intentionally limited. Rather than encouraging power creep, it serves as an alternative for that situation you mentioned (there is enough PvE situations where I would pursue this weapon to have on hand); I think this point is even more reinforced by the +2 physical damage that was recently removed.

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Re: Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

Post by Kenji » Fri May 27, 2022 10:55 pm

Moonlight Greatsword Shard of the Moontear on the development end is a new approach to how we design unique weapons. The intention behind Not-Ranni's-Sword isn't for it to overtake Unfettering Edge in terms of functionality, but to allow it to compete with the other unique weapons in terms of fulfilling a niche.

My vision for Moonlight Greatsword is that it would fill the niche of hurting EDR builds but deals less damage than Unfettering Edge in other scenarios.

Here is the newest set of properties for the sword:
  • +4 AB
  • No Damage (no 2d6 slashing)
  • Keen
  • Runic
  • Unable to apply essences, both temporary and permanent
  • Scaling Magical Damage:
    1 for each hard int Mod
    1 per 3 soft int mod
There are a few other FOIG things for Moonlight Greatsword but it'll be mostly about aesthetics or lore. I will implore everyone to find out in character for themselves and enjoy the process of doing so.

If OP or anyone can provide data analysis for how the above would compare to unfettering for the following users, that'd be great:
  • a regular mundane wielder (14 int), deep fighter, ranger, or barb dmg
  • a Loremaster (16 int) appended onto the above
  • a Spellsword Marauder (18 int) with +5 enhancement and stacking imbue (2d8)
  • a Paladin (14 int) with +5 enhancement
  • anything else anyone can come up with
The concern about the sword scaling with int mods was mainly for Marauders. We might look into modifying certain conditionals for the sword further depending on the result and further discussion both here and internally.

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Re: Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

Post by Yxe » Fri May 27, 2022 11:49 pm

Kenji wrote:
Fri May 27, 2022 10:55 pm
snip
Ran the above numbers in simulation for Marauder. Will do for other cases in the meantime.
It seems with the changes above against high EDR or even 55% Damage immunity Dwarven Defender meme build The Shard is performing worse than a Keened bronze weapon with double 1d4s and perm essence.

Image


EDIT:

I forgot it has a runic propety on top of keen now. So using that rune slot to give 1d4 elem if possible actually makes it slightly better than Bronze Weapon

Image

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Re: Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

Post by Kenji » Sat May 28, 2022 12:10 am

Can you math out how you performed the 5/- DR for elementals on the spreadsheet step by step?

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Yxe
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Re: Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

Post by Yxe » Sat May 28, 2022 12:15 am

Kenji wrote:
Sat May 28, 2022 12:10 am
Can you math out how you performed the 5/- DR for elementals on the spreadsheet step by step?
Every case is calculated by Element separately which can be reduced by 5/- (aka non-magic or the 2 damage from SS imbue which is not subject to reduction)

max,0 [element damage] -5. Just in case if it's lower than 5 the sheet won't turn it into negative number.

So against 5/- a min value of 4 will be treated as 0. On a crit it's 8-5 therefore should add 3 damage.

I should actually make it prettier and clean up the hacks.

edit
Image
First part of calculation broken down to every segment separately. I could do it for every single one if nobody will get lost in it kek.

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Re: Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

Post by Kenji » Sat May 28, 2022 1:58 am

Yxe wrote:
Sat May 28, 2022 12:15 am
max,0 [element damage] -5. Just in case if it's lower than 5 the sheet won't turn it into negative number.

So against 5/- a min value of 4 will be treated as 0. On a crit it's 8-5 therefore should add 3 damage.
The calculation method for the average involving DR is incorrect. The correct average values for 1d10 vs 5/- DR should be 1.5 for normal and 6.1 for crit.

With no DR, dice rolls are:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
N = 10
Summation of everything / 10 = (1 + 10) / 2 = 5.5
Crit would simply be this *2 which is 11
The two are as expected and matches your non-DR average value.

