CALCULATING EVEN MONSTER RATING VS CHARACTER MATCH-UPS IN TUNNELS AND TROLLS

By Darren Arnold

What's an evenly matched MR for you, factoring in dice, adds, armour and spite?

Easy!

First, take the square root of your CON Value, divide it by two then round up.
Next, for every dice you get multiply it by 3.5 and round up.
Then for every personal add and every point of armour you have, add one.
Finally, add the four results together.

That's the MR you are likely to stand a 50/50 chance against.

Example:
Hurrdurr The Dwarf has a CON of 50.
Half the square root of that rounded up is 4.
He's carrying a stock standard 4d6 sword, so 3.5 x 4 rounded up is 14.
He's got 50 personal adds and 7 points of leather armour so that totals 57.
He gets his 4 CON base, adds it to the 14 weapon dice base, adds in his 50 personal adds and 7 from the armour.
That's 4+14+50+7=75.
He can square off against an MR 75 and have at least an even chance of getting out of it alive.

Granted, the higher the MR the more smashed your CON is going to be from its start point.
In all cases your CON is going to be approaching 0 from an even match-up.
Why would this be important?
To balance a game if you want to level out the playing field in a universal strength solo.
You can then try to pitch the Solo as a danger level pinned to an MR and then provide an adds or CON handicap.
If you are just trying to assess the relative danger in an encounter it's even easier.
For a typical 4d6 fighter with 10 points of armour not factoring spite add their armour and personal adds together and add 15%.
That's the basic MR that's an even matchup.

If the figures are close, then the one with the most dice stands the most chance from spite attrition.

So, Hurrdurr sizes up a second level Rock Troll with a visual MR of 80 and thinks it's pretty borderline.
With a bit of confidence of the Tavern kind thinks he can pull off a few special moves and bring the stinker down.
However, as all that is factored in his personal adds and the luck of the dice, of which he rolls fewer. he hasn't thought it through.
With some lucky rolls he does some really nasty things to the Troll which has trouble actually overcoming his armour.
The spite damage adds up in a war of attrition and at least every round of combat he takes several hits while only landing a few.
Cursing the Illkin discovery of combat techniques that don't lower MR from damage, he falls.
The Rock Troll enjoys a meal of beer-basted dwarf to help begin his recovery.
Why did I calculate this?
For the worst reason a 17th level Wizard does anything - because I could.