For the DR calculations, however, dice rolls become:
0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
N = 10
Summation of everything / 10 = 15 / 10 = 1.5

By reducing min and max by 5 and then minimizing min to 0, the other four 0s aren't taken into account which will result in a higher average than the actual average.

Edit: Here's the crit calculation showcase for DR, the result is 6.1 average for 1d10
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

I'm not sure if they're still around, but Dirac, Zaphiel, Cast_No_Shadow, a few others, and I have done a lot of number-crunching using various methods, be it spreadsheet averages or millions of iterations through simulations. Feel free to contact me on Discord to discuss more probability calculations, my tag is Kenji#0002

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Re: Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

Post by TurningLeaf » Sat May 28, 2022 2:35 am

Kenji wrote:
Sat May 28, 2022 1:58 am
Yxe wrote:
Sat May 28, 2022 12:15 am
max,0 [element damage] -5. Just in case if it's lower than 5 the sheet won't turn it into negative number.

So against 5/- a min value of 4 will be treated as 0. On a crit it's 8-5 therefore should add 3 damage.
The calculation method for the average involving DR is incorrect. The correct average values for 1d10 vs 5/- DR should be 1.5 for normal and 6.1 for crit.
The average roll for d10 is 5.5 therefore the average damage vs 5 dr is .5 not 1.5. You may also want to check your 6.1 given the discrepancy on base value, , I didn't check it.

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Re: Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

Post by Kenji » Sat May 28, 2022 2:45 am

TurningLeaf wrote:
Sat May 28, 2022 2:35 am
Kenji wrote:
Sat May 28, 2022 1:58 am
Yxe wrote:
Sat May 28, 2022 12:15 am
max,0 [element damage] -5. Just in case if it's lower than 5 the sheet won't turn it into negative number.

So against 5/- a min value of 4 will be treated as 0. On a crit it's 8-5 therefore should add 3 damage.
The calculation method for the average involving DR is incorrect. The correct average values for 1d10 vs 5/- DR should be 1.5 for normal and 6.1 for crit.
The average roll for d10 is 5.5 therefore the average damage vs 5 dr is .5 not 1.5. You may also want to check your 6.1 given the discrepancy on base value, , I didn't check it.
That's not how NWN's DR system works. If you simply subtract the average value by a DR value, you're assuming the dice rolls lower than 5 will result in a negative value that heals the target. But when they're 0 or negative, they should be considered as zeroes and not negative.

Observe:
Ordinary rolls of a d10:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

After 5/- DR rolls:
-4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Average of the above is 0.5

If we correct the assumption, which is shown in my above post:
0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Then the average of the 1d10 reduced by 5/- DR is 1.5

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Re: Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

Post by Shadowy Reality » Sat May 28, 2022 9:44 am

I am curious how certain builds might benefit from this. Couldnt a large race technically be a swashbuckler with a greatswords and double dip this INT damage?

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Re: Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

Post by Good Character » Sat May 28, 2022 10:28 am

Shadowy Reality wrote:
Sat May 28, 2022 9:44 am
I am curious how certain builds might benefit from this. Couldnt a large race technically be a swashbuckler with a greatswords and double dip this INT damage?
Wouldn't receive any useful swashbuckler bonuses. It's not a finesseable weapon.

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Re: Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

Post by elftv » Sun May 29, 2022 3:01 am

This thread is very interesting. I had the initial idea of using it to afford some higher off-caster power in addition to just having any DPS at all. Didn't think about it being highly effective vs. DR.

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Re: Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

Post by Archnon » Sun May 29, 2022 3:51 am

Has anyone tested it with a transmutation wizard with tensers? That is what my head went to for just a 3 minute burst of damage against a boss after running the dungeon with summons.

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Re: Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

Post by Stop. Ninja Time » Sun May 29, 2022 7:11 am

Any chance that we could get a small-race-usable version of this? I realize it's homage to an Elden Ring weapon, but it is sad that small races don't get to use it as all. Unique longswords would be very much more open to many builds; though I suppose since longswords are finesseable it'd be overpowered for swashbucklers. Maybe a bastard sword variant so it can fulfill the spellblade role for medium races while still be usable by small folk and not be finesseable?

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Re: Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

Post by Kenji » Mon May 30, 2022 4:52 am

Stop. Ninja Time wrote:
Sun May 29, 2022 7:11 am
Any chance that we could get a small-race-usable version of this? I realize it's homage to an Elden Ring weapon, but it is sad that small races don't get to use it as all. Unique longswords would be very much more open to many builds; though I suppose since longswords are finesseable it'd be overpowered for swashbucklers. Maybe a bastard sword variant so it can fulfill the spellblade role for medium races while still be usable by small folk and not be finesseable?
An Eilistraee Bastard Sword will nicely fit both the function and the lore for a medium-sized Moonlight Greatsword. However, it would also mean that medium-sized characters now get a 1H int-scaling sword when a small-sized character doesn't.

The caveat is that since Moonlight Greatsword's property is scripted, we can make the int-scaling not work when single-wield. But that design isn't very intuitive because if it can work for 2H, why can't it work for 1H? Perhaps we can then make it scale less when 1H or scale more when 2H, but this leads to the next thing: if medium creatures have access to a 1H int-scaling sword, why can't small-sized creatures?

And if we do indulge that last question, we'll end up with a medium and a small-sized int-scaling sword that now medium-sized creatures can dual-wield int-scaling swords, but small-sized creatures can't. Can we then come up with a tiny version of the sword?

Many rhetorical questions are asked here, but they also serve a purpose in leading us into this next part of the discussion. Moonlight Greatsword serves as a proof of concept working in progress, and if it turns out successful (subjective adjective), we can do all of the above. But if we can do this specifically for the intelligence stat, why can't we do it for wisdom or charisma?

We should be careful when employing precedence or the premise that specific builds have something others don't have. We all need to recognize that it's okay to have an asymmetrical design because not everything in our homebrew D&D roll20 system is meant to be 100% fair and balanced.

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Re: Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

Post by MathAenya » Mon May 30, 2022 11:20 am

Just wanted to say Thank you Kenji for the insights and lengthy explanations

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Re: Shard of the Moonmaiden feedback

Post by Stop. Ninja Time » Mon May 30, 2022 2:01 pm

Kenji wrote:
Mon May 30, 2022 4:52 am
Stop. Ninja Time wrote:
Sun May 29, 2022 7:11 am
Any chance that we could get a small-race-usable version of this? I realize it's homage to an Elden Ring weapon, but it is sad that small races don't get to use it as all. Unique longswords would be very much more open to many builds; though I suppose since longswords are finesseable it'd be overpowered for swashbucklers. Maybe a bastard sword variant so it can fulfill the spellblade role for medium races while still be usable by small folk and not be finesseable?
We should be careful when employing precedence or the premise that specific builds have something others don't have. We all need to recognize that it's okay to have an asymmetrical design because not everything in our homebrew D&D roll20 system is meant to be 100% fair and balanced.
That's a very fair response, and I can definitely see where you're coming from of the slippery slope of indulging such asks as they quickly become more asks; and for a proof of concept such slippery slopes can rapidly lead to balance issues as things are added too fast to allow everyone to have everything.

My two arguments would be:
1) This item as a two handed variant looks like it's made for arcane maruader, and in that case if it's only available as a two handed version then it's not really a big problem
2) Having -something- for small races is better than having -nothing at all-. Having to the make the choice to take a feat and two hand a weapon versus just not being able to use it whatsoever is a very different situation. Yes, argument could be made to just not play a small race, but small race is a pretty major thing to change about the narrative identity of a character.

But! It is a proof of concept, so I understand the desire to keep it simple and test it out; so I will be happy to see all them tallfolk give it a try and hope it percolates down to the shorter folk in due time (if ever)! :D

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